Evidence of meeting #28 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aquaculture.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes.
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
In B.C. the sea lice monitoring in particular in the past has been done in what I would describe as a more partnership-based approach. The industry certainly does some itself, the province does some as well, and then they do some together. In the past the industry would report its data and would say whatever we said. The province would go on site to do some of its own sea lice monitoring, and they would compare the two for quality assurance, control perspective, and so on.
There is a similar system in place in New Brunswick, but it's not identical.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
But you were saying, in contrasting the east versus the west, that in the east there is more industry sampling occurring as opposed to B.C. where there is less?
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
It's not so much that there is more in the east; it's just that it's a smaller geographic range. The frequency of visits to farm sites is a little higher because there are fewer of them to go to. So it's a little more condensed geographically, and the number of people who are on the water relative to the number of farms is higher in the east simply because it's a physically smaller operation.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Trevor, thanks for coming back and for your usual candour. I appreciate that.
I have just a couple of questions, following on Mr. Kamp's line of questioning.
You commented that additional resources are going to be required as a result of the federal government taking over this jurisdiction. And you mentioned two specific weaknesses that were going to cause you to ramp up the federal resources that would be required under this: one was on enforcement and the other was on information management. When you commented earlier, you said the regulatory regime is similar on the east coast to that of B.C. So would you see the same weaknesses in enforcement and information management on the east coast as you would in B.C.?
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
First, the information management system in British Columbia is not non-existent, and I wouldn't want to suggest I'm being unduly critical of the provincial government. It's just a level of investment in aquaculture licensing information, and so on, that we felt needed to be a little higher for us to do our job. So I hope the committee won't take any of my remarks as being critical of the provincial government.
With respect to eastern Canada, the information management systems the Province of New Brunswick has in place are quite good. They have invested in that partly as a provincial philosophy that transcends aquaculture. As you obviously would know, coming from there, it's not just something aquaculture related. Our sense is that the province has a very good database with respect to management of the industry, and we have always been able to get from them the information we need in a timely way.
With respect to enforcement, again we think the provincial government in New Brunswick is probably.... I don't know the figures they have for the level of investment in their enforcement activities. My expectation is that it's similar to what is in place in British Columbia, but I haven't ever validated that down to the individual officer level or anything like that.
So our expectation is that the regimes, as I said, are roughly similar. The information management system in New Brunswick is probably a little more mature and robust than perhaps it was in B.C., for some of the same reasons I just spoke of. There are simply a smaller number of variables and parameters to deal with.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Given the absence of a court case--obviously there has been no court case, and you would never want to speculate on that kind of thing if that were to happen, but have there been any discussions with the provinces or have you discussed or expressed any views with respect to the portability of this to other provinces or other areas of Canada?
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Sorry, the what of it?
Conservative
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
You're certainly right in the first part of your comment: I wouldn't want to speculate on where it might go. The courts will go where the courts go. And as we noted earlier, certainly DFO is not seeking to expand the regime.
The regime that is being put in place in British Columbia is a response to the circumstances in B.C. There is nothing in it that I could identify that if one looked at it from outside a B.C. perspective, you'd find yourself saying, geez, this is really weird; it doesn't make any sense in any other context. We're not doing something in B.C. that's absurdly unique to B.C., I guess is maybe my point.
So if we were to look at transferring that regime to another area, in theory, much of what's contemplated in the Pacific aquaculture regulations could have relevance elsewhere. But I want to emphasize that is not our intent.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
I have one last question.
We talked a bit about the people who were involved in the provincial side of this and are now looking at federal. There are going to be additional resources, and I think you mentioned there have been a few people who have transferred over, if you will, to the federal regime.
Do you see the skill base of some of those people being transferred, in that a number of them may end up being successful in competitions because of that skill level?
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes. Our hope and expectation is that many of the existing provincial employees will apply for the jobs as they become posted.
I made some inquiries last week as to the status of those. We know there are a good number of folks who currently work for the provincial government and have applied for our positions. It's a competitive process, but they are uniquely positioned in those competitions because they possess expertise and experience that a whole lot of other people don't.
The process will run its course, but I think their chances in those competitions are very good.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you.
There's still a question outstanding on the benthic impact.
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Let me go to that first.
Liberal
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
With respect to the benthic layer issues, as you are probably aware, the issues around benthic layer contamination or pollution are governed under the finfish aquaculture waste control regulation. You may be aware as well that prior to the court decision, the province was in the process of updating that regulation and the standards related to it.
That updating work was nearly done by the time the new regulation came into place. We're intending to base the new regime that goes into force in B.C. on the updated finfish aquaculture waste control regulation, as opposed to the pre-existing one. Much of the research that went into looking at how well or poorly that regulation was working was done by DFO; much of it was paid for by the province, but much of it was done by us. So that has been factored in.
At the same time, the province was about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the work to develop a new regulation related to hard bottom sites; the existing one was related only to soft bottoms. Again, we will be making sure we take all the research and findings that went into the development of that hard bottom regulation and ensuring that it gets built into the condition of licence in that new regime as well.
Liberal
Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC
Thank you.
I'm struck by the challenge of this transition when there are two ministries provincially, and the data.... So with regard to the data and data transparency, probably dealing with legacy systems on the part of the province, it's not just licensing and reporting; you have the compliance data with the waste management operations, disease, science data, etc.
What budget did you have for bringing all of those data systems together and designing and testing some new kind of enterprise system. Are you ready to go? How much money did you get for that? Has it been adequate?
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Let me just pick those questions up as I go on.
Are we ready to go? No. We will not have a data management information system in place on December 19.
Liberal
Director General, Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We are expecting to have it fully in place in 2011. We have contracts out now on the design of the system, conducting resource needs, and so on. Part of what we have been doing is going into the provincial system to understand exactly how their data is stored and how well or poorly it transfers.
