Fisheries Committee on Oct. 26th, 2010

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

Finally, what is your participation or involvement in the Cohen commission?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

As you know, the department, in virtually all aspects of our activities, is contributing to the development of documents, and so on. We've done a fair bit of that so far. I've been informed that I'll be asked to appear before the commission. The date hasn't been set, but I believe they're looking at some time in February for aquaculture. But please don't hold me to that date; I know they have a couple of scheduling things to deal with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, and welcome. I truly hope that you can establish more trust between the wild fishery and the salmon farming.

If I understand correctly, the federal government, if there were a new licence, is responsible for the licensing off British Columbia and the province is responsible for the lease, if the licence is issued.

Now, just by way of example, if there's an expansion or a new fish farm is put in place, there's been a major problem, if I understand correctly, over the years. The wild fishery feel that the fish farms are in the wrong place; possibly DFO feels they're in the right place. But there's been a great ill feeling, particularly from the wild fishery, about the salmon on the migratory path coming by the fish farms.

Am I understanding correctly that you would issue the licence and the province would issue the lease? Is that correct?

Also, when you're answering—because I'm going to let Joyce ask another question or give her whatever time is left—when you have the escape problem that you have with the Atlantic salmon, it will be reported, but what will the repercussions be? I understand this is supposed to be somewhat of a problem. What repercussions would be in place for these types of things? And also if the lice problem is as has been described to us by a number of people involved in the wild fishery....

[Trevor Swerdfager]

Your understanding of the system is correct, first. Essentially what will happen is the province will continue to issue leases for the land base, so the province will decide where in British Columbia aquaculture will occur. To operate in British Columbia you will require a lease from the province, and going forward you will require a licence from us.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Can I ask you, then, whether where the lease is has any bearing on whether you get the licence or not?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

It does today and it will in the future. Essentially what will happen is that we will, as I mentioned earlier, be working very closely with the province, using common criteria for decision-making. What we want to avoid is a scenario under which the province issues someone a lease and we come along and say, that's great, but we're not giving you a licence because that's just the wrong place for it. That's just stupid; it benefits nobody, and DFO never does it.

Essentially what we're working to do is make sure that the leasing and licensing provisions are synchronized carefully; that the criteria we use to determine whether or not someone would get a licence are factored into the leasing decision and vice versa. So whilst they are two legal documents with two legal tracks, we are working very hard to intersect them in an administrative way, if you will, so that we have built into the licensing decisions.... Obviously the focus there is on site base. Equally, we want to make sure that the province isn't issuing leases to areas where there is no possibility of getting a licence. We're going to be continuing to work with them to make sure that happens.

Is that clear enough? Have I answered that appropriately?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Yes, but I would....

Go ahead.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

With respect to escapes, one of the conditions of licence will be that people will have to report escapes, if and when they occur. Our feeling is that the number of fish that escape every year is quite small—it's not zero—and we want to ensure that every farm is required to report to us any escapes they've had, on a monthly basis, probably. It may be every two weeks—we haven't decided yet—but on a regular basis, anyway. We will publish that information, probably monthly, so that we will know what the level of escapes is.

In terms of repercussions if there is a major escape of thousands of fish, as part of the conditions of licence people will be given a permission essentially to conduct fishing to recapture those fish; there is a system in place for that. So the first avenue, if you will, is to attempt to recapture. That's not usually extremely successful; occasionally it is, but not enormously so.

The impact of the escapes, which was a commonly held concern eight or ten or twenty years ago, is of less concern to us now. We don't have any evidence of Atlantic salmon out-competing Pacific salmon or causing reproduction problems. We don't have any Atlantic salmon population that has grown up in the Pacific Ocean as a result of introductions and so on. So from our perspective, at least, environmental factors and concerns are limited.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

We'll get back to Ms. Murray in the next round.

Monsieur Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I am a bit embarrassed about putting this question to you, given that you are before us today regarding another subject, but nonetheless, it has to do with aquaculture, with its impact and the potential for disease.

A few weeks ago, I learned about what was happening in New Brunswick. News was spreading that the lobster population was in jeopardy because of aquaculture.

Are you worried about this matter or about the way it was reported? I have not had the opportunity to check into it. This casts a doubt on food that is served, and this kind of worry can be harmful to aquaculture as such.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

It used to be that I would joke with people that all issues and problems around aquaculture occur in British Columbia. New Brunswick has now given me an opportunity to be truly national in focus.

The nature of the challenges in New Brunswick is quite significant. There are significant levels of sea lice on farmed salmon in New Brunswick now. New Brunswick farmers are losing fish as a result of very high lice levels. They are at a level that is unheard of in the Pacific Ocean. It's an entirely different biological situation in the Bay of Fundy.

Some of the discussion around what to do next.... I'm sure you may be referring to the article in La Presse from two and a half or three weeks ago; that is perhaps where this came to your attention. Essentially, what farmers have been doing in New Brunswick is seeking authorization to use certain sea lice treatments to reduce sea lice numbers. There's a concern in some parts of the community that those treatments, whilst they will kill sea lice, may have an effect on other organisms, particularly lobster. We have been working very closely with the province on this issue and with Health Canada.

