Fisheries Committee on Feb. 6th, 2018

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

Given the fish in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario, would you not call it a marine environment? It's certainly not a land environment.

[Philippe Morel]

It's not salted water, so it's not marine.

[Christie Chute]

It's aquatic.

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

Can you explain to me why salt water counts as marine life and fresh water doesn't? Does that make sense to anyone here? It doesn't to me.

[Philippe Morel]

From a fisheries management perspective, it's different. What we're talking about here is the mandate of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in regard to the protection and management of oceans, not inland waters.

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

Then why does DFO have control and input into freshwater areas like the Great Lakes and Georgian Bay?

[Christie Chute]

The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans still has the authority to manage fisheries within areas designated under Minister McKenna's authority, thus the national marine conservation areas. We do have the authority to manage those fisheries in NMCAs.

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

But you more or less said a few minutes ago that they're treated—

[Christie Chute]

But we are not pursuing Oceans Act marine protected areas in fresh water, because our legislation restricts us to the marine environment.

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

Okay, but somebody's got it on a map.

[Philippe Morel]

Yes: Parks Canada.

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

So it's a case of, “We don't know who's doing it, but it's not us”.

[Christie Chute]

It's Parks Canada.

[Philippe Morel]

It's Parks Canada. It's a national marine conservation area under Parks Canada, not Fisheries and Oceans.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Can I just stop it there for one second? When someone gets the floor to ask a question, he gets the floor. It's between him and the panel. Thank you very much.

Carry on, Mr. Miller.

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

Well, I guess I apologize for getting a little frustrated, but I thought we were going to get some answers on this, and really we're not. Passing the buck is not an answer, with all due respect.

I'll have to take it up with Parks Canada. I wonder when they're coming to this meeting and can be part of the study.

I don't even know where to go from here. It's so frustrating, because there has to be value on why we do these things. I am all for MPAs if it's done right. I don't have a problem with that. But when you just start labelling areas where there is no problem, I don't care who does it—it's all part of the MPA process—it's not right.

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have absolutely zero, sir.

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

That's what I figured.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

That said, here's what we'll do. As you may recall, usually when we have an abbreviated meeting, I like to get the first round done and get past the first question for the Conservatives. By doing that, we get 14 minutes for the government, 12 minutes for the official opposition, and seven minutes for the NDP. We've now fulfilled that.

Since this is the last witness round, I'll steal a phrase from your typical game show and suggest a “lightning” round. If you have something that is very specific—I'm asking you, please, very specific—you can ask one question. Put up your hand if you're interested in doing just that.

Okay, let's go in a circle and start with Ms. Jordan. Then we'll go to Mr. Arnold and Mr. Donnelly. We have about nine minutes left, so be very, very precise in your questioning.

Ms. Jordan, go ahead.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

We have now reached 7.75% of our target. We have heard continually that in order for an MPA to be effective it has to have enforcement. Have more resources been geared to enforcement now that we've had an increase in our targets and we've reached those? Has enforcement been funded properly?

[Philippe Morel]

There are more enforcement resources. They have increased a little bit over the last years. I don't have the numbers, because this is not in my sector, but for every MPA we designate, the appropriate monitoring and enforcement will be identified, whether it comes from a guardian or a province or from DFO.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Mr. Arnold.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the extra time here.

There's been some discussion around a mediation process within the development of the MPAs or areas of interest so that extreme conflicts between one side and the other can be mediated. What sort of conflict resolution process is there? Or is that something that needs to be improved?

[Philippe Morel]

There's no formal conflict resolution, and thus no administrative tribunal or something like that. What we're trying to do is share science with all stakeholders. We do listen to stakeholders and communities and indigenous people, and we try to reach consensus. In some cases, the explanations make it happen and we have consensus. In others, a fisheries association, for example, in the narwhal box or the haddock box, provided a lot of information that actually increased protection given the science we received from the fisheries industry.

All of that brings a consensus, and we try to have the support of the most people when doing an MPA or a protected area.