moved:
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-10, in Clause 9, be amended by replacing lines 24 to 27 on page 8 with the following:
“considerations of the Minister when considering all aspects of the management of national marine conservation areas shall be the maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity and the precautionary”
Mr. Speaker, thank you for your ruling and for the opportunity to speak to these amendments.
As indicated, it was difficult to move these in the committee as I was involved with the clause by clause debate regarding SARA, the endangered species legislation.
Several of these amendments are straightforward. Others, I believe, go to a fundamental flaw in the bill. The initial one is an amendment to subclause 4(1) which in effect is to create a purpose section to the proposed act. The reasoning behind that is that it does not have a specific section that deals with purpose.
I wish to speak more specifically to the concept of introducing ecological integrity into that clause in the bill
It is interesting that the bill is an extension or a companion legislation to the Parks Canada legislation. It has been interesting to watch the trend in the development over the last number of years as the concept of ecological integrity has been introduced into the Parks Canada legislation regulations and all the decision making that goes on around the development of our parks.
It appears to us that it is a glaring error that it is not incorporated into the legislation which is, as I said, a companion piece of legislation so that we will have a similar theme and concept in this legislation to deal with our marine parks as they are designated and developed.
With regard to the second amendment that is being proposed, which again is in subclause 4(4), in order to develop that ecological integrity and to be sound in terms of ecological sustainability, it is necessary for this amendment. That is what the subclause (4) amendment is designed to do. It must develop the zones and fully protect them in terms of their ecological processes.
I believe subsection 4(4), as it is now, does not fully reflect the intention of the drafters to establish these protected zones. In order to do that we require this enabling part of the legislation to give the government the authority to protect those zones from industrial and other uses. It uses the term right now as requiring only that special features in fragile ecosystems within these protected areas are fully protected. In order to really accomplish that we need this wording.
It was interesting to listen to some of the environmental groups that have looked at this. A number experts who appeared before the heritage committee argued and advocated on behalf of these types of changes and that they be specifically reflected in the legislation. I believe this amendment goes to that purpose.
My next proposed amendment is with regard to clause 9 which also deals with ecological integrity. I will just briefly read the amendment:
considerations of the Minister when considering all aspects of the management of national marine conservation areas shall be the maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity and the precautionary
It goes on to the principle, et cetera.
As I said earlier, the concept of ecological integrity should be fundamental to the bill. This is almost a consequential type of amendment that is required in order to allow the government in power at the time to carry out that role.
The precautionary principle has been debated. It has been misused at times in terms of what it is meant to accomplish. This wording is the closest to the precautionary principle that was enunciated in chapter 8 of the report from the Royal Society of Canada. It is key to effectively protecting, preserving and restoring the ecological integrity of environmentally sensitive areas. That is true in general. It is true specifically with regard to marine parks which we are dealing with at this point.
My next proposed amendment to the bill is to clause 12. With regard to this amendment and those in clause 13, they are the ones I believe are necessary for the bill to accomplish what the government should be trying to accomplish, although I am not convinced that it has gone anywhere near enough. Because of the way the sections are broken down, the amendment deals with what is prohibited and what will be permitted in marine park zones as they are established.
Right now very general and insufficient wording is used in order to protect these zones once they are established from incursion from other types of activities that will threaten, damage or perhaps destroy parts of these zones if they are allowed to proceed.
What the proposed amendment to clause 12 proposes is, first, that the prohibited activities of dredging or deposit of fill be added to it. There is some general wording around this elsewhere in the bill but it simply does not go far enough. We in the NDP are strongly advocating that we need that type of specific wording to protect these conservation areas.
The second proposal is that no blasting be allowed. This is particularly important from two aspects. The technology used for exploration and development of oil and gas and mining is blasting. Explosive devices are used as part of the process of discovering whether minerals, oil and gas, et cetera are in a certain area. The consequential part of that is that it is extremely damaging to mammals, whales and porpoises in particular, because of the sonar they use to guide themselves. Any type of explosive in those areas will cause wildlife to leave the area or it will severely damage the area.
Three amendments have been proposed to clause 13 dealing with activities again. The first one reads:
No person shall engage in fishing that involves the use of bottom trawling--
Some very interesting research was done this summer on the effect bottom trawling and dragging has had on the coral. Extensive research was done on the amount of coral in the waters on the east coast. If we permit bottom trawling and dragging to continue, it will destroy a good deal of the ecosystem.
The NDP is advocating in this amendment that there be no construction of oil or gas pipelines. As an add on to the blasting that I mentioned in clause 12, there will be no use of acoustic deterrent devices within a marine conservation area.