Fisheries Committee on Dec. 11th, 2024

[Larry Thomas]

Yes. Man-made agriculture-related infrastructure that ultimately becomes a fish habitat.... It was likely never a fish habitat, in a lot of these cases.

There's a well-documented case out of southern Saskatchewan on the Prairie farm rehabilitation administration and the creation of the Newton reservoir, which was completed in 1938. That dam was specifically to irrigate forage and cereal crops and to get things going again after the dirty thirties. We have been witnessing some issues in the past four years, with DFO officials coming in and seemingly arbitrarily reducing the level of water to keep fish from coming into the irrigation canal. It's worrying, at the very least, for a lot of the ranchers and farmers in that area.

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

If an association or someone held a range lease, for example, in an upland area, where they may be able to create water storage to help combat drought situations later in the year, would that even be achievable? How difficult would it be now under the current regulatory regime with these minor works?

[Larry Thomas]

It varies a bit with the impact. What I was getting at with the need to coordinate with the provinces is that in your province of British Columbia, there are a lot of rules put in place at the provincial level, and producers also have to abide by the federal act. It can be quite daunting to wade through that to get, say, a dugout or a reservoir, like you were saying, established upstream, in the high country or wherever, quite frankly.

I have a couple at my place here in Alberta. I got those done before any kind of permitting. It would be much more difficult for me to get those done now, but they are in place.

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

You could create—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

We will go on now to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

Oh, it's Mr. Hardie. I tried again, Madame Desbiens, to get you up on the list earlier, but they're correcting me.

Mr. Hardie, go ahead for six minutes or less, please.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

It's my responsibility. I was wearing my blank look at the time.

I appreciate everybody for being here.

How complementary are provincial regulations?

Speaking specifically to forestry, which, as Mel mentioned, is a big thing in British Columbia, are the provincial regulations, etc., including things like setbacks from streams and rivers, helpful or do they complicate things for you?

[Kate Lindsay]

We've done a review. Every province has forestry regulations that provide riparian setbacks from waterways. Essentially, there's a lot of compatibility with the avoidance of HADD under the Fisheries Act, but what we've seen—I've been through maybe two revisions of the Fisheries Act—is that prior to 2012, we had one-window agreements whereby if provinces could meet or beat the Fisheries Act, DFO would actually utilize the provincial regulatory system for bridges, culverts and riparian setbacks. Essentially, it could be a one-window, so it's a very streamlined regulatory approach, which we very much appreciate in forestry.

Since the changes with Fisheries Act to go away from HADD and then back to HADD, we're not in that position right now. There are a couple, particularly in east coast Canada, that still have a one-window provision. We have asked DFO to prioritize looking at the provincial regulatory frameworks and where they could provide that equivalency and that efficiency in processes, because that equivalency is there in most jurisdictions.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

There are obviously quite a few hoops that you have to jump through to get even reasonably simple projects approved and done.

You do all of that, and then is there any monitoring or any review of the actual physical work that has been done?

[Kate Lindsay]

Yes. There are auditing programs in place by provinces, but I'll turn to Scott.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Auditing sounds like somebody just checking things off on a piece of paper.

Does somebody actually come out and see what happened to that culvert or that bridge?

[Scott Jackson]

Every province will have its own compliance system, which involves field visits. When we say audit, that includes field audits.

It's impossible to go out and see everything, so from a statistical standpoint, you pick a representative sample, and the government will go out and assess.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Which government is that?

[Scott Jackson]

Right now it's both levels of government—provincial and federal.

Then, on top of that, as Kate mentioned, there are independent certification bodies, which is a voluntary audit. There are voluntary standards that the forestry industry and forestry companies adhere to in order to access international markets, so that's a third layer.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Is it safe to say that there are some bad actors out there that know the seams, if you will, between one set of rules and another set of rules, or one set of monitoring and another set of monitoring?

[Scott Jackson]

I wouldn't say that there are bad actors. Mistakes happen, and that's the reason for these audit systems and compliance programs. What we're asking for is not a removal or a lessening of the oversight or the enforcement. We're asking for much more streamlined processes to allow for the activities to take place in the first place.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I would mention at this point that—and I'm sorry if this annoys my friends across the way—the housing accelerator fund may have an application here in the permitting process, because municipal permitting has been kind of—

Yeah, I know; you're shaking in your boots.

