Fisheries Committee on June 6th, 2012

[Joe Comuzzi]

Devils Lake was really not a new issue. I can recall Devils Lake being on the agenda 20 years ago, and we knew it was one day going to be a very serious problem. But before it became a serious problem, we kind of talked about it and then went away. But as the water levels started to rise to 14-something, and were getting close to the top, everyone had to become alarmed: the province of Manitoba, North Dakota, the Sheyenne River, the Red River, and so on. I know it got to cabinet at one time, and there was a solution there that didn't work, but it was implemented.

When the last episode came with Devils Lake, Paul Pilon, our guy who handled that, monitored it almost on a daily basis. It got up to about six inches below what it was supposed to go to, and then they started to relieve the pressure. They were releasing the water, and it was going down the Sheyenne—I may have the rivers wrong—and it was flowing around and coming back to the Red River. The problem was how much of that was going to find its way into Lake Winnipeg, because that's where the river was emptying.

So they had some experiments, and some of you may recall the fish they caught and froze for specimen purposes to find out whether there were dangerous pathogens. We found out eventually that the pathogens were not dangerous, and that whatever was going to happen was not going to destroy the fish stock in Lake Winnipeg, so there was an announcement on that.

So it's been a serious problem, ongoing for a number of years.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

On the pathogens you discovered, I'm interested in how much influence the scientists at DFO had in your acquiring that knowledge.

You have your own scientists, clearly, but,

Ms. Mageau, you said that you depended to a huge extent on the scientists of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. To what extent do you depend on them to obtain your data?

[Dr. Camille Mageau]

We depend on them a lot. It must be said that the International Joint Commission employs engineers and is trying to recruit an ecologist. However, members of the scientific advisory committee come from academia, from Environment Canada, from Fisheries and Oceans and Health Canada. The scientists come from government. We recruit them based on their area of expertise and their qualifications. If we need a toxicologist, we find the best toxicologist for the problem at hand. A good deal of the work is done by volunteers, people who have come forward of their own initiative or who have been volunteered by their department. If you take away these areas of expertise from departments, we will be in a bad spot.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

We have learned through the Budget Implementation Act, Bill C-38, and also through near-daily announcements, that a huge number of federal scientists will be fired in the coming weeks and months. One of your mandates is to protect the fish habitat. You have signed several bilateral agreements. For example, the Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem specifically addresses habitat protection. I am wondering if Fisheries and Oceans Canada's mandate will change because the Fisheries Act will have been transformed to the point where it will not be possible anymore to protect fish habitat. We will not have the scientists to do the inventory, if you like, of fish stocks. Some stocks may collapse if their habitat is not protected.

If we do not have this protection, if we do not have the scientists, and if we do not have the mandate to protect fish habitat anymore, how will that change the mandate of your commission? How are you going to change the way you operate, if this information, this data, or the scientists, are not there anymore, if Fisheries and Oceans has lost its mandate?

[Dr. Camille Mageau]

I will not speak to the changes to the Fisheries Act, since I used to work with those people. My knowledge on internal changes must remain within the department.

As for the commission, it will have to find that expertise elsewhere. It will have to find and pay consultants. We will still need that expertise, because when it comes to the biological integrity of the Great Lakes, clearly, fish habitat is part of the equation. It is part of the ecosystem. It's a single envelope.

That will not change our mandate. We still have to uphold the agreement on biological integrity. We will have to see what the other parties to the new agreement on the Great Lakes intend to do. Perhaps that is where we can look for solutions.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Thank you.

Before I get to my questions, I think it's important to set the record straight. The changes to the Fisheries Act will do nothing of the kind that Mr. Toone suggests. I would recommend that he read the new habitat section of the Fisheries Act. There's a very strong likelihood that habitat protection will actually increase on waters people actually care about. So read the legislation.

Ms. Mageau, I have a question for you. In the second paragraph of your presentation, regarding “pathways for introduction”, you listed a number of possible pathways, but you also threw in that one possible pathway is “recreational fisheries enhancement”. Can you expand on what you mean by that? Because in most cases the enhancement of recreational fisheries is considered a very positive activity.

[Dr. Camille Mageau]

Are you in a better position to answer?

[Dr. William Taylor]

I could give that a stab.

[Dr. Camille Mageau]

I would give my understanding of it, but he has direct knowledge. Is that all right with you?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Sure.

[Dr. William Taylor]

I think what that probably refers to is the movement of fish to places where they didn't previously exist, either by government agencies in some cases or by well-meaning but misguided individuals. So we have damaged a lot of fish populations and environments by moving fish around, probably with good intention.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

But surely, Dr. Taylor, you will make a distinction for non-native species that have been introduced into the Great Lakes that have actually benefited fisheries. I'm thinking of species like the steelhead trout and the Pacific salmon, both of which replaced lake trout and Atlantic salmon that had been extirpated. We're not talking about those kinds of species. They are clearly beneficial.

[Dr. William Taylor]

Right. I would agree with that, as a sport fisherman.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Good. That's a very important distinction, because in this particular game definitions are critical, in my view. The Asian carp clearly is a negative species. The snakehead, the round goby, all of those are negative. But rainbow trout and so on seem to have fit in.

[Dr. William Taylor]

But as Commissioner Comuzzi stated, some of the problematic species that we already have or could come, like the European carp or the Asian carp, were brought here intentionally by well-meaning individuals.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

I would strongly agree with you.

Dr. Taylor, could you give me an example of where a rapid response has resulted in the eradication of a harmful aquatic invasive species?

[Dr. William Taylor]

Not directly in the Great Lakes yet.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Anywhere in the world.

[Dr. William Taylor]

There have been successful eradications of invasive species in bodies of water in the Great Lakes basin, in smaller lakes and so forth, at least on the U.S. side, that I'm aware of.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Okay.

One of the DFO scientists who was here before us—actually speaking in a public forum, I might add, for the opposition's benefit—made the point when I was talking to him afterwards that given that these Asian carp are cyprinids, the powers that be are developing possible biocides specific to the Asian carp. Can you talk about that research?

[Dr. William Taylor]

I've heard a little bit about it. It would involve creating a pellet of the correct size that they would likely ingest. They are filter-feeders. So you could imagine such a pellet. You could design a toxic pellet. But even more high-tech, it's possible that you could create a coated pellet that might only lose its coating in the digestive system of a specific species.

That sounds very—

[Joe Comuzzi]

Sophisticated.

[Dr. William Taylor]

Yes, thank you, Joe. But it's not beyond the realm of possibility, and people are working exactly on that.