Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, co-chairs, members. My name is Otto Langer. I am a fisheries biologist. I've been involved in fisheries biology across Canada for about 50 years now. I spent about 33 of those years with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada. So

Fisheries committee  I would say they are definitely not the proper authority to be making decisions on behalf of what's good for fish. Their business line is the export and import of goods. The calling, above anything else, is to make a profit, even though it's a federal agency. That's the same with

Fisheries committee  It's not a simple solution and of course, DFO will need some additional resources. When I was a DFO employee, we couldn't hire enough biologists, so that one could sit on every bulldozer in Canada. Common sense has to apply and you have to streamline many things. Bureaucracies ar

Fisheries committee  I think you have to centralize expertise in the right agency. When we're dealing with an energy issue, the National Energy Board should just be dealing with that energy issue. Do we have enough natural gas for future generations? Do we build a pipeline across provincial boundarie

Fisheries committee  Have I ever worked in—

Fisheries committee  No, I've not worked for a mining company, but I did work for Shell oil in the Alberta tar sands, so that's getting pretty close to mining.

Fisheries committee  We just have to look at the Petronas LNG project in the Skeena River estuary. It's a relatively pristine estuary, and we've learned from the Fraser River, the Squamish estuary, and many others that this is not a place where you put industry. You have to site in an alternate locat

Fisheries committee  I'm not aware that reservoirs have created a great boom in fisheries. Generally, downstream areas are affected greatly by reduced flows or altered flows. We just have to look at the Nechako River, and the Kenney Dam that was built there, and the damage that it has done, including

Fisheries committee  —the greatest impact to fishery runs in Canada and the world is the building of dams and reservoirs. Certain fish could be introduced into a reservoir, and they will do well there, but that does not include the salmon that have to spawn in that area, and get flooded out, and get

Fisheries committee  No, there shouldn't be any doubt in the mind of anyone who is objective that this wasn't a good thing. We probably lost the basis of protecting 80% of habitat in Canada. We've all heard of death by a thousand cuts, and that's what destroys habitat in most places. In my last year

Fisheries committee  I started working for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in 1969. I was recruited out of the University of Alberta with two degrees in fisheries biology. I was hired to be a fish protection biologist. I soon learned that it was hard to do the job unless we had a law, so some

Fisheries committee  It's probably on this point that I would disagree a little bit. My experience shows that the more complicated your legislation is, the more confusing it is to the courts. All you have to do is confuse a judge, and you can't do any enforcement work. You take the B.C. Environmenta

Fisheries committee  Excuse me, we can't hear you. Could you speak up?

Fisheries committee  I'd say the downhill slide started during the government previous to the Harper government. The government of Paul Martin was into balancing the books big time, and cuts were being made at DFO. I think we lost 40% of our scientists then, and we came up with a term called “smart r

Fisheries committee  You should go first.