Mr. Speaker, as I have said previously, our government is committed to taking real action to ensure the protection of the environment, and we take our responsibility for pollution prevention very seriously.
For any protection regime to be effective, stakeholders need certainty and clarity respecting what activities are within the law. The changes that our government has made to the Fisheries Act allow the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of the Environment to take the steps necessary to reduce red tape and increase compliance certainty amongst stakeholders, while at the same time protecting fish and fish habitat.
As I noted, these changes only allow for ministerial regulations authorizing deposits of deleterious substances under very specific conditions. These conditions will ensure effective protection of Canadian fisheries by only granting the ability to use ministerial regulations to authorize deposits in areas that are already well managed.
Our government will continue to ensure that the pollution prevention provisions of the act are enforced.