NWPA Write to your MP

[esprit]

Below is the email I sent to my MP, Renfrew County's Cheryl Gallant (PC), and some other links and stuff.

You really do need to write to your MP about this and network with anyone and everyone you know who may be able to influence or contribute in a positive way to this process.

Post your message to your MP here so that others can benefit from your effort.

One key thing we are asking for today is an extension to the deadline for submissions to this committee so that the people, organizations and businesses that will be impacted by changes to the NWPA will have an opportunity to contribute to the review.

Here's a tidbit pulled from some of the information the parliamentary committee is looking at...

"a proposal for an amendment to the NWPA...removing the reference to the four named works—bridge, dam, causeway, and boom—in the act to allow for exemption of those works from the requirement to obtain approval pursuant to the NWPA."

This is a joke. These are the exact things that are barriers to navigation. And they want to exempt them from the act. This would completely gut the NWPA and make it irrelevant in Canada.

D

Here's a Quote taken directly from Transport Canada's NWPA site:

History

The Navigable Waterways Protection Act (NWPA), Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985, is one of the oldest pieces of federal legislation. It first became law on May 17, 1882, and was originally intended to protect marine navigation routes by controlling the logging industry and the construction of bridges and dams.
It has undergone a number of changes over the years and its application now involves all works in, over, under through or across any navigable waterway in Canada.

Although the scope of the Act has been broadened over the years, its main objective is still to protect the public right to navigation. Today, the Act applies to many different types of projects undertaken on any of the navigable waterways and coastal zones of Canada.

Useful Laws and Regulations

The Navigable Waters Protection Program is implemented in order to protect the public right to marine navigation, to ensure the safety of mariners and to protect the marine environment by enforcing the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act with respect to major projects
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List of MPs.
http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParl ... Language=E



Ms. Gallant:

Hello, my name is Doug Skeggs. I live in Pembroke and I have been an avid recreational paddler for 35 years.

For several years in the 1980s I worked professionally as a river guide and a river safety evaluator for a commercial whitewater rafting organization called the Canadian Rivers Council.

For the past 22 years I have been involved with a river advocacy group now known as Les Amis de la Rivière Kipawa, which hosts the second oldest recreational whitewater festival in eastern North America -- the Kipawa River Rally.

I am very active on river issues in Canada and network regularly with organizations such as Whitewater Ontario and Fondation Rivières and Federation Quebecois Canot-Kayak in Quebec.

Friday May 23, I was made aware that the Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities Committee of parliament is currently studying the Navigable Waters Protection Act and seeking public input with the expressed purpose of reducing the obligation of developers, private or public, to consider impacts on navigation when proposing developments on rivers.

I understand that the committee solicited public input directly from stakeholders beginning in March of this year. And that the deadline for submissions to this committee is Monday, May 26.

I also understand that NO PADDLING ORGANIZATIONS, COMMERCIAL OR RECREATIONAL were contacted to submit comments.

It is unthinkable, that the Canadian Government would consider reducing navigation rights through changes to the NWPA, without even talking to the people, organizations and businesses that will be impacted by those changes.

Navigation is my right. Navigation is my heritage. My country was discovered, explored and developed through the act of navigation.

The common law right of navigation pre-dates confederation. The NWPA was one of the first significant pieces of national legislation enacted in the country. The NWPA was enacted when Sir John A MacDonald was Prime Minister.

An impact on navigation is an impact on our environment. This is not a time for the Canadian Government to be eliminating or watering down or diminishing the laws that help us protect our environment.

I ask that you act quickly to achieve the following:

- extend the deadline for public submissions to the Transport, Infrastructure, and Communities Committee on this topic, so that the people, organizations and businesses involved in navigation in Canada have an opportunity to contribute to the discussion

- act now to protect our environment and our heritage by modernizing the strengthening the protection of navigation rights provisions in the NWPA

I find it ironic that, as we approach National Rivers Day in Canada, June 8, the Canadian government is considering changes to the NWPA that would put every river in Canada at risk.

We need development, but we don't need FAST TRACK development. We need SMART TRACK development. We need development that considers the all values, past, current and future.

Navigation is a fundamental Canadian right. Please tell me what actions you plan to take to protect our environment, our Canadian heritage, and our common law right of navigation.

respectfully yours
Doug Skeggs