Fisheries Committee on March 24th, 2021

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

This study was actually performed for two years. In the first year, which is the one I have references for, tests were done in a region where there were basically very few, if any, active farms. The permanence of the fish in that area was very short. I don't have the final data for the second year, but the permanence was definitely longer once the farms were actually present.

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

How does Tenacibaculum get into a fish farm? Is it attracted there? Does it just develop there naturally, or is it brought in and introduced? Do we know?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

As I said, it's a ubiquitous bacteria, which means it can stay in the water column. Some studies say that it's also in jellyfish. It stays in the water column, and then when fish are stressed and you have intensive farming in a farm.... This is an opportunistic bacteria. When there is something not going properly, it can infect the fish, and then it explodes.

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

Are you aware of any studies that tried to use any type of antibacterial, like drugs or chemicals?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

No. It's a treatable disease without any antibiotics, but sometimes the treatment has to be prolonged for a long time to resolve the disease.

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

Do we know how long it takes between when the bacteria sets in and death?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

It's usually a pretty acute disease, so we're talking about days.

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

Wow. Days. Okay.

I want to talk to you a bit about the record returns of salmon—I believe it was in 2010 and 2014. Everybody tells me the salmon migrated along the west side and didn't go up through the archipelago, and that's why we had those record salmon returns for the Fraser. However, Dr. Di Cicco, you have indicated that there are salmon farms now in Barkley Sound and so on, and Mr. Johns has brought it up as well.

Can you clarify for me, does it really matter which way the salmon go around the island? I can't understand why we had record returns in those two years, and then, with not much else changing in the interim, all of a sudden we have all these reductions and these critical levels of certain stocks in the Fraser.

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

Unfortunately the answer to the question depends on the species. The sockeye don't go inside the bays like chinook and coho. They stay in open water, so in that case, they—

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

They pass by the salmon. Okay.

Ms. Wristen, do you have any evidence to support your claim that DFO is being purposefully negligent? You made a pretty bold statement before the committee, indicating that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is being wilfully negligent in studying things like sea lice and so on to fulfill their mandate of being pro fish farm.

Do you have any ATIPs, any information or any records that would support your claim?

[Karen Wristen]

Yes, and you will see them when you get my speaking notes.

I did not call them wilfully negligent. I do not think this is negligent conduct. I think this is deliberate conduct.

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

Maybe it's my poor choice of words. You have supporting evidence to say that this is deliberate. Okay. I will look through it.

[Karen Wristen]

Yes. In this case we do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will put Ms. May on notice that I'm going to give her a few moments to ask a couple of questions, as well.

We have received information that the deep ocean conditions have changed. Climate change, which is a real thing, has impacted the sources of food, the plankton, etc., out there, and the chinook coming back are smaller. They are coming back sooner, and they are simply not in as good a condition to lay eggs and procreate.

What can we do to offset the deep ocean conditions over which we have very little control?

I will go to Dr. Rosenau on that one, and maybe then Dr. Di Cicco.

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

If you look south of the Canada-U.S. border, yes, there have been declines in species like chinook and coho. However, those declines are not nearly as precipitous as in the Fraser River and the Gulf of Georgia, so there's a lack of synchrony. In fact, some years our Okanagan River sockeye are now as high or higher than in the whole Fraser River watershed.

Yes, there are some issues, such as the earliest semi-decadal oscillations, whereby there have always been very large ups and downs over time that are independent of anything that's happening inside the Gulf of Georgia or the larger Pacific Ocean.

The big picture is climate change, but notwithstanding that, there's something very specific inside southwestern B.C. and the Fraser River that is different from south of the border and up in Alaska in some years of record runs.

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

Dr. Di Cicco, briefly, do you have anything to add to that?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

As I said in my opening statement, we can control anthropogenic impact on the survival of fish. Honestly we have very little control over climate change other than maybe in the great scheme. Definitely, available food is controlled by climate change.

I don't think we have much here that we can do to fix that directly. We can control other aspects better, but that one is pretty hard to control.

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

Thank you for that.

Ms. May, do you have questions that you would like to ask?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Yes. Thank you, Ken.

Given that I probably have very little time, I want to run some things by you, Karen Wristen, and confirm if I have it right. I don't think Blaine Calkins intended to say something that was inaccurate; I just want to double-check that I have it right.

I think Blaine said that we were seeing an 87% infection rate, and I believe it was an 87% reduction of survival. Can you confirm if I have that right?

[Karen Wristen]

Yes, that's correct.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Okay.

I think what you're saying is that there was a deliberate attempt by people within the department to keep science away from the minister before she made her critical decision. Is that your understanding, based on what you have from your ATIP report?

[Karen Wristen]

Yes. It's quite clear from the exchange of emails that an attempt was made to downplay the findings. Whether or not those were actually given to the minister, as I said, is completely unclear.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I'm not a full member of this committee, obviously. Unless you've already done so, could you make sure that the committee has all of the ATIP material you have that led you to that conclusion of deliberate interference, to block science from the minister's desk for purposes of a correct decision?

[Karen Wristen]

Yes, I can certainly share the ATIP.