Fisheries Committee on March 31st, 2022

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing today. It's great to hear the on-the-ground, edge-of-the-water information that you're able to provide.

I'll begin with Ms. Wristen and possibly ask Ms. Hoyland the same question.

Government officials appeared at this committee two days ago, and one mentioned lessons learned from the Zim Kingston spill. However, when those officials were asked what lessons had been learned, they weren't able to provide specifics, but the committee was told that they were actually in the middle of an after action report, which raises a question. Do government departments and agencies consider this matter closed? In your opinion, were there deficiencies in the government's response to the Zim Kingston incident, and were there lessons to inform and improve future responses?

Ms. Wristen, please go first.

[Karen Wristen]

I don't know, and it's rather alarming to me that I don't know, because I've been asking for information about the spill from the Coast Guard and did not get anything back.

All Canadians deserve to know what the spill response regime is, and what lessons we learned from Zim Kingston, but there is simply no communication about this, even to those of us who were at least tangentially involved, and certainly, trying to be involved in the ongoing cleanup effort that is going to be required for the next decade or so to deal with this debris. It's very clear that the policy void I mentioned in my earlier remarks is readily apparent in this case.

I don't know who established the end-points for the cleanup, but I can tell you that I flew over some of the impacted beaches on Monday of this week and discovered easily identifiable pieces of debris from the Zim Kingston spill on the Helen Islands, Lanz and Cox Islands, and the Scott Islands group inside of a marine national wildlife area. There were also several pieces along the North Coast Trail. The debris is still out there, and it is going to require further efforts to address.

I do not know—

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

Thank you. Our time is so short, and I wish you had more time. If there is more you'd like to contribute, we'd certainly like to see it in a written submission.

Ms. Hoyland, would you say there were lessons learned to improve future government responses?

[Alys Hoyland]

As Karen has also alluded to, the policy gaps in responding to marine debris are as evident as they were after Hanjin, unfortunately. The debris has spread. We know that it's affecting a huge stretch of the B.C. coastline. I'm alarmed to hear that we are in the after phase, because this is clearly an ongoing issue. It's clear to anyone who lives on the coast that it's an ongoing issue. The debris is very much still out there and we're going to continue to encounter that debris, especially since there are 102 containers that are still unaccounted for.

I'd say the lessons learned are that we need a robust plan for marine debris management generally. It's impossible at this point to do a container spill cleanup, if you like. The stuff is so dispersed along the coast that it would be impossible for us to go out and recover every single item from the Zim Kingston. What we need is a strategic plan for how we can continue to monitor our coastlines and continue to manage the marine debris issue that we are dealing with as coastal communities in B.C.

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

Thank you for that.

This year, in my riding of North Okanagan—Shuswap, we've suffered catastrophic wildfire issues. I've heard from indigenous communities that their knowledge and capabilities could have been put to better use.

Would you say there's an opportunity or room for better cataloguing of resources that are available in local communities and better collaboration? I don't know if the government could take on all of the monitoring and cleanup without local indigenous communities and local volunteer organizations. Would you say there's better opportunity out there?

Go ahead, Ms. Hoyland.

[Alys Hoyland]

I think the great opportunity here is that the BC Marine Debris Working Group has already had a great head start on that. We have existing relationships with first nations communities and the guardians programs that exist in a lot of those communities. There are local resources that exist for extracting and managing marine debris on a local scale. The marine debris working group is that for B.C., which is an amazing asset that I'd recommend the government rely on to formulate a strategy and further establish relationships with first nations communities, as well, with regard—

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Harris, you have your hand up. I don't know if that was to provide an answer or if there was something you weren't hearing.

[Lucas Harris]

I was going to expand on what Ms. Hoyland said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

If you could do that in writing, we'd appreciate it. Mr. Arnold's time has expired. It's gone a bit over.

We'll now go to Mr. Hanley for five minutes or less, please.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to all of you for presenting today. It's fascinating testimony.

My background is in health and in two career areas: emergency medicine and public health. My interests are in the response, especially, as well as the prevention aspects.

Ms. Wristen, you talked about that surge in container spills in 2020. Could you elaborate on container losses and whether that was a blip? Is there a trend over the years? Is this in proportion or out of proportion to the increasing volume of container traffic?

