Fisheries Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay, thank you.

I was pleased to see owner-operator put into the act. On the east coast, in Newfoundland especially, a lot of people pushed hard to make sure that's in there. Previously I think it was regarded as a policy that would be in force, but it was never in the act itself and I don't think it had any teeth in it to enforce it at all previously.

How will that look going forward and how will you enforce it, because people tell me all you have to do is look up the registration of a particular vessel and you'll see who it's registered to, who's the actual owner. Are we going to start checking to make sure people are abiding by the owner-operator policy, and how will we go about doing that and enforcing it?

[Mark Waddell]

As a first step, the amendment is an enabling amendment so we will be developing regulations to develop principles for moving our policies, for inshore policies, owner-operator, fleet separation and preserving the independence in the Canadian fleet of Atlantic Canada, into regulation. We will be consulting with stakeholders on that, getting their feedback on the regulatory development, and then once we have regulations, our fisheries officers will be able to enforce those regulations.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

I want to bring to the attention of committee commercial vessel registration policy just to show the contrast of how it's managed from one area to the other. I had a fisherman ask for a copy of the policy, one of them who appeared before committee recently. They checked, and in the response they got back one part was particularly interesting. It said that registered vessels may be specified as a condition of the licence and registered in the licence-holder's name for a minimum period of one month, except in the Newfoundland region, where the minimum period is 12 months.

Can anyone explain why there's a difference? Why would there be such a vast difference from one province to the other? To me, DFO is coast to coast to coast, yet you have these little differences from as close as one province to the other. Can anybody explain that policy to me or that regulation?

[Mark Waddell]

I believe that the committee has been reviewing that over the last several meetings and the rationale for that at the time was the consultation with fleets in Newfoundland. I look forward to the report coming out of this committee and providing us guidance on how to proceed going forward.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

We've been watching what's going on on the Hill. It's not quite as busy as we thought it was going to be, so we're going to try to get to everybody on the list. Could we keep it within the time?

Next up, we have Mr. Sopuck for five minutes, please.

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

I want to thank my colleague, Mr. McDonald, for bringing up the point that we don't have to be aboriginal to have traditional knowledge. I have many aboriginal communities in my constituency and I also have many farmers, ranchers, anglers, hunters, and trappers who are as knowledgeable as anybody about the natural world, so I appreciate, Mr. Morel, that their knowledge is going to be given equal consideration.

In my first iteration, I had a specific case in mind, but I'm going to talk about other things. I just hope you heard about the case I referred to on the Assiniboine and will look into it.

On a more positive note, I must say, I really like the idea of codes of practice. I think that's a smart move, but I would urge you to make them as clear as possible. For instance, culvert design is something I've been involved with so that fish can go through culverts. They can be designed a certain way, so just make sure that project proponents know exactly what they need to do in terms of water velocities and so on. I really like the codes of practice.

I also like the introduction of habitat banking. It has the potential to replace this no net loss idea. No net loss almost implied you had to recreate something that maybe was altered. It's almost impossible to recreate nature exactly. In terms of habitat banking, will you offer a flexibility to proponents and allow for off-site mitigation? Let's say some habitat was damaged in point A and point B happens to be 40 or 50 kilometres away but there's a place there where you could really do significant fish enhancement work to take care of what happened, to compensate for what happened at point B. Will you be flexible in the implementation of habitat banking and off-site mitigation?

[Nicholas Winfield]

In answer to your question, yes, it's a very flexible scheme. The idea, as set in the statute, is to enable proponents to identify early opportunities to restore habitats and create a habitat bank. Those banks are maintained, and the credit ledger is maintained in such a way that it can be used in other areas.

The objective is to try to keep it within a service level area—that's the terminology used—so it is within an ecosystem type but not necessarily at the same site as an impacting project.

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

My advice would be to make the service area as large as possible and to take into consideration what people want in terms of fisheries. When I look at Alberta, for example, the mitigation I saw there in the oil sands was miles away from most communities, whereas southern Alberta is starved for fish, given how many people there are and the lack of water bodies.

If you also use fish production as a metric in addition to habitat and are very flexible, you have the potential to unleash millions of proponent dollars to do some very creative fish enhancement in places where people actually want it to be done.

If you could make a comment about what I just said, I'd appreciate it.

[Nicholas Winfield]

I concur. I think we agree in terms of the design. The statute simply provides the framework, but in terms of the policy direction we are very much open for input.

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

There are cases where significant habitat alteration can result in significantly increased fish production. For example, when you look at prairie reservoirs, a dam is constructed and a reservoir is made. The most popular fish in that neck of the woods is the walleye, and when a reservoir is made, the walleye population just booms. The productivity skyrockets. It's called the reservoir effect, as you well know. A single-minded focus on just habitat, habitat, habitat also has to reflect fish production, if you know what I mean. I'm not saying it quite as clearly as I should, perhaps.

Could you comment on that last point? Then I'll stop.

[Nicholas Winfield]

The factors to consider, which previously were section 6, have been amended to include a broader set of objectives. One of them is fisheries management objectives. If the provincial and federal governments and other fishery managers agree that the objective for the area would be walleye, this would be something we would support in terms of using it for enhancement capabilities.

However, the act is not built upon a habitat-for-habitat equation. It's built upon a fisheries objective setting, and then our decisions are intended to achieve those objectives.

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

Great. Thank you very much.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Winfield. Thank you, Mr. Sopuck.

