A Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
Great Lakes groups on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border are not going to let the Conservative government of Stephen Harper gut one of Canada’s most effective pieces of environmental protection legislation.
Canada’s decades-old federal Fisheries Act – a piece of legislation that was actually approved and embraced with pride by the former Conservative government of Brian Mulroney – is being “overhauled” by a Harper government that has, of late, been doing a great deal of scrapping and overhauling of environmental rules it feels are standing in the way of resource exploitation and development.
The Fisheries Act has proved to be an effective tool over the years for everything from controlling development that might destroy critical spawning grounds to prosecuting industries discharging toxic wastes into waterways. Given the act’s effectiveness, it was probably just a matter of time before this Conservative government, which has gone on record calling environmentalists enemies of the state, went after it with a meat cleaver.
In an insulting attempt to dampen fears that the legislation will be defused completely, Harper’s fisheries minister Keith Ashfield recently insisted that whatever the government does to Fisheries Act, it will still be there to protect “important (fish) habitat.” And who is going to decide which fish habitat is important and which ones are not? Some bureaucrat the government has muzzled from making any public comment in the federal fisheries department? Will it be Harper and his cabinet?
The bottomline is it is hard to fathom anyone short of God deciding what an important fish habitat is? Anyone who has taken an Ecology 101 course might know that fish play a critical role in a very intricate and fragile web of life and food chains that includes we humans. Mucking around with it can impact the health and welfare of all of us in ways that may be subtle in some cases, but could be catastrophic.
Yet this kind of insight into our environment and our dependency on keeping it relatively clean and healthy does not seem to have a place at all in a government intent on grabbing for any short-term gains from exploitation over responsible environmental stewardship.
So thank goodness some groups are beginning to take notice of what Canada’s Harper government might do to a leading-edge piece of environmental legislation like the Fisheries Act and its responding to it. Great Lakes United, a Canada/U.S. coalition of public groups headquartered in Buffalo, New York, and Lake Ontario Waterkeepers is offering we, the people, an opportunity to participate in a free issue briefing this May 17 on the implications of all of this. Please read the group’s notice below for more details.
Join us for a free public issue briefing Thursday, May 17 at 12:00pm EDT. Fisheries Act: Proposed changes and environmental implications
Reserve your spot now by replying to this email or contacting Lauren Cheal at lcheal@glu.org.
Join us for a free issue briefing with special guest speaker Mark Mattson, president and founder of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. Mr. Mattson will speak to the impact of the sweeping amendments proposed to the Fisheries Act in Canada in a budget implementation bill (Bill C-38: http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=5524772 <http://glu.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b50150b6b71e8dcf75816ab81&id=c88284922f&e=8bfd9b21e6> ) being considered by Parliament.
Join expert Mark Mattson for a discussion about these potential changes, the impact they will have on fisheries and watershed across the Great Lakes and beyond, and what these changes may mean for the environmental community.
You must register for this event in order to receive the call-in information and presentation materials.
Reserve your spot now by replying to this email, or sending an email to Lauren Cheal at lcheal@glu.org <mailto:lcheal@glu.org?subject=Please%20register%20me%20for%20the%20Sea%20Lamprey%20Briefing> .
Fisheries Act: Proposed changes and environmental implications
The Canadian government has presented a new budget that includes sweeping amendments to the Fisheries Act. This is an issue that directly affects the quality of life of all Canadians, and greatly impacts the Great Lakes region. Habitat protections for fisheries help protect watersheds for people, and the Canadian government is seeking to substantially weaken those protections.
Amendments to streamline the Fisheries Act to promote industrial development and economic investment would replace the existing single, established, and largely effective national standard to protect fish and fish habitat with a patchwork of unknown provincial policies. In its haste to make changes, the government did not consult experts at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, scientists, experienced environmental lawyers, or hunting and angling groups. It’s not clear that they consulted First Nations. Many prominent environmental groups across Canada have spoken up to oppose the changes, as well as more than 600 scientists <http://glu.us1.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b50150b6b71e8dcf75816ab81&id=52b8093688&e=8bfd9b21e6> .
Mark Mattson is a prominent environmental lawyer whose love of water stems from his childhood summers swimming and fishing on Wolfe Island, near Kingston. Prior to forming Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, Mark Mattson founded a volunteer-based effort dedicated to identifying and prosecuting environmental offenders (the “Environmental Bureau of Investigation”) and served as a board member of Great Lakes United. He has acted as counsel for environmental and public interest groups at over fifty hearings, including the Walkerton Inquiry, the International Water Tribunal in Amsterdam, and the Ontario Energy Board. Mattson has been investigator and/or co-counsel on nearly every Fisheries Act private prosecution in Canada.
After ten years in the courtroom, Mark began to devote more time to developing institutions that will restore and protect watersheds for generations to come. He founded Lake Ontario Waterkeeper in 2001 and remains the organization’s full-time Waterkeeper and President.
This event is free and open to the public. Please feel free to pass the invitation on to anyone who would be interested in the topic.
Title: Fisheries Act: Proposed changes and environmental implications
Date: Thursday, May 17th, 2012
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EDT
Location: This is a virtual issue briefing, to participate you simply need a telephone and access to a computer capable of displaying a .pdf document.
Panelist: Mark Mattson, President, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
This session will take place on Thursday, May 17th at 12:00pm EDT. The session will be a conference call presentation with a visual component (a .pdf file, emailed to participants), as well as an interactive Q&A with Mark Mattson. You will receive further call-in information (by email) as the event approaches. All you need to participate in this event is a telephone (a landline, cell phone or soft phone (Skype or similar) will all work), and access to a computer that can display a .pdf file.
Register now by responding to this email! <mailto:lcheal@glu.org?subject=Please%20register%20me%20for%20the%20Fisheries%20Act%20briefing>
Great Lakes United—Union Saint Laurent Grands Lacs is pleased to offer this service to the public. If you have any questions about this event, please do not hesitate to contact Lauren Cheal at lcheal@glu.org.
For more information about this, or any of our past issue briefings, please visit http://www.glu.org/en/issuebriefings <http://glu.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b50150b6b71e8dcf75816ab81&id=456fb01670&e=8bfd9b21e6> .
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