Fisheries Committee on Oct. 30th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 125 of the House Common Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Before we proceed, I want to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. Please address all comments through the chair.

Of course, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on February 8, 2024, the committee is resuming its study on derelict and abandoned vessels.

Welcome to our witnesses for the first panel.

We have in the room Chief Lenora Joe, from the shíshálh Nation.

On Zoom, we have Mr. Gordon Edwards, councillor for the Snaw-naw-as First Nation.

We have Paul Macedo, communications director for the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers.

Thank you for taking the time to appear today. You will each have five minutes for your opening statements.

Chief Joe, you will have the floor first, but I believe Mr. Arnold has something he wants to raise beforehand.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's with sadness that I report—I think most members know—that we lost a former member of FOPO. We found out last Friday. It was Mr. Bob Sopuck, who served on this committee for many years as representative from Swan River—Neepawa. He was a fisheries biologist. He really knew what he was talking about and brought a lot of wisdom to this committee for many years.

I had the pleasure of serving with him for my first four years. I think Mr. McDonald, Mr. Morrissey and Mr. Hardie will recall that he was a fiery personality, but you could not get anything by him when it came to fisheries.

Could we have a moment of silence to recognize Bob?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes, let's do a 30-second moment of silence.

[A moment of silence observed]

Thank you, everyone.

You're right, Mr. Arnold. Mr. Sopuck was a valued member of the committee and very knowledgeable in everything we studied when he was a member. He was well versed in many things that were necessary to know for this committee and to challenge ministers and other witnesses. He certainly knew his stuff.

Again, we pass along our regrets and our condolences to the family left behind.

We'll now go to Chief Lenora Joe for five minutes or less, please.

[Chief Lenora Joe, shíshálh First Nation]

[Witness spoke in Sechelt]

I would like to thank everybody, Mr. Chair.

My traditional name is yalxwemult. I share that with my grandmother and great-grandmother. I am the chief of the Sechelt Nation. I am the first elected woman chief of our nation. Here's a fun fact: When we were required to abandon our hereditary chiefs and go to an election process, my grandmother was the first female councillor voted in at that time. I have a bit of a legacy to live up to.

Thank you for allowing me to come to speak to you today about the derelict vessels throughout Canada. In British Columbia, the Sunshine Coast is the “land between two waters”. Our community sits between the ocean and the inlet. We are surrounded by water. The Sechelt people are known as the “salmon people”. Salmon and marine resources are integral to who we are. As Sechelt people, we are unique in our way of life. The health of our marine environment is essential. Over the last number of years, we have seen the collapse of salmon species here, as we've seen across Canada, as well. The health of our marine environment has been affected in such a way that our resources have been impacted by many things, including derelict boats. For many years, we have sought to address derelict vessels in our swiya. The irresponsibility of others is saddening to our community, which has the incredible responsibility of cleaning that up. It's massive.

As stewards of our land, we have always worked to protect and more recently restore our environment. We are very committed to ensuring the enhancement of our people. We are looking at ways to protect our forests, waters and lands. Our most recent partnership with B.C. was to address the dock management plan in our swiya. We've been very successful. Working with them to address all the areas that have impacted our way of life has been a long process.

Food security is huge in our community. The fact that we are unable to collect food in the way our ancestors did is very concerning and serious. We're trying to work on restoring all of those areas. Derelict boats in our waters are a big part of that. I am very fortunate to live on the water, but I look out of my window with my cup of coffee in the morning and see all the dead boats sitting out there. It's very sad. We've talked at length about how we can address this and what it would take to help us begin the process of restoring and removing them from our waters.

I thank you, Mr. Chair, for giving me the opportunity to voice our opinion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll move on to Mr. Edwards for five minutes or less.

[Gordon Edwards, Councillor, Snaw-naw-as First Nation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Gord Edwards. I am a councillor for the Snaw-naw-as First Nation. We are located on Vancouver Island—the midsection on the west coast of the island. As the previous speaker, Chief Lenora Joe, said—and greetings, Chief Lenora Joe—our concerns are compatible.

When I was called to make some comments about derelict and abandoned boats, boats drifting in—personal, business or industrial boats—of course it was a concern. We have had our share of derelict boats—boats floating into the community beachfront, being left behind or sitting on the water for days and weeks. It took only one experience to realize that it could be a concern. The concerns are the potential of leakage, of oil dumping out onto our already limited beachfront. We have oysters, clams, Manila, seafood and sea cucumbers. We have those things that we depend on: It's our dinner table when it comes to harvesting for our community of about 200 people.

