Fisheries Committee on Nov. 18th, 2022

[Steve Craig]

Certainly. Most processing plants in our province, and I suspect the other ministers' provinces, are very close to where the wharves are. They are very close to the high-water mark. In Nova Scotia we have people who are....

I look at the high-water mark, and it's that far—that far—to get to the road. With a storm surge it's like this...and then it automatically flows into processing plants that are quite often located very close to where those wharves are.

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

I have 50 seconds left. I'll use those 50 seconds to give maybe one of the other ministers an opportunity to maybe chime in and give a short answer to the question I'd directed toward Mr. Craig.

[Jamie Fox]

I want to grab that one there, Mike.

I had a good conversation with Minister Murray in Covehead about three weeks ago. We were talking, and we both agreed that our infrastructure right now needs to be three feet taller. It's as simple as that. Any wharf going forward that we have to repair or refurbish needs to be three feet higher. It's as simple as that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Madam Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses who are with us today. They are making a generous gesture, as their time is valuable, I am sure. We are grateful to them.

In Quebec, we also have a concern in this regard. Hurricane Fiona hit the Magdalen Islands very hard. We are also sensitive to the realities that our witnesses are experiencing, since they are directly related to ours.

We are also concerned about the small craft harbours and the port of Cap-aux-Meules in the Magdalen Islands. They too have problems, and urgent action is needed.

Ms. Johnson, how much of the overall investment could be directed to the restoration and maintenance of small craft harbours in the total budget dedicated to climate change?

Do you have any idea how much of that budget you would need, back home?

[Margaret Johnson]

Thank you for the question.

I'm hesitating on the actual percentage, because the impact that New Brunswick received as a result of Fiona was disproportionate when you compare it with what the other three Atlantic provinces did receive. However, the impact to small harbours was large. We are looking for help from DFO in doing some repairs. I don't have an actual percentage of that at my fingertips right now, but I can get it.

I can't tell you how proud I am of the fishermen we do have, who rose to the occasion and made sure they got their gear out of the harbour before the storm hit. But if you talk to them, they talk about the impact of wind and wind direction, and the fact that we were so fortunate to have the winds acting in our favour.

So we had less impact here. I don't have a percentage at my fingertips. I'm very sorry.

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

Thank you for your answer.

My next question is about climate change.

The Minister of Environment and Climate Change has announced that there will be new searches for marine oil deposits off the coast of your provinces.

Does this worry you, given that any oil development obviously involves increased greenhouse gas emissions?

I would like to get comments from each of you, perhaps starting with Ms. Johnson.

[Margaret Johnson]

I'll start, just because I still have my mike open.

We're working in conjunction with our environment ministers and our department. We are also looking at flood plains. We have flood plain examinations in place. We're looking at our inland waterways as well as our coastal waterways at flood zones, and examining where we're going to allow infrastructure to be put in place. We're relying on those activities to help us out with making decisions as to what buildings and infrastructure are put in flood zones, and making sure we're protecting that.

With the small craft harbours, we're dependent upon DFO to help us out with that, because we don't have a percentage or a dollar amount for how that's going to impact our fishers.

[Jamie Fox]

I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on this, because off our coast of P.E.I., whether I go east, west, north or south, we have no exploration going on in our area. It's something we have to be cognizant of, but I don't think it's something I could really give an opinion on, to be honest.

[Derrick Bragg]

I'll go next. It's Derrick Bragg from Newfoundland and Labrador.

We have extensive exploration ongoing, and we have offshore drilling happening as we speak, and oil being pumped out. We are very much concerned. Our environment minister and I just got back from a convention in Egypt to talk about our environment.

In our province we've done a thing for on-land flooding called flood risk mapping. We've mapped out various portions of our province and we've put communities on alert. We have monitoring systems that would be in place for risk of any floods, to give people the chance to get out of their homes. It's an evacuation plan, I guess. We've done a great job of flood risk mapping in our province.

[Steve Craig]

I guess that leaves me.

The province of Nova Scotia is looking less and less to fossil fuels, and certainly our emphasis has been on green hydrogen, windmills and solar power, and the way we look at offshore wind as well.

We're exploring less and less. Decreasing our emphasis on fossil fuels is a focus of ours. I can't talk about the details, it not being in my portfolio, but I can say, as a cabinet minister, that we are in fact looking at moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as is feasible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Desbiens.

[Derrick Bragg]

Thank you for reminding me that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'm sorry, Mr. Bragg, but the time is up.

We'll move on now to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to the ministers who are here today, and thank you for taking the time to come to talk to us about this important topic.

