Topic
Tories plan to stop protecting waterways with fish deemed to lack 'economic, cultural or ecological value.'
What would Dief say? Former Tory PM John Diefenbaker, avid fisherman.
How healthy wild lakes are being reclassified as 'tailings impoundment areas.'
Harper and Campbell want to gut a good old law. Here's why.
More than 625 Canadian scientists are demanding that the Canadian government abandon plans to gut the Fisheries Act, the nation's most significant and oldest piece of environmental legislation.
Scientists contacted by The Tyee called the changes shocking and unprecedented.
"We believe that the weakening of habitat protections in Section 35 of the Fisheries Act will negatively impact water quality and fisheries across the country, and could undermine Canada's attempt to maintain international credibility in the environment," states the letter.
"Most Canadian men like to hunt and to fish," said David Schindler, a world famous ecologist in a Tyee interview. "The proposed changes to the Fisheries Act are an attack on the rivers and waterways that support these freedoms," added Schindler who drafted the letter.
Schindler rallied biologists after leaked government documents obtained by former federal fishery biologist Otto Langer a week ago show the Harper government plans to remove habitat protection entirely from the act.
Without protection for rivers, streams and lakes, fish populations will decline, species will go extinct and waterways will become lifeless, say fishery biologists.
Proposed changes likely this year
Langer says that the government wants to piggyback the changes onto the next federal budget.
In a prepared statement Fisheries and Ocean Minister Keith Ashfield confirmed that, "The government is reviewing fish and fish habitat protection policies to ensure they do not go beyond their intended conservation goals."
The terse statement added that existing policies "do not reflect the priorities of Canadians," but provided no explanation.
The Fisheries Act, Canada's best and most clearly-worded environmental legislation, says that "no person shall carry out any work or undertaking that results in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat."
But Tory changes would make it legal to destroy waterways provided that it does not "result in an adverse effect on a fish of economic, cultural or ecological value."
Like 'eugenics' say scientists
Schindler and other scientists compared the division of fish into valuable and non-valuable species to the wildlife equivalent of eugenics, the Nazi idea that some humans are more racially fit than others.
"It's exactly like eugenics," said Schindler. "It's a stupid idea. What do they think all these commercially important fish eat? Did they ask the fish who is fit and unfit and which fish is of ecological value? They should just scratch this wording out and improve the act, not gut it."
Schindler's work on acid rain, nutrient pollution and oil sands water contamination has prompted major public policy changes in North American and Europe.
John Smol, an award-winning lake biologist at Queen's University says the proposed changes are unbelievable if not shocking.
"It's a disconnect with science. Minnows are a part of the food chain. So what is an ecologically significant fish?"
'They are all ecologically sensitive': Smol
Smol also wondered where the proposals originated. "I can't imagine a federal biologist proposing this. They are all ecologically sensitive. They know how a food chain works."
Given the multiplication of stresses on rivers and waterways including nutrient pollution, climate change, and invading species, Smol says the act should be strengthened, not weakened.
"It's an act we've had from the beginning of the country and it's very important."
Schindler says gutting the act appears to be driven by the government's agenda to accelerate mining and oil sands projects.
"The people who will benefit from these proposed changes are developers who want to build roads or big projects who now have to deal with stream crossing permits. The people who won't benefit are commercial fisherman, First Nations and Canadians who just like to angle for pleasure."
In addition two former fisheries ministers, John Fraser and Tom Siddon, have both strongly condemned the government's proposal to emasculate the legislation along with the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution.
Since 2009, the government of Stephen Harper has weakened the Navigable Waters Protection Act, exempted big infrastructure projects from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and repeatedly downgraded commitments to address atmospheric pollution. Environment Minister Peter Kent is being sued for refusing to uphold the Species At Risk Act and protect woodland caribou in northern Alberta in the oil sands region.
[Tags: Environment.] ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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OwlRol
1 year ago
Utter ignorance and pigheadedness
This shows the absolute insanity of hard blinkered neo-conservatism.
Not enough the dirty politics and degrading of democracy, the defunding of any group that opposes their policies, the doublespeak and hidden agendas, the militarism and the creation of new criminals, but to then deny and muzzle the thorough knowledge accumulated over decades of research, perhaps out of vindictiveness, but more likely out of the much lacking single mindedness of a Freidman, Chicago-Calgary school of Economics graduate, takes us to an ever increasing level of psychopathic behaviour.
Then to promise removal of more safeguarding laws and regulations, as stated in Thailand, just to fast track raw resources to new, so called, Free Trade zones in Asia pushes us even further down the Mad Hatter's lair.
Every Conservative MP should be served a fish dinner from those creeks and rivers, starting with the Athabaska.
