Environment Committee on April 15th, 2010

[Andrew de Vries]

—it's something we've considered.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

When you say “simpler options”, what are they?

[Andrew de Vries]

Those are the things we've recommended in our proposals: move more quickly on policies, implement the permitting, and implement the conservation agreements.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. McGuinness, you say there's a question of somehow dovetailing or harmonizing the approach of the Fisheries Act with that of COSEWIC, but you seem to introduce almost a third approach. It's almost equivalent to traditional aboriginal knowledge, although in this case it wouldn't necessarily be aboriginals. You say that the people on the ground in the fishing industry know a thing or two about how we should be dealing with different species. Is that sort of a third prong that needs to be factored in?

[Patrick McGuinness]

We're not suggesting any changes to the Fisheries Act or to SARA with respect to endangered species. I guess what we've said is that our industry or our participants are working within a science regime called the precautionary approach or the ecosystem-based regime, which basically has a lot of traction. We're using that in international markets in terms of getting eco-certifications under the Marine Stewardship Council for a wide range of species. We've been very successful with that. We have three already certified and 14 in the process of becoming certified. I expect 30 by the end of the year.

So we've oriented our thinking towards this science model, which is basically FAO initiatives and then.... As I say, they just don't have confidence in the COSEWIC assessment. At the end of the day, the COSEWIC assessment is contracted out to a student for $10,000 or $11,000. We have $2 million worth of science in there.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Calkins, it is your turn.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. McGuinness, I know that you didn't talk about this specifically, but I'm going to ask you a question. Under the definition in the act, it says that a wildlife species means any “species, subspecies, variety or geographically or genetically distinct population of animal, plant or other organism, other than a bacterium or virus, that is wild by nature and (a) is native to Canada; or (b) has extended its range into Canada...”.

The problem I see with this act isn't that it's poorly intentioned. It's just not really doing what it's supposed to do. When Canadians think of the Species At Risk Act, I think they think that we're down to the last 50 of something in the entire country, or that hypothetically these could the last of the polar bears in the wild forever and ever. I think that's a vital concern. That's an important concern.

This is called the Species At Risk Act; it's not called the “Subspecies At Risk Act”. There are three subspecies of peregrine falcon, including anatum and tundricus and so on. Some of them are at risk; some of them aren't at risk. When we deal with this, we're not dealing with species at all. We're actually dealing with populations of potentially genetically distinct creatures.

The reason there are not enough biologists is that it would take a lifetime for biologists to go to every lake to genetically identify every species of walleye just to study in vitrium to see if they were all genetically independent from each other. After a certain amount of time, through a process of speciation--you can look at morphometrics and all of these things--you could actually say, yes, this population of walleye in Gull Lake, Alberta is different from the population of walleye in Pigeon Lake, Alberta. If we're fishing out Pigeon Lake, all of a sudden it would trigger COSEWIC to look at this and say that we're running out of walleye. Well, there could be 15 million walleye in Gull Lake and 15 million walleye in Sylvan Lake, and we're not really running out of walleye at all.

As a matter of fact, when you come to population recovery, we actually take pools of genetics from other places to reintroduce them into the wild. Take, for example, the bison herd in Wood Buffalo National Park. The population of wood bison is completely diluted with plains bison.

Herein lies the question: how can an act, as well-intentioned as it is, possibly look after the notion properly to address everybody's concerns? We had a gentleman in here the other day from northern Alberta talking about a particular bison herd or a particular caribou herd. We're talking about potentially genetically isolated populations, not the entirety of the species going extinct.

Mr. McGuinness, could you enlighten me, as a legislator--I'm also a trained biologist--as to how I can possibly wade through an act like this and deliver the right results for Canadians? Fisheries is very important to me. I'm the only member of this committee who also sits on the fisheries committee. Of course, we have some serious issues pertaining to salmon, particularly in the Fraser River. You talked about the cod on the Atlantic coast. That is a great example.

Mr. de Vries, when I was in university 20 years ago, we were talking about the imminent end of woodland caribou, and 20 years later, we're still talking about the imminent end of woodland caribou. I don't think this act or this legislation is up to par. Help me try to solve this problem.

[Patrick McGuinness]

I agree with your assessment. The bottom line, as you say, is that at some point in time, they're going to have to take a triage approach to this whole issue. Say, for example, they looked at Atlantic cod and broke it into four or five different subcomponents. It is a fundamental problem with the implementation of this act. COSEWIC has a certain amount of money. At some point, they're going to have to take a triage approach so that they can in fact get on with those species in which a certain size of population is in difficulty.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

We had a gentleman here two days ago from northern Alberta talking about populations of wood bison and woodland caribou. He said that this act isn't living up to it, from his perspective. Can you elaborate or tell us...?

