Fisheries Committee on March 31st, 2014

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

But of course given the iconic nature of Pacific salmon and its importance culturally and economically, I think a focus on Pacific salmon is warranted. And given they are a group of five species that go way up into the inland areas to spawn, they need freshwater nursery habitats, they need good gravel to spawn in, then they go back to the ocean and they need a food web that sustains them in different stages of life, I think it's fairly safe to conclude if the 2010 run and the expected 2014 run are any indication, we can say the entire system, including the fisheries management regime that manages those stocks, is all in pretty good shape. Isn't it?

[David Gillis]

As I say, it certainly looks like the whole system has been successful at producing what we hope will be a very good return of salmon in 2014. I'm not sure what further I can add.

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

Mr. Stringer, you talked about pipelines. I'm going to switch to something else.

Under our new Fisheries Act you are able now to apply standards to various projects, and you were unable to do that under the old Fisheries Act. Is that correct?

[Kevin Stringer]

Under the previous act we did try to apply standards, but we did it by policy. We now have the ability to establish in regulation an actual standard so with respect to a pipeline crossing, here is the standard you must meet. With respect to barriers or dams, here is the standard you must meet. With respect to water flow, here is the standard we require anybody to meet. We can do that now by regulation.

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

It seems to me then that compared to the old Fisheries Act, where you had standards by policy that really couldn't be enforced in any courts of law, the new Fisheries Act, where you have standards that can be enforced in a court of law, is a marked improvement. Isn't it?

[Kevin Stringer]

There's an attempt to have regulatory clarity. There's an attempt so everybody out there who is affected by the Fisheries Act, either proponents, or conservation groups, or angling groups, or people who care about the fishery, have a good understanding of what the rules are. And we'll be able to roll those standards out and develop them with conservation groups, with angling groups, with industry, over the next few years, but it is indeed providing that regulatory clarity people were asking for.

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

If memory serves me right, in earlier testimony from an earlier meeting with officials it was stated that you had under the old Fisheries Act something like 12,000 files open in a given year, and we only actioned basically 1,000 files.

Under the new Fisheries Act, of course, you are dealing with specific fisheries that people actually care about. It seems to me a large measure of those savings came from the changes to the number of files you actually had to work on. Is that correct?

[Kevin Stringer]

Indeed. It comes from a number of things, but certainly in terms of those 12,500 projects that happen in the country that may impact fisheries, we know from the years of experience where the likely impacts are going to be. We know we don't need to look at 12,500 projects. We have it down to about 1,000. We issue around 300 or 400 authorizations. So that is an attempt...and the standards will help us ensure we're not missing anything by having those types of numbers.

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

And all that money saved went into our new recreational fisheries program. Makes sense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Sopuck.

Mrs. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the officials for being with us for the second hour.

I want to ask a couple of questions about the coast guard, if I might. I see that we've got a decrease of $30.2 million related to the coast guard vessel life extensions and mid-life modernizations, so I'd like to have some explanation about that. We know that this government has certainly invested a lot in the coast guard compared to what's been done previously, so why are we investing before and now, why are we cutting back? Is this a normal fluctuation within the program?

I guess the other thing along that line is with regard to the mid-life modernization and vessel life extensions, and the winter that we've just experienced with the record ice cover on the Great Lakes, and I'm speaking only about the Great Lakes because that's my area. Could you address that as well? Are there impacts resulting from the very harsh winter that we've had and we know that we've had a lot of icebreaking requirements so far and probably a lot more to come?

[Marc Grégoire]

It would be my pleasure to do that. I will start with the second question, if I may.

First of all, as you have mentioned, the last winter has been extremely harsh. If I compare it to the last few winters, there was virtually no ice in the lakes, so to speak. But this year, we've had record ice that dates back to the early 1990s. I think the last time we saw so much ice in the lakes was in 1994. The coast guard is taking extraordinary actions to allow for the safe movement of ships in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway system.

The opening of the seaway was today, this morning actually. But we have sent larger ships than normal to allow for the breaking of the ice in the upper lakes. For instance, we have a ship that's en route to Sarnia, the Radisson. It's a ship that normally would never go west of Montreal. It's going to Sarnia and then it's going to continue to Lake Superior, which it should reach in a couple of days.

We have a second medium icebreaker, the Des Groseilliers that was in the locks earlier today in the Welland Canal. It was going to work on Lake Erie. We had up until a few days ago four feet of ice. So, yes, it's a lot of work, and we have had to use all of our icebreakers throughout the winter, since Christmas actually, extensively in the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the gulf, and all around Newfoundland far more than we did 20 to 30 years ago.

How is the VLE going to help? It's not helping with the icebreaking in the short term, but it will certainly help in the long term.

What is perceived as a decrease—actually it is a decrease—I would characterize it as cash management. For the vessel life extension, we have received from this government $360 million to spend over 10 years. When we asked for that money, we established a cashflow before we actually did an in-depth analysis of where we would need the money and also without considering the operational impact.

We spent the last year doing a planning project where we consulted our user. We consulted the operators of our fleet. We also consulted the various yards in the country to see their capacity of actually doing big work on ships. After that work, we reprofiled that money.

I have a table which shows the cashflow of the money over the 10 years, so we will finish the vessel life extensions for which we were given $360 million in the 10 years as planned, but rather than spending $30 million, we spent more time and energy planning for this, and the money is being moved to the following years.

Next year, for instance, we are starting major work on three vessels. Last year, we completed major work on the Amundsen. We changed the engines and generators. All of our icebreakers will go through significant work as will many other vessels over the next 10 years.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Ms. Davidson.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Grégoire, this $360-million cashflow you're talking about—is that new money?

[Marc Grégoire]

That was money announced in budget 2012. That's part of the $5.2 billion for fleet renewal that was announced.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I'm just trying to get a handle on it. You have taken nearly $37 million out of acquisition and $30.2 million per year out of the extension program. Is that correct?

[Marc Grégoire]

No.

That $360 million is not A-based money, it's B-based money. It's given for a very specific project. That $360 million is given to the coast guard for 10 years. But the cashflow that we foresaw before the actual start of the budget is different from what we really need. So we just rebalanced our needs for cashflow over the next 10 years, but we are going to use it all.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Did you rebalance it with more or less money?

[Marc Grégoire]

It was the same amount of money.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's the same amount of money you had a year ago?

[Marc Grégoire]

No, but it's $360 million. Every year we have different amounts. It was not $36 million per year; it depended on the work we had to do on ships. For some ships we have to replace the engines, we modernize the bridge, we change the galley, we modernize rooms—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So basically, if I understand, not to interrupt you, it's working capital. What was needed would be there.

[Marc Grégoire]

What is needed is there; it has been provided.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

As you're aware, the Atlantic lobster sustainability measures have been ended. A number of fisherman are quite concerned those have ended at a time when the lobster fishery is going through quite a difficult time.

I also understand that they have agreed to put one cent per pound from the fisherman into marketing. How will this be done? What role will the federal government have to play? The federal government has been involved in marketing previously. There is a precedent for this.

I'd just like to add that having attended some fisheries markets around the world, I have seen that fish is not marketed very well at all. I attended a show in Shanghai. The only place I could find a lobster was about two feet down in a freezer in which other products were displayed very well. These were people who were buying products for the retailers. Those other products, meats and other things, were done really well. Is the federal government involved in helping with the marketing of fish, or is it still the same old thing, that it's under provincial jurisdiction? Because the federal government has been involved previously.

Another thing I'd like an answer for is that 15% limit at reference points. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I'd just like to know, and I need an answer to this too, and I'm scared that he'll cut me off.