Fisheries Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our meeting today, Wednesday, November 2, 2016. We are embarking on a new study and we have some witnesses.

However, I'm going to turn to Mr. Doherty. I think you wanted to take the floor first.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to put forward the following motion:

That pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans amend the end date of the study on the Fisheries Act Review to include at least four additional meetings to ensure that affected stakeholders in every region of the country are provided with an opportunity to appear; and to guarantee that the Committee can properly incorporate and respond to the feedback received from public consultations launched by the Government of Canada, at the Committee's earliest convenience.

With your approval, Mr. Chair, I'd like to put that forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes, indeed.

The motion is in order. I'd like to open the floor to debate on Mr. Doherty's motion.

Mr. McDonald.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As everybody is well aware, I made the original motion. We selected that date at the time. It was voted on by the committee and passed. I believe, at the time, it was probably passed unanimously for February 28. I would suggest we leave it at that date, and without saying any more on it, I now move a motion to adjourn debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

As we now know, this is a motion that we have to get to right away. A motion to adjourn debate has been put forward; therefore, that vote must happen.

We'll now vote to adjourn debate.

(Motion agreed to)

That being said, we want to welcome the minister here today. This is our study that we approved some time ago, as Mr. McDonald mentioned. I'm going to read out, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the motion adopted by the committee on September 19, 2016:

That the Committee, in light of the letter provided by the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard & the Minister of Transport, review and study the scope of application of the Fisheries Act, and specifically, the serious harm to fish prohibition; how the prohibition is implemented to protect fish and fish habitat; the capacity of Fisheries and Oceans Canada to deliver on fish and fish habitat protection through project review, monitoring, and enforcement; the definitions of serious harm to fish and commercial, recreational, and Aboriginal fisheries; the use of regulatory authorities under the Fisheries Act; and other related provisions of the act, and provide its recommendations in a report to the House, no later than Tuesday, February 28, 2017.

Appearing before us today, we have the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and Canadian Coast Guard, and his parliamentary secretary, Mr. Serge Cormier. We also have, from the department, Catherine Blewett, Kevin Stringer, and Philippe Morel.

Minister LeBlanc, you will have 10 minutes.

Mr. Cormier, you, too, will have 20 minutes.... No, it's 10 minutes, sorry. It's only because we like you.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Fisheries]

Are you suggesting 20 minutes each, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

No, 10 minutes is fine.

Go ahead, Minister LeBlanc. You have the floor for 10 minutes, please.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you, to our colleagues in the House of Commons.

Thank you for your invitation.

This is a special moment for me. It is my first opportunity to appear before you as Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, and I am delighted to do so. I hope that it will not be the last time.

I'm joined by some of the most senior officials of our department. Catherine Blewett, our deputy minister, is a new deputy minister in Ottawa. She had been the clerk of the executive council, the most senior public servant in the Province of Nova Scotia, and she joined the senior ranks of the public service in June. It's certainly Nova Scotia's loss and our gain that she's joined us in the department.

Mr. Chair, you introduced Kevin Stringer, the associate deputy minister, and Philippe Morel, the senior assistant deputy minister for fisheries management and ecosystems. Obviously, all of you know my colleague from New Brunswick, our parliamentary secretary, Serge Cormier, who will, as you said, Mr. Chair, have a few brief comments after mine.

As I said, this is my first appearance before your committee. I want to begin by saying how humbled and excited I was when the Prime Minister asked me to take on the portfolio of Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.

As you know, our oceans are facing numerous stressors, such as overfishing, habitat loss and destruction, marine pollution and warming sea temperatures. All these factors have negative impacts on our oceans and ecosystems.

If we want to protect our commercial, recreational, and indigenous fisheries for future generations, one of the most sensible places to start is to protect fish habitat, because quite simply put, without fish habitat there will be ultimately no fisheries.

Unfortunately, in my view, amendments made to the Fisheries Act in 2012 and 2013 stripped out and weakened some of the environmental protections that were specific to fish habitat. Most startlingly, the fisheries protection provisions that are currently in the act don't even reference fish habitat. I've also heard that there is some increasing uncertainty as to which bodies of water and fish species are currently in fact protected under the act.

