Foreign Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2013

[David Burden]

Now you're into the science side of it, and that's beyond my pay grade.

I can tell you, however, that we have had a number of joint projects looking into this with Canadian and other national resources. Clearly it is an issue. I don't think we fully understand the cause and effect, and until you have that, how do you best deal with it?

It is an emerging issue that's being looked at.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Where is it coming from? If there is a rise in acid in the ocean, where is it coming from?

[David Burden]

You're the scientist, Renée.

[Renée Sauvé]

Well, I haven't done science for a very long time.

I know just the basics, that it's the excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and this excess of carbon dioxide will affect the pH balance of aqueous environments, bringing a more acidic—

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

How new a study is this? When did this first start coming into the mainstream?

[Renée Sauvé]

Oh, gee, I think that concept has been around in the scientific community in excess of 30 years.

We, Canada, have been fairly active. Our experts, for example, on the Pacific coast were part of some of the earlier monitoring systems of detecting these rises in acidification.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

If we have been doing it for 30 years, what have we found? Is it 1%, 2%, 3%?

[Renée Sauvé]

I don't know the levels in terms of how it has increased, or the acidity, but it would vary depending on the water body. It would depend on what the baseline pH level would be, so there would be some slight differences.

It wouldn't be the same all over the globe, but the trend is noticed; it's recognized globally that there is this trend that's happening. There will be a meeting at the UN, actually, this summer on specifically that issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's all the time we have, Mr. Van Kesteren. Maybe we'll get to you again.

Mr. Bevington, sir, you have five minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, witnesses.

A number of points are quite interesting in this. I don't know if you're familiar with the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network, CHONe, and the work they're doing on invertebrates in the Arctic. I attended a presentation this week on Tuesday morning. They presented some of their findings. They're saying that in the case of invertebrates in the seabed and in the water column that the presence of these little animals is actually higher than in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans so that there is significant feedstock available for fish within the Arctic waters.

Is that not the case? That's the work they presented to us, that this ocean was not short of those basic feedstocks.

[David Burden]

I think the way I'd respond to that is to say when we're talking about the Arctic, it's a really big area. There are some places where there are incredible.... All we have to do is watch where beluga and narwhal and other marine mammals go. There is this sort of train that goes along. As those small invertebrates and so on move into areas, the other larger species will follow. We're obviously seeing that. We're seeing killer whales in areas where we wouldn't have seen them in the past.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Basically we're talking about foreign affairs here. Is it important to understand the relationship on a regional basis of these types of hot spots in areas within the Arctic? They're not tied to national boundaries. The opportunities are going to be international in scope. Is that not the case between Greenland and Canada, or between the U.S. and Canada in other parts of the Arctic? Wouldn't you agree?

[David Burden]

That's why we're doing our multi-species survey and working cooperatively with the nations that have the same interests we do with those stocks in the Arctic.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

The one fishing dispute I know about in the Arctic involved a letter that was sent by the Canadian government to the U.S. complaining about the overlapping boundary issue and the fact that the U.S. had set up a moratorium on fishing within Canadian waters. Are you familiar with that?

[David Burden]

I am.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Perhaps you'd like to elucidate for us.

[David Burden]

I think the American view on what the approach should be may be different from our view of it. As I said in my remarks and Renée addressed as well, our view is that you have to have really good solid research before you go in. We don't have a fishery in that part of the Arctic at this point in time, so why would we have a moratorium against something we don't have?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

That was one of the areas that was pointed out by CHONe on Tuesday morning as a hot spot for invertebrate activity.

[David Burden]

Yes, but again, at this point in time, Mr. Chair, there are no commercial operations in that part of the Arctic. We are doing our research to assess. We are seeing some of the things that you have identified. There is research in that capacity, but we're talking about fish that would not be commercially viable in the sense that we're traditionally used to seeing. If you can fish and get fish of a significant size versus smaller fish, I think you'd go for the larger fish.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I have a little bit of time here, so I just wanted to add that when I was in municipal government, I sponsored a study on the Arctic char fishery and fish farming. It turned out that Arctic char is actually an excellent fish to farm because of all species, it has the highest density capacity for growing in water. Is that correct?

[David Burden]

Well again....

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

The problem with it is that you need very cold water. We got beat out where I live because we couldn't provide a source of cold enough water to actually run a fish farm with Arctic char. Are there any plans afoot to utilize the Arctic char as a farm fish in the Arctic?

[David Burden]

I'm not aware of any plans. I know there's been talk of it. I suspect there are enterprising people out there who are looking at it from our perspective and our dealings with the co-management partners and with the territorial governments. The focus has been to continue the truly wild in the Canadian north brand. That's been the focus of their industry thus far.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

There was an Arctic char farm in Whitehorse, though.

[David Burden]

Yes. Unfortunately—or fortunately—that's outside of my area of responsibility.