Evidence of meeting #38 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
Acting Director General, Ecosystem Programs Policy, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I can only speak for the last six months, unfortunately, but what I see is that we work very closely with colleagues who are responsible for policy related to fisheries management, to aboriginal affairs, aquaculture management, and so forth.
I think it allows us to better understand the issues and priorities of those other programs, rather than to be siloed into strictly a habitat function or an oceans function or a species-at-risk function.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses.
My first question is for Mr. Coon. I have a lot of questions, but I am going to be quick. Earlier, I asked Mr. Hutchings about objectives.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa
Monsieur Choquette, we're having technical difficulties. Could you try starting again?
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Coon, about targets. I spoke with Mr. Hutchings earlier. I asked him what the targets for the national conservation plan should be. Should they be the Aichi targets? We signed the Aichi agreements, which are pretty ambitious. He said it was hard to say whether the targets could be met or not.
Considering that we signed these agreements, we should have ambitious targets. Do you agree that we should use the Aichi agreement targets as our model?
Executive Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick Inc.
Thank you, Mr. Choquette. That is a long question. It is better for me to answer in English.
If I understand your question, I raised the Aichi targets because I think they provide some guidance for the priorities that should be in a national conservation plan. Already work has been done on them by the federal and provincial governments to adapt them to the reality across Canada for each province. Unfortunately, we haven't had a discussion at a regional level about these at this point, and there doesn't seem to be one anticipated. In our region here, of course, we have five provinces. We have the maritime provinces, Newfoundland, and of course Quebec. We share common ecosystems, particularly with Gaspésie and Baie-des-Chaleurs between New Brunswick and Quebec and Îles-de-la-Madeleine with the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I think those kinds of discussions need to happen.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you.
In connection with your idea of having stiffer legislation, you mentioned the importance of some countries that have already made efforts, such as Australia and Norway. Their environmental protection laws are stricter than the ones we have here.
Give me some examples of existing Canadian laws that should be strengthened. Or should we come up with an entirely new act that would provide for protection, that would make a national conservation plan possible?
Executive Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick Inc.
We have a new act, of course.
Existing legislation doesn't provide us with a comprehensive approach to protecting and conserving ecosystems and providing for sustainable use. That's why a number of times you have heard the examples of Australia and Norway proposed: they're the only countries we know of that have omnibus legislation to provide an overarching framework, a kind of legal umbrella within which government decision making gets done with respect to development decisions and so on.
So there is a gap. When talking to MPs about this issue over the years, the response commonly is, what should we do? I think these two laws are worth studying as examples of what we could do. You are lawmakers; you make laws. Here are some good laws to look at and to consider.
The other approach that has been taken in some countries is to enshrine rights for nature into the constitution, as Bolivia and Ecuador in particular have done. They brought forward ideas to the United Nations in 2010 along these lines. The debate is ongoing. That's another more controversial but interesting approach.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you very much.
As we know, our legislation has been weakened somewhat in recent months with regard to environmental assessment, notably the law respecting fish habitat. Many witnesses have said that we have to adopt an overall, holistic approach, and clearly identify cumulative effects.
Do you think that a holistic approach and a study of cumulative effects should be part of future legislative provisions?
Executive Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick Inc.
If I understand you correctly, that's the point of this approach to legislation: that it provides a holistic approach enshrined in law. It's not prescriptive, but it provides a legal framework within which government can do its business, to reflect the fact that in reality we are embedded in nature and our economy is embedded in nature. But we don't have the legal framework to recognize that and help guide government decision-making to ensure that this fact is respected.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you.
My question is for Mr. Burgess.
Recently, at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 55 jobs were cut in ecotoxicology. I think that is an area that is very important to keep if we are going to have a national conservation plan worthy of its name.
Do you know which positions were cut in ecotoxicology? Here, in Nova Scotia, there are job losses at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. But people have told us they needed those services. Yesterday, at Sackville River, people told us that support from scientists at Fisheries and Oceans Canada was quite crucial to them. Are you very familiar with that program? Can you tell us a bit about it?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa
Unfortunately, time has expired, but there may be other opportunities to answer the question.
Mr. Lunney, you have seven minutes.
Don't touch the mikes; let the technician do it. Nobody should be touching the mikes.
Conservative
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
Thanks to all of the witnesses for your contributions to an important discussion.
You've all made some intriguing remarks, but let me start with our friends from Newfoundland, who had to travel the farthest to get here.
Mr. Samson, thank you for appearing today.
You made some remarks about the cod fishery. We had a challenge—this is a little off topic, but I'll make a mention of it—with the nose and tail of the Grand Banks being beyond our 200-mile limit. We made some efforts with NAFO to bring that under control, and we're hoping that's making a difference.
You made a remark about the whitecoats and the sealing industry. You mentioned British Columbia. As an Atlantic Canadian, I know you perhaps wouldn't be wanting to tell B.C. how to manage things.
As a member from the west coast of Vancouver Island, I had the opportunity of being in Europe. There were parliamentarians from the EU and northern Arctic nations there. I brought up the sealing issue, in case they wanted to discuss it—we're taking that to the WTO and so on—and it sparked quite an interesting discussion among the people at this conference.
I made the point that this is sustainable—supported by the World Wildlife Federation, among others—and that this is about sustaining a population in remote and rural communities. It's not a conservation issue; it's a complicated issue, with a lot of emotion attached to it. Slaughtering anything, as you've mentioned, is not a pretty thing.
Let me take that as an example, and bring in your neighbour Dr. Soren Bondrup-Nielsen.
You made the comment that if we get it right, managing wildlife would not be an issue. I want to just ask the question about wolves endangering public safety. That's an issue in some parts of Canada. It's certainly becoming an issue even on Vancouver Island. Boy, those suckers are big. I ran into one recently.
