Fisheries Committee on April 26th, 2021

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

That's good for me to know.

I'm going to go back over to the department officials.

Could anybody speak to what level this research has been informing policy on the west coast?

[Rebecca Reid]

I'll ask Dr. Parsons to start and then we can go from there. Thanks.

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

Thank you.

I'll start off with a response and speak to you from the perspective of the science branch.

As you know, DFO is a science-based department. The science sector within DFO is responsible for producing science advice that contributes to the department's mandate. When research findings are published, those are certainly considered as part of our adaptive management approach.

More fulsomely, we have a very strong, formal, robust peer-review process that we call the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, or CSAS, that we use to provide formal science advice to DFO resource managers. That process involves looking at the breadth of the scientific literature that's available. That is not only the science we do in the department, but all available science. We conduct a synthesis of that information. That information is then peer reviewed through a process where we bring both internal and external experts together to review that information and provide advice. That advice is then communicated to the DFO managers and is also published on our website.

It's a robust, transparent process to formalize the advice and provide it to aquaculture management as part of their decision-making process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

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

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

My question is for Ms. Reid.

Can DFO assure the future of salmon, primarily the commercial salmon, based on what DFO has done in the past?

[Rebecca Reid]

In my opening remarks I talked about the significant concerns we have around salmon and their future state. Part of the minister's commitment to deliver a Pacific salmon strategy really speaks to the need for a change in how we approach salmon management and a number of different—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay, Ms. Reid. Based on that, I take it, then, in your answer, that if we continue to do as we've done in the past, there's no assurance that there will be any type of salmon fishery in the future, either recreational or commercial.

Am I correct?

[Rebecca Reid]

We are seeing very significant declines in salmon and have significant concerns about that.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

What has to change?

[Rebecca Reid]

Well, the salmon—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Let's start with one. Recently, in the budget, our government allocated over $600 million to begin addressing this issue.

What advice would you give this committee as to what should be the priority to focus on that would lead to a better future for the salmon fishery on the west coast?

I'm talking about the natural fishery first.

[Rebecca Reid]

I would recommend four key strategies. The first would be to focus investments in habitat, conservation and restoration-type activities.

I would recommend strategic enhancement to support stocks of concern, and where possible, to support harvest where appropriate.

There's a need for some significant harvest sector transformations to focus on selective fishing to avoid stocks of concern.

Finally, we need to focus on integration and collaboration to ensure that our governance structures, both within and outside the department, are functioning at their optimal capacity.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay. Thank you.

Habitat, we know; it has been consistent. If there's one common area, it's habitat.

I made notes, but could you expand on your second one, strategic investments? Could you explain?

[Rebecca Reid]

My second recommendation was around salmon enhancement. There are a couple of areas. For example, we don't have any major hatchery facilities above the Big Bar slide along the Fraser River. That's a gap that has been in place forever, made worse by the slide and the pressure on those stocks.

That would be an example of an important investment to be made to protect the returning stock.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Earlier in a meeting we had a fisher by the name of Captain Hauknes. This goes to the comment you made, that you have to re-evaluate the impact of harvesting. Correct me if I'm paraphrasing incorrectly how you referenced it, but I picked out that there has to be a serious discussion on the commercial fishing effort on the west coast as it relates to salmon.

Am I correct? Is that where you were going?

[Rebecca Reid]

Yes. My comment was really intended to say that because salmon swim together, the weak ones and the strong ones, we need to find ways to selectively harvest to avoid harm to those particular stocks of concern.

Unfortunately, they all look alike when they're swimming together. Some are of concern and some are stronger. How do we make sure we selectively harvest the stocks that can withstand that fishing pressure?

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Is that technology or know-how available? Is that knowledge available to a commercial fisher to selectively fish?

[Rebecca Reid]

There are a number of techniques you can use to encourage selective harvesting. It's not just equipment. Area and time can allow for selective harvest as well, but also gear types, locations, those types of things.

There are a number of different techniques to encourage the selective harvest of the stocks that can withstand the pressure of harvest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey. You have six seconds left, so it's hardly time to ask a question or get an answer.

We'll go now to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas again, for two and a half minutes, please.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Miller-Saunders, you told us about the impact of climate change on Pacific salmon. Obviously, we know that problems associated with climate change are going to get worse over time.

If an urgent action was required, what would it be?

[Dr. Kristi Miller-Saunders]

One of the things we need to better understand is where the bottlenecks are and in which areas along the coast and in the rivers climate change is having its greatest effect. We know that, in freshwater systems, when we have premature mortality of returning adult salmon, they are most likely to die in the areas where they're experiencing prolonged periods of high thermal stress.

Sometimes conditions in a system will allow for cooler water to be introduced. That is obviously more common where there are dams, and unfortunately we don't have as many of those here as there are on the Columbia. But we need to do what we can control, which, for one thing, is that if we're going to rely on hatcheries, we need to produce the most robust fish we can. We know that the condition of fish coming out of fresh water is in one part a predictor of how well they are going to perform in the marine environment when they are exposed to different stressors. If we can produce optimally healthy fish that are ready for that transition to salt water and have as few infections as possible, we will increase the probability that those fish will actually survive long enough to either be prey for killer whales, in the case of chinook salmon, or be available for fisheries.

Certainly climate change affects more than just temperature. It affects the prey availability; it affects the predators, etc., so it is a larger issue than that. But in my view, identifying the areas of the coast—and this is something that I do believe our FIT-CHIPs are going to be really strong for—where there are stressor bottlenecks associated with climate change will allow us to determine what mitigative actions we can possibly take along different parts of the coast.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, do I have enough time left for another witness to suggest an urgent action to curb the impact of climate change on Pacific salmon?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'm sure we'll get back to more questions. The time is up for now.

We'll now go to Mr. Johns for two and half minutes.

Go ahead, please.