It took just that one experience of a sailboat that had been left and was crashing up along the breakwater. Of course, our first concern was the contamination that could develop. Then the second thing, of course, was about these things breaking loose and coming into our community beachhold. We have other people with boats, and there are boats coming in and crashing into each other, damaging boats. We're fortunate that none of that happened, but it made us stop and think. When Lisa Marie called and said, “Our discussion's on derelict boats,” those were first things that came into our minds.

I send greetings from our chief, Chief Brent Edwards. He's not able to make it today. I am happy to appear on his behalf and to make those comments about our concerns about the limited beachfront that we have for access to seafood.

I also point this out: Where do we go, and who do we connect with if we have a derelict boat sitting there? I was looking at a picture, on the Salish Sea website, of a sailboat that was left on the beach, and part of that sail was dug into the beach because it had been there that long. It can damage a waterfront that our children enjoy, that I enjoyed as a kid, and my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles. I do not want to see that happen in our stretch that we share with so many other people from the south, say in Lantzville and Nanaimo, and north in Nanoose and Parksville. We may not have as many derelict, abandoned or damaged boats just being left by people, businesses or development, but we've had our share of them.

One major point that comes to my thoughts about what to say here is, who do we go to? Do we go to Fisheries and Oceans? Do we go to the local municipal people? Do we deal with it ourselves? Can we take the boat? I don't remember the old pirates' version of ownership, but what are the rules around it? What are the processes involved for dealing with debris, contamination and the potential damage it could do to our oyster and clam farms—which we have—and to the ability of our members to go to the beach and have a plate of seafood for dinner.

Huy ch q'u. Thank you for allowing me to come in, and I look forward to what this panel develops for us as citizens to consider.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that. You're right on the five-minute mark, so that's pretty good.

We now go to Mr. Macedo for five minutes or less, please.

[Paul Macedo, Communications Director, Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the standing committee. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Paul Macedo. I'm communications director for the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers, referred to as CANDO. Today, I'm speaking from the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh in Vancouver. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the study of derelict and abandoned vessels.

I'll give a bit of background. CANDO is a national indigenous organization that was established in 1990 by first nations economic development officers across Canada. CANDO's mission is to build capacity for economic development officers and communities by providing services, education, training and certification. CANDO has been supporting a pilot for first nations engagement with the Canadian Coast Guard, Transport Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada regarding wrecked, abandoned and hazardous vessels, WAHV, since 2020. The current pilot involves eight southern Vancouver Island first nations working in collaboration with technology companies and the Government of Canada. The goal of the pilot is to increase opportunities for indigenous participation in the management of WAHV along the coast by supporting community engagement and understanding capacity and by supporting communities to self-determine how to participate in the processes.

CANDO believes that it is essential to have communities involved as early as possible in the WAHV management process. This starts with ensuring that indigenous communities, administration and members have training, skills, tools and platforms to be active on the water. Also, by understanding the government decision-making processes and requirements, indigenous communities can start to co-manage the vessels in their territories.

CANDO has considered the inclusion of traditional knowledge, understanding of the territories and culturally significant sites as a key element of the assessment process. This knowledge, along with state-of-the-art technology such as the BRNKL rapid deploy unit and indigenous-designed learning platforms from RaceRocks 3D allow communities to protect their territories while building new skills and capacity. CANDO uses the best practices for the innovative community economic development initiative, CEDI, as the basis for building stronger partnerships. CEDI creates positive relationship-building opportunities between indigenous communities and governments to work together on a mutually beneficial project.

One example is the CEDI partnership between Hupacasath and Tseshaht first nations and the City of Port Alberni involved in a joint effort in improving their harbour infrastructure.

The Haisla Nation and the District of Kitimat are also part of the CEDI partnerships and their work was recognized for a reconciliation award in 2024.

Some key take-aways are that indigenous communities have been stewards of our waters for time immemorial and have the most at stake in ensuring their territorial waters are properly managed. The local first nation is often the first to observe, report, assess and activate, for example, the MV Leviathan II near Ahousaht and the tugboat Nathan E. Stewart in Heiltsuk.

It's important to develop regional stewardship approaches to manage WAHV. This includes protecting the complete ecosystem, culturally sensitive sites, food sources, and generating economic opportunities. Using a facilitated engagement process like Stronger Together in the CEDI model helps build regional partnerships between indigenous and non-indigenous communities and levels of government. Establishing flexible monitoring and assessment contracts or programs for first nations communities can enhance the effectiveness of local efforts while ensuring timely and accurate reporting of WAHV. It will reduce the cost of monitoring vessels and ultimately provide stronger partnerships and improve environmental stewardship. Communities can provide a layer of direct communication with vessel owners through notices placed on vessels that can have a dramatic effect on encouraging vessel owners to comply with the WAHV Act.

Coast Guard and Transport Canada do not have sufficient vessels and crews to conduct these communications up and down the coast. Indigenous communities can co-manage the WAHV inventory by gathering current WAHV data and inputting it directly into the Government of Canada's systems. This would ensure that indigenous communities are at the decision-making table from the beginning of the process.

I thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to our rounds of questioning.

Up first is Mr. Small for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank thank the witnesses as well, especially Chief Joe, for being here and making the trek across this nation.

Chief Joe, I'll start with you.

Could you explain to the committee some of the effects on your cultural and traditional way of life in your nation as a result of these wrecked and abandoned vessels in your territory?

[Chief Lenora Joe]

It has a huge impact.

Our people have to travel so much farther to access marine resources because of how the contamination has happened. In the inlet, when there are derelict boats, they contaminate the whole inlet, so it's affecting all of the food resources. For our community members to have access to marine resources, including clams, oysters and seagrass.... The marine environment has always been our breakfast basket. It's our food basket. We've depended on it for many years. We've come to a point that we're unable to harvest any natural food sources within the water. Anything we want to collect, we can't, so it has a huge impact on us.

We have the boats in our inlet. The contamination is...it's very difficult to have a vision of that. It's right in front of us. We see it happening. We don't know what to do about it. Also, who do we contact? We've been advised that if we want to start looking at doing any kind of cleanup.... Do we have the authority to go and clean it up? It's in our swiya. Do we have authority over the waters to go and remove things as we see fit? How can we clean it up? How much of a cost is that going to be?

The impacts of leaving them there are huge. Some of those vessels have been out there for years and years. Most recently, we've had a ferry boat sink in our swiya. It was purchased by a group of people who thought it would be a great idea to have it so that they had somewhere to go and work on developing their drugs. It was a drug boat. They were making all of the drugs on this boat. They were having parties on the boat. We were trying to figure out what we could do to stop this, and then the boat sank and it's still sitting there. Nobody knows what to do. We don't know what the impact is going to be on that area. We don't know what kinds of drugs were on that boat, let alone what's in the boat itself. What are the materials on the boat? What will the impact to the environment be just from the materials? It is huge.

We just don't have the resources to be able to go and clean them up, and we don't have the resources to restore the food in the waters so that our community members have access to it. As first nations people, there are a few things we hold on to dearly, for dear life. We hold on to our language. Our language is who we are. That's our identity. Our land is who we are. The food we gather that feeds our people in our traditional ways is who we are. We're fighting to keep our traditions in place. Every day, we're losing something. We lose some part of us. Some part of us is getting lost in the big cloud, and we are fighting to sustain it.

The biggest impact is on food security. Food security is huge for us, next to housing. If we don't have housing, we have nowhere to cook our food.

This has a huge impact to our people. Food security is huge, and we're trying to look at every avenue to see how we can address it so that we can begin that restoration for our people.

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

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chief Joe.

I have a question for Mr. Macedo.

Do you have any commercial fish harvesting and fish harvesters whom you represent in your area?

[Paul Macedo]

Thank you for the question.

We don't represent fish harvesters. We represent economic development officers who work for individual first nations, as a group. Now, those economic development officers would work with individual, privately held businesses, including fish harvesters, in their regions, as well as community-owned enterprises and businesses.

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

What's been the impact of these abandoned and derelict vessels on your community?

How could things be handled in a better way to get some of these derelict vessels removed faster?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Give a short answer, please.

[Paul Macedo]

What we're trying to do is work with Canadian Coast Guard to develop processes whereby first nations marine teams can feed information and data directly to Coast Guard for proper assessment of the vessels of concern. We think that would expedite the process.

In turn, Coast Guard can work with first nations marine teams to do preliminary assessments and work at recovery or removal of the vessels.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Small.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

At our last meeting, we had an interesting discussion about what federal agency was best suited to be able to tackle this very frustrating issue of abandoned and derelict boats. I think that's why I'm so thankful today that we have indigenous witnesses and witnesses representing indigenous governments who are here to talk about how the Government of Canada can work better with indigenous people and indigenous governments to tackle this issue.

lhe hiwus, you mentioned in your opening remarks and in response to my colleague, Mr. Small, about some of the impact that it's having to the shíshálh people. I know this is an issue that the nation has been working on for some time.

I was hoping you'd be able to explain to this committee some of the work that the nation is doing to tackle this issue.

[Chief Lenora Joe]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Some things that we've done with respect to trying to work with the province on dock management.... The dock management plan was very significant for us to work on because of the number of docks in our swiya and inlet was having a huge impact on our food security. We had access to so many different kinds of food with respect to clams, oysters, seagrass and herring eggs; I could go on and on. We've lost that access to that. We worked on the dock management plan for over 40 years and that was only one step.

