Environment Committee on May 1st, 2018

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Just following on our colleague's questions on agriculture, I have to share, Madam Commissioner, that I am a little stunned. A program I worked with, Prairie Farmers to Save, was a community pasture program. It was a remarkable program that had very little infusion of federal dollars. It helped small farmers to maintain biodiversity, as there were a lot of threatened species in this community pasture, including Govenlock. In its wisdom, the Conservative government killed the community pasture program, which is now going to go under the plow, and we're going to lose the biodiversity and the access to that program for small farmers. I just wanted to add that.

I want to thank you again, as I did when you did your briefing, on two further important reports. I have to say it's getting discouraging, though I'm pleased that you and your team continue to do your hard work and your honest assessment.

We had you in very recently, Commissioner, on sustainable development. Of course, our committee is also reviewing the bill the government has put forward to, in theory, strengthen the Federal Sustainable Development Act. In their wisdom, they have still not brought that bill back, so we have to go on the basis of what the bill provides right now.

You've made some recommendations to strengthen and to provide direction, and in fact one of your complaints is that there is no whole-of-government approach, either on biodiversity or on sustainable development goals, but we have the cabinet directive and we have the Federal Sustainable Development Act as it is.

On the basis of your report, what are the most critical measures the current government needs to take to actually start being taken seriously about delivering on the sustainable development goals?

[Julie Gelfand]

We are doing an audit right now on the use of the strategic environmental assessment tool, and I'll be reporting that this fall. As you know, we've been looking at that tool over the last five years in each department, looking at whether the strategic environmental assessment tool has been used when programs go to ministers and when programs go to cabinet. We've been doing that four or five departments at a time over five years. This year right now that's happening. We're going to all 26 departments where they have to use it and we're looking at one slice: how they are using the strategic environmental assessment tool when they go to cabinet. We will be able to report to you on progress in the use of that tool in the fall.

In terms of the sustainable development goals, as I said, this is an initiative that auditors general around the world are working on. We expect 80 audits to be done, hopefully by this July—within the next year anyhow—and hopefully many more will be doing that over the course of a year and a half, because a whole bunch of countries are being trained now on how to do this audit. The audit is looking at whether governments are prepared to implement the 17 sustainable development goals.

All of use around the world are looking at a variety of things. Is there a high level of engagement? Canada got a check-off for that. The Prime Minister made a speech at the UN and said clearly that the SDGs apply to Canada. We were then looking for a plan, an overall all-of-government plan. We did not find that. We did not find the engagement strategy with communities and with other levels of government, and frankly even with the other government departments. We found five government departments were involved. What about the rest? There are five departments that are the lead. It's not as if they're doing nothing. They are doing some activities, but in their zones as opposed to looking globally at whether we're ready to implement.

On the area of data, we had three criteria. Do they have a measurement system, a monitoring system, and a reporting system? Statistics Canada has found indicators for about 70 of the global indicators, so it has found data, but Canada has yet to set its own national targets. That's something that Canada has to do.

Therefore, if you look at the seven criteria that all the auditors general from around the world are looking at to see if their governments are ready to implement, Canada ticks the box on about two of them. There is still lots for Canada to do.

In the last budget, the government announced a sustainable development goal unit and some money, but we did not audit that. Next time we go in, hopefully we'll see that.

The last thing I want to say on the sustainable development goals is that our office is looking at these quite seriously. The Auditor General will be looking at all the sustainable development goals and all the work that we do in audit and in identifying which areas are high risk—so our office has been SDG'ed, if you will. We'll be looking for audits that link to the SDGs, not just from the commissioner but from the Auditor General as well.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

It will be important to go after more than one of 17. The government seems fixated on feminism, not the other 16.

I do have another question for you about your continued concerns about the failure to deliver on obligations on biodiversity. What can be done to send the message to the government that it actually has binding legal obligations regarding endangered species?

[Julie Gelfand]

I would say we made some recommendations in our report and the government needs to implement those recommendations, as it has agreed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Rogers.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to commend you for your report. Thank you for the amount of detail you've included.

Just by way of information, I come from a very rural background in Newfoundland and Labrador. Rural communities, of course, saw aquaculture as an opportunity, as an economic development opportunity, particularly after 1992 with the closure of the wild fishery and the moratorium that has existed ever since, for the last 26 or 27 years.

So aquaculture is being promoted by the province and identified as an opportunity to grow fish to feed the world's masses, to sustain rural communities, and to create jobs. We have many bays and extensive coastlines that seem to be ideal environments for growing fish in the nets and the pens that they use in Newfoundland and Labrador at the moment.

It seems to me, based on a recent conference I attended, that they've made substantial progress in Newfoundland and Labrador in the aquaculture industry. I read your report, and of course I realize it's national in scope and that you're reviewing the entire industry across the country. Do you see any significant differences in the various jurisdictions, say, from B.C. to Newfoundland and Labrador to New Brunswick? Is there an area where you could say they've done it right, or are all of them challenged? Have they all made some significant improvements, or do they all have challenges to meet in order to cover this industry properly?

