Opinion

Community groups urge stronger federal freshwater protections

As summer approaches, Canadians throughout the country are getting ready to jump into lakes, paddle rivers, and head out on fishing trips. We are a country of water: we hold roughly one-fifth of the world’s freshwater, home to globally significant populations of cold-water fish from salmon and Arctic char to lake trout and sturgeon. From coast to coast to coast, we know that protecting fish, watersheds ,and our oceans is a priority for Canadians.

But the federal government is putting forward a number of proposals that put our clean water and healthy watersheds at risk. In an effort to pave the way for large-scale resource projects, it passed legislation last year—the Building Canada Act—to unilaterally grant exemptions to environmental regulations for projects cabinet deems in the national interest.

The government has doubled down on its fast-tracking agenda with a discussion paper outlining how it intends to make environmental assessment and project approval processes less rigorous. The government intends to authorize key federal ministers to adjust impact assessment conditions “when needed” while lowering the standards for mitigations and offsets for fish and fish habitat, and reducing protections of at-risk species.

Nikki Skuce is the director of Northern Confluence Initiative, a project of MakeWay based out of Smithers, B.C. Handout photograph

At the same time, the federal toolbox for protecting freshwater is being emptied out or left idle. The Canada Water Agency, set up in 2024 to co-ordinate federal freshwater work, has been given neither the regulatory mandate, nor the funding to be effective. Meanwhile, Fisheries and Oceans is being directed to cut up to 15 per cent of its spending—including the research, monitoring, and habitat work that protects fish populations directly. Conservation tools that do exist, such as the Ecologically Significant Area provision in the Fisheries Act, have never received the political mandate or funding to be effective.

Earlier this year the federal government announced A Force of Nature strategy, which includes welcome new funding for Pacific and Atlantic salmon recovery and a pathway to achieve 30 per cent protection of both lands and waters by 2030. However, pushing forward projects that allow harms to fish and fish habitat without adequate assessment, avoidance of harm, and understanding of impacts puts these public investments at risk, along with the health of wild salmon populations that are vitally important to the economies and communities within those watersheds.

At the foundation of our nation’s health and security is our diverse freshwater ecosystems that are caught between competing priorities and federal-provincial jurisdictional drift. As national strategies are rolled out, this country needs a freshwater protection framework equal to the scale of its incredible freshwater systems.

Natalija Vojno is the network engagement lead at Our Living Waters, a project of MakeWay based out of Toronto, Ont. Handout photograph

Stronger federal freshwater protections would secure the drinking water, fisheries, tourism, and agriculture built around healthy lakes and rivers, and the ecosystems that sustain them. They would strengthen food security by sustaining the subsistence harvest economies that northern and Indigenous communities particularly depend on. They would strengthen climate resilience in a country where freshwater systems are already being reshaped by warming waters, changing ice, altered flows, drought, flooding, and shifting fish habitat. And they would strengthen sovereignty by asserting Canadian authority over the transboundary waters and living resources that flow through this country.

And while government cuts are happening, there are boots on the ground. At a recent Shared Waters gathering in Ottawa with land guardians, river protectors, conservation organizations, and federal representatives, it was clear that the motivation and capacity that exists at local and regional levels for protecting freshwater and nearshore ecosystems cannot be understated.

Across Canada, communities are fighting for rivers, wetlands, estuaries, and lakes that rarely make national headlines. In British Columbia, Indigenous nations and local organizations are working to protect critical salmon habitat in the Fraser and Skeena watersheds. In Nova Scotia, community-led partnerships are responding to mounting pressures on Atlantic salmon rivers. Along the shores of Lake Winnipeg, efforts are underway to restore wild rice and revive one of North America's largest freshwater wetlands.

A recent gathering in Ottawa with some riverkeepers, Indigenous guardians and community groups who are working on freshwater conservation. Local communities are doing much of the work of freshwater conservation while the federal government leaves idle existing tools and investments, write Nikki Skuce and Natalija Vojno. Handout photograph

These campaigns differ in geography, culture, and scale, yet share a common challenge: local communities are doing much of the work of freshwater conservation while the federal government leaves idle existing tools and investments in Indigenous and local implementation.

We need to build strong, resilient economies that also invest and defend one of our biggest natural assets—freshwater. As we head into summer, instead of reducing watershed protections, the federal government could make a real splash by considering freshwater as critical infrastructure and investing further in protecting our natural capital.

Nikki Skuce is the director of Northern Confluence Initiative, a project of MakeWay based out of Smithers, B.C.

Natalija Vojno is the network engagement lead at Our Living Waters, a project of MakeWay based in Toronto, Ont.

The Hill Times