Fisheries Committee on Oct. 30th, 2024

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

If the people who are responsible for these abandoned and derelict vessels were actually paying for their crime, could you generate an economic opportunity?

Does it necessarily have to be funded by the federal government? Shouldn't the people who own these vessels and their insurance companies and whatnot...?

It looks like there could be a perfect industry here that is basically private sector-funded for your nation to get the job done and get it cleaned up, if the people who are responsible were held to account.

What do you think of that?

[John White]

Absolutely. I'm absolutely in favour of that.

You map it out and you tell us how you're going to make these people be accountable when you license that boat and the registration is so lax that you can't even contact the right owner. You're looking back on boats that have been transferred amongst five or six different people where you can't even find the right owner of that vessel. So looking at a change, absolutely, in the way that you legislate, the way that you enforce, is going to be the step forward to what you're talking about. You can't hold someone accountable if you don't know who they are.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Do you feel that the federal government should be responsible for cleaning up someone else's junk?

[John White]

I absolutely do not think that the federal government should be, but like I mentioned.... Sorry, I tried to throw a whole bunch of information at the committee that was relevant and important, but it's a historical problem. They're cleaning up vessels that have been there for over 30 years. We have an ongoing problem of vessels that have been left derelict for decades that are still there, like in the foreshore of a provincial park, Saysutshun Island.

I agree with you, but how do you find the path forward? We can do it ongoing now, and just as Chief Watts said, it should be like insuring your vehicle. You have to pay a deductible if your boat has an accident or it's left there.

Absolutely, I agree with you.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

The federal government shouldn't be responsible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

We have to go now to Mr. Weiler for six minutes or less, please.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here by video conference and in person as well.

I would like to start with Mr. White.

Maybe before I ask my question, I know you had part of your opening statement you were concluding and I want to make sure I give you the opportunity to finish off with some of the last things that you were saying, if you'd like.

[John White]

Right, I kind of cut out there. Yes, absolutely, sorry. Like I said, I was trying to rush through a pile of relevant information and didn't want to miss anything that was important to us.

Absolutely, I was talking about recommendations.

One is long-term sustainable funding for first nations to continue or start work, because we are the residents, we live on the water and we're usually the first responders when any incident happens. We're the first ones there. We live there, right, so we're still going out. If a boat goes down, we report it, we wrap some boom around it, we contain it and we phone the Coast Guard. They're asking us now, Snuneymuxw First Nation, to send pictures, to send information, update us, tell us what's going on.

So relevancy is finding a path forward. Just like our friend there said, we need to develop different parts of that process, like the historical. The federal government is one of the regulating bodies that collects money from the things that happen in the marine environment. So historically, there is that responsibility, as well as ongoing.

So yes, my recommendations are that we start developing laws together as first nations and on a nation-to-nation level where we can find that path forward. We need to be part of the process too, right? Not every first nation is where we are, but let's get them to that point.

Thank you.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I'm very impressed in hearing about all the different programming and capacity that the nation has there.

I want to pick up on one thing you mentioned, the working relationship that you have with the Canadian Coast Guard. I was hoping you might be able to expand a little bit on that because it sounds like you have a very strong working relationship. You're obviously being relied upon to be first responders, it sounds like, in some cases. So when there is a problem vessel that's out there, what is that process like with the Coast Guard? I know sometimes it takes some time to get the authority to be able to move and get that authority to do that with those boats that are out there.

[John White]

Right now our guys are basically observing, recording and reporting. In some instances, as I made mention of in my speaking notes, we will move vessels. The relationship with them is such that every time we see something, I'll get the guys on the phone at VOC. When we respond to something, we'll push. I'll push. If it doesn't move, then I'll phone them. I'll push and ask for meetings.

We do have a good working relationship with them in some of the funding initiatives we have, but it's a big working organization, that Canadian Coast Guard, so we deal with a whole bunch of different levels. Within my position, I have the experience where I work with all different levels. If it doesn't get brought up to the level that we need, I'll bring it to another level. We'll push to have those vessels removed from our territory.

We're developing that relationship. We have staff and we're reaching out to every different sector within that regime of the Canadian Coast Guard.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I just want to say thanks for stepping up and doing that work.

