Fisheries Committee on Dec. 5th, 2016

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and of course, thank you to all the witnesses for presenting here today, both in person and by video conference.

My first questions will be to the Canadian Hydropower Association. You mentioned that you have some 400 sites across the country. I presume that hydro power to be from dams. Do all of these sites provide safe passage for fish going up those rivers, or if not, how many of them wouldn't?

[Jacob Irving]

Thank you for the question. I can answer that.

Not every facility would have fish passage included within it, but when we're looking at the question of fish passage in the hydro power facilities, whether it's a storage reservoir or a run-of-river operation, it really has to be looked at in the context of the environmental assessment for each project that is done. When exploring fish passage, sometimes the answer could be fish passage, if necessary, but not necessarily fish passage on every facility, always owing to the unique nature of each facility in question. For a large number of facilities already built in Canada it's good to mention that they are high-head facilities, as we call them. That means there is a large elevation drop between the reservoir and the power house. In such areas or instances, upstream fish passage in many cases wasn't possible to begin with, simply because of the elevation change. Obviously, a facility like that would not require fish passage, because it would make a change to the natural environment that was there.

In other cases, we've seen a desire to not include upstream fish passage because of invasive species issues. In some cases, you want to limit the passage of some of the new invasive species downstream, up river. I would just mention that in some cases fish passage is warranted and is a good idea for the local ecosystem, but in other cases, it isn't. We really need the flexibility on a site-by-site basis for each project to be able to determine if it's appropriate and where it should be built.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

I asked that because in an earlier study that we were doing of Atlantic salmon, we had a witness present to us who indicated a facility in your provinces—I'm not sure now whether it was Nova Scotia or New Brunswick—where the dam blocked off the river and the salmon could no longer go upstream. They've been fighting to get that corrected but to no avail. I found it somewhat disturbing that a dam would go there and block off the migration of the fish to the spawning grounds, and basically kill off a salmon river. It was a productive river at one time, but they just can't get up to the spawning grounds.

[Jacob Irving]

I'm not familiar with this particular one, but if you like, we could look into that a bit more for you and maybe talk to the member about the project in particular.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

Next, I'll direct a question to the Forest Products Association of Canada. Has your association noticed an increase or a decrease in authorizations issued under section 35 of the Fisheries Act? If so, has impact mitigation planning been affected by these changes?

[Kate Lindsay]

I was working at FPAC and I was working for a forest company prior to the 2012 changes. Much of what I spoke about today, a lot of what we call our BMPs, our best management practices or standing operating procedures, were developed during a previous modernization process of the Fisheries Act around 2009. Those are the operational statements I was talking about. The majority of the activities the forest sector engages in are watercourse crossings, primarily culverts or bridges, so it's either maintaining those culverts for fish passage or replacing bridges that require repair or maintenance. It was rare that we would go through an authorization process.

In the past, we would follow an operational statement or we would have a code of practice, similar to what I was referring to, where the province would require us to go through an authorization process, rather than DFO. In instances where we would require authorizations, they were for larger projects or activities. Sometimes on the coast we would do dryland sorts, where we may need to establish an area for wood or logs to get dropped off before they go into the ocean. It's those types of things. To answer your question, we didn't see a difference in authorizations pre- and post-2012. Essentially, the practices we engage in are practices we've developed with DFO staff in past decades, and we continue to do so.

The current system that DFO operates under is a self-assessment process online. I was speaking to the biologists before I prepared our submission, and they will, for a larger bridge where they have to replace a bridge and it means they would have to do work in the stream bed, provide what's called a request for review to DFO. More than 80% of those return back to the proponents saying that no additional approvals are necessary and to go and conduct the work as indicated. In the remaining small amount, they've just come back to ask for more information.

I hope that answers your question.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

My last question would be to Mr. Bradley of the Canadian Electricity Association.

You said one of the good things that came out of the revisions in 2012 was that you've been able to self-report harm to fish or fish habitat. Can you tell me how that's working? Has there been much self-reporting done? How big have the incidents been, or have they not been noticeable at all?

[Francis Bradley]

Thank you very much for the question.

I'm thankful that today it isn't just an association person who's sitting at the table. We also have somebody who works for a company that owns and operates facilities and who can speak from the experience of her individual company.

[Jay Walmsley]

Sure. I'm with Nova Scotia Power, and we found the self-reporting to be quite onerous because every time there's a fish mortality, we are required to report. As soon as we become aware of a fish mortality, we look to see what happened and we phone the emergency line to ensure that we report on it. It's a fairly onerous thing for us to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

We now go to the opposition. Mr. Sopuck you have seven minutes, please.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bloomer, you said something that really jumped out at me. You talked about how the number of authorizations is actually less important than the actual protection of fish habitat. I think that is a fundamental principle. What's interesting is, for the activist community who has been represented here over the last few weeks, their measurement of the success of the Fisheries Act is authorizations. Of course, they're primarily lawyers—no slight intended to any lawyers in the audience. That, quite frankly, is a lawyer's point of view regarding authorizations versus the actual protection of fish habitat.

Can you elaborate on that statement? I think it's extremely important, Mr. Bloomer.