My concern is that many of these changes were made without consulting the people who were most impacted by these changes. Indigenous and environmental groups were especially concerned with changes made to the act and perceived these amendments as a weakening of what should be a shared goal of protecting fish and fish habitat. Industry partners also became uncertain with regard to the regulatory requirements for which ultimately they would be responsible.

Our government heard these concerns and we promised to take action. In my mandate letter from the Prime Minister, I was asked to review the previous government's changes to the Fisheries Act and look at ways in which we can restore lost protections and incorporate modern safeguards.

But we did not want to do it by ourselves, without consulting those that are potentially impacted by these changes.

Instead, we want to take a holistic approach to reviewing the fishery protection provisions contained within the act. With that in mind I am very happy—and I know my colleagues in the department are—with your committee's decision to consult with Canadians on how to better protect fish and fish habitat, and in so doing to ensure the long-term sustainability of Canada's fisheries. We recognize the importance of putting in place processes to ensure a robust dialogue with provinces, territories, and obviously indigenous people.

To that end, we are working through a special task group reporting to the Canadian Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers to discuss this issue. We have also set up a number of bilateral meetings between our department's regional staff and their provincial and territorial colleagues responsible for fisheries, environment and natural resource issues to discuss provincial/territorial perspectives.

As I mentioned earlier, indigenous people have expressed serious concerns with the amendments made to this piece of legislation five or six years ago. To help encourage their participation and to benefit from their traditional ecological knowledge, my department is holding face-to-face meetings with various indigenous groups and providing funding so that they can attend these meetings and share their views on the matter.

We welcome the opinions of all Canadians, and encourage everyone to be part of this important conversation. To facilitate that, the department has launched an online public consultation. I'm sure many of you have already seen the site. It's called LetsTalkFishHabitat.ca. Here people can share their ideas about what protections are needed to ensure fish have a healthy environment in which to live, feed, and reproduce, as well as healthy corridors to migrate between such places. Should the committee find it helpful, we would obviously be very happy to share with all of you the feedback we receive through these various departmental consultations, at a time you would find appropriate.

As minister, and considering that amendments to the Fisheries Act are some of the most important responsibilities for somebody in my job, I thought that before these decisions are made we would ask Canadians to consider the following issues. What concerns do people have around the Fisheries Act changes and why? Where can we make improvements? How can we incorporate the latest science and traditional indigenous knowledge into this work? Will the amendments take into consideration future realities such as the impacts of climate change? Will additional enforcement measures and resources be required on the part of our department? Are the current penalties considered successful as the appropriate deterrence mechanism?

Mr. Chair, I look forward to the work the committee will do, to the recommendations it will formulate, to the evidence it will hear from Canadians and interested people. I think all of us benefit from having a very open and frank conversation about the ways that we can improve this important environmental and economic legislation.

That's why I want to thank all of you, and I know my colleagues from the department share that view, for having undertaken this work and to tell you that we are entirely at your disposal should you or your colleagues require any information, any briefings, any support. We're in the committee's hands as to how and when you'd like to receive regular updates on these ongoing consultations we're doing, either with the public or some of these more directed consultations with provincial governments and other groups, for example, indigenous groups.

With that, I look forward to your questions, but I know all of you look forward very much to hearing Serge Cormier's presentation. With your indulgence, Mr. Chair, I conclude my remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes, indeed.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The honourable minister himself has said that this is the first time that he has appeared before this committee. With all due respect to the parliamentary secretary, I'm sure he's quite capable of reading his talking points and speaking. We are here to hear from the minister. We don't get many opportunities to have the minister appear before here by his own admission. I would prefer that the minister takes the full 20 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Doherty, our witnesses are in control of their own time. If they choose to split it with someone else, they certainly can. That always has been the practice. I agree that we don't often hear from parliamentary secretaries, but I'm afraid it still is their time.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I think it's important that Canadians, given the scope and the magnitude of this study—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I realize that.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

It's important to hear from the Minister of Fisheries himself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I realize that, but you also have several minutes in questions and comments. You can also go to the minister directly, if you wish to do so at that point. You can use your discretion. However, at this point, I'm going to have to turn to Mr. Cormier, as Minister LeBlanc is sharing his time with him.

