Navigable Waters Act subject to fundamental change

As part of the federal Budget Implementation Act, which has received Royal Assent and is now law, the 130-year-old Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) has been subject to fundamental change. 

Passed in 1882, the NWPA enshrines Canadians’ right to freely navigate our rivers, lakes and streams. The Act’s initial intention according to the Canadian Coast Guard website was to “protect marine navigation routes by controlling the logging industry and the construction of bridges and dams.” 

Originally, any body of water with enough depth to float a canoe must undergo an environmental assessment before a project may begin. As a result of the recent changes to the NWPA, the federal Minister of Transport, John Baird (who used to be the federal Environment Minister), can now determine whether a waterway is classified as major or minor and as a result, which waterways will receive environmental assessments. 

According to Minister of State for Transport and MP for the Yellowhead riding, Rob Merrifield, changes to the NWPA are necessary to eliminate red tape. “When we’re looking at infrastructure projects and getting money out the door for some of these roads, bridges and so on, we’re just being bogged down,” said Merrifield, adding that “it’s been two years, three years almost, fighting to try to get this infrastructure money spent.”

Monika Schaefer, Green Party candidate for Yellowhead in the last federal election, said she finds these changes “very scary... It basically would allow the minister to bypass the environmental assessment process for approving projects and who knows which projects they could be approving,” she said. 

Merrifield said “it really won’t have a lot of impact because we’re not compromising anything. You have to have provincial regulations on crossing a lot of these streams at any rate. What we’re trying to do is not replicate or duplicate environmental studies.” As far as the federal Conservative Government is concerned, “we’re saying we’re not going to put up with red tape where it doesn’t compromise the environment,” said Merrifield. 

Yellowhead’s NDP candidate Ken Kuzminski said changes to the NWPA are a “typical ploy” of the Conservative government to try and sneak things through Parliament that don’t actually have anything to do with the piece of legislation, in this case the federal budget. 

“It’s a Pandora’s Box that they’ve opened,” said Kuzminski, “to fast-track any project they deem economically important at the expense of the environment and at the expense of Canadian heritage.” Kuzminski said he was also unimpressed with the idea of leaving provincial governments as caretakers of the environment given that our watersheds are all connected and what happens in one province will affect another.

Merrifield said that the Conservatives are “not out to kill any fish or destroy any streams,” but that the old form of the NWPA has created “major problems” since 2000, when he became a Member of Parliament. 

“The reason the Act (NWPA) has lasted this long is because it was well-needed,” said Kuzminski, and that the changes to the act may not only lead to environmental degradation and impede recreational use of our waterways, but also clear the way for water diversion to begin going towards the United States. 

Environment Minister Jim Prentice did not return a request for an interview, and neither did Liberal Environment Critic David McGuinty.