Fisheries committee  Thank you for allowing me to come before the committee. I'm a councillor for the District of Kent in British Columbia. Our community has about 6,000 people living here. We're very interested in this process, and in this bill. We have approximately 142 kilometres of ditches in

Fisheries committee  With respect to HADD, the harmful alteration, disruption, or destruction of fish habitat, that's triggered any time we do any ditch maintenance work. Often, when the ditch work is done, the habitat is improved. With the previous Fisheries Act, we felt that we were achieving that.

Fisheries committee  Yes, there is. There are fish studies that are done. Dissolved oxygen is improved. One of the biggest problems that we have is reed canary grass, which grows as a mat in the ditch. Once that's removed, it's much more clear, open water and a lot better for fish.

Fisheries committee  Yes. In what I've read, I'm looking forward to that and for our municipality to be able to use a credit system. I think that part of it would be beneficial to us.

Fisheries committee  It was restrictive in nature because you always had to compensate for ditch work or flood mitigation work that you've done, whereas the actual work was often an improvement for fish habitat. We always felt it was really quite restrictive. In the last few years, DFO has been good

Fisheries committee  Right. Really, we get less work done with the same budget.

Fisheries committee  That's a difficult question. We are able to deal with flood preparation. However, without the management of the Fraser River for the last number of decades, really, it's becoming increasingly difficult. It's more of a regional strategy with the Fraser, but without bank protection

Fisheries committee  Quite often, Himalayan blackberry grows there and if you don't remove that, it can become really invasive and take over the whole bank. As well, there's reed canary grass, which can grow right in the water in some locations.

Fisheries committee  Was it the Oregon spotted frog?

Fisheries committee  There's a whole Oregon spotted frog recovery team. They would probably be better able to answer some of those questions. However, if we maintain that grass, even just by cutting it, it actually improves the habitat for that frog.

Fisheries committee  We're often not allowed to cut grass along ditches because it's deemed as fish habitat, but on some watercourses we are allowed to, and in those courses we don't have to do any actual excavating of ditch material. It can go 10 to 15 years without any real work in those ditches, j

Fisheries committee  There is some overlap, but really it comes down to who has the jurisdiction. We often have to wait for approvals before we get the go-ahead to do the work.

Fisheries committee  No, the act will not change that.

Fisheries committee  We'll still have to go to both jurisdictions.

Fisheries committee  I don't think you misunderstood my comments. Even if it's just grass that's along a ditch bank, we have to apply to DFO to cut that grass. If that's the only habitat on that ditch, they may or may not approve that, or we may have to only cut one bank and not be allowed to cut bot