Budget Fall 2012, Part 4: 28 Canada’s Largest 43 Lakes Removed from Navigable Waters Protection
Sixth Estate’s budget coverage continues; previous reports are on the MP pension reform scam and the removal of 30 of Canada’s 47 longest rivers from protected status as navigable waters.
As I noted previously, the Navigable Waters Act is being renamed the Navigation Protection Act and the environmental protection which the federal government once extended, basically, to any body of water you could paddle a canoe on is now being restricted to a special shortlist of 62 rivers and 97 lakes (plus the three oceans). In a country that has tens of thousands of rivers and lakes, obviously this is going to involve a great deal of environmental and legislative carnage. Last post, I noted that this removed the majority of Canada’s longest rivers from protection under the navigable waters law.
Today I’d like to do the same thing for lakes. According to Wikipedia, Canada has about 32,000 lakes “larger than three square kilometres” and 561 lakes “larger than 100″ square kilometres. The first list is obviously too long to go into here: it goes without saying that 97 out of 32,000 is not very impressive. (Plus there are some that are not that large yet still are protected: for instance, the Conservatives took special care to protect a small puddle in the middle of Ottawa called Dow’s Lake, which I can’t imagine is that large, though I could be wrong.) There’s not even any point working with the list of 561 lakes, since I can already tell you without looking that more than 85% of them can’t be on the list, mathematically speaking.
What we can do, though, is look at Natural Resources Canada’s list of lakes over 400 square kilometres — that is, the very largest lakes in Canada. From there, we can see that the federal government has failed to include three of B.C.’s five largest lakes (Babine, Atlin, and Ootsa); all of Alberta’s largest lakes; and, as with the rivers, has all but written off the northern territories as free and ungoverned.
For strict comparison purposes, I decided to shorten the list even further, to just those lakes over 1000 square kilometres. Only 15 of Canada’s 43 largest lakes — lakes over 1000 square kilometres — are now protected as navigable waters. Those that didnt’ make the cut include lakes Aberdeen, Bras D’Or, Lesser Slave, Lac la Ronge, Cree Lake, the Gouin Reservoir, Lac Seul, Lac Mistassini, and the Smallwood Reservoir, Lac Manicouagan, and the Robert Bourassa reservoir.
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jrkrideau
Dow’s Lake is larger than some beaver ponds, I’ll have you know! And probably a bit less muddy.
Dow’s Lake is iconic in Ottawa: Without it Canada would lose it’s World’s Longest Skating Rink. Plus Ottawa would not have a place for snow sculptures though with global warming this may not be an issue and the Tulip Festival would lose a lot.
This would be one of those things that would have the mild-mannered citizens of the capital brandishing hocky sticks storming 24 Sussex, much like the crowd storming Bastille.
The Harper Gov’t may be nasty but they are not suicidal.
More seriously, it is an integral part of the Rideau Canal and a key part of the main central Ottawa green space.
I am not sure but I think a west coast equivalent would be forgetting to keep Stanley Park in local zoning regulations
Sixth Estate
jrkrideau — I know. I’ve lived in Ottawa.
First of all, the Rideau Canal is already on the list. I’m not sure what Dow’s Lake wouldn’t be considered part of the canal.
More to the point, though, I can’t imagine Rideau Canal would ever be left out of Ottawa zoning regulations. Whereas I don’t think Stanley Park would make it onto a new federal protection list, if there was one that applied. (There isn’t a precise analogy here, but what I mean is that if Stanley Park was a lake, it’s a safe bet it still wouldn’t be on the list.)
I suspect there are any number of historic and important urban waterways that are no longer considered protected as navigable waters. Dow’s Lake is on the list because it is in Ottawa.
Sixth Estate
All that said, you’re right, of course. Crowds who set out from the Lower Mainland with the torches and pitchforks probably would get lost somewhere on the Prairies long before they made it to 24 Sussex.
jrkrideau
Err, I was thinking of people from the Lower Mainland storming Vancouver City Hall or the legislative buildings in Victoria–discounts for planned riot groups on the ferries? We don’t expect them to trek through the mountains without a latte in sight!
I have not checked the lat and long for some of the names I recognize on the Schedule but Little Rideau Lake and Big Rideau Lake, both. are on the Rideau Canal and Rice Lake is on the Trent-Severn system and all three are listed.
I wonder if the definition of ‘canal’ does not cover some of the land away from the actual channel or locks? This could mean that much of the lakes are not covered by the relevant Parks Canada (or whatever ) legislation.
Given a large number of civil servants with to the Rideau plus a lot of rich people on those lakes this may be intended to forestall some reactions?
Sixth Estate
Regarding definitions, I’ll take a look at that for another post, but the language is fairly convoluted. Deliberately so, one assumes.