Fisheries Committee on June 14th, 2016

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

How I would characterize it is that there is a lot of work that could be done on fresh water, absolutely, and $1.5 million isn't going to address every freshwater issue across the country. Recognizing that we received that envelope of funding, we tried to be strategic and think about the key areas we wanted to focus on, which were the Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg, and the St. Lawrence estuary, because we have existing partnerships with provinces and the U.S. government in those locations.

We're hopeful that we can draw from the results of the work we do there and apply it elsewhere, but we took the decision to focus in those locations as opposed to providing a very thin layer across the whole country, because we recognize that wouldn't be sufficient.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

For Mr. Duplisea, on ocean tracking and survival, can you give us any indication of where this might be moving forward? It seems to be a big question.

I spent a couple of days last week at the BC Seafood Expo, and that was one of the things that came up. Rather than trying to figure out why fish die when they go out to sea, they've kind of changed their thoughts around to why they survive. It would be interesting to know how much of this new science, or how many of these new positions, might be going into tracking ocean survival.

[Dr. Daniel Duplisea, Research Scientist, Stock assessment and Ecosystem Approach (Québec Region), Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

I think I could talk a little bit about the ocean tracking or some tagging programs, but I couldn't tell you about the allocation of positions to that area, the research area.

Arran, do you have something to say about that?

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

I suggest that you give a little bit of an overview of the type of work that we're doing and planning in that regard, and then, if there's time, I'd offer some comments.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay.

[Dr. Daniel Duplisea]

Okay.

I know, for instance, that we have counting fences that have been set up. They're primarily in the Maritimes region. There are several species that have been tagged. Every time one of these tagged species passes by one of the counting fences, it gives off a ping, and this is noted, and we can track the movements of fish. This work has certainly has been done on cod from the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence, but I think there has been a program in the Miramichi on striped bass. Perhaps there has been a program on salmon in the Miramichi.

There are several species that have been used as study species for the ocean tracking network. I know that the network is expanding, so there are fences, for instance, at the Strait of Belle Isle. There are fences at the Cabot Strait. There's a fence at the Halifax Line. In this way we can track these large-scale movements of fish, and they are giving insights into some of the behavioural responses of fish and what happens to them as their populations change in size. For instance, when they're at very high density, are they more likely to spread out, or if they're in lower density, do they stay in a more local area because they don't have to search for food?

There are a lot of ecological questions that can be addressed through these ocean tracking network and tagging studies, especially these live tagging studies. You don't have to kill fish and only observe them once. Instead, they get pinged by this fence multiple times.

That's really a growing area of research. For instance, one species that is very interesting and is going to be expanding that program is Atlantic halibut. That's both the population of the Scotian Shelf and the southern Newfoundland area one, as well as the other stock that we consider to be the Gulf of St. Lawrence—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

I'm afraid time's up. Sorry.

[Dr. Daniel Duplisea]

Okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

I could listen to that for a long time, but we did go an extra minute there.

Go ahead, Mr. Hardie, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Finnigan.

I'm sitting here looking at a picture of a big bin full of books that used to be in the Maurice Lamontagne Institute Library in Mont-Joli. At the same time, the library in the University of Manitoba, the Eric Marshall Library, was dismantled. The idea at the time was about saving money and consolidating the information. I guess the question is, was the information saved? Was it digitized? Even with the increased resources, are we operating at a disadvantage? In the case of the freshwater Experimental Lakes, we lost about 100 years' worth of records. They were just thrown away over the last 10 years, so are we trying to regain some ground there?

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

In terms of the information that was available at the library in Mont-Joli that you referred to, my understanding is that the information has all been digitized. It is now available electronically.

I will say that with the new investments, we are looking at future skill sets. What are the future technologies? What are the things we're going to need for the future? We did not take the decision to go back and reinvest in every location where reductions were made in previous years, so there are no plans to resurrect libraries that have been closed.

