pursuant to the Fisheries Act

The 1992 federal Pulp and Paper Effluent Regulations (PPER) made pursuant to the Fisheries Act require industry to submit almost all of the data required by the regulations to an "authorization officer" (AO) which was identified as Environment Canada’s Environmental Protection Regional Directors. When these regulations were issued, it was mentioned that the federal and provincial governments would negotiate agreements to minimize regulatory administrative duplication. These agreements however do not reduce or remove the respective obligations of the province and Canada to enforce their laws, nor the enforceability of any act or regulation of each jurisdiction.

There are presently two administrative agreements in place covering the control of deposits of deleterious substances under the Fisheries Act : one in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan. To that effect, amendments to the 1992 PPER were published in Canada Gazette Part II on June 26, 1996 to identify provincial officials as authorization officers for these two provinces.

A proposed administrative agreement has now been reached with the Government of Québec regarding the implementation in Québec of the regulations pertaining to the pulp and paper sector. Under this agreement, the Québec Government would be the principal point of contact for the pulp and paper sector, and as such, would receive from that sector data required under both the federal and provincial regulations. The province would then transfer to Environment Canada the data pertaining to the regulations covered in the proposed administrative agreement.

In light of the proposed Canada-Québec agreement, the Government of Canada is proposing to make some amendments to the PPER to identify a representative from the Québec Government as AO for the purpose of receiving certain regulatory data, once an agreement is in place and the federal minister has informed the affected industry that such an agreement is in place. For functions and data not covered by the current proposed agreement, or when an agreement is not in effect, the AO would remain Environment Canada’s Regional Director of Environmental Protection.

Although similar amendments to the PPER were made in 1996 to identify Alberta and Saskatchewan officials as AO, it is also proposed to make further amendments to the PPER to refer to the new titles of the AO in these provinces and to have similar wording for Alberta and Saskatchewan indicating that if an agreement is in place and the affected industry has been notified, the AO is a provincial official.

These proposed amendments also include a change in the regional title of the federal AO for Manitoba.

Interested parties have 30 days to submit their written comments on the amendment proposal, from the date of the publication of the notice pertaining to these amendments in Part I of the Canada Gazette. A copy of the notice is available in :

Acrobat Reader version (pp.68)
ASCI version

Following the 30-day public review period, comments will be taken into consideration when developing the final amendments, and the later will then be published in Part II of the Canada Gazette.