Fisheries Committee on April 28th, 2022

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

Okay. Thank you.

Does the FSMC have a forum or mechanism for your council or members to discuss—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'm sorry, Mr. Arnold, but your time has gone over. You started the question with five seconds left.

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

Go ahead, please.

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

I really appreciate the witnesses being here today. It's a pretty robust discussion, and I am thankful for it. This entire study is very illuminating on many different fronts.

I want to focus on scientific integrity again. What I am hearing is that scientific integrity is critical to the decision-making process from the planning and the conducting of the research to the production of advice and the application of advice to the department and to the minister.

Could you provide the committee with recommendations—and I think you've done this to a degree—on how we can better integrate better processes and information with the science community?

Mr. Chair, perhaps we can start with Mr. Bateman or Mr. Riddell on some of that advice or those recommendations in terms of the integration side of things.

[Dr. Andrew Bateman]

I can start with that. Thanks for the question.

I think, as we recommended, we really need to see integration taken out of the hands of DFO. The fact that DFO controls the integration of science from within or without is part of the problem because the management level within DFO interferes with those processes.

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

Mr. Bateman, following up on that, give me a mock structure of what that looks like. Make it as detailed as you can in the time I have.

[Dr. Andrew Bateman]

I'll provide some more detail in written documentation.

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

That would be great.

[Dr. Andrew Bateman]

I think COSEWIC provides a good example. You have this panel, this body of acknowledged experts, which are arm's length, third party, from the organization involved, in this case DFO, who can draw on their experience and remain as objective as is humanly possible and provide good advice to decision-makers.

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

Thanks very much for that.

Mr. Riddell, do you have any comments to make?

[Dr. Brian E. Riddell]

Yes, I do.

I've had experience in the U.S. with their science advisory process on three major panels. I would say another option to look at is that you have specific advisory panels on particularly contentious points. Salmon aquaculture could be an example of this. The big difference in this is that these panels continue through time. They rotate memberships so you never lose the experience of the background, and they are accountable for the reports. The reports are written and public.

There are multiple options for you to develop parallel processes. Andrew has given you one. I could give you others from the U.S. experience.

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

I would appreciate receiving information from Mr. Bateman and yourself on different models that you have in mind, but also other best practices that are out there that could be examined by the committee.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have almost a minute and a half.

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

With that in mind, I want to direct my next questions to Dr. Whitney.

Dr. Whitney, I was very much interested in your comments around two-eyed seeing. Here in Unama'ki, in Cape Breton, I was intimately involved with Dr. Cheryl Bartlett's work on two-eyed seeing, and also elder Albert Marshall in respect of two-eyed seeing.

This is kind of a similar question to what I asked Mr. Riddell and Mr. Bateman. I think you addressed it a bit in terms of the intersection piece of where two-eyed seeing connects to western science. Do you see it fitting into the models that Mr. Riddell and Mr. Bateman referenced? How do you see that intersecting or collaborating? I'm just curious in terms of how that would work structurally, in your opinion.

[Charlotte K. Whitney]

It's a good question. I think it kind of relates to Mike Staley's points around co-governance and co-management, and also the points that the other panellists have made around the necessary separation between management and science.

Currently without that separation it's really hard to take a two-eyed seeing approach in science and then have that come up against the hard wall of management.

Until we create science advice independent from a management decision and specifically ministerial discretion, it's going to be extremely hard. We struggle with the same thing as Mike Staley spoke to in the Fraser with our collaborative governance and co-management processes in my region.

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

I think it's also an education piece in terms of government and industry as to the roots, the benefits, of a two-eyed seeing approach. I'm pretty sure that you and others are working in first nation communities collaboratively to put that forward, because I think it's absolutely essential.

I'm grateful for your testimony today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the witnesses, which I hadn't yet done. Their comments are very interesting and have enlightened us on many points

I'd like to turn to Mr. Bateman.

You talked about the failure of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in the cod fishery. Back home, the cod fishery in the St. Lawrence River is of great concern to us. You also recommend that an independent panel of experts be allowed to work outside the department.

What is an integrated stock assessment? What is included in the assessment? Could all of this be done by an independent team with more clout in the department?

[Dr. Andrew Bateman]

We have seen different examples of where bodies outside of a given government department or branch can do that work. I mentioned COSEWIC. I'll raise it again. COSEWIC does effectively the same thing in terms of stock assessment. COSEWIC assesses the status of species at risk of concern. It does a very similar job. It would be possible. Whether it is required is something for discussion.

There are instances where DFO's model works well. Not in every case are the issues contentious or fractured, so it's really in those instances that Dr. Riddell and I would advocate that you really need independent advice and independent collation of evidence, but, if that model were developed, it wouldn't necessarily need to be DFO-driven. It can be driven by parliamentarians, and that's really what I see is required. I don't think DFO management, from its seemingly comfortable current position, is going to autonomously opt for this model.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens. There are four seconds left, so you won't even get a chance to breathe in that length of time.

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

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

My question is for Mr. Taylor.

Can you speak a bit more about the impacts of DFO's implementation or lack of implementation of the national bycatch policy and the national monitoring policy, and how this may skew or influence what's happening on the water?

[Greg Taylor]

Thank you for that question. It's a critical question and it's certainly been of real interest to me over the years, coming from a commercial fishing background. This is recognized around the world. The first thing every fishery needs is accurate reflection of its catch reporting and compliance with that and being able to provide that information to the management body.

What's even more critical in Canada is that Canada uses discards, or releasing fish, as one of its primary conservation tools, so we have to also understand not only the retained catch but the releases and what happens to those released fish after they are released, because a proportion of them—and it can be a large proportion—don't survive to recruit into the population. Having that accurate information is critical.

There is a national policy for implementing it for all fisheries. None of the salmon fisheries, no salmon fishery, whether it be first nations, recreational or commercial, has gone through it. There are some other notable fisheries that have, and they are world recognized, partly because of it. That includes the groundfish fishery and some others in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada.

In the absence of good monitoring and good basic information flowing into it, you cannot effectively manage a population without it, and to fail to do it is really a blot on DFO.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

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

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Following up on what I talked about before, Dr. Riddell and Mr. Zeman, I'll ask you specifically—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Zimmer, could you move your microphone up, please?

We'll start again.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

It is in the way. It's hard to see what I'm trying to read with it up there.

Jesse, I know you represent a group that not only does great conservation and does real work on the environment but also provides a lot of good data and science around those same conservation efforts.

With that vast science and expertise that you can tap into, what would you do, if you had the choice, for the working group that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans would consult with or have at the table to make those good, sound decisions? What would that look like?