Debates of June 14th, 2019

Fisheries Act

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak today to the message from the Senate regarding Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. Once enacted, this bill will repeal the changes that the former Conservative government implemented when it gutted the Fisheries Act in 2012, and restore lost protections.

I would like to thank the Senate for its work on this bill, as well as the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, who is continuing the great work of the Minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs, who first introduced this bill when he was at Fisheries. Of course, we hope for his quick recovery.

I will be splitting my time with the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap.

Since I was elected, I heard this message loud and clear. As a new MP, the challenge to find sustainable solutions was daunting. After much consultation, I zeroed in on what I felt should be the starting point, the Fisheries Act, which, as I had been told by the people I work with, had been gutted over the years so that fish and fish habitat no longer had the strong protections that were once there.

For two and a half years, I worked with groups such as the Alouette River Management Society, the Kanaka Education and Environmental Partnership Society, the Katzie and Kwantlen first nations, streamkeepers, the cities of Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge, as well as people like Julie Porter, Ken Stewart, Jack Emberly, Greta, Cheryl, Lina, Sophie, Ross, Doug, and the list goes on.

These are not political or partisan people; they are folks who care deeply about their community. They all helped me to better understand the importance of these changes, and I thank them very much. Together, over the course of two years, we identified and discussed key pieces of legislation in the Fisheries Act that could be improved. I submitted my report to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, with recommendations on how we can further strengthen the Fisheries Act and restore some of the lost protections, and here we are today.

I would like to speak to the specific changes we are seeking through the motion. We will be accepting a majority of the amendments made by the Senate, including many that were moved by the government through Senator Harder, and we will be respectfully rejecting just three amendments.

The first amendment we are rejecting is an amendment that was made to the definition of fish habitat by Senator Poirier. In her amendment, the senator reduced the scope for the application of fish and fish habitat provisions by deleting “water frequented by fish” from the definition of fish habitat. By narrowing the scope of fish habitat, this amendment goes against the very objective of this bill to provide increased protections.

We are also amending an amendment by Senator Christmas so that the language used in relation to section 35 and aboriginal treaty rights is consistent with the rest of the bill. On this amendment, the minister has received support from Senator Christmas.

The other amendments we will be rejecting were made by Senator Wells, regarding habitat banking and collecting fees in lieu of offsets. These amendments were initially proposed by the Canadian Wildlife Federation, which has since written a letter to support the removal of the amendments, as significant consultations are required and it would be premature at this time to include the amendments.

This motion takes full consideration of the amendments made by the Senate, and I hope all members can join us in passing the bill.

Bill C-68 has many important components that Canadians across the country support. I would like to speak about the fish stocks provisions proposed in Bill C-68, which are aimed at strengthening Canada's fisheries management framework and rebuilding depleted stocks.

The fish stocks provisions would introduce legally binding commitments to implement measures to, first, manage our major fish stocks at or above levels necessary to promote their sustainability and, second, to develop and implement a rebuilding plan for a major fish stock if it becomes depleted. Maintaining stocks at healthy levels and rebuilding depleted stocks are essential to the long-term economic viability of our fishing communities and the health of our oceans.

That is why, in the fall economic statement, the Government of Canada announced an investment of $107.4 million over five years, starting this fiscal year, as well as $17.6 million per year ongoing to support the implementation of the fish stocks provisions.

This new funding will help accelerate the implementation of the fish stocks provisions for the major fish stocks in Canada. As many members are aware, a number of important fish stocks in Canadian waters have shown significant declines over the past couple of decades and some more recently. This new investment will enable the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to implement these strong legislative tools for all key stocks.

As robust science is the bedrock of our fishery management system, the largest share of the investment will go to science activities. We will make targeted investments to increase the number of at-sea science surveys, so we can better and more frequently assess the state of our fish stocks across a broad range of major fish stocks and marine areas.

As well, we will hire additional fisheries scientists to carry out these new survey activities, analyze the data from these at-sea surveys and prepare science advice for our fisheries managers through our world-class peer review process. As a result, we will be more effective at detecting changes in the health of fish stocks and provide more robust science advice to manage these stocks to achieve sustainability goals. We will also be able to develop a better understanding of the threats facing our depleted fish stocks, which will allow us to take a targeted approach in our rebuilding efforts.

