Fisheries Committee on June 13th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Good morning, everyone.

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

Mr. Chair, when you're ready I would love to make a comment, if possible, prior to the proceedings.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I was just about to introduce our guests, so maybe you should proceed.

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

Apropos of our discussion last time and decision not to study the Lake Winnipeg coast guard issue, just for your information, two children were rescued by the coast guard yesterday, and to date, five more have been rescued. That is a pretty important issue for us and the people in that region are exercised about the potential loss of the coast guard. I just wanted to pass that on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Now on with our study. We're studying marine protected areas, as you are all aware.

We have two guests with us this morning, as witnesses. We have Dr. Mark Carr, a professor with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Thank you for joining us.

We also have Byng Giraud, vice-president, corporate affairs and country manager for Canada with Woodfibre LNG Limited. It's good to have you as well.

I'm sure you've been told how we normally do this, but you have time for a presentation of 10 minutes or less and following that we'll have questions from our committee here.

Dr. Carr, I'm going to start with you for 10 minutes or less.

[Professor Mark Carr, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, As an Individual]

First, let me thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on the scientific rationale for both the uses and the design of marine protected areas as conservation tools for marine ecosystems and species, as well as the human services that those species and ecosystems support.

I've been studying, publishing, and advising on marine protected areas—which I'll refer to as MPAs from here on—since the late 1980s. For eight years, I co-chaired the science advisory team for California's Marine Life Protection Act, which created a network of marine protected areas along the entire 1,300-kilometre coast of California, and it also created the largest science-based network of MPAs in the world. That process also contributed to the creation of design criteria for MPA networks, many of which are currently being proposed for networks on both the east and the west coasts of Canada.

I currently sit on the U.S. Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee.

While I appreciate the opportunity to convey the rationale for protected areas, I want to keep this as brief as possible so that we have plenty of time for questions. I also understand that the presentation I am going to give tomorrow at the Oceans20 MPA workshop will be made available to you as well, and it goes into greater detail on some of the aspects of this testimony.

There are two types of MPAs that have emerged over the past decade: really large MPAs, in the order of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres, which are located in very remote places with very little human activity; and then networks of smaller marine protected areas that are embedded along working coastlines and seascapes. While those networks of MPAs are smaller in overall area, they provide greater conservation value because they occur where people are using the ocean, and they foster a higher likelihood of contributing to the sustainability of coastal fisheries. Therefore, my comments are all going to be focused on this idea of networks of protected areas.

These networks of protected areas offer unique opportunities for the conservation of Canada's marine biodiversity and the ecosystems that maintain that biodiversity. That's because, like protected areas on land, they protect entire ecosystems—in many cases multiple ecosystems—rather than just a particular species. By encompassing an entire ecosystem—say, an estuary, a kelp forest, a deep rocky reef—they protect not only the species that inhabit that ecosystem, but also the important interactions among those species, and then the productivity and the services that marine ecosystems generate.

Those ecosystems interact with each another in two fundamental ways. The first is by the movement of organisms between ecosystems. For example, many fish species that live in deeper offshore habitats will migrate up into shallower ecosystems to spawn, or their young will use those shallower ecosystems as critical nursery habitat from which they will eventually come down and replenish adult populations.

The other is the movement of energy and nutrients from one ecosystem to another. For example, winter storms will dislodge kelp plants. Those kelp plants, and the energy and nutrients associated with them, will be carried either to onshore ecosystems or to offshore ecosystems, where they will fuel the productivity of those ecosystems as well.

By including multiple ecosystems in a given MPA, you protect not only the species that inhabit those ecosystems, but also the critical interactions between ecosystems.

However, MPAs differ from protected areas on land in one fundamental way. When land animals and plants reproduce, the young remain near their parents in the population that created them. They create self-replenishing populations. That means that you can maintain a self-replenishing population within a protected area on land, but it contributes very little to the conservation of those populations beyond the boundaries of that protected area.

In strong contrast, the young that are produced by most marine species are carried tens to hundreds of kilometres away from their parents by ocean currents. That has two fundamental implications for the use and design of marine protected areas. First, it means that the populations within a protected area are reliant on the young that are delivered to them, but produced somewhere other than that protected area. The implication is that if you space these protected areas from one another by the distance that those larvae travel, that means that the young produced in one protected area can help to ensure the replenishment of populations in another protected area.

Importantly, at the same time, they also replenish the populations in between those protected areas. They replenish fished populations as well. As a consequence, the conservation value of a marine protected area extends well beyond the boundaries of any one protected area. The area over which the young that are created in a marine protected area contribute to the replenishment of other populations is determined by just how far those larvae are carried by ocean currents.

