A few days ago I was listening to CBC Radio One and happened to hear a story about a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling (there is this one too). It seems that the Court found that fish farms, or aquaculture facilities, should be fall under federal jurisdiction, though for more than 20 years this area had been administered by the provinces. The federal government has been given a year to take over.
As far as I can tell this hasn't received all that much attention, though I don't now why. Firstly, this seems to be one of the biggest division of powers cases in the past few years (at least as far as I can remember). Secondly, neither the provinces nor the federal government were looking for this change, it came about because of third party litigation. Thirdly, this likely means a big shake-up in the various federal and provincial ministries. All of a sudden a number of provinces have capacity in a an area that is no longer in their jurisdiction, and the federal government has to scramble to put in place this capacity.
On top of all of this, there is the issue that started the controversy in the first place, which is the charge that aquaculture poses environmental threats to native fish populations, among other problems. Though not a juicy story in the traditional sense, it might be worth seeing how such a change impacts the aquaculture industry (as there will presumably be newly implemented national standards) and the relationship of provincial governments with the aquaculture sector.
Blog-off
Cameron: 14
Neil: 0
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Cameron,
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