Evidence of meeting #95 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was habitat.
A video is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Aquatic Ecosystems Sector, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I see hundreds and thousands of responses from the department—
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Aquatic Ecosystems Sector, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
—that we provide on time, in the best way we can to provide information to Canadians. I don't know about this particular letter that MP Sopuck referred to, but we will look at it and see why there are delays. There are always reasons for delays. Is it that the information provided was incomplete? Did we need to investigate? I cannot provide you with the answer on this particular case, but we certainly have standards—
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Could I just stop you there? Mr. Morel, these are my five minutes.
On a point that you made, I don't expect you to personally know all of them—of course not, you can't possibly—or the minister. The minute Mr. Sopuck brought that up there should have been people sitting in here, there should have been emails flying, saying, “Get that minister a response this afternoon.”
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Miller. Your time is up.
Very quickly, please, Mr. Morel....
Assistant Deputy Minister, Aquatic Ecosystems Sector, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
If I could...because it's to the credibility of my team. With due respect, I didn't take my BlackBerry to send an email, but Nick was sitting there and he told me that he already sent an email to follow up. I did also put a big X next to Mr. Sopuck's comments. We're taking that seriously. Sometimes it takes more time to answer the question because we want to provide the right answer. It's not because we're not respecting Canadians, or MPs, or MLAs.
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Morel.
Because we are down to the last five minutes, I'm going to give Mr. Rogers one question and Mr. Donnelly one question, and then everyone will have had their turn. Then we have to go over to the Wellington Building.
Mr. Rogers, you have one question, please.
Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, Lib.
All right, I have just a brief question. I'm not sure how long the answer will take. It's a direct question. Have sections 32, 35, and 36 been re-examined for the purpose of environmental assessment triggers?
Director General, Ecosystems Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
As it stands, they are not triggers of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Bill C-69 is the act that deals with that. I would note, though, that fisheries are a significant trigger for environmental assessment. Not in the way that it was prior to 2012, with a trigger coming from a law list regulation, but fisheries are still a major issue that triggers an environmental impact assessment. It's just not defined in the way that it was prior to 2012 in those three sections.
Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, Lib.
I asked that question specifically because I sit on the environment committee.
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
Thank you very much, Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Donnelly, you'll have the final question, please.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Just to follow up on Mr. Rogers' question, could we get the difference between the two pieces of legislation sent to the committee? I'd be very interested in knowing how the Fisheries Act is a trigger or not.
I want to come back to Mr. Sopuck's question about habitat banking. He's talking about opening up damage in one watershed to compensation and enhancement in another watershed, potentially kilometres away, which for me is also very distressing. At a local level, we want to see that watershed intact for fisheries.
Mr. Winfield, you were referencing that you were open to the idea of broadening that idea of basically allowing one watershed to be totally destroyed and then sometimes enhancing another watershed, and it could be beyond capacity in some issues.
Director General, Ecosystems Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
What I referred to is a service level area, which is essentially an ecosystem within the general area of the activity. It's not to say going from one province to another province or thousands of miles away. It's simply to say that it's broader than the site of the impact and it has to be on a scale that addresses the types of fish populations that are being impacted by a project within that vicinity.
Director General, Ecosystems Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
This is all to be developed.
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
Thank you very much, Mr. Donnelly.
I want to thank our officials for being here today.
We will reconvene in 15 minutes in room 320, Wellington Building, in a new meeting.
The meeting is adjourned.