Fisheries Committee on Nov. 6th, 2024

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am eager to get back to the witnesses, to whom I am very grateful.

If I told you that it was possible, perhaps under a joint federal-provincial program, to create a project to assess whether shipwrecks are positive or negative, something that could be included in your normal diving activities, do you think that would be of interest to the divers you know? I'm not talking about a project that would put you in danger, but rather that would enable you to identify them using funded tools that would be provided to you.

[Marie-Christine Lessard]

Oh, yes.

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

So I think that's agreed.

I hope that such a project could also be put in place in British Columbia and in the west, so that we can coordinate the valuable knowledge and skills you have. They seem to be one way of getting more information about the boats at the bottom, at least those that are accessible.

Thank you for being here. I hope everyone will agree and that we can provide the necessary funding so that your recreational activity can be used to protect biodiversity and bring more marine tourism and divers to our respective sectors.

[Marie-Christine Lessard]

Let's hope so.

We are there, and we will be there to help you if needed.

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

That's what I wanted to hear. I'm very pleased that you said it and that my colleagues heard it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just two quick points.

First of all, Mr. Hardie—and all my colleagues, actually—I just want to remind you that there was also testimony provided by John White from Snuneymuxw, who did identify that Snuneymuxw is also willing and keen to do this work. I just want to clarify that this is also testimony that was provided.

Another thing I want to highlight is just how different they are. With regard to all the coasts and the waterways that we're talking about, the situations are so different. I think it's important for us to consider that in this study.

I want to go to Mr. Charleson.

First of all, I don't think I thanked you for all the important work that you do through the Coastal Restoration Society. It does such important work along the west coast, and I know, Mr. Charleson, that you're out on the water quite often. I'm wondering if you can share with us some of the implications that you're seeing of these vessels being left abandoned along our coasts.

What is the impact on our surrounding marine ecosystems, on food security, on our coastal communities and so on?

[Joshua Charleson]

A lot of the places that we've cleaned up, where we've gotten rid of derelict vessels from the beach, are still not healthy, and this was years ago. There are loads of heavy metals. People love to use the paint that has lead in it and stuff like that, and it all leaches into the beaches and poisons the clam-beds. Then everything that eats clams going forward has all those toxins in them as well.

I was talking about hishuk ish tsawalk, and then it's the same with fibreglass. It's releasing microplastics. Everything this small eats it, and then something bigger eats it and so on up the chain. Then we eventually eat it.

We're living with microplastics and toxins because of what we're putting into our food chain. Coastal first nations and coastal people rely heavily on food sovereignty, especially when something happens. There was a fire a couple of years ago in Port Alberni that cut us off from the rest of the island. There was no way around it. During those times, like a lot of people, we needed to rely on the foods that we had in our freezers that we had harvested from our own territories and everything like that. We want more abundance.

I always hear from all the old-timers, “Oh, my God, it was a heyday; we had so much. There were way more fish; there was way more forest.” I want those heydays to come back, and that's why the work that I'm doing is restoring it or remediating it to those levels. It's so that my kids and my kids' kids can have that same abundance, which I don't have in this generation because it skipped mine because of the generation before that had their heyday. I want to bring the levels back up so that future generations have that heyday again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

That closes up this round. I want to thank our witnesses for sharing their knowledge and information with the committee on this particular study.

Mr. Charleson, Mr. Drolet and Ms. Lessard, thank you again for coming to the committee and sharing your knowledge.

I want to say thank you to the clerk, the analysts, the translation team and everybody for making this a successful meeting today.

On Monday, November 18, our next meeting when we come back after the constituency week, we will finish our study on derelict and abandoned vessels.

The meeting is adjourned.