Fisheries Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2016

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, I thank the DFO officials for coming here again today. It's great to see you any day. The wealth of knowledge you bring to the committee is very much appreciated.

Lately we've been hearing misinformation about not creating any new jobs throughout government. Recently we had an announcement about the reopening of the marine communication centre in St. John's, which is the capital city of Newfoundland. My riding is outside there.

What exactly will that do for the creation of jobs in that particular centre, based on what was there before it was closed by the previous government? What will it be with the new level of service?

[Jody Thomas, Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, we'll be reopening the maritime rescue subcentre that was previously located in St. John's, Newfoundland. We'll have 12 watchkeepers, and 16 staff in total. I believe that previously we had nine watchkeepers....

[Mario Pelletier, Deputy Commissioner, Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

We had 12.

[Jody Thomas]

Okay. We had 12 in the old centre.

We're taking the functions that the centre previously did, but we're also adding some capacity. We're going to make the centre an emergency operations centre. It's going to be 24/7, as it previously was. We're also going to combine it with our regional operations centre, which will become 24/7 so that we have eyes on the water 24/7 for search and rescue, but also for environmental response incidents. It's sort of an all-hazards approach rather than a pure search and rescue approach. It will have the search and rescue capacity, absolutely, but we're going to give it other duties and maximize the opportunity that we're getting in reopening the centre.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you for that. It's great news for my area where many people make their living on the water.

My next question has to do with a program that's been offered in the past through your department and that especially has to do with small craft harbours: the divestiture of some of your properties, whether it be to municipalities or other interested groups. Do you foresee that program continuing, and have you allocated a certain amount of funds to continue with that program?

[Kevin Stringer]

It will continue. It's an important issue. We have 750 core harbours that have been identified as such, and then we have another about 300 that are non-core that we are seeking to divest. We divested over 1,000 over the last number of years, so it's been a substantive effort.

The overall small craft harbour budget each year, in addition to the additional infrastructure monies that we get, is about $75 million a year. A certain portion of that we use for our divestiture each year. It's usually a small portion because the needs of the ongoing harbours for maintenance, for dredging, etc., take most of it. It's a small piece of that.

It is an ongoing challenge. We are always looking for local community groups and for municipalities who are interested in taking over responsibility for them. What we will do is make investments in them to make sure they're ready to be handed over. So, we do have some funding. It comes out of our core funding, out of that $75 million, and it's a small piece of it, but we do feel that we need to continue to do that.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

I agree. It's a great program. The municipality where I live took over some property, and they have some great plans for it. It's a great project, overall.

I'll share my time now with the other Ken.

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

Thank you, Ken.

Thank you, everybody, for being here.

Our first study in this committee, of course, was the closure of the Comox base and the consolidation into the Coast Guard base in Sidney. I was pleased to see management at the Sidney facility issue the first quarterly report just the other week. I understand that this is kind of a baseline report. They're establishing the baselines to which they will report in the coming months.

There are still some concerns. We heard from Powell River that there were some issues. I had the opportunity to attend the Sidney facility. It has top-notch technology, top-notch staff. It's a very crowded, noisy room. So, I think that there are some unresolved issues there.

The one, though, that I really want to ask the commissioner about is the question of what progress has been made on stakeholder consultation. Are we out talking to the fishers, the mariners, about the quality of the radio reception, the quality of the information they're receiving, and the quality of the response to calls for assistance? Are we engaged in those conversations?

[Jody Thomas]

Yes, the first quarterly report was posted and, as promised, it is a joint union-management effort to look into any technical or operational problems with the system. That's going quite well. I can't say with fishers, absolutely, that consultations have occurred, but certainly they have occurred with all of our large stakeholder groups through our regional marine advisory board, our national marine advisory board, tug operators, ferry operators, etc., so sort of the landscape in B.C. In fact, we just met with the Western Marine Community Coalition this afternoon. We heard feedback from all these groups. They're feeling very positive about the system. So, the answer is yes, we're consulting broadly. We want to hear the view from the marine-using public.

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

I would hope that the individual fishers would also be included in that, because they're the ones in the smaller vessels who would be most at risk if they didn't receive timely information that they could understand and, obviously, act on.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We'll go to the opposition for seven minutes.

We'll start with Mr. Doherty.

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

I'll direct my questions to Mr. Matson and Mr. Stringer.

Mr. Matson and Mr. Stringer, did DFO do an investigation into the deaths of several thousand fish after the sewage was dumped in the Rivière Yamaska?

[Kevin Stringer]

I don't know the answer to that question.

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

Okay. Do you have a mandate to do an investigation?

[Kevin Stringer]

After which?

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

The Rivière Yamaska.

[Kevin Stringer]

Sorry, that dumped...?

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

When sewage is dumped into these rivers and you're made aware of the deaths of several thousand fish, do you have a mandate to do an investigation?

[Kevin Stringer]

Section 36, which is the section of the Fisheries Act, is the first piece that is implicated there, and that is an Environment Canada lead. Section 36 is the pollution section. It is about the deposit of deleterious substances into fish-bearing waters. That would be an Environment Canada lead. That said, there is often a habitat impact as well, and we will work with Environment Canada on that.

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

Is your department aware that there was 50 million litres dumped on Monday, 60 million litres dumped yesterday, and a projected 18 million litres today? Seven million litres are forecast to be dumped into the St. Lawrence River in December. Are you aware of that?

[Kevin Stringer]

I am not aware of that. The department may well be aware of that.

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

Okay.

Again, Mr. Matson and Mr. Stringer, your department deals in scientific fact. When you make decisions like whether to impose a moratorium on cod, what role does public opinion play?

[Kevin Stringer]

I think when we take a decision on closing a fishery, a moratorium on any fishery, science is the foundation. Science is always the bottom line. When we are talking about getting ready to reopen a fishery, we would consider socio-economic impacts, we would consider the views of the public, and we'd consider other issues. Again, science needs to be at the core and the foundation of all of it.

The pillars of decision-making start with science. Socio-economic considerations must always be considered as well, but the science and the conservation is always our bottom line.

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

When you have public opinion, do you separate public opinion by geographic region, by industry group, third party interests, small businesses, or concerned citizens?

[Kevin Stringer]

I would say that we don't often look at what public opinion says on this. What we would generally look at in this type of a decision, again, we would start with the science, but in addition to the science are the economic impacts and the social impacts. If there is public opinion, we would look at that as well, and we would start with the area that's most impacted because that's the area where the effects are going to be.