Fisheries Committee on Nov. 6th, 2012

[Kevin Stringer]

What was in place in the old section 32 was that you can't kill fish by means other than fishing, unless the minister authorizes it. There is no direction for the minister. He can authorize whatever he wants under any circumstances.

The new regime says basically the same thing. You can't cause serious harm—serious harm is defined as the death of the fish—unless the minister authorizes it, but there's direction to the minister about how to apply that. A main one is the impact on the productivity of the fishery.

Basically, if it's not going to impact the productivity of the fishery—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Is it just the productivity of the fishery or is it the productivity of something else that affects the fishery? That's what concerns me.

[Kevin Stringer]

No, it's the productivity of the fishery.

Now, what it doesn't cover is that if there is an area where there is no fishery whatsoever, we're not interested in the killing of fish by means other than fishing. But if there's a fishery, we're going to protect it. That's basically what the new rule...how it's different.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. MacAulay.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our witnesses for appearing before this committee today....

Mr. Chisholm.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

If I may speak on a point, Mr. Chair, I've been pleased to hear from the witnesses today. I'd like to move a motion, given the significance of their testimony, that we agree, if we could, to extend this hearing for another 30 minutes.

The only thing we had planned for the last half of our meeting was to select witnesses. I think we can probably wrap that up in 15 minutes.

I would move, then, that members agree that we ask our witnesses to stay for another 30 minutes, and we would continue with our hearing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.

It's been moved by Mr. Chisholm that we ask our witnesses to extend their time appearing before our committee by 30 minutes.

Do you wish to speak to the motion, Mr. Allen?

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to ask Mr. Chisholm for a little clarity on his motion; we'd appreciate that. I agree with him that I thought the witnesses were very informative this morning, and will probably help us significantly in terms of where we want to go with our witnesses in subsequent meetings.

Could he provide some clarity around ensuring that we're going to be staying within the scope of the provisions that we've had added? I want to make sure that's where we're intended to go, and we're not going to go on a fishing expedition or anything like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. Chisholm.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I think we'll just continue as we have, Mr. Chairman. I certainly trust you, and that if you feel we're in any way out of order with our questioning and our discussion, you'll rule accordingly. We've had a fairly good exchange to this point on issues that have been brought before the presenters, and I'd like to see it continue for the next 30 minutes.

That's my motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.

Is there anything further on the motion?

It has been moved by Mr. Chisholm that we ask our witnesses to stay for an additional 30 minutes, from this point.

(Motion agreed to)

I hope that works with your schedule.

I will point out that I did provide a bit of leniency on the scope of the questions in the first part of our meeting in the sense that I did lay out very clearly at the beginning of the meeting that questions would be around clauses 173 to 178 of Bill C-45. I would ask members to please keep your questions to that subject matter.

I don't like to have to rule anyone's questions out of order. I like to provide as much opportunity for people to get to their point. However, when we do ask witnesses to stay beyond what was originally intended, I don't want to inconvenience anyone either.

The first questioner will be Mr. Kamp, from the Conservatives.

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

I'll defer to one of my colleagues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Sopuck, then.

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

I'm never short of questions.

In terms of the habitat provisions of the act, there was the policy of no net habitat loss. Can we apply the same productivity lens to that policy and have it be no net loss of fish production?

[Kevin Stringer]

You can. We do have that 1986 policy. Much of what was in that policy has actually been put in the legislation. It was that policy that said we were going to focus on commercial recreation and aboriginal fisheries.

It was that policy that introduced the notion of productivity. But it ended up saying no net loss of habitat. The question is whether you can apply it at no net loss of productivity. I think it's a very good question.

Certainly, we are aware that we need to be....And we have said this publicly. As we move forward, we now have a new legislative framework. We now need to look at that policy and apply the new legislative framework lens to that policy. We have undertaken to do that and that was another piece that will certainly involve engagement with stakeholders.

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

I would urge you to do that, because the no net habitat loss policy.... As you well know, it is really difficult to recreate nature. If we focus on productivity, then project proponents who have effected a fishery all of a sudden have all kinds of scope to do things—building spawning channels, for example, hatcheries, doing creative fisheries enhancement work—that increase the productivity of fisheries but don't force proponents to recreate nature, something that is almost impossible to do, which the existing policy basically forces them to do.

[Kevin Stringer]

Certainly, productivity is the focus. In fact, section 6.1 of Bill C-38, of the amended Fisheries Act, says that the purpose of the fisheries protection provisions is to support the “sustainability and ongoing productivity” of Canada's commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries.

Habitat is a crucial element of that, but it is not the only element of that. We now have new tools to address other threats to fisheries, such as aquatic invasive species, and to take other approaches around productivity. But productivity, as you point out, is the focus of the fisheries protection provisions.

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

How much time do I have? Four minutes. Okay.

I certainly agree. I reiterate that the focus of the Fisheries Act should be on fish. I strongly support the move toward an emphasis on fish productivity. I do think that by having a no net loss of fish production policy you will capture the habitat provisions, of course, but at the same time, you will allow project proponents to do all kinds of creative things under the Fisheries Act.

Going back to the fish passage section of the act, how would you go about designing standards for fish passage across the country? How would you ensure that you have enough flexibility to take into account the local situations?

[Kevin Stringer]

That is an excellent question, and it's one that is frankly vexing, okay? We've given ourselves the authority to have these standards established. One of those we've been working on wasn't a regulatory standard, but we could turn it into that, and it was on water flow: basically, how much water flow do fish habitat and fisheries production require?

When you get into the weeds of that, you realize that it's enormously different on the Lower Athabasca, which is an interesting case, on the St. Lawrence, and on a creek. It is a constant challenge. Frankly, I don't know—it may be different in different areas—whether we're going to be able to have national standards at quite a high level and then specific standards for specific regions.

It is also the case, to be clear, that these things don't happen overnight. This is going to be a long-term process to establish these standards. You would be familiar, I know, with our operational statements. Our operational statements would be the sort of thing that you could say is a national standard, but to be able to apply that at a local level is a real challenge. That's something that we constantly run into with different types of watersheds.

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

I'm wondering if an outcomes-based standards regime would be better. What I mean by this is that if you take the predominant species in a given area.... Let's take where I come from, with the weak-swimming pike. The fish passage must be designed in such a way that pike can pass through it. Leave the design up to the developers as opposed to mandating a certain design: make it based on the fish themselves.

[Kevin Stringer]

The authority that's in the act for the minister to undertake these types of standards doesn't require him to take one approach or the other, so what you've just outlined is a possibility—

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

Okay.

[Kevin Stringer]

—as is something very prescriptive, as is something in between.

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

Right.

In terms of fisheries enhancement, do you see the new Fisheries Act allowing for local groups to really get engaged with fisheries enhancement work? I was very impressed with the department's cooperation with the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters in the Atlantic salmon restoration project. Can you see yourselves doing a lot more of that refocusing of existing resources into those kinds of community-based fisheries enhancement projects?

[Kevin Stringer]

That is a specific objective of the amendment. Section 4 of the amended Fisheries Act is an agreement-making authority. There is a proposed section that says the minister may make an agreement with provinces and territories for furthering the purposes of this act.

But it also says that the minister may establish “projects and programs” for fisheries protection, and that he or she may enter into agreements with third parties. The idea there is specifically the fact that there are local watershed groups, national groups, provincial groups, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians working on fisheries protection who are passionate about fisheries protection. Our department has good relations with them. We know we can do better, so we've given ourselves the tools to be able to better align our work with their work.