Fisheries Committee on Nov. 15th, 2010

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

Sorry, did you want to continue on IHN?

[Sonja Saksida]

IHN is also a virus. We call it the sockeye disease because sockeye salmon tend to become infected. It can be devastating to that population. Other Pacific salmon have some tolerance of it, depending on which species we talk about. Atlantic salmon are incredibly susceptible to this disease.

I did the outbreak investigation and actually published a report on the last outbreak of IHN in British Columbia, which happened in 2000 to 2003 among farmed salmon. Basically, you can easily get mortalities of up to 80% and almost 100%. Farms have to be culled because of this disease. It's not a disease you can hide. Once a population becomes infected, you can definitely see it throughout.

So it's not a disease you can hide, and we basically haven't seen it since 2003.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much.

It is now Mr. Weston's turn.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to ask you what we shall then do. I'm going to preface it with six comments we've heard this afternoon.

First, thank you all for coming. Many of you are volunteering your time to be here out of your interest in sustaining this wonderful resource. So we all thank you.

Sonja, you said that veterinarians and professionals manage fish health well in farmed salmon, and B.C. does not see the same incidence of sea lice here.

Dave, you mentioned that there's increasing evidence of harm to wild salmon from open-net cultivation.

We heard, Martin, that there was 100% mortality in a fish-farmed area. There was a 15-kilometre line of rotting fish, which is a very powerful visual image for all of us.

Colleen, you mentioned 6,000 direct and indirect jobs and revenues of $495 million.

What you have done this afternoon is basically summarize the polarized kind of evidence we've been hearing since we embarked upon this strategy. I can't speak for my colleagues, but I can tell you that I'm ill-equipped to make a decision that involves biology and economics and other things on which you all have expertise.

So my question to you is this: Given that each member of Parliament here is committed to the same things you're committed to, namely, long-term sustainable resources, what would you have your parliamentarians, your government, do in terms of process? How do we draw these disparate conclusions together and then come to some sort of process?

Dave, I'm going to start with you, because I think you have some experience in giving directions to your MP.

[Dave Brown]

I understand that the committee is actually visiting some closed containment farms in Washington State. As I mentioned when I spoke, there is the opportunity to be, I think for Canada's sake, a world leader in this and still have salmon farming and grow the business and at the same time have an opportunity to protect our wild salmon.

An interesting comment I didn't get a chance to make in my presentation was that the managing director of British Columbia's largest salmon farming company, Marine Harvest Canada, Vincent Erenst, said in an interview published by the Courier-Islander on December 24, 2009, that the company was working towards closed containment pilot studies but so far had not been able to convince either the feds or the provincial government to support that.

What I would say, which takes me back here, is that there is an opportunity to grow the salmon farming industry and make it environmentally sustainable and continue to have the benefit of the jobs that are created and at the same time protect our wild salmon and be a world leader. The technology is out there. It just doesn't seem that there's the will to do this. I think moving forward, if you as parliamentarians would carry that message back to Ottawa, we have an opportunity to have a win-win situation.

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

Sonja and Colleen, could you comment on that? What do we then do?

[Sonja Saksida]

It's a matter of communication and understanding the issues. My biggest frustration with the whole process is when you keep hearing the same things: farmed fish are full of diseases; they're full of antibiotics; there's resistance. Yet you know that there are government agencies that have the information to say that yes that's the case or no that's not the case. But you never hear them speaking out. It's not necessarily the federal agencies. In many cases, it was the provincial agencies that had the information, but there was nothing being communicated.

For me, being somebody who knows quite a bit about the health of this population, it's frustrating, because it's good news, but all you ever hear in the media is bad news. A good-news story just never gets out. So I bring it back to you, because I don't know how to fix that, and I find that part really frustrating. There are issues in aquaculture, I'm sure, but the ones that seem to be getting the highlights, the media, are not the issues.

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

Colleen.

[Colleen Dane]

I think there's a real opportunity coming up with the regulatory transfer in December. I think making sure that the comments and the concerns you have heard and are hearing through these hearings become addressed and get the proper attention within those regulations would be a good thing. I also think making sure that DFO has the resources they need to be able to look at wild populations and the ecosystem as a whole would be key.

As well, regarding innovation, I agree with Dave Brown that it's good to always be supporting research and collaborative projects. Closed containment is one of them, but there is other innovation that can be done within our net-pen farm operations as well. That research can only further improve operations as they are.

