Scaling up the Fisheries Act: Restoring lost protections and incorporating modern safeguards

The Fisheries Act is the key federal law for fish habitat protection, one of the key laws for marine biodiversity, and an essential part of Canada’s environmental safety net. But many essential protections have been eliminated from the legislation, and must be restored to improve fish and fish habitat protection throughout Canada. This brief makes preliminary recommendations for achieving the two categories of reform of the federal Fisheries Act that the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard was tasked with in his 2015 Mandate letter: restoring lost protections and incorporating modern safeguards.