This funding will enable external groups, including indigenous groups, academics, industry and non-government organizations, to participate in fisheries data collection and the scientific assessment of Canada's major fish stocks. Additional support will be provided to establish and enhance existing partnerships and help develop scientific and technical capacity within these external groups.

With this funding we will also make investments to increase the capacity in fisheries management to develop precautionary approach management measures and rebuilding plans to meet the fish stocks provisions in collaboration with indigenous groups and stakeholders. It will also enhance our capacity to carry out socio-economic analyses to better understand the potential impacts of proposed management measures and the costs and benefits of different management options that are aimed at rebuilding fish stocks.

Over the next five years, the government has committed to making the majority of the 181 major fish stocks subject to the fish stocks provisions. Canadians have told us that sustainable fisheries are a priority, and we agree. This investment is essential in order to prescribe the major stocks as quickly as possible to the protections offered by the fish stock provisions.

We are also developing a regulation to set out the required contents of rebuilding plans so that all the plans are comprehensive and consistent. Under the proposed regulation, a rebuilding plan must be developed and implemented within two years of the stock becoming depleted.

Our government believes it is our collective responsibility to exercise our stewardship of Canada's fisheries and their habitat in a practical, reasonable and sustainable manner. The proposed fish stocks provisions and other measures in the amended Fisheries Act restore protections for fish and fish habitat, and introduce modern safeguards while facilitating sustainable economic growth, job creation and resource development.

With these stronger legislative tools to help keep our fish stocks healthy, and the funding to support their implementation, Canada's seafood sector, which employs over 76,000 people and contributed a landed value of $3.4 billion in 2017, will have a brighter future.

It is no doubt that this bill will implement changes that Canadians have long been waiting for. These amendments will restore lost protections and ensure that our fisheries are sustainable for future generations. The Senate made a number of amendments, and while we cannot support all of them, I believe we have put forth a reasonable motion that I hope all members can support.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the hon. member.

I would like to ask the member how he feels about the recommendations that have come from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, known as FOPO within these walls. There have been continuous recommendations from that committee on how we could have already started to rebuild Canada's fish stocks. We did studies early on in this parliamentary session on the northern Atlantic cod, on the Atlantic salmon. There were many recommendations, unanimous recommendations that were agreed to by every member on that committee, no matter which political party members came from.

However, the Liberal Party, his minister and the department have absolutely refused to take steps on any of those measures to restore the endangered or declining fish stocks.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to speak to what I know and what I have seen from working with my constituents, who, as members of a watershed community, really enlightened me on fish and fish habitat.

When I look across our region, waterways that once were connected and are no longer connected and fish are struggling to reach the ocean or to come back. These are the problems we face. The erosion of fish habitat has led to where we are today.

If we want to fix the challenges to which the member has referred, we have to look at a broader range of efforts. This includes taking care of fish habitat.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the member, because I was not here when he gave his speech. I therefore do not know whether he spoke about what I am going to say, but I imagine that he did not.

The National Energy Board, or NEB, ordered Kinder Morgan to stop installing plastic anti-salmon spawning mats in eight B.C. rivers, but the mats are unfortunately still there.

Does the member think that the minister should intervene and order Kinder Morgan to stop installing these mats?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

One of the challenges we faced was the Fisheries Act was gutted in 2012. Looking back, from 2004 to 2016, 80% of fisheries officers were gone. We went from 73,000 hours down to 14, 885 hours. The one thing that I kept hearing when we were faced with challenges, and perhaps some of the challenges you were referring to, was that—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Todd Doherty]

Order, please. I ask the hon. colleague to direct his comments to the Chair.