Municipal permitting has been long held up as a barrier to getting homes built. It sounds like when it comes to the electricity sector or your sector that, again, simple things have to go through the same hoops as the more complicated things. One thing that the housing accelerator fund is helping municipalities do is turn to AI to deal with those really simple things. Things that would otherwise take months through the regular permitting process can be done in a week.

That's one of the things that I'm going to put down on my list of recommendations that the DFO look into to alleviate what you've been talking about, because you're not the only ones who've been talking to us about that.

Mr. Porter, when we reviewed the act back in 2019, one of the things we noted from the 2012 one was that Mr. Harper's government offered protection for commercially important stocks of fish. If that stock became degraded to the point that it was no longer commercially viable, then our understanding was that those protections were removed.

Was that your feeling at that time? If so, have the 2019 changes brought a bit more clarity and, if you like, a little more effectiveness to the whole regime around protecting stocks?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Give a very short answer, please.

[Darren Porter]

I love the changes. They're just not being enforced.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I see. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie. Now I'll go to Madam Desbiens for six minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to thank you for looking to give me the floor earlier when it wasn't my turn. One day, you never know, I may be second to speak.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

What the witnesses are telling us is interesting. When we in the Bloc Québécois talk about sovereignty or handing certain powers back to the provinces, people sometimes look at us a little baffled, as if we weren't seeing straight. What I'm hearing today is that, in actual fact, there's duplication in what the federal and provincial governments do, and that can sometimes undermine key structure-building development. They seem to think that, on their own, the provinces can't make decisions and equip themselves with organizations, tools and levers to do the right thing for the environment while also enabling development, whatever that may be.

Therefore, here's my question: Is the federal government actually taking up too much space in this duplication of red tape? Couldn't the Fisheries Act provide for the federal government withdrawing to some extent so the provinces can get a foothold or greater control over their own environment, their own territory and their own development? In Quebec, we have the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement, or BAPE, that does this kind of work, so sometimes we can keep the federal government from jumping with both feet into our business. Sometimes we can't, but sometimes we can.

What do you think about this, Mr. Jackson and Ms. Lindsay?

[Kate Lindsay]

It's an excellent question.

I think what I mentioned earlier to Mr. Hardie is that if DFO prioritizes outlining with clarity the outcomes they are looking for, then it's a process of asking, “Who is best to deliver those outcomes? What systems are already in place that provide the structure, provide the oversight and provide the monitoring?”

That's where we think that having codes, and a broader set of codes.... It's like, “If you're going to do a culvert installation, these are the outcomes we want to see.” If we see that the Government of Saskatchewan has a very good process in place for the installation of culverts and the monitoring, and there are no habitat alterations and there is no destruction to fish and fish habitat, DFO could then essentially delegate some of those provisions. That could be done through an agreement.

What we need is the prescribed works regulation, which identifies those sets of works or classes that could move forward, and then an expanded list of codes. Then, I think, we can work together to say, “Who is best? Where is the provincial government on this? Where is the territorial government best placed to provide that oversight?” I think we used to have that.

Essentially, what that would do is that if you focus on low-risk or routine activities and activities that are being done very systematically, with well-trained contractors and habitat biologists on site, then DFO can actually spend its time working on projects that are larger—case-by-case projects that are a medium or higher risk to fish and fish habitat.

It's an excellent point and something that we would very much want to see move forward.

Thank you for the question.

[Scott Jackson]

The only thing I would add is that those tools exist. It's just a matter of DFO getting on with it and initiating those processes.

Thank you very much for that question.

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

Thank you.

How about you, Mr. Porter?

[Darren Porter]

Thank you. It's a very interesting question and very complicated, especially in Nova Scotia. We're not represented as well in our province as Quebeckers are by their province. We don't even have a provincial structure that looks after inland fisheries and aquaculture and fish buyers. We don't have anybody provincially representing commercial fisheries—nobody. Federally, we have Ottawa, and that's disconnected.

Nova Scotia's biggest independent industry is commercial fishing. We have an expanding rights-based fishery, which is a beautiful thing as well.

I don't know who would be better, but somebody's got to start doing it. We don't have the representation that we need from either one. I don't think right now that either one is any better than the other.