Evidence of meeting #33 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 video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Mattson, you referred to the power projects that are killing fish, and you stated that what was illegal has now been made legal.
Could it not also be made illegal? Is it not the case that someone has done an assessment, determined that the impact is manageable, and has made that operation legal?
President, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
Thank you for the question, because I think it cuts to the whole heart of what we're talking about.
Under the old act, killing fish, depositing a deleterious substance in waters frequented by fish, or destroying fish habitat was illegal unless the proponent could prove that it wouldn't have an impact on fisheries, etc. They couldn't do that. That's why they never had.... There were lots of opportunities to apply for those permits at the time.
It's only since the changes to the act that now industry looks at the fishery in Lake Ontario, sees that it's depleted, sees that there is no commercial fishery, and says there isn't a value in changing open-cycle cooling to closed-cycle. It now has permitted them to kill the fish 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Now, they have put nets out front to stop the bait fish from dying—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Sorry, Mr. Arnold, but I have to cut you off right there. You're well over five minutes at this point in your response. You can get a chance to do it later. We have quite a bit of time left, so we'll circle back to you later.
Go ahead, Ms. Jordan, for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for appearing today. I think this has been extremely interesting testimony.
For my first question, I'm going to go to Mr. Mattson, because I would like to have his response to the comments that were made earlier by Ms. Laurie-Lean.
President, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
Yes, the 2012 changes made it possible to make new regulations that exempt specific industries under subsection 36(3). Those regulations have come into force since then, particularly for waste water effluent regulations, for sewage treatment plants. That's why there was a lot of confusion around whether Montreal was able to release sewage into the St. Lawrence and whose responsibility it was—also under nuclear power—and there are others who were able to apply for those exemptions.
The changes were made in 2012 to allow for specific industries to apply under the regulation to make exemptions for their industry, and they've been taking advantage of it.
Second, it has changed who has the authority to do it. For example, now the provinces can apply for what's called—
President, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
—an equivalency agreement.
If they have laws that deal with the same subject matter as the Fisheries Act, the Fisheries Act no longer applies. That's why we say that there is no longer a Canadian law that applies in all provinces across the entire country. As a result of the changes, they've downloaded that onto the provinces, and each province has its own ideas about what it wants to protect and where it wants to put its priorities.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you.
I'm going to go now to Mr. Gawn.
You have been a fisherman for 40 years. Do you still fish?
Member of the Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Federation
I do. I've been a fisherman for 41 years, and I still fish.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
My question to you, then, is this. You've seen a lot of changes over the last 40 years. I grew up in a fishing community on the south shore. I watched the last boats go out of Lunenburg, so I know what it was like.
Can you tell me how you see enforcement now compared to over the years? How has it changed in terms of DFO?
Member of the Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Federation
Certainly there is more enforcement today than there was 40 years ago. However, of course, there are also more things to enforce. We still have shortfalls in enforcement in a lot of areas.
Just in the last year, we have seen a stepping up of enforcement efforts in our area, with multiple prosecutions for illegal fishing in my particular part of the world. That's a good sign, but it has been a long time coming, and there is more room for improvement.
Liberal
Member of the Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Federation
What we got at earlier was the enforcement of the fisheries licensing policy, which over time has slipped. The actual enforcement of the fishing regulations on the ground has not increased. We're starting to see a bit of improvement now, but there's much more to enforce as well.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Where do you see the shortfalls in enforcement?
Member of the Board of Directors, Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Federation
The biggest shortfall we see is in the failure to enforce these licensing policies that are supposed to protect people. It's a one-way street. When those protections are lost, it's very difficult to get them back. When owner-operator licences are allowed to be sold to corporate interests, which are not owner-operators, how do we get them back? Those have been a heritage of our coastal communities for hundreds of years, and that's the raison d'être for our communities. You know it as well as I do, because you come from there. People in B.C., in the coastal communities, have the same situation.
We're looking at something that could lead to what has happened in B.C., which is a disaster. We're going to fight to the very last day to preserve the nature of our coastal communities in Atlantic Canada. The fact that their policy is not law allows officials—not the Government of Canada, but officials in the regions—to bend and twist those policies to allow things to happen that aren't supposed to happen under those policies.
Liberal
Bernadette Jordan Liberal South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I'm going to go to Ms. Hendriks.
You had mentioned reinstating sections 32 and 35 in the Fisheries Act, but you also said that the Fisheries Act needs to come into the 21st century.
Do you think that there are provisions or changes that were made by the last government that should be kept? Do you think that we just automatically reinstate what we have, or should we expand?
Vice-President, Freshwater, World Wildlife Fund-Canada
Thank you very much for the question.
I do believe there is some reinstatement, but I think there is an opportunity to modernize in three ways. I would suggest monitoring, open data, and transparency, and then prescriptive guidances, and then our last one was specifically around the preamble in ensuring sustainable principles as a guiding light for the act.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
It's interesting, Mr. Allain, that you mentioned the Earth Summit in Rio. I'm showing my age, but I was a delegate at the Earth Summit in Rio, and it was quite the experience. I agree with your views that the role of sustainable development, which I strongly believe in, came really to the fore.
Regarding Lake Ontario, commercial fishing, and the Waterkeeper's testimony, I would submit that it's because of fisheries allocation that there is little commercial fishing. I know from personal experience that the sport fishery across much of Lake Ontario is thriving.
Regarding the testimony of Mr. Mattson regarding the millions and millions of fish that are being killed by this nuclear warm water outflow, why haven't there been any media? Why haven't there been any pictures of these millions of dead fish? Even under the new Fisheries Act, that can be stopped. You're not allowed to kill fish in that regard. Why hasn't more been made of that? Where are the pictures of these millions of dead fish?
President, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
They are both good questions.
We participate in all the CNSC hearings. We've brought in evidence. We've spent thousands of hours trying to bring this to the attention of the public. It's all on the record. It's admitted by the industry. They've done their own cost-benefit analysis, and they've indicated that the fish that they're destroying don't have much commercial value. There's no commercial value on the lake, so it's not under the new Fisheries Act. It really wouldn't require them to spend a lot of money to prevent them from killing it.
Regarding the other point that you make, it is a Great Lake. It is one of the 10 greatest freshwater lakes in the world and, yes, there is still a sports fishery, but the commercial fishery is gone. That's a fact. You can look back at the numbers and the nets and when it disappeared, but it's not something to argue about. It's something to try to fix, to put our minds towards doing something about restoring this great freshwater paradise as a lake. If we do that for Lake Ontario, there's hope that we can prevent so much other damage across this country.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
I should note as well that the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters has been doing great work on restoring Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario.
Mr. Mattson, talking about deleterious substances, a number of years ago there were some extremely heavy rains in Prince Edward Island, and there was a pile of potato field runoff into streams. There were thousands of fish killed inadvertently, obviously, but it happened. There were deleterious substances deposited in those waters. Should those farmers have been charged or perhaps thrown in jail?
President, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper
I don't know about being thrown in jail. The courts are pretty open when you hear the evidence and what happened—