Fisheries Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2007

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Will that office recommend the projects to you?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Yes. Coordination of the office is assumed by the Department of Natural Resources. The Major Projects Management Office is being established by that department. As deputy minister, I see to the Office's management with my other designated colleagues. My contribution to it will be made through individuals that we will retain to expedite project evaluation.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Will this new office give rise to changes in the role of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in particular?

[Michelle d'Auray]

No, that won't change its role or mandate. However, the promoters and the department will have what could be called a single window. Through it, projects can be identified and submitted. That will enable us to conduct a one-time collection of information that will be used by all departments, rather than request various types of information from the promoters each time. That will help the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency coordinate the consultation stages. The Agency will be able to continue doing that on behalf of all departments, as it currently does, but that capability will be reinforced.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

In the case of small craft harbours, there are increasing demands for breakwaters to be installed and for sand build-up to be removed within the harbours.

Will this office assess those requests?

[Michelle d'Auray]

No, because the office will focus exclusively on natural resources, whether it be hydroelectric, gas extraction or mining projects.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Yes.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Can you tell me how much has been budgeted for the transfer of Coast Guard ships between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Michelle d'Auray]

I'm going to ask my Coast Guard colleague to provide an answer

to the question of funds allocated for the transfer of the vessels.

[Commr George Da Pont]

The transfer will be made next April 1 for the Terry Fox and April 1, 2009 for the Louis S. St-Laurent. An overall amount of nearly half a million dollars has been set aside to cover the cost of transport by ship of the people who will go to the High North every summer. As for the rest, we don't think we will have to bear significant costs, since we expect to spread it all over five years. We're not going to transfer people who don't want to go from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

That's a good thing. I expected to hear $500 million.

Do these expenditures appear in the Supplementary Estimates?

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Next time, Mr. Lévesque. Good try.

Because I'm sitting over here and that spot is vacant, we now move over to the Conservative Party, to Mr. Randy Kamp, the parliamentary secretary, for 10 minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Madam d'Auray and her officials for coming.

In the supplementary estimates, vote 1 refers to about $16.5 million for funding to support science and sustainable fisheries in order to strengthen fisheries management and resource conservation. I'm just wondering if you can give us a bit more detail on what that covers.

In your answer--and perhaps Mr. Bevan can as well--tell us a little bit about how this all relates to the Larocque decision, and where we are in working through the Larocque decision, and how it impacts on fisheries management.

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you.

The amount of money, the $16.4 million or $16.5 million, really was provided to us to deal with three major issues. One of those is, as you have raised, the results of the court decision known as the Larocque decision, so that we can continue to do the work on the stock assessments. The bulk of the funding is really going towards that. Another portion is going to the ecosystem-based management and the science around that. Those are really the two major components that are being funded through that.

I don't know if you wanted to get a bit more information from Mr. Bevan about where we are in working our way through. My recollection is that we have dealt with 80% of the situations around that and are still working through a few odd cases.

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

I think there are those who might not be completely clear on what that decision was and what its impacts were. Perhaps you can give us a very brief summary of it and then tell us a little bit more.

I also wouldn't mind hearing a bit more about this ecosystem-based management and what that will look like when we finally get there.

[David Bevan]

Thank you.

We had about 200 arrangements with groups of fishermen in which we had entered into agreements with fishermen. These agreements would involve services that the department would provide in order to fund those--and this is a generalization, of course, given the numbers--but in order to fund those, there were two options.

One was to enter into an agreement with a legally defined group, and then they would receive funds from their members and provide that to the department in exchange for additional services above and beyond what would be needed just to manage the fisheries and then conserve the stocks. Where there were problems was with what's called a free rider, in which of the groups of fishermen, maybe 80% would like the agreement but 10% or 20% would not, and they were not paid. To deal with that, there was a move to take some of the quota and convert it into cash and then have the funds raised that way.

