CPAWS announces position on proposed changes to Canada’s Navigable Waters Protection Act

CPAWS announces today its position on the proposed changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) contained in the 2009 Federal Budget Implementation Act.
 
CPAWS believes that it is fundamentally important to protect the environmental integrity of Canada’s wild waterways and to protect the long-standing right of all Canadians to self-propelled navigation of these waterways by such means as canoe, kayak and raft.  

These protections have been afforded to people and to Canada’s navigable rivers, streams and creeks since 1882 through the Navigable Waters Protection Act.  The Act currently requires that any bridges, booms, dams or causeways are subject to an approvals process that considers both their environmental impacts and impacts on navigation.

The federal government is now proposing changes to the Act away from the light of public scrutiny – contained within the legislation to pass the 2009 federal budget. In CPAWS’ view, the proposed changes to the NWPA within the Budget Act could leave some important waterways unprotected and could also, at the Minister’s discretion, eliminate environmental assessments of some kinds of ‘works’ on waterways, such as dams, bridges, excavation and dumping.

CPAWS acknowledges that this important piece of legislation could benefit from some improvements, but these should not be buried in the Budget Implementation Act; they should be treated as a separate piece of legislation and all stakeholder groups should be consulted.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities reviewed the Navigable Waters Protection Act last year and recommended changes to it, but also recommended that they be subject to further consultation.  In CPAWS’ view, if the government fails to remove the NWPA changes from the budget implementation bill, and fails to consult further before passing such amendments, it would eliminate the public’s right to participate in this discussion, and could fail all Canadians by weakening the protection of our waterways.

CPAWS is calling on Parliament to remove the amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act from the Budget Implementation Act 2009. Further, we are calling on Parliament to conduct public consultation on these proposed changes to the NWPA in a separate process. CPAWS’ primary goal is to ensure that  this legislation keeps environmental integrity and access to self-propelled navigation front and centre in the Act.

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For more information:
Chris Henschel
National Manager of Domestic and International Affairs
chenschel@cpaws.org
613-569-7226 x220