Environment Committee on March 24th, 2015

[Duncan Crawford]

Sure, I do. It's a great question.

We have a burgeoning newcomer population, especially from China. They have a real hunger for outdoor activities, especially fishing and hunting. The government and the Prince Edward Island Wildlife Federation have tried to make sure that if any of these newcomers want information or want to take hunter safety or firearm safety programs that we have programs available to them. We went out of our way to train one person specifically to deliver this. He is a newcomer and obviously speaks their native language, and he acts like a hub to get this particular group afield.

Just as Mr. Farrant said, we host fishing derbies that are open to the public. We make sure all of these newcomer groups are notified.

The big thing is resource management. If they come from a nation that doesn't offer a lot of hunting and fishing opportunities, we make sure they understand and observe bag limits. We help them get afield and do it right, ethically and within the law. That's what's been most important to us, making sure we're available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Mr. Crawford.

We will move back to Ms. Hughes, for five minutes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Crawford and Mr. Farrant, I really appreciate the work your organizations do to ensure the sustainability of wildlife and their habitat. I've met with the fur harvesters and the trappers councils. Yesterday I met with Ducks Unlimited. It's really part of our heritage as well.

I want to go back to the fact that this is the environment committee, and the whole idea was to deal with climate change. I know that others have raised different issues here. I think we need to focus back on the environmental piece. There have been some impacts with respect to the weather. Take Wawa as an example. In 2012 they had a major flood. I can tell you that there's still a vehicle in the port of Lake Superior near Wawa, in the Michipicoten port. There's still a house in there. A lot of debris in there has yet to be cleaned up. We're talking about Iron Bridge and Bruce Mines, which had major floods again last year. Again, a lot of that debris was tossed aside into some of our river and lake areas.

Do you have any concerns regarding the climate change impact? Do you have any recommendations that the committee should look at putting forward in trying to address the policies that we need to put in place to try to address climate change? We know that the impact on tourism, on hunting and fishing, in Algoma—Manitoulin is huge. I'm just wondering if you have any concerns regarding climate change impact and/or recommendations that should go forward.

Mr. Crawford, you might want to start. Thank you.

I might just stress the importance of actually cleaning that debris up as soon as possible; as I said, for Wawa it's almost three years later now.

[Duncan Crawford]

I don't know what to say specifically on that case. Obviously weather patterns are changing. We're seeing it in P.E.I. I can tell you that I had to snowshoe to my barn and take a snowmobile to a main thoroughfare because my road's not plowed out. That's very unusual weather here.

You know, we see it. It affects wild populations and everything else. I was asked to present at this committee on the particulars of hunting, fishing, and trapping. I think we all have a vested interest in good environmental management. I missed some previous comments, but I'm sure I'm echoing what has been said with regard to science-based decisions. If we don't have healthy environments, whether that's water or land, the resource won't be there for us to access. That comes first and foremost.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Farrant, because I don't know what else to say, really.

[Greg Farrant]

Thank you. Again, thank you, Ms. Hughes, for the question.

I'm not a scientist. I'm not a biologist. We employ 17 biologists at our federation for fish and wildlife, and invasive species, and land use, and other reasons. They'd probably be able to give you a more thorough answer than I can.

Certainly any time we see impacts on the environment, whether they're due to man-made effects, things like clear-cutting or dams or whatever, and other issues like weather pattern changes, obviously it's going to affect fish and wildlife populations, and it's a concern to us. In fact, at our conference last week we had Dr. John Casselman speak about the impact of climate change on fisheries.

Again, this is because I'm not a scientist. If I were, maybe I could comment better on this. The whole issue of climate change, there still seems to be a big debate on how much of an impact it has, how widespread it is, and what exactly it is doing on the ground. There seem to be two very divergent positions: yes, it's climate change and it's doing all these things, or no, it's not, and it's not doing all these things.

I certainly think it is one of several factors that has to be considered when you are creating public policy that deals with fish and wildlife, or natural resources in general. At the same time, we see governments making decisions on things as concrete as—again, that's no pun on that one because I'm talking about dam removal—for instance, the Black Sturgeon dam in Ontario, which is going to be removed, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources. We're saying yes, but when you take that out, you're going to allow sea lamprey full rein to get into water bodies where the dam is stopping them right now. Those sea lamprey are an invasive species and they're going to have a massive effect on the fishery.

Those are the types of public policy decisions that concern us just as much as climate change does, because their impact will be immediate, not 10, 15, or 20 years down the road. The influx of sea lamprey on a fisheries population, just as zebra mussels did in the Great Lakes, or as Asian carp might do if they ever get through the sanitary canal in Chicago and get into the Great Lakes, they'll decimate the fishery of the Great Lakes entirely if they ever get loose.

These man-made decisions, or man-made problems, are so immediate. I'm not saying climate change is not a concern because clearly it is. These other man-made decisions that are not based on science are just as problematic and tend to have very immediate repercussions on our natural resources. I think those are equal concerns.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much to both of you. Mr. Crawford, thank you for engaging the elements in P.E.I. to be a witness for us this morning, and putting up with the technology glitches. Mr. Farrant, thank you for being here, and to each of our committee members, thank you for your questions.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Chair, can I just ask this? Mr. Farrant mentioned that the scientists they have may be able to elaborate a little more on the climate change impact and maybe have some recommendations. If he's able to ask his scientists if they could maybe table any recommendations and any comments they have, that would be greatly appreciated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We'll take note of that.

We've agreed to adjourn early, because of the statement that's going to be made in the House.

At this point, we'll adjourn this meeting.