Dear Editor,

Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission MP Randy Kamp, parliamentary secretary to Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield, has been responding to people who criticize changes to the Fisheries Act in Bill C-38, in particular fish habitat protection - or the lack of - under the new bill.

He said the critics are making unsubstantiated claims and implying that they have not read the bill.

He also states that the Fisheries Act still bans dumping of deleterious substances into water.

Both MP Kamp and his boss Keith Ashfield, out here recently to defend the changes, state that changes were needed so that farmers and municipalities could clean their ditches.

Of course, the changes removing fish habitat protection have nothing to do with the Enbridge Northern Gateway project which will cross hundreds of fish bearing creeks and streams in B.C., even though it has recently been revealed that Enbridge has been lobbying the Fisheries Department for more than two years to relax fish habitat regulation, to make it easier to build pipelines.

Four former fisheries ministers have blasted the changes to the Fisheries Act as a serious weakening of fish habitat protection.

Doug Stanger, Maple Ridge