Budget cuts by Ottawa left fish habitat unprotected, B.C. deputy minister says
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 Fisheries Act.
“Compliance and enforcement of the Fisheries Act has become increasingly difficult after fisheries protection program staff members were cut,” Derek Sturko, B.C.’s deputy minister of agriculture, told the standing committee on fisheries and oceans in a written submission.
“There has been almost no (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 the provinces, industry and conservation groups in late 2016, is preparing a report on how to amend the legislation.
In 2012, the then-Conservative federal government amended provisions in the Fisheries Act relating to habitat protection.
While staffing appeared to be B.C.’s key concern, Sturko also criticized phrasing in the amended act that requires officers to prove in court that “serious harm” was done to a habitat.
“There are concerns that federal Fisheries officers are not proceeding with enforcement actions because of the difficulty to prove serious harm,” Sturko wrote.
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.
Several groups and individuals making submissions to the committee, including B.C., told MPs that staff cuts represent a bigger problem than legislative changes.
The 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, Sturko said. Violations are now 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,” Sturko wrote.
Federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc, appearing before the committee in November, said 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, habitatprotection 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,” LeBlanc said.
Sturko’s submission cited an example of Ottawa dropping the ball, pointing to diking work done in 2015 and 2016 to deal with flood risks at Somenos Marsh and Somenos Creek near Duncan on Vancouver Island, saying “all types of in-stream best practices (were) 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 said the new selfregulating system, by allowing companies to do self-assessments, allowed decisions to be made by unqualified personnel.
These changes have created considerable challenges for … fish habitat protection within the province.
However, the submission also chastised the federal department for foot-dragging on a proposed industrial project that has been described by critics 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,” Sturko wrote.
The submission also spoke disapprovingly of the DFO’s demands in relation to B.C. Hydro’s northwest transmission line project. The DFO insisted on a fish inventory of all streams 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,” Sturko wrote.