[Chris Bloomer]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think the point is exactly that. Before, you had the operational statements; now you have the MOU with the NEB where these things are assessed in the context of historical remediation effects. Bear in mind that the pipelines are only.... The real impact is only when we go into water bodies and we try to avoid that, but there are established practices, remediation, and life-cycle authorities on that.

When you look at it in that context, you don't need an exhaustive review of every project that comes up. You can put it in the context of other projects and what remediation has been done. In the current process, the NEB will look at that and say that we have the processes in place, we understand the implications and the remediation, and we don't need to go for an authorization. I think that's an effective process.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I have another question for you, Mr. Bloomer.

What is the effect of inefficient, duplicative, and lengthy assessments on capital investment in Canada? Do investors look at these processes and factor the length of the process in their investment decisions?

[Chris Bloomer]

Absolutely. I think that a lot of these projects that we're talking about today are major projects. They take years to get into effect, and as we said at the outset here, the principles of effective regulation are certainty, transparency, and timeliness—not necessarily timelines, but timeliness. I think where we got to, with the changes in 2012, did create more transparency. It created more timeliness, avoided duplication, and moved the process forward. From that perspective, I think it was an important change, and it is something that's factored into projects.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

FYI, one of my first careers was doing pipeline assessments in the Mackenzie Valley in the original Mackenzie Valley pipeline proposal, and then the second one came along. We're basically looking at 20 years of process, and there's still no pipeline there, and some twenty-odd impoverished communities. I very much agree with you, Mr. Bloomer, that lengthy and inefficient processes not only do nothing for the environment but they threaten much-needed employment.

I'd like to address my next question to Mr. Gibson and Dr. Walmsley because they both talked about habitat offsets. Right now, the no net loss provision and the habitat offsets are fairly rigid; it has to be on site. What if we had a Fisheries Act that focused on fish production and had a policy of no net loss of fish production, and then allowed project proponents to create that fish production in areas where people actually want to have fisheries enhanced or developed?

One of you could take that one on.

[Jay Walmsley]

I really like what we're seeing on the offsetting side. DFO has developed a policy for offsetting that allows for productivity.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

That's good.

[Jay Walmsley]

That means we can come up with some really innovative solutions for that. It's not based on like-for-like habitat, although that is one of the considerations. It includes things like stocking, and it includes things like.... It opens it up for very modern and innovative approaches.

[Dan Gibson]

Thank you. Just to add to that, this is actually a core concern for us and is also something that we want to continue to see established through habitat banking. The idea of ad hoc uncoordinated efforts—like for like—oftentimes fails in terms of expectations—

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Right.

[Dan Gibson]

—and quite often when we're monitoring, we're seeing those expectations come back.

On the idea of larger initiatives that are often more well established and more broadly supported by conservation authorities and by provincial governments, again, those are largely accepted by other stakeholders. As well, they get larger public support.

For example, in my province of Ontario, the restoration of coastal wetlands in the Great Lakes is largely accepted as being what will drive productivity in our Great Lakes. On the idea of aggregating projects and large proponent-led initiatives or third-party initiatives and opportunities for well-defined cumulative benefits, with compounding effects, these are really initiatives that as an industry we see as beneficial to gaining public support as well.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I had the opportunity to do work in the oil sands a number of years ago, where I observed the ridiculous situation of a project proponent who was using a lake for a tailings pond actually having to dig another lake right next door to that one. You can't make this stuff up. They called it “Compensation Lake”. The whole thing was completely absurd, given that southern Alberta, for example, is starved for fishing opportunities. Were the proponent allowed to spend those millions in southern Alberta, for example, and create fishing opportunities for citizens where they really wanted them, it would be a better situation. I really appreciate your answer.

Ms. Lindsay, you talked about codes of practice. My assumption is—Mr. Bloomer, if we have time, you could weigh in as well—that when industry develops a project or a program, the best codes of practice are built in from day one. Nobody goes in and designs with substandard environmental practices. These projects are environmentally sound from day one, even before they go before any regulatory authority.

Would you say that's a fair statement, Ms. Lindsay?

[Kate Lindsay]

I would, yes, and in particular, I can speak to forestry, because we undergo a lengthy planning process for forest management plans. Often, these are 20-year plans that we put together, with multiple staff and multiple levels of government inputting into this in terms of expertise. Once that's proposed to the provincial government, there's a review process, an iterative process, whereby that's strengthened. Once it's approved, we have an annual operating plan that gets approved as well. There's a lot of input into that product once it's created.

You're correct. These BMPs are standard operating procedures that we have for fish and fish habitat, and they have been developed and built over many years. First of all, when we plan where we're going to build roads, we avoid impacts to fish and fish habitat. Where we have to build an access point, we do so in a way that mitigates any risk to fish habitat. That is building on things like the operational statements. If in the future the department would want to go to a code of practice, then we would look to some of these very routine activities and look to build upon those BMPs in a recognized code of practice.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I assume my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. Thank you very much.

Before we go to Mr. Donnelly, welcome to Blaine Calkins, whose riding is Red Deer— Lacombe. Is that correct?