The hon. member.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to one of the challenges to which my colleague referred, again, this is what I heard on the ground from the people in my riding. If there is no way to effectively enforce any of the policies in place, then we cannot go forward. In effect, it is so important to move forward with the amendments and the Fisheries Act because it will put more boots on the ground, more DFO on the ground. My community has been telling me for the last three and a half years that this could solve the problem.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when I questioned him earlier, the member talked about our needing to undertake new measures to restore our fish stocks. New measures are proposed in these amendments from the Senate through this third party habitat banking that could immediately be put to use to restore fish stocks, which is badly needed across the country from coast to coast to coast.

Why is his government refusing to adopt these amendments from the Senate that could be the new tools that we need?

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that we have accepted some of the recommendations from the Senate. From everything we have heard, the fish banking is not ready. There is too much work to be done, and to be included in this would be premature. We need to ensure that this Fisheries Act moves forward.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I that we all want to see healthy fish stocks, prosperous fisheries and a thriving economy, and I believe all those are possible at the same time. We can achieve that by using Canadian technology, Canadian ingenuity and Canadian investment. We can do all that and rebuild our declining fish stocks.

We have national conservation organizations, like Ducks Unlimited, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, local fishing game clubs and stream keeper organizations ready to create and improve fish habitat. Using Canadian technology, Canadian ingenuity and Canadian investment in proactive ways that would actually see fish habitat increased and improved in advance of projects would ensure prosperous fisheries and a thriving economy. This could all be made possible under the third-party habitat banking amendments being put forward by the Senate.

Before the Senate had even voted on sending these amendments to Bill C-68 back to this House of Parliament, the fisheries minister basically gave a directive to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, FOPO, to do a study on third-party habitat banking. Imagine that. I say it was a directive, because although the parliamentary committees are supposed to be free to set their own agenda, that committee has a majority of Liberal members who would dare not deny a request from their own minister.

Therefore, on June 10, as a directive from the fisheries minister, we began a study of third-party habitat banking. Also on June 10, we finished a study on third-party habitat banking. We started and finished in one day, in two hours. It was an abomination of a study, with no mention of a report back to the minister and no report to the House of Commons. It was of almost of no use at all other than perhaps being able to say “we consulted”, part of the fake consultation I have seen with the government time and again over the past three and a half years.

However, I say almost nothing out of that study, except what we heard from witnesses that day. They spoke about third-party habitat banking, saying that it would be a good thing to incorporate, that the difficult details around third-party habitat banking could be worked out through the regulations and orders in council. The regulations need not be fully ironed out in order for Bill C-68 to be amended and passed. We also heard testimony from multiple witnesses that third-party habitat banking could create net gains to habitat. Imagine, conservation organizations and local angling clubs being able to work proactively to create an enhanced fish habitat.

It should be the dream and goal of any fisheries minister to increase and improve fisheries habitat. However, as we have seen so many times over the past three and a half years, Liberal fisheries ministers fail to do what is right and instead give deals to their buddies and relatives, getting caught up in scandal. They fail to deliver and fund restoring fish stocks.

We also heard in testimony during that short “but we can say we consulted” meeting on June 10, that during the Senate study of Bill C-68, the only witnesses who spoke against third-party habitat banking were the minister and DFO staff, undoubtedly under the direction of the fisheries minister.

Why would every other witness support third-party habitat banking and the minister's department oppose it? Why would a minister not want to see net gains to fish habitat? Why would a minister ignore and cast aside testimony, ideas and proposals that would be good for fish, fisheries and the economy?

I can only surmise that it is because the fisheries minister, like his Liberal predecessors, are out of touch with Canadian fisheries and the Canadian way.

I also want to point out the fake and disingenuous consultations by the former fisheries minister from Beauséjour undertaken during his tenure. I do wish to send best wishes to the former fisheries minister regarding his health.

While he was minister, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, FOPO, undertook a study on changes to the Fisheries Act. While that study was on the book, three different news releases went out on the consultation process, three conflicting news releases under that minister's watch.

The first one, on October 16, 2016, stated that all briefs received during the consultations would be provided to the committee for its study. The next one, on November 16, 2016, again stated the feedback heard would be shared with the committee for its study. However, that feedback never reached the committee in time.

After multiple requests from indigenous groups and committee members to extend the timeline of the study, the Liberal members refused to extend that time so we could incorporate the briefs solicited and paid for with taxpayer dollars.

