Fisheries Committee on March 22nd, 2022

[Chief Tyrone McNeil]

Thank you for that, Ms. Barron.

Here's what we're trying to do here locally with our 31 communities. We have organizations such as Watershed Watch, West Coast Environmental Law, the Farmland Advantage crew, Kerr Wood Leidal, Ebbwater, the UBC school of architecture and landscape design, my EPS office and the Stó:lo Tribal Council. We put forward a request to the BCFED committee to meet with us, as those directly impacted by the floods, to come up with solutions, recommendations and criteria on how to best invest the $5.1 billion coming down the pike. They're spending $477 million by next week, but it's serious money. We want to align with a lot of the thoughts that have been raised here around fish-friendly pumps, putting resilience and green infrastructure on the table and moving away from non-structural as much as possible. It's very much promoting the flood plains by a design project that's taking place south of us here. That gives us an opportunity to be at the table in decision-making and to send a signal to everybody.

There are federal and provincial bills on the table that we need to help you get through. In order to make any changes or any modifications to the landscape, you need our free, prior and informed consent, per article 19. Article 29 speaks to the protection of our right to protect the land and environment. Article 32 speaks to the necessity to achieve our free, prior and informed consent on any development on our lands.

We don't know exactly what that looks like, but if you put green initiatives on the table, look at the flood plains by design and put them on the table, I'm really confident that you will have our support in those key areas, and more broadly as well.

I was really dismayed, Ms. Barron, that the reply from the BCFED committee was that they're going to take any first nations input through the First Nations Leadership Council. Although I'm an advocate there, our 31 communities are 15% of the first nations in the province, and we have a right to be at the table directly.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. McNeil.

That worked out perfectly, because you segued right into my second question. Here in British Columbia, it is very important that we are following UNDRIP. The free, prior and informed consent with first nations is a big part of that. I wanted to see if you could expand a bit on how our current framework falls short. I believe you touched on it. Perhaps you might want to expand on it.

I also wanted to open up this question to Mr. Ned. I believe you said you're traditionally Mr. Kwilosintun. I hope I'm pronouncing it properly. I also wanted to open it up to you, based on the comments you made prior.

Perhaps, Mr. McNeil could respond first.

[Chief Tyrone McNeil]

There's a really deep misunderstanding of the application of the declaration, whether it be with the federal government or the provincial government. Too often, we hear the UNDRIP, DRIPA or UNDRIPA.

I'd like to focus on those three key articles—19, 29 and 32—because then we can make sense of it. It's not so much about you, as a federal government, or the provincial government coming up with a mandate on how to apply those three articles. Let's build it together. That piece is really missing right now, Ms. Barron.

It seems like both levels of government are taking co-development in place of collaboration. You can co-develop with a very small group of people. With all due respect, I have a lot of respect for the First Nations Leadership Council, but in this case, there are seven representatives representing 203 communities, whereas we have the organization to be representative ourselves.

Our 31 communities here are building a Sendai-based regional action plan, so we will have the strategy that anybody and everybody can look at. If you meet these standards, you're meeting the declaration or certain articles in the declaration.

There's lots of room to learn and do good things together. We just need to be at the table to do that with open-minded representatives sitting across the table and with us at the table.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you so much.

Is it “Kwilosintun”? It's so important to me that I pronounce names correctly. Sometimes I overthink it, so I apologize. Perhaps you can clarify that.

[Murray Ned-Kwilosintun]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. You've done a great job with the second attempt. Thank you for acknowledging the name. It has a long history behind it.

Tyrone spoke about UNDRIP and reconciliation. I would suggest that the governments are challenged with trying to implement it. I think we all are. Let's face it, we don't exactly know what the interpretation is or what the implementation will be, and I think that's our challenge. From my short time with fisheries, about 12 years, we've seen various portions of it being implemented—obviously in the last three years or four years anyway.

The challenge we see as first nations is that government comes from a siloed perspective. That hopefully doesn't sound too critical, but that's the way it is. If we want to go talk about fish, it's not just one ministry, it's probably five or six ministries, and we might get different answers from each different ministry or each different bureaucrat or each different operational person at that scale. That's our challenge.

I even see local jurisdictions committing to implementation of the act. Everybody is at different scales and different times of implementation. I think that's our challenge together. But the challenge we have is not having first nations at the table today, and that's where we need traction with government.

Thank you for the question.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you so much.

I'm going to keep going until I am stopped, because I didn't time myself.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You're stopped right now.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You've gone a little bit over the time actually.

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

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be here.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for getting up at B.C. time. We started this at eight o'clock. There's no consideration given for when these meetings start for British Columbia.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

It's good to have so many British Columbians here today.

I want to address my question to Mr. Estrada, to talk a little bit about the flood events from last fall. The waters receded, the access to communities has been restored, but the access to the river, I understand, has been greatly impacted by debris, washouts and that sort of thing.

If an event were to happen during the spring freshet, for instance, how would the ability for a similar response be impacted because repairs haven't been made or access hasn't been restored from the atmospheric river events that took place in the fall?

[Kevin Estrada]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Strahl. Also, thank you for your help on the ground during those floods.

We have no access. Mr. Ned probably knows a little bit about this as well.

