Just pesticides?
Evidence of meeting #112 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was audit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #112 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was audit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
We looked at diseases, pathogens and pesticides, so we comment on how well they're doing that. That includes controlling for sea lice.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
You didn't look at whether they're doing the hydrogen peroxide treatments or the freshwater treatments?
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
No. That's an industry practice rather than a federal government regulation.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
It's still a federal government regulation to make sure they are not contaminating the sea floor, the ocean bed, or causing risk to wild fish.
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
They're not monitoring the health of wild fish, right? There's no requirement to minimize the development of resistance to disease and pesticides. There are no limits on the amount of pesticides and drugs that are used, so these are all potential risks to wild fish.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
But if they're moving away from that practice, is anyone paying attention to it?
4:05 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
They implemented the aquaculture activity regulations in order to control for drugs and pesticides for diseases and pathogens, so we comment on what's working and what's not working that well in that area. Julie spoke about that earlier.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
I keep hearing the same answer. Nobody's checking or following the new developments and the new best practices.
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Definitely, they're not dealing with new and emerging diseases, so they have no way to deal with that, which is a concern, because they're in these big pens together, and they have no assessment practices to deal with that.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
That leads to the next question I have, and I have many.
The key diseases that you mentioned, it sounds like they're possibly not all of the potential risks that are out there. Am I correct in reading your report that no one seems to be looking at emerging diseases?
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
That's absolutely correct.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
You'd have to ask the department why it's not dealing with new and emerging diseases.
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Bring the department here.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
In your report, it says:
However, we found that the Department and the Agency did not have a formal process to share information about aquatic animal health. Agency officials noted that they shared information with Department officials at headquarters, but that this was not always transmitted to Department staff in the regions. In our view, information sharing was critical to ensure that the Agency and the Department were working together effectively to control the disease risks associated with aquaculture.
Does this mean that the scientific information and conclusions, or animal health decisions from CFIA provided to DFO were not channelled to DFO for the personnel to react?
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
I'm going to pass that to Sharon.
4:05 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
We found that both departments were supposed to be working together on the aquatic animal health program. DFO's primary concern was looking at the impact on wild fish. CFIA's primary concern can be seen as more trade-related. When they're working together, they're sometimes not sharing information that's critical to one, because the other doesn't consider it as critical.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
On page 15 of your report, there are comments from the department's response that DFO recognizes that CFIA is the lead on some of these issues, and emerging diseases in particular. Then the agency's response from CFIA says it will work with DFO to decide who is the lead. Even the two departments can't decide who is the lead. Who should be protecting wild fish?
4:05 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
It's really DFO's job to protect wild fish. It is supposed to be working together on this issue, and you're bringing up the exact issue that we're trying to raise in our audit, which is this disconnect between the two of them.
Do you want to add anything, Sharon?
4:10 p.m.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
Mr. Rogers, you have five minutes.
October 23rd, 2018 / 4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of questions. Before I get to the questions, this could be a roundabout way of doing it, but there are a couple of things I want to say .
I live in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the south coast. I see fish farms in the area in which I lived for 30 years. Before the beginning of fish farming in Newfoundland and Labrador, we had a major decline in northern cod stocks and Atlantic salmon. We saw the closure of the cod fishery in 1992, and we saw the closure of commercial Atlantic salmon fisheries decades ago as well.
The reason we have salmon farming in Newfoundland and Labrador today is that major decline, which threw 30,000 people out of work. When the people of Newfoundland and Labrador tried to explore ways of staying in their coastal and rural communities, one of the things that came to their attention was the potential of salmon farming, after reviewing jurisdictions such as Norway, Chile and others.
We believe we have an ideal environment on the south coast of the province. It's ice-free, with deep bays and fjords, 400 to 600 feet of water and more, and ocean-going currents and tides, which have a great flushing action. If you're ever going to grow farmed salmon, it seems to be the ideal environment in which to do it.
We as a province—I can say “we as a province” because there's a lot of support for salmon farming in the province, even though we do have some opposition. Obviously, not everybody is on board. I certainly respect the work you've done in this report in identifying some of the shortcomings and some of the potential risk, because it's important to us in the province that these risks be mitigated, reduced, or eliminated, where possible, to grow an industry that can create thousands of jobs and sustain hundreds of small communities. The province has a plan to try to double the industry over the next five to 10 years, and we have major investors coming in from places such as Norway.
When you look at aquaculture operations, is there any such thing as an ideal environment that's least disruptive of natural ecosystems, when they're done in places that have large bays and oceans, and waters that are 300 to 500 feet deep? Do you have an opinion on that?
4:10 p.m.
Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General
Most of our audit focused on the coast of B.C. because that's where the federal government has a role.
Off the coast of Newfoundland is actually regulated by the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, so our audit doesn't address that many issues that deal with Newfoundland and New Brunswick, except the issue of the nets and the anchoring systems, which don't seem to be at the same code level as in B.C.
Because the feds don't really regulate the aquaculture industry in Newfoundland, that's really not where our audit looked very much.
Sharon, did you want to add anything?