Fisheries Committee on Aug. 11th, 2020

[Ken Pearce]

We're just out to bring them back into balance.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

What would you say to political entities that scream and yell about the restoration of salmon but also scream and yell, “Don't touch the seals”? What would you say their net effect is on the salmon populations?

[Ken Pearce]

I have two answers to that.

First is the financial answer. We've heard that a lot of money is being spent on habitat and whatnot. My first question is, are you happy with 50% or more of that money being eaten by seals in their first month or two in the ocean?

The second answer, of course, is that the seals and the southern resident orcas are not compatible, because of the consumption rate by the seals of the orca's preferred food, chinooks. There are just not enough. You can't have both; it's one or the other. What do you want?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Pearce.

Mr. Snyder, notwithstanding the background that you see behind me, I'm going to ask you whether you believe anglers and hunters play a very important and vital role in the conservation of fish and wildlife species.

[Dustin Snyder]

Yes, I believe very much so, actually. At the Spruce City Wildlife Association, I am focused on the fish side of things, but we do have wildlife projects going on as well. We're very involved in the caribou situation around here and that sort of thing.

Again, I'd like to tie that back to giving people something to lose. I have some friends who live in the Lower Mainland, and when they take a long drive all the way up to Prince George to come see me, they don't notice if they don't see a moose for the whole drive. If I drive all the way to Vancouver and don't see a moose, it stands out to me. That's an appreciation for the species.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

That's fair enough. I think you and I are always looking off the road when we're driving to see what we can see. I'm no different from you.

I know there's—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I want to talk about spawning channels, Mr. Chair. Nobody has talked about spawning channels yet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Well, I can't help that. I don't decide on the questions or the answers.

Mr. Hardie, you have five minutes or less, please.

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

Let's let Mr. Calkins ask that question.

Never let it be said I never did anything for you, Blaine.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I appreciate that, Ken.

I want to talk to Mr. Snyder, and of course to our good old friend Fin.

It's good to see you, Fin.

There was a lot of talk about hatcheries. Mr. Snyder, you mentioned that maybe there is no effectiveness for a large-scale hatchery in the area where you are, but maybe some of the smaller community-based hatcheries.... Fin, I think you would agree with that as well. There are also spawning channels.

I'd like to get input from both of you, from your respective groups and organizations and the people you work with. If hatcheries are going to be part of a solution for restoring stocks, where are the opportunities for more spawning channels so that fish reared in a hatchery will have a better opportunity at an enhanced natural spawning channel when they return, if they get to return?

[Dustin Snyder]

I'll quickly start.

Spawning channels do work in quite a few areas. However, they're also kind of forced into a situation now. Where we are, there is a significant bear population and an increasing grizzly population, and these things kind of end up as big food troughs. In this case, I would more so support a natural spawning habitat area where fish have a better chance to defend themselves and escape and can use their preferred habitat, as opposed to a kind of habitat that we have distinctly forced them into, if that makes sense.

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

If I can, I'll interject now, because I have one other question, Blaine, that I'd like to ask Ms. Morton.

We've been speaking a lot about the lower reaches of British Columbia, and the Fraser River, the Salish Sea, etc., but we've seen the same kinds of declines up in Meziadin, along the Nass and the Skeena and everywhere else, where we don't have the same conditions that we've been talking about in the lower part of the province. What's going on there?

[Alexandra Morton]

I know that in 2013, 5% of the fish in the Skeena and the Lower Nass were infected with this piscine reovirus. However, if we want to answer that question, we need a director of wild salmon. We need somebody to pick up the genomic profiling tools. If you were to sample all the fish in British Columbia as they come and go on this coast, their immune systems would light up at intervals. You could go back to those spots and see what caused that, and you could try to fix it. Then the next year you can ask the salmon again, “Did we make it better or not?”

We could answer the questions in the Nass. This genomic profiling is also phenomenally powerful in hatcheries. This is from Dr. Kristi Miller-Saunders's lab at the Pacific Biological Station, in Nanaimo. This is an enormous tool for restoring wild salmon that is simply not being picked up.

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

We'll be looking forward to the opportunity to ask her about that.

Is there any place on the coast that would be safe for open-net aquaculture?

[Alexandra Morton]

No. We looked for it. The problem is that the industry is based on share price, so they have to grow every single year. They will never be satisfied with five, 10 or 1,000 farms. They always have to have more farms, and through torturous talks with the industry years ago, we realized that wild salmon and farm salmon need the same environment. Somebody put this industry into the biggest wild salmon migration routes of this coast and, not surprisingly, it's not going well.

This just needs to start over and get out into the recycling tanks, with closed containment, which more and more business people are investing in around the world.

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

Thank you for that.

I'll move to the health of the herring stock. We noticed on the east coast that the herring are starting to not look very good. They look unhealthy. They're skinny and they're not a good food source for the cod, and we've had problems with our runs here.

Is it the health of the herring or simply the number of them that is creating the problem here, Ms. Morton?

[Alexandra Morton]

It's both. We have a massive herring die-off going on right now in the Queen Charlotte Strait. I know DFO is not researching it, but I'm trying to take samples. We also have the industry catching a large number of them. Again, if we use the genomic science, we could find out exactly what the problems are. There's really no need to guess anymore.

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

That's fine for me. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We'll now go to Madame Gill, for two and a half minutes, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Pearce.

First of all, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Pearce. It's always interesting to hear from people who have direct experience, in this case fishers. I'm very sensitive to the seal situation in Quebec, as are my friends from the Magdalen Islands.

I'd like to talk about the potential obstacles. The seal harvest project you're suggesting is quite ambitious. Based on the scientific data, it would be one of the solutions in the case of salmon.

What obstacles might you face? As I said, it's an ambitious project. Are the fishers ready? There's also the whole issue of the market and the international aspect. Could you give me a general description of how you see things?

[Ken Pearce]

Thanks for the question. It's very easily answered.

First of all, the harvesting is a no-brainer. We have all the infrastructure in place with the unemployed fishers and their large vessels. We've talked to several of the processing plants, including one on Vancouver Island, Hub City Fisheries. Their leader is a board member.

There are two markets. The one we initially started getting a very positive response from was the Asian market, specifically the Chinese and the Japanese market. It's broken down into pelts, meat and oil, but it's closed right now because of COVID. We started poking around the commercial sector, and bingo: There's a five-million-pound commercial bait requirement for commercial prawn fishermen and crab fishermen. We have talked to several first nations people who have used this bait and they've said it's fantastic.

In my opinion, this is a no-brainer, because the infrastructure is already in place to handle this situation. We just need a green light to go out and, again, bring it back into balance, and then assess.

I hope that answers your question.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Yes, perfectly. Thank you very much, Mr. Pearce.

My time is up, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Gill.

We'll now go to Mr. Johns, for two and a half minutes or less, please.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, again, Ms. Morton, for the important work you're doing in fighting to protect wild salmon on coastal British Columbia waters.

We talked about the Cohen commission and some of its recommendations. Right now, in the current model, DFO is there to both regulate and promote the sector. Justice Cohen made it very clear that this is a conflict. Now we're hearing from the minister that she's addressing all 75 recommendations made by the Cohen commission, including recommendation 19, which is about moving the fish farms out of the Broughton Archipelago if there's any impact on wild stocks. As Ms. Morton articulated, the science isn't there for this year, but science from previous years would be able to justify and articulate that there is a serious impact on wild migrating salmon.

Ms. Morton, can you speak about the Cohen commission and whether you believe the government is actually addressing all 75 recommendations, and maybe give a grade on how they're doing on the implementation of those recommendations?