Evidence of meeting #34 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was know.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
We have difficulty comparing American responses and Canadian responses, so right now we wouldn't be able to discuss that--is that right?
4:10 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
My understanding is that they're working closely together through the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority. I can't comment on how efficient they are.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Philip Toone NDP Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Mr. Johnson, I know that in your presentation you said that increased cooperation was one of the things we should probably be looking at. Would you be able to comment on what's lacking? What cooperation would we be looking at here?
4:10 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, Laval University, As an Individual
The cooperation I think would be a model, and my knowledge of that is incomplete as well, as I have not worked on ballast water.
I do know there was some disjunct in the early days when some was optional and some was required and there were different standards, but I think it's been converged very well. I would look to that as a model for cooperation in this area.
I would argue that perhaps there has not been enough assessment. Again, we can say that we're doing the right thing, but unless we rigorously apply scientific standards to assess whether the result has been efficacious, do we have the result we're looking for? It's hard to judge that.
My bigger concern.... And it's a bit hard, because I've mostly been studying Great Lakes species that have been dispersing away from the Great Lakes into interior waters. What we have here as your principal concern at this moment is the opposite when they are coming from other watersheds into the Great Lakes. There you have many different points of entry, many state, provincial, and national jurisdictions. I'll use as a small case Lake Memphremagog in Quebec, which was very concerned about zebra mussels at one time. I believe the Vermont side wanted to install boat washing stations, a really rigorous approach to making sure there would be no chance they would come in that way. But then the Quebec side had nothing going on. So it seemed pretty futile. If you don't have that kind of coordination, it makes it a pretty futile effort.
4:10 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
Starting with the effectiveness of ballast water exchange, the current guidelines applying to ships that we call NOBOB ships, those reporting no ballast on board, that regulation went into effect in 2006.
Those are the ones that were not subject to any previous regulation that was put into effect in the early 1990s. That was corrected by the amendment to the regulation in 2006, which became harmonized by both countries in the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority in 2008.
There have been a series of studies by DFO and members of my research network, CAISN, that have tested the effectiveness of that procedure and have found it very promising. That coupled with data that suggest there haven't been any reported invasions attributable to ballast water since that time give us reason to be optimistic.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you very much.
Mr. Sopuck, I don't believe he was talking to you when he said No Bob.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
I caught that. Those are ships I can't go on.
Dr. Ricciardi, you made the point that there are no federal regulations regulating the live trade in these species. Has anybody developed recommendations our committee could look at, the ideal recommendations that you would like to see in place that are both effective and within the jurisdiction of the federal government?
4:15 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
The regulation would have to be based on solid risk assessment, as it is in the countries I named, which are well advanced in this, both in the science of risk assessment and the application and regulation. They are Australia and New Zealand, which have ministries or departments of biosecurity. They take this issue very seriously because they recognize it as a national security issue.
When you consider how much invasions cost the world, something like 5% of the GNP, that's a large tax on global economies. But they are aware of this, and they have strong political will among their public to do something about it, regardless of which government is in power.
I would look to them as a model. It has to be based on risk assessment. The regulation has to be coupled with a scientific assessment of the threat, which changes over time.
The people to talk to about this are the people I mentioned, Nick Mandrak and Becky Cudmore, in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
So what you're telling us is that a template exists that would have to be modified for the Canadian situation, and Australia and New Zealand would be the first place for us to look in terms of a template.
4:15 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
Potentially those would be the countries I'd look to for guidance.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Thanks. I really appreciate that.
I have just a gratuitous comment here. Too often members of the scientific community who appear before our committee are very loath to give specific recommendations, so yours is greatly appreciated, and I mean that.
Dr. Johnson, I'm interested in the tunicate example from P.E.I. It seems to be a success story. What lessons can we learn from the successful containment of that species so far that could be applied elsewhere?
4:15 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, Laval University, As an Individual
I think the most important one, and the one I alluded to earlier, was trying to work with—even though I don't like the word very much, it's very useful—“stakeholders”, with all the parties that are involved. I think P.E.I. was probably exceptional in involving the provincial government and the mussel-farming industry very quickly in the problem. There are a multitude of ways in which species can get moved around, and if you don't have the cooperation of everyone involved, and explain to them how important it is—and I think that's one of the advantages....
The economic consequences of those invasions have been very clear to the farmers there. So they were immediately attentive to that, although I think there's still sloppiness and perhaps a lack of enforcement there. The invasive tunicates still spread. There's still some movement going on there. For some of it, because we can't be there, we're not sure, but perhaps there could be movement of aquaculture equipment from one bay to another. People do take shortcuts. I think only if you include them ahead of time.... When it's a crisis situation, it becomes very hard to bring everyone to consensus. So exploring these possibilities ahead of time is the key issue for a rapid response.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Does DFO or any other agency have any species-specific contingency plans in place, should invasive species such as Asian carp, for example, become established in the Great Lakes? Is somebody war-gaming this and asking what if and coming up with contingency plans?
