Environment Committee on May 6th, 2010

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I have one final question, since my time is running short. It is for the Vice-President of the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

Mr. Whoriskey, you painted a rather bleak picture of the state of the Atlantic salmon, of declining stocks since 1998. You have identified a number of human activities that are to blame. Some scientists have recommended separate recovery and action plans, so that greater emphasis is placed on scientific and biological considerations in the assessment process. The socio-economic assessment should happen a little later.

Would that have made a difference in terms of addressing the lengthy delays you talked about today in getting a species listed?

[Dr. Frederick Whoriskey]

I do not believe so. In point of fact, the biologists and the socio-economists who were involved in this dossier would agree that they were both suffering mightily. The species declined extraordinarily rapidly, and so did the jobs related to the sports fisheries for these species in these areas. They were lost at the same time. So there was a driver on both sides to try to do something.

If I could add a comment here in relation to what Mr. Quinney has been saying, we do tend to get lost in trying to get a species listed as the primary focus, and that's not the point. What we're trying to do is get a species recovered.

If SARA has a weakness, in our opinion, it is the fact that much time and resources go into the effort to get a species listed on paper—the paper exercise—but once we get to the point where a species is listed, the resources are not in place to actually implement the recovery effort and bring back the benefits that we've been missing. So I would hope that, in the future, it will be the kind of direction we'll move in.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Donnelly, you have the floor.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all three of our presenters for providing their testimony today. My question is for Dr. Whoriskey.

Dr. Whoriskey, you've said in your submission that the wild Atlantic salmon stocks began to decline at about the same time as aquaculture grew significantly in the Atlantic region. You can certainly correct me if I'm wrong.

[Dr. Frederick Whoriskey]

That's correct.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Could you comment on the connection that open-net salmon farming in the Bay of Fundy may have had in the die-off of these wild Atlantic salmon, and could this have been avoided?

[Dr. Frederick Whoriskey]

We know that there have been impacts from the net pens upon the wild salmon populations. Massive numbers of escapes occurred in the early days of the salmon farming industry, and these genetically swamped wild populations replaced the wild gene pools with basically farmed salmon pools that are not capable of surviving in the wild. They've been bred to live in a totally different environment from what a wild fish lives in.

We have also detected the presence of diseases that were in epidemic proportions in the sea cages present in wild populations at the same time, although we are not in a position where I can tell you quantitatively how many wild fish we lost to these diseases that were driven perhaps by epidemics in the farm areas.

Clearly the interest of both the aquaculture industry and the wild industry is for a healthy, disease-controlled farming industry that keeps all of its fish in its cages. It has been in that spirit that we've been working, trying to keep an eye on where the impacts are, documenting them, and calling for corrections when they were needed, and there has been significant change and significant corrections over time.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Do you think that if fish farm operations move to close containment, it would help with the restoration process of Atlantic salmon?

[Dr. Frederick Whoriskey]

We view the aquaculture and salmon farming dossier as one of probably a sequence of events that are affecting salmon right now.

There are many straws that have gone onto the camel, and the camel's back is broken right now. I don't know how many of them I'm going to have to take off to fix, but certainly the more I can take off, the better chance I'm going to have. Anything we can do to clean up the aquaculture industry so that it is one of the straws that is removed would be good.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

In that vein, do you know of evidence in the Atlantic that there is growing resistance to the application of pesticides like Slice to sea lice?

[Dr. Frederick Whoriskey]

Yes. We are in a position right now where on an emergency basis we are trialling alternate chemicals to Slice, because Slice is proving not to be as effective as it was before. There is evidence of a resistance developing in this particular region.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Finally, what steps do you think DFO can take immediately to prevent the extinction of Atlantic salmon?

[Dr. Frederick Whoriskey]

The primary step they've already implemented are these live gene banks. A live gene bank is the genetic stock from a number of these inner Bay of Fundy salmon rivers that has been put into hatcheries, and they are maintaining fish populations through breeding. They are maintaining the genetic diversity and can go back into the rivers over time.

What we need to do is maintain that over an extended period. The funding is not in place at this time to guarantee it will be there. On a year-on-year basis, DFO was trying to cobble together the funds from internal budgets to make that happen.

Our real beef here is that we've gone through the process of SARA, gotten to a SARA listing, and now the rubber is meeting the road. We're at the point where we really need to take action. Resources are not in place to guarantee that these action plans can be implemented.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

I appreciate your responses.

I'll turn the remaining time over to my colleague.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Hi, Mr. Quinney, it's nice to see you.

