My default setting is on "distrust"

Last week’s column dealt with the practice of government’s tabling massive ‘catch-all’ type bills to ram through legislation that they do not want debated or researched by the opposition or the for any length of time.
This week I’d like to examine the current omnibus bill before parliament and some of the important changes that will directly affect the long term environmental well-being of navigable waterways in Canada and Thunder Bay – Rainy River.
I may be a cynical about the whole omnibus bill process, but I would say that my default setting is “distrust” when it comes to this sort of bill put before parliament by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. The first time they tabled an omnibus bill tens of thousands of Canadians wrote to the Prime Minister to complain about the process and how parliament was unable to properly debate the provisions in the monster C-38 bill from this past June. Canadians wrote the Prime Minister to tell him they wanted to learn about the dozens of changes to environmental regulations, the move to raise the retirement age of Canadians to 67 from 65 years of age, and significant changes to the Employment Insurance (E.I.) system that will make Canadians work longer for less benefits and possibly relocate to take any change the Conservatives see fit.
When he tabled the current omnibus bill before parliament, Bill C-45, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty seemed annoyed at some questions that came his way about the ‘omnibus’ process and declared that “nothing” would be in C-45 that was not mentioned or included in the 2012-13 federal budget speech. As it turns out this claim, like many made by the Finance Minister, is not true. Mr. Flaherty was either wrong about his own bill or he simply thought he could pull the wool over our eyes and hoping we wouldn’t catch him. The truth is there are several items in C-45 that do not appear in the 2012-13 federal budget, but of primary concern in Northwestern Ontario is the re-writing of the 100 year old Navigable Waters Protection Act.
The Navigable Waters Protection Act (or NWPA) is one of the oldest pieces of Canadian legislation. It was introduced in 1882 by the government of Sir John A. Macdonald and provides the federal government with a formal process for interfering with the public’s common law rights to navigation by granting approvals and setting conditions for works on navigable waters. In Northwestern Ontario we know that navigation in public waterways is significant to our heritage, especially for First Nations, Inuit, and Metis. Forestry, the fur trade, and commerce all relied on our waterways, and shipping, fisheries, tourist and recreational uses of waterway all continue to be important economically and culturally. The NWPA has ensured that dams, bridges, dredging, and other activities that could potentially hinder navigation, trigger an environmental assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. This historic role of the NWPA as a “trigger” for environmental assessments has made it a significant piece of environmental legislation for many years.
The most significant aspect of the amendments to the NWPA in the current Bill C-45 relates to the coverage of its prohibition and related approval process for the construction of “works”, such as dams and bridges, on navigable waters. The NWPA will no longer prohibit works over all navigable waters. The prohibition on obstructing navigable waters will now only apply to 3 oceans, 97 lakes and 62 rivers (including some canals) across Canada. This means more than 99.9% of all rivers and 99.7% of all of Canada’s lakes will be unprotected. There is no longer any requirement to apply for an approval to build works on or obstruct most navigable waters, leaving them open to development that is free of assessment or regulation. I would love a chance to debate the merits and problems with this amendment, but the Conservatives are again restricting debate.
The changes to the NWPA are just one of the problems with the more than 400-page bill that will likely pass parliament before Christmas and without a proper debate. Next week I will fill you in a bit more on what the changes the NWPA mean for our riding and why New Democrats continue to oppose them so forcefully.