Mr. Cormier, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Like the minister, I am going to take a few seconds to thank you for your work as chair of this committee. My thanks also go to all members of the committee for their excellent work. I love working with you and I am pleased to appear before you today.

As a Maritimer, and the son of a fisherman, I have strong ties to the ocean. I know from first-hand experience just how important our fisheries are from an economic, social and cultural perspective.

Today's appearance gives us an opportunity to talk about how our government is honouring the commitment we made to Canadians to review changes made to the Fisheries Act.

The Fisheries Act is one of Canada's oldest pieces of federal legislation dating back to the Confederation. It gained royal assent in 1868 and became an essential tool in the government's ability to sustainably manage our fisheries and protect the habitat that supports them.

Over the years, the act has been amended many times in order to keep up with modern realities. However, the most recent changes made in 2012-13 generated some serious questions about whether Canada is doing all it can to protect one of our more precious resources.

This shows the importance of your committee's decision to help determine if any of the fish and fish habitat protections that were lost during the latest amendment to the act should be restored.

We would also like to take this opportunity to explore legislative ways in which we can incorporate new and modern safeguards that will further strengthen fish and fish habitat protections.

Although the consultation process is still underway, over 5,500 Canadians have already participated in the online consultations. We are seeing a high level of participation, both through the surveys completed online, and the ideas shared through the online forum about modern safeguards.

So what are people telling us so far? As we expected, a good number of the opinions expressed deal with the state of fish and fish habitat, and with concerns about cumulative effects. As just one example, a respondent suggested prohibiting access to some areas in order to protect essential fish habitat. Another suggested focusing on the problem of culverts that have been poorly designed and installed, thereby reducing habitat for Atlantic salmon and several species of freshwater fish. The person who brought that matter to our attention proposed that the department should set up a partnership with provincial governments with a view to correcting some of the problems.

The theme of monitoring and enforcement also prompted a number of ideas and comments, such as delegating monitoring and enforcement to indigenous guardians; requiring greater catch data on all fish landings, including recreational, commercial, treaty, and more; and the need to hire more fishery officers. Not unexpectedly, Canadians are asking us to take a closer look at management practices and improve them, provide more data and information, and ensure it is available in a user-friendly format.

One such idea calls for an app that will help individuals and companies to locate their projects in areas that will have a lower impact on fish and habitat right from the start. This app will gather specific habitat information from provinces, municipalities, conservation groups, universities, the federal government, and industry, and will be combined into a national, online, publicly accessible fish habitat map.

Others have merely highlighted the importance of, where feasible, the need to modernize the government's fish counting tool in order to improve the efficiency of fish population surveys.

Once the online consultation period ends, we will happily share the feedback we have received with your committee, should you believe it to be of value to your study. We can also provide feedback that we have heard during consultations with the provinces, territories, indigenous groups, and other stakeholders.

From my perspective, Canada's wild fisheries and pristine waters are the envy of the world. By engaging in genuine and meaningful consultation with Canadians, I am confident that we will be able to chart an appropriate and responsible path forward when it comes to safeguarding Canada's aquatic ecosystems.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

Before we move to questions, folks, and since we have the cameras here, I know the minister brought up the ability to have input through a department website. We also have that ability here within this committee. I would like to remind everyone who is watching or in the room that we have a deadline of November 30 for written submissions to the committee. The website is www.parl.gc.ca/committees and search for FOPO, fisheries and oceans.

That being said, we now go to questions and comments.

Mr. Finnigan, the floor is yours and you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, thank you for coming to meet with us today to talk about amendments to the Fisheries Act. My constituency shares the shoreline along the gulf with those of the minister and the parliamentary secretary. Fishing is certainly a major undertaking in our region.