Mr. Finnigan, please, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I just want to talk about the code of practice. I've been involved in farming all my life, and I had a personal experience where we had to build a little bridge over a brook to get to another field. At the time—I'm talking about seven years ago—the permit was issued by the province. It was very accommodating. I was able to do it without an engineering plan. I just had to follow some of the basic steps. It was given by the province.

Now, this river ends up flowing into the ocean. I just wonder where the overlap is between the province and the federal government, because after that I had to get permission from DFO to finalize my permit. I would like you to elaborate on how this all works with the provincial permitting.

[Nicholas Winfield]

DFO has collaborative arrangements with the provinces. They vary from province to province with respect to who goes first. In the eastern provinces in particular, for any watercourse alteration permit, the province leads, and we have established advice that the province uses that meets the federal requirement.

Our long-term objective is to ensure that we develop codes of practice that can be communicated by either a provincial, municipal, or federal department. The idea is that, at the end of the day, fisheries are protected. We're not trying to create more bureaucracy to achieve the same outcome.

The general objective for any stream crossing is to allow passage of fish and protection of fish habitats. They often do not require a federal authorization, because if designed correctly, they allow fish to pass and don't cause harm to habitats. Our end goal is to achieve the objective of conserving fisheries, not to create paperwork to permit and authorize these things.

Permits for stream crossings are very, very rare. They're typically for large-scale projects that cause harm. Our goal is to avoid harm to fish and fish habitats, and the best way to do that is to provide standard advice and guidance as early as possible in collaboration with provincial and municipal regulators and permit issuers.

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

In my case they just came at the end and made sure that everything was there. Is that generally how it works? You again work with the province on standard practices but....

[Nicholas Winfield]

Yes. The federal government typically only gets involved if there is unavoidable harm to fish and fish habitat.

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

Okay.

Following on from Mr. Sopuck and the habitat credits, in New Brunswick, they have been working with Ducks Unlimited, for instance, where there is no wetland or any habitat loss. I think it's still the case and they have been doing that for a long time. The way it has worked, even when the provincial government has had to cut a road through the forest, they have been working with them. Again, they have to recreate another habitat. You can also, if I'm correct, buy your way. They will say, for $50,000 we will use that and we will recreate another habitat somewhere to make sure that provincially we don't lose any habitat.

Are you aware of that, and is that what we're moving into compared to the Province of New Brunswick?

[Nicholas Winfield]

The Fisheries Act does not permit the exchange of money for habitat loss. The only opportunity is the habitat banking scheme that MP Sopuck referred to. Essentially a proponent can create habitat and pay for it. There is no exchange of money with the federal government. In some jurisdictions they have an environmental damages fund. We don't have that as a scheme for permitting approvals of projects.

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

Thank you.

Quickly, we have talked about the traditional knowledge and community knowledge a bit. At the end of the day how much weight do you give that compared with our science-based knowledge? If the two should ever clash, either community knowledge or traditional indigenous knowledge, how do you work around that? How is that all going to work out?

[Philippe Morel]

There's no priority. The minister has to take into consideration everything that is on the table. He has to take into consideration and make his mind up about which one he thinks prevails according to the objective of the act to protect fish and fisheries and fish habitat. There's no priority or listing of any kind in the act.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Morel.

We will now go to Mr. Miller, please, for five minutes.

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

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, gentlemen, for being here.

One of the alarming parts of Bill C-68 is the return to HADD. I'm sure you're all familiar with that. I've heard from a number of groups that are concerned that these changes will actually slow down development and recreate the confusing and quite inconsistent process that was in place prior to the changes being made in 2012. The confusing part about all of this is that the government hasn't really explained what specific protections are being lost.

Mr. Arnold referred earlier to an Order Paper question that he had, and the minister in the department has said that the has heard concerns from outside groups about lost protections, but you don't actually give any sort of explanation of what is actually being lost here. How can you explain that?

You basically ignored his question, or didn't answer, ragged the puck—I'll use whatever term—but you haven't given any examples.

I only have five minutes, so I ask you to be brief.

[Nicholas Winfield]

Sure. The main point of clarification is that in the 2012 changes there was a focus on commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries, so the Fisheries Act is being amended to capture all fish that may contribute to a fishery. The way in which species are used by humans changes over time. First of all, commercial, recreational, and aboriginal were perceived to be quite static. It was, which fish are fished at this period in time? The amendments to the act cover all fish and it allows for more consideration of emerging fisheries, for example.

The second issue is around active fisheries versus fisheries that may not have been harvested, or have not had a history of harvest. When we look at northern lakes, for example, where there may have been no activity, under the current act there is some question around whether or not those areas are protected because of the active fishery versus the future potential fishery. This act seeks to ensure conservation of fisheries for the future.

The third issue, in terms of the question around evidence, is that the department has not been looking at projects that have not been referred to the department. There has been a reduction by several thousand projects that the department simply doesn't look at to be able to answer your question.

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

You still haven't given examples. The minister wouldn't give them, either. I guess we're not going to get them.

I want to move back to issues being dealt with that are brought to DFO. We heard Mr. Sopuck's example, where a minister of the crown in Manitoba contacted DFO five months ago and still has not even had an acknowledgement or a response. That's totally unacceptable—I think you have to agree with that—yet it was brushed off by the minister as to getting a response.

I believe you were here when I mentioned the situation in my riding, in Meaford, where a storm knocked out part of the wharf last September. Here we are now, in April, almost May, seven or eight months from then, with sailing season approaching us, and the best DFO can say is, “We'll pay for some of it, up to a certain amount.”

Do you really think that this is dealing with people in a respectful and proper way? It's a pretty simple, short answer.