If you take one large marine protected area and parse it into smaller areas along the coastline separated by that distance that the young disperse, what you've done is blanket the entire coast with young that are produced by those protected populations in the marine protected areas. You not only increase the area of conservation, but you also increase the replenishment of fish populations by distributing protected areas along the coast in a network.

By encompassing multiple ecosystems within each MPA, thereby protecting the interaction between ecosystems, and by spacing those protected areas at the distance that young disperse, you actually create one of the most robust conservation designs for marine protected areas. This is why this idea of networks is proposed for both the east and west coasts of Canada.

I hope these comments have helped clarify the scientific rationale for why the idea of networks of protected areas is so popular.

Again, thanks for the opportunity to try to explain that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Dr. Carr.

Explain it you did—a very good job. That was very interesting.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Giraud, you have 10 minutes, please.

[Byng Giraud, Vice-President, Corporate Affairs and Country Manager - Canada, Woodfibre LNG Ltd]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members, for this opportunity to speak to you today. I've been following your proceedings with some interest.

By way of background, Woodfibre LNG is an LNG project located on the shores of Howe Sound within the boundaries of the municipality of Squamish. We are on a site called Swiyat by the Squamish Nation peoples, whose traditional lands encompass the entire Howe Sound area.

The word “woodfibre” in Woodfibre LNG comes from the fact that we're on 86 hectares that was home to an old pulp mill that shut down in 2006. In fact, there was a town there with 1,000 people, a bowling alley, and a baseball diamond. Essentially, there was industrial activity for almost 100 years.

We purchased the land in 2015 because it was a good fit for an LNG facility: it was private property, had a deepwater port with no dredging required, and was zoned as industrial in the official community plan. We have an existing gas pipeline that passes right through the site, and the BC Hydro 500kv line and 138kv line also pass right through our site, which allows us to run this facility on electric drives. Very few LNG facilities run on electric drives. This means about 80% fewer GHG emissions, and more than 90% lower NOx and SOx emissions, plus it will make us one of the greenest LNG facilities in the world.

We have our federal and provincial EA approvals. I should say that the federal EA approval was probably the second one done by the current government, and the first oil and gas facility approved by the new government under its five principles. We also have a legally binding environmental certificate from the Squamish Nation, quite possibly the first independent indigenous environmental assessment process in Canada, which is something we're quite proud of.

We're modestly sized. We'll export about 2.1 million tonnes per year. This makes us about a tenth of the size of the big ones up north that you hear about, in Prince Rupert and Kitimat. That means we'll send about 40 vessels a year, one every 10 days, or 80 transits.

By comparison, you might be aware of the Nuka “West Coast Spill Response Study” of 2013 that estimated that about 11,000 ships moved past the Neah Bay buoy—that is, opposite Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island—and about 10,000 ship movements past Point Roberts, the small spit of land just south of where I live in the Lower Mainland that is part of the United States. More than half of these ships are container, cargo, or bulk cargo vessels.

The LNG vessels that will be arriving at our facility will be powered by LNG. It should be noted that World Wildlife Fund Canada commissioned a study for the north and found that, by using LNG vessels instead of heavy fuel or bunker fuel in marine vessels, you can reduce pollutants by 97% and GHGs by 25%. Of course, there would be a much less significant impact from a fuel spill, given that gas dissipates.

We're also currently in the TERMPOL process with Transport Canada. This is the technical review process of marine terminal systems and transhipment sites. We've undergone the three environmental assessment processes, but the TERMPOL is an additional voluntary process that helps fine-tune our operations in shipping from site to the open ocean. Other than some additional safety measures we can take—the use of additional tugs and inclusion of two pilots on-board the ships—much of how we get to the open ocean is strictly regulated. We don't have a lot of choice about how fast we go or when we have to be tethered to tugs.

It's in this context that I present to you some of our thoughts as a smaller industrial player on the west coast regarding marine protected areas from a perspective of what I think is a progressive company, given our approach to things like electrification and Squamish Nation.

The big question for a company like ours, when it's doing this type of investment—we will be investing well over a billion dollars in Canada, and that's a small LNG facility—is around certainty and political risk. Every time governments and regulators make moves to alter the landscape or change the deal, it creates uncertainty, which is possibly bad for business. Unfortunately, as Canadians, we get somewhat of a reputation, particularly in Asia where I spend a lot of time, about our ability to build things here.

Having said that, I don't want to say that we are in conflict with an effective marine protected area; rather, we would call for a clearer, and perhaps quicker, process. The reason for this is that it creates the certainty these investors are looking for. When investors see green on a map when it comes to land use, they don't go there. It's pretty straightforward. When the use of the land is uncertain, and in this case the use of the ocean, this is when money becomes shy.

Based on my experience, we should consider a few things when considering MPAs—again from our perspective.

