Fisheries Committee on May 5th, 2021

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

There used to be a separation, was there not?

[Jesse Zeman]

Yes. You could talk to one of the big names—David Schindler, who recently passed away—and he would tell you that originally, before the days of DFO, the office in Winnipeg was full of scientists, and in a matter of years it was full of MBAs and very few scientists. That continues until today.

As has been said, DFO is about fishing first and fish second. We are at such a critical point with our salmon that we cannot afford to have that mentality. It has to be fish first, fishing second.

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

Mr. Donnelly, I want you now to put all three of your government experience hats on. We're aligned, as you said, for a new era of collaboration between the federal and provincial governments. Do we need to incorporate municipal governments as well?

[Fin Donnelly]

I would say yes. I think you need the third rights and title holder to add to the provincial and federal; I think you need indigenous governments in it. That's certainly a critical element in British Columbia.

However, beyond that, I think that by having industry, municipal governments, the environmental groups, the non-government sectors—conservation organizations, the groups around this table—participating, you hear the wealth of knowledge that exists.

I would say that absolutely the municipalities are going to play a key role in doing the watershed restoration in their municipalities. They have been doing it. If it comes to fish passage and fish connectivity, they're already doing it. What's needed is a coordinated effort beyond their municipality so that we can stitch them together within watersheds and within ecosystems throughout the province.

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

I'll call it there.

Mr. Hill—or actually anybody, but I'll go to Mr. Hill because I haven't asked you a question yet—a lot of money has been spent over the years in various programs, but I don't get the sense that anybody has had the big-picture map to show that this is happening here and this is happening there, and we're doing this and we're doing that. It seems to be in bits and pieces. There has been no strategic coordination among all of these wonderful one-offs that have been happening. The cumulative benefits don't appear to be there.

Am I wrong?

[Aaron Hill]

You're right.

There is a strategic plan, and it's called the wild salmon policy. What's special about it is that it has a set of strategies and action steps that include an accountability framework; however, none of the strategies have really been implemented. Strategy one is to assess the status of wild salmon populations. Strategy two is to assess their habitats, and it goes on.

I think actually implementing the wild salmon policy more or less as it was written would get us most of the way to where we need to go. Justice Cohen saw the value in it and recommended it. We've been saying for years that it needs to happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

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

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like Mr. Zeman to talk a little more about the importance of science and the importance in the budget of gathering independent, accessible scientific data.

I mentioned non-budgetary measures as well.

Could he comment on how much of the budget is allocated to science?

[Jesse Zeman]

Madame Gill, thank you for the question.

I think this is important, and maybe I should have said this up front.

I've been working on some graduate research for the last seven years around funding for natural resource management. This is very germane. In terms of the role of science, if you want good policy and good science, you put scientists in charge of those research questions. There's huge value....

Everybody has referred to Washington state. Let's start with where Washington state's money comes from. They get $600 million in hydro compensation. The NOAA shows up with over $1 billion, and the fishing wildlife budget is $220 million. They have orders of magnitude more than what we have in B.C.

For the science piece under that, the strategic avenue through that is that we have all of these public servants who are called “professors” who have students who are exceptionally intelligent. Quite frankly, we don't pay them a lot to go out and do work. That is the place to run science out of. It's to offload a bunch of these questions onto academics and people who can put you in front of the answers.

I certainly am concerned when I see things internalized inside of DFO, because I'm very well aware—and the ATIP shows—that quite often, if the answers don't line up with what managers want or what the top end of DFO wants, the science doesn't see the light of day. I think that's where the independent piece around science goes, even in terms of the secretariat. Having people who are great scientists and who are outside of the DFO world in charge of these research questions is definitely where the investment should go.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

You talked about professors and students.

So you're basically talking about university research?

[Jesse Zeman]

We have some of the top researchers in the world here in British Columbia. They love salmon and have an affinity for it. If the federal government invested in a chair at a couple of universities, I think you would see a huge return on investment through that.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Okay.

I was just going to ask you whether it would be useful to have a university chair for the Pacific salmon issue. You have answered that question.

I have one last general question. In terms of next year—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'm sorry, Madame Gill. Your time was over when Mr. Zeman finished.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

My time's up already? I'm having too much fun, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for the important work that you're doing in advocating for wild salmon.

Mr. Hwang, we saw $20 million in the budget for transition and planning around open-net salmon farming. Does this give you confidence, seeing $20 million and hearing the government pivot...? Well, we don't know which one it is—whether it's to have a plan by 2025 or to move away from open-net salmon farming by 2025, which is our election campaign promise.

Do you have confidence that the government is going to meet its 2025 plan and commitment? Which commitment is it?

