Evidence of meeting #37 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 impacts.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Steve Crocker  Minister, Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
James Duncan  Director, Wildlife and Fisheries Branch, Manitoba Sustainable Development
Brian Parker  Senior Fisheries Manager, Wildlife and Fisheries Branch, Manitoba Sustainable Development
Margot Venton  Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada
Stephen Sutton  Coordinator of Community Outreach and Engagement, Atlantic Salmon Federation
Charles Cusson  Quebec Program Director, Atlantic Salmon Federation
Trevor Taylor  Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada
Elizabeth Barlow  Director, Aquaculture Development, Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Okay—

5:05 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

It depends on your perspective on the tipping point.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Sure.

5:05 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

That's why I think we need to have these watershed level assessments before we issue individual authorizations.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

I just gave you three examples of watersheds that have been 100% changed, and the fish communities are very healthy.

Basically, what I'm hearing you say is that DFO, under the kind of Fisheries Act that you're hoping for, should be very much involved with urban planning. That's basically what you're saying.

Where shopping centres should go and where subdivisions should be built, DFO should be involved in every one of those decisions that any city could ever make. That's the natural conclusion, based on what you've just said. Am I correct?

5:05 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

Well, I think what is challenging is that in the absence of having a watershed level plan, if you want to protect fish habitat, that might unfortunately be the conclusion. This is why we think watershed level planning is so essential. If you can have the regulator look at a watershed from a high level and identify and evaluate where the vulnerabilities and tipping points might be, then I think you can avoid what we have now, which is everything coming down to individual authorizations with really no ability to benchmark or evaluate.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

I have just one last point—

5:10 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

It makes it more complicated.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

For us as legislators, the devil is in the details. High-level principles and broad statements that are unsupported are easy to say, but when legislation comes down, it has to be specific and geared to certain activities. Again, the inescapable conclusion, from what you've said, given your views on watersheds, which I actually share, is that DFO needs to be involved in the planning of shopping centres and subdivisions and where roads go in urban areas.

Do you think DFO will ever have the resources to do that? Would it have any effect?

Personally, in my own view, I'd rather direct resources into the direct conservation and enhancement of fish habitat, rather like what was done by the recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program, where real and measurable progress was made on the conservation of fish habitat.

Anyway, I think my time is just about up. Thank you very much.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Scott Simms

Ms. Venton, did you want to add to that? It looked like you were about to say something. You have a few seconds left.

5:10 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

Really? Okay.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

I'm generous.

5:10 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

I don't think I disagree that programs for conservation are extremely important. I just think it's very important, when we're talking about habitat protection, that we recognize the breadth of activities that can harm fish habitat, and the need, perhaps, to create some detailed regulation to deal with these individual situations, which perhaps you're even suggesting.

To my mind, it can't be an either-or. I think that's the experience that people who are struggling with the act are really struggling to figure out. There's just such a broad range of activities that can harm habitat. Only focusing on one thing, such as habitat conservation or restoration, is just not going to get us to where we need to be.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Scott Simms

Thank you, Ms. Venton. We appreciate it.

Mr. Hardie, please, for five minutes.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To Mr. Sopuck's comments, I could mention that there's a major stream in my riding of Fleetwood—Port Kells in Surrey. Its headwaters are in the parking lot of the Guildford shopping centre. It happens.

Ms. Venton, in another committee, we are studying the Navigation Protection Act. I hate to the cloud the thought you had about citizen action in court, but that has been available through provisions of a part of the act since the changes were made, and not one court action has taken place, simply because it is too onerous for people to proceed in that fashion.

I wanted to basically throw out a question to everybody, though, and invite you to send us material and your reactions to it through the website.

I'll specifically ask Mr. Crocker and Taylor about this, because we're dealing with an issue of balance. A lot of the changes that were made were a result of a lot of input from rural municipalities in the Prairies who were concerned about the difficulties in getting public works done. Also, the farmers were having difficulties, as were mining operations, etc., which could be tied up for a very long time at very great expense by the regime that had been in place. One of the things we have been concerned about is trying to preserve what was good in those changes but to at the same time restore protections that a lot of people at least perceive are missing, if indeed they are.

My question is for both of you, and for everybody else to respond to off-line. What will be the essential elements of provisions that protect fish and protect habitat but that at the same time permit the public works, agriculture, and the commercial activities to operate within those protections? What are the essential elements that we need to effectively modernize the act, preserving the good part of what the Conservatives brought in, but restoring the parts that shouldn't have been taken out?

5:10 p.m.

Minister, Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agrifoods, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

Steve Crocker

I guess the important thing as it moves forward into new parts of the act is proper consultation with provinces, territories, and aboriginal groups so that everybody is at the same table. One thing we don't want to do is create red tape where there's duplication. I think that's one of the things that I pointed out in my presentation. An act that duplicates something that a province is currently doing, or that a land claim is doing, as I think Mr. Taylor pointed out.... There are other agreements in place.

We have to make sure of that as you work towards this goal, so that we can have a sustainable economy. That's an important thing you're pointing out there: we need to work with industry. I think that's very important. To go to the aquaculture industry for a minute, one of the major proponents and one of the major supporters of making the aquaculture industry environmentally sustainable is the aquaculture industry itself. These companies have nothing to benefit from by damaging the ecosystem or the environment. It's very important, I think, that we work with all the stakeholders who are involved.