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

Continuity, of course, is kind of important, especially in science, as you monitor and track issues over time. In some respects, decisions that were made lost us some ground. I don't expect you to comment on that.

I want to talk about something that we've run into quite a few times in my discussions, either with witnesses here or with the folks on the west coast, which is that nobody trusts anybody's science any more. It seems that we've gone through a period of time in which DFO, perhaps because of its inability to speak and contribute at symposiums and conferences around the world, has been put at a disadvantage. You lost traction, it seems, and perhaps some credibility along the way. Will this development help restore the stature that DFO used to have?

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

I think it will make us more present. I think that with more people and more resources, we'll have the ability to physically be in places where we were challenged to be in the past, be that domestically in terms of participating in advisory committee meetings or with the fishing industry, or internationally in terms of major scientific conferences.

I think one of the keys to maintaining credibility, as you say, is really our peer review process, which Dr. Parsons spoke about, and how we publish our results and the advice we give online. We make it available for everyone, all Canadians, to see.

I also think a key component is open data. There's a commitment, obviously, in government to making data, paid for by public dollars, available to Canadians. I talked about technology. As one part of our investment, data management and making data available is a huge priority for us.

I think once Canadians see the data and can manipulate it as they like and see the results and the advice we've given based on that data, it will go a long way toward ensuring that the credibility the department has is maintained.

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

Thank you.

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

Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Being from Miramichi—Grand Lake, of course my questions will be around Atlantic salmon.

Part of the question we have regarding solving the million-dollar question of the diminishing numbers is around the data we don't have once the salmon leave the Miramichi River and go on their migration route. Could you tell me what kind of investment you will have in gathering that data, and also how we'll use it to make our policy?

I know I don't have much time here, but we had Mr. Irving in a couple of weeks ago. The private sector is ready, along with others, to invest heavily in this science. What is DFO's policy on private funds?

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

In general—I recognize we're probably short on time here—our policy is that we want to work with anyone to help advance shared research goals. I'm familiar with the project you're referring to and I know we've had some productive discussions recently about how we can work better together.

In terms of what we're going to do to solve the million-dollar question on Atlantic salmon, one key element, going back to a question that I think was asked earlier, is investing in tagging work for Atlantic salmon to look at how we're going to address marine mortality. I can't give you the dollar figure today, but certainly that's something we've identified as a project we need to invest in with these new resources.

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

Okay.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

I'm afraid that's time.

Mr. Strahl, you have five minutes.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. McPherson, you mentioned a few things, including ocean noise pollution research and the importance of partnerships. Do you have a research relationship or partner with Vancouver Aquarium or with Marineland in Ontario?

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

We have in the past, through the national contaminants advisory group, given a small contract to work with Vancouver Aquarium on a specific research topic. I don't think I could relate off the top of my head what the title of that research topic was.

We want to work with researchers. They do have some key and renowned scientists at Vancouver Aquarium, so that is a partner we would be open and willing to collaborate with.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Right. I know they are doing important noise pollution research with beluga whales. If you don't have a partnership with them, I guess it's more difficult to discuss it, but perhaps you can talk about the importance of doing research in a controlled environment versus simply doing it in the ocean. I know that some, including some senators, would like to basically end research at those types of facilities. I'm just wondering if you believe science and research is advanced at places like Vancouver Aquarium and whether it should be maintained.

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

I'm certainly not a cetacean noise expert, so I can't talk about the specifics, but in general I think you'd find that most scientists would agree that it makes sense for there to be a field and laboratory component to research. Depending on the specific question, you might need both, or one might be better. It would really depend on the specific question being posed.

I don't know if my colleagues, who are practising scientists right now, have anything they want to add to that.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

No one's jumping in.

[Dr. Arran McPherson]

Okay. Perfect.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

With the ocean tracking network, all of the examples given—Newfoundland and Labrador, for example—came from the Maritimes. Are there any ocean tracking activities taking place on the Pacific side, and if not, why not?