These travesties should be plastered over the front pages of all mainstream media every day, but of course we know why they're not.
Oh so dammed dangerous, but many Canadians just haven't figured it out yet.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
The weakening of all forms of
The weakening of all forms of environmental protection, and of human rights, for the purpose of so called "wealth creation" is a very clear proof that:
"Wealth can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and future generations"
If wealth could be created, we wouldn't have ecological and human destruction, slavery, crimes and wars. This is a good example.
Politicians, so called "economists", and the general public may just figure out the obvious one day and the human race may just start living after a million years of faith based stupidity.
The neocons are hooked to the phony values of non existing, imaginary money, while calling it economics, while in reality it has little or nothing to do with real economics.
[UNFAIR CHARACTERIZATION REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]
Our so called "economists" and "conservatives" are working at that same mental level with their "wealth creating" theories.
Faith conquers all, especially logical thought.
Ed Deak.
Talon
1 year ago
Thank you Ed.
This government holds little regard for the environment or science. The federal government consists of many members of very fundamentalist religious affiliations that believe the Earth must perish before the Saviour will return. Believe what you want, but let's not govern that way. Look at the facts and then make decisions, keeping in mind that the "Cautionary Principle" should always apply. The people best suited to help us transition into tomorrow are scientists and environmentalists. This government will surely put Canada into the history books for all the wrong reasons.
Granville
1 year ago
Harper was bad enough with a minority government
Now we see his true colours. We used to mourn "Western Alienation". Now we wish for the good old days when there was a damper on the oil industry.
Harper's intentions are clear enough. Sadly, it may take someone with an equally extreme approach to end his career. He has good reason to fear for his own security. The Squamish Five are still alive.
You might take this as a threat, but it isn't. I would never commit a crime to prevent anotyher greater crime from taking place, but there are others who will.
I have often powndered if the conservation-vs-exploitation debate would turn so ugly that it turn to violence. The BC government went to great lengths to prevent the War in the Woods between loggers and conservationists. Stephen Harper is taking a very clear direction against all conservation that gets in the way of his plans for increased trade.
He is the extremist and he stands for everything many Canadians despise and in the end, if he gets his way, life will not be worth living in this country.
He already suspended parliament twice to prevent being toppled from power. I think he will stop at nothing to further his own career. He has extra-territorial ambitions. Treatng him decently is exactly the wrong thing to do.
anne cameron
1 year ago
love you Ed
It's enough to make a person think these Con arstles grew up on pavement and never lay belly-down watching the incredible life in a creek or stream.
There is a universe in every river, and when we mess around with it we ruin a delicate balance which has taken , sometimes, centuries to establish.
We've seen the death of the Atlantic cod, we're seeing the assault on the Pacific salmon and now the arsletarts are going after the fresh-water fish. They won't be happy until every lake is a tailing pond and the damage is irreparable.
I expect Nikiforuk had to work very hard to keep this article calm, reasoned, and intelligable.
That they do this in the name of progress is insulting to all progressives.
It's so stupid it's hard to believe anyone actually thought of it!
Ed, you deserve the Order of Canada!!!
hg
1 year ago
Environment
To paraphrase: Environmentalists have to understand that the destruction of the planet might be necessary to facilitate the growth of the economy.
Fiat lux
1 year ago
Harper is a psycho,
Harper is a psycho, fundamentalist, miseducated maniac, with mental illness written all over him and his actions. He simply can't help what he is doing.
Let's not get into any thoughts of violence against him, or anybody, just a string of directorships to disappear into.
And some new brooms to sweep the roads with for the professors who are teaching this ongoing, criminal idiocy, destroying the world, as the "science of economics".
Ed Deak.
Dan the socialist
1 year ago
Silly scientists should know
Silly scientists should know better by now than to urge general Secretary Harper to do anything...
dwakeham
1 year ago
to reign or to govern
Harper wishes to long reign over Canadians as subjects, within the realm of true Old Testament or better feudal fervour, rather than to govern the citizens of a true democracy .
This means that all he needs to do is ensure that his Barons, those myopic, self-righteous polluting industrialists and tar-sand owners, at home or abroad, get what they want - - be it in the form of pipelines or mining or fast tracked habitat destruction permits.
This means that that all he needs to do is gift his Bishops, especially those of the pro-Isreal rapture-watching ilk, with prisons for the ungodly, or with muzzles for those scientists who question religious dogma.
And woe to those beneath Harper's version of the Great Chain of Being. They are the peasants who will have to eat the carcinogenic fish and see their rivers and streams irreparably degraded.
These are not the actions of a man who wishes to practice good governance. They are the actions of a misguided zealot who wishes to rule, in spite of the collective wisdom and knowledge of thousands and thousands of his subjects, as he sees fit.
