Safeguarding Our Aquatic Ecosystems

November 2007

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The new legislation will strengthen the Government of Canada's commitment to conservation by making it mandatory for the Minister and all those who administer the Act to consider the impact to fish habitat before issuing licences and making decisions concerning allocations. It also puts the requirement of adopting precautionary and ecosystem approaches to managing fish habitat in legislation.

The Minister will be accountable to Parliament and Canadians for these decisions.

General Prohibition

The general prohibition on the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction (HADD) of fish habitat remains a cornerstone of the Fisheries Act and a specific priority of the fish habitat management program.

Streamlining Regulatory Processes

Right now, there's no distinction in the Act between how a large or small project is reviewed. The new Act clarifies the government's ability to focus on activities that have a higher risk of causing harm to fish habitat, like large-scale developments, by creating regulations for lower risk activities.

Members of the public and concerned groups will be given a more active role under the new Act. The creation of any regulation will be done in a transparent manner and involve an open consultation process. The department will work collaboratively with its partners and stakeholder groups to develop regulations that allow for economic development while maintaining the highest standards for fish habitat protection.

Intergovernmental Co-operation

The proposed Act provides tools for industry to navigate provincial and federal habitat protection regulations more efficiently without compromising the need to protect fish habitat. To eliminate unnecessary duplication of regulations, the new Act allows for provincial regulations to be deemed equivalent when they meet or exceed the federal regulations.

If a province is failing to enforce its regulations, then the Minister will have the ability to reinstate the national regulations.

Modernizing Compliance

The proposed legislation creates a new offence for failing to meet the terms and conditions set out in an authorization. This will allow the department to increase the effectiveness of the habitat protection program. The compensation, monitoring and reporting requirements of an authorization will all now be legally enforceable.

The new Act will also, for the first time, prohibit the introduction of harmful fish or plant species to fish habitat and will expand the inspectors' powers to include enforcing the Aquatic Invasive Species provisions.

The Act will take a more effective approach to ensuring compliance and may allow for the use of Alternative Measures Agreements instead of costly and lengthy criminal court proceedings.

Balancing Enforcement

Under the renewed Fisheries Act, the scope of habitat inspectors' powers will be expanded to cover any project that can be harmful to fish habitat. Under the old Act, only fishery officers had this authority. Habitat inspectors will also continue to monitor for the release of deleterious substances.

Habitat inspectors will work with the public to help them better understand the provisions of the Act. They will also monitor compliance with terms and conditions of authorizations and, if necessary, will direct proponents on how to remedy harm to fish habitat. Fishery officers will continue to support the habitat program by conducting higher-risk enforcement activities and prosecutions where necessary.

This will create a better balance and distribution of powers between habitat inspectors and fishery officers. Most importantly, it will enable DFO to better protect and conserve fish habitat.

B-HQ-07-59E(e)