Fisheries Committee on Oct. 31st, 2016

[Martin Olszynski]

In a letter I sent to the committee on September 22 of this year, I encouraged the committee, before it starts its review, to task DFO with an audit of all current section 35 authorizations or a random selection of them, and to also go out into the watershed and do the exact assessment you're referring to, Mr. Sopuck. I would be the first person to read that report with great interest.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I'm quite shocked that you and Dr. Favaro who are so critical of the changes to the act cannot find a single quantifiable environmental indicator to back that up, so much for evidence-based.

I'd like to talk to Mr. Browne with the Canadian Wildlife Federation. You used the letters RFCPP, recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program, which was enabled under our new act. Was that a program that your group liked and used?

[David Browne]

We accessed funds through it, and it was a government funding program of about $10 million a year that continues to this day. I think it has two more years in it. So it's been a good investment. I think a bunch of good projects were put on the ground. There's an evaluation of it, and we'll see how good it's been, so we'd like to see more of that.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Great, me too.

I'd like to refer to evidence regarding the recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program, and I will provide some numbers produced by Kevin Stringer who was senior assistant deputy minister of the department from October 2013 to July 2016. He talked about $3.1 million spent at that time; 74 different organizations undertook 94 habitat restoration projects. In addition, we leveraged an additional $7 million that was brought to those same projects from partners. That's the 1:1.25 leverage ratio. There were 380 partners involved in those 94 projects, 1,700 volunteers, and the estimation is that 2.4 million square metres and 2,000 linear kilometres of recreational fisheries habitat were restored, including restoring access. That is a quantifiable indicator of the effect of our new Fisheries Act, which enabled this kind of program to proceed.

I think it's truly remarkable that the recreational fisheries community, which the Canadian Wildlife Federation represents in many different ways, was able to mobilize its resources and expertise to create meaningful, on-the-ground fisheries conservation projects that benefited local communities. This was the intent of our new act, and I'm so proud of that particular program because it generated real and meaningful conservation results.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

As I said, if anybody has a response to the questions, you can work that in whichever way you want to during questioning. I know there have been a lot of questions and some concerns, but nevertheless, you all know the rules, your seven minutes is your seven minutes, or your five minutes, in this case.

Just as a reminder, if we get to a third round, which it looks as if we may, I'm going to call for three questions, seven minutes in the first round. If the time is less, I'll reduce the time accordingly to how much time we have left because we have no provisions for a third round. So we'll divide among the three on a seven-minute basis. Is that okay with everybody? Okay.

Mr. Hardie, you have five minutes.

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

Thanks to everybody for being here.

I have a bit of an advantage; I'm also on the transport, infrastructure and communities committee, and we're looking at the Navigation Protection Act. I don't know if the same conditions apply to this act as they did to the Navigation Protection Act, but one of the things we heard very clearly early on was people liked the changes this brought about, and they represented by and large people responsible for municipal works. Their concern prior to the changes was that the process was onerous. It added a lot of time and expense to Public Works. The attitude we're taking in that committee, and I don't think it's much different in this one, is to step back, look at the changes, keep what works, and fix what needs fixing.

In that regard, what would you recommend to us in the provisions that would allow for the streamlining of Public Works so we weren't unduly burdening them with a lot of regulation that was just very long-tailed, very difficult to do, especially in light of the lack of DFO resources. Are there some things you would recommend to preserve that streamlining so we could get things built without undue delays and undue costs?

Yes, David.

[David Browne]

Prescribed works is a portion of the law as it stands, and it can incorporate prescribed set standards for doing certain works that can be regulated through the law. That would be one way to do that.

I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume it would make it quite a bit clearer when you violated, because you were violating a specific regulation that laid out exactly how you should do something and what's prescribed therein. That would be one way to move forward with that.

There were also operational statements used under the former habitat protection program that could be repurposed and continue to be used. I know industry has been quite concerned that those were lost. That's not an issue about law the way it's written, it's just a program decision by DFO to move away from those operational statements. Yes, that's important to move, and that's why I was saying it's not just the law, but it's how you build the program to protect fish and fish habitat in this country.

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

Thank you, Mr. Browne.

