Fisheries Committee on Feb. 25th, 2016

[Arran McPherson]

Yes.

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

Okay, while you're thinking about that, I will give you a specific example.

Recently the City of Montreal was allowed to contravene section 36 of the Fisheries Act and dump, I think, eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence. I'm sure your department is familiar with that. Yes, Mr. Stringer nodded. My assumption is as well that a scientist or two in your department would have written something up about that particular incident and the possible effects on fish. I'd be shocked if your department didn't at least keep a watching brief on that particular event. Is that a fair assumption, that you kept a watching brief on that incident?

[Kevin Stringer]

We kept a watching brief on it. It was an Environment Canada lead. Environment Canada has the lead responsibility for section 36 under the Fisheries Act and this was deleterious substances going into the water. It was Environment Canada, but we were in touch with them.

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

Good. My assumption would be that scientists in your department would have done an evaluation of what the impact of this spill might have been on the important fish stocks in the St. Lawrence.

[Kevin Stringer]

We're always monitoring. I can't say for certain that there was a specific document that was done, but we're always monitoring what happens in that area of....

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

Given the government's commitment to free and open exchange of scientific information, and the ability of scientists to speak out on issues of environmental concern, when will we be able to have the scientists who looked at this particular incident in front of our committee, the actual scientists, not the heads of the department?

[Arran McPherson]

As my colleague said, we don't have the information about who or if any of the DFO science staff provided advice in this specific case.

I will go back to a comment I made in the opening where I talked about the peer review process that we undertake at DFO. When we are asked for advice formally by the management of our organization we go through an open and transparent process, invite stakeholders to participate, and publish the results of that work online.

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

Okay, but again in this particular case scientists are able to speak freely about their work and in written peer review documents. I understand that's what you do and those are good things. The political commitment by this government is to allow scientists to speak freely and openly. That's in public and includes the comment about public policy, the comment on incidents.... I use the Montreal sewage spill as a specific example, but there are many other briefings and analyses that are done in your department for internal use, I'm sure.

Again, based on this commitment, those would obviously be available to us.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Go ahead.

[Tom Rosser]

I don't know that we have much to add other than we have for some time had a high level of transparency around the science we do to inform decision-making. Should the work of any of our scientists be of interest to the committee, I think that as a department, we would be quite amenable to making them available to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Donnelly, for seven minutes.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the department officials for coming to the fisheries committee and talking to us today. We appreciate your testimony and the information you provided.

I'd also like to ask Ms. McPherson to thank the 1,500 scientists and technicians that work for the department across the country for their good work day in and day out.

I have lots of questions, but I'm going to start off with a quote from the minister yesterday. This is in reference to the recommendations of the Cohen commission. He said:

Many of those recommendations have already been implemented and we are in the process of developing ways to move forward on the remaining ones.

Could you comment on just how many have been implemented?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the question.

Over time, action has been taken on some Cohen recommendations. The minister's mandate letter, as committee members will likely be aware, did reference moving forward on the Cohen recommendations.

As the minister had done with many of his mandate priorities, within a few weeks of assuming office, he travelled to British Columbia and met with a number of experts and stakeholders in the Cohen commission's final report, including Justice Cohen himself, to seek their advice on how best to move forward with that mandate commitment.

I think what the minister was referencing in the commentary was there are some activities that have been undertaken. He's assessing what those are and assessing what a sensible way forward would be. That's how we're approaching Cohen.

I don't know if Kevin has anything to add.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

There were 75 recommendations made by Justice Cohen, and the minister was obviously briefed in his response, so there is a number. Could you provide this committee with the number of recommendations that have been implemented and the number that are being worked on? You can do that at another time, which we would really appreciate.

I'm going to move on to another issue, that of adjacency. I know this is a real issue of late on the west coast. Obviously, it's an issue on the east coast as well. A lot of owner-operator issues certainly are.

Where those fish are processed is critical. As you know, on the west coast we just had a shutdown at Canfisco, which means a loss of over 400 jobs on the west coast and essentially the loss of fish processing in British Columbia.

