Fisheries Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Okay. Do you have more thoughts on your very relevant and interesting assessment of where we are in terms of the site inspections, and how things might change?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I think part of what we're trying to do, as I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks, is to ensure that the industry becomes far more transparent.

One of the things the industry itself wants to be able to say to the market is that that they are in full compliance with all regulatory provisions and that people have inspected their operations regularly to prove that. They want to be able to point to a regular set of government inspections, visits, and so on, so they can say that the conservation and protection folks have been there on a regular basis and they had no violations--or they were very small or whatever it is.

We know from the industry perspective that there's a high degree of receptivity to doing this. Certainly expectations on us from the environmental community for regular visits and so on are very high. There are a whole pile of reasons for wanting to do that, so we will be on farms with some regularity.

I should point out as well that the discussion tends to focus primarily on the salmon farms. The inspection and regulatory provisions apply equally to shellfish operations, so we expect to be on shellfish beds and visiting shellfish farmers and so on. This is an area we'll focus some enforcement attention on, as well as in the salmon farming areas.

With respect to aquaculture, the presence of DFO on the water will be much more visible with respect to the conservation protection officers and the fisheries officers themselves. But what I would describe as the ongoing management personnel of the department will be much, much more present in the years to come, I think.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Do you have any other ideas with respect to our visit next month? Do you think there is anything else that we should do when we're there, in order to be able to assess the changes in regulations?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I hope that when you're there you'll have an opportunity to get onto a couple of farms. I hope you'll have an opportunity to visit some shellfish operators, not just salmon farmers. I know that with a group of this size, it's difficult to stand around and have a chat, but when you are on the farms, I hope you'll have an opportunity to talk to the men and women who really run the place. They'll give you very candid views as to what they see is the current reality and what they see as the forthcoming changes.

I hope you'll have an opportunity as well to talk to people who live in the community around these farms and get their views as to how they work for them. You will obviously also have a chance to talk to many of the critics—I hope, anyway—about the industry and certainly to hear from them as well.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Weston.

Ms. Murray.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thanks for briefing us today.

I have lots of questions for this five minutes, but I'll go right into the trust issue. I appreciate your candour about that. A couple of things come to mind that fed into that lack of trust. One is that some perceive the priority not as being for wild salmon; it was more for industry development. I think a big one was the absence of adequate research on—I'm talking about salmon aquaculture. Specifically, for many years that became the fallback for the decision-making: “We don't have enough research.” That was DFO.

Unclear accountability between the federal and provincial regimes--that's going to be addressed by this, it sounds like, except that the leases and tenures are so critical to the success of the regime you'll be putting forward.

When you mentioned the dollars, you didn't mention more dollars for research. That seems to me that to have been a huge gap in understanding the risks to wild salmon of our current practices and facilities. Could you tell me how that shortcoming is being addressed? Also, on the issue of priority for wild salmon, how will this regime address the fact that the responsibility for protection of wild salmon and the biodiversity and the responsibility for industry, development, and marketing are in the same department? How will that be handled?

I'm just going to ask all my questions up front.

On benthic layer protection provisions, you said you took some of the regulations pretty much and translated them into your regulations. As to the benthic layer protection provisions in the waste management regulation that was put in about 2003--the parameters for footprint and for the proxy for testing and the mechanisms of who's doing the testing--was there any research as to whether those were working, or did you just adapt it as is and then we'll fine-tune it later?

Just a few questions for your remaining two minutes.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

Okay.

With respect to research, I think the first thing to talk about is that in Budget 2008 the government established what we call the sustainable aquaculture program. The government invested $70 million in new funding in aquaculture at large. This is prior to and independent of the B.C. case. As part of that, we established what's called the program for aquaculture regulatory research. This fiscal year that we're in now has, under that program, 17 new positions for aquaculture-related research. Six of those are going into British Columbia; two, I think it was last year, went into B.C., and one the year before. The program has a five-year timeframe, and it ramps up over time. This is year three. Next year there will be an additional 17 researchers going into aquaculture research nationally. I don't have the breakdown nationally, but there will be more in B.C.

I share your view that in the past the absence of research on all sides of this issue—not just from a DFO perspective—has been a problem. A big part of the government's approach to aquaculture in general on the sustainable aquaculture program is to tie its research to the regulatory issues, as opposed to pure curiosity-driven research on aquaculture issues in general. We're hoping that over time, as these resources fully come on line and individuals are in the positions and their research is undertaken and results start to emerge, we'll have research results that are much more pointed and focused on the regulatory questions.

In this case, obviously we would focus some of them on British Columbia, but many of the issues we're dealing with are national, so the research energy is devoted across the country. The bottom line is that we will, independently of this decision, end up with a substantially new research presence in B.C. that will enhance our ability, we think anyway, to manage the resource.

