Evidence of meeting #46 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 prevention.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much.
We appreciate having our guests come back to talk to us further. Clearly, this is important work.
This study was based on data up to the end of 2010, right?
9:35 a.m.
Acting Regional Director General, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I understand from your previous presentation when you were here a few months ago, and from a few other witnesses, that there has been a fair bit of preventive work—or a beginning—over the past year or so. I'm wondering how that work informs the assessment you've done.
9:35 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The work that was done in the last year would not be informing the risk assessment. You do have to draw a time boundary.
9:35 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
However, if we were to keep re-evaluating risk over time, recent research would help inform it and may change some of the answers that we did provide in the risk assessment.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Yes, I understand how that works. I guess that at some point you will have an opportunity to update some of the results. I assume that those actions are being evaluated, that the preventive work being done is being evaluated to see what impact it has on the conclusions you've reached from your assessment.
9:35 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes.
9:35 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The other thing about risk assessments is that they're living documents in a way, and we are able to look at new work that's being done. As I said before, we did look at trade. We didn't have a lot of information, so we have a lot less certainty associated with our rankings of trade. In continuing to better understand trade and movement, and in looking at enforcement activities, we could then have greater certainty, and we could say more positively what our assessment of that is.
It just depends on whether or not managers wish us to re-evaluate the risk assessment. This was our second one. We did one in 2005. It is something that is a living document and can be looked at over time.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Has this assessment informed the preventive strategies that have been employed over the past 16 months since the study was done?
9:35 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes. In both Canada and the U.S., this risk assessment has provided advice for management activities, such as where to look for species, and what kind of outreach areas we should be moving toward. It's been the foundation for the program here in Canada, but it has also informed American activities.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Are the activities that are intended to be pursued as a result of the $17.5 million in funding the government announced in the spring tied together with the results of this assessment?
9:40 a.m.
Senior Science Advisor, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, absolutely.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
One of the issues that came up in some of the earlier testimony was the idea of physical barriers. Where does that stand now? There was some evidence that more work was being done by the United States on that issue. Could you inform us on that?
October 16th, 2012 / 9:40 a.m.
Nick Mandrak Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is doing a risk assessment of all the physical connections between the Mississippi River and Great Lakes basin. It's a risk assessment that is a little different from what we undertook, because it is specifically looking at the risk of organisms moving through those connections between the basins. It's not looking necessarily at the impact, but simply at whether or not the organisms can move.
Based on their assessment, they will then prioritize actions to minimize that risk. In that assessment, the Chicago Area Waterway System came out as the highest risk. There was another waterway, Eagle Marsh, between the Maumee and Wabash rivers and the Lake Erie basin, where there is this huge wetland at the headwaters that connects the two. They have actually put up a fence to physically separate fish in the two basins to not allow the movement of adult carp.
I think they identified over 30 connections in all. After that one, the risks declined quite dramatically. There are not a lot of other risky connections, physical connections anyway.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been doing this intensive study of those connections.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
When do you expect we'll be getting some conclusions from that study?
9:40 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The study is being released in phases. I think they've been mandated by the U.S. government to move the deadline forward, so we'd expect that relatively soon.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Robert Chisholm NDP Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I want to ask you about the recently signed amendments to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, which includes an annex on invasive species. In terms of this risk assessment, how can the process that's been undertaken for the carp inform how the obligations in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement will best be met?
9:40 a.m.
Acting Regional Director General, Central and Arctic Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We were fortunate as our team was working to support Environment Canada on negotiations for Canada related to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. We're well under way in the process of the binational risk assessment, so we had the key parameters around that. Both sides were of the opinion that having an annex related to invasive species would have been critical to addressing mutual concerns and interests in the Great Lakes.
A lot of the work that Becky and Nick and the team did went into informing and was part of our negotiating position and has seen itself outlined in the new ratified agreement.
9:40 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
There is a call in the annex for binational coordination of risk assessment. What we did with Asian carp fits squarely in that call.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
In testimony before our committee this spring, Professor Hugh MacIsaac put forward an alternate viewpoint that perhaps the risk of Asian carp is not as serious as many people say.
I tend to be on the side of those who say the issue is very serious. I would assume you would know Professor MacIssac and his work. Can you comment on his view? Is there some validity to what he is saying?
9:40 a.m.
Research Scientist, Central and Arctic Region, Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatics Sciences, Burlington, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I really can't comment on his view in the sense that he is entitled to his own view. He is familiar with our documents. He reviewed our documents. Our documents were reviewed by essentially 25 Hugh MacIssacs. I think what he was providing was simply his personal opinion.
What we have provided is an exhaustive peer review of the best available information, and I would argue that it trumps one man's opinion.
