Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to begin by thanking the committee for inviting the Brazil Rock 33/34 Lobster Association to provide our testimony on Bill C-49.
The membership of Brazil Rock represents thousands of hard-working families plying the waters of lobster fishing areas 33 and 34. These are lobster fishers who call the waters of Nova Scotia home. Of the $2.6 billion in seafood exports from the province of Nova Scotia, our members toil in the most productive regions of the fishery, meaning that any impacts would reverberate across the economy of the province.
The Brazil Rock 33/34 Lobster Association is an active participant in the fisheries advisory processes operating in the region, including the fisheries advisory committee of the C-NOSPB, which was much lauded in last week's testimony. We feel it is important to highlight that our ability to get answers relating to the real-world implications of Bill C-49 for our sector has been highly challenged by the apparent approach that the fishing industry should be spoken to only after the bill had been tabled and purely in an informal information session with limited accommodation by staff of the responsible departments. In short, we were asking important questions but not receiving the answers that shed any sort of real insight on the issues before us.
Many of our questions you have already heard from other witnesses associated with the fishing industry. For instance, how is the legislation that is before you appropriate for offshore wind energy or other marine energy production? During the initial drafting of the accord legislation, the only energy projects being pondered in the offshore areas were restricted to oil and gas, and there was incredible focus on the development of suitable legislative tools to ensure that development was safe and well thought out. However, the legislation before us merely amends the initial legislation to accommodate renewables, so it is fundamentally unchanged from the original legislation, with the content applicable primarily to the oil and gas sector and failing to realize the advancements made around the world.
How does this legislation empower outcomes of processes such as regional assessment, which the industry is actively engaged in? As the legislation reads, any guidance from those processes is only loosely being considered as a guidance. Why should I ask my association members to take time away from their enterprises to inform an assessment process that can be ignored by the regulator when selecting areas for development?
The legislation is also mute on impact agreements and otherwise for anyone outside the provincial or federal governments. In other jurisdictions, offshore energy proponents undertake real legal agreements with local fishers and/or communities to ensure that any potential lost income resulting from development is acknowledged and accounted for on the front end of a development process. This legislation is intentionally silent on the matter. We have an opportunity to create a legal requirement that robust, transparent and public agreements be achieved that would be to the benefit of those most impacted by the development. We should take that advantage.
Furthermore, any damages needing consideration for compensation are restricted to incidents, namely when an event such as an oil spill or a piece of infrastructure negatively impacts a piece of fisher infrastructure. This creates a glaring gap for fishers who may directly be impacted by reduction in fisheries productivity caused by the offshore wind development. This issue has long been a concern of the fishing industry related to oil and gas development, and we are dismayed that this input has again been ignored by this piece of legislation before you.
We have much to learn from other jurisdictions on what to expect from an offshore wind development that fails to be considered in the development of this legislation. For instance, we find that while some regulators and developers suggest harvesting activity can be undertaken in an offshore wind farm development, the insurance industry in other jurisdictions refuses to provide coverage for those operations, citing unacceptable risks. No harvester would risk their multi-million dollar investment under such conditions. Where can mitigation of this issue be found or even pondered by the current legislation?
Our members are not opposed to reasonable, responsible offshore wind development in any way, but we can only move forward when the legislative framework that supports development is sufficiently robust to ensure that the interests, livelihoods and communities of existing users of the marine environment are maintained.
We realize that this legislation is being rushed to completion, but we encourage you to take the extra week to develop a framework that highlights Canadian leadership on the issue. A few short weeks of effort will not lead to profound delays in development off our shores, nor will it imperil commercial interest in the Canadian development.
The wind isn't going anywhere, and the technology to harness this wind in a safe and reliable fashion is only improving day after day. Take the time and build good legislation that is appropriate for the matter at hand.
In short, on behalf of our members, here is our ask of you: Please consider in the legislation the development of a royalty- or revenue-based fund that can be held and employed to support and compensate harvesters and communities that may be directly or indirectly impacted by large-scale renewable energy developments off our shores.
Thank you for this opportunity.