Fisheries Committee on Nov. 1st, 2018

[Blaine Calkins]

That's fair.

[Margot Venton]

—so I have no idea what different opinions may have been put forward.

The closure areas proposed in the petition are based on scientific information presented by whale scientists. I believe the committee heard from Dr. Lance Barrett-Lennard, who was endorsing and supporting the petition when it was filed in January. We believe those full closures need to be put in place. They haven't been put in place as yet.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is in fact trying to run a trial on the west coast Juan de Fuca closures, in which they will compare open areas versus closed areas. As I mentioned, though, experimenting with this critically endangered population is not an appropriate thing for the government to be doing.

Basically, those full closures are what the scientists have recommended, and [Technical difficulty—Editor] is leading this policy-making decision because of the imminent threat to the killer whales.

[Blaine Calkins]

I'm glad you mentioned the imminent threat to the killer whales again. I'm not going to disagree that there is an issue with the population of the southern resident killer whales, but your use of the word “imminent” suggests that if we don't do something absolutely immediately, the killer whales will be extinct.

However, every report I see seems to suggest that there is a 25% to 50% chance of the population being extirpated within the next 100 years, and that the current population of 76 southern resident killer whales is not the all-time low. As a matter of fact, the traditional population of the whales is somewhere between 70 and 90 whales.

I'm not going to argue the conditions of the pods, and I'm not going to argue about their health and well-being. I'm not going to argue any of those things with you, but I'm just wondering about the use of the word “imminent” when the scientific community seems to suggest that the actual extirpation threat is less than 50% in the next 100 years based on current management strategies.

[Margot Venton]

Just to be clear, the imminent threat determination is made under the Species at Risk Act. That determination was made by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change in May. That was based on scientific assessment of the rapid decline that we've seen in the last few years and the absence of a successful birth in that population since 2015.

A couple of things to remember about the population of the whales when you're looking at the time frame you just referred to is that it starts after the removal of...the live capture of whales to put them in aquaria, which happened in the much earlier.... With the southern resident population in particular, numerous individuals were removed over a period of decades to display in aquaria. The time range that I believe you're referring to starts after the end of that period. You're starting with a diminished population.

Also, it's important to remember that when you talk about extirpation, that's when the species is gone. With a long-lived population like the southern resident killer whales, a species can be effectively extinct, unfortunately, before there are actually no whales.

That's what we saw with the killer whale populations in Alaska that are now gone. They were deemed effectively extinct, unfortunately, while there were still actually whales alive.

[Blaine Calkins]

Are there any management plan proposals that Ecojustice would be prepared to support that don't involve the complete closure of recreational and commercial fisheries?

[Margot Venton]

I think we have to be really clear. We're talking specifically about chinook fisheries. We're talking specifically about the south coast chinook fisheries, not all chinook fisheries. As a response to the extremely poor returns this year, where we unfortunately [Technical difficulty—Editor] showed throughout the season almost a flatline return for these places. There are multiple conservation reasons why, at this moment on the south coast, we need to stop the commercial and recreational harvest of chinook in those key foraging areas.

That could change if those medium-term measures we're talking about were implemented, where we actually manage chinook for recovery as opposed to just exploitation.

[Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Cloutier and Mr. MacPherson, thank you for your testimony.

I'm just asking a general question. Based on the closures that happened, were there any recommendations that the fishermen were able to provide before DFO actually implemented some of the closures that they did?

[O'neil Cloutier]

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans didn't hold any consultations on the application of the management measures for right whale protection. At the time, the lobster fishing industry believed that the measures would affect only snow crab fishing, which takes place in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We didn't have any discussions with department. On April 28, 2018, the opening day of the lobster fishery in Gaspésie, we learned that we would need to comply with measures, including very restrictive measures for lobster fishing.

[The Chair]

Mr. MacPherson, I'll allow a very brief answer, if you have one.

[Ian MacPherson]

I just want to mention some of the specific ones that might have come forth. Certainly there was a discussion around the seasons opening earlier. If the community did not have impacts from ice, they could go sooner. The rationale behind that, which was put forth some time ago, was that the sooner traps are in the water, the sooner they'll be out, hopefully out before the whales arrived in 2018.

[The Chair]

I'll close off by saying thank you to our witnesses. If you have a written submission that you can send with your recommendations attached, we'd certainly be open to having that to include in our final discussions.