Councillor Watts, you mentioned, as part of your recommendations, investing in prevention. I think this has to be the biggest priority. As much as we can do to prevent these types of occurrences from happening, it's so much cheaper than having to clean up boats when they've sunk to the bottom of the water or they've started leaking oil or whatever the case may be.

You were mentioning that one of the ways to do that is through partnering with nations. I was hoping you might be able to expand on that with this committee, particularly with what you were saying about how to better deal with licensing so that we're able to make sure that the polluters pay, in this case.

[Ken Watts]

Awesome. Yes.

For the Tseshaht here, we're the first people out there to respond within Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in particular. We have guardians out there when an incident happens. From the prevention standpoint, a lot of our nations already have people out on the water, whether it's doing monitoring, as was mentioned earlier from John, or other work that's happening on the territories. Our people are already out there. If there's already an opportunity to collaborate and actually start documenting—again, observing and reporting, as was mentioned—and collecting that data of boats that may look like they would be incidents, that's one simple way of utilizing the people who are already out on the water.

To the other piece you mentioned, I think there's a bit of an issue there. We wait for something really bad to happen and then we clean it up after, as opposed to what I just shared with the car accident. We don't sit there and wait for somebody else to come and clean it up. Somebody else is sent the bill after. I think that's what we need to do. This is our environment out here. This is the water right here. This river feeds our community. We also bring $2 million to $8 million into the local economy through our economic fishery. I don't think we can wait for the environment and wait for some insurance provider to give the okay to fix something. I think that needs to be streamlined. There's already a federal matter called Jordan’s principle. Figure out who pays for it later. Just address the issue right now and get the other group to reimburse you, whether it's the province or the feds—or, in this case, whether it's the individual boater or their insurance provider. Clean it up and worry about who pays for it later. Our fish and our species and the things that are going through our territory can't wait.

I'm sorry. I didn't have a lot of time, so I tried to be quick.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses as well. I'm delighted to hear from them.

Obviously, since I represent the Bloc Québécois, I'm more focused on the east coast, the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Canadian Coast Guard and other witnesses have told us that there are problems in the St. Lawrence that are just as serious as yours. Clearly, there's a lack of expertise.

The St. Lawrence is an extremely deep river, with many reefs and highly complex cross-currents, leading to a number of shipwrecks. As a result, stranded ships are involuntarily left behind in the gulf. For our part, we don't understand why the Canadian Coast Guard can’t find a way to locate these vessels, some of which are in the very deep waters of the St. Lawrence River. We also don’t know what’s in them.

Do you have the same problems on the west coast, Mr. White, or other challenges? Is the increasing number of abandoned vessels the issue, or the complexity in locating them?

[John White]

Thank you for the question.

It's money. It's expensive. For one derelict vessel to be removed, it's around $15,000. To go after one in the deep sea, through our marine division.... We have ROVs that go down 400 metres so we can inspect them. It's about setting up and getting a history of the vessel. If it's historical, as we just talked about, we're going to have to spend some time, energy and money to inspect it via ROV and figure out a way. I think the cost of dealing with some of those bigger vessels, and floating them, is probably going to be in the millions.

It's finding the ways and technologies. We're in a world of technology now, so there should be nothing holding us back from salvaging this. We do it with ghost gear. We salvage and clean up ghost gear all along the west coast of Vancouver Island, so we should be able to do it with wrecked-in-pieces derelict vessels. They're not staying intact when they've been down there for that long, so there will be a lot of pieces of vessel to clean up.

Thank you for the question.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you for your very enlightening answer.

I think we're facing the same problems. Since 2016, $2.2 billion have been spent on finding abandoned vessels and recovering the equipment. That's a lot of money.

Have you seen these billions of dollars? We're still looking for them. Maybe they're in a treasure chest buried under the ocean.

[John White]

That's a tough question. Oh, oh!

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John White]

Absolutely.

Chief Watts made mention of WCMRC and how they're heavily outfitted. They have tons of money to buy massive ships and all of this extraordinary equipment, in order to go out and respond to vessels of concern. They're being funded by big industry...responsibility for ship sinking.

