Fisheries Committee on June 1st, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Matthews had a point he wanted to bring up.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Just getting back to this refrigerated fish, has the department recognized that this fish is what it is?

[Frank Kwak]

My understanding is that these numbers are coming from enforcement staff who have been doing secretive investigations this year—probably more this year than in the past—and have indeed identified fish in cold storage plants in the lower mainland.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Well, if such is the case, why doesn't the committee recommend that until all that fish is eaten by those people there be no more ceremonial or whatever fish? If that is the case, it is obscene, really; that's what it is. There's no other way to describe this but obscene, if that is the fact.

It's fine for me to eat refrigerated fish, but it's not fine for someone else, because they want to sell it and make big money off what's supposed to be ceremonial fish. There's something really out of whack with this, and I don't know how we get to the bottom of this, Mr. Chair.

I don't mean to bog down our witnesses with it, because they've come here and presented a case. But from one member of this committee's point of view, if we as a committee are not able to influence what's happening in this situation, then I think we should seriously consider what we're doing here. This is blatant and obscene. That's all I want to say about it this morning. I'll say some more about it later on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Matthews.

To our witnesses, I very much appreciate the fact of your coming here today. It was an excellent presentation; it was well appointed; there was a lot of documentation with it. It's probably one of the better presentations I've ever seen at committee.

I have two very brief questions for you. The first one is on the moratorium that was placed on gravel removals in the Fraser River in 1998. That moratorium was lifted. Why? Why was it implemented in 1998? What was the basis of the science behind it?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

The basis of the science was to try to come up with a true estimate of gravel recruitment. Money was vetted to the department of geography at UBC to come up with a total estimate. The objective was that once the estimate was derived, the extraction would continue as a function of that estimate.

The second issue....

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Why was it implemented?

[Marvin Rosenau]

Oh, it was implemented to be able to have a timeframe for measurement, to look at the biology. I basically got money for a couple of graduate students to do some primary fundamental biology to try to get an understanding of the habitat value of these large gravel bars. The moratorium was just a kind of breather space to get the information in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

My second question, and for the life of me I can't quite figure it out, is this. We have very severe restrictions on any disturbance of habitat across the country, from coast to coast to coast. We've looked at the degradation of our rivers and have begun to understand the importance of our riparian strips and looking after the tributaries and streams coming into our main rivers. Anything that affects a stream bed is just about off limits anywhere in the country.

This is a huge aggregate grab of some sort, and maybe we can understand the reasons behind it, with the housing boom and the need for the aggregate. You've said yourself that it can be undertaken in a responsible manner that really has minimal effect on fish habitat. But I don't understand why they would consider it if we have a species of fish that are spawning in the area, the pinks that spawn every second year.

Can you answer the question—because I can't—why we would allow it in a spawning year, when we could simply allow the gravel extractions in the years when the pinks are not spawning?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

I guess the first thing is that gravel removal for flood protection doesn't have the same kind of diligence as riparian and other issues. It's such a hot topic--and it doesn't matter whether you're talking about the Fraser, the Vedder-Chilliwack, the Chehalis or whatever--that if people's property and/or lives are being affected, removal has precedence, and we understand that.

The second thing is that it is such a hot political issue that the decision-making behind how to achieve gravel removal and flood protection--the flood profile--has been taken out of the hands of the technical staff. The technical staff has in effect been disbanded for the Fraser River. The senior managers are making the decisions--the where, the when, the how.

So gravel removal for flood protection is in a different category in terms of habitat protection. In this special case on the Fraser, where it has been taken out of the hands of the technical staff, the technical staff has been poorly supported. DFO doesn't have a single biologist working on Fraser River gravel. I was the Ministry of Environment biologist again up until 2003, and all gravel removal committee discussions were disbanded in 2003.

The one person who basically is working at gravel removal on a technical basis is an engineer, Vince Busto. He's a very competent engineer, but he is spread out over the whole southern Fraser region. It's impossible to believe that one sole engineer, competent as he is, with a myriad of other issues, can focus his time properly on the Fraser River and achieve the objectives under the no-net-loss policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to both of you for appearing here today. It was a very informative discussion, and much appreciated.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Chair--

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Just one second, Mr. Stoffer. We do have a bit of committee business here.

I'd like to deal with one issue first, if we have approval of the committee, and that is that Jim Wild and Paul Sprout appear as part of the DFO officials on Tuesday, June 6, 2006, regarding gravel extraction and enforcement in the Fraser River.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

Could I ask just one question? Or is that too late?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Perhaps we could deal with this first. Then I'll go back to you.

Mr. Stoffer, you brought it up earlier, and now I just want to have formal approval.

It's moved by Mr. Stoffer.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

There are just two more issues I want to deal with on future business. I want to get these out of the way.

The first one is that two witnesses--whose names shall be provided by Mr. Cummins--be invited to appear on Thursday, June 8, 2006, for one hour in relation to the herring-spawn-on-kelp fishery.

These are steering committee recommendations.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

The third motion is that a budget for the committee's study on the herring-spawn-on-kelp fishery in the amount of $6,400 for the period of June 1, 2006, to June 30, 2006, be adopted.

Otherwise, we can't afford to bring these two gentlemen in.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Stoffer, thank you for your patience.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

No worries.

Mr. Kamp, you indicated that this proposal isn't in stone yet, and it's going to go to the minister for approval. Would it be at all possible, sir, to ask the department for a review of all this, a description of what's going on--in other words, a briefing on what the minister will be saying soon?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Sure. Do you want just a verbal briefing, or what do you want?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Whatever it is you think would be necessary to at least allow us the opportunity to ask the right questions when they come around.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Dr. Rosenau, I think you had a final point you wanted to make.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

Yes, just a quick question.

We've been advised that senior managers or executives have, within their work plan or work contract, provisos for achieving certain target levels for gravel removal, and bonuses attached to that. I guess the question we're asking is whether this committee can look into that and see if that's the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

That is a question we can quite easily ask.

In closing, I think there's a very important point that has come up here several times. We have, certainly, an expert here on salmon and someone who has monitored gravel extraction on the Fraser who is saying we can do this in a responsible manner without any major degradation of the stream bed or the salmon population. And the other very obvious point that keeps coming up is the fact that if the pinks only spawn every second year and we have a quota of gravel that we want to meet, we could still meet that quota by extracting it in the off years when they're not spawning. I fail to see the challenge here.