The recently announced oceans protection plan should be integrated with the rollout of MPAs. Evidence-based decision-making and a renewed focus on reducing environmental and safety risks are critical when considering the creation of these areas, we believe.

If we can effectively implement the OPP, does it take pressure off some marine environments? Does it change what levels of protection an area might have?

If we have world-class marine environmental protection, can more adaptive approaches for a marine-protected area be considered? Here I would like to acknowledge—I'm not sure I'm allowed to say members of Parliament's names—Randeep Sarai, who has been a real leader on the west coast in bringing together communities, organizations, and indigenous people to have this kind of conversation.

Secondly, MPA creation must not take place in isolation. It must be integrated with other processes. When we have only one perspective in use planning, whether it's land use or marine, we create unnecessary conflict in society. When we consider a protected area, we must, of course, consider environmental issues but also other things such as indigenous use, commercial fishing, recreational use, and industrial and transportation uses.

Thirdly, in regard to adaptive management, from what I've read, this term has come up at this committee before. It's something that we think is quite important. The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority has an enhancing cetacean habitat and observation, or ECHO, program. As part of this program, they are examining ways to minimize, for example, the noise from vessels. Something as simple as keeping the propeller clean has one of the largest impacts. By doing this type of science, by understanding these types of things, we can adapt what industry does to perhaps allow greater interaction between possible marine protected areas and industry. I appreciate what the other speaker said in terms of these networks, but perhaps alongside industry it's something that should be embraced.

Finally, on indigenous zoning, maybe that's the wrong word, but we're very proud that we play a small part in how the Squamish Nation is moving forward with regulating their traditional lands. They have a very effective land use plan, called “Xay Temixw”. I might say that wrong, but it means “sacred land”. It's very effective, and they want to move from the land use plan and expand to the marine environment. As part of our agreement with them, we are helping to fund that. The advantage of this is that it's upfront use planning and it helps us have certainty.

When we first came to build the Woodfibre LNG site, we had access to their land use plan, and it was pretty easy to say, “Oh, that site is not a sensitive area; we can possibly go there and have a conversation.” It wasn't going to be a no. That meant a big deal in terms of our having some upfront certainty. Using this approach, indigenous zoning, if you will, and the combination of science and traditional use and planning can provide greater certainty and reduce future conflicts.

Let me close with this: according to the Prime Minister when he launched the oceans protection plan, maritime trade is 250,000 jobs and $25 billion of our economy. The reality is that maritime trade will only grow as our population grows. There will not be fewer ships, there will be more. There will not be fewer commercial vessels or fewer recreational vessels, there will be more. Our reliance on the sea as a source of food will only grow. Marine protected areas are important, but they need to be reflective of the needs of all.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Giraud. We appreciate that.

Now we'll go to our questions, starting with the government side.

Mr. Hardie, you are first, for seven minutes, please.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair; and thank you both for being here.

Dr. Carr, we have had on our coastline, especially in British Columbia, rockfish conservation areas, or RCAs. I presume they are analogous to the small MPAs that you've had in California.

[Prof. Mark Carr]

Not necessarily. We also have rockfish conservation areas throughout the west coast of the United States. Those rockfish closure areas, at least where we are, and they may be different from here in British Columbia, are huge offshore areas. The purpose of those rockfish closures was simply to restore the rockfish populations within them, and then having restored those stocks, the intent is to remove those closures eventually.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

The challenge we've seen is not so much from the commercial fishery but from the recreational fishery in that these areas are apparently not easy to identify when you're out in your pleasure craft. People go in there and fish when they're not supposed to, which raises the whole challenge of managing and enforcing these smaller areas.

[Prof. Mark Carr]

In California, when MPA boundaries were considered, it was the stakeholders, not the scientists, who identified the location, the size, and the boundaries of protected areas. One of the guidelines from the Department of Fish and Wildlife was to make sure that they were easily recognizable boundaries—typically straight lines that extended offshore, preferably at areas such as headlands that were easily defined as well. Taking that into consideration so that people more easily can identify exactly when they are in or out of an MPA is a really important design criterion.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Giraud, I have some friends, including one whose name I'll mention. Try not to flinch. My old friend Rafe Mair lives up in Lions Bay, and he's got a real issue. I dare say he moved up there after the old pulp mill closed, and I remember the impact of that pulp mill because we felt it all over Metro Vancouver. One issue that has come up with respect to your LNG facility is the venting of warmer hot water back into Howe Sound. Have you resolved that or are you still going to continue to do that?

