Fisheries Committee on June 8th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. McDonald.

Before we move on, I want to say greetings to Mr. Bezan from the riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, which is also the home of one of Canada's great exports, Crown Royal rye whisky.

Mr. Sopuck, go ahead for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much.

In the interim, I did do the math on the environmental performance of oil and gas installations. This is from the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. In 2015-16, for hydraulic oil, there were three spills of less than one litre. There was one spill of 11 to 150 litres and no spills greater than 150 litres. For diesel fuel, there was one spill of less than one litre. For condensate, there was one spill of less than one litre.

That's it. That's the total amount of petroleum product released—so-called spilled—from these installations off Nova Scotia. That is miniscule. That's why I asked for quantification. These generalized statements about “this being the effect of this” and “scientists say” are not helpful and not useful. It does not help us with the program we're trying to carry out here.

Again, I would urge all witnesses to refrain from making generalized statements and would ask that they quantify everything as much as they can.

I have a “gee-whiz” statistic. Off the east coast, there were 64 billion litres of oil shipped in 2006 and there were 430,000 litres spilled. That works out to 0.00067% of 1%. That's the number. So, generalized statements are not helpful. The design of an MPA has to be specific. The rules and regulations and the terms and conditions are extremely important because those terms and conditions will affect people's livelihoods. With the collapse of oil prices in Canada, the economies of eastern Canada and indeed western Canada are under serious threat. Much of what the environmental community says is that we should shut this stuff down, as if it's no big deal. It is a very big deal. I would urge you to quantify things as much as you can.

One of the witnesses earlier talked about highly migratory species and that MPAs are not really helpful for migratory species. Obviously, salmon is one of the most prominent examples. Salmon move through a coastal area. It's not necessarily a spawning area. It's a feeding area they use from time to time, and then they go someplace else.

How would an MPA help that salmon population, if it was designed the way that I think people want an MPA designed? I'll ask Dr. Sumaila that.

[Dr. Rashid Sumaila]

If you look at the literature, two things can help migratory species. First is the size of the MPA. For it to be effective, the MPA has to be large, fortunately or unfortunately. That can lead to other issues but you need to cover as much of their range as possible for it to be useful.

Second is the new research that has just been published by Sally Otto, Daniel Pauly, and others, where they look at fish behaviour. It's amazing. They found out that fish evolve also. If you have an MPA and they know it's an MPA when they're in there because no trawling is chasing their shadows, and so on, they learn to be within the MPA rather than going to another place where they will get smacked. So they are not as stupid as we think they are.

This is new, quite cool research. After some time, they stay more in the peaceful areas than in the crazy places where they get hit. There's a lot of research coming out on this still.

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

Having been outsmarted many times by fish, a creature with a brain the size of a pea, I will very much agree with you, Dr. Sumaila, about how smart fish are.

On a serious note, it would be really good if we could get an MPA off the coast of Greenland. The way they're savaging Canada's Atlantic salmon stocks, as was enunciated by the Atlantic Salmon Federation last week, is truly unconscionable.

Dr. Sumaila, the California experience, which was relayed to us, was that the MPAs were put in the very best places where people fished and closed off much of the recreational fishing in coastal California, small areas to be sure, and it was proposed they go someplace else. Fish concentrate in certain areas. How do we deal with that?

[Dr. Rashid Sumaila]

California is quite special in many respects. There was a big movement to put in MPAs and they did. I just came back from the UN conference; I was there Monday to Wednesday. I got an email from California, a group of people who are now beginning to study the economic impacts of that and get numbers, as you say. So I'm going to talk with them when I go back to see what happened since then.

In terms of Greenland, that is a good point. When you share a stock, you need to think about it in terms of MPAs. I mentioned the ocean conference because many people told me that Canada should step up on the world stage and lead on ocean issues. If we do our homework well, we will be in a good place to talk to Greenland and other countries about also doing their part.

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

Can you send me a copy of that California economic study? California, I like that one.

[Dr. Rashid Sumaila]

I have it on email only.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Gentlemen, I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're closing in on time.

Ms. Dzerowicz, you have five minutes, please.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all my colleagues for welcoming me here today. Happy birthday, Ken.

Thanks for the excellent presentations.

I come from a downtown Toronto riding but I lived in Vancouver for a year. One of the things that Davenportians really care about is the environment, and they care about climate change.

We're trying to select the MPAs on the west, in the north, or on the east coast. I had a colleague who used to visit the north quite a bit, and she would interact with a number of the indigenous peoples up there. They would say that the world has changed significantly for them. They see almost annually how climate change is impacting their habitat.

Mr. Crowley and Ms. Leys, if you happen to have something to add, in our selecting MPAs and our even coming up with a governance model or even trying to figure out the right model for monitoring, how is climate change going to impact how we're going to select the area?

For the economics of the ocean, climate change adds a high level of unpredictability. How would you say that we need to incorporate what we're learning around climate change impacts in our selecting the areas and the monitoring? If you have any advice on that, I'd be grateful.

[Paul Crowley]

Thank you for the question.

Climate change impacts should be fully integrated into the development of a network of MPAs. There is no place where that is more important than the north. For instance, we know that with the warming of the waters and the environment summer sea ice is retreating considerably. There is an area in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and north of there, that we call the last ice area, where it's projected to be one of the last areas where summer sea ice will be.

