Fisheries Committee on Oct. 24th, 2017

[Kevin McNamee]

Yes, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Mr. Morrissey, very quickly, then Mr. Doherty, and I'm going to call it quits after that.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to follow up on the comments of my colleague Mr. Hardie, because a lot of the testimony we heard up north was that the relationship with Parks Canada was very good. You stated that what helped was allowing the traditional uses to occur in your areas.

One of the areas on the east coast where we're getting push-back and concern from traditional users, which are the fishers, is that they're afraid that their traditional uses, their areas, will not be allowed. Could you comment? Has that been a good experience or is it something we should concern ourselves with?

[Rob Prosper]

The first thing I would say is that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans retains authority for the management of commercial fishing in marine conservation areas, so it's a bit more a question for—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

But it has not negatively impacted on your NMCAs to allow traditional use in a managed environment?

[Rob Prosper]

That's right, and I think there's likely a distinction between traditional use and commercial use. In terms of traditional use, these are well-established rights that we recognize in the establishment. In the north, for example, it's quite clearly stated in the land claim agreement that the criteria and provisions that direct the establishment of those areas require a continuation of traditional activity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

Mr. Doherty, very quickly, please.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'm going to switch up my question and follow up on Mr. Morrissey's question.

We have first nations and non-first nations who have lived side by side for generations. I believe Mr. Morrissey's comment was probably in regard to non-first nations who have been (a) making a living and (b) sustaining their families off the same traditional waters, so my question to you would be who takes precedence, non-first nations or first nations if...?

I'll just throw that out there.

[Rob Prosper]

I'll probably repeat myself here, but the management of commercial fishing—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'm not talking commercial.... I'm talking about how you have a non-first nation and you have a first nation who have lived side by side in the same area and have fished the same waters for generations. What takes precedence?

[Rob Prosper]

Do you want to try that, Kevin?

[Kevin McNamee]

We're well acquainted with those issues coming up, but first and foremost, as an arm of the federal government, we have an obligation to follow what may be in land claim agreements or understanding what's in historic treaties. We don't come to our proposals and go “fishing allowed” or “no fishing allowed”. Our act is clear: fishing continues in a national marine conservation area.

Parliament has given us a directive in our NMCAs to identify special protection zones, or in other words, no-take zones. That is done as part of our management planning process, which involves consultation. In order to put those kinds of provisions into effect—a zone that does not allow fishing—we must have the support of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

We try to avoid getting into yes-or-no questions. It depends on the site, the issue, and the use, and, as you pointed out, those historic things. We don't draw that line when we go into our proposals, and we have not done that yet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. McNamee.

Very quickly, Mr. Prosper.

[Rob Prosper]

I was just going to say, to be clear, that our minister does not have unilateral authority to make those decisions made in co-operation with the Minister of Fisheries—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Prosper.

Thank you, Mr. McNamee. I really appreciate it.

Sorry, folks, we have a witness waiting. We want to thank you for coming here today. We'd also like to thank all your colleagues at Parks Canada for helping us out on this.

We're going to break. Colleagues, literally one minute is all I can spare for a break. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Colleagues, we are back. We don't have a lot of time. In the last session we extended by a few minutes. I don't think we have that luxury now. I could probably do five minutes maximum. Instead of going to 10:45, let's say I go to 10:50. Can I have unanimous consent to extend by five minutes?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Joining us by video conference we have, from Ocean Networks Canada, Dr. Kim Juniper, chief scientist.

Dr. Juniper, thank you for joining us. You have up to 10 minutes for your opening statement. You can use as much time as you wish, but I have to cut you off at 10 minutes. After that, we'll go to a round of questioning from our members of Parliament.

Please go ahead.

[Dr. Kim Juniper, Chief Scientist, Ocean Networks Canada]

Thank you very much. I probably won't take all of the 10 minutes.

I'd like to begin by providing you a bit of background on who I am and wherein lies my expertise. This might help people frame their questions later.

I'm an academic. I've worked in research in deep-sea ecology since 1983, so it's been quite a while. In 1999, along with two other academic researchers, we drafted the candidacy proposal for Canada's first marine protected area, the Endeavour hydrothermal vents, an area of deep-sea hot springs off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

For the last seven years, I've been a member of the leadership of the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network, which is a strategic network partnership between academia and DFO that has been working, among other things, on developing criteria for the selection and networking of marine protected areas.

