Fisheries Committee on June 9th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number eight of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on May 26, 2020, Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on June 1, 2020, the committee is proceeding to a briefing by the minister and the officials on the government's response to the Big Bar landslide.

Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings are public and are made available via the House of Commons website. So that you are aware, the webcast will show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.

For the benefit of members, the minister and witnesses, I would like to mention a few rules to follow.

Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of the screen of the floor, English, or French. As you are speaking, if you plan to alternate from one language to the other, you will need to switch the interpretation channel so that it aligns with the language you are speaking. You may want to allow for a short pause when switching languages.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can flick on the microphone icon to activate your mike. I remind everyone that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

Should members have a point of order, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order raised by another member, I encourage him or her to use the “raise hand” function. To do so, you should click on “participants” at the bottom of the screen. When the list pops up, you will see that you can click on “raise hand“ next to your name. This will signal to the chair your interest in speaking and will keep the names in chronological order.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. The use of headsets is strongly encouraged.

Should any technical challenges arise—for example, in relation to interpretation—or should a problem with your audio arise, please advise the chair immediately and the technical team will work to resolve the issue. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times, as we need to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.

Before we get started, can everyone click on the top right-hand corner of their screens to ensure they are on gallery view. With this view you should be able to see all the participants in grid view. It will ensure that all video participants can see one another.

I would now, of course, like to welcome our witnesses.

With us today we have the Hon. Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. Welcome, Minister.

Accompanying her today we have Timothy Sargent, deputy minister; Jean-Guy Forgeron, senior assistant deputy minister, strategic policy; Jen O'Donoughue, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer; Sylvie Lapointe, assistant deputy minister, fisheries and harbour management; Dominic Laporte, assistant deputy minister, human resources and corporate services; Mario Pelletier, commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard; Andy Smith, deputy commissioner, strategy and shipbuilding; and Rebecca Reid, regional director general, Pacific region.

I welcome each and every one of you. Thank you for attending. I know some of you have been here before. Of course, I'll give a big thank you to the minister for making herself available for two hours today.

Minister Jordan, you have the floor for your opening remarks, for six minutes or less, please.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, Minister of Fisheries]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be here with you today and to speak to the members of this committee as the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.

I would first like to congratulate you, Mr. McDonald, on your election as chair, and I thank the other members for serving on this very important committee. As you know, I've had the honour not only to serve on the committee but to serve as chair, and I will say that for those three and a half years, I enjoyed immensely working with you all.

I know how important it will be to listen to the advice of members of Parliament as we work together in the weeks, months and years ahead to manage the challenges and opportunities facing the fisheries and oceans sector.

I appreciate the invitation to discuss Canada’s commitment to our salmon fisheries and, in particular, the measures we have taken and will continue to take under very difficult circumstances caused by COVID-19 with respect to the landslide along the Fraser River at Big Bar in British Columbia.

I am accompanied today, as you mentioned, by Deputy Minister Tim Sargent; commissioner of the Coast Guard, Mario Pelletier; and many others. After my opening remarks, my officials and I will be happy to answer your questions.

As you know, the Government of Canada is committed to building strong partnerships to help manage our salmon fisheries. This commitment was clearly demonstrated by the unprecedented emergency response last summer to mitigate the impacts of the landslide at Big Bar, north of Lillooet, B.C.

We have been working hard and in close co-operation with the Province of British Columbia and impacted first nations. An incident command team, jointly led by the federal government, the Government of British Columbia and first nations governments worked together over the summer to respond to this crisis. The work continued over the fall, this past winter and spring and was supported by other departments and agencies, stakeholder groups, and geotechnical and hydrological experts.

I would like to stress that this group of dedicated professionals and volunteers has put long hours into dealing with this very complex logistical challenge.

In January, after a request for proposals, Peter Kiewit Sons ULC, was awarded a $17.6-million contract to work on rock remediation. This work involved building a road down the side of a mountain to gain access to the site to allow for removal of massive rocks. It involved water blasting of huge boulders so that they could remove obstructions and slow down the water flow.

My first trip to British Columbia as minister was to Big Bar in January so I could see first-hand the progress and work being done to address this critical slide. Initial blasting in February was followed by a second round of blasting that began in March. Road work continues in order to secure overland access and, throughout the process, an archeologist has been working directly with two local first nations, and they've been working hard to preserve the natural history of this site.

We all hoped the problem could be resolved quickly, but resolving the blockage has been a massive undertaking, and it is going to take considerable resources to address this adequately. Making sure we do everything possible to ensure the survival of these fish populations means we need to plan for every outcome and put mitigation measures in place. That's exactly what we are doing.

As minister, the protection, conservation and restoration of our wild Pacific salmon stocks in British Columbia is an extremely important priority for me. My actions are guided by Canada’s wild salmon policy implementation plan. This plan speaks to the importance of maintaining the biodiversity of these important stocks as well as their significance to indigenous people, commercial and recreational fish harvesters and British Columbians overall. Nearly half of B.C.’s chinook salmon stocks are in decline, with Fraser chinook on the verge of collapse. More than ever, we need to ensure that our wild stocks are protected.

