Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee in your review of this important topic. Hopefully, my 35 years of first-hand professional experience, with the evolution of DFO senior staff influence, changes to policy and dealing with multiple ministers from both sides of the aisle, will be of benefit to your process.
Fish and wildlife management is a scientific discipline with accepted professional standards, much like medicine, engineering or physics. One hundred and twenty-five years of leadership by people who fish and hunt in developing and funding successful science-based fish and wildlife conservation efforts proves the enormous value of the North American model of conservation. The model is comprised of seven basic components, and Canada has played an essential role in its creation.
The wealth of healthy and abundant fish and wildlife populations, habitat, parks and protected areas that we take for granted in Canada and the U.S. did not occur by accident. They exist today as a direct result of the successful application of the components of this model. No other continent in the world can claim anything close to this level of diversity of species or quality of habitat. Commonly shared coastal and inland waters and migration routes are but a few examples of why successful environmentally sustainable resource use management is common doctrine to both the United States and Canada. While some problems and challenges remain, the solutions are proven to be found within the applied principles of the North American model of conservation.
Although Canadian provincial and U.S. state and federal natural resource agencies continue to apply the components of this model in policy development and application, DFO no longer does. There was a time, in my experience, when DFO was a leader in fishery management in the world. Outstanding professionals like Tom Bird, Dr. Terry Grnes and Bill Otway brought a common-sense approach to collaborating with stakeholders and upholding all the tenets of the North American model.
Sadly, with Tom Bird’s retirement, the DFO approach with policy and stakeholders changed for the worse. In fact, in my experience, the genesis of this erosion of credible science at DFO began with an end run on scientific peer review at the Canadian Wildlife Service 20 years ago. Prior to releasing any published official documents, the CWS policy was to conduct an editorial peer review by an independent group of nine well-respected academic and government science professionals. This prevented mistakes and maintained a high standard of scientific credibility at the agency and with the public, but in 2003, without going through the independent science peer review process, CWS released to the public a 40-page document claiming to be a science-based review of the toxic impacts of lead sinkers and jigs on wildlife in Canada. This followed years of lobbying by the World Wildlife Fund to ban lead content fishing tackle in Canada.
Dr. Dave Ankney of the University of Western Ontario, a member of the CWS editorial board, along with other experts, openly challenged this unprecedented compromise of scientific standard at a federal agency. Dr. Ankney said:
In my 30 years as a wildlife scientist, I've seen bad science and I've seen abuse of science, but never have I seen so much bad science and abuse of science in one document.... Those responsible for this disingenuous attempt to mislead Canadians should be fired either for their scientific incompetence or for their chicanery, or both.
Dr. Ankney reported that he asked the CWS director general to take action to correct this serious threat to agency credibility and professional standards. Dr. Ankney said his request was ignored, and subsequently the CWS director general had him removed from the editorial peer review panel.
Many of the conclusions and falsehoods in the document were widely challenged and discredited by other scientists, resource professionals and the fishing industry. It drew even more attention when the National Post featured the CWS publication in an article titled “Sinking science” during its “Junk Science Week” in 2005.
Subsequently, CWS senior bureaucrats moved into a series of senior positions at Fisheries and Oceans where, coincidentally, the trend to replace credible science with alternate agendas from foreign environmental groups and their wealthy benefactors continue to present day, at both agencies.
When DFO and Environment Canada moved away from applying the proven success of the North American model, the negative impacts on key sport and commercial fish populations increased exponentially on both coasts. No substantive solutions or positive results have occurred to reverse this trend. The damage to related regional and national economies has been ignored.
The collaboration, integrity and mutual respect that once defined the relationship with the recreational fishing community has been undermined by DFO collusion with foreign entities bent on ending recreational fishing from coast to coast to coast. Arbitrary public access closures by percentage targets with no basis in science or evidence of benefit have become official DFO policy.
Thank you, sir.