P.E.I. government to raise fines for shoreline violations to $50K

The provincial government is planning to increase the fines for damaging the sensitive buffer zone around P.E.I.'s shorelines and waterways to $50,000, up from $3,000.

The province has had rules for these ecologically sensitive areas since the late 1990s, including needing a permit to cut down trees or disturb the ground and soil in areas close to the water.

But Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Action Steven Myers said those rules and the current fines aren't working. 

"We are finding that the low fine level is creating a lot of issues right across the board," Myers told Island Morning host Mitch Cormier.

"Not just in these great big major developments, but for anybody who's able to buy shorefront property at the price of that can afford ... the fine to clear the trees off," he said.

"We know this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue every day."

Myers said his department is working with the Department of Justice to change the legislation to increase those fines. 

The Department of Justice makes the final decision about when to charge the fines, after Myers' department refers a file to them.   

"In some cases, the $50,000 might not stop some of the people that are doing it, but we're hoping it's going to deter the lion's share of them," he said. 

Laws were 'basically laughed at'

Myers talked about one example where an oyster grower lost hundreds of thousands of oysters from runoff after a neighbour removed trees in the zone.

"Our laws were blatantly ignored and basically laughed at," said Myers. 

"That's why we moved to change the fines, but that's why we've been dealing with this individual with a heavy hand."

Myers said in that particular case, the province sought legal advice. 

While waiting for the fines to increase, his department is also using other measures to try to get people to follow the rules.  

"We've basically warned all of the contractors that if they're doing work in the buffer zone … and they crossed the line that we've set for them and they know what that is, that we would pull their permit," said Myers.

"A lot of these companies make a lot of money working in the buffer zone doing this type of work and I think everybody's pretty timid to make any crazy steps."

Myers said increasing the fines is a "first step" to fixing these issues. 

"But I think there's other things that we need to do and other policies that we need to look at, probably on a broader scale to say, are the laws right or what's going to happen next," he said. 

Climate adaptation plan out soon

Myers said his department's climate adaptation plan is currently in a draft phase and he hopes it will be released in the next couple of weeks. 

"It's going to talk about a lot of things, not just shoreline adaptations, but you know housing adaptations, how we build different types of infrastructure, how we deal with things like hurricanes," he said.

"It's going to be quite a vast document, but I think it's going to give everybody a good indication of what we might be in for with climate change."