Madam Speaker, on December 6, 2017, I rose in the House during question period to ask the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans about the Liberals' promise to protect communities from climate change with investments in green infrastructure. I specifically alluded to the state of the Cowichan River in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I wanted the minister to specifically commit to making sure that federal funds were there to raise a critical piece of infrastructure, the Cowichan weir.
I want to back up a bit and explain what is going on. Every summer, around the end of August and into September, the Cowichan River gets down to critically low flow rates because of the effects of climate change. We are not having the lake retain as much water. The snow pack is lowering, and as a result, we are dealing with flow rates that can sometimes go as low as four cubic metres per second.
This is an iconic river. It is a heritage river, and when that river is flowing at only four cubic metres per second, we can barely see the water move. It looks like a still and placid lake. What that does is that the temperature starts rising. We start losing access to tributaries, and it poses a very real threat to fish and fish habitat.
I also want to acknowledge the important work that is being done in the Cowichan Valley, both through Cowichan Tribes and the Cowichan Valley Regional District. They have come together to form the Cowichan Watershed Board. We also have a number of stakeholders that have come together to form the Cowichan Stewardship Roundtable, including Catalyst Paper, which owns the weir. All of these organizations have come together in a 100% consensus and have agreed that the solution to the long-term problem of the Cowichan River is to build a new weir so we can hold back more water in the lake. By holding back more lake supply water, we will be more successful at controlling the flow rate to make sure that an adequate flow of water is running down that river in the dry summer months so that fish and fish habitat can be saved.
During the minister's response to my question, he acknowledged that the government is proceeding with Bill C-68. We support that legislation, and we are glad to see that some of those changes from the 2012 amendments to the Fisheries Act are being repealed. However, one of the criticisms we had of Bill C-68 during second reading, before we sent it to committee for further study, was that in the definition of fish habitat, there was not any explicit legal protection for environmental flows, which really means the amount and type of water that is needed for fish and aquatic ecosystems to flourish. This is a big oversight, because by controlling flow rates and making sure they are adequate, they actually work.
I will give the example of the Jordan River, also in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. The Jordan River has suffered from a copper mine and from B.C. Hydro dams. It has had a lot of work done to it over the years. They found recently, in 2008, when they increased the flow rates in the Jordan River, that, surprise, fish and fish habitat started returning and becoming a lot more healthy.
I want to specifically ask the parliamentary secretary if he will honour the Liberal promise to build this green infrastructure. Will he commit the necessary federal funds to ensure that the Lake Cowichan weir can be raised?