Debates of March 29th, 2018

Fisheries Act

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, this is a day that the citizens of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country have been working toward and waiting for. Bill C-68 is an act to amend the Fisheries Act and other acts in consequence. The consultation effort itself has strengthened engagement with Canadians, enhanced transparency in fisheries activities, and improved the health of fish and fish habitat, and we are just getting started.

This new legislation and our debate will go a long way to help restore and strengthen the public trust so badly damaged by the previous government with regard to the Fisheries Act. In 2016, our government initiated a consultation process that engaged thousands of Canadians. Citizens expressed grave concern about lost protections. They spoke out about the importance of science and academic freedom. Indigenous peoples offered voices of experience, traditional knowledge, and ways of working together that we have been missing. Commercial fishers said they wanted to be included in decision-making.

The amendments we are debating today fundamentally recognize that decisions must be guided by the principles of sustainability, by the precautionary principle, and by an ecosystem management approach. This provides hope to many British Columbians for whom Roderick Haig-Brown, named in Campbell River this summer as a person of national significance to Canada, is a source of inspiration, a guide, and a mentor. He wrote:

The salmon runs are, in truth, the wealth of the Pacific Ocean brought readily back to the hand and use of man. For his part, man has used them and abused them, injured and restored them. He knows enough to multiply them even beyond their original abundance—and he is threatening them with total destruction.

Haig-Brown wrote this in 1959, almost 60 years ago. I take his words very seriously.

Fundamental to a robust Fisheries Act, important amendments include protection for all fish and fish habitats, at last, restoring the previous prohibition against harmful alteration, disruption, or destruction of fish habitat, known as HADD. These protections were taken as immutable, and yet they were stricken from the legislation in an act of callous disregard by the previous government. l am very grateful to the many who fought for this to be put back into the Fisheries Act.

Other important amendments include that indigenous traditional knowledge would inform decisions that impact habitat. The legislation would strengthen the role of indigenous peoples in project reviews, monitoring, and policy development, and will honour traditional knowledge. It would put short-term measures in place to respond to threats to fish that may suddenly arise. It would restore a prohibition against causing the death of fish by means other than fishing. It would provide full transparency for projects, including a public registry of projects.

The legislation promotes restoration of degraded habitat and the rebuilding of depleted fish stocks, and strengthens the long-term protection of marine refuges. The bill clarifies and updates enforcement powers to address emerging fisheries issues and to align current provisions in other legislation.

Bill C-68 demonstrates that our government is proactive in protecting wild salmon stocks and the diversity of fish and fish habitat in Canada. It is vital that we support and pass this legislation. We need every aspect of Bill C-68 badly. We also need to look ahead and be visionary by drafting a separate but related national aquaculture act. A national aquaculture act would facilitate a regional approach to aquaculture and should include how we can transition away from open net pens to closed containment salmon aquaculture on the west coast of Canada.

In collaboration with indigenous peoples, the Government of British Columbia, hundreds of stewardship groups, and industry, a national aquaculture act would provide a way to ensure an increasingly profitable and productive aquaculture industry.

On behalf of many on the west coast, I am here to represent the view that it is time to transition British Columbia's open net pen salmon aquaculture industry to closed containment. Momentum is gathering globally and close to home to develop a profitable, productive aquaculture system and sector through closed containment.

In Washington state, a bill has just passed through the state Senate to phase out open net salmon aquaculture by 2025. As licences expire, they are not being renewed. If an operation is in violation of the lease, it is shut down. Senator Kevin Ranker introduced the bill. I spoke with him, and he said he had never seen anything like the support that came together from all 29 treaty tribes in the state, commercial fishers, and recreational fishers. Senator Ranker's constituency is the same as many of ours in British Columbia because it encompasses, in Senator Ranker's words, the magical, majestic Salish Sea.

From a business perspective, the global open net pen salmon aquaculture industry is operating in an increasingly unpredictable environment. The biological costs to control sea lice and viruses are rising. The industry is not able to control stock losses or escapes. Licenses are very difficult if not impossible to secure. Public support for the status quo is attenuating and capital is being actively invested in closed containment facilities globally. Governments are paying attention.

From an environmental perspective, there is evidence that sea lice and viruses are transferred from farmed fish to wild salmon stocks. Norway has put a moratorium on open net farms due to the sea lice problem. Add to that the recent complete net pen collapse in Washington state and it is obvious that we simply cannot stand by and allow these threats to wild salmon and wild salmon habitats to continue.

