The following is excerpted from www.ispeakforcanadianrivers.ca:Transport Canada is in the process of rewriting the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) to eliminate a developer’s obligation to consider impacts on navigation when building dams, bridges, causeways or other invasive structures on thousands of waterways across Canada.
Transport Canada Minister Lawrence Cannon and his allies in government and industry hope to achieve this by exempting "minor waters" and "minor works" from the NWPA, and by re-defining "navigation" under the act in a way that will strip all legal protection from recreational navigation.
The new law will ignore all whitewater rivers, all seasonal waterways and all vessels with less than a one-metre draft. This is a direct assault on Canada’s tradition of river travel and the future health of our waterways by the same people who are supposed to protect both. It is a fundamental breach of public trust.
For more information, please visit the I Speak For Canadian Rivers website. While there, register and sign the online petition if you agree. Get one of their signs too and display it to show your support. Also, send a letter to your MP to express your concerns and cc the letter to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, the federal and provincial Environment Ministers, and anyone else you can think of.
Spread the word. Contact your local environmental organisations and get them on board. E-mail or write your friends and any contacts you have that you think might get behind this movement.
Paul Mason thinks it's important. Check out his latest cartoon which suggests his thoughts on the matter.
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