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A Canadian, according to the national icon Pierre Berton, is someone “who knows how to make love in a canoe.”
Canada’s love affair with human-propelled watercraft dates back to the country’s discovery and exploration by way of its rivers and tributaries.
Those same waterways are now at risk of degradation if proposed amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act are approved, claim paddlers, environmental groups and a local politician.
Doug Skeggs has been paddling the Ottawa River and surrounding waterways since he “was born” and says that if passed, the amendments proposed by the House’s standing committee on transport, infrastructure and communities would remove the public’s right to consultation on proposed impediments to the navigation of Canadian waterways.
“Every Canadian has a right to navigation, the ability to pick up a canoe and paddle,” he says.
CANOES EXCLUDED
The Sierra Club of Canada has taken particular objection to amendments proposed by the committee that would see the definition of navigable waters changed to exclude small watercraft, such as canoes, and the amending of infrastructure works to exclude such minor works on a waterway as a micro-hydroelectric project.
Celeste Cote, national water campaigner for the organization, notes that it would remove any reference to four types of works, namely dams, bridges, causeways and booms, all of which have an impact on the waterway.
Public consultations leading up to the recommendations were “not comprehensive” in scope and didn’t involve members of the First Nations, environmental and paddling communities, members of those groups say.
The committee tabled its final report on June 11 and legislation is expected to be presented this fall.
“All levels of government, industry and the Canadian public with interests in navigable waterways have raised concerns for many years regarding the challenges of working within the parameters of this outdated Act,” said Maryse Durette, spokeswoman for Transport Canada.
“Proposed amendments to the Act would focus on streamlining the regulatory process and provide a more timely and predictable process for the review and approval of critical infrastructure and aquaculture development projects.”
Modernizing the act will make it more efficient for those who require approval of their projects, she adds.
Committee members don’t appear to “understand the issue,” says NDP MP Paul Dewar, a longtime advocate of protective measures for the Ottawa River.
He suggests there had been significant lobbying by industry stakeholders to cut through the act’s red tape and to dilute the environmental regulations that impede their corporate enterprises along waterways.
“They are trying to please a certain sector of industry and hope no one is paying attention,” he says.
(C) Ottawa Sun