Proposed waterway changes????????????

[muskymatt]

Can anyone add light to this???

 

 

 

From: "Canadian Rivers Network" <canrivers>

To: <canrivers>

Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 9:07 PM

Subject: URGENT ALERT Government poised to erase navigation rights

 

GOVERNMENT’S BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT ERASES THE PUBLIC RIGHT OF NAVIGATION IN CANADA

 

On Friday February 6, 2009, the federal Conservative government introduced its Budget Implementation Act (BI Act).

 

This Act is in fact an omnibus bill that introduces a series of sweeping legislation changes, including amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA).

 

The proposed amendments to the NWPA will permanently erase the public right of navigation in Canada and will have serious consequences for the environmental health of Canadian waterways.

 

Under the proposed new NWPA, waterways in Canada will only be considered navigable under the sole discretion of the Minister of Transport.

 

The proposed new NWPA also gives the Minister of Transport sole discretion to determine whether or not any proposed project (“work”) on a Canadian waterway will have an impact on navigation.

 

The proposed new NWPA grants the Minister of Transport the authority to change, at any time, the criteria used to assess whether a waterway is navigable, or whether a work or type of work may interfere with navigation.

 

The four named works (bridges, booms, dams, and causeways), added to the NWPA in 1883 because these structures, by their very nature, interfere with navigation…have been removed.

 

The government has introduced these changes to the NWPA without consulting with:

 

- First Nations

- Paddling organizations

- The outdoor tourism industry

- Cottage associations

- River advocacy groups

- Anglers and hunters

- Anyone who uses Canadian waterways for business or recreation

 

Our position is:

 

- the NWPA would benefit from a comprehensive review and amendments to modernize and streamline administrative processes

- this government does not have a mandate to erase the public right of navigation in Canada

- these changes to the NWPA will diminish free access to our natural environment for all Canadians

- these changes to the NWPA will damage Canadian waters

- the government is acting irresponsibly and radically

- the government is not acting in the best interest of Canadians

 

Canada was discovered, explored and developed through the navigation of our waterways. The public right of navigation a fundamental part of what it means to be Canadian.

 

The Government of Canada , under the pretext of helping the economy, is erasing our right, our history, our heritage.

 

There is something you can do—raise your voice.

 

1) Inform yourself and others: Copy and paste this message into an email or a facebook message to your friends and encourage them to take action. We can be effective by working together. Every letter, every phone call, and every email will help.

 

2) Tell the government you care about Canada ’s waterways and that you do not support the proposed amendments to the NWPA or the elimination of the public right of navigation in Canada .

 

Send an email to the people listed below and express your concerns about the use of the Budget Implementation Act to make sweeping changes to legislation that is intended to protect Canadian waters and the rights of Canadian citizens.

 

Insist that no changes to the NWPA be made before a full and comprehensive public consultation process occurs.

 

Email:

 

National Manager, Navigable Waters Protection Program, David Osbaldeston:

[email protected]

 

Minister of Transportation, John Baird:

[email protected]

 

Minister of Environment, Jim Prentice:

[email protected]

 

Opposition transportation critics:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

 

Opposition environment critics:

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

 

Opposition water critics:

[email protected]

[email protected],

 

And don’t forget your own MP. You can find your MP through this link:

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilatio...aspx?Language=E

Edited February 11, 2009 by muskymatt

[irishfield]

Interesting Matt... probably has come about over the uproar from the canoing community over the damming of the Rupert ! Removing the Navigable water issue gives them a wide brush to do as they please with water flow without public consultation.

 

http://rupertriver.blogspot.com/

[aniceguy]

it will get killed in commitee...if not killed a major re work on it

[muskymatt]

Here is a bit more......

 

 

JANUARY 19, 2009

 

The Harper government is poised to erase the historic right of navigation in Canada, a common law right that pre-dates confederation.

 

In public announcements published in the major media January 12 and 13, 2009, the Harper government stated its intent to eliminate the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) as part of its plan to inject billions of dollars into infrastructure programs across the country.

 

The Harper government says the NWPA is antiquated and they want it out of the way.

 

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

 

1) The common law public right of navigation pre-dates confederation, in fact it dates back to Roman law and is entrenched in the legal systems of virtually all modern nations.

 

2) The public right to navigate waterways in Canada is and important part of our heritage and an integral part of the heritage of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples.

 

3) Navigation rights are one of the pillars of environmental protection on Canadian waterways. If you take away navigation rights, you put Canadian waters (our lakes and rivers and streams) at risk.

 

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS SAYING:

 

Here’s what Transport Minister John Baird says about the NWPA, the law in place to protect the right of Canadians to travel our waterways:

 

It’s a “…huge regulatory burden that can really slow things down," he said.

