Fisheries Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2016

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

Mr. Stringer and Mr. Matson, we've heard testimony over the course of our studies that is contradictory in terms of the DFO not having the resources to do its job, the DFO just not doing the job, and not being able to trust what DFO management and DFO officials are saying. Is it a matter of—and I'm trying to frame this properly—not having the resources to do the job or choosing not to do the job, in terms of your DFO officers?

[Kevin Stringer]

In terms of...?

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

Enforcement.

[Kevin Stringer]

In terms of enforcement writ large, we have a complement of about 600 enforcement officers across the country. In terms of resources, I'll say two things, because I think you're speaking about the fisheries protection issues. We have 600 enforcement officers writ large dealing with fisheries, species at risk, etc. With respect to fisheries protection, you will always find public servants saying that they could do with more resources, and I'd be one of those. I think the minister spoke to this when he appeared. There were reductions about the same time as the Fisheries Act changes came into effect. The overall complement in the fisheries protection program went from 450 to 280. There were also reductions in enforcement, particularly in what we call central and Arctic areas, areas away from the coast.

The minister spoke to that. There have been reductions in those areas. Public servants will always carry out the legislation to the best of their ability, and this is certainly the case in this program, developing policy and programs to be able to address it to make sure we are meeting the requirements of the law.

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

I really appreciate your comments, Mr. Stringer.

The other comment in other testimony was that the changes that were made to the Fisheries Act made it harder or it became ambiguous so that the DFO officers did not understand the regulations, and therefore could not enforce the regulations. Would you say that is true?

[Kevin Stringer]

I think it's always difficult with new legislation, and this was certainly the case. We'd had 30 years' experience, I think it was, with section 35, the harmful alteration, disruption, and destruction of habitat. It was absolutely clear, and much jurisprudence built up on it. With “serious harm”, and with commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries, there have been challenges in terms of our own staff—and we've done training—but also for proponents and others to have a full understanding of exactly what that means and how it's applied.

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

The onus would be on management and the ministry to explain that. Is that correct?

[Kevin Stringer]

It is, and we've had training sessions across the department. That said, there was not the jurisprudence in place to be clear about the direction about that, but we've sought to be clear about the direction.

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

I appreciate it. Thank you for your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

We have Mr. Donnelly for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you to the department officials for being here to answer the committee's questions.

I want to start off on the Cohen commission. The government gave Canadians an update in August on its Cohen commission progress, and for recommendation 7, the government stated:

DFO has not developed an annual progress report on WSP implementation, but has reported on implementation internally through regular business planning and reporting processes. The updated WSP Implementation Plan will include a commitment to report publicly on progress annually.

It was further stated that it is anticipated that external consultations on the draft implementation plan will begin in 2016.

When can we expect the wild salmon policy implementation report?

[Kevin Stringer]

What I can say is that those consultations have begun. Part of the consultations are on the implementation. In fact, the consultations are specifically on the implementation of the policy. What launched it, and what the minister said when he did the Cohen announcement this summer, is that we have recommitted to the wild salmon policy. People were wondering if we remained committed to it, so he recommitted to it, and said we would go out and have consultations on its implementation. Following that, we would have regular annual implementation reports, public reports. Those consultations are now under way.

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

Thank you.

Is the list of consulted stakeholders publicly available?

[Kevin Stringer]

If it's not publicly available, we can make sure this committee's aware of it. I believe it is publicly available, but we'll make sure you can have that.

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

Okay, so you're still not sure about when the report is coming, but it will come soon.

[Kevin Stringer]

Yes.

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

The funding for the WSP implementation, is that in the budget?

[Kevin Stringer]

It's everywhere, right? The great thing about the wild salmon policy, it is an ecosystem-based policy that has science, fisheries management, habitat, oceans, and all those elements. It actually is something that has an ecosystem-based approach.

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

Sometimes everywhere means nowhere.

[Kevin Stringer]

The funding is in all the different areas. We have said in the past that, with respect to salmon, on all of those things, we spend, on science alone, around $16 million, and on everything, around $65 million a year. It's a substantive amount of money.

We were actually able to put that together during the Cohen commission to show where the funding was. We've made a further investment, as you know, with the $40 million a year on science. That is helping. The oceans funding that we got is helping. All of those pieces fit into it as well.

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

Thank you.

I'll turn to the Coast Guard. In its first quarterly report, submitted to this committee on November 4 in response to the committee's report on the closure of the Comox MCTS centre, DFO indicated that there were 74 outages related to the MCTS communications control system, and 50% of the system failures were caused by third party telecommunication issues.

How does DFO manage these system failures? What corrective measures have been established as a result?

[Jody Thomas]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Donnelly.

In terms of the telecommunication failures, on November 8 when the oceans protection plan was announced, a major part of that plan is for us to acquire and implement, install, an entire backup system so that there's a duplication for all of those lines. If one goes down, we'll have a backup. That's an accelerated backup process we are putting in place and we're very happy to get that going.

In terms of the 74 that were CCS related—the communications control system—they ranged from system failure for 30 seconds. We had a couple that were longer. If we even had to reset a computer, just reboot it, we logged it there, so we would be completely transparent every time the system went down, any time something was logged in the system.

There's a range of problems. Any of the major problems—Mario can describe it in detail—have been rectified through our technical team, either in the region or here. The majority of them were very minor. They're just there for transparency purposes.

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

Just to add, we know the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground and spilled diesel fuel into the traditional waters of the Heiltsuk Nation. Some first nation leaders are describing that as an environmental disaster. Recently in The Globe and Mail there were details of how only two MCTS officers were responsible for monitoring that vast stretch of B.C.'s coast from north Vancouver Island to the Alaska border, including the inside passage.

B.C. has been promised a world-class spill response; however, prevention is far less expensive. I'm wondering if the ministry is going to reconsider, or is reconsidering the reopening of MCTS Comox to help prevent these disasters.

[Jody Thomas]

I read that article myself in The Globe and Mail. I think there are a couple of elements to the answer.

Number one, the MCTS officers responded immediately and actually directed a large portion of that response, to ensure that the search and rescue vessel deployed immediately and was on scene rapidly to respond to what was originally a search and rescue incident. We didn't know the tanks had been breached on the tug. We saved seven people, one of whom was in the water. So from that perspective the MCTS function and its coordination of search and rescue, and then what became a larger incident, was perfect.

You heard the transmission. It was very clear. The communication with the tug was pretty much perfect. The reality of this incident, Transport Canada and the Transportation Safety Board are both investigating. More MCTS officers would not have prevented this incident. A turn was missed. It was sort of one or two minutes and the vessel was aground. The MCTS officers did an extraordinary job in managing what was a very highly emotional situation. You heard the tapes yourself, as you said, and they were reported in The Globe and Mail.

The MCTS had no impact other than responding and ensuring that seven people were saved. They did a really good job.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Thomas, I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Now we'll go to Ms. Jordan for seven minutes please.