In the end, over $2 million was spent for indigenous groups to provide briefs to the committee for study. Over $1.2 million of those briefs for consultation and input for the review were not received before the Liberals closed off the study. Those taxpayer dollars were not received by the committee in time for the study. Imagine what $1.2 million could have done for fish habitat in the hands of conservation groups and organizations.

I can imagine that because my background is in conservation. My first interest in this was with fish and game clubs, putting boots on and getting in the streams creating spawning habitat. What our clubs could have done with $1.2 million, which the Liberal government wasted because it could not get that information to the committee on time.

Now here we are up against time. The government has called time allocation on debate on these Senate amendments after minimum time back in the House. It has taken the government three and a half years to get the bill this far and it is still not right.

Dozens of amendments came from the Senate on Bill C-68, most of them tossed aside by the Liberal government, amendments that really could make a difference in the streams, creating more fish habitat, creating more fish, creating more opportunities for fishermen and creating a strong and vibrant economy.

It is really disappointing to have debate cut short. Ten minutes for me to speak to this is really less than half the time I would have liked in a full speaking time of 20 minutes.

I have talked about how the FOPO study was denied extensions. We have talked about briefs being received after the report deadline. We have heard testimony many times that there was no proof of any harm to fish habitat from the 2012 changes to the Fisheries Act.

One of the first things I did in this parliamentary session was to put in an Order Paper question asking for any proof of harm or loss of habitat as a result of the 2012 changes to the Fisheries Act. More than three years later, not one piece of evidence has been provided. Therefore, the fisheries minister and the current government are being deceitful, if I can use that word, to the Canadian public and this Parliament. I have lost respect for them because of that.

I thank the House for the time to be able to discuss these amendments, and I will welcome questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I do not necessarily agree with the member, but I appreciate his thoughts on the legislation. In terms of his closing comments, in reflecting on the legislation, the member has had ample opportunity in different ways to have a significant contribution both inside the House and outside the House in committees and in the Senate. He will find not only that the legislation is supported by many different stakeholders, but even within the chamber it is supported by New Democrats, from what I understand, by Green Party members, from what I understand, and by others who are supporting the legislation and wanting to see it go forward.

Can the member opposite, in a very clear way, indicate why, if it were up to the Conservative Party, the legislation would never pass? If we provided the member what he wanted, unlimited debates on time where any grouping of a number of MPs would be able to prevent the government from being able to pass the legislation, does he believe that would be a good thing? If so, why did Stephen Harper never believe that to be the case?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, my background is in conservation. I see what conservation organizations can do with a few dollars provided and the many hours of volunteer time that they put in at the streams to create fish habitat and to improve hatcheries to make sure we have fish in the streams. A lot of the time, it is not for their own benefit. They do not get to fish for those fish. They do not get to catch anything or reap any harvest from it. They simply are doing it because it is the right thing to do.

That is what these amendments from the Senate were aimed to do. It was to increase the ability of non-profit organizations, including fish and game clubs and conservation organizations, to get into the streams and do some work proactively and create and improve fish habitat. Here we have a government that is scrapping these amendments from the Senate and blocking the possibility for that to happen.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to know there is a fellow zoologist in the House with me. I call myself an environmental biologist by trade.

I wonder if the hon. member would reflect back on some of the dark days that my colleague from Winnipeg North and others have mentioned. We had a fisheries department and a Fisheries Act that were very much guided by science and evidence. Two hundred DFO scientists were fired. Let us remember the Experimental Lakes Area. You remember, Mr. Speaker; you come from lake country. The Experimental Lakes Area, the finest outdoor laboratory in the world, was shuttered by the Conservatives. The Freshwater Institute was depopulated of scientists.

I wonder if the hon. member would just offer us a few comments on his party's view of the importance of science as it has guided this legislation through our chamber.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, not being part of the previous government, I will not comment on that. However, I will comment on the government that I have been in opposition to since I arrived here in this House.

