Fisheries Committee on Nov. 27th, 2017

[Paul Kariya]

No, it's just a statement I made. I'm not applying that to you.

In terms of what we need, I'd say that generally what we need is information. When you think about some of the complexity of the things we are dealing with, be it in fisheries management, terrestrial land use planning, or ocean planning, there is a dearth of material in some places.

Yes, we can make some decisions as we go along. I don't think anyone is saying, “Let's wait until we collect everything.” That would be untenable. Information gathering is something that I think we're a little short on. Part of it is that both governments, Canada and British Columbia, in the areas that I represent, have withdrawn a lot of staff. We don't do that.... Christina probably would agree with me in terms of the fisheries side of things. We don't have the capability we used to have.

How can you make decisions on protection and that without good information? I say that with some solutions; I made the statement about having a hundred stewardship staff. Our member nations now are the people on the land. They are trained and they're ready. They can be contracted to do this information collection.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Sure.

I have one more quick question.

I understand, Mr. Kariya, that the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative submitted a brief nearly a year ago for this committee's review of the Fisheries Act. Were you involved in the preparation of that organization's brief? What was the organization's expectation of how your brief would be used? Could you comment on that?

That's my last question.

[Paul Kariya]

Thank you for the question. I was not involved in that.

I have to say that my experience here is quite limited. I've been here for a little over four months, so I can't speak to that previous brief at all. My apologies for that.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

There's no apology necessary. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Miller.

I neglected to mention this earlier. I always introduce guests, and I totally forgot Mr. Stetski. He has been here so much that we keep forgetting that he's a guest. Nonetheless, we welcome Mr. Wayne Stetski from the beautiful riding of Kootenay—Columbia.

Mr. Stetski, the floor is yours.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks to both of you for being here today. I have just two questions, and I guess I'll address them both to Mr. Kariya.

I was part of the environment committee that produced the report on how to get to 10% of marine protected areas and 17% of land protected areas by 2020. We met with a lot of first nations. Many of them said they believed that protected areas, including marine protected areas, if done correctly, would benefit conservation, would help preserve traditional ways of life for first nations, and indeed, could be part of reconciliation with first nations, which is one of the Liberal government's priorities.

I'd appreciate your comments on that.

[Paul Kariya]

I would say that our nations, having been on the land—and we are going to be on the land and water for a long time—support MPAs. They are a piece of the puzzle in terms of a changing environment and the need for protection of biodiversity. These are nations that also participate in some of the industries that Christina represents, so I want to be fair to them, but overall, the nations are saying that in order to get fish for their food and social and ceremonial cultural practices, they need healthy environments, and MPAs exactly fit within that. They are a tool that's necessary.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

One of the concerns that has been brought up around this bill is that it doesn't contain any minimum standards at all for marine protected areas, so there's a group that apparently has been asked by government to come up with some of these minimum standards. I'm interested in your perspective on whether minimum protected standards for conservation areas should include—I'll read this list quickly—prohibitions on oil and gas, seabed mining, wind farms, tidal power development, open net-pen aquaculture, bottom trawling, and ocean waste dumping.

First of all, do you think there should be minimum standards applied to marine protected areas? Second, I'm interested in what prohibitions you think should be part of minimum standards.

If I have time, I'll ask both of you about that.

[Paul Kariya]

I think there are minimum standards. I'm a little careful in responding to that because there are different types of zones that we could be looking at in terms of activities.

Let me put it in the positive in saying that I think in all of the zones the first nations want to ensure that they can still carry on food, social, and ceremonial practices. If there are foods to be gathered—not for commercial purposes—they'd want to protect that.

I think that in terms of minimum standards for other activities, yes, there probably are lines to be drawn, and they would be supportive of that.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Is there time to ask our other guest that question as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Go ahead.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

It's on minimum standards.

[Christina Burridge]

Yes, I spoke briefly to that. Clearly, from a fishing perspective, we do believe that there are some things that don't belong in MPAs, but as I spoke about, I would not necessarily include bottom trawl in that. I might, depending on the area, but if you look at what we've done in B.C., you'll see that we have already protected such a huge amount of the bottom from bottom trawling that if we were going to lose another huge chunk we would worry that it would make a valuable fishery simply unworkable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Stetski.

Thank you, colleagues.

First of all, I want to thank our guests for exercising extreme patience with us and with what Mr. Miller so aptly described as our antics that take place here during the votes. I want to say thank you to the BC Seafood Alliance executive director, Christina Burridge, for joining us again. I also want to thank the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative senior policy adviser, Mr. Paul Kariya. Again, thanks to both of you.

Colleagues, thank you for your patience as well. Tomorrow morning there is no meeting. On Thursday, we return to regularly scheduled programming at 8:45 sharp.

The meeting is adjourned.