Fisheries Committee on Nov. 25th, 2024

[Pierre Gratton]

If I could just piggyback on what Nick said as well on habitat banking and third parties, we'd really like that power extended to indigenous peoples. As our partners on the land base, they could be the proponent. We may be the project proponent, but they could be the ones who lead the habitat banking initiative. That would be a potential amendment to the act as well that might also accelerate these types of activities. It's to build on what Nick was saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

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.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here. It's always most enlightening.

I'm glad you're with us, because you've raised some issues that we often hear about.

With regard to our study on the Fisheries Act, you said earlier that we need to include more species under the Species at Risk Act in order to be able to react more effectively and quickly.

Dr. Lyne Morissette, an eminent scientist whom I'm sure you've heard of, holds a Ph.D. as well as two post-doctoral degrees and is very interested in species at risk, including right whales. She recently told us that the situation is extremely urgent when it comes to protecting our wildlife and everything related to it.

According to her, environmental mediation could be used to oversee a process that can sometimes be complex, what with delays in dealing with requests, as well as all kinds of steps that overlap and lead to more steps. As a result, there is a lack of efficiency in solving urgent problems. All of us here are of the opinion that the environment is a priority.

Could environmental mediation be an important tool in solving a number of pressing issues?

[Nick Lapointe]

Yes, perhaps. This is a concept I was not familiar with until very recently. I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on it, but it's an area that I want to delve into in the future.

[Pierre Gratton]

This is also the first time I'm hearing about the concept of environmental mediation.

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

Actually, it was a study that she just completed, which concluded with environmental mediation. She presented this to us last year at the symposium we organized on fisheries, which brought together all the stakeholders from the Maritimes and Quebec.

We've also heard a lot about transparency. We have to understand why we are doing one thing rather than another. In the absence of transparency, doubts creep in. When there is doubt, we start having reservations and look for ways out. So transparency seems to be a very important value, which fishers want, among other things.

Did you come to that conclusion in your thinking as well?

[Nick Lapointe]

Yes, certainly.

In the 2019 changes to the act, one of the requirements was to establish a registry. This is less on the fishing side and more on the habitat management side. All the authorizations issued by DFO should be posted on that registry. To date, five years later, all that is posted is the names of those authorizations. We still can't obtain the authorizations themselves.

I'm still waiting, since 2021, on the offsetting plans for the set of authorizations issued in 2020, the first year of the new act. Despite legally mandated transparency on the authorizations and other parts of the act, the department is not implementing that. Five years later, that's not happening.

Transparency on the decision and the rationale for those authorizations and other Fisheries Act decisions would be very helpful to have as well, but I don't believe that's legally mandated.

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

Thank you for enlightening us on this, because it's really important. We can't learn anything if we don't know the steps, the criteria and the factors that lead us to make one decision rather than another. This comes up a lot in our discussions with stakeholders.

In terms of transparency, Dr. Lyne Morissette told us that everyone agreed on environmental mediation, which is an open process. We've also heard that there should be no political involvement in certain fundamental resource decisions, as resources should not be politicized, especially in the pre-writ period.

Do you think that taking politics out of the resource management process could be a solution?

[Nick Lapointe]

I think one reason—

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

I'm talking about politicking. I'm not talking about politics in general.

[Nick Lapointe]

I appreciate that.

One of the reasons authorizations can take a long time is if there's not a lot of alignment between, say, industry, the department and affected indigenous communities. If that work was done in collaboration and in advance of applying for an authorization, it would likely help to streamline the authorization process.

I think there's a question about how much DFO would accept alternative negotiated solutions between industry and affected indigenous groups that don't quite follow the act but lead to good environmental and social and economic outcomes. I don't think we're anywhere close to out-of-the-box alternative thinking like that.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Ms. Barron, you have six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all the witnesses.

Mr. Lapointe, I'm happy you're bringing up the recommendation of a national fish passage strategy. Some of the stats you provided to us are very alarming. There were 10,000 fish barriers removed in Washington and only 300 in British Columbia. This brings me to something that comes up over and over again in our work: Our waterways are interconnected, and yet the responsibilities associated with these same waterways are siloed.

