Evidence of meeting #15 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 river.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Sixty bucks apiece—does everybody have that? You can check Hansard if you don't believe me.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
At $60 apiece we may end up bringing it with us if we get our trip approved for the fall.
Now we're off to Mr. Hardie for five minutes.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the presenters for being here. I'm from the west coast, and on the west coast we're looking at a report from Justice Cohen on the Fraser River salmon. I'm going to read a short excerpt and then I want you to vote—agreement thumbs up, disagreement thumbs down—on what Justice Cohen said.
He said:
As long as DFO has a mandate to promote salmon farming, there is a risk that [DFO] will act in a manner that favours the interests of the salmon-farming industry over the health of wild fish stocks. The only way to address this potential conflict is by removing from DFO’s mandate the promotion of...salmon-farming [as an] industry and farmed salmon [as a] product.
I'd like to take a quick poll. If you agree with his conclusion, it's thumbs up; if you disagree, it's thumbs down.
That's interesting. That's fascinating. Thank you for that.
Liberal
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
It was two thumbs up and two “meh”.
I wanted to recall something that my colleague Mr. Sopuck said a couple of meetings ago.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
It was something to the effect of “let's get on and do something”. He was particularly focusing on striped bass, but there was maybe a side comment on the grey seal population, and it was interesting to see that perhaps there's some agreement that something should be done.
If, in the absence of the perfect scientist—because we may not find out what the problem is until it is too late to do something about it—there is irremediable harm, then having a focus on harvesting striped bass, for instance... I heard somebody say grey seals aren't necessarily an issue here, but what about striped bass?
Would we be making a huge mistake to just say look, we may not know everything we need to know, but let's go after the striped bass population?
Maybe we can ask Dr. Cunjak and Morris Green to comment.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
As a scientist, the first thing I would ask is what the question is directed at. Is the presumption here that they are a predator of salmon? My first step in that regard would be to establish that that was the case. Before I would say we should go out and increase the harvest of striped bass, I would want to be sure that the problem existed.
So that means a comprehensive study first or at least a census by people who are already angling them. In fact you don't even have to spend a lot of money; there's already an angling fishery out there for them. Assess those fish that are captured and taken home to see, over the course of the period that striped bass are out in an estuary, what they are feeding on.
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
Then I'd make the decision.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Dr. Cunjak, that wasn't actually the question, but I can't disagree with the need to know more.
Mr. Green, what are your thoughts?
Would we be harming anything if we just simply said look, as Mr. Sopuck said, let's pick on the striped bass because we know that they are a predator and they may be doing some of the damage?
Author, Historian, As an Individual
I can tell you the striped bass have been in that river for a long time. In 1874 there was a winter fishery of striped bass on the Miramichi, just for your information.
However, the other thing I would suggest is that striped bass, like the salmon, need a sustainable number. I don't think they need 300,000 in order to survive. I wouldn't be averse to removing some of those fish out of there, but I certainly wouldn't be interested in eradicating them, because they have an important part to play in the ecosystem as well. I think there should be some scientific parameters set around to make sure that it was done properly.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Mr. Caron, it was noted by one of our earlier witnesses that Quebec's approach of a river-by-river strategy seemed to make a lot of sense and to be a more intelligent approach to managing the overall issue as opposed to a pan-regional strategy.
Can you comment on that?
Biologist, Ministerial Advisory Committee on Atlantic Salmon, As an Individual
This is a management approach we put in place about 30 years ago. In order to be able to do so, you have to be able to evaluate the quantity of salmon at the end of the season and calculate how many salmon come back to the rivers. That is made easier in Quebec because in most rivers the water is very clear. In the fall, for instance, it is possible to count the number of salmon in the rivers, which is an advantage.
For each river, we set the number of spawning salmon we want to have at the end of the season. Afterwards, at the end of the year, we check to see if we attained that result. In some rivers we also check during the summer to see if salmon are returning normally and whether we will be able to reach our objective. In addition, if need be, we adjust fishing during the season. For instance, when I was at the ministry, sometimes in mid-July, after counting the salmon, if we saw that there would be a shortage of spawners to achieve the full potential of the river, we imposed restrictions. This meant fewer catches, and putting large salmons back in the water when fishing them in these rivers was allowed, so as to protect them and reach the objectives that had been set.
Some years were difficult. For instance, 2014 was one such year. We did not reach our objective at the end of that year. However, in most cases, this was very helpful in reaching the objectives.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Merci, Monsieur Caron and Mr. Hardie.
Mr. Strahl, go ahead for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Mr. Green.
You spoke about the task force that you believe is a good starting point to make a whole bunch of determinations on how to proceed. What would be your best guess on timing for something like that, from the time that it was struck to the time it had to produce something useful for the minister, or for the department, or for Parliament? I think there is some urgency here. I'd like you to flesh that out a little bit for me. What sort of time frame do you think is possible there?