This whole sorry chapter in our nation's history is more evocative of the Grail's Fisher King Myth, wherein the principal motif is that if the King is sick, the land is sick. I just don't want to wait until Harper turns our country into a wasteland.
Jibset
1 year ago
Harper Hates Canada
Harper simply despises Canada. Go ahead and google his speaches from before he was PM. He was contemptuous towards all the good things that Canada had and said it was a pathetic northern european socialist state. He said that we won't recognize Canada after he is done with it.
Does he really need to facilitates its destruction? I really, really love Canada. I love its people, its environment, and its animals. We have a great thing going. We have (had?) a sense of collective destiny. In Harper's Canada, it is ok to make this into a wasteland so long as the stock prices of his supporters continue to climb, the costs of their industry externalized into the decimation of our heritage and wealth. Many people were worried about his hidden agenda. This is what it looks like. Abandonment of our environment, buried in an omnibus bill.
Those who think that the Fisheries Act has stopped development are ignoring the abundance of plain view evidence around them. The only thing that the Fisheries Act has stopped are bad projects that should never be approved. And even then, it is only partly successful. There are plenty of well designed mining projects that are approved on a predictable schedule when the projects are designed right.
With harper's changes, enforcement of the act will be almost entirely over. His agency staff have no resources to mount an investigation and the burden of proof, in a beyond reasonable doubt court process, means that the costs of an investigation will have skyrocketed and the chance of a conviction is almost nil. If you look at the number Fisheries Act convictions, they have already been falling like Canada's reputation in the global community.
Granville
1 year ago
Harper is in love with industry. He thinks he is going to make
the 21st Century belong to Canada, as the 20th Century was supposed to. Whose dream was that?
I would agree with Stephen if he were not such a radical twat. We don't need to trash our country to sell oil to China. Their need is greater than ours.
Some Germans have raised red flags over the suspension of parliament, comparing him to Adolf Hitler. While that may seem like a stretch now, I think there is a case to be made tht the Robocalls and suspension of parliament are Canada's equivalent to the burning of the Reichstag. Both were done to seize power and suppress opposition. We are only just beginning to see Harper's true nature come forth.
together with the expansion of the prison system, we are getting clear indications of our own future. Appeasement is not an option, and begging for environmental consideration will not work.
OleumBenevolus
1 year ago
Schindler again?
Another week, another article by Andy Nikiforuk that is driven by the need of the activist biologist Schindler for yet more media attention.
What kind of relationships exists between these 2 guys? It reminds me of the co-dependency relationship between the New York Times environmental reporter Andy Revkin and the climate-gate scientists at Penn State and East Anglia.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/28/leaked-emails-nyt-climategate/
Fiat lux
1 year ago
Yes, there definitely are
Yes, there definitely are benefits in oils, the question is what kind we're talking about ?
Oils for babies' bottoms, cooking oils, linseed oils for furniture and artwork, or liquid bitumem from the Tar Sands, poisoning the world, to make happy our capitalist friends in the US and our commie friends in China ?
"Yes, but look at our monies they bring back for the pollution and destruction they cause, raising the GDP?"
Ed Deak.
Sockeye
1 year ago
OleumBenevolus
Don't insult our intelligence by posting the climategate emails, which by the way were obtained illegally.
Mean while in reality 2000+ high temps were set last week.
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/03/crazy-heat-wave-about-get
Jeffrey J.
1 year ago
625 Scientists vs Harper
The new tyranny Canada lives under is striking. 625 scientists, highly trained professionals, point out the damage Harper will cause if the changes to the Fisheries Act are made. But under the most undemocratic leader Canada has seen in decades, these intelligent pleas will fall on deaf ears.
How far Canada has fallen. In such a short time.
Great journalism by one of Canada's most powerful journalists. Nikiforuk is always a privilege to read.
OleumBenevolus
1 year ago
Sock Eye
Ah, the "illegally obtained" climate-gate emails.
The leaked federal government documents were obtained by retired federal fishery biologist, Otto Langer, in a completely legal manner, one supposes?
RickW
1 year ago
Jeffrey J.
How may post-apocalyptic fiction stories began with the lynching of scientists, engineers, and techies? Harper hates and distrusts anyone with a science degree (except possibly those who graduated from the dismal science).
RickW
1 year ago
Gee Whiz OleumBenevolus
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/19403
The e-mails at the heart of the so-called Climategate scandal show that climate scientists are guilty of anger toward global warming skeptics, but they do not support claims that climate change is a vast conspiracy, according to the Associated Press, which reviewed the 1,073 messages in question.