From a trade perspective, British Columbia and Canada should also not concede our strong role in the industry, our knowledge, and our brand to the first movers who know that the status quo will simply not allow for the growth of the sector and who are gaining market advantage over us to research, innovation, and investment.

Canada is a trusted global leader in high value, safe, secure, sustainable food and we have the potential to develop our agri-food sector, particularly in light of recent trade agreements and supercluster announcements. Through technology and innovation in the sector, Canada can bring more high-quality farmed salmon to global markets, create jobs, and strengthen the economy.

Social innovation presents the potential for industry and first nations to be enterprise partners. Transitioning to closed containment is a way for nation-to-nation collaboration in pursuit of business opportunity, trade, and a healthy aquatic environment. In just two and a half years, our government has made it clear through our actions that we are committed to strengthening engagement and transparency and to rebuilding trust with Canadians.

Last year, the government invested $1.4 billion in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, in their base budgets, as a result of a program integrity review that revealed the magnitude and devastation of the Harper government cuts. This is in addition to our historic $1.5 billion investment in the oceans protection plan to further protect the marine environment from coast to coast to coast. As the minister has stated, to preserve, protect, and help restore our environment, we need a Fisheries Act that Canadians can trust. We must continue to build a relationship based on respect for the protection of our shared environment.

I would like to thank Canadian citizens for their ongoing commitment to volunteering, studying the science, advocating, and leading. The people of West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country have certainly played a major role in the proposed Fisheries Act legislation we are considering today and that will continue no doubt. I am very grateful for their wisdom, spirit, and tenacity in getting us to today.

Our government is taking great strides to protect fish and fish habitat and the environment. I ask my colleagues in the House to please join me in supporting these important amendments and in passing Bill C-68 and then let us take the next step toward a national aquaculture act.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, less than seven hours of debate is being allowed on Bill C-68, a really important piece of legislation, limited by the Liberal government. I am sorry that closure has been invoked on the bill.

I want to ask my colleague about the Cohen commission recommendations. For her riding, as in mine, this was a hot election issue. Coastal people are passionate about wild salmon and were very encouraged in particular by the Liberal government's commitment to implement the Cohen commission recommendations, and specifically, by the mandate letter to the fisheries minister with specific instructions to implement the Cohen recommendations.

Recommendation three was to break the conflict of interest, which has been repeatedly observed of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in that it is both the regulator of the salmon industry, protector of wild salmon, and the promoter of the farmed salmon industry. Those are in conflict. Certainly wild salmon and farmed salmon open net pen Atlantic salmon farming are in conflict.

I would like to know if my colleague shares my concern that the Liberal government has still failed to act on Cohen commission recommendation three.

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing that would make me happier than to talk about the Cohen commission. When the Conservative government did a study, then threw it out the window, we fought to have it in our campaign platform. I am very pleased to announce that of the 75 Cohen commission recommendations, I believe we have achieved 64, as well as a wild salmon policy, which is so important.

The hon. member raised the issue of open net fish farms versus wild salmon. That is why it is imperative we pass the Fisheries Act, and that we move to a national aquaculture act.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague, my neighbour on the north shore, for her lifetime of advocacy when it comes to issues revolving around fish.

I was disappointed in previous debates this week as I saw Conservative member after Conservative member stand and say that they no longer believe in the precautionary principle. I guess actions speak louder than words though, because we have all lived through the effects of the enormous cuts that were made by the previous government.

She mentioned that we have invested $1.5 billion in the oceans protection plan and $1.4 billion in the core mandate of fisheries. Could she give us some details on how these investments are affecting her specific community?

[Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the role he plays as parliamentary secretary. Certainly, being from the west coast, he is deeply engaged in this issue.

First, in order that the fisheries department can do basic work, our government examined the horrendous cuts made by the Conservative government. That has been restored to the tune of $1.4 billion, but that just puts it back to what we had before.

There is so much more to do and taking an ecosystem management approach and using the precautionary principle are fundamental to that. We have communities from coast to coast to coast that know what goes on in our rivers and creeks, our intertidal zones and estuaries. People volunteer for hundreds of thousands of hours to ensure we are always maintaining fish habitat to the benefit of all ocean life. With this funding, groups have been able to get back to the work that is their life, and it makes our communities what they are.