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

Is there anybody else?

[Prof. Iñigo Novales Flamarique]

I'd just like to say that, in my opinion, at present there are no scientists at DFO who understand the mathematics behind the models that are in the literature, and this is a major flaw.

One of the arguments always put out by the industry or DFO is that there could be many other variables. However, these mathematical models clearly show that only one factor can determine these higher sea lice levels. Now, I'm not speaking about whether that translates into full mortality or not, but the problem is not so much whether or not DFO will do research but whether you have the people necessary to do the models that will actually isolate the variables that are important and that drive the system. They are presently not available at DFO.

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

So what's the process for getting the right scientists in the room so that the non-scientists like us can make the decisions? Where do we go?

[Prof. Iñigo Novales Flamarique]

You could certainly have a symposium, and it would be attended by academics from all over the world. If you look at the situation in Norway, for example, there's basically no more wild Atlantic salmon. It's not only a problem with the sea lice but also a problem with eutrophication and many other things. If you fly over Norway, there are huge areas of green that are completely anoxic that come from the detritus of farms. This could be solved, for example, by having closed containment systems.

I think it's a vital question of having the people who can do the modelling to isolate which ecological factor plays the primary role in the mortality results that you're seeing. This can be done through mathematical modelling, but it is not presently one of the options for DFO or the Ministry of the Environment or any other....

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

So your conclusion is that someone, whoever's in human resources or personnel or whoever does the hiring, is making wrong decisions about who's on the team that's doing the analysis. You might like to be on the team.

[Prof. Iñigo Novales Flamarique]

If you really want to answer the question, the answer is yes: the right people are not being given the positions.

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

I'm going to share what time I have left--less than two minutes--with my colleague.

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

Thank you.

I'm not sure quite where to start. I can't get past your initial comment, Professor Flamarique, when you said you were going to start by referring to scientists who had no leanings on this issue--who were objective, I guess, is what you meant. We've heard from Dr. Krkosek, and he does good work. Then you mentioned Alexandra Morton, who clearly has leanings on this issue.

[Prof. Iñigo Novales Flamarique]

On that, yes, she does.

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

Dr. Krkosek's work originally predicted the demise of pink salmon by now, so when he was before us he did his best to correct the record because things had changed and so on. Things are a little different.

I think your point is well taken that we need to look at it from every point of view, including mathematics. As my colleague has said, you illustrate the challenge we have before us. This panel illustrates the challenge we have, and it's a difficult task for us to sort out what is true and what isn't.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much for your comment.

Mr. Atleo, do you have something to add on this?

[Keith Atleo]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You asked a question on how we can help with the aquaculture, and it's important to hear both sides of the story. As you're aware, some of the first nations in B.C. are opposing fish farms and there are very few that are working together with fish farms.

My uncle is saying yes, we have an agreement with the fish farm. But the fish farm company understands that as first nations our priority is the environment and how we look after the environment. It has always been our number one thing.

And I know for you to get those answers is to go to those communities that are affected. Thank you for having us here, but you will get more answers from the communities and the people who know what's going on, because you can have a scientist who will come to our community for three days out of a month and get all these numbers and that, but we live in it. We live there; we know what's going on. We're not scientists, but we know how nature is working around us.

And yes, we understand that sea lice is an issue. It's been here for thousands of years. When I was out trolling, when I was out seining, you'd pick up a salmon and there were millions of sea lice on our boats, and it's been there. And I'm hoping this can be resolved for the communities, because, as my uncle has stated, it's a livelihood. We used to have a livelihood in fisheries but that is slowly disappearing.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cuzner, you have the floor.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me make the comment that you're doing an absolutely adequate job here in your job.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you all for your testimony.

I have just a comment and then I have a couple of questions. On the conversation that John and Sonja had, I think that part of that broad spectrum on this whole issue is because of the provincial government, in the past, being both the regulator and the promoter of aquaculture. And I think it has nurtured a mistrust within the broader community, as if the dog was in charge of the meat. So I don't think they felt that maybe that role as regulator was being compromised. So this shift to DFO may be a step in the right direction as far as earning the confidence and gaining the confidence with the regulator is concerned. That's just a comment.

I want to ask Keith if you can give us some kind of overview of the impact on your community. How many people are in your community, what would the unemployment rate be, and about how many people would be working in the industry?