The actions our government has taken to fully address the 75 recommendations of Justice Cohen’s 2012 report from the commission of inquiry into the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River have been integrated into our ongoing habitat, science, aquaculture and fisheries management work. As members of this committee are well aware, we've made a good start, but we have much more work to do to protect our wild Pacific salmon.

We are committed to working with the Province of British Columbia to ensure that Pacific salmon strategies are coordinated, coherent and connected. We collaborated closely to create the $142-million B.C. salmon restoration and innovation fund, a federal-provincial cost-shared program funded jointly with the Government of British Columbia. This fund will support the fish and seafood sector in British Columbia to position itself for long-term sustainability.

We made an additional contribution of $5 million to the Pacific salmon endowment fund to support the Pacific Salmon Foundation, which is doing incredible work and is an important voice in the development of plans and programming to protect and restore wild Pacific salmon and its habitat.

We announced $15 million in additional annual funding to support stock assessment, coded wire tagging and catch monitoring of Pacific salmon. These investments contribute to our obligations under the Canada-U.S. Pacific Salmon Treaty and are targeted towards better managing west coast salmon fisheries.

Last, we are investing $107 million to support the implementation of the renewed Fisheries Act, including money for stock assessments for major fish stocks across Canada.

As I mentioned at the outset, indigenous and coastal communities have been and will continue to be on the front line of salmon conservation. We will continue to work with first nations and other key stakeholders to improve our understanding of trends in salmon stocks, protect and conserve salmon habitats and ensure the sustainability of Canada’s salmon populations.

Last August, my department released the “State of the Canadian Pacific Salmon” report, the first-ever overview of how salmon are responding to climate change, in which DFO scientists presented and discussed observations and research on Pacific salmon populations and their ecosystems.

Over the next year and beyond, my department and I will expand our focus on these and other actions to preserve and rebuild Pacific salmon stocks with a real effort on measures to ensure that salmon recover and thrive for future generations of Canadians.

With that, Mr. Chair, I am happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Minister. You were a bit over the time, but I'm sure we'll make that up along the way.

We'll start now with our questioning. On the Conservative side, we have Mr. Arnold for six minutes or less, please.

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

Welcome back, Minister, to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. It's your first time back here as minister after spending a few years both as a member and the chair.

Now that you've been the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for half a year, what do you consider to be the four or five greatest threats to the future of the Fraser River salmon stocks?

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

First of all, Mr. Arnold, I very much appreciated working with you over the three and a half years I sat on the FOPO committee. I'm looking forward to the discussions we'll continue to have and the good relationships that we had over the past few years.

A number of different issues are facing the Fraser River salmon stocks. The Big Bar landslide of course is a significant one. The landslide was massive. It was 33 storeys high and 17 storeys wide, so we're talking about a significant impact on the Fraser River and on the ability of the stocks to move directly.

Climate change is obviously a challenge for the salmon stocks. We're also very concerned of course about the complete decline of the chinook specifically. We're doing everything we possible can to continue to address that. Of course, habitat restoration is going to be a challenge. Coastal restoration is a challenge as well.

These are all things we're actively working on to address the decline in the salmon stocks.

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

Thank you, Minister.

According to DFO, the landslide occurred somewhere between October and November of 2018, about 14 months before Peter Kiewit Sons was assigned the contract in the middle of January 2020. Within this 14-month window, we saw about two months of activity in July and August of 2019, but no work on restoration of the fish passage occurred until January 2020.

Current modelling has indicated that salmon may not be able to pass the site when flows are high. Flows are expected to be high this year because of the high snow pack, and there may be insufficient passage for the fish as a result.

Does the department have a plan for what needs to be done next if the fish passage doesn't happen naturally?

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

We have been actively working on remediation efforts since we were first notified about the slide, and automatically started working with the communities, the province and the first nation community last summer to move the salmon through the area as quickly as we could. Unfortunately, some of the work had to be put on hold because of the weather. During the fall there were high water levels and flooding. Once Peter Kiewit Sons was hired, work began immediately, as well as continual planning we were doing for the site.

One of the things we have done to mitigate the challenges is to set up two working groups. As the work is being done they are working on the next measures in case things don't work. We're continually looking at how we can best go forward. We know this is a huge undertaking. As I said, this was a massive slide and it's going to take a significant amount of work and resources to clear it, and we're continuing to look at different ways we can mitigate the challenges we're facing so that the Fraser River salmon can get through.

We know how critically important those fish are to the communities, as well as to the culture of British Columbia, so we continually look at other ways to address the concerns.

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

Thank you, Minister.

Does the department have a plan to restore the fish stocks that were basically wiped out because of the lack of passage last year? The Pacific salmon have a multi-year cycle; they only spawn once and then die. The spawning cycle that was lost last year will take years to recover.

