The Navigable Waters Protection Act changes could mean big problems for Canada's waterways...

The Harper government never ceases to vex environmentalists. As part of its Budget Implementation Act 2009 (the act that must pass to put the year's budget into place), the government attached an amendment to the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA). The trouble is, the amendment was essentially hidden deep within the bill, which is among the year's largest and most likely to pass through parliament. Very sneaky.

The NWPA is a key piece of environmental legislation dating back to 1882 that is designed to protect the public's right to navigate the country's waters. These waters--although no clear definition actually exists, which is a subject of much controversy--can range from the oceans and Great Lakes to small rivers, streams and creeks arguably, only four inches deep.

From an environmental point of view, the NWPA is an important tool in the fight to protect the country's waters and broader environment because it often includes formal environmental assessments. Whenever someone wants to build something like a bridge or a dock that might impact a body of navigable water, an application must be submitted to the government, where it often requires an environmental screening if not a more stringent environmental assessment.

But this amendment would change that. The government has argued that these environmental considerations are delaying development projects throughout the country and stifling the recovery of the economy as the stimulus money can't diffuse as easily. Under the changes, any projects deemed 'minor' or affecting 'minor waters' would be issued a pre-approval and would not require any review from the federal government. These reviews often lead to the environmental screenings or assessments. In addition, the changes would give unprecedented authority to the minister of Transport to exempt any project he/she sees fit, without a possibility for appeal.

The government argues that by amending the act, small projects like a private dock (which require review under the old act) would be streamlined through so the department's resources could be better spent on larger projects. Furthermore, they don't want to bother doing stringent reviews on projects that only effect negligible bodies of water.

Sure. That makes sense. But there are some major problems. First of all, how is the department going to know if a project is actually minor if they don't do a review? As one witness at a hearing described, an applicant could write they're adding on to their private dock, but the dock addition could actually cover 6,000 square feet and have huge environmental consequences. How could the government tell the difference?

Critics are also upset with the authority given to the minister, especially the clause that disallows appeals to the minister's decisions. The lack of an actual definition of 'navigable waters' is also worrying, as it would allow the government to arbitrarily decide what would and wouldn't be reviewed.

A big problem has been the process itself. Members of the government have been wanting to update the act for many years and last summer it really got going and some consultations were held. Unfortunately, the occurrence of an election, the winter prorogation and an economic crisis interrupted the consultation process and as the government argues, required the amendments to be rushed through.

Lots of people and groups were not consulted, including environmental groups, First Nations, hunters, fishers and paddlers: people who would have a direct interest in 'navigable waters'.

Luckily, the issue has gotten enough attention from different stakeholders that a series of Senate Hearings have been scheduled and are currently in session. Although the amendments have been passed in parliament, they still need to be approved by the Senate to become law, so these hearings could have a significant impact.

This issue is particularly important because it highlights the fight over economy and environmentalism. From the federal government's point of view, environmental protection is getting in the way of the economy. And this is not their only strategy. They are also trying to exempt thousands of projects receiving funding from the stimulus package from environmental assessments.

Yes, foregoing time-consuming, detailed environmental assessments can be good for short-term economic recovery. But ignoring environmental concerns could be devastating for the economy in the long-term. And hiding these important amendments in a budget bill (which is not going to be opposed by the parliament in these economic times) is not the best way to go about it.