Author, Historian, As an Individual
That might depend a little bit upon the political impetus that's given to it, because I think it's important to have the will to do it, to make Atlantic salmon a priority.
There's one small thing I'm going to mention to you that could be done immediately. One thing that really troubled me was the removal of protection of our rivers that occurred in the previous administration. I understand why they were doing it. I understand that, but at the same time, we could have cured the problem by looking after that particular exception rather than broadly sweeping away all the river protections the federal government used to have. That's one thing we could do fairly quickly.
I mention that because, as I say, I've devoted a good part of my life to Atlantic salmon conservation in one form or another, and that really tore my heart out. There wasn't anything I could do about it but sit there and watch it happen. So that's one thing.
I think there are other things we could address equally quickly. This working group that I'm talking about would, of course, have short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Within the short-term parameters there would be some things they could do. One is co-operation with the NGOs that are willing to step up and spend millions of dollars to help in protecting the salmon and restoring their numbers. Start doing some things like that. Take those silos down. Work with the provinces, get them involved again the way they used to be, and start managing individual rivers similar to what they do in Quebec.
For example, rivers in Nova Scotia have a real problem because of acid rain. They don't have any limestone in their base that helps neutralize that. There might have to be some mitigation measures taken there. In 1993, I attended a fly-fishing symposium in Kamloops, British Columbia, where I spoke about salmon conservation in New Brunswick. There was one guy from Virginia who talked about his river, which ran through a coal mining area, and he was celebrating the fact that they had introduced enough lime into that river the previous year to actually allow one coarse fish to survive in that waterway. A beautiful river was killed with acid runoff from a coal mine. Here we have these beautiful, pristine rivers, and all we're trying to do is to get the fish back there in appropriate numbers. We should be addressing those things.
Conservative
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC
Thank you. I know the ministerial advisory committee talked about that and supported continuing work on there. I won't get into navigable waters, and whether that actually strips a river of all its protections. We'll save that for another time.
I want to talk about seals. We heard some contradictory commentary today about whether or not that should be an issue of concern. I think the point is well taken. If there are 10 million of them and they're not killing all the salmon, maybe they're not a problem. But at the same time, we've heard evidence that they are a predator, in some cases. Maybe on a river-by-river, area-by-area basis that needs to be looked at.
In the parlance of our time, we like to talk about how we're in favour of a sustainable seal harvest. If we're talking about 10 million, I don't think there's a market for that many. Other committees in previous Parliaments have recommended, actually, a cull. I know we don't like to talk about that, but I think we have to have a genuine conversation here about what is required.
Maybe we'll go back to Mr. Cunjak or to Mr. Green, who I think mentioned that. Politically, it's perhaps difficult to talk about, but does the science support just enough for a sustainable seal harvest, or do we need to be more aggressive than that?
Professor, Department of Biology, University of New Brunswick, As an Individual
I'm unaware of the science supporting any sort of cull at this point, but I don't know what they're feeding on. Like François Caron said, first of all, these are predators. They're going to eat anything that comes near them that they can fit in their mouths. They don't care if it's salmon, striped bass, or capelin. They're going to eat what's there. When you have that large a number, obviously they're opportunistic and they'll feed on whatever they can.
As I think Dr. Hutchings mentioned in earlier testimony to you, the problem occurs, from the salmon's perspective, in that our numbers are so low now that even that relatively small number that may be taken by seals is contributing further to the decline, to the “death by a thousand cuts” reference that was made earlier today
Liberal
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Green, given that the Quebec management model, river by river, is being held up as successful, has there ever been a request to DFO to establish a similar management plan for any rivers in New Brunswick?
Author, Historian, As an Individual
I don't think people here are asking for the same model that they have in Quebec. I think they're asking DFO, within its management plan, to look at each river individually. For example, the Miramichi river system has four main branches. The three of us live in Southwest Miramichi, the Northwest Miramichi, and Main Southwest Miramichi in Cains River.
On the Main Southwest Miramichi we have quite a large and healthy grilse population, and 90% of them are male. They're not really necessary to the spawning of the multi-winter female salmon. We could allow a retention of one or two of those grilse in the same way we used to, to satisfy the local involvement, local interest in the river, the protection of the river, and so on—points that you've all heard before—but not extend the same privilege to the other two branches because they have fewer fish.
The northwest Miramichi in particular has had severe problems over the years. Twice in its history it had a mine dam burst from Heath Steele Mines, in the 1960s and the early 1980s, that wiped out the entire fish population in one afternoon. That river had to be restored almost rock by rock, larva by larva, and so on. That's an individual problem of the Northwest Miramichi. Over the years, people have tried to rebuild it, and they have had some success.
We should be doing individual river management, and it should be within this overall management policy that DFO is looking after.
