Fisheries Committee on Dec. 5th, 2016

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you for joining us.

Mr. Donnelly, please, you have seven minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for providing your testimony on this important subject of the Fisheries Act review. I'll start with the Canadian Electricity Association.

You gave 10 recommendations. I assume that you've submitted those in writing. Thank you for doing that. You talked about, among other things, refining the definition of “serious harm”. You also talked about defining the “sustainability” of a fishery. I'm wondering if you could expand a little more on that and what you think that might look like.

[Jay Walmsley]

Sure. I'll take that.

One of the things that we have strongly recommended is defining a purpose of the act. The intention is that the purpose of the act be the sustainability of the fisheries, but it's no use having a purpose without defining it in the act itself. In a sense, it's a bit of a housekeeping requirement, where we recommend that the sustainability of a fishery is the ongoing viability of a fishery.

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

You would want that clearly stated in the purpose so that it can be a measure.

[Jay Walmsley]

We would like the purpose of the act.... Most modern acts—and you'll see it in the Oceans Act—have the purpose in their preamble, so it is very clear as to why the act is being implemented. The definition of “sustainability” is really a housekeeping thing to ensure that people understand what that is.

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

You talked about uncertainty in terms of authorizations. I'm wondering if you could talk about what your association or organization would see as increasing certainty, while obviously at the same time protecting fish habitat.

[Jay Walmsley]

I think one of the concerns we've had, and I think it needs to be recognized, is that the new act has only been in place for four years. I think for the first two years DFO was trying to work out what it meant, so a lot of that created uncertainty for us. Also, obviously the staff workforce adjustment created even more uncertainty. There's a lot of that.

In terms of the actual “serious harm” itself, what we are finding is that the definition of it is being interpreted slightly differently in different areas. In some places it's being interpreted as all harm to all fish, because of the whole idea of an ecosystem-based approach. Where commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries and fish that support those fisheries are taken into consideration, it really is all fish. However, not everyone is interpreting it that way, so it becomes very uncertain to us as to how to apply it.

With “death of fish”, it's the same idea as “serious harm”. What does “death of fish” mean? Is it death of a fish? Perhaps in the case of a species at risk, that is serious harm. Is it the death of 20 fish, 50 fish, etc.? Those things create uncertainty for us as to exactly what it means and what we should be doing to offset and manage it.

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

Thank you.

If I could turn to P.E.I. Aquaculture Alliance, I have a couple of questions. You talked about moving in the direction of certified organic labelling. I'm just wondering why your industry wants that. What's the benefit of that?

[Matt Sullivan]

Market access and....

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

You see that as improving market access, then.

[Matt Sullivan]

Yes, essentially if the competitors have that label, then the supermarkets or grocery stores ask why we don't have that certification. It's the same with a lot of the different certification schemes. A lot of them are essentially either to get into the grocery chains or it may mean something to the consumer.

I guess the point I was really trying to make was that the process is basically organic except for very minor tweaks, mainly, that they need to do more record-keeping.

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

You talked about the desire for a Canadian aquaculture act. What about moving aquaculture under the Department of Agriculture, or would you see it more as remaining under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?

[Matt Sullivan]

I think there would be some advantages to being paired with agriculture, but also there are some things in the Fisheries Act that are beneficial to the aquaculture sector as well, especially in regard to introductions and transfers, and whatnot.

I guess in terms of the aquaculture act, it's not so much something that our industry on P.E.I. is pushing for. The national organization, which I'm on the board of, is pushing for that. There are probably more challenges in the finfish sector that the aquaculture act would support. On P.E.I. we've found a way to make it work, basically with good relationships with the provincial and federal departments.

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

I'll turn to the Forest Products Association of Canada. You mentioned a number of suggestions: “equivalency of regulatory regimes”, “externally developed standards”, and “partnership opportunities”. I'm wondering if your association works with first nations on developing standards, policies, or even changes to legislation.

How involved is the association with first nations, for instance, on the Fisheries Act?

[Kate Lindsay]

I would say it's less so, specific to the Fisheries Act, but very broadly in terms of our forest management plans. When we undertake creating a forest management plan, local communities, indigenous and non-indigenous, as well as local stakeholders are part of that process.