Looking at that as an important opportunity to protect that last ice area as a refuge, we hope the systems will be able to rebound. I think it has to be fully integrated into the choice of how you make a network, and also how you manage an area. In the north, having Inuit who have lived on the waters for millennia to be the monitoring program, the community-based monitoring program that is based on generations of information, will be extremely important.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Sumaila, do you have anything to add?

[Dr. Rashid Sumaila]

Climate change is really a hot issue for the oceans. Number one, the ocean absorbs a lot of the CO2. That is leading to ocean acidification, in addition to the sea's surface temperature rising. Also, there's deoxygenation. Parts of the ocean are being depleted of oxygen. These are huge.

In the paper I mentioned, which I will share, which was published on June 5, we actually surveyed the literature to see what MPAs can contribute in terms of mitigation and adaptation. We found that the size and the siting will affect how resilient we are.

Thinking of the ocean acidification, for example, if you have a fish population that is really in good shape and then the ocean is acidified, it has a better chance of surviving than when you have a weak population. It's like a human being. If you are sickly and then you get hit by something, you just go. If you are in good shape, you would withstand it better.

In terms of size, it will affect it. Before climate change, people were talking about 30%. It looks like we'll actually have to go more than that. Again, I go to the retirement fund. Most financial analysts will say you should follow your age in terms of how you put part of your retirement in a safe place, right? I think it's going to push us to far more than 10%, I'm sorry to say. If we really want to sustain our fisheries in the face of climate change, the size and siting will differ, but this needs more detailed work because fish populations are moving into different places because of changing temperatures.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Ms. Leys, unless you have something to add, I have another question to move on to.

[Dr. Sally Leys]

I have a concrete example if you would like.

In terms of the reefs, they are in a network. Networks, you've all heard, give resiliency and size. With climate change, you can't predict. You don't know if one area will be better than another. Because the recovery of populations might depend upon a new MPA you might make up at Chatham Sound, one should be open and forward-thinking in order to continue such a network. These kinds of regions could be influenced by low oxygen that comes up from the deep ocean as climate warms. You never know which patch might be the feeder patch that will sustain new reefs. You need to think a bit broadly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Dr. Leys. I didn't mean to cut you off. I apologize. We tend to let witnesses go on but we're running short of time.

Mr. Donnelly, to end on three minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We were just talking about meaningful protection and the definition of what that meant. I'd like to ask about the definition of minimum standards.

Mr. Crowley and Ms. Kuehnemund, could you both elaborate on minimum standards and tell the committee about what minimum standards are, what's included, how we achieve minimum standards, and what they look like?

[Paul Crowley]

The first minimum standard—and we've spoken to it—for us is with regard to oil and gas exploration and exploitation and its incompatibility with MPAs. Writing that in at the outset would provide certainty for industry and for communities in terms of creating MPAs.

[Sigrid Kuehnemund]

First and foremost, we understand and recognize that some activities can occur within marine protected areas, but it's important to ensure that the activities that do occur do not contravene the conservation objective of a marine protected area. As Paul mentioned, from minimum standards, we feel oil and gas activities are not compatible with marine protected areas.

As per IUCN guidance, there are some forms of fishing activity that can occur within marine protected areas. We look to the IUCN's standard rule that marine protected areas should include zones that restrict all extractive use. We are pleased with the St. Anns Bank marine protected area example, which has been worked through a stringent negotiation process with stakeholders and, through the MPA design and development process, has achieved a high standard. Seventy-five per cent of that area is off limits to fishing activity, and we support such a standard.

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

Okay.

Dr. Sumaila, I was going to add that we haven't heard anything about size. What we've heard over and over again from witnesses is that size matters, maybe you want to comment.

[Dr. Rashid Sumaila]

Yes. In terms of size, the latest number we have scientifically, and I can share the paper, is that most scientific papers recommend 30% of an area as optimal for sustainability and conservation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much, Dr. Sumaila.

I want to thank our guests.

Thank you so much, Dr. Sumaila, Dr. Leys., Mr. Crowley, and Ms. Kuehnemund, who joins us again. It's good to see you all again. Thank you very much for doing this.

We are going to break, but first we will go to Mr. Bezan. You have an intervention.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

It's just that I see on the agenda that our next piece of business is in camera—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

That is correct.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

—for a Standing Order 106(4) request, and I think that is not consistent with what other committees have done when a 106(4) request has come forward.

If you look back at meetings that have been held under Standing Order 106(4), government ops had a request by four members for a resolution on July 28, 2016. It was actually televised. We had a notice of meeting from the committee on international trade back on August 3, 2016, and it was public. International trade had another special request on August 18, and that was public. Finance also had a Standing Order 106(4) request, and that was televised on September 9, 2016.

Since this is a special request under Standing Order 106(4), which says that within five days of receipt you have this debate, I think it should be a public meeting, not in camera. I hope there isn't an attempt to hide our having a real discussion. I'd ask that you allow this meeting to take place as a public meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

Under normal circumstances I would wholeheartedly agree, but I'd like to point out that, on October 25, 2016, Mr. Donnelly proposed a motion which was passed that the committee may only meet in camera for certain purposes, and there are 10 listed. The fourth one is to consider a draft report or an agenda, and this does qualify as an agenda matter.

That is why I scheduled this to be an in camera meeting. However, may I suggest that, if you wish to go out of being in camera, there is one way of doing that.