Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 11 - Evidence - October 6, 2009
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 6:05 p.m. to study issues relating to the federal government's current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada's fisheries and oceans (topic: matters related to the Canadian Coast Guard and fisheries in the Western Arctic).
Senator Ethel Cochrane (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, I call the meeting to order. I apologize for the late start. Committees not allowed to sit when the Senate is sitting.
It is my pleasure to welcome the three witnesses to the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
My name is Senator Ethel Cochrane, from Newfoundland and Labrador, and I am the Deputy Chair of the Fisheries Committee. I would ask the members of the committee to please introduce themselves.
Senator Raine: I am Senator Nancy Greene Raine, from British Columbia.
Senator Dallaire: I am Senator Roméo Dallaire, from Gaspé, Quebec.
Senator Robichaud: I am Senator Fernand Robichaud, from New Brunswick.
Senator Hubley: I am Senator Elizabeth Hubley, from Prince Edward Island.
Senator Watt: I am Senator Charlie Watt, from Nunavik.
Senator Manning: I am Senator Fabian Manning, from Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Deputy Chair: We will hear witnesses from the Fisheries Joint Management Committee: Mr. Vic Gillman, Chairman; Mr. Max Kotokak Sr., Inuvialuit Member; and Mr. Burton Ayles, Canada Member.
The committee recently returned from a mission to the Western Arctic, where we heard from various groups during public hearings in Inuvik. We certainly heard from people; it was fantastic.
The Fisheries Joint Management Committee was unable to attend the public hearings held in the Northwest Territories. I thank their representatives for taking the time to appear before the Senate Fisheries Committee in Ottawa this evening.
Mr. Gillman, please proceed.
Vic Gillman, Chairman, Fisheries Joint Management Committee: Thank you and good evening, members of the committee, support staff and public. I am currently the interim chair of the Fisheries Joint Management Committee of the Western Arctic. I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to meet today and, in particular, Danielle Labonté for making the arrangements for this session to take place.
I am accompanied by FJMC committee members Max Kotokak Sr., an Inuvialuit from Tuktoyaktuk; and Burton Ayles, from Manitoba. Our presentation today will be comprised of three parts: a quick summary of who we are; what we do; and our perspective on the northern strategy focusing on sovereignty, protecting and managing our northern environment and improving governance to allow northerners a greater say in their destiny. Interwoven will be comments on areas that the committee has targeted: climate change; fisheries co-management; scientific research; and major Arctic initiatives, such as the Mackenzie Gas Project. We will reference some of the other recommendations that the committee has heard in its travels concerning the Canadian Coast Guard and Arctic programming. We will finish with a set of recommendations for the committee's consideration and action. We have provided the committee with background material. Therefore, I intend to speak to the high points only.
The origins of the FJMC lie in the Inuvialuit Final Agreement of 1984, which formed a committee between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, and the Inuvialuit to cooperatively manage the shared responsibility for fish and marine mammal resources in the newly formed Inuvialuit Settlement Region, ISR. We have four members — two from Canada appointed by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and two from the Inuvialuit appointed by the Inuvialuit Game Council. The chair of the FJMC is selected by those four members, and the committee is supported by two full-time resource positions located in Inuvik, Northwest Territories.
The composition of the committee is designed to ensure that the traditional knowledge and wisdom of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region communities and harvesters is melded with the scientific and technical capabilities of the Canada members, who most often are former DFO staff. More detail is available in our written presentation.
I will move to today's topic and ask our members to speak to the committee. Mr. Max Kotokak, an Inuvialuit FJMC member since 1998, is an experienced hunter and fisherman, a local businessman and the FJMC lead on community relations.
Max Kotokak Sr., Inuvialuit Member, Fisheries Joint Management Committee:
[Mr. Kotokak spoke in his native language.]
Someone said there is a translator here so I thought I would speak my language.
The Deputy Chair: That is just fine. As a matter of fact, Senator Watt, who is from Nunavut, has just joined us.
Senator Watt: I will not translate for you, though.
The Deputy Chair: Please continue in English. You are welcome.
