Evidence of meeting #31 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 fisheries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation
Don't just nullify and move on.
NDP
Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation
That's what I heard from Mr. Hardie here.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
The reason I'm saying that is there are at least two parties here—and you did reference that there is a bit of partisanship at the table, which there definitely is—who were calling for the restoration in the last election of the Fisheries Act, to at least get back to what it was before we move on.
I think it's fair, and even the Conservatives would recognize, that when you open up something for consultation, you never know which way it can go. That's the risk at opening it up for consultation. Also, it takes a long time. Ideally, you have to go—
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
It should take a while. The committee should travel to all corners of the country, listen—certainly on the coast—to what people have to say, and then hear that feedback and make those suggestions, which definitely can take a while.
Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation
I would just respond that it's always good to take time to make important decisions the right way. However, I think the issue is urgent. Any clarification that's needed in the law as it stands should be done as quickly possible.
If you can arrive at a consensus on what the clarification is—and we put forth our ideas on what clarification needs to be—and they're consistent with others, we'd like to see that move pretty quickly. What we need is a federal and provincial program to protect fish habitat. If we spend two years thinking about what the law is going to say, that's not going to help us.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that.
We do have time for a third round, as you can see. We have time for three seven-minute questions from each of the parties. If you want to split your time, I would ask the committee members to use your diligence, refer to me if you want to know how much time, and you can throw it to one of your colleagues, if you so desire.
Mr. Morrissey, you're up for seven minutes, please.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We heard comments about a number of habitats that had significant alterations, where the fish resource increased. Can you identify any watershed or rivers that have been negatively impacted by the Fisheries Act changes since 2012?
Martin Olszynski
Again, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It's not possible to show in the span of three years, population level impacts on any fishery resource in Canada. Again, I defer to my scientific colleagues to correct me on that.
This is the point that I think the Wildlife Federation was making. If you take the history, the last 20 years of habitat protection in Canada, the introduction of the habitat protection provisions in 1977 was a recognition that habitat had been degraded. In 1986, there was a recognition that habitat was being degraded and therefore the policy was introduced. Now recently, there have been changes, and here we are again today, in 2016.
In the course of all of that, when you look at the data, when you look at the stress indicators, when you look at the watershed reports by the WWF, you see clearly degradation over time. That's the long trend. What are the individual trends in any given year? Again, I defer to Dr. Favaro or to the Wildlife Federation to give more specifics.
Senior Conservation Biologist, Freshwater Ecology, Canadian Wildlife Federation
I would like to speak about the Ottawa River. I fish in the Ottawa River regularly and I really do love that river. It has excellent elements to it, but there are severely stressed elements to it as well.
Atlantic salmon have been extirpated from that river for hundreds of years. American eel are at less than 1% of their historic abundance, and they were a vital aboriginal fishery. The biomass of the Ottawa River is about 80% channel catfish, the vast majority of which are contaminated with mercury where I can't eat them or feed them to my wife.
There are some serious problems that are habitat-associated in the Ottawa River, and we haven't made progress on resolving those.
October 31st, 2016 / 5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Can anybody give an example of a negative development that occurred post-2012?
Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation
We don't actually have a picture of the status of fish habitat in Canada. It has been a problem for years, and it's a problem when we sit before you and try to answer these questions. I would really love to be able to quantifiably answer the question here.
We haven't done the study, but I think you probably could look at some impacts to habitat that have happened since 2012. Those impacts probably would have happened under the old regime and are probably happening under the new regime. That is the reality of the way the department has been going lately, over the last 10 years.
The thing I would add to that is the importance of investing in the monitoring of both offsets and fish habitat. That might seem to be a plea for massive buckets of money, but I'm not talking about monitoring and assessing every single square inch of habitat in Canada. I'm talking about strategically investing dollars in specific projects and specific locations so that at least we have some understanding of where things are headed over time. Frankly, I don't believe we have that. I don't know if Dr. Favaro has information otherwise.
Research Scientist, Fisheries and Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland, As an Individual
I guess what I would say is, if you go to the doctor and you have a fever, the doctor is going to treat that fever in a certain way. You're going to have your fluids, you're going to go home, and you're going to rest. That's going to be true regardless of what the cause is for that malady.
Where we're in this data-poor situation in Canada for a lot of these fisheries, the thing you do to treat highly variable fish stocks—for example, the Fraser River sockeye, which is all over the place, and one year it's great and the next year it's a disaster—is make sure the habitat is intact. Almost regardless of whether climate change is exacerbating things, which we know is part of the problem with some of these, having that intact habitat and really valuing that is going to be good for stabilizing those systems.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Since we're reviewing the sections to the act that are under review, what would you recommend be put in place so that in four years' time, if the same question is posed, you will actually have specific answers?
Martin Olszynski
I would suggest a public registry where every authorization that DFO issues comes with a monitoring requirement, maybe not all of them, but many of them, and have that data coming.
In addition to that, DFO should partner with agencies that are actually doing some of this work, whether it's a study that was cited by the Canadian Wildlife Federation or the work being done by the World Wildlife Fund where they have mapped the threats and the health of watersheds in Canada right now. Go out there and do that baseline work, establish that baseline, and then, yes, sure, we can try to have that conversation.
I don't think four years is going to be enough. Changes in the environment usually take decades to detect. However, certainly we would have some kind of baseline, and we could be reasonably confident that we'll have that data when the time comes to make those reviews.
Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation
In any act, there's a requirement to report to Parliament. That report usually takes the form of here's how many authorizations we issued, and here's how many prosecutions, and here's how many staff dollars. That's great, but how about a report to Parliament that actually reports on the status of fish habitat and the effectiveness of the program? The list of standard things in the report to Parliament doesn't tell you whether that taxpayer money is being spent effectively. I would like to see written in the act something a little broader than just the standard programmatic reporting to Parliament. I think that would be helpful.
Our overarching comment was really to drive this program to outcomes. Focus the program, the law, and what the department does on achieving outcomes; and have them report back to you in Parliament on what those outcomes are, not just the number of prosecutions last year.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Not that I want to put suggestions in your questions. My apologies, but thank you.
We'll go to the Conservatives. Mr. Sopuck, I think we're starting with you. Feel free to share your time, if you wish.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Mr. Lapointe, I appreciate your point about the Ottawa. I didn't imply that there were no issues. It's just the fish biomass is still fairly high.
Mr. Browne, you talked about fisheries habitat offsets. I'm a big fan of that. I think that our recreational fisheries conservation partnership program is a good first step and I think could be expanded dramatically.
Mr. Browne, you talked about outcomes-based policy. The new Fisheries Act, as we wrote it...and I was there and there were hearings, by the way, with outside groups. I was on the fisheries committee at the time. We based the new Fisheries Act on fish production and productivity. Nothing is easy in fisheries, but it's something you can measure to a certain extent. Isn't a good outcome fish production, healthy fish communities and lots of them? Is that a reasonable outcome?
Director of Conservation, Canadian Wildlife Federation
Yes. I think understanding the predictions, the factors that lead to fisheries production is exactly where fisheries science is at, understanding the dynamics, the environmental and community ecological impacts, effects that lead to fisheries production. That's where we are with fisheries science. We're trying to figure that out.