Is the committee in agreement to extend the time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair]

We'll allow a round of questioning for Mr. Donnelly, for seven minutes or less.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we should look at planning a full round of questions. I appreciate the committee's indulgence.

Thank you to all the witnesses for providing testimony.

Ms. Venton with Ecojustice, I'd like to start off with you. I hope you can hear me.

[Margot Venton]

I've just lost it. Wait, I have you again.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay. The government wants to protect whales and, specifically, the southern resident killer whales on the west coast, but it also wants to increase tanker traffic significantly with its proposal of the Trans Mountain pipeline. If that were to go through, what do you think that would mean, given that noise has been identified as one of the key threats to the southern resident killer whale? What would this project, if it were approved, mean for those whales?

[Margot Venton]

That's a really important thing to be aware of. During the first round of National Energy Board hearings, the board was presented with evidence produced by a collection of conservation biologists. It's an analysis called a population viability assessment, and it looked at the trajectory for population growth with different scenarios of increasing threat.

It found two really important things. First of all, it found that if the project went forward with the increased pressure from the shipping noise, which exacerbates the existing and apparently worsening situation with chinook scarcity, the population decline increased significantly. So we push the whales further toward extinction more quickly.

The other hopeful thing it showed us, however, was that if we can keep threats at bay and increase chinook, then we can actually push the population toward recovery, so that we aren't, although it seems dire, dealing with a population that can't [Technical difficulty—Editor]. In order to do that, we say we have to deal with existing threats. We have to take these urgent, quick actions to reduce the stress on the population right now. Before we consider any significant expansion of shipping traffic, we have to really understand that safe threshold, and we have to really understand what a biologically relevant amount of ocean noise is for this species, which is something we don't understand now.

We can't proceed, I say, with that project, based on the science, until we figure those pieces out and ask if it is even possible to mitigate noise, given the existing noisiness and busyness of the Salish Sea.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Great. I think even the Federal Court of Appeal took that into consideration as well on this project. I appreciate your comments.

You've provided testimony to the committee saying that Ecojustice and other groups have already presented the importance of providing and of encouraging the government to issue the emergency order. You talked about SARA and using legally binding tools.

You provided some historical context from the turn of the century when we were looking at this issue when these particular whales were listed as threatened and endangered, and then in 2003 eventually listed. You also talked about cumulative impacts and said the government has failed to address key threats. I'm wondering if you could talk about how the government could address cumulative impacts to help these whales and why the government for 15 years, for instance, hasn't addressed these key threats.

[Margot Venton]

I honestly have no answer for why the government hasn't. I don't know why the government hasn't addressed threats to date. It is disappointing, but I think with respect to what to do now—and I am heartened by the clear interest and commitment to addressing this issue at this point—we need to look with respect at, for example, the ocean noise. We need to ask ourselves if there is a threshold for safe functioning ecosystems in the Salish Sea.

We don't have any regulation of ocean noise in Canada right now. We need to have that regulation in place to be able to cumulatively manage. I think we need to regulate shipping in the short term, obviously, reduce the speed of vessels where we can, consider the kinds of measures that are being considered right now, like lateral displacement, but longer term we need to take a more comprehensive approach. We need to regulate ocean noise.

I'm certainly heartened to see that provision has been made in the recent omnibus bill that would enable that regulation to happen. Our concern is that, as I said earlier, it could take years to get to that place of formal regulation. In the interim, we need to use those powers of the Species at Risk Act to regulate ocean noise to the degree that we can, based on our existing knowledge right now.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Ms. Venton.

In the remaining minute, I'd like to ask Mr. MacPherson a question.

You provided some reasonable solutions and suggestions, which you've identified in writing, and we appreciate that. In general, do you feel there has been any progress in terms of consultation with the fishermen in your specific association with the government?

[Ian MacPherson]

That's a standing offer to anyone in government.

I wasn't totally clear after the round table last week about how much interaction there's going to be between DFO and industry before the conditions are set for the 2019 fishing season. That's something we'll continue to monitor very closely, and as I stated very early on in our presentation, that was probably one of the biggest problems with last year. We had good consultation and good dialogue, but at the end of the day, if you don't know which conditions or suggestions are going to be adopted or not, that can be the source of a lot of frustration for the fishing community.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Again thank you to our witnesses.

That concludes our session for today, so far. We'll have another one later today.

The meeting is adjourned.