Fisheries Committee on May 6th, 2019

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

That's right, and there's not the requisite deterrence to ensure that these people are held accountable.

[Mark Hambrook]

Yes.

[Colin Fraser, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thanks very much. That's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Fraser.

Now we go back to the Conservative side, to Mr. Calkins for five minutes or less, please.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Al, I wanted to check in with you on whether or not RMA, through its process or through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities or any of the organizations you've worked with within these confines, has ever had any resolutions pass at any of its assemblies requesting something from the government—the federal government in particular—in regard to aquatic invasive species?

[Al Kemmere]

We have, from an RMA point of view, focused on our provincial basis, and that's our direct point to our government. We've had resolutions expressing the importance of zero tolerance, expressing the importance of funding to do some of the preventative operations, much like the inspection sites. We've seen some results in that with even the canine process that has been used within Alberta.

Through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities this subject has not been as much on the radar as it should be. I think we need to deal with it at that level. I'll share that responsibility, because I sit on the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. This is an item that has been chatted about at the environmental committee somewhat, but has not, as I can recall, seen us take as much initiative as we could. I am aware of that and will try to move it forward that way.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty or responsible for anything, Al, but I think this is an issue, as I think most members of this committee would agree, for which we need all hands on deck and all organizations working constructively to that end. That was the impetus for my question.

Do you think Alberta environmental protection and Alberta Fish and Wildlife and such organizations as Alberta Parks or whatever the case might be...?

We heard from Alberta Irrigation Districts Association, the irrigation folks, here. We heard from Margo, whom I'm sure you know. Several billion dollars' worth of assets are vulnerable.

My colleague Mel Arnold asked you what the difference in the productivity of the land would be if they lost the ability to irrigate. I don't even know whether we have the ability to quantify that, but is the Alberta government actually doing enough with their mandatory boat inspections, in your opinion, to deal with or prevent or at least stave off in particular the zebra and quagga mussel issue in Alberta waterways?

[Al Kemmere]

At the risk of being critical, no, the Alberta government is not doing enough. To me, it's lacking a bit more of a strategy that way. I'll use an example. I am a property owner in the interior of B.C., so I get to travel back and forth numerous times, and the inspection site we have is just west of Calgary. When I count, coming through, there are five points where people can divert to get around that and they do that typically on the long weekends when things are busy.

I think the resources need to be enhanced and they need to be put at a more strategic location, that being at the Alberta-B.C. border or the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, wherever they are, to avoid allowing people to divert or skip around the sites. This would probably be even more needed on the federal border, because there are opportunities for people to skip around that way too.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Okay. Thank you for that.

I'll now move on to Mr. Stanley, if I can. I know you talked about biocides. I know you talked about the things we know about. Mr. Hambrook knows very well about rotenone and how effective that is as a fish-killing agent, as natural as it is. Through any of your research or any of the work you do in your role as a fisheries guy, if I can say it that way, other than just using general things like chlorine, which kills everything, is there anything that is specific to these bivalves in the way that rotenone is for fish?

[David Stanley]

There is. I mentioned it earlier. It's called Zequanox. It was developed in the U.S. It's a dead bacteria. You have a pipe. You seal both ends and inject this Zequanox in for a period of time. The zebra mussels eat it. They die.

It's only for dreissenids, for quagga and zebra mussels. It doesn't kill native mussels.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

It's even better than just rotenone, which kills every fish in the lake.

[David Stanley]

Yes, but it's expensive and we haven't found it to be as successful as chlorine.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Okay, but it sounds to me like it's not something that you can deploy like rotenone, which you can deploy in an entire lake or an entire aquatic environment. This is a highly localized application. Is there anything else, other than Zequanox, that might be able to do what rotenone does to fish?

[David Stanley]

No, not that I know of to date.

You have to understand that, in our systems, in the turbines themselves where the main water flows, the zebra mussels aren't an issue. There's too much flow. They can't attach there. It's in these backwater systems—our fire water systems, our cooling systems, big radiators, essentially—where those are the issue. But they're still critical to the operation of the plant and none of these plants were designed with this clogging mechanism in mind.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

These things weren't an issue until the ballast water release, we presume, that happened in the introduction.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins. That's about six minutes.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's been great talking with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We will now go to Mr. Hardie for five minutes or less, please.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here.

Possessing a firm grasp of the obvious, I want to delve back to 2012. Back in those days, we saw some pretty significant cuts. CBSA was cut, I think, by about $143 million, including over 600 border inspectors, and about a third of DFO's habitat staff was cut to save $100 million.

Given what we've heard so far today, where everybody would like the federal government to have a bigger hand, can we all agree that it would not be such a good idea to do those cuts again?

You can say yes.

[Erin Bates]

Yes, I agree.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Erin.

I also wanted to touch base on the issue of conservation officers, because on a provincial basis we do rely on that kind of enforcement. I know, in British Columbia, at least, there are not many conservation officers left, are there? Ms. Bates, you can confirm this

[Erin Bates]

That's true. They are fairly sparse.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Ms. Noel, is it the same in New Brunswick? Have you maintained a fairly decent staff of conservation officers to go out and do inspections?

[Paula Noel]

Mark may actually know better than I that there has been a reduction over the years. The trend is going down, for sure.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

All of these things do fall under the pressure of governments trying to save money along the way. That's how it works.

Mr. Stanley, a quick study of the habits of zebra mussels and the others suggests that they don't very much like nickel-copper alloys. Is that an option for retrofitting parts of the system that would otherwise get clogged with these creatures?