Fisheries Committee on Nov. 14th, 2016

[Marc Allain]

It's a big contraption where you put something in and it moves all these gears and maybe after a little while you get a result. They've designed a Rube Goldberg machine for PIIFCAF, and it doesn't work. They announced new measures in September.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Do you mean last year?

[Marc Allain]

No, it was this year, and it was based on recommendations we made two years ago to the department on tightening up the vacation provisions and the in-season stacking of licences. Within hours of the department's having announced it was going to tighten up on that, the violators of the owner-operator and fleet separation policy had a new workaround, and they got all their approvals through. Because it's in policy, we have no recourse. It's in very soft law.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You want to see it in the act.

[Marc Allain]

We want to see it in the act. We want to see it in the fisheries regulations. We saw it in the conditions of licence. If you bring it into the conditions of licence and you violate those conditions of licence, you have committed a criminal offence.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Should any part of the Fisheries Act changes be kept? I want to start with the independent fishers, because you're the ones who I think are most affected.

[Marc Allain]

I can say, Mr. Morrissey, that our members have not raised issues with us around things that they would like to keep from the changes. We have a lot of concerns about things that were done and are very problematic. On the pesticides issue in agriculture—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

That's an interesting comment.

[Marc Allain]

One of the things people haven't talked about is that the DFO labs that did the toxicology research were closed down. You can't do the research for that. We asked, through our partnerships with universities, to be able to rent the labs so we could do the research. We were refused. Brand new labs in St. Andrews designed for that purpose were closed down, and those are assets that are sitting empty right now. We can't provide the proof because we can't do the research, and we have to provide the proof. There was a lot of serious damage done there, sir.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

I have a question to the Waterkeepers. You were making the comment that all that's left is a recreational fishery, that the commercial fishery has pretty well disappeared in Lake Ontario, if I'm quoting you correctly. Could you expand on that a bit for me?

[Mark Mattson]

Just factually, there are only a few families with nets down in Prince Edward County and Wolfe Island, sort of where the river and the lake—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

What kind of a catch would they be sustaining?

[Mark Mattson]

The American eel was big. They're no longer there in enough numbers to sustain a fishery. There's still perch, walleye, pike, catfish, and some carp. On the American side the fishery is completely closed, and for the rest of the Canadian side it's closed as well, which is a red flag when you think that the St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto was built to bring in the boats from Lake Ontario and sell the fish there for over a century, and now it sells no fish from Lake Ontario whatsoever.

I think our organization would love to see the Fisheries Act not only protect where we still have fisheries in Canada, but also do something about restoring what we lost. Otherwise, those communities that are denuded in terms of fisheries and the environment really have little hope. Under the old Fisheries Act, there was hope that the act would still be aggressive in restoring fisheries in this country, and we hope that gets put back into the legislation through our suggestions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

We'll now go to the opposition.

Mr. Doherty, are you splitting your time?

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

I am, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our guests. I do appreciate the differing views and testimonies we are hearing, not only today but throughout the whole course of this study.

My first question is for you, Ms. Hendriks, and I'll take a completely different try at this. During the northern cod study that we did, when we were back east, we heard time and time again of WWF's contribution or of your being at the table, working with the fishers, working with the government. What is WWF's role on the east coast in terms of working to develop policy in those areas?

[Elizabeth Hendriks]

We work with communities across eastern Canada, bringing science-based, evidence-based decision-making to the table.

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

In lieu of DFO, WWF is there?

[Elizabeth Hendriks]

No, we work across departments. I think it's a multi-stakeholder approach to solutions.

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

Okay.

The other part I want to ask you about is this. You in your testimony and others in theirs talked about engaging communities, indigenous groups, and coastal communities so that they can actively participate in the science, the local science—the “citizen” science, I think was the word. During the northern cod study as well as our salmon study, we heard time and time again—maybe not so much with the salmon, but with the northern cod—that the numbers are there, and the fishers just want to get out and get fishing.

Is it your testimony today that we should rely on the local knowledge and the local science and then open up the northern cod study? I'm just using that as an example. That's what we're dealing with here, when we have local knowledge and local science and fishers are saying the numbers are back to where we've never seen them before.

[Elizabeth Hendriks]

I would say that there's not one science that's better than the other. I think you need to bring all science to the table and have a discussion to make sure that it's an evidence-based decision and that communities and government and all stakeholders are comfortable with the decision-making.

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

Ms. Laurie-Lean, during the course of the testimony from our other witnesses, I noticed that you were taking notes and listening intently. I also noticed a few reactions to some of the testimony from our Lake Ontario witnesses and others.

I'm wondering if maybe you can provide some insight on your reaction to some of the things you're hearing.

[Justyna Laurie-Lean]

Oh, dear. I have a very mobile face.

One of the things that puzzled me about the Waterkeeper testimony was ascribing the section 36 regulations to the 2012 changes. They have been in existence for quite some time. The predecessor to the metal mining effluent regulations dates back to the 1970s. I believe the pulp and paper effluent regulations and some of the other ones all date back to the 1970s. There was very little change made to that section in 2012, so I was just very surprised by that.

The other part of the surprise, which Mr. Ruthven may want to expand on some more, is that our experience in the interpretation of the changes has been very different. We did not experience the narrowing, and we're not sure why our experience was that different. We did put in the effort to work with DFO to understand what the amended act said.

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

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mel.

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

I have just a couple of questions, if I can fit them in quickly.

Ms. Hendriks, can you tell us how much in foreign funds comes into WWF in Canada? How much of the funds are spent in Canada? I want to know the ratio of how many foreign funds are being imported into your operations in Canada versus what we actually spend here.

[Elizabeth Hendriks]

It's actually very little. WWF-Canada is part of an international network, but WWF-Canada's programming is within Canada. The freshwater program is all Canadian funding. The other programs are majority Canadian funds.