It's actually largely run through our certification standards. Each of those certification standards undergo a process that stakeholders and indigenous groups feed into and review. Then, depending on the certification standard.... For example, in FSC, it's actually more of the concept of FPIC, so indigenous organizations need to essentially consent or approve the forest management plan. In other standards, it's more along the lines of, I guess, reflecting Canadian law currently on accommodating interests.

In some instances, the broad partnerships that we'd like to see are something that some of the other folks have mentioned in some of the offsetting, but with a rather more holistic, community approach. If there is a particular waterway or watershed that we're working within, we see benefit in engaging with all of the interests within the watershed.

For instance, in Cowichan, on the west coast of Canada, there's a watershed board. We take part as an industry association or as an industry component in that group. Cowichan Tribes is at the table. We look at where there's a need, and we focus stewardship activity where we would provide the benefit for the fish, which is important then to the communities that rely on them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Lindsay.

Now to the government side again, we're going to Mr. Finnigan for seven minutes, please.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing in front of us today. If my voice wants to last for the seven-minute duration, I have a few questions.

I'll start with the Hydropower Association. In my province, we do have a major hydro dam that provides a good chunk of the power in New Brunswick. Its due date is pretty much up and we're going to have to look at different options. I'm not sure if it was Mr. Irving who said that most of the older dams have a higher head of water. I suppose Mactaquac would be one of those. I know there have been attempts to get the salmon and other species across, and it has never really worked right. When we were on our tour in the Miramichi, we actually had testimony to the effect that some of the first nations have lost many species of fish that they traditionally used to....

If it were to be rebuilt, could we build that in a way that we would include a passage for the salmon and other species?

[Dan Gibson]

Thank you. It's a great question. The fundamental questions around passage always have to do with the nature of the high head, so it's “Was there passage there prior to the establishment of the dam?” If there was, now that we are in the regulatory regime that we are, I think our delegation stated that we are happy to work within the Fisheries Act as it stands. That may include passage. I lived in New Brunswick for a year, and the issues with some of these east coast streams are invasive species like striped bass or smallmouth bass in the lower reaches of the river. Do we want those species up with the native species above the dams? We have to ask that question.

Then if we do decide to do passage, what is the level of effort required to maintain the ecological integrity, both upstream and downstream of the facility? Would that be physical sorting of fish as they come into the fishway, pushing the non-ideal fish back downstream and allowing the native, ideal species to come back upstream? There are instances where this is in place in the United States. However, there's a lot of intensity when it comes to that type of approach.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you.

Again, on water dams, I know there was a bit of controversy in Newfoundland this fall. Whenever you flood an area that has mercury contamination....

Does the present or past act mitigate...? Is there anything in there, or enough protection there? How do we handle that? Is that something we cannot avoid? How would you look at that at this stage?

[Dan Gibson]

Can I ask for a point of clarification? Are you asking specifically about mercury contamination?

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Yes, please.

[Dan Gibson]

I'm happy to try to answer that question for you, not considering the specific site that you're speaking of. I think one of the foremost mitigation measures for mercury contamination in large reservoirs—we're not building a lot of them anymore, but in the event that we do—is harvesting of the native vegetation around the potential inundation of the reservoir, so deforesting the area that will be inundated and trying to get that root matter and detritus up off the mat so that methyl mercury is not generated.

I think in some cases, the Canadian Shield, for example, where you have very shallow topsoil, very shallow organic matter on top of bedrock, to some extent it can be self-mitigating. You don't have that large amount of detritus that would generate the mercury contamination. When it comes to the Hudson Bay Lowland areas, though, where you have a lot of the deposition from the glaciers, you would see that effect more. Again, it is a bit site-specific.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you.

Ms. Lindsay, on the forest sector side, specifically in the Miramichi, and I'm sure for other rivers, one of the main problems that we have noticed is the warming of the streams that feed the river. Thus, we're having warmer pools and it's very stressful on the salmon in the warm months of the summer. There's a lot of finger-pointing at the clear-cutting, where you're opening up the canopy that warms the springs.

You mentioned that we need to increase DFO staff to what it used to be. Would that suggest that self-assessment is maybe not the right way to go?

[Kate Lindsay]

I wouldn't say that.