Canada’s infrastructure projects could damage Pacific salmon habitats

Impact assessments, fisheries protections and species-at-risk legislation are not administrative inconveniences; they are safeguards designed to manage environmental risk before damage occurs. (Fengkai Liu/Unsplash) Canada’s infrastructure projects could damage Pacific salmon habitats Published: July 29, 2026 12.26pm EDT Share article Print article The Canadian government is proposing sweeping changes to accelerate industrial development and reduce environmental oversight. These proposed legislative, regulatory and policy reforms could significantly diminish the government’s capacity to assess environmental impacts and weaken protections for fish habitats and species at risk. This sits uneasily alongside Canada’s recent conservation commitments. Earlier this year, Canada’s government committed billions of dollars toward biodiversity protection, species recovery, Indigenous stewardship and climate resilience. This includes the government’s $3.8 billion Strategy to Protect Nature, commitments to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030, and renewed investments in salmon recovery through the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative. In 2005, Canada adopted one of the world’s most ambitious conservation frameworks for commercially exploited species: the Wild Salmon Policy. The policy promised a conservation-first approach grounded in monitoring, science-based risk assessment and proactive intervention before salmon populations reached crisis levels. Yet many Pacific salmon populations continue to decline and fisheries are increasingly constrained. There is insufficient data for nearly half of conservation units — distinct groups of spawning populations used to assess status and guide management — to reliably assess extinction risk. Even where sufficient information exists for at-risk populations, governments have repeatedly failed to implement timely protections. As colleagues and I recently argued, biodiversity policies fail because governments lack the safeguards, accountability mechanisms and political commitment needed to implement them consistently. Canada has no shortage of conservation policies or biodiversity commitments. The challenge is implementing them consistently and effectively. Importance of environmental regulations Coho salmon swim at the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Capilano River Hatchery, in North Vancouver. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck Canada’s government argues that environmental regulations and project approval processes…