 

The government is also talking about “…overhauling the environmental assessment process, which addresses the effect of a project on the surrounding area.”

 

So the Harper government’s strategy in responding to Canada’s current economic challenge is to:

 

Save the economy by gutting the environment.

 

WHAT THE HARPER GOVERNMENT ISN’T TELLING YOU:

 

Their plan to erase navigation rights in Canada has nothing to do with the current economic situation. The plan to gut the NWPA is part of an overall strategy to remove environmental safeguards in Canadian law.

 

The current move to gut the NWPA dates is part of a multi-year strategy crafted within the Navigable Waters Protection Program of the Ministry of Transport dating back to the summer of 2006.

 

This strategy hit the public last May when it became known that the Parliamentary committee for transportation, infrastructure and communities was holding hearings on proposed changes to the NWPA, without consulting anyone with any interest in preserving the public right of navigation in Canada.

 

That parliamentary committee then rushed a report in June recommending the changes to the NWPA, the effect of which is to remove navigation rights from thousands of waterways across the country.

 

WHAT THE HARPER GOVERNMENT WANTS TO DO:

 

As earlier as April of 2007, the people responsible for protecting the right of all Canadians to navigate our waterways, had already crafted NWPA amendments that would eliminate protection of navigation rights on what its calls “minor waters” in Canada.

 

The historic test for navigable in Canada is, if you can paddle a canoe in it, it’s a navigable waterway. There is probably not a more appropriate test in Canadian legal tradition than this “float a canoe” test in the NWPA. It is distinctly Canadian. It’s part of our heritage.

 

Here’s what Transport Canada and the Harper government want to do to that Canadian tradition, a proposed definition for “minor waters” dating to 2007:

 

Minor Waterways Criteria – Proposed National Criteria

- less than 60 cm depth at high water mark

- less than 3 m wide at high water mark

- channel slope greater than 2 percent

- sinuosity* (bends in the river) greater than 2

- natural obstacle frequency* greater than 3

 

Sinuosity Ratio = ratio of the length of the centreline of the stream to

length of a straight line connecting the same points along the channel

 

Natural Obstacle Frequency = number of natural obstructions (see

definitions) along a stream length of 500m (250m upstream, 250m downstream)

 

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

 

Voice your opposition to the Harper government’s to plan to save the economy by gutting the environment.

 

Tell your municipal, provincial/territorial and federal representatives that you don’t want the historic right of navigation diminished in Canada. You want it protected for the future.

[Grimace]

Steven Harper will do whatever he wants. Say hello to mini hydro electric dams every where. Bridges causeways and booms will no longer have to do an environmental assessment before construction. This is truly sickening.

 

Harper will get this pushed through. Just like he did with the tailing ponds for the mines.

 

Here is a link to Harper's last brush with our country's ecological well being.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/06/16/...es.html?ref=rss

[singingdog]

This is way bigger than a dam on the Rupert. It could fundamentally change our access to any river that isn't deep enough for commercial boat traffic to navigate.

 

One of the biggest potential effects of this legislation will be access to small streams. Right now, navigable streams are considered public property. Under the changes, any stream with less than a meter of draft will no longer be considered navigable and may lose it's status as public property. This affects a huge majority of recreational fishing and canoeing streams. Private land owners will be allowed to make modifications, bridges, small dams, and fences across streams that right now are open to canoeing, wading and fishing.

[muskymatt]

That's exactly what I understand from it as well.

 

Any land owner will essentially be allowed to block access to all waters on their property by land and by water......fences across streams and rivers to keep people off .

 

All you fly fishing and float guys should be very worried....

 

And once they (harper) gets ahold of a piece of it who knows where he'll go with it.

[Grimace]

Not to mention the fact that the land will along these rivers will be more eye pleasing to big industrialists who will want to buy it all up and use the water as they please (dams, water cooling for boilers and steam, hydro electric) without the environmental assessment, and it will not be the publics business because it will be their property to do as they wish with.

 

This is HUGE folks.

[Grimace]

The issue here isn't canoeing up the river and having farmer John block it with a fence. The government wouldn't waste there time changing one of the oldest laws in Canada for that.

 

The issue here is to a knock the publics rights to access and knowledge and power to voice concerns about said river, and to knock out the environmental assessment of any changes made to it.

 

Farmer John isn't the landowner you should be worried about. It is the Industrialists. How would you like a nice cold water stream used as a quencher for a steam turbine and the outflow into the river would be about 10 degrees warmer. what does 10 degrees warmer do to a trout or any other fish?? They wont know the answer because they will be free of a nasty environmental assessment.

[Spiel]

This is indeed very troubling.

[Sinker]

I agree with aniceguy. This is just a proposal. It will get killed in council.

 

Sinker