Hello and thank you to the chair and committee for having me here today.
As a bit of background, I've been working on Pacific salmon conservation and overall species recovery in Canada for the past 20 years. I have participated in various DFO stakeholder and scientific processes, including the Pacific salmon integrated harvest planning committee, the Fraser River panel under the Pacific Salmon Commission, southern resident killer whale technical working groups and government scientific reviews, including recovery-potential assessments for at-risk Pacific salmon populations.
Science is central to DFO function. It is the best way to understand the state of the fisheries and oceans we are trying to protect and manage. It is also our most effective tool at measuring our success in meeting our targets and tracking progress towards new goals.
Right now, the process for DFO decision-making is broken, and science is at the middle of this failure, or, more concerningly, is being pushed to the side. There's a tendency within DFO to maximize its own discretion while minimizing accountability, which in turn is failing our fish, oceans and all Canadians. Without clear direction and transparent reporting on measurable objectives, this is an inevitable outcome.
Stakeholder tables and even technical working groups formed by DFO have largely served to reposition DFO as an arbiter between interests rather than a regulator and upholder of good science and evidence-based information. Further, there remain far too many instances in which there is a demonstrated conflict of interest between DFO managers and the fisheries or aquaculture operations they are meant to regulate and manage, further marginalizing science and avoiding hard decisions that must be made for the benefit of the fish, oceans and the future of these very industries.
The lack of a transparent accountability framework is evident, but it doesn't have to be this way. DFO in general has a good track record in completing scientific research and the necessary monitoring to evaluate fish stock and habitat condition. The ability to do good science is there.
Over the past 20 years, DFO has successfully developed and published a number of key policies that are informed by the latest science on effective, ecological management and that represent best practices globally. Such policies include the Pacific wild salmon policy and the sustainable fisheries framework.
Although the support for these core functions and policies has fluctuated over time, we currently have the resources and ministerial direction—at least in Pacific salmon via the Pacific salmon strategy initiative—to truly address outstanding issues with the function of DFO management and science, to address key gaps in critical core monitoring and research, and to implement these critical policies.
I feel it is important to add that within the context of science, it is critical to understand that ecosystems are highly complex and that our science and management systems need to be designed around understanding risk and managing our own impacts. Using science to attempt to push our impacts as far as we possibly can has failed. Further, attempting to manipulate or control ecosystems, often to address problems we have created in the first place, has also failed. Examples include salmon hatcheries, which have largely made the problems of salmon abundance and health even worse. In the recent words of an academic colleague, if salmon hatcheries were a drug, they would not be approved by Health Canada.
The belief that culling a salmon predator, such as seals and sea lions, will improve salmon abundance disregards the complexity of these ecosystems and unintended negative outcomes that could ensue. These pinnipeds are a natural part of these ecosystems, and attempts to control their populations through intentional killing is even more likely to fail to produce intended benefits than are our attempts to manage the salmon fisheries themselves.
We have the plans and policies and, to a large degree, the financial and human resource capacity to implement them. Our challenge today is a lack of accountability built on a foundation of transparent, evidence-based reporting. Science needs to be recentred in the decision-making structure, while we ensure that it is adequately transparent and independent of political interference. It is appropriate for the political decision-makers to weigh multiple considerations, but it is critical that science advice and information be as objective as possible and be made available to the public.
How do we do it? Implement existing policies that provide clear and science-based guidance on how to achieve conservation and management outcomes. Create a clear plan for achieving co-governance with first nations. Make public commitments to achieve specific outcomes related to these policies. Create a tracking and auditing mechanism focused on these outcomes, including independent technical advisory bodies. COSEWIC provides a good model. A previous witness discussed this quite extensively.
Report on results and provide guidance on implementation. Focus existing or new stakeholder processes around achieving these objectives, and restructure DFO where necessary to support these changes and remove conflicts of interest.
Thank you.