[Jason Hwang]

“Confidence” is a strong word, Mr. Johns. I don't think I would choose that one. I would say “hope”. I think it's a good signal. I think it is a complicated issue, as others have spoken of. The communities and the people affected are very important in terms of the transition.

Underpinning it all, and the thing that we know about in terms of Pacific salmon, is that it's vitally important that it happen. This isn't a quarrel with the industry per se; it's a concern about the risk and impact to wild salmon. For us, that's the priority. If these funds are to support that transition, then it would get our vote.

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

Thank you, Fin, on behalf of all of us, and this isn't partisan. Everyone is glad to see you in this role, so again, congratulations. On behalf of salmon, it is great to see you there.

In terms of the question I just asked Mr. Hwang, what kinds of supports do you see needed in moving away from open-net salmon farming? We saw Discovery Islands. The workers are wondering what's going to happen next. The communities are wondering what's happening next. There are companies that want to move to land-based salmon farming. What kind of investment and what kind of resources are necessary, and how do you see this proceeding in relation to the federal government and its role?

[Fin Donnelly]

Thanks for your kind words, Mr. Johns.

Also, your question is bang-on. What's needed is a signal from the federal government on clarity. What are we transitioning to? Industry has that question. That is what's next and what needs to be answered.

One thing industry and municipalities most enjoy is certainty. They want to know what the rules are and how we play within them. One thing the government can clarify is exactly what the vision is, what the process is, and how we can engage.

Certainly there has been a point in the province saying that we actually did a good process in the Broughton Archipelago. That's pointed to as the gold standard of involvement and clarity, but I think we should at least achieve that, if not a greater standard. That comes from a willingness from all to commit to working together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to start out with Mr. Zeman and Mr. Haskell. I'll direct my question to them.

The government has added resources to the B.C. salmon restoration and innovation fund, yet it has not even paid out the funds that it had in recent years, and valuable proposals were rejected at the same time. At the meeting on July 23, 2020, Mr. Zeman told the committee that in the first year of the BCSRIF, and I'll quote, “there were actually applications from first nations to transition to more selective methods, and those applications were turned down.”

We've heard repeatedly that non-selective fishing is hurting at-risk stocks of salmon. Then we heard that proposals from indigenous communities wanting to move to selective fishing methods were rejected by BCSRIF.

I'll ask first Mr. Zeman and then Mr. Mr. Haskell. How do we ensure that the funds provided for the BCSRIF actually make it to the projects on the ground and achieve the results?

[Jesse Zeman]

That's a great question. I do have a running spreadsheet, and in the world of salmon conservation we certainly talk about SRIF and some missed opportunities in terms of funding.

How do we get there? We have Mr. Donnelly on the line, and I'm hoping that he can help straighten that process out a little bit. However, we can talk, and we've been talking about money.

My background is in business. Again, this is return on investment. We need to have it in our minds that these things we're going to fund are going to make more fish. That's the overarching priority, so when I hear “salmon restoration and innovation fund” and I see that $600,000 is going to Canadian groundfish research, I question who is running this ship and whether it is really about salmon.

There are definitely some examples that make it very clear that the agency, DFO, had interests it wanted funded through this fund that were non-salmon-related. I would lean on my colleagues here, and certainly on Mr. Donnelly, to help straighten that out to make sure there is a line of sight and so that when the technical review happens on salmon restoration and innovation fund applications, the peer review or the technical review process is not overturned at a later date by someone else's decisions.

[Darren Haskell]

I'm somewhat in agreement there with Mr. Zeman, because the breakdown of projects that actually have been funded shows that a lot of them are focused right on the Lower Mainland area, the southern half of B.C. There were a few proposals that were sent in from Upper Fraser nations that were declined for various reasons, but at the time, we didn't know the approval process. Having a clear approval process would really make things more transparent and make people realize what it takes for these projects to be approved.

Another opinion, my own personal kind of thing, is that because of the announcement of that fund, they want projects that have a lot of publicity and pictures to show what they're doing with the money. That's always important, but having a wider lens on who is approving these projects would really help the process.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Haskell, when you appeared earlier in this study, in July of 2020, you touched on the implementation of the Fraser Salmon Collaborative Management Agreement. Can you provide us an update on where the implementation is and whether the annual work plans are in place for the coming year?

[Darren Haskell]

It's perfect timing for that question, because we have developed a Fraser salmon management board and a joint technical committee, which are going to do the bulk of the hands-on work.

The Fraser salmon management board is made up of both DFO and first nations members. It's kind of stalled at the moment because of funding. We developed this and we had a three-year plan that transitioned from the original group, which was FRAFS, into the Fraser Salmon Management Council. The funding that we proposed and that we need to get this board to do this important work really has not flowed from DFO. We've basically been stuck with the same amount of funding to do three times the amount of work in this next year.

That's why we're stalled, and—