With respect to the debate about wild versus farmed and its relative priority, you've put your finger on a point that comes forward regularly in the public consultations. Some of the questioning is fundamentally around the role and the nature of government. There are those who argue that regulatory and management functions—it doesn't matter whether it's fisheries or forests or agriculture or what have you—shouldn't be in the same place. Others argue that it should be.

To wrap up very quickly, then, on that point, essentially the approach we're taking is that this gives us an opportunity to manage marine ecosystems in an integrated way. Fisheries and Oceans will have access to the management tools, if you will, for the full suite of things that need to be done in a marine ecosystem context, in a way that we think anyway will allow for a much more integrated approach to management of all resource uses.

I'll come back to your third question in the next turn around, if I may.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

There will be another round. You'll be able to get the rest of your questions answered.

Monsieur Lévesque.

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

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Swerdfager, at our last meeting you mentioned that towards the end of this month you expected to have received most of your feedback on this program and that this would be compiled towards the end of the month.

Have you done that? Based on the comments should any corrections be made? Are there any significant corrections that have been asked for?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

We expected to have, as you mentioned, feedback on the program throughout the regulations that were posted in July 2010. Certainly, we were part of the flow, and when I was here in March, I was telling you that was forthcoming. I would say that the nature of the feedback that we've received, with respect to the discussion document we put out in December of last year and the regulations this year, has been quite comprehensive, as you can imagine.

The way I would describe the feedback we have received on the regulations, I put it in two buckets, so to speak.

The first has been a whole set of comments that have nothing to do with the regulations. They've all been about broader political issues. In some cases, they've been about our view of the future of aquaculture. We've received an awful lot of commentary on what should happen in British Columbia and marine ecosystems in general, that kind of thing. It has all been an absolutely legitimate and appropriate commentary, but nothing to do with the regulations themselves.

Then the second chunk or group of comments that we have received have been focused on the text of the regulations and some of their provisions. It's clear that some of the terms that are in the regulations will require some adjustments. We have a couple of technical problems, we have two translation errors, and there are a few other things.

So there will be adjustments that will be made based on the feedback that we received.

And then when we get into Canada Gazette, part II, and its posting in advance of December 18, we expect there will be potentially some changes there as well.

But by and large, I'd say the feedback we've received is that the model is one that's widely understood, and I think most of the feedback suggests that it's sufficiently comprehensive. It covers what it needs to.

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

You had expected to get $12.7 million, which is the necessary sum for setting up the committee for the first year. Afterward, you had provided for $8.3 million per year for managing the program.

Have you made an update? Are your figures turning out as expected?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

The figure we're on for this fiscal year that we're partway through is $12.7 million. Next year, it's $10.5 million, I think it is, or $10.4 million, right around there. I was flipping to it and can't find the exact number. It's $10.5 million, give or take, and then it would be $8.3 million ongoing.

As one of your colleagues mentioned, it is unusual for bureaucrats to say, “Yep, got enough money, thanks.” I'll probably hear about that when I get home. But I think the way the program is calculated, it does allow us sufficient resources to put the people in place and to acquire the equipment. That's why the resources this year and next year are higher. We're going to have to buy four vessels, we have six trucks.... I won't go through all that, but we have to buy a whole pile of equipment. We are probably going to have some difficulty getting everything we need in place in time to go fully operational. So that will be acquired a little bit over time. Buying boats is difficult. That will take us a bit of time. All that to say that I think the resource estimates that we came up with are proving to be pretty accurate.

They will allow us to manage the program, we think, in an effective and efficient way. If the industry were to grow substantially and put more demands on us, then we'd need to revisit our resource levels. If the industry were to shrink, we'd probably want to keep our resource levels, but I think in terms of where the industry is at, and so on, we're in pretty good shape for doing what we need to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yesterday I was at a rally in Vancouver that was the culmination of a five-day paddle by a large contingent of people who were travelling the river. It included environmental activists and first nations and elected officials who were paddling in for the Cohen inquiry. They had a specific message that they were delivering to the inquiry. One of the concerns they raised was about disease outbreaks and access to information in general, mainly from the salmon farms and DFO; I guess in this case it would have been the province.

With the new regulations in place, and even moving into the current situation now, do you know of any diseases that are in B.C. waters or in the farms or in any B.C. or Pacific hatcheries?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

The short answer to your question is no. The regulation is set up in such a way, though, that, going forward as opposed to looking at what may have come in the past, clearly one of the conditions of licence will be that disease incidence, outbreak, and response is something that will have to be reported to us. It will be reportable immediately, and we intend to publish information with respect to disease occurrence.

We have been debating what time period the reporting would occur in. We don't think there's a lot of utility to real-time “There was a disease outbreak four hours ago at farm number 12” kind of thing, because that just creates an impression and an alarm that is probably inappropriate. What we want to be able to do is to say that disease occurred, here are the steps that were taken, and here's the result.

