Fisheries Committee on May 19th, 2016

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

Can I have another question, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have two minutes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Dr. Devlin, different evidence has been given before this committee that the practice of raising—I may have the terminology wrong—the small eggs from the natural wild salmon and then releasing them could contribute to the weakness of the genetic stock in wild salmon. Could you comment on that?

[Dr. Robert Devlin]

Those practices can have effects on natural populations if the breeding strategies are not controlled very carefully. In British Columbia, for example, the fish that are used to produce the next generation in hatcheries are as much as possible selected from fish that have been born in the wild, so they're at least one generation wild fish. There is emerging evidence from the United States that rearing in hatchery conditions and other conditions can change the genetics of the fish population in one generation. These are very much emerging questions that we're trying to understand, and I'd say the jury is still out on that.

One of the complications is that there are both genetic and environmental influences on the characteristics of the fish. To try to pull those two influences apart to understand whether there are long-term effects is very difficult to do. Improving on research facilities that allow for natural streams under controlled conditions is required to answer those questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have a minute.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Green or Dr. Cunjak, I'm not sure which, commented on the loss of DFO protection of the resource in the various rivers in New Brunswick. Could you elaborate on that a bit, expand a little more, quantify that, please?

[Morris Green]

Two things happened. The federal government reduced the number of fisheries wardens who patrol the rivers, and the Department of Natural Resources split its staff in two, one piece being protection and one piece being forest rangers who did the forestry work. Before, everybody did everything. If the forest ranger saw some sort of an illegal act going on in a salmon river, he'd step in and do something. Now he doesn't do that, so the number of provincial people involved in protection has been reduced as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

Folks, we've had some informal discussions. Normally, we would end it here with Mr. Donnelly's conclusion, but we have some time before we get into committee business. So we're going to have five minutes for Mr. Donnelly instead of three. We'll have up to five minutes for Mr. McDonald, who hasn't asked a question yet, and then finally five minutes for Mr. Sopuck. Agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, great.

Mr. Donnelly, you have five minutes.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

We've had a number of witnesses at the committee, including Mr. Jim Irving, who referenced the 2,300 studies that have been done on the wild Atlantic salmon. His suggestion was to review those studies and find the recommendations as one of the ways forward.

Mr. Green, I appreciate your recommendations as well and your dedication to the idea of the department establishing a wild Atlantic salmon task force, and there was an earlier question.

First of all, I want to read another comment from Mr. Bill Taylor of the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

In his testimony to the Senate committee, he indicated that DFO should introduce an approach similar to Quebec's river-by-river management model.

Mr. Kevin Stringer of DFO, in his testimony, pointed out that “Quebec has a system that largely does that. It's not inexpensive, it involves work with NGOs, and it is a complex system”.

I'm wondering, Mr. Green, in your recommendations—and you did just talk about this—if you could elaborate on whether you think the department should put the kind of resources needed into that river-by-river management, or you agree...and I thought I heard you say you did. Could you comment a bit more about the expenses and the resources needed to make the system effective?

[Morris Green]

The remarkable things about salmon anglers is they're totally devoted to the species and the restoration of the species, Many of them have spent countless years volunteering to help in any particular project that happens to rear its head, any opportunity they get to try to help the salmon, they're willing to do. These are individuals I'm talking about.

I'm also talking about the river management groups, the watershed committees that exist on some rivers. I'm talking about organizations like the Miramichi Salmon Association, the Northumberland Salmon Protection Association, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the New Brunswick Salmon Council, all those groups. Saint John River, Kennebecasis River, Tobique River, Restigouche River—all those rivers have groups that are ready and willing to stand up and do a lot of the labour. So the cost factor may not be as great as you may think.

When I was minister, I had people all over the province volunteering to clean up streams, pick up all the garbage, and tidy them up. All we bought as a department were the garbage bags and T-shirts and for a matter of a few thousand dollars, we actually cleaned up our rivers and really made them something to be proud of. Individual groups, the Moncton Fish and Game Association, were the ones who started that on the North Pole Stream.