With regard to the oceans protection plan, we are putting in protections so we can balance the environment and the economy in the way that Canadians expect us to.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among the parties, and I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move:

That the membership of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be amended as follows: Mr. David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre) for Mr. Kennedy Stewart (Burnaby South).

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-68, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequence, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Fisheries Act

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in my place today to talk about this important issue.

It is nice to see an injustice done to a fellow colleague undone, just before I speak on this particular issue.

I was elected to this chamber in 2006. At that time, I was the proud member of Parliament for a constituency then known as Wetaskiwin, a large rural area between Red Deer and Edmonton. One of the biggest concerns I heard about at that time, from all the municipal reeves and councillors, was the onerous and very expensive, time-consuming process of doing something as simple as replacing a culvert under a gravel road out in one of the hinterlands of these counties. Some of these counties, such as Clearwater County, represent a massive tract of land. There are very few people in the eastern portion of that country.

There are massive numbers of roads, including forestry service roads, trunk roads, and all kinds of roads. There are constant little streams and so on in the foothills, and lots of small bridges and lots of culverts. The same thing could be said for Lacombe County, Ponoka County, Wetaskiwin County, Leduc County, or virtually any county or municipal district in Alberta. This would be the same for virtually any county or municipal district across the Prairies or anywhere else in the country, for that matter.

The Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties, the AAMD, SARM, in Saskatchewan, and various other organizations, all the way up to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, had the onerous and odious situation of dealing with the Fisheries Act. In particular, the habitat alteration damage and destruction clauses, and their implementation thereof, were simply causing numerous delays. Fisheries officers would show up at a construction site, and the term used was “showing up with guns drawn”, where a couple of county workers and a contractor might be trying to fix a culvert or unplug something. These are the situations that these folks faced on a daily basis in our vast rural areas.

This is moving back regressively, taking this legislation back. We just heard the parliamentary secretary talking about how they are going back to the way it was before. That is simply another attack and another assault, in a legacy of assaults that are happening right now, on our rural communities across this country, whether it is regressing in the firearms legislation, the carbon tax, all the environmental legislation, getting rid of the National Energy Board, imposing a tanker ban off the west coast, cancelling pipeline projects, like the northern gateway, and changing the goal post so many times on development projects that companies are pulling out of projects they have spent years developing and that had prior approval from very competent authorities set up under legislation. We just seem to be going backwards.

I have a degree in zoology, fisheries, and aquatic sciences from the University of Alberta. I do not want to date myself by saying when that happened, but it was a long time ago. I worked proudly for a number of years for Alberta Fish and Wildlife doing walleye minimum size limit experiments and working with DFO when I was a fishing guide in the Arctic. I know intimately some of the issues facing our country. I was an enforcement officer. I was a national park warden. As a conservation officer and a park ranger for the Province of Alberta, I enforced the Fisheries Act. I enforced the fisheries regulations therein, so I have a little knowledge about what I am talking about.

I am not saying, in any way, shape, or form, that the Conservative Party does not believe that we should be protecting our fisheries, protecting the environment, and making sure that we have sustainable development going forward. That is simply not the case.

In Alberta, some of the most active conservationists are people who work in the energy sector, people who work in the oil patch, people who work in rural areas, and people who work in the forestry industry. They come out of our cities, come out of Edmonton and out of Calgary. The May long weekend is coming up. The entire west country in Alberta is going to fill right up. There are going to be 40,000 or 50,000 people in Clearwater County alone over the May long weekend. They are going to be fishing in the Ram River and all the little lakes we have out there, and they are going to be enjoying themselves.

These people go to work every day, and they understand that they can get the balance right. What they do not understand is legislation that keeps on coming from Liberal governments, past and present, that denies them the opportunity, the livelihood, that would allow them to actually go out and enjoy the environment by preventing energy projects from going forward and by preventing all kinds of development.

There is so much capital flight happening right now. The lack of foreign investment in Canada is striking. The government says that it has all this economic growth. It is propped up by deficits. If the Liberals actually believed anything they said over there, they would have no trouble balancing a budget in so-called economic good times. The people of Canada have everything to fear from a government that says everything is going well but cannot balance the books. That is a different debate for another day.

