Dear Editor:
Re: Leaked info 'is huge', Burnaby NOW, March 14.
As a local streamkeeper, I was alarmed when I read that the federal government is planning to remove habitat protections from the Canada Fisheries Act by deleting the word "habitat" entirely. This is one of the oldest and most tested pieces of environmental legislation in the world and key to protecting wild fish stocks. Without these provisions in federal legislation, there will be no requirement for pipeline construction or run-of-river power projects to protect the streams and riparian areas on which our wild fish depend.
Only recently the Federal Court of Appeal said very clearly that habitat protection is required for the survival of species at risk, notably the Nooksack dace that live in the lower reaches of Stoney Creek and the Brunette River here in Burnaby.
Is the Harper government watering down our environment protection by downloading more responsibility to the provinces? Will the Department of Fisheries and Oceans be renamed "Department of Aquaculture" for the same reasons Mr. Harper's home province renamed their Environment Department the Department of Sustainable Development .
Removing habitat protection from the Fisheries Act would have serious environmental consequences for future generations and would further weaken the federal environmental assessment process. We must not allow that to happen.
Alan C. James, Burnaby