We knew that we had to address the docks, but we understood that we also have to address the derelict boats. That has not been something that's just all of a sudden occurred. Our ancestors and our predecessors have been working on it and trying to work with different levels of government on how we can address it. For the most part, we've left it to the federal government to address it. We've expressed our concerns, frustrations and how it's impacted our community, families and food security.

We're at a point where we want to work with you. How can we address this?

We've worked very hard with the Province of B.C. to address dock management. We could see that it was struggling to address it on its own, so we came in and provided assistance in that. As indigenous people, the most important part of our role is to secure all of the environmental impacts that affect our community. It goes from the water, to the land, to the forest, to the ocean, to the lakes and to the rivers. In every area, we're trying to address anything that has an impact.

Right now, one of our biggest impacts is with respect to the derelict boats and it's impacting our food security. We've been working on it diligently with DFO. We've had staff who are working with them, trying to address it and come up with solutions. I think we've kind of hit a wall where we don't know how much further we can go.

What we're saying is that we want to move forward with you. How can we help get this addressed?

We're looking at, how did this occur? What are the impacts? What can we do to fix it and how do we set up prevention?

That is the key thing here, I think. It's prevention. We need to stop what's occurring, but we also need to put something in place that looks at how we can prevent this from continuing. What kinds of things can we do together?

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

Absolutely. I think it's a point well taken. Indigenous people and indigenous governments are closest to the land. They have been stewards of the lands and waters since time immemorial and are kind of the eyes and ears on what's happening.

I understand that in the past the nation has had programs working with DFO on something that I think needs to be talked about in the context of this discussion, which is the guardians program. What kind of a role do you see programs like that playing to be able to address this and some of the other issues that are impacting the marine environment?

[Chief Lenora Joe]

We did have a guardianship program. We were working with DFO. We had a program in our inlets.

Our inlet is one of the deepest in the world. It is the deepest inlet in Canada. It's very deep and it's very long. We had a guardianship program where we were working in partnership with DFO. I'm not exactly sure what happened. In talking to some of our predecessors, for whatever reason the funding was just discontinued. We've been having a lot of discussions about it. We were indicating that at this point we believe it has to be one of our priorities. We have to look at how we can fund this program. Could we proceed and move forward without DFO? That's the question. I don't believe we can. We are asking DFO to come back in and partner with us.

It is very important for our nation members to be patrolling the waters and monitoring it and letting us know when things are happening. It's very difficult right now. Our inlet is very long. I myself probably get up the inlet probably two or three times a year. Every time I go up, I'm very shocked at what I see. I see the derelict boats. I see a lot of illegal things happening. We are asking ourselves how we can monitor it and protect it.

I believe we could do it very well. We have the capacity to do that within our nation. We do want to work with DFO on that. It is very, very important. Our community members are passionate. They're diligent. They want to protect our land. They want to protect the water. They'll go out there and make sure that happens. It is in the best interest of all of us to ensure that it does happen.

We're very hopeful that we can work with DFO in readdressing this issue and getting our guardianship program back on track. I have been monitoring the guardianship programs up in the north with Haida and other nations, and they're very significant. I am so impressed with how they're working with DFO on their guardianship programs. We welcome the opportunity to be able to offer that same support.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

Before I go to Madame Desbiens, I just had a note passed to me. Mr. Edwards has to leave at 5:15 our time. If anybody has a question for Mr. Edwards, you should probably try to get it in before now and 5:15.

We'll now 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.

I would also like to thank our valued witnesses, who are contributing to our work with their knowledge.

As you know, I represent the Bloc Québécois, so my questions will focus more on the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

I'd like to know if you have any relationships, exchanges, correspondence or if you share any information with first nations peoples on the east coast.

I'd like to start with Chief Lenora Joe.

[Chief Lenora Joe]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It was a little bit difficult to hear the question, but I believe it was about the relationship we have with the indigenous communities on the east coast with respect to their having the same concerns.

Right now we don't have a relationship with anybody from the east coast other than through such indigenous groups as the SGIG and the AFN. We always bring all of our concerns forward. When we are having those discussions, we are trying to address them as a group and we all are supporting each other.

I don't have any contacts on the east coast that can assist me or help me address the situation. However, I would say that if there was a nation that could provide that and would be more than happy to collaborate with us, we would be very excited to do that.

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

Thank you for your answer, Chief Joe.

I'll now turn to Mr. Macedo.

You mentioned the Council for the Advancement of Native Development Officers, or CANDO, an organization that provides economic development training to first nations people.

What is this organization missing in terms of ghost ship recovery expertise, or at the very least what is required to mitigate the impact of spilled hazardous materials?

What is this team missing, even in terms of training, so it can get more involved and get tangible results, so you can also see real results on your end?

Is there a lack of money or lack of support from the Canadian Coast Guard? Do you need more scientists from DFO, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or do you have everything you need on hand to make things happen?