So we expect that there will be information on that. Equally, we will require, as part of the conditions of licence, reporting on sea lice. I know your question wasn't specifically focused on that, but the two sort of intermesh a little bit, so if I may, I will just note that we will make it a condition of licence that all salmon farmers will conduct regular sea lice monitoring programs and that they will report their data to us. Those data will go up on the web on a very regular basis so that people have the information that they did not have in the past.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

That also was a concern. Access to that information, just getting that information and making it public, was definitely a concern.

What gives you the confidence to say that there has been no, or will be no, disease outbreak of specifically ISA in British Columbia?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

A large part of my confidence stems from talking to the people who work on the farms and manage their operations and also to our scientists. I'm a big believer, in the DFO context and more generally, in the elders concept. I spend a lot of time talking to those I consider to be my elders in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, guys who have been around for a long time. Those are guys like Dick Beamish--not just him, there are others as well--who has spent a lot of time on the water and who knows the field very well. I've spent a lot of time with him in formal meetings. I've met with him over coffee, over beers, and so on, and I've talked to him about these issues.

So I put a lot of faith and stock in what they tell me, and also in the formal scientific literature. I haven't seen anything that suggests to me that there are disease problems in the water today. I'm aware that there are people who feel that those problems did exist in the past. I haven't seen any data to suggest that. I'm quite confident in the advice and the guidance I've been given by a variety of people, but mostly from within DFO.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question on consultation with regard to the draft regulations in the next round. Will this new iteration of the regulations be reviewed, before they come into place, by those who provided input?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

No. The next round will be the final.... There is no next round of consultation. We followed the normal regulatory process and prepublished it in Canada Gazette, part I. A 60-day review period was put in place. That is double the norm, but we couldn't extend it out and still meet the court deadline.

We will be publishing at some point a “what we heard” document so that people will know that we've actually heard what they said. I think people will be able to see some of the changes possibly reflected in the regulation based on what they said, and so on, but there isn't any more consultation with respect to the regulation itself. It will come out in advance of December 18, and it will be a done deal at that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Kamp.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Trevor, for coming. I always appreciate your visits. I have a few quick questions for you.

The B.C. Supreme Court decision restricted itself to finfish aquaculture. I wonder if you can tell us a bit more about the thought process that went into wanting to include shellfish aquaculture and freshwater aquaculture under the federal regime.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

There were two streams of thought going forward. The first was to look at it from a predominantly legal perspective. As you point out, the decision was focused on salmon farming because that was the nature of the judicial review that was sought and brought to the court. So in the opinion of the court, the focus was on the finfish aspects, and so on. But we couldn't see anything in the court decision that wouldn't logically apply, had they been asked to specifically look at shellfish.

One can't speculate on what a court would say, given a different set of facts, circumstances, and so on, but it seemed that many of the principles at play panned across the full range of fish. So it made sense from a legal perspective to consider the possibility that shellfish were probably captured as well.

At the same time, to go back to the nature of the relationship we have with the province, when we sat down and looked at this from a good public policy perspective, we couldn't think of a real rationale for transferring 80% or 85% of the provincial responsibility to the federal government and maintaining a separate and continuing licensing regime, inspection regime, etc., for shellfish. We felt that from a single taxpayer point of view it made no sense. So it was good public policy to create a single harmonized approach to the management of aquaculture in the province, and the same logic flowed with respect to freshwater aquaculture.

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

Thank you.

You said in your remarks that the federal government has no plans to expand this regulation or a similar regulation to any other part of Canada, and no intention of seeking a policy mandate to do so. I understand that.

These provincial laws were struck down, or read down in one case. Can you see that happening in other provinces? In the maritime provinces and other provinces that do aquaculture--Quebec, for example--are they regulated differently, with different legal bases, that wouldn't make it as likely that this could happen if someone challenged it, as they did in B.C.?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

The regime in place in Alberta is essentially non-existent with respect to aquaculture. In Saskatchewan, a very small section of the fish and wildlife act deals with aquaculture, so it's very different. Manitoba is in the process of developing something similar. In Ontario, it's covered largely under their natural resources portfolio regime. There isn't something very specifically focused on aquaculture, so it's a little different.

In Quebec, there is no marine finfish regime, so there's no regulatory regime for that, but there is for shellfish. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the nature of the regulations and legislation in place is similar to British Columbia, not identical. In Prince Edward Island, the federal government is already responsible for aquaculture across the province, so there's a different arrangement in place there. There's no aquaculture in Labrador, but in Newfoundland the regime is again not identical to British Columbia, but it's similar.

So you have a bit of variety across the country, because of course the country is different and the nature of aquaculture is different. For the most part, there is a legislative and regulatory system in Atlantic Canada that one could argue is similar to that of B.C. I wouldn't speculate as to where the courts would go if ever a challenge came, but the regime and the issues are no doubt somewhat similar.