Evidence of meeting #23 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was wild.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Mr. Dadswell, did you select English at the bottom of your screen for interpretation?
12:40 p.m.
Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual
Probably not.
12:40 p.m.
Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual
Okay. I'm getting the translation.
12:40 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
Perfect.
I want to talk about Atlantic salmon, which you touched on earlier.
As I was saying, I love angling on the river whenever I have free time. As you know, we have beautiful rivers in New Brunswick, including Miramichi, Restigouche and Nepisiguit, which is where I fish.
You said that there was a significant decline in Atlantic salmon. You talked mainly about the Greenland fishery. I know that agreements have been negotiated to reduce the number of tonnes of fish that people involved in commercial fishing can catch.
Are there any other factors playing a role in the decline of Atlantic salmon?
You mentioned illegal fishing, but aside from that, is there anything else that is preventing the expected return of salmon to our rivers?
12:40 p.m.
Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual
Apart from the fishing, most of the mortality on the salmon when they're moving out into the ocean comes from a predation by other fish, like striped bass in the Miramichi, and birds like gannets, which take salmon smolt off of Newfoundland. Things like pinnipeds also eat them anywhere they are in the ocean.
That is all part of the original, natural mortality that took place on salmon stocks anyway. What happens is that you have natural mortality and then you have the commercial fishing impact over and above that. If you can manage the commercial fishery, that's fine, but if you can't manage it, like illegal fishing offshore, they can take whatever they want.
12:40 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
For example, in the Miramichi River, I think you know of the problem that there is a lot of striped bass and smallmouth bass. I'm not sure where they are with the project of killing a lot of smallmouth bass. I think it was a product called rotenone.
What do you think of that? Do you think it's okay to do this? There seems to be a lot of confusion between scientists on whether to use this product or not. It's having a really huge impact on the population of salmon returning to the ocean and coming back into the Miramichi River. That was our most important river for restocking.
12:40 p.m.
Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual
The impact of the striped bass is not untenable or anything. If you have a big year for bass, then they will eat lots of baby salmon, mostly. The smallmouth bass will maybe do the same thing up in the river on the parr. The thing is, natural mortalities are pretty much adjusted by the population dynamics. If you have high mortality in one place, that tends to lower the mortality somewhere else.
When you have a directed fishery, there is absolutely no way the population can adjust to it.
12:40 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
Do you think everything is being done right now in terms of science? From the DFO science on the Atlantic salmon file, is there something we can do better to make sure that this population is going up again, or will we never see...?
Like you just said, I think it will be very difficult to have more salmon in the years to come. You're basically saying it will be just gone.
12:40 p.m.
Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual
It is practically gone. In the Saint John River now, the salmon stock has been completely collapsed for 30 years. It used to be that 80 to 100 metric tons a year of that fish were caught in the estuary—
12:40 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
You're saying that if we don't stop commercial fishing, there's almost no chance that we'll see those populations of salmon coming back in our rivers. Is that right?
12:40 p.m.
Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual
This is for unregulated commercial fishing, yes.
12:40 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
I have just a quick question for Ms. Morton, if I have time.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Sutcliffe, I talked to you earlier about the contribution of social science in DFO decisions. I'd now like to talk to you about the weight that social sciences can have within that department.
If I have a little time left, I'll give it to Mr. Cormier if he still has any questions for the scientists here today.
What weight might social science have in DFO decisions?
12:45 p.m.
Senior Policy Advisor, Ecotrust Canada
I think it's hard to answer because it depends on what's being considered. As I acknowledged in my testimony, there are certain requirements around meeting conservation objectives that may always trump certain other societal benefits or considerations when considering future impacts and generations.
In the kinds of examples that I've been studying and looking at, it's the absence, really. Those societal objectives then need to take enough weight that we're not producing policies and regulations that unnecessarily create a disadvantage for our own communities, our own harvesters and our own intentions around community well-being, which I think are very well described from the engagement processes on these strategies.
12:45 p.m.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you very much.
I'll give the rest of my time to Mr. Cormier.
12:45 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
Thank you, Mrs. Desbiens.
Ms. Morton, since we have this study, there seems to be a disconnect between your group of scientists and scientists from DFO. Is that correct?
12:45 p.m.
Independent Scientist, As an Individual
No, it's not. We're in complete agreement with many DFO scientists, particularly those in the genomic lab. It's a split within DFO, which is so—
May 12th, 2022 / 12:45 p.m.
Independent Scientist, As an Individual
You have one scientist in DFO saying piscine orthoreovirus is local to British Columbia and benign, and another one who is showing evidence that it's from Norway and is very impactful. This is really unbecoming for DFO to have its [Technical difficulty—Editor].
12:45 p.m.
Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.
I'm not sure if it's me or you who is cutting out.
What do you think will be the solution for having confidence in science again for some of our group? There were some decisions lately in our region regarding shrimp, mackerel or herring, and a lot of groups from the industry or even from the scientific community disagreed.
What can we do? We want people to believe in science, but at the end of the day, if some numbers are not matching, what do we do?
12:45 p.m.
Independent Scientist, As an Individual
As Elizabeth May said, there's been deliberate dishonesty within the science in DFO, so open the windows and doors and let in the science from the outside.
Right now, with DFO science, some of it is an extreme outlier—failing to recognize the impact of sea lice, and the impacts of Tenacibaculum and piscine orthoreovirus.
Furthermore, you need to build a pathway in DFO—a conduit, a highway—between science and the Minister of Fisheries, because for Miller-Saunders to go and brief the director of science during consultations with first nations, and for that director to take that information to the B.C. salmon farmers and warn them, but not take it to the minister, that should red flag a serious problem in the flow of science within DFO.
It's an internal-external thing that has to happen, because it's so major right now.