Evidence of meeting #13 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fish.
A video is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for six minutes or less, please.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank everybody for being here.
Mr. Fraser, the studies you mentioned, the reviews, didn't necessarily pass everybody's sniff test in terms of what was studied, how it was studied and the conclusions that came out.
First of all, who actually did the study, the recent ones that were cited, toward the end of September when the decisions on Discovery Islands were due to be made?
4 p.m.
Executive Director, BC Salmon Farmers Association
That's conducted through the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat. It's a panel that is administered through the Government of Canada.
My understanding is that half the scientists associated with the secretariat are with government, and the other half, more or less, are outside government, in the academic community and elsewhere.
4 p.m.
Liberal
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay.
I understand that the studies themselves weren't agreed to unanimously. There were people who questioned some of the findings. Others supported them.
Do you know what gaps existed between the two sides of the people participating in the study?
4 p.m.
Executive Director, BC Salmon Farmers Association
I'm not sure. I understand that those processes are in camera with the scientists as part of their consultation with one another. All we know is that when the review was announced, like when a pope is chosen, we all know and then there is a very detailed analysis provided. In this case, it's actually about 300 or 400 pages. There is a lot of information.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
The smoke comes out of the chimney. Yes, I understand that process.
I understand, too, that the focus of these studies was on viruses and that a number of individual viruses were studied but not necessarily the cumulative impact of perhaps the presence of more than one virus in the farms themselves, the operations, and the impact on the wild salmon.
It was my understanding that what wasn't studied at all was sea lice, which is cited by people who you know well, such as Alexandra Morton, as being one of the fundamental issues that will be affecting wild salmon.
Were sea lice studied as part of this review?
4 p.m.
Executive Director, BC Salmon Farmers Association
These are good questions that you should probably be asking the department. They conducted their review. However, I gather as well that sea lice was not factored as a risk assessment coming through the Cohen commission looking at migrating sockeye. However, sea lice is a condition of licence and there are exhaustive studies and reviews ongoing with sea lice. Not to paraphrase them, but I think the department was quite clear about why it wasn't part of this particular review, because it's an ongoing area of research and evaluation.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
And it's an ongoing area of concern, very clearly, right?
4 p.m.
Executive Director, BC Salmon Farmers Association
It's an ongoing area of concern, absolutely, which is why the companies have invested tremendous amounts of money and environmentally focused technology to help mitigate the concerns. I'm really quite impressed by the effort right now on the coast.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I have many more questions for you and hopefully will get to some of them, but I want to talk to a couple of your colleagues here as witnesses.
Mr. Young, is the situation that the processors are facing now—these poor seasons, which you mentioned have been the standard for most of the last decade or more—due to problems with access to fish, or are there simply not enough fish to go around?
4 p.m.
Vice-President, Fisheries and Corporate Affairs, Canadian Fishing Company
I would have to say it's a combination; it really is. There are fewer fish returning, but even when they do return—over a million returns to the Skeena, and the commercial sector got to harvest at a 1.2% level—the catch is very tiny.
Sometimes, then, the fish are coming back and we're still not getting access.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Fair enough.
Mr. Bird, you have focused quite a bit on the whole issue of hatchery salmon. We have heard very clearly that British Columbia—Canada—should be doing what they do in Washington state, which is to tag or mark the hatchery salmon.
The purpose of a hatchery, though, isn't to provide fish for people to catch. I thought the purpose of a hatchery was to help rebuild stocks that have been in trouble. Is this your understanding or not?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia
That's absolutely an element of how hatcheries can function and can aid in enhancement projects, certainly. It is actually a fairly strong argument to move towards 100% marking of hatchery production that is understood not to be related to enhancement.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Does it matter? If you catch the fish, that fish doesn't get to spawn and make more fish. Does it matter whether it's hatchery or wild?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia
If you have marked all of the fish that you understand are eligible, so to speak, for harvest, and you have other enhancement projects that are hatchery enhanced and you don't mark those fish, then you save those ones harmless in—
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
—but this brings us full circle. The purpose of a hatchery is to help rebuild stocks, not necessarily to provide fish for people to catch.
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia
The purpose of a hatchery, as I understand it, is to serve a number of functions. Among them is enhancing stocks, certainly, but it's also in order to provide opportunities for harvest. That's the whole idea of Robertson Creek Hatchery, and on and on it goes.
The idea is that you're serving a number of different functions, depending on what system you're dealing with. Again, if you turn towards 100% marking, that marking provides some excellent opportunities to enhance systems that currently don't have any kind of enhancement and may desperately need it, and that do not mark those fish. They are treated in all circumstances as wild fish.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Hardie.
We will now go to Madam Gill for six minutes or less, please.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank all the witnesses for being with us.
I'd like to address my first question to you, Mr. Young. When you spoke earlier, I had the impression that we were at a crossroads. In terms of salmon, you talk about one good year in the last six years. You talked about the gaps in science and the management that needs to change, and the need for a comprehensive plan in the short, medium and long term.
What steps do you think Fisheries and Oceans Canada should take to ensure the viability of the Pacific salmon fishing industry?
4:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Fisheries and Corporate Affairs, Canadian Fishing Company
For the most part we need the science done, first of all. I think there are long-term matters, climatic and everything else, but in the short term I think we need the science, and we need it to be responsive so that we can harvest the excess amounts of fish and bring the economics to bear.
The other part is there is no doubt there are too many harvesters on our coast right now. We need to look at that and decide how we're going to let people retire from the industry with some sort of dignity and some sort of retirement plan such that they can sell their licences. There are no buyers right now.
I think there are some short term and medium term...and in the long term hopefully it recovers. Maybe it's by ocean ranching, as in Alaska, or maybe it's other things, but there are lots of things we can look at.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
Mr. Young, the study before we were in a pandemic.
Has the pandemic heightened the urgency of establishing an action plan?
4:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Fisheries and Corporate Affairs, Canadian Fishing Company
You know, in fairness, probably not; for most of us, I think, as we've gone along, being deemed an essential service during the pandemic has been very useful. It has allowed us to have our boats out harvesting and bringing the fish back in. It was tough in the plants, keeping workers in there, but I think these are longer-term issues that we have to start on now.