Discussion/background information: Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has charted a new course for managing fish habitat in Canada. The Environmental Process Modernization Plan, adopted and implemented in 2004, seeks to refocus the department’s efforts away from reviewing project-development proposals on a case-by-case basis and toward streamlining the project-approval process by applying a risk-management approach to decision-making that ostensibly takes into account concepts of risk, uncertainty, and precaution. In addition, the DFO has moved away from using enforcement of the law (specifically the federal Fisheries Act) as a means to achieve compliance, arguing that education, training, stewardship, and monitoring and auditing compliance effectiveness will achieve the same goal. This new approach reduces the onus on government to assess the likelihood of the impacts from myriad project activities across Canada on fish and fish habitat while giving greater control to project proponents to determine how habitat is identified, replaced, or protected. It also facilitates and speeds up the project-approval process and reduces government oversight of project environmental impacts by a significant degree. The department asserts that this approach will be more efficient while still protecting habitat. We believe that compliance in the realm of fish habitat protection will only be achieved with greater enforcement, not less. This is confirmed by past audits of DFO’s habitat-management program effectiveness, which have concluded that, in order to achieve compliance, there is need for greater enforcement presence in addition to increased monitoring. There is also a move afoot to rewrite Canada’s Fisheries Act to enable implementation of this flawed policy. Both the policy and changes to the Fisheries Act were developed with full consultation and involvement of major resource-development companies (mining, timber harvesting, oil and gas) and absolutely no consultation with the Canadian public or other key stakeholders. Questions to ask your candidate:
1. Do you support the current approach to the management of our nation’s fisheries resources and habitats, and if so, why? 2. Do you think that ordinary Canadians and the users of our Crown lands and resources should be allowed to participate alongside industry in the development of policies that dictate how those resources can/should be used? For more information:
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