First, I know it's been a few months since this occurred, but I want to express my deep empathy for everything that occurred on the east coast. I'm sure my colleagues are sick and tired of hearing me say it every time an east coaster is here, but my roots are from Newfoundland. My home is now on the west coast, and it's clear that the impacts of climate change are going to continue to impact us all.

I'm happy we're talking about the specifics of what occurred with hurricane Fiona and learning from that, because the reality is that as we're talking about hurricane Fiona, inevitably another storm is brewing.

My mind is going to the challenges that we're currently facing and how we move forward, so I'm grateful that we have you here today. The reality is that we need all levels of government working together to address these impacts.

I'm a bit of a visual person, so I'm looking at all of this from the lens of prevention, the response and then, of course, cleanup.

With my first line of questioning, I want to focus predominantly on the prevention side of it.

Minister Craig, you spoke a little bit in relation to my colleague MP Kelloway's question, but I wanted to put this to Minister Johnson first perhaps.

In your position—of course, I am on the federal side right now—what is your experience as far as what you perceive to be any gaps in support from the federal level is concerned—gaps in communication or gaps in a climate plan? What are the top three things we could be working on at the federal level to better work alongside you to begin addressing future climatic events such as hurricane Fiona?

[Margaret Johnson]

We're very hopeful that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is going to be supportive of the eastern fisheries. As Minister Craig indicated, our biggest request is for the science to help us look at things like the impact of climate change on our current coldwater species and the sustainability of those going forward.

With respect to assessing the damage to future stocks, a lot of the time we look at the damage that is happening right now and we don't think about the fact that we have young stock that's going to be impacted, and that we won't actually see the direct impact of that for a couple of years when those species grow.

We would like to do some more science to assess water temperature changes and the effects on species distribution, retention and the presence in future of pests. We want to look at water temperatures and flood mapping and modelling to assess future impacts on seafood processing and wharf infrastructures.

We really need the help of the department to look at the science-based policies and the science-based decisions we're going to require, because we recognize that things like Fiona and Dorian are a part of our future. They're not something we can run away from. We recognize that catastrophic events like these are going to be part of our future, and we need to be looking at how best to mitigate them.

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

Thank you, Minister.

Perhaps for simplicity, I'll ask Minister Bragg the same question.

[Derrick Bragg]

Thank you.

I think Margaret covered most of it, but for sure science is very important when it comes to what's happening with climate change. We are adapting in our province, as I said previously. We've gone into more flood-risk mapping.

In terms of our municipal infrastructure, when we build any municipal infrastructure now, we take into account the one in 100-year storms that are more common than ever before. We develop berms around certain buildings for protection. We install bigger culverts. Our engineers are always thinking, “We have to go bigger; we have to go bigger.” As Minister Fox said, when you look at the infrastructure of wharves, they need to be three feet higher. Well, when we look at our culverts, they need to be at least 30% larger.

Then we do a lot of work in anticipation. Thankfully, we have good, good people who monitor the weather systems we have. I guess we do have some knowledge ahead of time that there's a storm heading our way, but we never know exactly what the effect of it will be. Fiona was the latest example of that. You would have heard interviews with people in Port aux Basques the day before Fiona, when they said, “We're used to wind. We've seen wind. We've seen wind 130, 140 kilometres before. It's no big deal.” No one knew what the ocean was going to throw at them this time. It has frightened people. They're afraid to go back to live where they once were. We are moving people out of these areas because of the risks for the future.

In all of our coastal communities we have to encourage municipalities to consider these larger storms with respect to any building along the coastline now. We need good, scientific knowledge to bring to the municipal world as well.

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

Thank you, Minister.

Am I done now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have 20 seconds.

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

I'm going to talk quickly.

Finally, I want to put this to you, Minister Fox. In relation to that also, perhaps you could speak to how, when we are rebuilding we should be looking at green technology and green infrastructure so that we're not continuing to produce the same problems that are creating the symptoms that we're responding to, just as a cyclical problem.

I'm sure you'll have to provide that in writing, but I'll see if the chair will allow you to speak a couple of words and take it from there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Could you give us a very brief answer, please.

[Jamie Fox]

Thank you.

P.E.I. has really taken climate change seriously when it comes to different programs coming in now for solar, renewable energy and that kind of stuff. Basically now, every department has a secretariat that actually looks at everything through a climate change lens and in terms of renewable energy concepts or new ideas or techniques.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be sharing my five minutes with Mr. Bragdon.

I have four questions I'd like to get through, and I'd like answers from all four of you. I know this isn't going to be possible in the two and a half minutes I have, so I'll try to ask each one of you one question and perhaps the others could provide answers in writing to us following that.

I'll start with Mr. Fox.

When do your harvesters need small craft harbours to be rebuilt by—how soon?