I am also a member of the deep ocean stewardship initiative, which is an international ad hoc organization of researchers that supports the paired engagement of science and policy-making in efforts to protect the deep ocean.

In my capacity as chief scientist with Ocean Networks Canada, I've worked closely with DFO in developing a monitoring capacity for the very remote and very deep Endeavour hydrothermal vents marine protected area.

The focus of my opening statement here will be the criteria and process for both establishing and, most important, maintaining marine protected areas so that the intended benefits can be achieved. In particular, I'm referring to benefits that are related to the conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecosystem services, those services that are provided to society by intact marine ecosystems.

I'm primarily motivated by recent global trends to create very large MPAs in remote areas as most states look to fulfilling their obligations to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and to achieving the 10% EEZ MPA goal by 2020. This creation of both offshore and remote MPAs is in some ways the easy way out.

I listened earlier to the Parks Canada description of how, when you have few stakeholders, it's sometimes easier and more expeditious to avoid lengthy and difficult stakeholder interactions related to fisheries, coastal development, and land claims, but I think that in this context it's really important to point out that the most diverse, most productive, and primarily the most threatened marine ecosystems are in Canada's Pacific and Atlantic coastal zones, not way offshore and in remote Arctic waters. That's not where the immediate need for protection lies. At the same time, these offshore and remote Arctic waters are not representative of coastal marine ecosystems in what I will refer to as “southern coastal Canada”.

That was the first point I wanted to make. It's important to protect these areas offshore, but at the same time, let's not do this and then not worry about things that are more difficult to achieve, where we have much of our biodiversity and much of the most threatened ecosystems.

Let's assume anyway that Canada is going to follow, to some extent, this global trend and create future MPAs in these remote regions. How are we going to go about monitoring these MPAs and know that we're actually achieving our conservation objectives?

My experience in working with DFO on monitoring of the Endeavour MPA has been really rewarding, but it has also made me aware that DFO does not have the capacity to monitor our existing MPA network on a regular basis without help from academia. We've had a very successful partnership, but this will need to continue as we go forward.

This is particularly important for remote deep-sea MPAs, where we essentially require robotic submersibles to survey and to collect samples. In many ways, much of the biodiversity we're trying to protect with these MPAs lies on the sea floor itself, not in the water column, and this is, in many ways, in deep water sites, the most inaccessible.

I really strongly recommend, therefore, that any increase in the number and size of marine protected areas in Canada be accompanied by a proportional increase in monitoring capacity. I can provide some specific examples for later questions on why we need to be monitoring, but I wanted to make this initial point. Also, I think the partnership that's been developing between DFO and academic researchers for MPA network research and developing and monitoring is one example of how both the costs and the responsibilities for this really important conservation tool can be shared between government and other stakeholders.

These are the two points I wanted to make. I'm happy to take questions.

I can answer them in both official languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Juniper.

I appreciate your comments very much.

We're now going to go to questions. We're starting out with Mr. Hardie once again.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Juniper. On the setting of the boundaries for the MPAs, some of the things we've heard about in the past are climate change, the arrival of previously unseen species, etc. I mean, is this a moving target, really?

[Dr. Kim Juniper]

Yes, exactly. That is one of the reasons why it's critically important to do regular monitoring of MPAs. When we set up these MPAs, we had specific conservation objectives, and yet, as you say, we're living in a changing world. The oceans are changing and species ranges are moving mainly north as the climate warms.

We need to be monitoring this to be make sure our boundaries are in the right place so that the species we want to protect remain within the boundaries. That's a real challenge. It's not going to happen in a dramatic “one year to the next” fashion, but it is something that we need to be keeping track of so we can make decisions in the future when we still have within the boundaries of our MPAs the species we intend to conserve.

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

In that case, shouldn't this be like hockey? Shouldn't we be planning these MPAs for where the fish are going to be? Like the puck...?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Kim Juniper]

If we could predict that, I think a lot of people both in fisheries management and in the fisheries themselves would be very happy, but that's not really possible.