[Terry Quinney]

Hello, Mr. Hyer.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Under your recovery strategies, under question 7, you say “The O.F.A.H. recommends the development of appropriate criteria and an effective framework for assessing the socio-economic impact of species listing and recovery planning.” I hope I'm not reading it right, but I want to get clarification.

We heard evidence on Tuesday. There seemed to be a consensus from those witnesses that it should be straight science with no socio-economic benefit analysis on listing and determining what critical habitats are and what position the species are in. Where a socio-economic benefit analysis would come into play would be in the recovery planning stage. In other words, politically you might decide it's not worth the money or not really needed or too expensive--that that could be contentious. But hopefully the science, while imperfect, would not be that contentious.

Could you clarify what you meant here?

[Dr. Terry Quinney]

Yes, and thank you for the question.

I'm a research scientist by training. Biology is my specialty, but I fully acknowledge the veracity of the sciences of economics and sociology. Those are every bit as legitimate branches of science as biology and ecology.

We would say to the committee that in keeping our eye on the ball, which in this case is ultimate recovery of a given species, that socio-economic information can be as relevant and just as important as the ecological information and therefore needs to be brought to bear at the earliest instance, not at the latest.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I would beg to differ with you, but thank you for clarifying. I've never seen economics as much of a science, myself.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Hyer?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Those are all my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Calkins, you're doing the last seven minutes of questions on the first round.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Great, thank you.

I appreciate the testimony I've heard today. It's quite refreshing. I think all Canadians want to make sure we protect the ecological integrity and biodiversity of our country. I think every witness we've heard would agree with that statement. But I am concerned that the Species at Risk Act.... When you read it, “Species at Risk Act” sounds like a nice title. But if you look at what a species is, it's actually a species, subspecies, variety, or geographically different population. I think this is where we get bogged down in some of these details. Mr. Quinney, I think this is where you addressed it quite well.

I'll give you an example. When I was a fisheries technician in Alberta, we were working on walleye populations. You could argue that in a particular lake, because our lakes are not joined by rivers as much as they are in Ontario, the species of fish in those lakes have been separate from each other for a long enough period of time that one could make the scientific argument that they're distinct genetic populations, regardless of the fact that biologically they could probably interbreed and produce fertile offspring, which is the biological definition of a species.

The Province of Alberta, through its bequeathal of fisheries from the Government of Canada, was responsible for managing those walleye populations, which we did. When fishing pressure got to the point where populations collapsed, we brought in management practices such as a no-catch or a catch-and-release-only on certain species. You know how these things work.

At the same time, as I read this act, and as you correctly point out, anybody paying attention could have made the argument that a species of walleye in a particular isolated lake that was below a certain population level could have qualified to be listed as a species at risk. I think the point you're trying to make is whether that is as worthwhile an effort as spending the time, effort, and resources on the management and tracking of the populations at the provincial level in the first place.

[Dr. Terry Quinney]

Yes, sir, you get it. One has to be extremely careful not to let scarce resources, whether human or financial, be spent on anything but the most important areas. If, for example, the province of Alberta generally speaking has an overall healthy walleye or pickerel population and there are problems in certain specific geographical areas, I would agree with you that SARA is not the tool to address those site-specific problems. Furthermore, if SARA were used as a tool, it would be the inappropriate tool.

Finally, we want to again ensure not only our members.... I agree with you that all Canadians want to see healthy nature, healthy fish and wildlife. I think SARA is a symbol for Canadians, but in a way it's a symbol of society's failure to adequately protect species and habitats. That's why I've been emphasizing on behalf of my organization that we must keep the other 95% of species and their habitats healthy so that in 50 years we won't need a SARA. That should be our goal.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I couldn't agree with you more. I think that's a noble goal, to be sure. I want to talk to you a little bit, because I do value organizations like yours, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. I'm a former conservation officer as well. I've worked hand in glove with various organizations in the province of Alberta, where I'm from, such as Trout Unlimited and the Alberta Fish and Game Association.

We spend a lot of time, without any disrespect, talking about the value that aboriginal traditional knowledge plays in this, and it's well documented in this legislation. What's not well documented is the tremendous value that I think various conservation organizations play. Trout Unlimited, the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters are not mentioned in here. We have a mention of some other kinds of organizations that are more scientific and academic, but not so much at the applied level such as yours.

Could you recommend anything to us insofar as the act or the legislation being changed to compel the minister to involve organizations such as yours in the recovery or in the assessment of the listing?