The Larocque decision found that this was not an appropriate use of fish; that the minister did not own the fish, but the people of Canada did, and he would manage it on their behalf; that he couldn't use his authorities to create these quotas that would then create funds for extra science or enforcement or other DFO activities.

So what's happened is that we can no longer enter into those kinds of agreements. The quotas are returned to the fishermen, and if they wish to enter into an agreement with us, they can do so, but not use fish to create the funds needed for the extra activities.

To compensate for some activities that were in fact part of our responsibilities, there has been extra funding provided to the department, but that will not replace all the activities that previously existed. There's going to have to be some consideration by the groups as to whether or not they wish to reinstate them through some other type of arrangement or whether they are to try to make do without the extra levels of science or monitoring control and surveillance. That would be the response to the Larocque component.

On ecosystem-based management, in the past we've focused on single species management and we've looked for maximum sustainable yield within those species, and that was too narrow a focus. We couldn't see the entire risks that the activities were posing. There was bycatch and impact on the ecosystem that would change the productivity of the ecosystem. In addition, for example, with west coast salmon, there are impacts of the ecosystem on the productivity of target species. Salmon is a good example of where at-sea survival can be quite variable from one year to the next or from one type of oceanographic condition to another.

What we're looking at doing is moving incrementally to take these into consideration. We're accounting for bycatch, for managing bycatch. We're looking at closing vulnerable marine ecosystems to certain types of fishing that might impact it, and we're evaluating the impact of the oceanographic conditions on the productivity of populations so that we can factor all that into the management of the fisheries.

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

Does it take money just to get there, or once you're there, does it cost more to manage them in an ecosystem-based way?

[David Bevan]

It will be more complex to manage in this way because we have spatial and temporal closures required. We have that type of activity. We need to realign our science and management programs. I don't think we can ever know everything, but we need to know enough and have a broad enough picture that we can make informed decisions, and we need to work with the industry to deal with these things. That involves vessel monitoring systems, satellite transponders, better software, all that kind of thing, which would require investments by both us and the industry. But the markets are expecting this. We have a number of fisheries that are now in certification to demonstrate to the market that they're sustainable, and we have to move in this direction. It will take an alignment of resources.

Without extra funding, it just means we have to redefine how we spend our time and work collaboratively with the various parties involved.

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

Are there other jurisdictions around the world that have made better progress at ecosystem-based management than we have? Are there some good examples to follow?

[David Bevan]

There are some examples to follow in some jurisdictions. There are some in Australia. We have international examples of some RFMOs--regional fish management organizations--having moved in this direction.

Generally I think we can learn from each other, but nobody has it all right at this point. It's a path that most of the developed countries have started down. Most of the science organizations have recognized that by looking at only one species you have a false sense of risk, because you don't see the broader picture. That's what happened to cod in the Atlantic. We had such a narrow focus on a small number of indicators that we missed the bigger picture of changing productivity. We kept fishing at the previous level even though productivity had dropped dramatically, and we were using the wrong indicators because we had such a narrow focus.

So having learned from that, we now have to look at a broader set of indicators, and we do have examples to follow from other jurisdictions. But generally we're all working this through at the same pace.

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

Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, I think my colleague Mr. Allen has some questions.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Mr. Allen, you have a minute and a half.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Under vote 1, the $5.935 million, is that money that is going to be associated with supporting the major project office that will be set up under Natural Resources? If that is so, do you expect that to be a continuing addition each year?

Second, under these major initiatives, wouldn't you have been contributing to some of these studies before? Is this an incremental cost?

[Michelle d'Auray]

The funds are currently allocated for five years, as they are for most government programs, and they have to go through an evaluation. This allows us to proceed more effectively with the evaluation and assessment of major projects.

Right now, major projects, like any other proponents that table a project that would require habitat authorization under the Fisheries Act, would be evaluated. This will allow us to accelerate and work more closely with our colleagues in other departments and agencies in reviewing a project.

So it allows us to contribute to a single-window initiative.