Fisheries Committee on March 22nd, 2010

[Trevor Swerdfager]

With respect to your plea, the point is registered. Certainly when I was the regional director of the conservation branch of Environment Canada in B.C., we used to raise much the same point on a regular basis. An opportunity for closer collaboration certainly exists, and it is something we will be pursuing.

With respect to disease, essentially it doesn't matter what livestock it is; if you take a whole bunch of animals and jam them together, the potential risk....

Am I talking too fast?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Don't worry about them. Just keep talking.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I'm sorry. We're just dividing our time.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

if you put a whole bunch of animals in a confined space, the risk of disease goes up. Essentially what happened in Chile was that they adopted a production strategy that is dramatically different from that anywhere in Canada. The concentration of farms is extremely dense. Farms were not put in place with any biosecurity measures.

I've been to Chile four times on this job, and I've watched people actually do this: you could see people go literally from farm to farm to farm—carrying the mail, for example. That is illegal in Canada. When you get onto a farm in Canada, you have to dip your feet and all that kind of routine. It doesn't exist in Chile. So a lot of the biosecurity controls that you would expect to see are not bad: they are non-existent in Chile.

In the Canadian context, the biosecurity controls we have in place are much more rigid. We think the controls that are in place in British Columbia are solid. Touch wood again, but we have not had major disease outbreaks there. We have had in New Brunswick, and New Brunswick responded: the farm management dynamic and so on was changed. We think that has ended in a positive result.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

My colleague Mr. Byrne has a few questions.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thanks.

I want to get back to the issue of funding and the resources that are required for this. It is a very important issue for this committee to have confidence that we all understand where this is going and where it came from.

You said that a Treasury Board submission is in the process right now and is subject to approval. Obviously that means a cabinet decision was taken to fund this particular initiative, to re-profile and to prepare for this regulatory change. Without providing us details of a cabinet submission—you have provided this committee with some specific details about staffing levels and other things—would you be able to provide us, either now or through the form of a written submission, in short order and not in six months' time, giving us confidence that this is indeed new money? I'm failing to understand exactly where this is coming from, without robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Would you be able to either answer that now or provide us with some detailed background information?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

The short answer to the second part of your question is that I believe we can provide you in writing that kind of advice or commentary. With apologies for sounding like a stovepipe bureaucrat, I can't tell you how the overall budgetary picture of the government works. I can tell you what we have done with the new submission, when the minister went to cabinet in the fall. The proposition that was made to cabinet was not to do this and reallocate from here, there, and everywhere; it was very clearly that if you're going to do this, there is a price tag; you should augment the program. That is what was done.

Can I point to the document that says that? No, but I believe we could provide the assurance to the committee in due course—and I mean shortly, not in the fullness of time—to that effect.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Chair, I know my time is up.

Basically what you're telling us is to expect to see it in supplementary estimates (A) in the fall.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I don't think that's what I said.

We can provide the assurance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Donnelly.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just have one follow-up question on the sea lice. I've become aware of some public concerns around the sea lice, as many other members have. I'm sure the department has responded in terms of any investigation or investigations of those public concerns about the sea lice. How would you characterize the department's response, in terms of resources, to the investigation or these claims that there were sea lice in waters? Would you say they were extensive, adequate, or cursory? How would you characterize the investigation?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

First of all, I think the key to keep in mind with respect to the department's interest in sea lice is that the department has a substantial investment in salmon biology, or salmon biologists as a better way of putting it, and so on, who are very concerned with the status of populations and have spent a lot of time looking at any potential threat to wild salmon populations. Part of the natural avenue of inquiry has taken them to sea lice issues.

The department has two full-time research scientists who are looking at it. I'd say 75% to 80% of their time is devoted to sea lice issues. It's not parsed up exactly—I don't keep a little pad—but it's in that ballpark. There are a couple of technicians as well. There are data collection programs out there to sample lice, and so on.

I mentioned earlier in response to one of the questions in round one that, as part of the department's new budget allocation for aquaculture in 2008, the department received a substantial amount of money for a component called the program for aquaculture regulatory research. The way the financial program was structured, it was back-end loaded, so to speak. The fiscal year we're ending right now is year two of the program. The research funds for the program kick up substantially in years three, four, and five, so there will be more research resources going into British Columbia starting April 1. Those again are booked; they're not a theoretical type of thing. So the amount of energy devoted to sea lice research will go up in B.C.

Has it been sufficient to date? I don't think there's such thing as sufficient research on an area that's just so complex. I think we've done a good job. I think probably every member of DFO in the Pacific region would prefer that we had more opportunity to look at that issue in more depth, but I think it has been pretty solid.

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

As a very quick comment, you have said that there is no issue of the sea lice, to your knowledge. That's what I meant.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I see.

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

You've had enough resources to determine that this claim or this—

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I think the categorical statement made is around sea lice tolerance to SLICE. We're really certain on that one.

