OTTAWA — Spending cuts since 2012 have left B.C. with “almost no” federal oversight of activities by corporations, municipalities and individuals that could damage or destroy sensitive fisheries habitat, the B.C. government has told MPs considering changes to the federal Fisheries Act.
“Compliance and enforcement of the Fisheries Act has become increasingly difficult after fisheries protection program staff members were cut,” Derek Sturko, deputy minister in the B.C. Agriculture Ministry, told the standing committee on fisheries and oceans in a written submission.
“There has been almost no DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) field presence responding to occurrences or potential violations.”
Postmedia reported last spring that the federal government hadn’t laid a single charge for damaging habitat since the 2012 changes were made, despite close to 1,900 complaints across the country.
The committee, after considering testimony from provincial governments, industry, and conservation groups in late 2016, is preparing a report for the Trudeau government on how to amend the legislation.
The former Conservative government, in a move widely seen as an attempt to ease the regulatory burden on industry groups and especially pipeline proponents, amended provisions in the Fisheries Act in 2012 governing habitat protection.
While staffing appeared to be B.C.’s key concern, Sturko criticized in the B.C. letter wording in the amended act requiring that officers prove in court that “serious harm” to habitat took place.
“There are concerns that federal Fisheries officers are not proceeding with enforcement actions because of the difficulty to prove serious harm.”
Besides changing the law, the former Conservative government made sweeping cuts that sharply reduced the number of DFO biologists in B.C. and across Canada.
The Liberals promised on taking power in 2015 to “restore lost protections, and incorporate modern safeguards.”
Several groups and individuals making submissions to the committee, including B.C., told MPs that staff cuts represent a bigger problem than legislative changes.
DFO also moved toward an online self-assessment system for Canadians to determine whether they needed to apply for a government review of their projects, with “no registry or auditing” of projects, according to Sturko.
And violations are reported either online or through a toll-free number, rather than through fisheries officers.
“Collectively, these changes have created considerable challenges for the administration of fish habitat protection within the province.”
Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc, appearing before the committee in November, noted that 1,100 positions across Canada were eliminated over the previous five years because of $35 million in cuts under the Conservatives.
“Many of them were front-line enforcement people, habitat protection people, and scientific people. We’re … working within the financial structure we have to remedy that, and that will take us to a better place, we hope.”
The B.C. analysis cited one example of Ottawa dropping the ball, pointing to diking work done in 2015-16 to deal with flood risks at Somenos Marsh and Somenos Creek near Duncan on Vancouver Island.
“There were all types of in-stream best practices not followed — from works done outside of the window of least risk, poor sediment and erosion control … and no known DFO field presence, even subsequent to complaints.”
The letter also noted that the new self-regulating system, by allowing companies to do self-assessments, allowed decisions to be made by unqualified personnel.
The B.C. letter, ironically, also chastised the federal department for foot-dragging on a proposed industrial project that has been described by other witnesses as a serious threat to a major salmon habitat.
Sturko complained that the department kept sending Pacific NorthWest LNG, which in September won federal approval to build a major terminal on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, back for more information on the project’s perceived threat to nearby Skeena River salmon habitat.
“Several months could have been saved in the assessment period if DFO had attempted to collaborate earlier so that the right type of information and commitments to followup work could have been produced earlier.”
The letter also noted disapprovingly of DFO’s demands in relation to B.C. Hydro’s northwest transmission line project.
DFO insisted on a fish inventory of all streams that the line crossed “even though B.C. Hydro was willing to assume fish presence at all crossings and (wanted to) focus time and funding to mitigation and habitat compensation.”
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Topic: B.C. government says Ottawa's cuts left fish habitat unprotected (Read 4110 times)