Administrative Arrangements

Most of this Guide concentrates on what the law says and how planning processes are supposed to work.  In the end, however, theory may not be reflected in practice.  Not only can individual personalities or decision-making styles get in the way (or facilitate) watershed protection, but government policies and conventions about legal and planning processes can be as significant as the processes themselves. 

This section of the Guide outlines a few key administrative arrangements – policies, programmes, internal government agreements, structures.  Basically an administrative arrangement is any system that the government has set up to implement a legal or planning requirement.

The law doesn’t require or prevent them, but they can have a real impact on how watersheds are managed.  This is not a comprehensive list of policies or agreements – that would be well beyond what this Guide can hope to accomplish.  This page deals with only a few arrangements related to watersheds specifically.  If you are dealing with a particular problem not covered below you may want to ask questions about government policy and other arrangements to get a better sense of how things work in practice.   

Federal Arrangements

Two administrative arrangements with a major impact on the management of water resources relate to the mandate of the federal Fisheries and Oceans Canada:

·         Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy

·         National Oceans Strategy

Federal-Provincial Arrangements

The federal and provincial governments have different, but often overlapping, responsibilities.  Rather than work at cross purposes, the two levels of government often develop “memoranda of understanding” or agreements as to how they will work together on watershed related issues.  Some key agreements include:

·         Canada-BC Agreement on Management of Pacific Salmon Fisheries

·         Canada-BC Agreement on Cooperation re: Fisheries and Aquaculture

·         Canada-BC Cooperation Agreement on Environmental Assessment

·         Canada-BC Agreement on Fish Habitat

Provincial Arrangements

The provincial government has its own conventions and arrangements.  At this time the Guide has pages related to two forestry related arrangements:

·         Forest Investment Account

·         Small Business Forest Enterprise Program