In some ways, I would expect that with more experience and better technology, with more containers per ship, that container loss should go down in proportion to the volume, at least, if not overall, to achieve some kind of high standard of near zero loss.

[Karen Wristen]

The fact is that the larger ships are more vulnerable to windage. They're stacking so many containers so high that these ships are quite vulnerable to losing their centre of gravity, if you will, in the wind. They're also vulnerable to high seas. A long ship in a high sea can suffer structural stress that can impair its integrity, so no, the bigger ships aren't giving rise to more safety.

The additional safety equipment they have on board could give rise to more safety if they felt that they needed to be more careful, but because they're not liable for their judgments of seamanship under the international convention, they're not more careful. They're simply responding to the economic drivers that caused them to want to bring more cargo more quickly.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thanks.

You talked about oil spill responses and an international example, I think, of where we could potentially go with a container spill response. I hope I caught that right. Can you talk about some good examples in international practice with regard to something that we could emulate in terms of agreements or even more regional practices on cargo container spills prevention?

[Karen Wristen]

Internationally, there has been quite a bit of work done to improve the rules for carriage at sea. That work is summarized in the Rotterdam Convention—to which we are not a party—driven largely by the EU, I believe. If you want to look to a regime that provides more modern and realistic rules for this multimodal carriage that didn't exist in 1924, when the existing rules were made, that is where I would look.

In terms of good examples of a response mechanism, I would suggest that the best mechanisms spread the risk as far as possible, with as little cost as possible, to each player. In that regard, a levy per container is exactly the right approach to take. With a very small levy on every container sent through our ports, we could create a fund that would fund a standing spill response effort that is joint with the communities and takes advantages of all those local assets and local know-how.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you. That's great.

I think I have about a minute left, and I want to turn to Mr. Harris or Ms. Hoyland on the emergency response and the role of volunteers.

Clearly, as you said, there's not really an end time to the spill. This is an ongoing effort that is largely dependent on the pooling of resources and volunteers. In helping organizations like yours or others to scale up your ability to respond, where would you see that we could do better in investing more in resources to support grassroots organizations?

[Lucas Harris]

I'm happy to start, and then Ms. Hoyland can jump in.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

You have 15 seconds, I think.

[Lucas Harris]

Volunteers play a critical role, but I think the responsibility goes much further beyond the role of our organizations. This is an opportunity for the federal government to really take a leadership role and find ways to allocate assets beyond our capacity. We're happy to help, but much work needs to be done. We need assistance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hanley.

We'll now go to Madam Gaudreau for two and a half minutes, please.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to tell the witnesses how much their participation in our study matters. If you must take action now to solve problems, the reason is that the government failed to respond in a concrete manner.

I'm hearing that reform is needed, but not just in your area. The employment insurance system also needs a reform, as well as the privacy system. It's a big job.

In the meantime, I encourage you to keep hammering your message home, and even to make submissions. I encourage you to do so to ensure your survival. You matter.

We'll have some work on our end in terms of setting priorities. You and I both know that Fisheries and Oceans Canada isn't a priority, even though the issues concern the environment, the quality of our waters and the quality of what we put on our plates. The committee has a great deal of work to accomplish.

I also want to thank you for building close relationships with the indigenous communities.

If you had a recommendation regarding these communities, what would you say about the relationship that we must maintain and strengthen together?

[Karen Wristen]

Perhaps I could take a first cut at this.

The first nations communities in question are quite small and remote. They do not have the capacity at the present time to participate in the kind of standing joint task force that I suggest we need to have on this coast. They must be given some assistance with developing the capacity to participate, on an ongoing basis, in training and drilling.

That would be my recommendation.

[Alys Hoyland]

I echo Karen's sentiments entirely in terms of capacity building. Also, engagement from the very beginning is so important to ensure that we are acknowledging the knowledge, experience and wealth of information that exists within our first nations communities in terms of marine stewardship. Having first nations voices on board through all parts of the process for these kinds of responses is imperative.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Gaudreau. Your time is up.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Is my time really up?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Two and a half minutes are not long in real time.

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