By: Nigel Bankes
PDF Version: The Senate, the Oceans Act and Marine Protected Areas
Matter commented on: Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, as passed by the House of Commons, April 20. 2018.
There is a lot of attention focused on the Senate these days, principally in relation to Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, (and the subject of numerous ABlawg posts); but, there are other Bills standing in a long and slowly moving line in that Chamber as well. These Bills include Romeo Saguenash’s private member’s Bill C-262 (also endorsed by the Liberals) to give application to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canadian law (and the subject of an ABlawg post here), but also proposed amendments to the Oceans Act, SC 1996, c 31 to create an expedited process for establishing marine protected areas (MPAs). This blog post focuses on the latter.