We have two areas that are utilized by first nations, DFO, RCMP, COS, SARs and recreational fishing. Bulger Road is not launchable. [Technical difficulty--Editor] I brought these concerns up in November that we needed to do something, to anybody and everybody I could talk to, and nothing has been worked on. We actually do not have access for over 60 kilometres of river between Agassiz and Yale. It's not safe access, and they were not very good boat launches to begin with.

That is a big concern. We are running up against the clock here to have at least minimal repairs so that it's safely launchable, and then maybe some bigger projects down the road. As water comes up, we're not going to be able to safely do the work that's needed there. Should there be an issue with any flooding—just in general for safety—we're not going to be able to get people in the water. It's something that happens year after year, especially between Agassiz and Yale. It's more of a remote area, and our members have been called first to the scene many times when there are incidents out there, including helping DFO with their broken-down boats.

We need access, and we need to get on that right away.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

You mentioned in your presentation the hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs that your members incurred, which I know involve [Technical difficulty--Editor]

Can you give some examples of some of the extraordinary costs that were borne by your members who jumped in, quite frankly, when there were no federal or provincial assets in the area doing what you were able to do?

[Kevin Estrada]

Yes. It was not just us, but everybody around who had a boat was trying to help in those early days. We had anywhere from 20 to 25 jet boats running every single day non-stop. Some of these boats had issues. One of our members is now having to replace an engine. We've had props and impellers ruined.

It's unfortunate because everybody wanted to help and that's what we started doing. After about a week, when we looked around and realized that nobody was helping, we had to go into full-time mode on doing this and multiple things, as I mentioned. The work never stopped. The help didn't come.

It's one of those scenarios where some people have asked how we could be better and how we could respond. For us in the Sumas flats, we were dealing with diesel, fertilizer, blood and everything all over us. Unless you were there to understand and see what was going on, you really wouldn't have gotten it.

When the Prime Minister and the premier had their meeting and discussed that we were going to get help to the ground and funding, all that needed to be done was to pay attention to who was doing the work and get funding to them right away to help. That never did come.

It's unfortunate. Some of those costs are going into equipment repairs. We're doing what we can, obviously. Being here today to rectify some of those issues and plan for a better future to build back better...would be great.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

If I have any time left, can you talk about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Actually, you've gone over, Mark. I'm sorry.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Outrageous.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Five minutes don't be long gone when you're having fun.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Gower, in listening to the testimony, this is “déjà vu all over again”, to quote Yogi Berra.

So many times we've dived into issues and found that there's an almost endless list of organizations or people who are really seized with it, but I get the sense that nobody knows who everybody is out there. Nobody's ever mapped out what everybody's doing to see where the gaps are and where the opportunities are.

Are you aware, even looking at the lower Fraser Valley, of any attempt to find out who the players are, what they do and how they could work better together?

[Tanis Gower]

I have two answers to that question.

Firstly, we are quite well organized with one another and with witnesses on this committee. Many of us spoke ahead of this event and Watershed Watch has been bringing together our allies to have these conversations for years.

The other venue that's been ongoing was organized by the Fraser Basin Council. It was called the Lower Mainland flood management strategy. We had high hopes that this would be a good venue to organize a coordinated response. Ultimately, many of us ceased to attend that umbrella planning function because we didn't find it to be effective. There was an environment subcommittee that didn't seem to be feeding into the larger planning, and DFO was absent from that table.

We're asking for a refresh on that, maybe with the province taking a stronger lead, so all the right people can be involved. We know who we are. We're reaching out to the province and the provincial-federal committee. In fact, we're offering to help host a meeting to get us all together to have these conversations in the short term.

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

Excellent, thank you.

Mr. Kwilosintun, Mr. Estrada mentioned the presence of diesel and other things. When the flooding took place, I can only imagine there were all kinds of contaminants then present in the water, both from things stored on the farm or things that had been applied to the fields over time.

Do you have any sense of what impact that might have, especially in the longer term?

[Murray Ned-Kwilosintun]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Hardie.

The short answer is we don't know what the long-term effects are. The reason we don't is there wasn't a really good plan from our respective federal and provincial governments. We're only now trying to open the door to that baseline information.

As the public safety issues were alleviated and we had the opportunity to turn our attention towards fish recovery and the water contaminants issue, it really was NGOs—a couple of first nations organizations like the Pacific Salmon Foundation and others—that stepped up. It's a longer term impact. There are obviously short-term impacts that we need to address, but we really don't know what those are yet.

I'm really looking forward to finding out from the province and feds what they have in mind. That's the issue we have at hand: There's not enough collaboration and no pre-plan available for this situation. That's one thing we need to rectify collectively, both within a G3 approach and with our stakeholders who are on the panel today.

Thank you.

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

Perhaps Mr. Ned could speak to the impact of forest fires, general deforestation in British Columbia and the ability of the natural landscape to absorb something even as extreme as what we used to call the “pineapple express”, that huge downpour of rain that we receive. I imagine that we're in a much weaker condition now naturally to look after that sort of thing.

[Murray Ned-Kwilosintun]

Forestry certainly isn't my background, Mr. Hardie, but I do understand that all things are connected. When we have forest fires like we have had in the past, those are long-term, lasting effects, and letsemot, which I mentioned earlier, means everything is connected. We have to find ways to adjust for forestry, fish, water, land and air. That would be my response, but like I say, I think that's somebody else's expertise beyond mine.