Fisheries Committee on Feb. 6th, 2012

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Donnelly, are you going to lead off or is Ms. Doré Lefebvre?

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Go ahead.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Ms. Doré Lefebvre.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for joining us today.

If the industry was asked to switch from the current aquaculture system, where a net is used, to a closed-containment aquaculture system, how much time do you think the transition would take?

[Guy Beaupré]

It is very difficult to answer that. Actually, we still don't know what measures need to be taken to make the production viable. Among the factors we must consider are current costs and market prices. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans conducted the analysis I was talking about earlier when the price of salmon was very high. Even at that time, the projects that were analyzed were not financially viable. The prices are currently much lower. There is a 40% difference in price, and that makes the transition even less viable.

The time required to go from a deep-water system to a closed-containment system greatly depends on financial viability. It's an investment. The important thing is knowing at what price the transition would become viable. However, several technical issues must be resolved before we can complete that analysis.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

If the prices were to increase and reach a level where switching to a closed-containment aquaculture system would be viable, would a five- or ten-year transition period be possible?

[Guy Beaupré]

That may be possible in the long term. I will ask Jay to talk about the various scientific issues, such as the presence of CO2 in closed facilities. Those are technical issues, and I have no idea how long it would take to resolve them.

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

As Guy has pointed out, there are not only questions around the economic viability, there are also still a number of technical issues that need to be explored for the full life-cycle production. For example, as Alistair Struthers mentioned earlier, the assumption is that we grow fish at a much higher density. Certainly small-scale projects have indicated that fish grow as fast at around 50 kilograms per cubic metre as they do at lower densities. But we really don't know if we're able to do this day in and day out over several production cycles, and whether the fish will stay healthy over that period of time. So there are also a number of fish health and fish health welfare issues that do need to be explored, for example, through pilot-scale studies that look at whether the fish can indeed perform consistently over one production cycle to another, in order to give that certainty to growers that there is lower risk in growing fish in closed-containment systems.

As well, from a technology perspective, certainly the technology is developing. It's been used for hatchery production for a number of fish, and it does offer the potential for a relatively stable environment. But again, to assure growers and farmers that you can do this consistently year after year, and that the technology can hold up production cycle after production cycle such that you don't get catastrophic failures....

Because the risk of a catastrophic failure in a closed-containment type of system is much higher than in an open ocean type of system, where you have a much more controlled environment in terms of temperature, in terms of your oxygen, and a number of other variables in terms of dealing with the wastes and things like that.

There are still a lot of technical and biological assumptions that need to be investigated on a commercial scale over several production cycles to demonstrate not only the economic viability but also the technical viability to ensure there's a lower level of risk there.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Hayes.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You talked about the global comparisons. I noticed there was mention that both Chile and Scotland have viewed them as not economically viable by government or industry.

Are those quantifiable reports available? Did you view them yourself, or did you make that statement because that's what these countries said? Have you actually seen the data, and is that data available to be shared with this committee?

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

I'm not sure if we've actually seen the direct data ourselves so much as the reports we've received from colleagues in other countries. But we could certainly look into what other type of information might be available to us or not.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

You yourselves have made the statement that it's not economically viable, so I'd really like to see the comparative analysis between what our officials are saying versus what these other country officials are saying, just to see how wide in scope it actually is.

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

We can certainly look into that and see what information is available.

Having said that, certainly, as the committee is aware, salmon is a commodity. It's a product that's marketed internationally. The prices are international prices. Certainly the price drivers would be comparable for any country wanting to investigate a closed containment type of system. Other production-type costs would probably be comparable in other countries in terms of feed costs and oxygen and other costs related to the purchase of land and equipment.

So it's not unreasonable to think that there wouldn't be large differences. Certainly there might be some differences, but I would suspect that overall most of the cost drivers would be similar in a number of other countries.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to go back to your chart, “Country Regulatory and Management Measure Highlights”, specific to escapes. I notice that Canada spoke to the escape response plan, but Norway intrigued me because it spoke to the “technical specifications for cage and mooring designs”.

I'm wondering if there has been any comparative analysis on the escapes in one country versus another. For example, does a technical design result in fewer escapes? It just seems an obvious question.

[Guy Beaupré]

I'll start, and then Jamie can pursue it.

Generally, I think, on an issue like escape and sea lice, which are the two main issues we face in aquaculture, in all of these countries--except maybe the United States, because the scale of their production is smaller--we're in continuous discussions or exchanges of information on what we do to prevent escapes, what we do when escapes happen, and where we are on sea lice, for example.

So even though the terminology might be a little bit different, I think fundamentally we're going in the same direction on those particular issues. If a country has found a technical specification for a cage that would help prevent escapes, we would know about it and we would try to implement it as well. It's not in any of our interests not to deal with escapes or sea lice at any point in time. And it's certainly not in the interests of the industry, because it's their investment.

[James Smith]

Just to add to that a bit, each of the countries, and the provinces in Canada, that have net-pen salmon aquaculture have codes of containment. The technical specifications, such as the breaking strength of different mesh sizes of net, are actually very similar between each of those codes of containment.

All of those codes of containment cover the technical specifications. They have monitoring components to them. They have inspection components to them. They have recapture specifications or components to them. All of those are tied together to be consistent with the guidelines for containment that are part of the Williamsburg resolution that Guy spoke to earlier.

More specifically on the technical specifications, there's an effort going on right now under the ISO umbrella, a group called ISO/TC 234, which is developing ISO standards for fisheries and aquaculture. We are active participants in that. A component of that group actually is looking at technical specifications for net-pen facilities specifically related to containment.

So that effort is being done under the ISO umbrella to bring that very clear consistency between all of the countries. Canada's involved with that, as are Norway, Scotland, and other countries as well. That work is proceeding along through the ISO process, which is cumbersome but is actually making some good progress.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Oh, sorry, Mr. Beaupré, go ahead.

[Guy Beaupré]

I just wanted to say that with sea lice it's slightly different, because they react differently to water temperature. In Norway, where the temperature of the water is colder, they currently have less sea lice than we do. On the west coast, we haven't seen the same number of sea lice outbreaks as on the east coast—in New Brunswick, for example, in recent years. In New Brunswick it was mainly related to the increasing water temperature.

So the conditions in the various areas would have an impact, of course.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Part of the government's strategic review includes focusing aquaculture science activities on issues for DFO's regulatory duties in relation to fish health and environmental interaction. This includes a reduction of $3 million from the budget. Could you comment on how this might affect regulation of open-net aquaculture? Will there be an effect on the science being produced and on recommendations being available for government?

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

The program that was affected in the recent budget changes, as I mentioned earlier, is the aquaculture collaborative research and development program, or ACRDP, a program within the science sector. It's one of two main programs we have. This program was first initiated in 2000 as part of the program for sustainable aquaculture. It's an industry-collaborative program in which proposals are made by industry and the work is undertaken collaboratively within the department.

Previously we had three main objectives under that program: best fish performance, optimal fish health, and improved environmental performance. It was just the best performance objective of the program that was eliminated. The collaborative work that we do under this program with industry on fish health and environmental performance issues remains, so I'm not expecting that there would be any decrease in the level of activity on those related aspects through that particular program.

In addition, in the funding the department received in 2008 under the new aquaculture program, there was a five-year funded program. One of the pillars under that program allowed us to establish what we call the “program for aquaculture regulatory research”. It's through this program that we undertake most of the science to support the regulatory policy decision-making needs of aquaculture management in the program. That program's funding continues for another year.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So the best performance part of it would not be missed? Is that what you're telling us—

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

I'm saying that the best performance—