One thing about WCMRC, we partner with them to do work, since they're a contractor. They're contracted out by a person or company. They have to get a PO before they can respond to a vessel of concern or anything. They're not part of the government's plan. Rather, they may be, but they're not part of the government when they go out and equip that. They're a prime example of what you're talking about. They have the money, systems and structure. That's where we need to be in order to respond to that sort of stuff.

In terms of money, yes, there's opportunity. A lot of the funding I'm utilizing right now to manage our programs is coming from TMX accommodations—preparing for massive oil spills. There is prevention happening. There's some sort of funding that goes to setting up for the inevitable spill, you could say.

Yes, there's opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm very grateful for the witnesses who are here today.

Mr. Chair, I'm just going to take the first 20 seconds of my time to orally table a motion for discussion at a future meeting. The clerk is going to circulate it now.

The motion reads:

That, given that the House of Commons Administration serves only farmed salmon in its food and catering services, and that open net pen fish farms pollute our waters and spread diseases in the surrounding marine ecosystem, and that the government has committed to a transition away from open net pen salmon farms, the committee write a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons calling for the House of Commons Administration to end the practice of purchasing farmed salmon from open net pen salmon farms.

With that, I'll move on.

Again, thank you so much to the witnesses. It is so nice to see you here. Your testimony that you've provided has been very important.

The first question that I have is for you, Mr. White.

I was so honoured to be able to go out on a boat with the Snuneymuxw marine division and take a look first-hand at the boats that are left to sink along the waters along the coast of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

You spoke about the number of vessels that are being abandoned along the coast of British Columbia, but I'm wondering if you can give us an image of what we see when we go out on the water along the coast of the Snuneymuxw First Nation. How many vessels are there? How many are being left to sink? Give us some images to hold on to.

[John White]

Just the other day, we responded to two—and that's within a week, to give you an idea. We had a windstorm.

We have probably three main anchorages within the Snuneymuxw territory where people—I want to go on this big tangent about housing right now, but that's for another time—are choosing to live aboard their vessels. We have a high volume of people who live aboard these vessels in front of the Saysutshun provincial park. When they decide that these vessels no longer suit their needs or they're too derelict to live on, or they're listing or taking on water, they will just abandon them and take off.

Right now, on the foreshore of that provincial park, we probably have four or five vessels sitting there, in the park that thousands of tourists come to every year.

One of the things we do is try to get people to avoid anchoring. Legislation says you're only allowed to stay anchored in that anchorage for a certain amount of time, so what they do is move back and forth between a couple of other anchorages within our territory.

When we took you out on the water.... Part of our Indian Reserve No. 5 on Gabriola Island is also one of the main parts, and we had three vessels down there. Last year, one of those vessels broke apart and wound up coming on to one of our commercial clam leases. All through those commercial clam beaches are about three different leases owned by people.

It's impacting us not only environmentally, but economically. As an estimate—I've worked for the marine division for the past three years—we've responded to around 40 or 50 vessels, which is pretty concerning to us. We've boomed off. We've had major oil spills. We've picked up microparticles, like I said, in the Nanaimo River estuary.

It's a pretty big problem in our territory.

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

Thank you so much.

Just for time, I'll continue with my questions for you, and then I'll move my next questions after that, in the next round, to Chief Watts.

Mr. White, the contamination that you speak of would, of course, contaminate the commercial shellfish sites along the Snuneymuxw Nation. These are the same areas that are being used for food harvesting.

Could you speak to or enlighten us a bit about how this is a direct threat to Snuneymuxw titles and rights?

[John White]

Absolutely. We, like you, heard from witnesses in prior testimony. We strive and live off the ocean. Our people are right now fishing for food in the Nanaimo River estuary within our territory. To have vessels floating around, leaving microparticles, fuel and stuff is impacting us. We're not able to safely eat the shellfish within the territory. You've heard testimony about that. We're not able to go out and fish the areas that we fish. We have salmon. There's such a high volume of traffic throughout the Nanaimo harbour that we can't even fish. I was in a meeting today trying to plan a demonstration fishery for economic development for Snuneymuxw First Nation. One of the concerns is the available spots for us to set our nets. I've talked to another guy today, and he had three speedboats run over his commercial net. That's completely impeding on our rights and title as first nation people.

Thank you for the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

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