Can you speak a little bit more about this national strategy and about how important it is that we have not just federal leadership but also have the provinces, municipalities, organizations, industry, first nations and everybody on board and at the table in developing a sound strategy for us to move forward with?

[Nick Lapointe]

We absolutely need those other jurisdictions. They're either groups that benefit from the fisheries and would benefit from the restoration of fish passage or they're groups that own those structures.

These aren't just major dams; they're often municipal dams, municipal crossings and culverts that block fish passage. A lot of them are provincial infrastructures, such as highways, or provincially regulated industries, such as forestry, that create this network of barriers to fish passage.

Certainly, a collaborative approach is needed. It needs to involve all those sectors.

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

Do you have any recommendations for us, or for the government—I'm in an opposition party, of course—on how they can more effectively work with other levels of government and other individuals in the communities?

[Nick Lapointe]

Yes. I think there's a lack of strategic engagement in this project-by-project review, as opposed to officials or managers at DFO sitting down and talking with the provinces about, for example, the future direction for the road network and how we manage that in a way that is cost-effective and improves and protects our industry from washouts. Undersized crossings tend to wash out and be a hazard to human health and the economy. How do we work together to install appropriate road crossings and avoid or remove barriers to fish passage?

Those conversations at that strategic level are not happening today.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lapointe, you also mentioned compensation models when harms occur. Can you tell us a little bit more about your thoughts on that?

[Nick Lapointe]

Yes, there's certainly concern about such models in the environmental community. There are worries that “pay to slay” models may not be appropriate when the amount of habitat being destroyed is large and can be restored or replaced in an equivalent or improved way. Our interest in that sort of model is for those small projects for which an individual offset wouldn't make sense. You couldn't do an offset the size of this table here to build something that's going to be beneficial to fish.

In that situation, what's happening right now and why there aren't good outcomes of this lengthy review process for small projects is that the harm is allowed: This amount of habitat can be destroyed, but nothing is done to compensate for it or to gradually build some sort of restoration fund to address it.

Some way of collecting fees, pooling them and dedicating them to restoration would help to ensure that there's a bit of a trade-off between allowing that project to proceed and being able to restore habitat in a meaningful way that's beneficial to fish and fish habitat.

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

My colleague Mr. Arnold asked you questions, through the chair, about the information you're providing around the cumulative effects of small projects. I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more about how the knowledge of those impacts plays into that national strategy that you're recommending.

[Nick Lapointe]

The challenge there is that there isn't a lot of knowledge of those impacts, because the department does not track them and does not report on the footprint of all the small projects that they're allowing to occur, so it's very difficult to assess, map and identify which of those projects are accumulating harm and which are happening at a scale that's probably not concerning and could be streamlined more. There really is a need for transparency in understanding which of those projects are approved.

We're doing our best to map all of the barriers to fish, such as road stream crossings, and to support community members in reporting information on that to us. That exercise is independent from the approval and management process that's occurring right now within the department.

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

Thank you.

I forgot to set my timer. Could you clarify how much time I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have one minute and two seconds.

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

That's perfect. Thank you very much. It sounds like this will be my last question to you, Mr. Lapointe.

You talked about the importance of inclusion of indigenous rights and knowledge in these decisions that are being made. That was something you talked about in the last round.

Can you please clarify from your role and experience how important that is, and some key areas that we should be considering?

[Nick Lapointe]

I think it's extremely important, because that is what can lead to collaboration and support for these development projects. I think we've seen projects quashed because indigenous people weren't involved in them until the last minute and the projects didn't align with their priorities.

The challenge with the smaller projects is that by not formally reviewing and approving these and using these letters of advice, the department is shirking its duty to consult with indigenous people. They're not notified that those projects are occurring. They're not consulted on them, and they're not being involved in the development or the consultation on a regulation that could allow those projects to move forward.

There is a pathway to consulting with indigenous people on those that doesn't involve project-by-project consultation, but that's not being pursued either at this time.