Insofar as I was replying to Dr. Martin's question earlier to the effect of whether we have determined a link between sea lice and the salmon population, no, we have not. That link has been drawn by others. It's not one on which we've been persuaded by the burden or weight of evidence. Some of the key studies that draw the link between salmon farms and wild salmon populations in a negative way have been substantially debunked in many respects. As I mentioned earlier, one of the key studies that predicted extinction of pink salmon within four generations, which would be this year, has been just diametrically opposed to the reality in the water.

So it's the same old thing: It's a complex biological system. None of us can say for certain that it runs this way. It's not like engineering. But we certainly haven't anything to that effect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Allen.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I have just a few questions. Being from New Brunswick, I probably want to lean that way a little bit.

On the sea lice issue, I think in New Brunswick there is concern about some immunity being built up. Maybe there are some lessons learned that could be gained out of this, but I think the industry is actually looking at other types of medications they can use. Is there some process or are there any new medications that are being looked at? One of the things that has been discussed is an idea of, rather than letting a medication run out, actually rotating the medications over a period of two or three years.

Can you give us some thoughts on that?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

In contrast to what I was describing in British Columbia, we have a situation in New Brunswick where we think there is tolerance to SLICE. We think there is tolerance to SLICE. We are still in the process of collecting more data from the industry. We're doing some analyses of the data. We'll come forward in due course. The industry is absolutely convinced there's tolerance to SLICE. It's probably the case, but certainly from a definitive scientific perspective, at least from DFO's vantage point, it has not been determined.

Having said that, it's fairly clear that the application of SLICE in New Brunswick is not achieving the desired results. Unfortunately, from the perspective of New Brunswick, they've had record-high water temperatures in the last eight months in the Bay of Fundy. Sea lice are very dependent on temperature. They will respond to higher temperatures, grow quickly, and so on. Lice populations and levels are increasing in New Brunswick.

The Government of New Brunswick, in collaboration with the industry, applied to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency for the authority to use two pesticides, not medications. One is called AlfaMax and the other one is called Salmosan. Those are applied in farms. They tarp and skirt the farms and apply the pesticide into that. It's a topical treatment. It kills the lice on contact, as opposed to through the salmon's flesh.

In addition, they're looking at alternate treatments through feed, in particular a chemical called Calicide. There's also another treatment mechanism where you remove the fish from the cage, run them through a well boat, apply hydrogen peroxide to kill the lice, and knock them off, and so on.

The industry currently has approval to use the pesticide called Salmosan. It's actually being applied in the water today. They started another round of treatments. The department is very aware of that and is working to build an appropriate regulatory regime that would allow a rotational set of treatments, whether they're on the pesticide side or the drug side of the treatment regime, so to speak.

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

Thank you.

For the provincial regulation, you talked about going from five to one as a result of this change and then, on the federal side, going to only one other, a federal aquaculture permit. Can you give me some context on that? Using New Brunswick as an example, how many different permits or regulations do they have in New Brunswick? I'm assuming the same three apply federally. There'd be habitat, the introduction and transfer into navigable waters, waterside. What would be the potential change for New Brunswick if the federal regulatory environment took over?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

In a purely speculative and hypothetical way, one could look at what might happen in New Brunswick. The number of permits in New Brunswick is roughly similar to the provincial regulatory perspective of both the New Brunswick Department of Agriculture and Aquaculture and the New Brunswick Department of the Environment. In addition, New Brunswick has a series of what I would describe as watershed authority permits that are required. I should add that those apply in British Columbia as well. There's a whole series of non-aquaculture specific regulatory tools. But if one were to imagine a similar scenario unfolding in New Brunswick, the reduction in provincial permit activity would drop by a factor roughly akin to what we see in B.C.

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

Okay. Based on that, the industry receptiveness is good at least on one side of this, because the regulatory burden on that side would go down. As part of your consultations, has there been any reaction from the industry on any additional testing and oversight by DFO as part of this process?

[Trevor Swerdfager]

Well, it was surprising for me to learn that parts of the country don't universally embrace DFO. In the context of our consultations, some observers in the east have wondered whether having DFO in a similar role would be a good thing or a bad thing. We're very carefully avoiding that speculation.

This court decision applies in British Columbia. The regulations are being developed for British Columbia. We're primarily consulting British Columbians. We have informed others on what's happening there, and so on, but this is very much driven for B.C. to respond to B.C.

At some point, if similar decisions or changes are made in due course, I'm frankly not sure how the industry would respond, and it's not really my place to say. They have their views. I would imagine they'd line up on all sides of the issue in terms of where they might go.

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

I was thinking of the B.C. industry side.

[Trevor Swerdfager]

I'm sorry. I misunderstood your question.

I would say the B.C. industry has almost universally embraced this new development. The only real exceptions have been in the area of fresh-water aquaculture, but that's been more on questions as to how it would work, as opposed to not liking this, and a head-scratching type of thing. From the salmon farming industry and the shellfish industry, which we haven't talked much about today, the majority of feedback we've received is that having the new regime in place is a good thing.