I want to talk about the Fisheries Act and the onerous provisions that would come back on our counties. Our counties and ratepayers in our municipal areas will have to pay three to five times as much to replace a culvert and to repair a bridge. They will face delays. They will face road closures as a result of these delays and the enhanced enforcement.

Do my Liberal colleagues want to lose all their rural seats in the Prairies? Oh, they do not have any and here is why. After years and years of not listening when fisheries officers showed up, guns drawn, for something as minuscule as somebody wanting to drain a ditch off their property, this caused people headaches. They do not want to deal with this anymore, but we are sadly going back in that direction. Therefore, it will be more red tape, more delays, more costs, less development, and capital flight will be leaving.

I was proud to be part of some of the changes we made. In fact, I was even the legislative chair of the subcommittee on finance that brought in Bill C-38, which made common-sense changes. I remember bizarre stories coming out of Manitoba. For example, a farmer, after the Assiniboine and Red river floods, was charged for draining his field because carp had escaped the river during the flood and were in the field. Because he was draining his field, thereby taking away the fish habitat in which the fish were living in his wheat field, he was charged for destroying a fish habitat. This is how bizarre the implementation of the legislation was before, and we are going back to that legislation. We can count on a whipped vote on the other side, ensuring the legislation goes through, and we will be able to count on bizarre stories like this one coming forward again.

We do not need to go back to legislation from the 1940s and 1950s in this modern era. Counties and municipal districts are far more knowledgeable and far more responsible. There is far more education out there and far more oversight. We have social media oversight. We have all kinds of mechanisms right now. Not a single county wants to end up on the front page of a paper or anything like that after doing something that harms fish habitat.

That is the problem with the legislation. The legislation is not just focused on fish habitat, but focused on the harm of even one fish. If it happens, it is unfortunate and I get that. However, if we are not looking at the big picture of what we are trying to do and if we are focusing on something as minuscule as one fish and stopping an entire project because all the approvals are not in place, it does not matter what the methodology if going to be. The methodology will be the same. There are only so many ways to replace a bridge and only so many ways to replace a culvert. These things are well known and people will do them. However, if they do not have all the paperwork in place, they will be criminals it if they happen to kill a fish, notwithstanding the fact that the habitat was fine, all the process was followed, and all the offsets and restoration guidelines were followed. This is the problem with the legislation.

There was a great opportunity for the government to go in a positive direction, to send a positive message to the investment community. The Liberals tell us that they can get the balance between the environment and the economy right. They got it right from their perspective: no economy, all environment. That is the problem. They could have focused on natural fisheries sustainability. They talk about implementing the Cohen report. There are things in the Cohen report they will not do because they do not want to simply focus on natural fisheries and sustainability.

On fisheries enhancement, both in saltwater and in freshwater, my colleague from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, I and several other members advocated in past budgets for fisheries programs where we would partner, through these organizations, to enhance freshwater fisheries. Why are we not asking organizations or companies like Shell to, instead of rebuilding lakes in northern Alberta where mining projects are, use the same offsets and enhance fisheries where the actual people would be, so people could enjoy those enhancements. Restore the disturbed area to what it was, but do the enhancements where the people are. Make the fishery opportunities better. There is a sad situation here, a missed opportunity in the bill to be progressive going forward in looking after not only fisheries and fisheries habitats but looking after the people who sustain them.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite obviously has a lot of experience in this area. However, in listening to the member's speech, I was somewhat confused, because a lot of the stories and problems he was talking about throughout his speech are actually things that are being addressed in this legislation. The reason I know that is that our government consulted broadly across the country with industry, fishers, and indigenous people to make sure that this legislation not only went forward to protect our environment but made sure that it had provisions so that we had better certainty for big projects, while including things like codes of practice for small projects.

I would like to ask the member opposite if he read the legislation, and if he did, what his thoughts are on the code of practice provisions.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, those codes of practice that are currently in place were put in place by the previous government, and there is no need to actually change them. The entire campaign that the member and all of his colleagues ran on was based on falsehoods and misinformation to the public about what the changes in the Fisheries Act of 2012 were all about. If the member does not believe me, if he wants to waltz around this issue, I will give him a waltz: one step forward two steps back. However, those are not my words. That is a statement by the Canadian Electricity Association on Bill C-68:

...one step forward but two steps back.