What I have seen is a government that claims to be doing everything for the science and the fisheries, and yet it continues to ignore that science. When we take a look at what is happening on the west coast with our west coast salmon fisheries, we see it is shutting down the recreational fisheries, blocking or destroying the jobs of hundreds of west coast fishermen, fish guides and angling tackle shops with no regard to what the science really says.

We know there are bigger issues out there, but the government refuses to look at the science and where it could make the biggest difference in increasing the number of chinook stocks on the west coast. Rather, it is punishing the fishermen who make the smallest impact.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the Senate amendments to Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act, a terribly flawed piece of legislation that erodes the rights of Canadians.

I wish to acknowledge and thank, on behalf of all Canadians, the research team of the Ontario Landowners Association for the work done by the group on Bill C-68, particularly Elizabeth Marshall and Tom Black. The report they prepared but were not able to present to the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has been highly informative. Canadians will understand, after my remarks are finished, that when we are working with bad legislation, all the tinkering in the world will not fix the wrong assumptions that are at the heart of this bill.

The Liberal Party is attempting to violate the Constitution by artificially extending its jurisdiction in contradiction to its constitutional limits. It is also trying to do indirectly what it cannot do directly, which has been struck down in the Canadian courts. The federal government does not have the constitutional jurisdiction to expand environmental protection through the Fisheries Act, as this is in violation of provincial jurisdiction, as well as in violation of private rights established under common law, the Constitution Act, 1867, and the letters patent / Crown grant.

Though many laws regulate water and water use, the Fisheries Act remains the only legislation that directly addresses the protection and conservation of fish and fish habitat. Enacted in 1868, the act is one of Canada's oldest pieces of legislation. In 2012, the Fisheries Act was significantly amended.

I am now going to turn to the Senate testimony. We had the OPG, Ontario Power Generation, look at its generation portfolio on hydro power. It determined that it would take an up to 80% increase in instantaneous passage of flow as a principle for meeting the objectives of the new definition of “fish habitat”, and that it would no longer be peaking and holding back water or meeting grid demands, outside of the greenhouse gas emissions impact, which would bear out. That was very important.

The amendments of the Senate involved a move from protecting fish generally to focusing on only prohibiting serious harm to fish that were part of a commercial or aboriginal fishery. That is what the 2012 amendments did. These amendments were common sense in application and were done after listening and acting on the concerns of stakeholders.

The 2012 Conservative amendments respected the Canadian Constitution. It was my pleasure to recommend to the committee reviewing the Conservative amendments a witness to provide practical observations as to why the Fisheries Act needed to be amended.

Jack Maclaren is a multi-generational orchard farmer from my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. Jack had the unfortunate experience of having a ditch, hand dug by his grandfather and great-grandfather to collect and direct water to their orchard, declared a navigable waterway after he started to clear a blocked culvert that was flooding the road to his farmhouse.

Needless to say, Jack and many other farmers just like him welcomed the Conservative common sense amendments passed by our government in 2012. The Liberal Party, under the guise of protection of so-called “fish habitat” in unlikely places like Jack's ditch, is actually looking to use the Fisheries Act as environmental legislation, when the federal government has already protections established under the Canada Shipping Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

What really caught my attention on Bill C-68 was the addition in committee of a new concept in Canadian law, the concept of water flow or, as it is referred to in other documents, environmental flow. It was added in subsection 2(2) to amend the act.

Water flow is a hot topic in my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. The spring of 2019 now has the dubious distinction of being the worst in recent memory for flooding along the Ottawa River. My constituents are skeptical when the Prime Minister and the member from Ottawa blame every significant weather event on climate change.

They do not believe the Liberal Party leader when he claims a new tax on Canadians, the Liberal carbon tax, will stop the Ottawa River from flooding. The residents of the Ottawa Valley have a suspicion that recent flooding has been caused by either government policy or human error, or some combination of both. They want answers.

The question now being asked is whether the federal government caused the flooding. Were the dam operators instructed to hold back water when they should have been releasing water to meet the federal government's new definitions of fish habitat? These are questions my constituents feel can only be answered by an independent inquiry, an external review.