Mr. Kotokak: My name is Max Kotokak and I am an Inuvialuit member of the FJMC. I am from Tuktoyaktuk. I am an active hunter and fisher, and I have a regular job back home. My ancestors were the wealthiest Inuit in the Arctic. I do not mean my grandparents specifically but the Inuvialuit, the people who lived around the Mackenzie Delta, the Beaufort Sea coast from Barter Island in Alaska to the Amundsen Gulf. We were wealthier than others along the Alaskan coast and the Gwich'in people to the south. There were likely more Inuvialuit in this small area than there were along the rest of the Arctic coast all the way to Hudson's Bay.
We were wealthy because of the Mackenzie River and the Beaufort Sea. The Mackenzie River brings warmth, vegetation, fresh water and freshwater fish. The Beaufort Sea and coastal rivers bring more fish, seals, bowheads and, most important, beluga whales. Some call us the beluga hunters. These resources return every year to the same areas that were the source of our wealth. We were like an oasis in the middle of a desert when compared to the rest of the Arctic. My notes say "oasis," but I have never really seen an oasis.
This is what the Inuvialuit negotiators wanted to maintain when they signed the agreement in 1984. The three principles referred to were first, preserving Inuvialuit culture; second, allowing Inuvialuit to be equal and meaningful participants in society; and third, preserving the wildlife and environment.
Twenty-five years have passed since the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, IFA, was signed in 1984, and co-management of renewable resources in the ISR is a success story for Canada in our communities and Aboriginal communities around the world. Co-management has significantly enhanced our ability to make use of TEK — traditional ecological knowledge — in resource management decision making, particularly when we deal with local DFO officials.
However, there is still a need to ensure this knowledge is taken into consideration in early and formal planning and decision-making processes. An example is the Species at Risk Act, SARA, as well as COSEWIC, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Aboriginal rights and co-management are referred to in the legislation, but the implementation has been far from perfect.
Our experience with co-management with DFO has been very positive. We believe similar initiatives elsewhere in Canada and around the world would help fishers and their resources. We will talk more about traditional ecological knowledge and co-management during the question period if you wish, but Dr. Ayles will discuss a number of specific issues in a little more detail.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you so much. Your English is exceptional.
Burton Ayles, Canada Member, Fisheries Joint Management Committee: I am pleased to be here.
I would interject that two of Mr. Kotokak's predecessors on this committee, Billy Day and Nelson Green, signed the original Inuvialuit Final Agreement. I am pleased that Senator Patterson is here, because he also signed the agreement on behalf of the NWT government at that time. We all owe you a vote of thanks because we are very pleased with that agreement.
The FJMC makes regular interventions into the environmental screening process established under the IFA. We have interventions on projects that range from fishing ventures, tourism and seismic exploration to sewage disposal, but the major resource management protection issue for the Inuvialuit region is hydrocarbon development.
The major project over the past few years has been the Mackenzie Gas Project. Despite delays in the joint review panel process and the fall in natural gas prices, the primary concern of the FJMC remains the potential cumulative effects of the proposed pipeline. There are also things like climate change and other projects, some proposed, some just projected, but we know that will happen in the future.
We made several interventions to the joint review panel process. We are looking forward to the final report, but I would like to restate briefly our major concerns, because the implementation will be important.
In summary, the proponents claimed there would be no cumulative effects of the projects. When you add up all the projects, they said no cumulative effects. Then they said there is no need for special monitoring for cumulative effects, because if there are none, there is no need to monitor them.
They said even if there were, current government coordination is adequate for any possible monitoring of the cumulative effects. With all due respect to the proponents and to government coordination, we disagree. If you do not believe there will be cumulative effects, then you will not find them.
We believe we need a comprehensive aquatic monitoring programming down the Mackenzie all the way to the Beaufort Sea. The Mackenzie is the largest river in Canada. All that water flows into the Beaufort Sea in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. We need a program that involves the government, co-managers and industry, and they all have to pay for it. We all have to pay for it, along with the government and industry; it is not just a government responsibility.