[Byng Giraud]

That's a good question because we're in the middle of that. When we entered into the environmental assessment agreement with Squamish Nation, there were some legally binding conditions, but not through contract because first nations don't have regulatory authority. One of those conditions was reconsideration of our sea water cooling, and ultimately we gave the choice of that technology to the first nations—an innovative thing to do—through a working group we have with them. As the working group last fall selected an air cooling technology, that issue essentially no longer exists. To be fair, I'm in an environmental amendment process with the provincial government to get that changed, but given that I have the full support of Squamish Nation to make the change and that aboriginal consultation is usually the biggest hurdle in these things, I believe tit will take place.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

One of the things that came up as part of that discussion, and it applies to both of you gentlemen, is the duelling science. You know it's an issue that has come up here in a variety of studies. DFO suggests that in Howe Sound specifically, the biosphere is thus and thus, whereas the local people say no, it's not. We've looked at the collapse of the herring fishery along the coast, and there are signs that this is starting to come back in Howe Sound, which of course is part of the sensitivity about venting.

What do you do, Dr. Carr, to deal with the fact that everybody seems to have their scientist on a leash and the conflicting evidence is not very productive?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

I think the key issue there is that the quality of that evidence needs to be considered. Often explicit studies need to be conducted to evaluate the consequence of some of those activities.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Coming up with the objective science is clearly a challenge.

Mr. Giraud, you talked about adaptive use of MPAs. That seems to be a signal that an MPA is not necessarily going to be out of bounds for everything and everyone. Is that fairly much it?

[Byng Giraud]

I really appreciated Mark's comments on this. Is it a park? Is it rigid boundaries? Is this a notion of a network, because essentially we have these 11,000 ship movements coming out of the harbour of Vancouver to open ocean at Ogden Point? There are some sensitive areas in there. How do we allow for both those uses? It's Canada's gateway. It's one of the greatest economic generators of our country. How do we address sensitive populations in the south Salish Sea when we have 11,000 ship movements? They will not become fall in number, but increase. The notion of networks and working together is possibly the way to go, but as I said before, getting a resolution to that is probably what industry is really interested in. If we know this is off limits, then let's make it off limits and not have a long process. We don't like the long maybes.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Dr. Carr, you commented on the currents and how they affect the migration of small fish especially from one area to another. There's that, and the whole issue of aquaculture, especially open net pens. What happens in those pens doesn't necessarily stay there or on the seabed, but they, too, can migrate.

What about aquaculture, and how does it fit into the grand scheme of things?

[Prof. Mark Carr]

I'm glad you asked that question because it relates to this idea of LNG ports and other human activities along the coastline.

Given that the goal of a protected area is really to protect the natural state of either a species or an ecosystem, many human activities along the coast are not necessarily compatible with that objective. In California, for example, we have waste water discharged from major municipalities like Los Angeles or San Francisco. We have cooling water discharged from power platforms. We have offshore oil platforms. We don't have as much offshore aquaculture activities, but, nonetheless, all of those activities tend to influence that local ecosystem where they are conducted. So in California the idea was to recommend to stakeholders that they avoid those areas of existing, and presumably, persistent human activities. It was suggested that you don't make a marine protected area in the waste water discharge of the city of Los Angeles, that as you craft the location of these protected areas, you could avoid those areas.

On the other hand, sometimes incorporating activities, especially aquaculture, within a protected area, allows you to evaluate what the effects of those activities are as well. For example, if you were monitoring the consequence of creating protected areas like in fjords, some of which do and don't have aquaculture activities, in the process of evaluating the protected areas you can compare those protected areas with and without that aquaculture and evaluate what those impacts are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Dr. Carr.

[Prof. Mark Carr]

Then the adaptive management is that if there are big impacts, then eliminate that activity. If there are not big impacts, that means maybe they're fine to conduct within protected areas.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Dr. Carr. We appreciate that.

We have to move on to Mr. Sopuck, for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

We had testimony a few weeks ago, Dr. Carr, from the director of the Canadian Sportfishing Industry Association, who comes from the United States but lives in Canada now. He was talking about their sister organization, the American Sportfishing Association, regarding the California MPA. I'm going to quote from his testimony here. He said this is how the American Sportfishing Association saw the example of the California process:

The only option considered was closures, no-take zones, permanent no fishing, no extractive use of any kind. That was the agenda.

This is an example, the central coast of California, and the impact was significant. Even though it looks on a map as though it's not that big an area, anybody who fishes knows that fish don't live everywhere. They are in certain prime habitat. It

—meaning the MPA process—

targeted prime habitat areas, over 40% of the best sport fishing areas in state waters out to the three-mile limit, and the impact on the economy was significant.

The boating industry and the vehicle industry had an even greater impact in a negative way.

Would you agree with Mr. Morlock that the establishment of the California MPAs had a significant negative economic impact on the multi-million dollar sportfishing industry in California?