Fisheries Committee on June 13th, 2017

[Prof. Mark Carr]

That's a wonderful question. I'm glad you asked that, because I think it's a source of confusion. The answer is it's all of those. For example, I can study a kelp forest the size of this room. An ecosystem, by definition, is simply the living and the non-living parts of that environment and their interactions, which means that the decision on the spatial scale that you apply to that is essentially arbitrary. For example, the largest, or what we refer to as large marine ecosystems, encompass the entire coast of British Columbia, but also go down to the size of individual ecosystems like kelp forests or an estuary. An individual estuary in a fjord is also a single ecosystem. So when I say multiple ecosystems, it's those smaller units that connect to one another in an area.

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

It's ecosystems within ecosystems, then.

Thank you.

You also referred to some of the offshore rockfish protection areas in California as being huge. Can you better define huge, because going back to the IUCN, they state that for rockfish conservation areas to be effective, they need to be massive in size, with zero take, and so on?

What is huge in size?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

I can't give an actual value of huge in that case, but it's much of the west coast. Much of the State of California out in federal waters was put into a closure area. That's why they're not meant to be permanent, but temporary.

What motivated those closure areas, in addition to the dramatic decline in rockfish populations that spurred it, was the problem that they are multi-species fisheries. In the process of fishing one rockfish, you simultaneously collect another, and it's the other that is actually in concern based on the small population size. At depth, you can't discriminate which species you're taking, whether it's hook and line or net fishing. Unfortunately, the only way they could ensure the protection of the really endangered ones was to eliminate the take of all of those species within those areas.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Giraud, you talked about the consultation process and said you haven't been involved in the process so far.

Has Woodfibre been able to fully participate in the MPA planning? Has its participation been stymied or challenged in any way by multiple NGOs with basically the same agenda dominating the consultations?

[Byng Giraud]

My short answer earlier was no, we haven't been. But we're a small facility. There are many LNG projects. The question is probably better put to the BC LNG Alliance, which represents most of the companies. I do not believe they've been spoken to, but I could be wrong.

Nobody has stymied us. I'm not easily stymied. We are fortunate in that because we have the approval of the Squamish Nation and the people who have looked at the science behind our project, we actually don't have significant opposition. We have small NGOs that have an issue with us, but the big ones haven't talked to us, primarily because we've worked with Squamish Nation very closely.

In other areas you may see organizations that have more time and availability to be involved in these processes. When you're a company of our size with a billion-dollar project like this, we're not a huge team. To put time aside to be involved in all these consultative processes is difficult, so we rely on our industry associations.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I'm sorry, the time's up.

Mr. McDonald, for five minutes, please.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again to our witnesses.

Mr. Giraud, from you testimony, it's interesting to hear how you seemed to go out of your way to do the up-front work. You did the consultations with the indigenous people and had that side of it looked after before you'd go any further. You mentioned that you're not a large player in this market, that there are many people who are bigger than you. You mentioned the fact of having to know information, for one, to attract investment. And of course, through that and the work that you do, you are obviously creating good-paying jobs. As with any business, you're in it to make a profit.

From your company's point of view, what would be your biggest fear from the establishment of an MPA? What would be the initial impact on your operation or business?

[Byng Giraud]

Our concern would probably be a broader shipping concern. I know that you had the Chamber of Shipping speak. As I've said before, it's Canada's gateway; it's going to get bigger. If we're going to create a system that protects our sensitive ecosystems, it needs to be in the context of anticipating growth in this sector. This is the gateway for Canada—for our grain, our coal, our containers. Vancouver is becoming a bigger port, and we're going to have pressures in Prince Rupert as well.

That's why I'm back to the question of certainty. What route are you going to make sure is available for industry, say “Let's set this part aside”? That's how you avoid conflict. The biggest conflicts in British Columbia have been over land use. Because protest in British Columbia has been over land use, let's not do the same thing again. Let's be clear that there are multiple users and multiple needs, and let's maybe define those areas.

It's almost as important to define the industrial areas as it is to define the protected areas.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

Dr. Carr, we talked about no-take zones and that fish will populate better with the protected area, move to other areas, and help those areas when it comes to the stock. When looking at establishing an MPA or studying an area for a future MPA, do we also look at the economic effect on the people closest to it, the activity that they take part in, for example, commercial or recreational fishing, and balance the two, knowing how big an impact there will be on the adjacent communities, or even communities nearby?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

Thanks.

That was considered in two ways in the California process. There was an effort to get fishermen to identify the importance of areas to their fisheries. That spatial map of the importance of the different kinds of fisheries was made available to the stakeholders, so when the stakeholders were thinking about the size and location of protected areas they had some impression of how a particular location might have a socio-economic impact on a fishery.

In northern California, because it's a difficult coastline to work, very exposed, they decided to make a rule that no MPA would be within, and I don't remember the actual distance, but let's say 10 kilometres or so, of a given port. The idea there was that you didn't want to force fishermen to have to transit around a protected area in order to fish and endanger that activity in transit.

So certainly, the spatial distribution of fishing was taken into account in a couple of different ways.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

You mentioned that you stayed away from activities that already existed—oil platforms, even docks and whatnot—and were being used. How do you balance that? If we have an oil platform operating where you've determined that something needs to be protected, is that a difficult balancing act?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

I think one of the key issues is how persistent you think the impact will be. For example, some activities, including waste-water discharge, are regulated. In some cases, when the licences for either waste-water discharge or an oil platform expire, the idea is that those will be removed.

If you are confident in the removal of that existing activity, you could go ahead and make a protected area, knowing that at some time in the future those systems will become more natural.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Removing some of them wouldn't be easy. I wouldn't think that removing the discharge for the city of Los Angeles....

[Prof. Mark Carr]

No kidding. Yes, that's going to be there for a while.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Removing it is probably just moving it somewhere else.

[Prof. Mark Carr]

Frankly, the removal of the oil platforms is being thought about constantly.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. McDonald.

Mr. Donnelly.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to follow up on Mr. McDonald's line of questioning about whether MPAs help or hinder fisheries. Since the network has been established in California, Dr. Carr, would you say that the MPAs have had a positive or a negative impact on fisheries, recreational and commercial?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

In the work that has been done in the Santa Barbara Channel, where those protected areas have been in place longer, there have been some socio-economic evaluations and they have not found a detrimental impact on commercial or recreational fisheries. However, the network along the whole coast of California has not been around long enough to make an accurate evaluation.

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

Can you submit the study you referenced to this committee?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

I'll try to find it.

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

Thanks, the socio-economic study would be very helpful.

Mr. Giraud, you mentioned that in the future we're going to have more ships, more recreational boats, and more demand for food from the oceans, but you stopped short of saying that we need more MPAs.

[Byng Giraud]

I guess I'm presuming that you're going to do some MPAs, so I apologize.