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC

Mr. Taylor, do you have any further comments?

5:15 p.m.

Director of Fisheries Conservation, Oceans North Canada

Trevor Taylor

Yes. First of all, I think clarity is an important word, as has been iterated by others here today. I think some of the back-and-forth that we're witnessing here today is as much about lack of clarity—or probably more about lack of clarity—in the act and in the interpretation of the act than it is about differences of opinion on protection of fish and fish habitat, which is some of the frustration that you see on both sides of the equation.

I'll go back to our observation. I don't foresee this Parliament, or probably any future Parliament, taking away the discretion of the minister in much of these matters. However, ministerial discretion needs to operate within principles that we all believe are worthy: sustainable development, ecosystem approach to.... I speak about fisheries, so it's difficult for me to relate to shopping malls and farms in many respects.

For example, if there is not clarity and there's not a reference to an ecosystem-based approach and protection of sensitive areas and critical habitat, how can we ever have regulations that sufficiently safeguard fish habitat in the marine environment from fishing, from fishing activity? I'm a fisherman. I was a captain of a shrimp trawler. I know that there are certain places that shrimp trawlers should not be allowed to go, but if you have to be able to demonstrate serious harm to fish before you can be stopped from going there, I will never be stopped from going there.

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Scott Simms

Thank you, Mr. Taylor. I have to end there.

Mr. Donnelly will be the last person in this round. Following that, we'll have about 10 minutes or thereabouts. I've asked around, and it looks like we do have an acceptance of three minutes, three minutes, and three minutes at the end, but in the meantime, we'll end this second round with three minutes from Mr. Donnelly.

November 28th, 2016 / 5:15 p.m.

NDP

Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I live in a city that borders on one of the greatest salmon rivers on the planet, the Fraser River. I think that DFO is and should be involved in watershed planning. I'll give you an example. I was a councillor for seven years for the City of Coquitlam. We eventually changed from having to mandate.... We mandated that that watershed plans have to happen before development plans. That was to work with DFO and with the province to focus on those cumulative impacts on one of the greatest salmon rivers in the world, and we're just one city of many along that river.

My question comes back to Ms. Venton. We know that fish kills happen all the time. The dumping of paint and other toxic chemicals in streams has resulted in the death of fish. Sometimes it's a small kill, and sometimes it's a large kill. We also know that there have been no prosecutions under the new act.

We also know that houses and other buildings are built along streams. We know that roads are built and bridges go across these streams, right through fish habitat, and that's just in an urban setting. All of these examples have nothing to do with resource management along streams, at least in my home province of British Columbia, in terms of industries like forestry, agriculture, and mining, which all have impacts as well.

I'm wondering if you could talk a little more about that serious harm provision and how that needs to be changed in order to determine what we talked earlier in terms of cumulative impacts, or how to make the changes more specific in the new Fisheries Act if it does get revised.

5:20 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

I think I echo the comments of several presenters who have suggested that the serious harm to fish requirement—the death of fish or permanent harm to habitat—just sets too high a bar to be useful for the protection of fish habitat for several species. Salmon is an obvious example. We think that just needs to be changed, full stop.

You could add a definition, or when you replace that definition—which, again, I think, must happen—you could expand and explain what cumulative harm means. You could include reference to cumulative harm in whatever your new habitat definition is. Even defining what cumulative harm means in the act, in the interpretation section, section 2, would be quite useful because it's a term that's tossed around quite a bit. Those are all opportunities.

I think it's really important that we align our definition about what is not allowed—the definition of what the prohibition is about—with something that is useful for fish, for protecting the kinds of fish species and the vulnerabilities that we all already know about, and that we clarify those terms where there is ambiguity. “Cumulative effects” is one of them. Throw a definition of cumulative harm—of what you're trying to avoid, of what you're asking people to look at—into the act so that it's something that we can all understand when we read it.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Scott Simms

Thank you, Ms. Venton.

Can I get the committee's unanimous consent, as it looks like with the three-minute structure I laid out earlier that we're going to go past 5:30 by a few minutes? Are we okay? Any objections?

Okay. Seeing none, we're going to go to Mr. Morrissey for three minutes.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE

In listening to the presentations given here today, I noticed that there were some consistent themes. One is that the changes to the act left key enforcement areas too vague to allow for prosecution within the courts. The other is the significant reduction in DFO staff at the same time.

Now, as we're looking at the act and at what changes may take place in it, I would go to Ms. Venton, who I believe raised this, and probably to Mr. Sutton, as well as to Minister Crocker. How would you rate the two? Change the act but without staff...? Or do they have to go together?

5:20 p.m.

Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada

Margot Venton

I think that both are essential elements. It really worries me that the new provision requires proof. If you read old HADD decisions, there's a whole discussion in the court about the fact that you don't need to prove that you are harming fish. That's an integral piece of why prosecutions were successful, because it's really hard to do.

Maybe that is the reason that no prosecutions have been brought. Prosecutors simply think that they can't meet the standard, that there's no way they can prove it within the time they have under the act to bring a prosecution. At the same time, it could be equally true that there's nobody in the office and therefore no prosecutions are filed. Unquestionably, you have to deal with both, but if you just restore personnel, I don't think you're going to see a lot more enforcement of the act until you create a threshold that is both enforceable in a meaningful sense and also works to protect fish.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE

Mr. Sutton.