4:15 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
I feel uncomfortable speaking for DFO. I really think you should talk to them.
I don't know. That seems to be an interesting idea, but it would become a bit problematic to apply this on a species-by-species basis, because there are so many potential threats.
Can I get back to what you were saying about what we've learned?
4:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
One of the things we've learned about successful eradication of invasive species in general, not just aquatic ones, is that there are some patterns that differentiate successful eradication from the more dominant, more common, unsuccessful ones.
One of the things we've learned is that it depends greatly on early detection. The more area a species occupies before you start trying to attack it, the more man-hours and money you will have to put forward to attempt to control it, and you may not be successful. That is all dependent on time. When a species comes in, if it is successful, it will start building a population that's self-sustaining. As it builds, it will grow faster and faster through what Dr. Johnson called an Allee effect. That's just a technical term meaning there's density-dependent growth. It will also start to spread, and its rate of spread is dependent on how many there are. So the rate of spread increases with population growth.
So two things happen. There will be more of them, and they'll start to move. And as they move, they'll interface with other human vectors, all kinds of crazy ones that we may not anticipate, and they'll get spread even further in some cases. So that means that time is critical. You have to recognize the species, identify it, prioritize it—which requires careful risk assessment that has to be done rapidly and effectively—and then you can decide whether you can eradicate or contain it. If you can't, then you're going to be paying the chronic cost, because it won't go away.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, Laval University, As an Individual
Because you were looking for specific examples, again, Australia has our star example. I don't know exactly the authority that allowed it, but they shut down a marina within 24 hours of detecting a new species, and they bleached it. They went in there....
4:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, McGill University, As an Individual
That's a famous example. It's not the only one, but it's one that's well known.
There was a mussel that's similar to the zebra mussel, except it's marine, and it was brought into Darwin Harbour, in Australia. It was brought in by yachts from the Caribbean. It invaded three marinas within Darwin Harbour. The reason we know that is because these marinas are monitored for just this purpose. So it was found early. Once they recognized what it was, whatever Australian government authority that's responsible for this put a plan in place where they cordoned off the harbours, pumped in whatever chemicals are necessary to kill everything in there, and as a result of that it was successfully eradicated.
It's rather a scorched-earth policy, isn't it, but the fact is those marinas are not natural. They're not a natural habitat. In fact, if they were, and the natural tidal regime was established, that species would never have gotten in in the first place. They got in because the marinas were welcoming yachts, and they were attached to the yachts.
Now, of course, that raises a couple of issues. One, the Australian government took about a month to identify it, put a plan in place to control it and carry it out. I'm not sure we would have had a meeting set up in a month over here if there was something similar. I'm only half joking about that.
Another thing is that they also continued monitoring afterwards, because the vector still applies. The thing could still come back. That's something else about eradication: you can't assume the mission's accomplished and go home; you have to be constantly vigilant.
But they have public support, whatever government's in power, to do this, to react this way, which other people might see as rather extreme. They do that. If you visit their national museums, even though they have nothing to do with biology, you would think, they have whole wings devoted to exotic species because they recognize that it's ingrained in their history. There's a great public awareness and thus public support for the government to react this way.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, Laval University, As an Individual
Could I just add one comment?
4:20 p.m.
Professor, Department of Biology, Laval University, As an Individual
I would argue that in the early nineties we could have eliminated the Eurasian ruffe from the Great Lakes if we had taken the same sort of action. I don't want to go into the details of that, and don't want to say “dithering”, but that's the word that came to mind. By the time they finally decided it was a problem and should be stopped, it was too late.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Doctors, thank you for being here. It's a pretty important issue.
I am fully aware of the invasive tunicates issue on P.E.I., and you say it's still there. I wasn't sure just what the situation was. But again, it's an example of what can happen anywhere in the world. I do not know if you're aware of how it happened or if they have established how it came. They thought it came in because boats were not washed properly. I don't know if you have any detail on that. That's another thing that can happen.
You also indicated that there's a bit of sloppiness. The blue mussel industry is pretty valuable to us. I would just like you to expand further on this. First of all, you've said there were three or four cases of it. It seems, then, that they have cleaned up a fair bit of it, if that's correct. On the sloppiness, what needs to be done? Should there be regulation put in place? There are a lot of dollars involved here. It's a big industry. They're shipped all over the world.