Ms. May, please go ahead.
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.
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.
12:10 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to start with an assertion. Having sat in on these hearings about science in DFO, they're consistent. I want to thank all the witnesses. The witnesses we had May 5 were also consistent. What we see relating to science in DFO and the aquaculture industry is not incompetence, not scientific illiteracy, but deliberate and dishonest efforts to block science, keep a minister in the dark and advantage the industry.
I put this to Dr. Mordecai when he testified May 5: What could possibly be the motive? He said there was a conflict of interest. DFO has a responsibility to promote this industry and, at the same time, to regulate it.
I wanted to ask Alex Morton this. Rather than add layers of new voices, like a director of wild salmon, which I support, if there's rot, don't we want to cut the rot out? Don't we want to figure out how to get rid of the conflict of interest, so that we're not constantly trying to chase real science and get it in front of a minister whose department should provide that minister with real science?
Thank you, Alex Morton, for your heroic work.
12:15 p.m.
Independent Scientist, As an Individual
Thank you.
I absolutely agree. I know where the rot is because I have ordered thousands of pages of conversations between DFO employees, but a lot of the worst players have left. It's very interesting. After the Discovery Islands decision, for example, Allison Webb left. The lead veterinarian left. The director of science left.
The ones holding the ball now are riding the coattails of a long history of deception of the B.C. public. I feel that they should be reassigned to perhaps move the industry onto land. Perhaps if the aquaculture management division.... They may be afraid for their own survival at this point. It makes me so angry that this extraordinary science, which we are paying for as taxpayers and which is being developed in DFO, has been locked in a room, with tape put over the mouths of these scientists. It is a huge disservice. I would imagine, for example, that if our current director of aquaculture would say, “Hey, stop dealing with the net-pen feedlots and get this industry into tanks”, she might be very effective at doing that.
The lack of honesty within the department has become so pervasive that I'm not sure they really even understand that the lights are on and we can see what is going on. For them to downgrade the conditions of licence when Mowi currently has an average of eight sea lice per fish in Quatsino and the limit that is considered safe for wild salmon is three, and when the aquaculture management division wants to allow this to continue.... We can see where this is going, and if we don't control it right now, we will lose our wild salmon.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
I'm not sure if you've gone way over or if Mr. Kelloway has. Right now, I'll blame Mr. Kelloway, because he's in the room.
We'll go now to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes, please.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Mr. Chair, I'll give my remaining two and a half minutes to my colleague Ms. Barron.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Also, I'll say a huge thank you to Madame Desbiens. I'm more than happy to take this time.
I want to ask Ms. Morton my next questions.
Ms. Morton, I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be saying over and over again the same things, based on science, based on information and based on what you're seeing first-hand with your own eyes, and to be here again repeating the same information. My hope is that we can finally start seeing some action, some changes and some positive movement on this. Thank you for your perseverance and for your ongoing work in this area.
I was hoping that you could share with us a little bit the importance of wild salmon, not just as an important species in itself, but in looking at the impacts on the entire ecosystem and how those wild salmon are essential as one part of the surrounding ecosystem and our environment.
12:15 p.m.
Independent Scientist, As an Individual
Thank you for that.
Wild salmon leave the river small. They go out into the open ocean and they basically collect the energy of the sun hitting the open ocean, because they feed on animals that feed on the zooplankton, stimulated by the sun. Then they carry those nutrients up into the watersheds throughout British Columbia and deep into the Fraser watershed, and those nutrients pour down over the hillsides.
You can actually see the growth rings in trees get bigger when there's a wild salmon run, and because the nitrogen they carry is different from terrestrial nitrogen, there's no question that it is coming from salmon. Salmon are feeding the trees that make the oxygen we breathe, but also, when you talk to climate scientists about our best technology to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, currently it remains the tree. By restoring wild salmon back to where they were in this ecosystem, Canada is playing its role in reducing the carbon that is threatening our entire society. They are a power cord to this coast. They're absolutely essential.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Ms. Morton.
I'm wondering if you can expand a little on the importance of DFO being able to provide effective oversight at fish farms. Perhaps you can speak a bit to the inability of DFO to visit the farms during a mortality event on these fish farms and how that impacts our ability to understand what's happening on the farms and to utilize that information to best move forward.
12:20 p.m.
Independent Scientist, As an Individual
Yes. Trying to understand what DFO was doing in terms of salmon farms was a very frustrating, long experience until I started accessing their actual emails and could understand what was going on.
There are long chains of emails where DFO biologists are trying to figure out what happened when there were die-offs on salmon farms. This has particularly been happening in Clayoquot Sound and also in Nootka Sound, the west coast farms. What the industry wants it to be is that they died of a plankton bloom, but when you go back through the conversation, there's evidence, for example, of novel pathogens. There's alarm in scientists. There are scientists saying they want to access that farm and test those fish, but those conversations are cut off. The final report is that the fish died of a natural plankton bloom.
At the moment, DFO is prohibited from attending a farm during a mortality event. The industry says that's to stop the spread of disease, but their own staff are coming and going on these farms. DFO has to be on those farms. This cannot be through a group that is tasked to promote aquaculture. That has to be taken right out of the equation.
In my view, the way the aquaculture management division has handled salmon farms has not only destroyed our wild salmon runs; it has also destroyed the aquaculture industry. If the regulations had been built to protect wild salmon from day one, we would probably have the leading land-based aquaculture industry right now. We would also have our wild salmon stocks.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
You had two sections of two and a half minutes.
We'll go to Mr. Zimmer for five minutes or less, please.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses on this very important study.
My first question is for you, Mr. Chamberlin. As a fellow Robert, I don't know if I can call you Bob or not. I go by Bob here, and I've heard you called Bob. Does that work?
12:20 p.m.
Chairman, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance
I've been called many things in my life.
12:20 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Well, it's good to have you here this morning, Bob.
My colleague mentioned the impacts. We've heard first nations talk to us about the impacts. If we essentially get rid of aquaculture in B.C., it will have some negative implications for many first nations communities, but we definitely have seen evidence of the negatives of certain aquaculture projects to our wild salmon. We're faced with that reality.
Are you aware of any science-based aquaculture—you referred to it in your previous statement—to get them out of the water? With science as the basis of your answer, what aquaculture projects could work in B.C. and not have negative implications for wild salmon?
12:20 p.m.
Chairman, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance
I believe, and this is supported by what is occurring globally, that the land-based closed-containment fish farm industry is taking hold. I'm aware that the industry publication IntraFish in the past year or so actually started to do a monthly update on this growing portion of aquaculture globally.
When I think about it, we can have aquaculture in British Columbia, providing employment and contributing to the GDP of this country, but it makes no sense whatsoever to look at those numbers and accept that it's killing wild salmon to attain that.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
Chairman, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance
The evolution is like everything else. Every other industry's been brought to a place of evolution, whether it's mining or whether it's forestry. It is time now for Canada to do the same for land-based closed-containment. When you consider that it would not need to be coastal, and it wouldn't need to be Atlantic salmon, you would wind up having greater opportunity to diversify economies across the province, and not just in coastal British Columbia.
May 12th, 2022 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Yes. I agree, Bob.
I'll go to you, Professor Dadswell, for my next question. Seeing that you're on the other side of our country, on the east coast, it's good to have you here this morning. My question for you is kind of what I spoke to Bob about in terms of what potential aquaculture projects could work with a sound basis in science.
With that question in mind, I've reached out to different countries, and before I even.... I don't want to lead you in my comments. Do you see other countries doing aquaculture better than Canada? If so, which countries are they? What are they doing differently?
I know that's a big answer for two and a half minutes, but do your best, Professor Dadswell.