Evidence of meeting #24 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was imta.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Yes, well I'm certainly of the view that no matter what we humans do, we will change the environment. The key is to keep it within the boundaries of ecosystem sustainability. This technology shows great promise to me.
I relate this to Mr. Cleary's comments about the state of wild fish stocks. In terms of aquaculture itself, finfish aquaculture, if you look into the future do you see finfish aquaculture replacing a lot of the wild fish fisheries that are being prosecuted right now?
5:15 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
No. It depends on whether you're talking locally or worldwide. Worldwide, the capture fisheries increased; now they have plateaued, and some have declined. We have an increasing human population that wants more and more seafood as a source of protein. What do we do? We have something that has reached a plateau, and we have a population that wants that, so where does the difference come from? For me, that's where aquaculture has its role. At the present time roughly 50% of seafood comes from aquaculture production. That will be on the increase. That's the worldwide perspective.
At the local perspective, I think there is still room for fisheries for certain species. For example, lobsters know where the food is. Not surprisingly, the fishermen know where to put the traps, and they are generally pretty close to the salmon sites.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
One of the benefits of aquaculture—in my view, there are two major benefits—is that it does assist with the conservation of wild fish stocks. For example, it was stated in some of the testimony earlier that there probably is no need to ever commercially fish wild Atlantic salmon stocks ever again. To a salmon fisherman like myself, that is terrific news. The second thing is there's no bycatch from aquaculture. That's another big problem with wild fisheries. So there are some significant advantages. This is why what you're doing with IMTA is so important.
Do you see a net-pen aquaculture eventually evolving such that all sites will become IMTA sites?
5:15 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
In New Brunswick, for example, at the present time we have 96 sites. I don't think that all 96 sites will become IMTA sites, especially since some of these 96 also are disappearing as salmon sites because they do not have enough currents and all those things. So not all of them are okay for salmon; not all of them are okay for IMTA.
Also what is important is we have 96 sites, but because of the bay management strategy only two-thirds are in operation at any given time because there are fallowing periods. So the Bay of Fundy is divided into three bay managements: year one, year two, and one year of fallowing. It means that there are rotations, so at any given time you have around 60-some sites working, but not the 96. What we have to do is also put in place these rotations of IMTA sites, and there are a lot of logistical aspects that we will have to solve in the future.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you very much, Mr. Chopin.
I have one question for you. A previous witness we had before the committee, Ms. Milewski from the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, dismissed your findings in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture. I guess my question to you would be, has Ms. Milewski ever consulted with you, or has the Conservation Council consulted with you on your findings?
5:20 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
It's very interesting.
We have always invited Ms. Inka Milewski of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick to come to our workshops. She decided not to come, and instead she preferred to cross swords, I would say, through the media, or maybe through your committee. It's too bad.
I would say it's partially true or nice editing. One time I had to write a rebuttal in the Telegraph-Journal in Saint John because she had cited an example. I told you it didn't work, she said, and as a matter of fact there is a new paper out that says it doesn't work. Unfortunately for Inka Milewski, I was a reviewer of that paper a few months before. So I knew the paper very well, and the sentence said that it doesn't work at higher concentration. That was omitted, or deleted. It was a classical curve where things work, work, work and they reach a plateau, and when there's too much organic it doesn't work. That's fine.
As an example, for sulphides, here is an example where there is a comparison. I don't know which site she's talking about, but I think when she said the island, she has numbers.... I don't know how she got these numbers, but let's say she has numbers. She's comparing production of a year-one site with little fish eating not much, so not many sulphides. Then she compares that to the same site in year two, where the fish are much bigger. If you look at the feed cycle for a site, year one is like that because it's little fish, and year two is like that because it's big fish.
Automatically, you will have higher sulphide numbers. When we are just in the process of equipping a site with a few mussel rafts, or a few seaweed rafts, you cannot say that it's a fully operating IMTA site. That's where I said previously that we are comparing apples and oranges, meaning it's not appropriate and it is a misleading conclusion.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you very much, Dr. Chopin. We really appreciate your time.
Ms. Duncan, you're back. Did you want to ask some questions at this point?
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
I appreciate your testimony.
It's my understanding that one of the primary purposes of IMTA is to mitigate the environmental impacts of traditional open net aquaculture by reducing nutrient deposition and carbon dioxide emissions. You addressed that.
It's also my understanding that this committee has heard from Ms. Milewski that the expected environmental benefits of IMTA have not always been borne out, and that at some IMTA sites sulphide levels in the sediment have actually increased after a traditional aquaculture site became an IMTA site.
Can you account for that?
5:20 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
I just did, but I can repeat.
5:25 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
Basically, in a few words, you cannot compare a site that is in year one production, with little fish eating very little, so sulphide numbers are low, to second-year production where you have much bigger fish eating much more, and your sulphide number will be much higher, irrespective if you have IMTA or not.
I don't know exactly how she got the numbers, but whatever site it is, that's exactly what we have: we are comparing oranges of year one with apples or bananas of year two. And that's irrespective of having a few mussel rafts or seaweed rafts, so it's not a valid comparison. That doesn't work.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Dr. Chopin, in your work you've done the valid comparison. You just said you're not sure where she got her data. So how can you say we're comparing apples and oranges?
5:25 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
Because I know at the time when we moved to the island, it was a question of rotation in the bay management system—so year one, year two, fallowing, then year one, year two. I know that when we moved to the island, the sites were in year two fish, the big fish, and we moved to a few sites by putting a few rafts, so we don't expect that suddenly overnight the sulphides will disappear. It takes time.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
How long does it take, and can you table the data with this committee, if your're able to share that? And what would the curve look like for the sulphide levels to go down?
5:25 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
That's why there is this year of fallowing, the fallowing periods. That's why the Bay of Fundy is rotating. We have bay management one, where you have fish in year one--that's also for disease control--and then bay management number two, and then the fallowing period when the site can recover.
So there is that, plus what is always happening with the feed. You can see this very clearly: year one is like this and year two is like that. So what we hope to do with IMTA is like this and like that. Now, I don't think that's something we have to discuss. I don't think IMTA will be one hundred percent remediation. And then the question should also be do we need one hundred percent remediation? After all, we need nutrients in the sea water—if we try to grow things in distilled water, nothing will grow in distilled water. So we need some culture soup, if you want, but the thing is to be okay with assimilative capacity. That's where assimilative capacity or carrying capacity, that's where we have to be sure that it works. So when we are within that, we could do a reduction. But I don't think we need one hundred percent reduction.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
5:25 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
The data of what?
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
How it is in the first year, what it is in the second year, and then what it's like in fallowing?
5:25 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
There is the feeding curve. I am showing you a typical curve from the industry. I don't have them.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Could you table that? Can someone table that?
I'll move on.
Are there any barriers in the provincial land tenuring system for aquaculture operations that may hinder the development of IMTA or open ocean aquaculture systems?
5:25 p.m.
Scientific Director, Canadian Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Network, University of New Brunswick
I also mentioned before that IMTA as such was not able to legally operate until we modified the Canadian shellfish sanitation program. There was a little paragraph, twelve lines, that was saying you cannot cultivate two species closer than 125 metres. It took us four years, and we have also eight or nine years of data that say that these 125 metres don't mean anything, if you have the right monitoring and everything. So the Canadian shellfish sanitation program was modified.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Yes, you said that, but are they any further barriers that you would like to discuss with the committee?