Fisheries Committee on Dec. 9th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins. You've gone way over, actually.

We'll go to Mr. Hardie now for five minutes or less, please.

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

Oh, my goodness—so many questions and so little time.

I'm looking at Cohen recommendation number 4, which said that they were to create a new position in the Pacific region at the associate regional director general level with responsibility for developing and implementing the wild salmon policy, supervising the expenditure of funds and so on. It's been all these years. I've had the opportunity to ask them two if not three times why they have not established this position. Based on what I heard you say on my first question, can I suggest that the position should not exist in the DFO?

If it shouldn't exist in the DFO, should it exist, period? If so, where? Does anybody have a comment on that?

[Robert Chamberlin]

I'll jump in.

This is a great example of what I just mentioned. The government can say that they have “acted upon” that recommendation, but disregarding it or dismissing it is acting upon it. It's not implementing.

I believe that with the set of recommendations being as broad as they are, there is a need for such a position, whether it's inside DFO or inside first nations. I think if the government wants to get very serious about the concepts of reconciliation and the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, we have to think outside of the box. We can't think within the confines of existing structures. We would need to create a position that is of equal status to what you just described for first nations to be a linkage between the three levels of government, those being federal, provincial and first nations.

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

Actually, I'd like to build on that a little bit, Robert, and I'll invite the others to chime in.

We've had a situation on the east coast with the lobster fishery, and we've spent a lot of very productive time studying that. One of the things that has emerged—at least, from my observation of it—is that there hasn't been sufficient collaboration between indigenous and non-indigenous fishers to try to sort things out so that you come to an accommodation and an arrangement that works. What is your reading on the state of that relationship in British Columbia? For instance, if we were to turn all of this over to you guys to do, would you be in a position to marshal the energy and the creativity of the non-indigenous fishers to get their contribution to this situation?

[Robert Chamberlin]

I would think that, yes, we could, given the fact that we have Supreme Court law that gives footing for the government to act and to pursue reconciliation on something that's so heavily nested inside the United Nations declaration and given the crisis that is Pacific salmon. Of course, if we were just talking Cohen, we would be talking about Fraser sockeye, but we're talking about Pacific salmon across the province.

What DFO has done with the programs and so on that they've moved forward with, be it AAROM or AFS, is they've compartmentalized the discussion to different pieces around the province, whereas we need a very broad and cohesive plan informed by first nations, but that's not going to happen unless there's a key decision and resourcing made from the government to facilitate such a bringing together of all the technical pieces and formulating it into a province-wide strategy, which then can be brought together with the federal and provincial governments.

As well, of course, the message of reconciliation is not just a Crown initiative but something that needs to be communicated to society at large. I think the salmon and the rebuilding can be a unified experience for streamkeepers, for commercial fishermen and sport fishermen. They've all been brought together, primarily this past year that I've worked on it, in relationship to the fish farm impacts. It's something to build upon that we could capitalize on right now, if we were serious about it, if the government was.

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

I want to run through a list of the conditions that I think are contributing to the problem that we have.

The factors in the abundance of fish have to do with fishing effort, predation, climate change and habitat—change in habitat or destruction of habitat. Is there anything else? Are we missing anything off that list that we also have to think about when it comes to restoring abundance in salmon?

Do you have any thoughts?

[Clifford Atleo Sr.]

I think that we need to actually connect all the dots. Society is a label society, and it works to our disadvantage when we try to deal with rebuilding, because all of those things that you've mentioned are interrelated. The habitat is important, and of course the management is also important. In our view, management is not accountable to anyone. They're not accountable, and that should never be with any government agency responsible for natural resources. When the government makes a mistake in management, who do they answer to? No one. That should never be.

We never had that in our history of governance of first nations people. We made sure we looked after and eliminated housing concerns, hunger concerns. We looked after everything. The government needs to actually adopt that principle.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie. You've gone way over time.

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

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to put this question to all the chiefs.

Forgive me for being blunt, but we have just finished studying the crisis in Nova Scotia. It is still going on there, because there is still no conclusion.

As an elected official, I am concerned about people's welfare. A lot of parallels between the two situations can be established, although they are very different. But the fact remains that we are talking about livelihoods and rights. So, since prevention is better than cure, and since we want to prevent the same thing from happening again, I would like to know whether you, who are on the front lines, feel any tensions in terms of that situation.

[Robert Chamberlin]

I'll jump in. Thank you very much for your question.

I think we need to understand where the man-made, government-controlled opportunities to effect change are, in whatever industry it may be that is harming wild salmon. We are challenged with global warming, a warming ocean, and a lack of food, things that we can't reach out and change, but there are things we can change. I think a strong partnership federally and provincially would be beneficial, because many of the contributors to the demise are provincial, whether it's forestry, mining or farming. We need to come together and provide the resources necessary. As I believe Cliff identified earlier, what has come forward is a pittance, because $120 million over five years is not going to do what's necessary.