CEA is particularly concerned that the government has chosen to return to pre-2012 provisions of the Fisheries Act that address “activity other than fishing that results in the death of fish....

Those were not my words, but the words of job creators and employers who are actually helping to pay down the debt that the hon. member keeps voting in favour of increasing.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, one of the reasons my riding of Kootenay—Columbia changed hands from being Conservative for 21 years to NDP was the Conservatives' attack on the environment, including removing the habitat section from the Fisheries Act.

I was a regional manager with the Ministry of Environment for southeastern B.C. for a number of years and we worked very closely with the federal fisheries department. I can tell the member that literally hundreds and thousands of actions by the federal department across Canada helped to protect fish habitat and fish.

I know that my colleagues in the Conservative Party like to talk about a ditch in Abbotsford and the flood in Manitoba. Absolutely, I think the officers who acted in those particular circumstances were not using their best discretion. However, would the member not agree that thousands of actions that protect habitat really should be the primary focus rather than the handful of perhaps poor decisions made by individual officers?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague asked me a very forthright question. However, if the member wants to talk about thousands of actions, where is the litany of all of the reasons that the legislation needs to be changed in the first place? The member does not have one.

Since the change in legislation in 2012, there has been no event where there has been a massive fish loss. There has been nobody dumping massive amounts of chemicals into our rivers or waterways. None of these things are actually happening. There is actually no substantiated case anywhere in Canada that anybody can point to that would convince me that any legislative change needs to happen.

This is all a campaign. These are changes that are made on a campaign of fear and misinformation about the responsible changes that our previous government made so that we could ensure that rural communities had hope for their futures, because this is where everything comes from. We can take a look around this room. Where did everything in this room come from? Where did the food come from that is outside on the table? Where did it all come from? It came from rural areas in our country, and the more that we put onerous legislation like this in place, the harder we make the lives of those people living there.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the environment committee right now is looking at the Liberals' proposed environmental assessment bill. We had a number of representatives from various industries. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association called the regulatory state in Canada right now a toxic regulatory environment. This is why investment in the mining industry, for example, is down 60%.

The Fisheries Act is being layered on top of regulation after regulation, and process after process. Investment is fleeing this country and the changes that the government is making to the Fisheries Act are a big part of that. Could my friend for Red Deer—Lacombe comment on that?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa is absolutely 100% correct. He has forgotten more about fisheries and the environment than the collective wisdom the House has probably ever known. We should be listening when this man speaks.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in this House as a representative of rural communities on the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I can tell members with all honesty that my constituents in the rural communities of my riding are very happy with this bill. They are very happy to see these provisions reinstated.

In the short time that I have to speak to the bill, I want to concentrate on one aspect of the bill that I think needs an amendment at committee. It has to do with the need for legal protection for environmental flows, which is the amount and type of water needed for fish and aquatic systems to flourish.

I have presented many petitions in this House to deal with the weir at Lake Cowichan which controls the flow rates in the Cowichan River. It is a particularly important piece of infrastructure, especially during July and August when the flow rates are very low, endangering fish and fish habitat.

When I presented petitions, the government's response acknowledged that summer low flows in the Cowichan River are a threat to fish and fish habitat, and that raising the Cowichan weir could provide additional water storage in the lake to deal with the problem. The government acknowledges that low flows are a danger to fish habitat, but we do not see the explicit protection in this legislation that I think is needed to protect those flow rates.

It is not only in the Cowichan River. On the southwest coast of my riding, the Jordan River, a river which has been decimated by an old copper mine and by B.C. hydro dams, has seen its fish population absolutely wiped out. When the reservoir was opened up, the flow rates increased, and magically, the salmon returned. That is all it took. An increased flow rate was needed to dilute the copper that is in the water and to give the fish colder temperatures. They have a narrow bandwidth of temperatures in which they can survive.

Also, if we have protections for flow rates, it would oblige the government to live up to its obligations to put those funds in to make sure that we have the infrastructure to control flow rates. It would allow tributaries of these rivers to act as important breeding grounds for salmon.

I see my time is up. I am thankful for this small opportunity to comment on this bill, and I look forward on behalf of the great residents of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford to supporting it when the vote comes.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 1:15 p.m., pursuant to order made Monday, March 26, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and to put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second stage of the bill now before the House.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

All those opposed will please say nay.