Health Canada is the organization that issues what they call registrations for pesticides through the Pest Management Regulatory Agency to deal with lice, or drugs such as SLICE through the veterinary drugs directorate in Health Canada. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency, PMRA, has recently issued authorizations for a couple of new products used to control lice in New Brunswick. Based on our research and our work with the science assessment people in Health Canada, we're quite confident that the application of the treatments, if done in accordance with the label and requirements and so on, will be safe not only for lobster but for other marine organisms as well and will effectively deal with the issue for the farmers.

Having said that, we're approaching this extremely carefully. The level of caution and the attention to the science behind this is extremely high. We're working quite closely with the province and with Nova Scotia as well on this issue, to ensure that whatever is done to control lice is done in a way that doesn't cause other negative impacts.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Coming back to our mid-November trip, during which we will visit aquaculture sites, I was wondering, as you also were, why we could not have sites that are completely enclosed by land rather than sites in the sea. Generally speaking, the possibilities of disease transmission are much worse at sea, and there can be specific problems.

I was thinking, perhaps naively, that if these operations were carried out on dry land, they would cause fewer problems. Have we reached a point that leaves us no other choice but to practise aquaculture at sea? Is there still some research being done about this subject, does someone have an opinion that it could be easier, cheaper and less complicated to do this on land with enclosed pools, rather than in the sea?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

Insofar as your visit, your intended field trip, is concerned, you can't go and visit closed containment facilities because there are none. They don't exist in Canada anyway. Around closed containment, essentially in Canada there are no facilities that you can visit right now that would demonstrate closed containment technology because it doesn't exist.

Essentially from the point of view of management of disease, there's a potential that closed containment technology would control disease better than open net pen cages. At the same time, closed containment is not without its challenges as well. Its energy demands are high; its land use is high. There are animal welfare conditions because fish have to be grown in a much smaller and more contained facility. But to me, at the end of the day, the key thing with respect to British Columbia, at least, is this. The reason aquaculture salmon farming is in British Columbia is proximity to the sea, the ocean, and proximity to markets. Of the salmon grown in British Columbia, 85% is exported to the United States.

If the system were to go completely to closed containment, there's no need to be in British Columbia anymore. You don't need the ocean to produce. Why would you be in B.C.? You would go to where the markets are and grow fish there.

So if you could grow fish at a rate that is more economical and you could do it in closed containment and make money and so on, the industry would leave British Columbia and they would locate in Idaho or Montana or somewhere where land is cheap. You can build these giant tank farms. You're closer to markets and away you go.

So if we do move to closed containment, the rationale for it continuing to exist in B.C. would be difficult to find.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Donnelly.

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

I'm just trying to remember which question I wanted to go to, as I was quite interested in that last discussion. I wanted to point out that I have visited pilot projects in B.C., where you have examples of closed containment, so I think what you were saying, Trevor, is that there are no operating licensed systems using closed containment--is that fair to say?--as opposed to examples of pilot projects.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

Middle Bay, I would imagine. From my point of view, Middle Bay is the one I believe you are referring to.

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

Yes.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I wouldn't characterize that as a closed containment production system. They've never grown any fish to market, and they've had to kill all the fish they had in there in the last three years.

It does grow fish in floating bags, as you saw. They have not, to my knowledge anyway, grown a fish from egg to harvest yet.

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

It's a pilot phase. They're not in production.

I will just go back to Mr. Blais' comments on the east coast and New Brunswick. Are you aware of any disease in that part of the world coming from the farms?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I apologize that I might get my year wrong. There has been an ISA outbreak in New Brunswick, Mr. Chairman. You might know that. Our technical experts tell us that in 1998 there was a disease outbreak in New Brunswick of ISA. It was dealt with.

I'm not aware of any disease incidents in New Brunswick today or in Nova Scotia or in Newfoundland. The concern about the potential for disease is significant; lice reduce the ability of fish to fight off disease and so on. So the desire to get sea lice numbers under control is high, both from a production point of view and also from a broader fish health perspective.

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

What kind of confidence do you have on the east coast in terms of the operations there? You mentioned the disease potential as high, but you're quite confident that the disease outbreaks are not occurring. What provides you with that level of confidence?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

If I said that the disease potential is high, I misspoke, and I apologize for that. The concern about a disease outbreak is very, very high.

My level of confidence with respect to disease, again, is based on the New Brunswick case, because we're dealing geographically with a much smaller area than we are with respect to British Columbia. People are out on the water and they are doing sampling with a little more regularity, and there's a little more of what I would describe as local knowledge as much as anything else.

The disease, to the extent that it occurs, is acted upon very quickly. There have been minor disease occurrences, I know, over the years. I can't pinpoint individual dates, places, and times and so on, but they are acted upon very, very rapidly when they occur in New Brunswick.

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

You just mentioned local sampling. Could you elaborate a little more on who is doing the sampling?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

The New Brunswick system is twofold. The province does a regular inspection tour and is on farms on a regular basis. In New Brunswick the system for conducting sea lice monitoring rests predominantly with the industry. They do their own sampling, they record their own data, and they report those figures to the province, but the actual monitoring activity is done by the industry.