Thank you for your question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Chief McNeil, you had your hand up.

[Chief Tyrone McNeil]

I will respond in the context of Bill C-15. Quite often we're educating everybody, including commercial and recreational fishers, on our rights, for example, regarding Sparrow. The federal government should be assisting us in that role, because if it's first nations standing alone, like on the east coast, you're going to get that racist attack by the public, but if we have the federal government standing with us, with an understanding of what our rights are, and moving that forward, bringing our local rights to bear, we could actually bring the province in with a similar conversation.

We could have a tripartite agreement between British Columbia first nations and the federal government in a collective, positive, forward-looking way, as opposed to being reactive to an uneducated public later on down the road, which is so harmful. Let's educate them collaboratively.

[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, Mr. Chair.

Wickaninnish, can you speak about the precautionary principle and how DFO has applied that to herring or to PRV and sea lice in terms of fish farms, forage fish, a whole-of-ecosystem approach, and in terms of management?

[Clifford Atleo Sr.]

Oh, my gosh, have you got a whole day?

I think the government agencies have often used words to appease the public in terms of what is actually going to happen, and this term came around, “precautionary principle”. The assumption is that you're going to be more careful in how you manage, and we've never witnessed that. We've never seen them actually apply that principle, whether it's to do with actual fish management or herring fisheries or fish farms. In fact, the reality is that the government was actually funding the growth and development of fish farms, while actual management funds were being decreased considerably coast to coast to coast. That's something many people don't look at. In fact, the budget for the fish farms was going up and management monies were going down.

That doesn't add up and it doesn't make sense. It doesn't add up to actually upholding what your law says you're supposed to do.

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

Can you speak about the fish farms a little bit? What would you like to see happen in terms of protecting wild stocks and with the fish farms that are in Clayoquot Sound, for example?

[Clifford Atleo Sr.]

Well, I don't know when people are going to start paying attention to what actually is happening and what has been happening. Cohen revealed it, reported on it and recommended accordingly, and what have we done? The date came and went. Nothing has happened. There has been no contribution of any kind of investment to shore-based facilities. There was only one on Vancouver Island, and it stopped there.

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

Bob, did you want to add anything?

[Robert Chamberlin]

I think Cliff's on the right track there about land-based closed containment. With such broad first nations support around the province, I have spoken and engaged with leadership for the past year very intimately, and I can identify no less than five or six first nations that are extremely interested in that economic development opportunity.

If we view this as some sort of a measure to protect wild salmon—an economic stimulus, economic development for first nations—there are a lot of ways that we could shape this to come out much further ahead with proper and adequate protection. In terms of the precautionary principle, it ranks right up there with adaptive management. I've never seen it in regard to fish farms. I just simply haven't. Any adaptation was more of an obfuscation of science or pretending to make changes that were going to protect something, but all they're protecting is the function of the fish farms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

We'll now go to Mr. Mazier for five minutes or less.

Go ahead, please.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the presenters.

On the precautionary principle, I'm from agriculture, being from the Prairies. The way it's used in agriculture is to just keep everything the same and not change it. You just keep on. It's kind of insanity. That's the way the precautionary principle is applied in agriculture.

There were comments, Ms. Morten, about where the salmon are dying. Have there been any studies? Is there any data? I think you brought up the streams. Where are the salmon dying? What is the biggest cause of salmon being taken out prematurely? Is there any knowledge on that? I think you mentioned cows stepping on them.

How do you answer that? I guess being new to this committee, I don't know what I'm going to get for an answer here. What kind of information is there about predation, and where should we be looking at that?

[Zo Ann Morten]

We could talk about the death by a thousand cuts when we talk about the death of salmon. It's not just one thing. It could be human predation or bears or eagles or lots of others that have a right to those salmon as well.

I've seen a lot of studies, but I haven't seen a study that has that comprehensive look as to which industry or which place kills the most salmon, whether it's one spill at a time like the Mount Polley mine, dewatering of streams, or flooding in the Kamloops area. That's the huge one right now.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Could it be just natural predation, though, too? As you say, there are the eagles, the bears, and the seals. I don't know.... Could it be just nature doing its thing? How much natural background is just sitting there? Is something going on in nature that has never been studied on the west coast?

[Zo Ann Morten]

There are little bits of studies here and there, but I've never seen a complete one. However, if we look at just the Mount Polley mine by itself and how many died in that one incident, a lot of eagles would have to eat to make up the same amount.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Well, that's true. It's a pretty big area, though, too.

Coming across from the east coast to the west coast—Ms. Gill talked about it—there's a common link between DFO and inaction. You talk about the Cohen report. When was the Cohen report done?

This is to anyone, Mr. Chamberlin or Mr. Atleo.