I'll move on to Dr. Favaro, with your thoughts on that.

[Dr. Brett Favaro]

I don't work at that level with the municipalities and whatnot. As a scientist, I mostly work with fisheries to make fishing more sustainable, but I do look at this in a broader sense. I want to paint a picture of the status of conservation in Canada really quickly.

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

Briefly, so that Mr. Olszynski has a chance to respond, as well.

[Dr. Brett Favaro]

In 2014, we did a review of all the species that had been looked at more than once by COSEWIC between 1977 and 2013, which I believe was the cut-off. We found in the freshwater fish that only six species had improved in status over that time period. This has been a long-standing problem. When we're prioritizing getting things built, I definitely agree that streamlining is important, but we can't lose sight of the fact that our systems for helping fish recover and for keeping the habitat intact need to improve, as well.

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

Thank you.

Martin.

[Martin Olszynski]

I would just echo that I think that's exactly right. This is part of my brief, with class authorizations and regulated standards for those projects that have been pre-assessed and identified as posing a low risk. You know, the “carry on” type of thing. Notify DFO so that DFO knows that it's happening, knows when it's happening, and is able to start building a concept and a map of the impacts that are going on for fish habitat in Canada and running from there.

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

It was also noted that we wanted to modernize, which means that it wasn't necessarily true that we were just going to roll the clock back to before. What does “modernization” look like? Anybody, please chime in.

[Martin Olszynski]

I'll jump in with one quick one, and I'm proud to bring this example back from Alberta.

If you go to the Alberta Energy Regulator website right now, it is a very high-tech website where you can access information on applications, you can access information decisions from the Alberta Energy Regulator, and all those kinds of things. At the very least, there is this idea of a public registry, where authorization requests, decisions, and the authorizations themselves are posted, and the monitoring data is available, so that individuals can assess that data and make the decisions. I don't mean to be pugnacious about this, but I'll make the point. Unless my more scientific colleagues can correct me, it would be impossible to show a cause and effect in less than three years from when the regulatory change occurred and anything that's happening in the environment. We would need at least 10 to 15 years.

I apologize, I haven't done that work. I will try to do that work maybe in the future, but it would be impossible right now to suggest that a cause and effect could be identified in that context.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Donnelly, you have three minutes, but it's four minutes afforded to you.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Olszynski, I think you just commented on the question. I was going to say, did you need a little more time to respond to Mr. Sopuck's question? You're okay there with your last comment.

Mr. Browne, if I can go back, you mentioned the law and that it's not the only thing, which I completely agree with. It's important to look at that when protecting the fishery, but isn't the law a critical tool with which decision-makers have to work, whether at the local, regional, provincial, or federal level? I will reiterate that I completely agree that other elements like a fully resourced department with the ability to properly review development applications is critical, but if that basis, i.e., the law and the jurisdiction that they have, is unable to help them do their job, isn't that also a critical element?

[David Browne]

Absolutely. I hope I didn't say anything otherwise, or imply otherwise.

The provisions in the Fisheries Act, both around deleterious substances and habitat, are the provisions for Canada to protect our aquatic environment. We have to get them right. They have to work, and they have to protect habitat—no question. The law is the basis for doing that.

What I'm suggesting is that this committee and the review of the Fisheries Act go beyond what it says in the law to include how the department enforces that law.

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

If I can summarize, you're still in agreement that we need to restore to the pre-2012 definitions and level, and then improve with some other elements, and you've already provided the committee with specific suggestions. Is that a fair—

[David Browne]

That's not the language I used. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't understand what “restore” or “return to” means.

In our view, let's move forward. We do want to return to the language of “had”—those words. How that actually gets put into law, I don't know. I'm not sure that it's “return to”, or what.

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

On section 35, “the harmful alteration, disruption, and destruction of fish habitat”

[David Browne]

We like those words—

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

—were specifically removed.

[David Browne]

Yes.

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

That's what I mean by pre-2012, because in 2012 that wording was removed.

Certainly I think you join a number of other national organizations that are calling for the restoration of that wording, and then to move beyond in terms of modernizing and improving and building on how we improve our fishery in the country.