D.C. Reid is an experienced fishing guide in British Columbia, writer, and regular columnist for the Victoria Times Colonist. In a recent column he writes

Both the Vancouver Sun and the Times Colonist have run stories recently regarding the federal government's pulling the plug on fish habitat work by eliminating environmental assessments of new and existing projects that impact habitat. There are some 500 projects in B.C. This will have an impact on our roughly 100 million wild salmon that return each year.

In the recent past many projects have had negative impacts on fish habitat - and that was before the federal government decided not to do environmental assessments, changing both the Environmental Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act (sections 36 and 38). In 2006, for example, gravel removal from the lower Fraser went ahead, killing an estimated three million pink salmon fry.

Mike de Souza writes that changes to Canada's environmental protection laws in the federal budget implementation bill will offer new tools to "authorize" water pollution, while allowing the government to outsource services to protect the country's waterways, according Fisheries and Oceans Minister Keith Ashfield.

In a newly-released letter to the Union of Environment Workers, Ashfield said the existing Fisheries Act, considered to be Canada's strongest environmental protection law, has "long played an important role in preventing pollution of Canadian waters." But he suggested it needed to be changed since it doesn't provide enough options allowing industry to disrupt or contaminate fish habitat.

Read more at vancouversun.com

As reported in the Vancouver Sun, the Harper government has announced major cuts to its fisheries habitat protection program, prompting a retired federal biologist to warn Wednesday of a dramatic increase in the risk of environmental damage.

The cuts coincide with Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield's launch of a public consultation process seeking input on how Canadian fisheries should be managed.

The announcement was mocked by government critics who predicted that Canadians will react cynically to being asked for their input long after the decision was made to make sweeping fisheries policy changes.

Read more at vancouversun.com.