Expert testimony before the standing committee, which I referred to before, certainly seemed to confirm that the Government of Canada was planning to make flooding on the Ottawa River an annual occurrence, judging by the question asked by a senator to a representative of Ontario Power Generation, which operates the dams on the river. The expert said:

When OPG, Ontario Power Generation, looked at our generation portfolio on hydro power, we determined that we would take an 80 per cent instantaneous passage of flow as a principle for meeting the objectives of the new definition of “fish habitat.” We would no longer be peaking and holding back water or meeting grid demands, outside of the greenhouse gas emissions impact which would bear out.... Everyone can remember the spring of 2017 in Ontario and the Ottawa Valley. We had a once in a generation flood event. We had the capacity to hold water on the watershed with our water management plans. We have detailed some impacts. One of the outcomes was that the city of Montreal would have been under a metre more of water if we had not had the ability to store water on the watershed because of flooding in the Great Lakes.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the comment that Montreal would have been under an additional metre of water had Bill C-68, as it was voted on and passed in the House of Commons by the Liberal Party, been enacted.

The next thing that jumped out while listening to the expert testimony given to that Senate committee on the decision by the Liberal Party to bring forward legislation like Bill C-68 was the limitations that would be placed on one of the cleanest, most renewable and most reliable sources of electricity. It produces almost no greenhouse gases. Canadian hydroelectricity is the envy of the world. Why would Canadians want to throw away that advantage?

A representative from Quebec, who is the president of WaterPower Canada, an organization that represents more than 60% of all electricity produced in Canada, stated:

If Bill C-68 is passed in its current form, its impact on our industry’s ability to operate its current stations and build new ones will be catastrophic.

This led me to do some research on who was lobbying for proposed subsection 2 (2) in Bill C-68, and I then discovered that the controversial clause added during committee was proposed by the Green Party. It was then supported by the Liberal majority to be included in the legislation.

Why was the Liberal Party on the House of Commons committee voting in favour of an amendment put forward by the Green Party that would be so disastrous for Canada? Is the Liberal Party really that afraid of losing votes to the Green Party that it would shift that far left?

I was then introduced to the name of a lobbyist who was on the payroll of the controversial Tides foundation. These foundations are recognized as threats to Canadian democracy. The Tides foundation is a foreign-funded organization that has been identified, among other activities, as funding a campaign to block Canadian pipelines.

Canadians lost $20 billion last year by being held a captive seller to American big oil interests. Tides Canada's American parent foundation, the Tides foundation, from which it receives funding, has been funding dam busting in the western United States, so it is no surprise that the U.S. foundation would fund similar activities in Canada.

Registered as a lobbyist for Tides Canada, Tony Maas could count on some powerful friends in the Liberal Party, starting with the now disgraced former principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Gerald Butts. Tony Maas worked for Gerald Butts when Butts was at the World Wildlife Fund. With the puppet master on his side, Maas figured he could get anything he wanted.

Maas had moved from the World Wildlife Fund to run a project funded by Tides Canada on water. In that capacity, the decision was made to use the Liberal campaign promise to make amendments to the Fisheries Act to move forward with a radical agenda on water by introducing a totally new concept in Canadian law on water flow. This was done by avoiding fisheries departmental scrutiny when Bill C-68 was first introduced to the House of Commons and waiting until committee, after second reading, to inject proposed subsection 2(2) into the bill. By doing this, checks and balances that normally occur in a department before legislation is introduced could be avoided.

The concept of water flows, or environmental flows, comes from the 2007 globalist document the Brisbane declaration. Like many globalist documents, the words written do not match with reality. While it is next to impossible to build any new hydroelectric power dams, as identified by the president of WaterPower Canada, the declaration envisages the eventual removal of existing dams in favour of flood plain restoration and the return of free-flowing rivers.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order made Thursday, June 13, 2019, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-68 now before the House.

The question is on the amendment.

Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mr. Anthony Rota):

[Chair read text of motion to the House]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to orders made on Tuesday, May 28, the division stands deferred until Monday, June 17, 2019 at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

The House proceeded to the consideration of amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-83, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and another Act.