Fisheries Committee on April 26th, 2022

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, I think it's fundamental to have the science available to all, so that they can look at it and contribute to it. From the peer review at CSAS, hundreds of advice are published yearly on top of several hundred scientific publications.

We have more than 450 datasets, including data that are used for a full range of decision-making—not just for fishery but implementation of the Impact Assessment Act and others. In many areas we're using leading-edge technology to expand the amount of data.

We're developing expertise in acoustic data, remote sensing data and genomic data. All that is made available to all who contribute to the science process.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

I want to thank our witnesses for staying with us much longer than they had planned to address concerns of the committee members.

We will recess for a couple of minutes now to allow our witnesses to sign off, and then begin our next session and have the sound check for our next witness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We welcome our next witness, Dr. Mona Nemer, chief science adviser.

The floor is yours now for your opening statement of five minutes or less, please.

[Dr. Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor, Office of the Chief Science Advisor]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to you and all the members of the committee.

I want to thank the committee for inviting me here today, and I welcome the committee's interest in science.

I am very pleased by your interest in science.

Science helps government decision-makers gather data, analyze evidence and assess different policy options and their impacts.

Let me begin by briefing you about my office, our mandate and some of the work we've done since my appointment in September 2017.

My mandate is to provide the government with advice and recommendations to advance three main objectives.

One, ensuring that government science is fully available to the public and that scientists...

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Excuse me, Dr. Nemer. We're not getting translation.

I'll get that checked. Just a moment, please.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Tina Miller]

Excuse me, Dr. Nemer.

Could you give us a short sentence in French, please?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Yes, of course.

My mandate is to provide the government with advice and recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

It sounds good now, and we're getting the translation.

You can start where you left off and continue.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Thank you.

My mandate is to provide the government with advice and recommendations to advance three main objectives.

One, ensuring that government science is fully available to the public and that federal scientists are able to speak freely about their work.

Two, improving the science advisory function within the federal government, so that scientific analyses are considered when the government makes decisions.

And three, recommending ways for the government to better support quality scientific research within the federal system.

Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to observe the interplay between science and policy-making. By science, I mean not just the physical and natural sciences, but the social and behavioural sciences as well. Here are some of my observations that relate to the work of this committee.

First, it's crucial for federal government scientists to provide high-quality research that directly informs legislative, regulatory or policy decision-making. For this reason, one of my office's first initiatives was the creation of a model scientific integrity policy, which has now been adopted by more than 20 federal departments and agencies, including DFO. The policy provides a framework, laying out everyone's role in the conduct of high-quality science that is free of undue influence. The best science advice is based on high-quality, transparent research.

Second, it's important for federal departments to have structured mechanisms for engaging and evaluating external research. That's because a great deal of relevant scientific expertise exists outside of the federal government.

Third, it's essential that the scientists and policy-makers understand each other's imperatives. Scientists need to understand what evidence is relevant to the policy objectives at hand, and policy-makers must understand both the benefits and limits of what scientific evidence can provide. This is why my office, in collaboration with Health Canada, has developed an online self-directed course on effective science policy conversations. This course will soon be offered through the Canada School of Public Service.

In my capacity as adviser to the Prime Minister and cabinet, I can be called upon to provide formal or informal science advice. For example, in 2018, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans asked me to lead an independent expert panel to provide recommendations on the appropriate use of scientific evidence in aquaculture decision-making. My office brought together experts from Canada and around the world to advise on this issue.

Our publicly available report made a number of recommendations that are designed to improve science advice, scientific priority setting and science communications. One of them was the appointment of a departmental science adviser at DFO. That recommendation was implemented, and I want to acknowledge the work done by DFO science adviser, Dr. Paul Snelgrove. It's my understanding that work continues on several other recommendations from the expert panel's report.

The report on aquaculture science is one of many pieces of scientific advice that my office has provided to the government since the beginning of my mandate. Much of the advice my office has provided to government in recent years has been related to the pandemic. The pandemic revealed the public's interest in science and the scientific evidence used in decision making. Open science and transparency are essential not only for creating good policy, but also for maintaining and building trust in our public institutions.

It's my hope that we will use the lessons learned from the past two years to nurture a more scientifically literate society as well as stronger and more open institutions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to Mr. Perkins, for six minutes or less, please.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Dr. Nemer.

I was pleased to hear that you examine the quality of the science being provided to decision-makers, and the process. With all of your responsibilities for science in the government, I'm not sure how far you get into the mud—or your team does—in terms of science such as that conducted by DFO.

I want to use, if I could, a recent example, to understand how far your agency may go into the science. The minister recently closed the Atlantic mackerel fishery. The basis of the decision was obviously based on the science, combined with the catch numbers. Would it surprise you that the spawning science that DFO has done in the Gulf of St. Lawrence over the last decade has moved to a week earlier in the month of June, further away from the peak period of spawning on June 24?

All palegic fish, especially on spawning and migration, are water-dependent. Generally, earlier on when the science is being done, DFO is actually doing science on the spawning mass when the water is two degrees lower than when mackerel spawn. They're doing it at around 8°C rather than 10°C to 13°C degrees. As a result, they're finding a smaller and smaller biomass.

It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you take out the results from the last decade of the sampling they're doing in the water that is colder than when mackerel normally spawn—when you eliminate that—you find that the spawning mass is actually 48% from its high in the 1980s. However, DFO is basing its decisions with that lower temperature included, which means the reporting that the biomass is only 5% of its peak in the 1980s informs the minister's decision that the stock is in trouble. They're going out too early, and they're not finding it at the same spot.