I don't know if you want to comment on this. Many are calling for a review with respect to adjacency, owner-operator, and processing in this country.

It looks like Mr. Stringer might provide a comment. I have another question as well.

[Kevin Stringer]

The principle of adjacency is one that's applied when we deal with access and allocation.

The east coast fishery and the west coast fishery are fundamentally different in terms of how they are managed for access and allocation. I'd be happy to come and talk about this at some point.

On the east coast there are two fundamental policies for the inshore fleet. They involve most of the fishery and most of the fishermen, let's say most of the licence holders. The policies are owner-operator and fleet separation. It is about preserving the independence of the inshore fleet in Canada's Atlantic fisheries. Those adjacent to the resource get access to the resource in that approach.

On the west coast it has been more of a market-based approach, where there is trading of quotas, individual transfer of quotas and such. There has been that history.

We are following and are certainly aware of the cannery in Prince Rupert. We've heard from people. The minister has heard from people on this. Representations have been made to the minister about some of those principles in looking at the west coast. We are talking to the minister about how the fishery is managed on both coasts as he gets settled into his role, but we do need to reflect. There has been a different history in both areas.

I should also point out that processing is provincial jurisdiction, not federal jurisdiction. We can't tell someone they must process in a certain area. Provinces can and some provinces do, but B.C. doesn't, and we can't.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I have another question on DFO science capacity. I'm hearing there is an issue on core funding for fisheries science and also for oceanographic monitoring. We heard testimony earlier about the need to recruit scientists.

I'm wondering how willing the department is to work with civil society. I'm thinking of academics and others who see that gap and are concerned themselves and want to play a role, whether it's as an advisory board. Does the department have any comment on how to invite or engage those folks?

[Tom Rosser]

Maybe, Mr. Chair, I'll offer a high-level answer, and my colleague Arran may be better placed to offer some specifics.

As a department, partnership has always been important to our scientific effort. Certainly Minister Tootoo has spoken about this on many occasions, that he sees the way forward on science as being about collaboration.

I had mentioned earlier that he had travelled to British Columbia. He has travelled to all three coasts, all six DFO regions, since being named minister. In those meetings, he has met with a wide variety of stakeholders, including university presidents and vice-presidents, representatives of environmental non-governmental organizations, and others.

His message to them and his message publicly on many occasions and his message to us is that he sees the way to make the most of the available resources we have is through partnership and collaboration with industry, universities, and others.

[Arran McPherson]

The only thing I would add to his comments is that we have some great examples of work that we're already doing with the academic community in their research networks that we're involved with on both coasts. That's a model we are definitely interested in pursuing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

We'll now go to the government side for seven minutes.

Mrs. Jordan.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you.

I'm going to focus my questions on marine protection areas. I find it a fascinating topic.

Currently, what percentage of marine coastal areas are protected and where are they?

[Kevin Stringer]

Thank you for the question.

It depends on how you count, but it's about 1%. The Oceans Act was passed in 1997. The first major marine protected area established was the Gully, off Nova Scotia.

We have eight Oceans Act MPAs. We have a few national marine conservation areas, which are done by Parks Canada. We have a number of national wildlife areas, which are reserved for migratory birds; they're very small areas.

There's a fairly large number, but a grand total of 1%.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

When you mentioned all those other areas—and forgive my ignorance, but you talked about national parks and you talked about other places—do they fall under what we're looking at for marine protected areas?

[Kevin Stringer]

They do, and the IUCN, which stands for something—

[Tom Rosser]

International Union for Conservation of Nature, I believe.

[Kevin Stringer]

—establishes the criteria for what's going to count.

When you say we've set aside this much as a marine protected area, there are international standards to be able to do that. It includes protection for various reasons. Basically, it says it needs to be a geographic area; there needs to be a conservation objective, and there needs to be a management plan. There's also representativeness. There is a set of criteria. It's not just marine protected areas. There are other things that can count.