[Julie Gelfand]

My mandate only covers the federal government. I'm only allowed to audit the federal government, so I looked at its role in regulating this industry. In the Atlantic provinces, this industry is regulated for the most part by the provinces. In British Columbia, it is regulated by the federal government. It used to be regulated by the province and now it's regulated by the federal government.

What I can say is that the Auditor General of Nova Scotia audited aquaculture in that province. Nobody has looked specifically yet at Newfoundland, as far as I know.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I was surprised to read in the report that there were no aquaculture enforcement officers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Julie Gelfand]

There are no additional ones.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I just wondered how the existence of these enforcement officers dedicated solely to aquaculture would improve the regulatory approach to salmon farming. Is it fair to say that regulations surrounding the drugs and pesticides were developed with a focus on salmon farming and not on wild populations?

[Julie Gelfand]

The regulations around drugs and pesticides would be for salmon farming. We found there were no limits to the amount and timing of drugs and pesticides used in those pens. We found that industry did have to report to DFO on when they used those pesticides and how much, but there was no validation of those reports.

The regulations were aimed at helping prevent diseases in the farmed pens. They were not written for impacts on wild fish. As well, we found that they don't know if the regulations on drugs and pesticides are good enough to prevent impacts on wild fish, and they also don't know if they need regulations for the cumulative effects. Let's say there are five or six pens in one area, and they're all using drugs and pesticides. The department hasn't determined whether they need rules and regulations around the cumulative effects.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I appreciate the comments, and I'm really concerned about some of the things you've identified, because if we are to grow the industry, and if it's to be a sustainable industry in the future, obviously all these things need to be addressed and identified.

I was also wondering whether there was a national standard for nets and other equipment. In your view, why is such a standard important?

[Julie Gelfand]

The biggest fish escapes in Canada have occurred in the Atlantic region, not so much in the Pacific region, and it's the Pacific region where there are these national standards, because they're regulated by DFO. So a recommendation is that DFO talk to their counterparts in the Atlantic region to see if, on the east coast, they can establish and use the standards that are used on the west coast. Right now those are regulated by the province.

I could also say that I discussed this report with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Minister LeBlanc. He was really appreciative of our audit. He said it would help contribute to a good dialogue on the industry and its future.

From my perspective, I found more gaps in this audit than in any other audit I've ever done. These gaps are big. Nobody is monitoring the health of wild fish. There are no limits on the use of drugs and pesticides.

It's not as if the department is doing no work. They are doing work. They do have conditions of operation, they do research, but in my opinion the gaps that we found were quite large.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much. That's it.

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

I just want to correct the record.

Ms. Duncan talked about community pastures as if they were all disappearing. It's simply not true. I have in front of me here the report from the Association of Manitoba Community Pastures. They operate 20 community pastures throughout Manitoba, many in my own constituency. They manage over 350,000 acres of provincial land and provide all kinds of environmental benefits including water filtration, carbon sequestration, and species at risk.

I'd recommend that Ms. Duncan do her research first before she makes a vast conclusion that all these pastures will be ploughed up. They certainly will not. The ownership has been transferred to local people who are managing it for conservation, biodiversity, and beef production, and doing it extremely well.

Commissioner, have you come across any evidence that open net-pen aquaculture has directly affected populations of wild salmon?

[Julie Gelfand]

We were looking to see whether the department had that information. What we found is that nobody is monitoring the health of wild fish; therefore, the department doesn't really know if net pen farming is affecting wild salmon stocks. We also found that there was no threshold for action. If there is a decline in a stock, there is no threshold at which point the department would have to take some action.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Aquaculture started in British Columbia in 1986, and in 2010 and 2014, under our watch I might add, the sockeye salmon runs in the Fraser were at record highs, especially in 2014. How could that happen when net pen aquaculture had been practised since 1986?

[Julie Gelfand]

I can't make that link. We didn't look at that link in our report. I can tell you—and this is public information—that the State of Alaska and the State of Washington have decided to no longer have open net-pen aquaculture. The only place in North American on the west coast where there will be salmon aquaculture will be off the coast of British Columbia.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Basically, they did it without any definitive evidence of the effect on wild fish stocks.

[Julie Gelfand]

Sorry?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I just stated that they basically did that without any evidence showing that net pen aquaculture can negatively affect their stocks.

[Julie Gelfand]

I don't know on what basis.... I do know that the department was supposed to complete 10 risk assessments on key diseases, and they had only completed one out of those 10.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

All the people who want to get rid of net pen aquaculture think that the net pens will just go onshore close to where they are now. I guarantee you that prairie Canada will the prime location for closed containment aquaculture for a whole number of factors, including access to market. If net pen aquaculture were closed down, the Prairies will certainly benefit.

In terms of net pen aquaculture, you talk about the benthic environment. When we studied closed containment aquaculture at the fisheries committee, it was shown that the benthic organisms recover in about three years, assuming that they rotate and move these pens around. Is it your finding that DFO requires the net pens to be moved on a regular basis to allow the benthic ecosystem to recover?

[Julie Gelfand]

We did not look at that, unfortunately.