Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.
The Canadian Wildlife Federation, or CWF, is a national conservation charity. We work to conserve Canada's wildlife and habitats for the use and enjoyment of all through education, action and outreach. We work in collaboration with hunting and angling groups, indigenous communities, environmental partners, industry and our more than 250,000 supporters to accomplish these goals.
CWF was deeply engaged in both the 2012 and 2019 changes to the act and believes that both helped improve it.
Examples from 2012 include adding duties to report violations, a new prescribed works tool to regulate common projects, and expanded prohibitions to include activities that cause harm.
In 2019, a key change was restoring the prohibitions against the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat and the death of fish by means other than fishing. Other amendments improved inclusion of indigenous rights and knowledge and required consideration of cumulative effects. The purpose of the act—to protect and conserve fish and fish habitat—was also clarified. The legislation is strong, and CWF doesn't believe further amendments are needed at this time.
Despite the strength of the Fisheries Act, after five years the department is not achieving its purpose. Major challenges remain, stemming in part from DFO's limited implementation of their tools and obligations under the act. We work closely with the department on conservation solutions and we recognize many excellent programs, including DFO's fish habitat science and the Pacific region's salmonid enhancement program. At the same time, small projects continue to harm fish habitat. Little is being done to enforce or otherwise address known violations of the Fisheries Act, particularly for barriers to fish passage.
The first concern I want to highlight is the cumulative effects of small projects. Each year the department reviews thousands of projects, but issues only 100 to 200 authorizations, dismissing harm from the others as low risk. The footprint of the other projects is definitely smaller, but they do cause harm. Because there are so many, the accumulating harm is a major issue. Small projects are individually reviewed, which takes a lot of DFO staff time and results in only informal approval by letters of advice. This inefficient process delays projects and creates costs and uncertainty for industry. The worst part is that this system is not leading to good outcomes for fish and fish habitat.
We don't think the solution is to make small project management more complex. Tools added in 2012 and 2019 were designed to address these issues, but they are not being implemented. Small projects would be better managed by prescribed works regulations, which could create an automatic permitting system to reduce DFO costs, cut red tape, provide speed and certainty for proponents and enable compensation models when harm is accumulating.
For big projects, proponents need to provide offsets to compensate for harm, but this happens for only a small number of the projects reviewed. For small projects that do cause harm, a fee-in-lieu system should be implemented through prescribed works regulations. This would allow DFO to combine fees from multiple small projects and dedicate them to fund communities working to address restoration priorities. This solution can be implemented now. In the long term, a third party habitat banking system would provide expanded conservation and economic opportunities. Work to develop that system should begin immediately.
The second point I'd like to highlight is the need for a national fish passage strategy to address the fragmentation of our waterways.
With DFO's support, CWF has led assessment of fish passage issues in Canada and developed a national database of all dams and other barriers to fish. We found that on average, there's a potential barrier every three kilometres on our streams.
Most of the economically, recreationally and culturally important fish in Canada rely on migration paths between bodies of water. Wild salmon, American eel and other migratory species have disappeared from much of their traditional range because of barriers. The department has appropriate powers under the Fisheries Act to address this, but they are not fulfilling their obligations. We documented over 35,000 dams in Canada. Fewer than 300 of them have fishways.
Other countries, including the U.S. and in Europe, are far ahead of Canada in fixing this problem. In recent decades, more than 10,000 fish barriers have been removed in Washington state alone, as compared with fewer than 300 in B.C. Fish responses to these projects have been incredible, with salmon recolonizing their habitats and herring populations increasing from hundreds to hundreds of thousands in just a few years. A national fish passage strategy would include removing barriers and requiring fish passage at such active facilities as hydroelectric dams.
CWF is eager to support the committee and department in achieving the purpose of the act.
I look forward to any questions. Thank you.