Fisheries Committee on March 24th, 2021

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Doctor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

Now we'll go to Mr. Morrissey for five minutes or less, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

My question is for Dr. Di Cicco.

Doctor, as a scientist, is climate change real? What are the negative impacts you are witnessing from a changing climate on fish stocks in general?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

I will start with yes, it's real. I'm not the only one saying that. I will start with that.

The impact of climate change on salmon can happen in different aspects. Fish are ectothermic, which means they use the temperature of the surrounding environment to.... They have the same temperature as their environment. When you have all those fish coming up through a river, and the temperature of the river is 20°C to 25°C, which is not the optimal temperature for those fish to live at, they are overstressed. That will be the first impact.

On the other hand, if you have higher temperatures in the ocean, the whole trophic chain is out there, so algae and phytoplankton bloom and therefore the shrimp that feed on them proliferate. Therefore, what amount of food is available for salmon? It's all a chain.

Unfortunately, these changes happen even with a minimal change in temperature. We're talking about even a couple of degrees Celsius being able to trigger this big change in productivity.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Is your advice to this committee that a warming ocean is going to reduce the number of fish or the size of fish stocks in the ocean, simply?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

To put it very simply, that will be one of the effects you can have. You have less food, so the fish have a harder time to find food and they don't grow as much. Some of them might die because they don't have enough food.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

The alarms have been sounding on the east coast, too, about the impact of a warming ocean on lobster stocks, which is one of the most valuable—well, lobster and crab stocks—on the east coast.

If any government doesn't get its mind around this and begin dealing with it, then we're going to see less economic activity in any community attached to and dependent on the fishery. Would that be a correct assumption, Doctor?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

I would say so.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

Mr. Rosenau, you made a statement in the testimony that one of the issues affecting salmon on the west coast, besides the issue of the impact of the changing ocean temperature and climate change, is the failure to properly monitor and restore habitat.

You made a comment about the closure of DFO offices. Mr. Rosenau, could you give me a timeline and expand a bit on when...and what impact that has had on providing adequate protection?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

This came from a conversation with one of the enforcement staff out of the Kamloops office. It was a recent conversation.

Back in the day when I was a habitat person with the province, DFO had a presence. His point was that all habitat, basically, in the interior, up to Prince George and all the way out to Cranbrook, is now managed through the Kamloops office, which is a massive geographic area. It's like a small European country.

I'm guessing that would have happened somewhere in the previous government, prior to the Trudeau government. I can't give you an exact date, but it certainly is a concern. The fact that the province has pulled out of a lot of habitat stuff that they normally did makes DFO now responsible under the Constitution.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Past cutbacks and reductions in DFO personnel are partially why we are here today.

Mr. Rosenau—and anybody else who would want to comment—the impact of sea-based fish farming is becoming clear, but why is land-based fish farming prohibitive?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

I used to be married to a fish-culturist with the province's Freshwater Fisheries Society. It's just expensive—the pumps, the electricity, the tanks and moving water around. That's my view.

We did have some little net-pen operations when I was working for the province. They worked great, because all the poop just dropped to the bottom of the lake.

For me, outside the box here, really it's just pure economics.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back to Mr. Di Cicco. Many of these scientific assessments were a derivative of the strategic salmon health initiative that the Conservative government initiated in response to the Cohen commission, which was, again, started by the Conservative government.

Are there any issues, concerns or limitations in the nine assessments that were done, in your opinion?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

Yes, there are several limitations. I mentioned at the beginning that there was a very narrow scope, addressing only sockeye salmon and only in a very specific area, which was the Discovery Islands.

They also didn't take into account new information that came out in the last couple of years. I'm referring in particular to assessing the one on PRV and the one on Tenacibaculum. There were a few errors that would have changed the actual results of those impacts. They definitely glazed over the uncertainties. As Ms. Wristen said, if you say a statement, but you have high uncertainty, that statement has a completely different value than if you have one with a very high certainty.

Then sea lice were completely excluded from the assessment and the—

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

Do you know why sea lice were excluded from that?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

I don't know.

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

Okay, thank you.

Is there any evidence demonstrating the risk to wild salmon from PRV? I believe you spoke about that earlier. I just couldn't quite catch exactly what you were saying. Can you expand on that a bit, please?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

Yes. PRV is a virus that is highly prevalent in salmon farms, but it's a virus that has been demonstrated to impact all Pacific salmon. We have an overwhelming amount of evidence from around the world that different types of PRV can actually induce disease in Pacific salmon, so that is already one piece of evidence. Plus, we have more recent evidence that there's an association between the presence of PRV and the potential impact in this fishery regarding this viral...or the body condition of these wild fish that are infected with the virus.

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

Okay, thank you.

Can you give an indication as to—whether it's the farm sites or wherever there is a concentration of these pathogens—how much of an effect separation distance or close proximity have on the apparent or potential infection rates?

We talk about migration paths. Is there an opportunity for other sites that are away from migration paths to be used, possibly? Is there a potential for deeper, offshore ocean sites to be used without the same risk of infection or transfer?

[Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco]

Well, again, we have to calculate the costs and benefits, and the impact on the spreading of agents from the farms has a lot of variables depending on where the farm is located.

If you are in a very slick channel, of course, it's easier to contain the agents in that channel going back and forth with the tides. There are different variables.

I would say, overall, that we have seen an effect within 30 kilometres of a farm, and again, it's a gradual distribution. Very close to a farm this is very concentrated, and the further we go from the farm, we have a more diluted concentration of agents.

I know offshore farming is a solution that has been taken into account in some other countries. It has costs and benefits. The fact that it would dilute the concentration of agents and pollutants, and also, let's say, the production from the fish, is definitely a pro. However, dealing with the open-ocean condition is sometimes challenging for the farm structure. As I say, it's a pro and con on that type of operation.

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

Thank you.

Very quickly, Mr. Rosenau, what produced the high runs that we had in 2010 and 2014?

[Dr. Marvin Rosenau]

That's part of the cycle: 2010 was 30 million, roughly; 2014 was 20 million; but 2018 was down, down, down, for the same cycle run. Again, I think it's just a perfect storm of good conditions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This wouldn't be a study on any fishery in the west coast if we didn't bring up the issue of predation, and particularly the impact of seals and sea lions on the smolts.

You were mentioning that we have to do everything we can to protect the next batch of smolts coming down the Fraser River.

I'll ask Dr. Di Cicco. Is it your observation that the seal and sea lion issue is one of the things that is causing the lack of survivability?