Project Review Under Canada'S 2012 Fisheries Act: Risky Business For Fisheries Protection

Canada's Fisheries Act provides essential protection for fish and their habitat. To manage thousands of projects a year, Fisheries and Oceans Canada implements a risk-based framework requiring authorization and offsetting for the highest risk projects. Projects considered lower risk proceed via letters of advice. Following changes to the Act in 2012, there were concerns about transparency and cumulative effects of low-risk projects. We used access to information requests to obtain documents and reviewed the department's 2012-2019 risk-based framework. Projects reviewed in Manitoba in 2016 were examined and the amount of permanent alteration and destruction approved without authorization was quantified (23,881 and 6,768 m(2), respectively). The risk-based framework focused reviews and regulatory decisions on project-by-project effects, rather than cumulative risks from multiple projects. Harm from lower risk projects was not tracked or offset. New mechanisms are needed to manage such projects to achieve the conservation purpose of the Act.