You work with forest management agreements within the provinces. It's a habitat issue. In your estimation, are the woodland caribou in northern Alberta threatened? Should there be a trigger on this? Are the wood bison threatened in northern Alberta? The Province of Alberta issued hunts on woodland bison a little while ago because the numbers were growing so fast.

[Andrew de Vries]

I won't speak to bison because our members don't operate in that area.

In regard to boreal caribou and the first question, which I think you posed to Mr. McGuinness, the Government of Canada needs to be careful, when it dives down, not to go too far, to population levels where possible.... I think we want to deal with species at risk and not populations at risk, generally speaking. There may be cases where you will have to make decisions on populations.

Some populations of boreal caribou are declining, some are stable, and some are increasing. But generally, boreal caribou across Canada exhibit declining trends. In Alberta that's true of most of the herds. It becomes a question of how governments want to deal with boreal caribou nationally.

This is where recovery planning and socio-economics at the recovery planning and action plan stages are important. Then you can make decisions within Alberta, Manitoba, or Ontario on how you are going to deal with populations that are stable or declining. For a species like caribou, which is a provincial species, those decisions need to be made there. Definitely there are trade-offs to be made, and I suggest that those trade-offs occur throughout SARA.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Monsieur Ouellet, pour cinq minutes, s'il vous plaît.

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

My question is for all three of our witnesses.

Have you ever thought to integrate scientific observations on climate change into the scientific models you are currently using?

[Julie Gelfand]

That is COSEWIC's work. When scientists prepare their report on what is left of an endangered species, they include climate change in their study so that they can try to predict whether the species can survive.

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

And that applies to everyone?

[Julie Gelfand]

At the COSEWIC, the scientists who do these studies tell us whether the species is endangered or not.

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

Mr. McGuinness, and Mr. de Vries in particular, you have been talking about provincial and federal areas of jurisdiction. Can you give us some idea of where these jurisdictions begin and end respectively?

[Andrew de Vries]

The distinctions are fairly clear, at least to me. Aquatic species and migratory birds are the domain of the federal government. Caribou and other mammals are generally and foremost the domain of the provincial government. SARA would require the federal government to intervene if the provincial governments weren't demonstrating effective protection.

This is why we need to start making decisions about socio-economics and recovery strategies, because that's where the rubber starts to hit the road.

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

Yes, Mr. McGuinness.

[Patrick McGuinness]

To go back to your question about climate change and how it's included in these types of analysis, in the fisheries model there is a provision for that with respect to looking at the current productivity rate of that stock. What you'll see from time to time is that the productivity rate will change. If you have a high productivity rate, it would mean, for example, that the water temperature is right, the currents are not too harsh, and other factors such as salinity are right. These factors are very positive in terms of regenerating that growth, and you can measure that.

We have seen, for example, that productivity of northern cod has declined. When you analyze that, you will see that there is an element of climate change, in the sense that the salinity has increased, which is basically a result of the icebergs melting off Norway. That has had a significant impact on that portion of our ecosystems.

In those same waters we've gone from having our groundfish on the verge to now being the number one producer in the world of cold-water shrimp, so there is an ecosystem out there. All we're saying is that we--not the Fisheries Council of Canada, but the fisheries biologists--are developing science to try to bring that into their incorporation, as I say, and assess the state of the stock on a number of factors. One of the very important ones is the current productivity rate of that species.

On the other hand, I have no problems with COSEWIC's formula, which is appropriate for terrestrial growth. It's basically the rate of decline, something that you can see. It's something that you can see in terms of animals and the environment they live in, while we're living basically under the water.

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

Do you think that the bill we are working on currently should mention climate change?

[Patrick McGuinness]

I look it as climate variability. We always see climate variability. We've seen the Atlantic go colder, warmer, and now maybe...whatever. It's not a consensus on climate change; it's an approach to assessing the current conditions under which the fish species are living, continuously measuring that, and looking at a number of factors in terms of the regeneration of the stock and things of that nature.

There's a consensus, if you will, on the approach, but I don't term it as climate change. It's looking at the species itself in terms of its variability and its productivity rate. There's no question that climate variability causes a change, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Sometimes climate change can have a negative impact on groundfish, and the negative impact on groundfish actually regenerates the shrimp fishery because of the predator-prey relationship.

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

Do the fish in our rivers fall under your jurisdiction or that of the provinces?

[Patrick McGuinness]

The Fisheries Act is a federal act. It has responsibility over all marine aquatic species, but they delegate that administration to the provinces, so the rivers themselves are provincial. Basically they take the Fisheries Act and administer it on behalf of the federal government.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Merci, Monsieur Ouellet.

Mr. Woodworth, go ahead.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to surrender my time to the greater expertise of my colleague Mr. Calkins.