gnu,My observation is many are confused about what the Navigational Water Protection Act does, and never did.

Canada's Navigational Waters Protection act was never designed to protect the environment and had (has) zero provisions to do so to this very day - it was put in place "only" to protect navigation.

The only reason it had some impact on federal Environmental Assessments is because it often triggered a higher level assessment (with public input) for projects, when other focused environmental legislation (some also with archaic purpose) failed to trigger such a one. But, that does not mean the specific legislation that was designed to protect the environment was any stronger by this act.

Rather than "working against the existing grain" to repeal a piece of legislation that had no (or a marginal) impact on protecting the enviroment - would it not make more sense to strengthen the legislation that is directly designed to protect the environment? Or, an alternative approach may be to put new legislation that does a more focused (better) job?

I am puzzled as to why folks would take a non-direct and zig-zagged road to an end, versus a direct route that may have a more effective result.
This one beats me?

Some of the federal legislation directly designed to protect the enviroment include (but, this does not include them all) Fisheries Act (sections 33, 32 and 35), Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Environmental Protection Act, Health Act, Species at risk Act.