Amended Bill C-68 passes third reading in Senate

By Marco Vigliotti
iPOLITICS

​The Senate has passed legislation instituting new safeguards for fish and their habitat that includes government sponsored amendments banning shark fin imports.

Bill C-68 passed third reading in the Upper Chamber Thursday afternoon and will now be returned to the House, which must sign off on the amendments before it becomes law.

The bill aims to restore protections removed from the Fisheries Act by the previous Conservative government in 2012 while incorporating new safeguards. It also directs the minister of fisheries and oceans to manage fish stocks sustainably and put rebuilding plans in place for depleted stocks.

Prior to 2012, the Fisheries Act protected all fish and fish habitat in Canada, though this was changed by the Harper government in a bid to make life easier for farmers who would have to navigate regulatory red tape to win approval to alter small water bodies or clear out drainage ditches.

BACKGROUNDER: Fisheries Act overhaul clears House of Commons

Sen. Peter Harder, the government’s representative in the Senate, moved 28 amendments to Bill C-68 last month during clause-by-clause consideration by the Senate fisheries and oceans committee.

Among other changes, the amendments incorporated provisions in Bill S-238 banning the practice of shark finning and the import and export of shark fins, with the government worried that bill will not pass into law before Parliament rises for the next election. They also touched upon Bill S-203 which would ban the taking of whales, dolphins and porpoises into captivity. Specifically, the changes would make it mandatory to have a permit for the importation and exportation of the class of marine mammals, known as cetaceans.

Harder’s amendments to Bill C-68 also include a provision that would exclude human-made agricultural waterways from being designated as a “fish habitat.”

The senator called the definition as it stands in the bill “overly broad.” He said such waterways currently follow environmental codes of practice.

READ MORE: Shark finning, cetacean captivity amendments could be folded into C-68

SOURCE: https://ipolitics.ca/2019/06/06/amended-bill-c-68-passes-third-reading-in-senate/