Fisheries Committee on April 5th, 2022

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

Do you have formal agreements so that if your members go out to respond, there's compensation or coordination with the appropriate groups in the provincial or federal governments?

[Terry Dorward]

I will pass it over to my friend and colleague, Captain Josh Temple.

[Josh Temple, Coordinator, Environmental Sustainability, Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation]

Thank you very much, Terry. I can handle that for sure.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the committee.

As you know, my name is Josh Temple. I'm calling in from the unceded and unsurrendered lands of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation in what is now known as Kamloops, British Columbia.

I appear before you today in my role as coordinator of environmental sustainability for the Tla-o-qui-aht Nation. I've also appeared before the committee in my role as executive director of the Coastal Restoration Society, Canada's largest environmental remediation organization that is focused on supporting first nations and provincial and federal governments in their environmental stewardship goals. I humbly wear both of these hats before you today.

As a captain and professional mariner, I've garnered a lifetime of global maritime experience related to maritime—

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

Excuse me, was this to be your formal introduction?

It's my questioning time here, so perhaps if we get through the questions, you can continue with your presentation.

I was asking if the Tla-o-qui-aht have formal agreements in place and if there is compensation for members who take part. How are those arrangements laid out?

[Josh Temple]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold. I apologize. I was getting to that. I was almost done my introduction.

I'm not aware of any formal agreements that Tla-o-qui-aht or any members of Clayoquot Sound might have with the federal government. However, we have performed many initiatives directly related to spill response and recovery of anthropogenic debris directly related to container spill recovery over the years, which has been funded under contract by the provincial and federal governments.

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

Those have been in response to spills, but have you stepped in prior to that, for the sake of time, to begin these responses, and then sought agreements or compensation or resources afterwards? How has that process worked out?

[Josh Temple]

That's a great question. It has happened both ways. Sometimes, in the absence of a more formalized framework or emergency response structure that would allocate funding or resources to support an emergency response to anthropogenic debris related to container spills, etc., we do step in and become proactive. In other instances, there's debris that continues to wash in from a variety of international and domestic sources. It continues to wash in from the Zim Kingston spill.

In those instances, we'll work with either the provincial or the federal government to propose a collaborative approach for ongoing spill response and recovery, as well as for recycling and disposal initiatives that are pertinent to those recovery efforts and that have allocated funding mechanisms, either through direct contract awards through the procurement system, or through funds like the ghost gear fund, the “clean coast, clean waters” fund, which was recently done through a provincial initiative, or a variety of other initiatives that are put out by Transport Canada, the Coast Guard or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

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

Thank you for that.

Mr. Dorward, you mentioned that you're looking for matching resources for risk assessments but also direct funding to build response capacity. Would that be along the lines of permanent structures and facilities and regular staffed facilities as well? Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

[Terry Dorward]

Yes. We're working on a shoestring budget out here. We're not funded in a long way. Long-term funding is required to sustain response frameworks. We have a long way to go in terms of infrastructure. We need to build capacity and training and implement recovery efforts.

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

Mr. Chair, I think that's all I have for now. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie.

You have six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I wanted to see if you had any reflections on the Nathan E. Stewart incident. I know that was something that was more in the Heiltsuk territory, but I recall that at the time there was criticism that the agencies that responded to the oil spill didn't call in or rely on traditional or indigenous knowledge or expertise.

Mr. Dorward, was that your observation as well? Can you refresh us as to what happened there?

[Terry Dorward]

Of course, we don't have a direct line of communication when this type of stuff happens. That fuel spill on the central coast could easily have happened along WCVI. Coastal indigenous networks are often the first responders. You know, we need training. We need equipment to respond to these emergency situations.

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

The actual concern at the time was that there was local knowledge that could have mitigated the amount of damage done, but it wasn't relied on.

Mr. Dorward, you spoke of training and said that there has been some training conducted. Who develops the training, and who delivers it?

[Terry Dorward]

Well, we've been working with Josh Temple. As coastal indigenous people, we're often geographically positioned to respond. We need to work with WCMRC, coastal NGOs like Josh's team and the Coast Guard.

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

Has any training been offered to you through the Kitsilano Coast Guard base? That was one thing that we counted on as a good development, first of all to keep that base open, but secondly to use that facility to train first responders up and down the coast. Has your community benefited at all from that?

[Terry Dorward]

It has not yet. We'd like to participate in a coastwide framework of first responders. That's a framework that we need to see implemented.

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

That leads me to the question I have had for many of our witnesses so far, and that is on coordination. We're impressed by the number of different groups, many of them NGOs, that want to step in and help with cleanup or response to disasters, and each of them is clamouring for a small budget to make their activities work and worthwhile, but I am always suspicious that there is not a lot of coordination, that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, and that we could be duplicating efforts or leaving gaps.

Is that your experience, literally being on the ground and on the water?

[Terry Dorward]

Yes, it definitely has been.

Communications are improving, but we need to bolster the collaboration among government, first nations and NGOs. This takes dedicated funding, and we'd like to see the government come to the table with some long-term funding. Without long-term funding, the framework will collapse.

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

When there is an incident—a transport truck tips over or a train derails—you can tell in an instant what's in the car or in the tank, or whatever load the truck or the train is carrying, because there are markings there that allow emergency responders to know exactly what they're dealing with when they arrive on the scene. In fact, they would know before they get there.

Does the same apply? For instance, when the Zim Kingston encountered its difficulties, would you have been able to find out what was on that ship, regardless of what might have been lost overboard? Would that give you a sense of what you might have to deal with? Is that kind of detail available to you?

[Terry Dorward]

We need to treat all these spills with the highest priority. That way, we are proactive in our response plans. Treating all spills as a high priority ensures that we are prepared with an adequate response.

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

I have a quick question. That's similar to what we were dealing with in the early days of the pandemic, when there was a lack of personal protective gear.

When you're out to clean up a beach or a piece of shoreline, it would help to know what you're likely to encounter. Would you have the protective gear to keep everybody safe when they're dealing with potentially dangerous material?

[Terry Dorward]

Spill response equipment is highly specialized and ensures that the protection is there.

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

Do you have enough of that?

[Terry Dorward]

We don't have adequate equipment yet, and we need to acquire it for sure.