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

Mr. Arnold, we're continuing to look at both long-term and short-term plans and measures to help with the recovery of the salmon stocks because of the Big Bar landslide. To help support many of the upper Fraser River salmon that are in a poor state, we're currently considering investigating emergency conservation enhancement options that include hatchery components.

It's important that we continue to consider all of those options as we go forward, and we're committed to supporting the recovery of these fish.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time is left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have 25 seconds.

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

Are there any more overflights of the river to ensure that fish passage isn't blocked?

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

Right now we have a number of different measures in place. We will start the Whooshh system, the pneumatic fish pump, which is being built right now, to get the fish over the passage, as well as a natural fish passageway. Those are just two of the measures.

We are continuing to look at other ways that we can help support to make sure that the fish can get through this year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

Now we move on to Mr. Hardie for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's good to see you, Minister Jordan. You used to sit right next to me and I'd get the benefit of your opinions up very close, in fact. It was good.

I want to start with the most recent news on this project, and then work backwards, which has to do with its cost. We went in with a contract with Peter Kiewit Sons for $17.6 million. The latest news is that it's going to be $52.5 million, and maybe even more.

Are these cost overruns per se, or has the scope of the project changed?

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

These would not be cost overruns, but measures that we know have to be put in place. We knew right from the start that this was going to be a significant project. The first phase was the contract with Kiewit Sons for the $17 million. Obviously, we hoped it would do everything it needed to do, but we knew right from the beginning that this was going to be a huge undertaking and that we would continue to find the ways necessary....

It's critical to make sure that these fish get through the passageway. This is something that we'll continue to work with the province on, as well as the first nation communities, because we know how important it is to make sure those fish get through.

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

Mr. Chair, we heard estimates that the slide may have occurred around early November 2018, and it wasn't even until, I guess, June last year that even the local communities noticed something was wrong.

What does this say about the need for, if you like, more constant and better monitoring of the state of the river?

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

I think one of the things that we have to remember is that this is an extremely remote location. This area is not monitored on a regular basis—even the local communities were not aware of the slide. As soon as we were aware of it, we moved very quickly to address the challenges that we saw.

The boots on the ground work that was done by the people in the first nation community, by DFO and by people from the province working to get the fish over the passageway last summer was very inspiring to see. Everybody came together with a common goal. They knew it had to be done, and over 60,000 fish were moved manually by this group of people.

I think that just goes to show how critically important this is and that people are willing to get on board and do whatever they have to do to make sure that the fish get through the passageway.

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

Speaking of boots on the ground, I understand that the minister's boots were on the ground very early on in the process during a delightful visit to this area in January. You had a first-hand look at the working conditions, in addition to the technical conditions of actually getting equipment down to the side of the river to do this work.

Paint a picture if you can as to what you saw when you were there, and how cold it was.

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

It was probably the coldest I've ever been outside.

I was sworn in at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon on a November day, and by about 4:30 I had heard about Big Bar. Therefore, this has been a priority for our department and me since the very start. It was important for me to get to Big Bar. I was fortunate enough to go with my parliamentary secretary, Terry Beech, to see the slide first-hand. It is a significant slide—it's almost unbelievable. It's really quite awe inspiring to see the amount of work that has to be done to clear that passageway. The slide itself, as I said earlier, was equivalent to a 33-storey high, 17-storey wide building.

I got to meet with the chiefs from the first nation communities while I was there. They, like me at first, were saying why don't we just move the rocks? It's not just a matter of moving a few rocks: it is going to take a huge effort to clear that passageway. It's been really quite a good story to tell about the amount of work that we've been able to do in co-operation with the first nation communities there, and the province, to make sure that we clear that passageway.

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

When we recognized there was an obstruction and worked to get salmon around the obstruction, a number of things were tried: scooping them up, trucking them up above the obstruction, etc. We understand that the survival rate of the fish that went through some of these processes was not good at all.

Given that there's still an obstruction there, have there been any estimates as to how many successful transplants we are going to be able to accomplish around this barrier?

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

Last year, we were able to move 60,000 fish with help and then 220,000 got through on their own. We are continuing to work now with what's known as the Whooshh system or the pneumatic fish pump, which we feel will have a significant impact on our being able to move more fish, as well as the natural fish passageway that's also being constructed at this point.

I don't know, Deputy, if you have anything you would like to add there with regard to what we're expecting to see go through this summer.

[Timothy Sargent, Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

I'd like to pass it on to our RDG from the Pacific region.

[Rebecca Reid, Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

I can provide a response to that. What we're expecting this year is relatively low returns of chinook stocks and sockeye as well. We aren't expecting a lot of fish to come through, but we are ready with enhancement measures so that when the fish arrive, we'll be able to support them and take them to some hatchery facilities to ensure maximum spawning success.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

Madam Gill, I understand you're giving your time to Mr. Arnold for six minutes.

Mr. Arnold, when you're ready, please.