Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will get right into it.
Thanks for the opportunity to be a witness today.
My name is Jesse Zeman. I'm the executive director of the B.C. Wildlife Federation. With over 43,000 members, the B.C. Wildlife Federation is the largest and oldest conservation organization in British Columbia.
In the past, I've spoken to you regarding the peer-reviewed process through the Canadian science advisory secretariat, which is supposed to be a formal, transparent process for providing peer-reviewed science advice to DFO and the public. This process is integral to Canada's Species at Risk Act. As it relates to endangered interior Fraser steelhead, this process was completely undermined by DFO.
An ATIP of the process related to endangered interior Fraser steelhead, for which there were thousands of pages of documents, revealed the assistant deputy minister's office gave a directive to modify some key points related to allowable harm for interior Fraser steelhead. Additionally, the chair of the process indicated they were cut out of the process and expressed serious concerns about the scientific integrity of the process. Furthermore, in these documents the chair states that there were things that happened to the SAR, science advisory report, after they signed it off.
During that process it was also revealed that DFO management, not DFO science, had created its own run timing model, which is the period where interior Fraser steelhead move through the Fraser River. This model was rejected through the peer review process. I believe that DFO management is still using this rejected model to brief the minister.
Years later, the peer-reviewed document called the “Recovery Potential Assessment” has still not been released to the public. I'm not aware of this happening for any other species that has gone through this process associated with the Species at Risk Act.
This summarizes what we found in 2021. Today I'm here to tell you about the next chapter of this saga within the context of science.
On April 8, 2021, the B.C. Wildlife Federation, through ATIP [Technical difficulty—Editor] related to interior Fraser steelhead dating back to 2019 on a month-by-month basis. DFO's response was that it would take until at least February 17, 2022, to retrieve these records. Please keep in mind this is a species of fish that DFO does not even manage, so one should expect there are very few records.
A complaint was filed with the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada on May 18, 2021. On March 16, 2022, nearly a year later, I received notification that the investigator with the OIC determined that the exclusion claimed by DFO was not reasonable given the circumstances. Furthermore, the investigator found that DFO has deemed refusal of access to the requested records. To be clear, the records are not redacted or edited. DFO is simply refusing to provide them. Furthermore, the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada advised the BCWF that if it wanted to pursue this issue, it would have to apply to the Federal Court for a review.
Now let me make this clear, the information that the B.C. Wildlife Federation is seeking is not a matter of national security. It is about an endangered fish that DFO has hidden science and edited science on in the past. DFO is refusing to disclose records paid for by Canadians. To suggest the BCWF would spend tens of thousands of dollars to take DFO to Federal Court to disclose these records means that transparency within this institution is non-existent. Within the context of science, it means that DFO is willing and happy to not only hide and edit science. It is now happy to refuse to disclose records.
When the media and elected officials wonder why trust in our public institutions is in decline, why people do not participate in public policy debate or why young people do not show up and vote, this is a prime example. This is why the BCWF is losing trust entirely in DFO. The BCWF is not concerned with DFO scientists' ability to conduct science. It is concerned with decision-makers and senior managers' willingness to edit, suppress and hide that science.
Within the broader context of science around interior Fraser steelhead, the BCWF will be funding research through post-secondary institutions with our partners and collaborators. This is not because we expect DFO to listen to independent science. We know it won't. It is because our members and the public need to see the science, and that is something that will not happen with DFO at the helm.
As elected representatives of Canadians, who value science, transparency, accountability and democracy, DFO's consistent undermining of science should be of great concern. DFO is structurally broken. Given the severity of this issue, we have one recommendation: We have to tear down DFO with a full restart and separate DFO management from DFO science, or we will lose what remains of our Pacific salmon and steelhead.
Thank you for your time.