Environment Committee on March 25th, 2010

[Virginia Poter]

I believe that would be a correct statement.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

I have one more question, if I have time, Mr. Chair.

I'm from Nova Scotia so I'm a coastal person. Given a recent article in the Ottawa Citizen on March 19, 2010, on the dietary habits of killer whales, how does the Department of Fisheries and Oceans manage species-at-risk issues in the marine environment?

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

As you can recognize, working in the marine environment is very challenging. From a Department of Fisheries and Oceans perspective, SARA is one of the tools we have to protect species at risk. There are others. The Fisheries Act also provides a fairly powerful approach to protecting species at risk through a number of regimes. We have, for example, fishery licences for protection of habitat. There are a number of examples there.

Under SARA we have the ability to identify critical habitat and protect the critical habitat. In the case you raise about the killer whale, one of the elements that is used to identify the area as critical habitat is the availability of prey for a species. Under the Fisheries Act, we have the ability to manage salmon stocks through integrated fishery management plans to ensure that prey is available for the species.

If we move to the Atlantic coast and the case of the North Atlantic right whale, we've identified the Roseway Basin as critical habitat for the North Atlantic right whale. One of the main threats to that species has been ship strikes. In order to manage that, through working with the International Maritime Organization, there was a voluntary agreement to change shipping lanes during the period that the right whale occupied that area. Had that not happened, we have the ability to use the transportation acts to require changes in shipping lanes.

So there are a number of different ways we can try to get to the same end objective required under SARA, by using either SARA provisions or those available to us through other pieces of legislation. The primary one, obviously, for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is the Fisheries Act.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Monsieur Ouellet, pour cinq minutes.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I thank you for helping us to understand this legislation better.

The Species at Risk Act applies to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which means that it applies to oceans. As a matter of fact, you have just referred to whales.

The government recently expressed the opinion that the bluefin tuna is not a threatened species. Was that opinion based on your assessments? Did the government take the legislation into account when expressing that opinion? Are there other issues to be taken into account? Are we not supposed to take account of all threatened species?

I fail to understand what happened in the case of the bluefin tuna. It is just an example.

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

I think we have two different issues with respect to the tuna. One is the assessment and potential listing under the Species at Risk Act. As far as I recall, the tuna has not yet been assessed by COSEWIC and therefore is not being considered for potential listing under the Species at Risk Act.

More recently, there has been discussion under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which looked at the question of listing tuna under CITES. That was more to do with the question of international trade in tuna.

To look at tuna from a Canadian perspective, we have, we believe, the best-managed bluefin tuna fishery in the world. It's very well managed and very well organized, and we have what is recognized, I believe, as a model tuna-fishing nation that uses science and fishes tuna sustainably. This is not necessarily the case in other parts of the world. In fact, we know that in certain parts of the world, in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic, there has been significant overfishing, which is what has caused the concern in terms of global tuna population.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

If I understand correctly, you just said that there are trade considerations.

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

Well, for--

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Several environmental organizations have stated that, on the contrary, the bluefin tuna in particular is a threatened species in Canada.

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

This has not been assessed by COSEWIC. As Virginia mentioned earlier, the trigger for consideration for listing under the Species at Risk Act is a COSEWIC scientific assessment, which, it's my understanding, has not been done for tuna.

On the global scale, the international scale, there has been concern about the global levels of tuna, which have been considered under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. That is a very different environment. It's a very different construct.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

What would have happened if the minister had told you that he had to give an answer over the next six months? Would you have taken into account the fact that the minister wanted your advice on a species at risk such as the bluefin tuna? Would you have decided to obtain a speedy assessment in order to provide him with an answer? Do you ever do that?

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

We do assessments on fishery stocks. This is part of the standard business of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. This is an area that is not within my purview, so forgive me if I don't get too detailed on this. The department does have a very good understanding of tuna stocks in Canadian waters, of the manner in which the harvest is undertaken, and of the science advice that leads to the limits on harvesting in Canadian waters.

So we have that. Now, for the Species at Risk Act, the trigger for Species at Risk Act consideration is a COSEWIC assessment. As my colleague has already mentioned, COSEWIC is independent of government and sets its own agenda. My understanding is that bluefin tuna is on the forward list for COSEWIC consideration, but I don't believe it has yet been assessed.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

And where...

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ton temps est écoulé.

Ms. Hoeppner, please.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

I do have a quick question. When you list endangered species, do you actually divide it into northern species that are endangered and non-northern species that are endangered? Could you explain that to me?

[Virginia Poter]

COSEWIC assesses the status of species overall in Canada. My point when I was speaking about northern species was that, particularly in Nunavut under the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, there are particular obligations that the federal government must respect as they relate to consultation.

So if a species such as the ivory gull, for example, occurs in Nunavut, we have a special process that we must follow to engage with the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board to respect the NLC decision-making process. We must complete that before we can move forward for the listing overall for Canada. We can't separate out the Nunavut listing. We have to look at the entire listing as COSEWIC has defined it.

Sometimes COSEWIC will subdivide a species, but it is based on genetics. It's based on movement between populations. It's not based on saying, “Oh, there's like a jurisdictional boundary”.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I'll tell you the context. About 20 years ago, I lived in a place called Grand Rapids, in Manitoba, which is considered northern Manitoba but really isn't that far north. It was very abundant in junipers. A lot of people from the southern part of the province would come to visit and say, “Boy, we pay $15 or $20 for a juniper, but instead we'll dig one up and take it home”.

So there are two things. Obviously, there's a differentiation between north and south. Also, to go back to Mr. Warawa's question, how do we inform the public very specifically and give them the idea that something could be endangered by any chance, or could be in the process of being endangered?

[Virginia Poter]

One of our standard tools is the Species at Risk Act registry. It's a publicly accessible website. It has all of the information. We're looking at how we can make it even more user friendly so that it's easier to click in.

One of the features we're looking at that would be very helpful for the SARA registry is a map-based approach. You could go to your part of the country, click on it, and then find all of the species at risk and so on. That work is under way, but it takes a while to work out the bugs, if you will, in that type of an approach. We certainly see the SARA registry as a key tool for us.

Another key tool, obviously, is the gazetting process. It's part of any regulatory regime. For every regulatory package that we put forward, we have to include a compliance promotion plan. Within that plan, it lists how we're going to communicate with target audiences. Clearly, if you're up in the north and that's where the endangered or threatened species is, well, we had better target communications to the north versus going down into the south, where it's a bit irrelevant. We try to lay out what those plans are.

On going forward for listing, I'll let my colleague speak for aquatics, but certainly for terrestrial, we go out on a pre-consultation package. We have lists of groups and people we try to contact to say, “Here's the list of species”. It's particularly helpful, for example, for industry groups. We let them know what the species are and ask them for their views and feedback. That's part of how they become aware.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

It would also be helpful... There are a lot of tour operators, for example, who host tourists from the States and from different parts of southern Canada. Do you think it would be helpful to have a bit of a strategy whereby they might even have a list right in their lodges? They can let people know, then, when they're heading out, what is actually an endangered species, to make sure they're not digging it up, or pulling it out of the ground, or trying to kill it.

[Virginia Poter]

Yes.

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

If I may, there's another thing we do as well. It is slightly regionally variable; we haven't quite nailed down the same process across the country. We produce brochures in plain language that are readily available to people such as tour operator groups and others. These give an identification or at least a listing of species in that area and give the way in which people should behave in order to not put those species at risk.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

So there is that.

[Pardeep Ahluwalia]

It may not go quite as far as you're suggesting yet, but there is some movement we are making toward that.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

That's good.

That's all I have. Thank you.