Fisheries Committee on Dec. 7th, 2016

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

You have 20 seconds.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Would anyone else care to provide one key recommendation?

[Dr. David Schindler]

I would think the obvious answer to that is that this is what regulations are for. Regulations are commonly tailored to individual fisheries and areas. I don't see a problem with one overreaching act, if the regulations are tailored to the problems of specific regions, as the witness from Nunavut suggested.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Okay, thank you very much.

We have Mr. Finnigan for five minutes now.

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

I thank the panel for appearing in front of us today on this important act.

I'd like to reiterate the statement that Ms. Gaertner said that there is never enough time to consult, especially with first nations. I have four first nations in my community. I did invite someone from the Mi'kmaq council to be here, but again, because of a shortage time....

I find it very disturbing to hear on the other side especially that there's not enough time to consult. The last time there was absolutely no consulting with anybody, including first nations, and the act was passed in an omnibus bill.

I'd like to ask you, Ms. Gaertner, about your reference to traditional knowledge. How would what's missing now be added to the act? How could we add traditional knowledge to the act to make sure that's incorporated in the new act?

[Brenda Gaertner]

I do agree it's an improvement, what we're doing this round, by the way, rather than no consultation, improved dialogue. We just need to get stronger.

In terms of traditional knowledge and how it could be directly referred to in the act, we see it in two places. We've made recommendations for clear standards and objectives for guiding decision-making. As one of those, we recommend the best available scientific and technical information, including traditional knowledge and indigenous laws, be included in the decision-making under the act. You'll see in the appendix to our submission the specific language that we're recommending to make it very clear that knowledge be included in decisions under the act.

The second place that I would recommend that you see this is in the direct agreements that we're suggesting the minister be empowered to make by entering into agreements with aboriginal governments. You'll see that—

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

Thank you, Ms. Gaertner.

I'll ask Michael to comment on that.

[Michael d'Eça]

Thank you.

I would suggest there are some statutes that have recognized traditional knowledge in decision-making and so on, that are already in place. I would recommend, for instance, the Species at Risk Act, or if you go up to Nunavut, in our Nunavut Wildlife Act. There are precedents out there. Of course, Canada is obliged to, in my view, through international treaties like the biodiversity treaty, to make that effort, to place that within the act, and it will be very helpful to decision-makers. At its best, science and traditional knowledge are very complementary areas that are actually very closely aligned, so it will be a really positive step forward.

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

To follow up on that, Mr. d'Eça, what specific activities in the north do you feel might not be incorporated, either in the past act or in the last 25 years? What specific things that occur in the north are very different from the south coast to coast?

[Michael d'Eça]

I'm not sure if they're so different, but we have a land claims agreement that lays out an allocation system and a management system and the recognition of Inuit systems of wildlife management and so on, which we try our best to rely upon. But you have to have implementation legislation to make that all flow smoothly and for all parties to follow. That is one of our concerns with the Fisheries Act, as well as, which Mr. Andrews mentioned, the regulations, which give you much more specific details. We've worked as hard as we can for the last 16 years, without success, to try to get Nunavut fishery regulations in place, and so far, we've come up empty-handed.

We have a lot of those details that you're asking about in our land claims agreement. What we seek is an act that implements that, that is in line with the land claims agreement, which, of course, is protected by the Constitution, as I mentioned earlier. We very much seek that next level, which has been discussed a couple of times, the development of appropriate regulations flowing from the act.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

That's your time.

The last questioner is Mr. Donnelly, for three minutes.

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

Again, thank you to all the witnesses.

In my home province of British Columbia, over the past year we've seen the federal government sign off on at least three major projects. Dr. Schindler, you mentioned those: the Site C dam proposal, the Pacific Northwest LNG, and just of late, the Kinder Morgan pipeline project. This is all under the 2012 Fisheries Act. Obviously, time is of the essence to make those changes.

While on one hand we want to consult and hear from many people, on the other hand, we're having major, major projects going through this country. We have energy east up next, and we still haven't made any changes to the Fisheries Act. We've heard some comments about that.

Ms. Gaertner, I would like to ask you for any final comments, or any departing thoughts or top priorities you want to leave with the committee, on changes to the Fisheries Act.

[Brenda Gaertner]

Given the importance of restoring the lost protections, the first nations coalition that came together to create the submission before you wasn't saying, “Don't do anything.” They're saying, clearly, “Do something, and do it properly.” The important thing is to restore the HADD provisions and introduce more protective measures in the modernizing of the act, such as a purpose section, and as I've mentioned, the aboriginal government section. I think those are ways in which we're really going to restrict discretion of the minister.

On the earlier question around gravel and why gravel slipped under the radar, one problem with the old act was the unstructured discretion of the minister under the act. What we're proposing are very structured processes for the exercise of that discretion. I think it's going to become a much more operative way of implementing the act to protect fish.

First nations definitely want better and restored protections under the act.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

You have 40 seconds.

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

I'll just ask Dr. Schindler for his final thoughts.

[Dr. David Schindler]

I would like to agree with that last statement. I think one reason we've had a Fisheries Act that has not maintained a sustainable fishery is ministerial discretion, which sometimes has had terrible consequences. I've seen environmental impact statements where the proponent's own EIA, environmental impact assessment, said they would be doing major damage to fisheries, and DFO's assessment said that, but when it came down to the final approval, the minister wrote off on the thing and approved it. I don't see how that sort of thing can happen. A strong law is worthless if it's not going to be used.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

On that, the time has expired. It's 5:30 p.m.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for their excellent testimony and the time that they devoted not only to preparing it, but also delivering it to us, and answering the questions from the committee.

This meeting is adjourned.