Fisheries Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[Paul Barnes]

I would agree as well that the Canadian government should look after its country, obviously, by keeping an eye on the international scene, because as a country we do compete with other international jurisdictions. We need to be cognizant of that, but we certainly do need to protect our own country.

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

Mr. Russell.

[Todd Russell]

I agree with everyone else. I believe for the MPAs, as Ms. Street said, we need a clearly defined objective and guidelines on how to meet those objectives instead of just following a broader guideline.

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

Good, thank you.

Ms. Street, you made a statement—and I don't think I'm quoting you exactly—that we must have evidence that a closure will have results and that MPAs must be flexible. Could you elaborate on that a little further? In Bill C-55 it came out that the minister will not be required to have scientific certainty before acting and creating a closure.

That's a concerning point for me in that bill, so I'd like to hear you elaborate on your statement a little more.

[Dwan Street]

Sure.

Again, it goes back to the issues we have with drawing boxes and drawing lines that are permanent and rigid. We need to make sure that once we close something, it is going to achieve the result that it aimed to achieve.

If we get five years down the road and realize that we've done it wrong, there needs to be some flexibility there, especially if livelihoods and the well-being of people in our coastal communities are being affected.

We sit at the table and we try to work with the department and work with other stakeholders on closures so that they are actually going to achieve benefits and achieve targets of conservation. If there are no processes in place whereby we can evaluate whether it's actually doing what it's supposed to be doing, and, if it's not, we can go back and revisit that to see how we can do it better, then I think all of our credibility is out the window. We want to make sure that what we're doing is actually achieving something and that we're not just closing something to hit a target, to tick a box.

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

Good, thank you.

Mr. Barnes, I hope we get time enough for this answer. In terms of the operation of your industry, can you give us an approximate timeline for a set-up of, say, a drilling situation conversion to producing a well and the timeline of return on that typical operation? How many years down the road does Canada see the result of that work?

[Paul Barnes]

Typically, in the offshore industry it takes about 10 years to do adequate exploration, and that's everything from seismic to understanding where an oil and gas prospect may be to actually drilling it. If you're lucky enough within that 10-year period to find something, it usually takes another five to maybe 10 years to build a facility in order to produce the oil and gas that may be there.

So you're then talking about a 20-year timeframe in which you're looking for oil and gas, finding it, and then building something to produce it before you actually get oil and gas out of the ground, and then it may take another 10 years to recover the cost of just doing that. Most returns don't really come for about 20 to 30 years

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold. Sorry, I have to leave it at that.

Mr. Finnigan, you have five minutes. Go ahead, please

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

I'll start with Mr. Barnes.

Do you have records of how many accidental or environmental incidents have occurred in the whole oil field since the beginning of the oil industry in Newfoundland? Could you comment on that, and, if you know of any, how much damage and...?

[Paul Barnes]

Certainly I don't have any exact statistics with me here. There have been some hydrocarbon spills into the ocean off Newfoundland. The government...and the Offshore Petroleum Board, which regulates our industry, do have that information. It's published on their public website, so it can be readily obtained if you're looking for exact numbers.

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

Thank you.

My next question is to Ms. Street.

Do you know of any detrimental effects that the oil and gas industry has had on the fishing industries on the coast of Newfoundland? Do you have any tangible information that it has had a detrimental effect?

[Dwan Street]

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of certainty. The information we generally get, seismic and petroleum industry effects, comes from other jurisdictions. We have been pushing to have some research done in Newfoundland and Labrador that would be specific to our ocean and our ocean conditions. We have been working through One Ocean, which is an organization developed to bring fish harvesting and the petroleum industry to the table to have those discussions. There is some research on the table. Unfortunately, again, we come down to timelines, and it's been dragged out.

We come down to projects that were proposed seven or eight years ago, which are just now getting off the ground, to look at the effects on shellfish species. All of a sudden, we're looking at a resurgence of groundfish. We kind of re-evaluate the focus there and push to see if there are effects on the groundfish species. We don't have certainty and, until we have those data and we have that information, obviously there's going to be a big concern.

With the hydrocarbon releases, any time that there's an incident like that, we try to inform our members and get that information out there. We sometimes hear about it on the news. We don't necessarily understand what the effects are. Those are not communicated properly or in a transparent manner. We have our members calling us with obvious concerns when we hear about these things in the media. There's a lot of tanker traffic. We see fuel spills from tankers, and we don't have solid data on what these effects are. Until we do have that certainty, there's obviously not going to be a level of comfort there that there's not a level of harm to our fish stocks and to the livelihood of our members.

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

Obviously both industries are very important. You quoted numbers. Mr. Barnes also quoted some numbers.

Do you see the possibility of the two industries coexisting? Is there a way forward such that both can coexist and one wouldn't harm the other? Do you see that?

[Dwan Street]

I think it is important that we learn to cohabit. Both are very important industries to Newfoundland and Labrador. But, again, I think having communication, having solid data, knowing what the effects are, and making sure that all the protections are in place are important for both industries.

In the case of a spill, we need to have protocols in place and have the infrastructure, the equipment, and the people trained on the ground to address an incident if it does happen. We saw what happened in the Gulf of Mexico. We sat down to try to look at how Newfoundland and Labrador would be affected should something of that extent happen. Markets would be absolutely destroyed, if we were trying to market seafood products, given all the questions on contamination. The effects would be detrimental for generations.

I don't think there's a level of comfort that Newfoundland and Labrador has everything in place and that we would be able to react and make sure that the least amount of harm would happen to both industries in our province. Obviously there's a perception that would happen there with both industries....

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

With MPAs not being perfect, would you say that still it's what we have and what we're proposing? Could that be a security blanket, in a sense, to mitigate some of those things and have an overview of the whole fishing and gas industry?

[Dwan Street]

When it comes to marine protected areas, we have been very consistent in saying that if the fishing industry is completely prohibited from operating in an area, we think it's also important that oil and gas activity be kept out of that area, because fish harvesters really have issues with giving up a part of their livelihood and then seeing seismic vessels going over the same area or seeing the prospect of drilling happening in that area.

When we look at corals and sponges, with drilling being prohibited there, it's an obvious one to go for, but what about the other species that are in that area, that are mobile, that are possibly being affected, and for which we don't have solid evidence to show they're not going to be affected by this activity? It is frustrating when harvesters sit at the table and are willing to give up a part of their livelihood for protection of something that is so important to them, to then see it jeopardized through other activity that is allowed to take place in that area.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Finnigan.

Folks, thank you very much for this. I want to thank Mr. Barnes, Mr. Edwards, Ms. Street, and Mr. Russell for providing testimony today.

Colleagues, we'll see you in a few short weeks.

The meeting is adjourned.