Would your department be looking into those kinds of things and analyzing whether or not the science quality is delivering what it should be?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

This is a complex question. Perhaps I should clarify that, if I'm asked by the minister to provide direct advice on a question like this, my office certainly would. Generally speaking, we're not asked to provide this kind of evidence or oversee that kind of detail.

Perhaps to help, I can say that there are a number of evidences that are gathered as part of the science advice. One is, of course, observation. The other one is estimates. The third one is a pattern, and the fourth one is the causal hypothesis, if you will. All these need to factor in when we look at the completeness of the evidence and the quality of the science and the evidence that is presented.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you for the answer.

I will switch to another area, marine protected areas. I'm sure you've been part of some of the international conferences where the government is promoting 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030. I recently, in the last few months, attended a meeting, a consultation with the fishing industry in eastern Nova Scotia, about the proposed marine refuge off the Scotian shelf.

DFO science said that the reason they were proposing this was to protect a particular type of Gorgonian coral that exists on the edge of the shelf in that area where they have a very robust halibut fishery, and it would potentially mean the end of that halibut fishery.

When I asked the scientists if they had specific data on the level of coral development in that area over time, say, the last decade, and whether it had been going higher or lower in that area and, if it had been depleting and been affected negatively, whether they could draw a direct cause to fishing, climate change or others issues of storms, they referred me to the science, generally, that they had. I looked at it, and it had absolutely no science on that geographic area. It was a general bit of science with regard to Gorgonian coral and the effects of trawling, which isn't done in this area, and that type of thing.

I'm worried that DFO is proposing that we shut down large areas of our commercial fishery for this artificial goal in marine protected areas based on absolutely no science on the effects of fishing done in these specific areas.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

I don't know if you want me to comment on this particular issue. I can't because I'm not really aware of the details of this.

I will say, however, that as part of our recommendations with respect to aquaculture, it was strongly felt at the time that it would be a benefit beyond aquaculture as well. The panel of experts recommended that DFO use an integrated ecosystem approach because things, of course, happen differently on our different coasts. Having an integrated approach allows the gathering of the relevant evidence around the entire system and the tracking, which goes back to what I referred to at the beginning in terms of a pattern, observations and fitting all this into a really testable hypothesis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

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

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Nemer, for appearing today.

There was a time when this office didn't exist. It's relatively new, having been established or at least re-established in 2017 by the Liberal government.

In general, since taking office, where have you seen gaps in science informing policy? How has your office attempted to correct this? Maybe this is a chance for you to elaborate on some of your initial comments.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Thank you for these questions.

The office has certainly been very busy in the past five years, and certainly in the past two years with the pandemic. However, from the get-go we saw our role as really looking at the horizontal issues, and making recommendations for the enhancement of all the science advice and the science itself. As part of this, I can't say that I did an audit of any particular department. I did visit many labs. I spoke with scientists. We looked into how research and science was being conducted.

That's why one of the first things we did was to introduce the science integrity policy. For those who are not familiar, this is the equivalent, really, of a policy on the responsible conduct of research. That's something that exists in academic institutions. It's actually an obligation of both the institutions and the researchers who receive federal funding to comply with the responsible conduct of our research.

The policy does delineate the role and the responsibility of both the employer and the employee in many ways. It suggests ways to disclose, for example, conflict of interest. It suggests ways by which people can talk about their research, about their science, without undue influence. This was very important.

The second thing we did as a follow-up, of course, to this was to propose a road map for open science. We've all seen during this pandemic the importance of open science, not only for enhancing the trust of the public but also for accelerating innovation, for accelerating the production in this case of diagnostics and preventive measures.

We proposed this road map, and we have worked with departments to achieve it so that the science that is conducted by federal scientists is easily accessible, whether it's in the form of published reports and manuscripts or that of the observational data part as well.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much. That's very helpful.

I know you've mentioned the pandemic a few times. We had many examples of trying to act on emerging science. One could not always wait for peer review, let alone duplicate studies.

Can you talk a little bit about how you see some learnings there from using emerging scientific findings that may not have had time for peer review but that may be important enough to change policy?

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Yes, absolutely.

There are well-established standards, if you want, in terms of the quality of the science and the strength of the evidence. Of course, ideally, we would like to have the same findings being reproduced by others, being peer-reviewed, but under difficult circumstances and with lots of uncertainties, people can determine whether the available science, the available evidence, is of sufficient quality to be incorporated into decision-making. In the case that it's not, and there is a void in the evidence anyway, it's then up to the policy-makers, of course, to take the relevant course of action.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

To take a slightly different or more focused tack, I have heard and read reports on the lack or relative lack of climate change analysis into fish stock estimates by DFO. It sounds like there are some recent efforts and funding boosts in order to support better climate change analysis.

I wonder if you could comment on that particular area and the importance of modelling climate change effects into fish stock populations.

[Dr. Mona Nemer]

Climate change definitely changes many of the environments, including, for example, the temperature of the water, the salinity, the acidity, etc. This is why, as part of our recommendations for aquaculture at the time to DFO, we recommended that an integrated risk management framework be adopted where specific inputs and variables would be considered, and the consequences of climate change would certainly be one of them.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also thank the witness, whose remarks are always very interesting.

Ms. Nemer, to help us understand the internal processes, could you give us an example? What happens when the minister's office sends your team a request for information to support regulation?