People are out there, ready to go to work. All they need is for somebody to set them into action, and the federal government is the one to do it. This task force that I keep talking about should be the lead entity in doing that.

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

So the task force is struck; we look at watershed governance; we review the studies; we engage the provinces; the stewardship organizations.

[Morris Green]

Yes.

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

We move forward in a collaborative manner. There are obviously multiple jurisdictions. Federal has certain regulations and abilities to make changes. At the provincial level, you talked about riparian setbacks and habitat protection. Obviously the municipalities and first nations can play a role. You talked about enforcement.

Is there a particular governance model that you feel is more successful? Obviously Ontario has conservation authorities. Where I'm from on the west coast, British Columbia does it differently. On the east coast in your area, would you suggest a particular watershed governance model that the task force could explore?

[Morris Green]

Because each jurisdiction, each province, has its own set of volunteers, so to speak, I think perhaps one should be tailored to New Brunswick, one to Nova Scotia, one to Prince Edward Island, and one to Newfoundland and Labrador. Each one would be slightly different, depending on the particular makeup of the volunteer organizations. I do think that with the overall leadership of DFO, this task force, people would be willing to come, like salmon returning to spawn in the river. You would be amazed.

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

Thank you very much, and thank you to all the witnesses for submitting their ideas. As a final comment, we've had Dr. Cunjak and Mr. Green make specific recommendations.

Monsieur Caron or Dr. Devlin, if you have specific recommendations on the wild Atlantic salmon, could you submit them in writing to the committee? We'll look at them when we're putting the report together, and we would very much appreciate any recommendations you might have to address this issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Mr. McDonald, you have five minutes.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Finnigan, if time permits.

Dr. Devlin, correct me if I'm wrong, but you mentioned the genetically modified salmon. The product is going to be allowed into Canada to be sold as a great source of protein, as we know salmon is. You spoke about the negligible risk of escape in the containment process that is used, and I thought you said we were the first country to allow that product, as our government departments today announced.

In the event that the salmon did escape containment—it's fine to say the risk is negligible, but people didn't think the Titanic would sink—and managed to get to our sources of wild Atlantic salmon, what would be the result? Would it be detrimental to our stock if that should happen?

[Dr. Robert Devlin]

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is associated with a huge amount of uncertainty, not based on the lack of information but because various experiments have shown that the engineered salmon can have influences under certain conditions and be at a disadvantage under other conditions. So to try to integrate all that information into a net effect as to what would occur in nature is very difficult, and because of that, the uncertainty is large and that was taken into account in the risk assessment.

However, to answer your question, under certain conditions, with the escape of a fast-growing, voraciously feeding salmon in particular environments, the committee felt there could be effects on populations in the ecosystem of either competitors or Atlantic salmon themselves. So it is possible, but the overriding decision was that the confinement was massive and that there was not going to be an escape.

I should point out that there are no plans to grow these kinds of fish outside land-based, contained facilities, so they would not be in net pens where escape would be much more likely. That's the main objective at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. McDonald.

Mr. Finnigan, you have two and a half minutes.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I'm going to follow up on Mr. McDonald's point, because as you know, today the department of health announced this was going to happen. I'm chair of the agriculture committee, and for some reason it has been put to our committee to study the effects and any questions that we or the public may have on salmon. A lot of groups right now are totally opposed to farmed salmon, especially in open waters, and so a lot of people will say this is just opening the door to that. Eventually we will see that in open pens in the ocean or the bays.

The other question on the health side—I know I'm going to get one—is whether this food is going to be labelled genetically modified product.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We'll start with Dr. Cunjak. Do you want all of them?

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Maybe after that we could hear from Mr. Devlin.

[Rick Cunjak]

I'm afraid I don't know very much about this particular situation or the product. I can't comment.