Sockeye
1 year ago
OleumBenevolus
``The leaked federal government documents were obtained by retired federal fishery biologist, Otto Langer, in a completely legal manner, one supposes?`
There is a big difference, one being that the Government documents belong to the Canadian people, it`s hard to get a FOI request when you don`t know this type of crap is going on. I mean really I knew these thugs were going to dismantle a good portion of Canadian society when they were elected, but I never dreamed they pull off such criminally insane anti-life anti-science stunt like this.
Like Ed says these people are Psychos or just stupid or completely brain washed.
Those documents were leaked on moral and ethic grounds, the climategate emails were stolen and used by the same ideologues/elites that fund Harper, used to try and discount the reality of what`s happening to the Environment. Heat Waves in March anyone? 2000+ Temp records broken, Methane leeching in the North, Forests dying, Ozone holes, acidifying oceans and it goes on and on and these psychopaths are making it worse.
NorthcoastDave
1 year ago
Send a message to Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries
We need your help. With the budget a few days away, please add your name to this petition.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/124/389/037/keep-protection-of-habitat-in-the-canada-fisheries-act/
NorthcoastDave
1 year ago
Help us send the Fisheries Minister a message
We need your help before the budget, soon to be released:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/124/389/037/keep-protection-of-habitat-in-the-canada-fisheries-act/
NorthcoastDave
1 year ago
A Tragedy in Three Acts
Act 1: Amendments to Navigable Waters Protections Act leaves the final decision in the hands of "the minister".
Act 2. Threats to remove "habitat" from the Fisheries Act.
Act 3. Potential Amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act leaves the final decision in the hands of "the minister"
Very tragic. What's next?
NorthcoastDave
1 year ago
An Environmental Tragedy in Three Acts
Act 1. Amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act (2009) puts the final decision on developments affecting waterways in the hands of "the minister". Pushed under the guise of infrastructure spending.
Act 2. Gutting of the Fisheries Act, to remove "habitat protection" from the Fisheries Act. As soon as the next federal budget (2012)
Act 3. Gutting of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to put the final decision in the hands of "the minister" and "streamline" the approval process to pay diminished attention to scientists, first nations and the general public. Potentially; 2012
A very sad state of affairs in Canada.
Barryeng
1 year ago
peitition
As of noon sunday, there were 1782 signatures on a petition to oppose Harper's actions. We really do need more than that though.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/124/389/037/keep-protection-of-habitat-in-the-canada-fisheries-act/
igbymac
1 year ago
Eugenics
Why would creeps like Harper care about the environment? He is one of Calvin's 'justified sinner' offspring, and no doubt the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition and eugenics are at the base of his world view -- just as they are at the foundation of the policy shapers of our western world for the last 130 years or so.
From Bill Gates on back, these sickos truly belief they have some special right to live while the majority suffer.
KD Brown
1 year ago
The only piece of environmental legislation...
...in Canada with any teeth.
That is why it is a target. Its infractions are punished by lawsuits and arrest.
It is key to protecting drinking water, waterways in general, and the rivers that support our natural gifts.
To suppose that we can divorce the health of the waterways from the health of all of us is a crude justification for continued abuse. And a point of view forwarded by those who think that, somehow, they will escape the results.
settingprecedent
1 year ago
A Lot More than 625
Harper is the Anti-Science. This should give grave cause for concern given the examples down south of where this mental stagnation leads.
I can assure you that scientists working at DFO support their colleagues. They simply don't have the privilege of voicing their opinions because doing so would give Harper cause to terminate their employment.
Harper is a cancer that must be excised.
oldcrank
1 year ago
Omnibus
Not mentioned in this article be very important is the fact that Harper is including these changes not in a bill amending the Fisheries act, but in the Omnibus Budget bill.
Once again, stealth tactics aimed at making changes without the informed consent of the Canadian public.
Once again we find the Harper is a Straussian follower of the big lie. He said his government would be open, transparent, accountable.
Who guessed that he meant exactly the opposite.
Now we know. Now we have no excuses for his actions.
Simply signing a petition is not enough. We have to get out in the streets and bang a few drums and tin cans and garbage can lids.
OleumBenevolus
1 year ago
Sockeye
You do understand that both Penn State and East Anlgia University are both publicly (read tax payer) funded research universities? As such, the public has a right to know not only the data and analytical methods used by the scientists but also any details that may impinge upon the scientists professional conduct. As such, your arguments do not withstand objective scrutiny.
Your argument can therefore be distilled to the following: if the knowledge gained from the publication of confidential documents supports your causes, it is found to be good and moral to disclose it; if it does favour your causes, then it is illegal theft.
Granville
1 year ago
Oleum: get lost
The Canadian Fisheries Act has nothing to do with Climategate. All your "therefores" and "moral" weasel words ar irelevant.