The government could simply have gone back to the Fisheries Act that was in force before it was amended in 2012, but it decided to go further. Can you tell us your view on that, Mr. Minister? Why did you decide to amend the current Fisheries Act and what results do you expect the update to bring about?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Finnigan.

I will speak personally. But I have no objection to my colleagues filling out my remarks in order to provide the committee with information. They have much more expertise in the details of how the act is applied than I do.

You asked me why we just did not go back to the 2012 or 2013 text of the act, that is, before the most recent amendments were made. We preferred not to do simply that. I know that some, including some scientists, have suggested that it would be better to copy and paste and use what was there before the act was amended. However, we believe that we can do a little better than that.

The Prime Minister's mandate letter mentions modern safeguards. Since the text of the act that the previous government amended had been in existence since the 1970s, for 40 or so years, and since measures were included in the act, it could, 40 years later, be appropriate to add to the interpretation of what modern safeguards mean to fish habitat, such factors as climate change and the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples.

We also preferred to listen to the voices of Canadians and to hear what experts, the fishing industry and farmers have to tell us. We have all heard past stories of how a country music festival had to be cancelled because of a problem with the Fisheries Act. We want to understand examples like that, because they clearly concern us. But we also wanted to hear the opinion of parliamentarians and of Canadians through this committee and through other consultations.

We will not be amending the Fisheries Act frequently. We will not do so in an omnibus bill. We will work transparently and I hope that your committee will continue to be part of the discussion.

We believe that we can bring in safeguards appropriate for 2016 and 2017 and not for 1976 and 1977. For us, what existed previously is the baseline. We want to make sure that we have a modern plan at least as solid as the one we had beforehand. But there are probably aspects that we can add or improve.

In our view, some aspects of the 2012-2013 reform were positive. We do not just want to discard what was done, but we want to keep and improve some aspects of the reform that seem to have been positive.

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

Thank you.

During our east coast tour a month ago, we stopped in Miramichi, where we spoke about the situation of indigenous people. A lot of change has taken place in indigenous communities since the 1977 bill. We heard testimonies from many people who were very involved and who had life experience with this. They have always lived in these regions. They would like to be consulted more on scientific aspects. They would like their experience to be considered. They currently feel excluded.

Are we going to make commitments to the indigenous communities to involve them more directly in the new bill.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Chair, the simple answer to that question is yes.

I had the privilege of meeting with my colleague from Miramichi—Grand Lake at the Fisherman Pow Wow on July 1, 2016. The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations was also there, and we had the opportunity to speak with him. Other leaders from the region's indigenous community were also in attendance.

My colleague is absolutely right when he says that these people want to be included in the discussion. They have ideas that inspired me. I saw this in Bella Bella, where I was on the weekend, with the Heiltsuk community in the Central Coast region of British Columbia. People are greatly concerned about environmental protection and are working to manage marine resources responsibly.

The minister has already had discussions with some national organizations that represent indigenous people. It is an ongoing discussion, and I hope that these people will also benefit from the opportunity that your committee will give them. We will be very present during consultations with them.

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

I would like to quickly address another topic.

I am also a farmer. There are a lot of issues with this new bill. As you have noted, there are often small drainage canals on the lands in my region. If we see fish, it becomes a waterway that will go to Miramichi, for example.

Are we going to work with farmers to assure them that producers will not lose their agricultural production or the lands they work?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, the answer is yes. We understand the perfectly reasonable concerns of farmers about this. We have all heard stories of the past. People felt then that common sense did not prevail.

So we encourage you to speak up. We will listen to the concerns to make sure that there is strong protection for fish habitats and that there are no unintended consequences, like cancelling a country music festival in Saskatchewan. If a decision is made to cancel a country music festival in Saskatchewan, it should not be done using the Fisheries Act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Minister.

Now we go to the official opposition, Mr. Doherty, for seven minutes, please.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the minister.

I'll ask you to be very concise with your answers, if I may, because our time is short.

Minister, how much value do you put on the work this committee is doing?