If you have wolves endangering public safety, or in the case that Mr. Samson is raising here—and maybe you'd both like to comment on that—is there not a place where predation on a recovering species is an issue, that actually managing wildlife in terms of these issues has to be accommodated somehow in a national conservation plan?
Treasurer, Head, Department of Biology, Acadia University, Science and Management of Protected Areas Association
Absolutely, and I hope I didn't suggest that was not the case within my general comments.
In fact your question is very pertinent. Right now I'm involved in a study of coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, where of course, very unfortunately, there was a death a couple of years ago because of a coyote. The park has very cleverly, I think, tried to be very proactive in getting a study under way. I have a student up there right now looking at this issue, where they're taking a very holistic approach. But a large component of the approach is looking at human behaviour. Indeed, in all of North America, in recorded history, there have only been two cases where coyotes have killed people: one in California, and one, unfortunately, here in Nova Scotia.
Absolutely, this is a very serious issue. But again, I come back to how wildlife management is people management. Indeed, national parks are unique in the sense that people arrive there as visitors wanting to see nature, wanting to get close to wildlife. Unfortunately, many people, as it turns out, through interviews that a researcher from Newfoundland has been doing, feed the coyotes. If you feed any animal.... Red squirrels, if you feed them, will attack you if you don't feed them. So there's a huge component of needing to educate the public in order to understand these issues.
They are predators, and humans can certainly be food to, as you mentioned, wolves and cougars in B.C. Yes, there is that aspect to it, but this is a small component of wildlife management, of conservation, that needs to be addressed.
Conservative
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
No, I hear that, but also, if we're talking about predation, there are wolves with elk, and in some cases endangered species of elk where elk populations are threatened by wolf populations.
Or there's the case of the cod recovery, when you have seals at the numbers they have, and as Mr. Samson points out, where they eat nearly a tonne of fish a year.... It's eight pounds a day, and I think that works out to about a tonne a year per seal. If they took the thing up on the shore and ate the whole fish with their neighbours, it wouldn't be quite such a problem.
Do you not feel there's a place where we have to actually help one species that's threatened by predation from another?
Treasurer, Head, Department of Biology, Acadia University, Science and Management of Protected Areas Association
Well, you have to realize that the one species that is threatened is often threatened because of other reasons. When you have that, on top of having predators that are maybe going hungry, then yes, they can drive it down. In academics, we talk about an extinction vortex. Once a species is driven down to very low numbers, then all of these factors begin to push them into this extinction vortex. When we arrive at that stage, absolutely, we have to become very proactive.
However, we must never assume that in nature we have very linear interactions. If we look at the food web in the Atlantic ocean, it is phenomenally complex. Yet there are cod and seals, and seals do eat cod and other fish. However, it's not necessarily so simple that we can say that by reducing seals we will increase cod, because of this highly complex, interactive, connected system we work with. Taking this holistic approach and looking at the whole ecosystem I think is what is needed.
Sure, when human life is in danger, then that probably requires a special case. With the coyotes in Cape Breton, those coyotes need to learn that humans are not food--they provide food--and humans need to learn they should not provide food.
Conservative
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming.
On our tour yesterday, and hearing from some of our witnesses this morning, it was well noted that the cuts to science and technical support are going to hurt the people on the ground, whether they're harvesting or they're managing or they're even protecting our marine wildlife.
The big story out today is that the federal government is canning a Mr. Ken Lee, who was an oil spill expert for cleanups and prevention of oil spills.
It's been well noted now that the DFO cuts are going to be pretty brutal in Atlantic Canada.
I guess my question is what are the challenges going to be for conservation when you have so many cuts like that to staff, monitoring, and analyzing? How are those going to diminish the work for conservationists or people on the ground who are trying to get the job done?
That's my first question, and it's open to all of you. If you can be quick with the answers, I'll have another question.
Maybe you can start, Mr. Burgess, by saying how deep the cuts are going to be to Atlantic Canada. You would know that.
Acting Director General, Ecosystem Programs Policy, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I'm sorry, but I don't have the specific numbers with respect to the reductions that will take place in Atlantic Canada. That's outside my area.
Conservative
Member, Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation
Mark, the question seemed to be leaning towards how we manage for people. We forget that we have to manage for species.
People are people. The gentleman here said that the population increases exponentially, and we still haven't been able to manage for the species. We're doing all kinds of different things in our process. We have all kinds of different organizations saying this works, that works, and pointing out that this works in concrete unison with something else.
We have to manage for species, and they don't.... We're talking about parks. You have a border—
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
You can't manage species unless you have the technical data and science to back it all up.
Member, Newfoundland and Labrador Wildlife Federation
Yes, I agree with you, but you can't manage the species either. We're basically in a finite system. You have to manage for the whole species. You can't manage polar bears if you're just going to manage for bears. You have to manage seals, ring seals--not harp seals, because you don't eat harp seals.
What I'm trying to say is that we just manage for finite little indicators and we have political interference that tells us that we manage for this, we manage for that, we manage for this. We've got special interest groups that dictate what we do, and we have all kinds of special interest groups in our system that say we need to manage for this.
I can give you one example, and maybe I'm picking on somebody, I don't know. Maybe I'm opening a can of worms, but we have hook and release of salmon, for instance. We manage for that. We can't police it. It's impossible to police. You can't police that. But we have hook and release of salmon, and salmon don't eat going upstream. They don't replenish their energy; once it's gone, it's gone. Yet we have to say we've got hook and release, saying that's the means, that's how we conserve salmon, by catching them and releasing them.
Now, if I catch something, I'm eating it. That's the people I represent. If we kill something, we eat it. I'm not killing anything that I'm not going to eat. It's simple.
Liberal
