What's Mr. Wild's official title at DFO?
Evidence of meeting #5 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dfo.
Evidence of meeting #5 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dfo.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
He is the area director.
Sir, you mentioned a habitat officer in your presentation earlier. Who was that person you were referring to?
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
You said this person was either out to lunch or making up--
9:35 a.m.
As an Individual
There was an on-site person there too, from DFO, by the name of Vince Busto. Now, he wasn't always there, but he certainly had to give approval from time to time as they proceeded. I spoke with him almost at the beginning. We were talking about the fact that the river was higher on one side of the dike than the other. He agreed that was the situation, but he assured me that a big bridge was going to go in and it wasn't going to drop the river more than a foot. It had already dropped about foot, and he said that once this bridge was in, that'd be the extent of it.
The bridge never went in, and even if the bridge had gone in, it still would have taken the river down two feet or more.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
9:35 a.m.
A voice
Maybe four days.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
It was about four days; okay.
The damage has been done, but now that there's been a precedent set--correct me if I'm wrong--you're obviously fearful that this is going to happen again.
9:35 a.m.
As an Individual
From my perspective, I question whether DFO would be so cavalier as to authorize something like this particular development. The media picked it up; if you googled media shortly after some of the news releases went out, it was picked up as far as North Korea and Malaysia. I would suggest that if DFO did it again, they would be utterly foolish. The issue surrounding large-scale removals at sites where there is absolutely no flood benefit is, I think, the more longstanding concern.
Gravel removal maybe will take place--likely will take place--but what we really want to see is an open and transparent process that is technically driven, provides flood benefits for Canadians, and minimizes impacts to fish.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Sir, when you talked about what Nancy said about the fact that the MLAs didn't want you guys to be involved in terms of that, is there anything in writing? Did she put anything in writing to you on that?
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
Absolutely not. The meeting took place on October 30, 2003. There were two managers at the meeting, and she flew over. It was unprecedented for an executive to basically remove a junior-level technical person, which I was, with the Ministry of the Environment at the time. We had this hour-long meeting and she finally said, “Look, there's nothing wrong with your science. We're just removing you from your position because the eastern MLAs don't like what you have to say.” The issues I was dealing with were basically twofold: one was large-scale flood plain development, which is tied into the Fraser River habitat issues as well; and the other was Fraser River gravel removal.
The whole ministry knew about it after some time, and to be “Marvinized”.... “Marvinization” is a term for a person being removed from government because they're trying to do their job. What I have to say is one person like me is not necessarily right. You can't have one person understanding the whole gamut of technical issues, but to basically squash open debate and open technical and scientific discourse leaves Canadians, in my view, with a black hole. We've been referred to as third world in terms of our habitat protection by people from outside of the country, and basically on the recognizance of some of my descriptions of fish habitat management.
So from my perspective as a habitat professional, that's a very disturbing turn of events.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
In conclusion, Mr. Kwak, you say that enforcement officers were told not to enforce the law or to go after certain people who were violating the law. And, sir, you're telling me that scientific evidence was either ignored or not done, and for obvious political reasons, for other aspects, of some sort, of the economy. And you're not only dealing with the federal government; you have to deal with the provincial government as well.
9:40 a.m.
As an Individual
Well, I can tell you that if you look at the very first picture I provided, which is the picture of the gravel truck and the excavator, we were on site there. These were my pictures, or people who were with me took them. On the day that we were there, there were two enforcement officers there from the Chilliwack local office, and I was very fortunate because there were also a number of other people there.
We had a camcorder, and we did six hours of taping with a number of different enforcement people and the DFO personnel who were there. When these two fisheries officers came, I asked them about what was going on there, and the fact that this was going to cause some de-watering downriver. And they shrugged their shoulders and said yes, but they were at the lower end of things, and things were being approved higher up, so they weren't about to do anything.
In order to verify my point, the next day I went there and I got some formalin and I went to the site immediately below this gravel bar, and I dug two redds. And out of those redds, I collected a number of alevins and I put them in formalin and I took them immediately, with a witness, to the local DFO office and suggested that charges be laid or that this work be stopped. I was told by local enforcement that I ought to notify the regional director general, Paul Sprout, about it, and they didn't think there was a lot they could do.
So that's where it went, and then it really got full-blown, and we went into full-time mode of going there every day. I was there every day for a number of weeks watching the river go up and down, mostly down. When the culverts went in it even went down further instead of up, and Marvin's group was very much involved and we helped them all do this analysis and discover that there were lots of redds.
The other thing we need to point out is we're talking here about this one issue, but there were two other causeways just like this put in a month before, upriver and also downriver, which also had an impact.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerald Keddy
Thank you.
We'll have our next questioner, Mr. Cummins, ten minutes.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
On the gravel, approximately what was the flow of the river through that channel? How much of the flow of the Fraser would be through that channel?
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
My guess is it was probably about one-fifth of the total Fraser. The Fraser was running at about 750 cubic metres per second during the initial construction of the causeway across the channel. It was probably well over 100 cubic metres per second, so it was a large flow.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Frank, it was your group and friends who you're associated with, I think, who first brought this to the public's attention and made it an issue.
DFO said they were not aware there was a fish kill. But on the day I was there, you folks made it very evident that the redds were easy to spot. It was obvious to anyone, once it was pointed out, that there was a problem; it's quite clear. Is that not correct?
Could you explain to the committee how you can identify the redds and what the process is for finding these fish?