The second issue is oceans management. Since the passage of the Oceans Act, Canada has made some significant progress in planning for oceans management and protection. The Beaufort Sea is a large ocean management area. Implementation of these plans will enhance Canada's security in the Arctic.
The FJMC supports these planning initiatives for the Beaufort Sea, but we want to emphasize that planning is not implementation. Our assessment is that for many bureaucrats, planning is the end result; for the people in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, it is only one part of the process.
Our major present concern is a pending Tarium Niryutait marine protected area. This proposed MPA is in the Mackenzie Delta. It is based on centuries of Inuvialuit use of the beluga resources every summer, and it will protect critical beluga habitat.
With the finalization of the MPA and full implementation of the management plan, these areas and the whales will be protected from industrial development; and Canada will have demonstrated to the Inuvialuit, Canadians and other countries that it is serious about implementation of its plans for environmental protection of the Arctic. In so doing, it will enhance Arctic sovereignty.
We are satisfied with the plan and have been involved with it. We will be the management agency, in fact. The communities are satisfied with the plan, as is industry, but it still has not been finalized. The management plan and the regulations for the new MPA rest with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the government here in Ottawa, and we urge that they be finalized as soon as possible. We want to get on with it.
The third issue we would like to talk about is commercial fishing. The FJMC and the hunters' and trappers' committees — some of whom you met when you were in Inuvik — have growing concerns about the potential negative impacts of the development of large-scale commercial fisheries in the Beaufort Sea. Public attention has recently focused on the decline and collapse of fish stocks around the world. In fishery after fishery in developed and developing countries, there is a pattern of over-exploitation that has led to the loss of fish stocks.
On August 17, the U.S. government banned commercial fishing in U.S. Arctic waters until sufficient information is available to support the sustainable management of a commercial fishery. The FJMC has been talking to the Inuvialuit hunters and fishers for several months — for years, in fact — about the issue of large-scale commercial fishing, but the U.S. action has caught the attention of the public, media and politicians.
Our concerns for the Beaufort Sea rest on four facts: climate change — we know the Arctic will be more accessible; lack of knowledge — we do not know very much about the fish and marine mammal resources of the Arctic; Inuvialuit traditional interests — beluga whales, bowhead whales and Arctic char are dependent upon the Beaufort Sea ecosystem; and the lack of Inuvialuit control over commercial fishing. The Inuvialuit do not have the same control that Nunavut has over its commercial fishing operations.
The FJMC, together with our partners — the Inuvialuit Game Council, DFO and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation — have begun discussions to obtain greater Inuvialuit control over commercial fisheries in the Beaufort Sea to ensure the long-term sustainability of the fish and marine mammal resources on which the Inuvialuit depend.
As with your recommendations for Nunavut, there is a need for increases in DFO funding for fisheries and aquatic ecosystem research in the Beaufort Sea to better understand the linkage between primary productivity, potential commercial species and the key fish and marine mammals that are important to the Inuvialuit.
Those are the three major issues we would like to present to the committee.
Mr. Gillman: I would like to summarize our presentation by leaving you with a number of recommendations.
Our general recommendation is that by supporting the Inuvialuit in Canada-Inuvialuit co-management practice, the federal government can significantly enhance aspects of its northern strategy — particularly sovereignty, protecting the environment and the control of local people over their own lives and affairs.
The federal government has many effective planning and communication processes in place, but not too many implementation plans. That is where the government is failing the Arctic. We urge the committee to advise central agencies that federal departments need increased resources to support the implementation requirements of lands claim agreements, particularly because of the changes since the agreements were originally signed.
As a further recommendation, we support the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation statement and the Inuvialuit Game Council statements on the inadequacies of current oil spill containment equipment. Canada should be preparing for an event the size of Exxon Valdez, not fuelling spills from small ships.
As for Recommendation 5 in your report on Nunavut fisheries, TEK, traditional ecological knowledge, as Mr. Kotokak said, needs greater recognition in government processes, particularly the SARA and COSEWIC processes.
Third, we recommend that if the Mackenzie Gas Project is approved by the federal government, then the committee should ask the government to require the establishment of an integrated, long-term aquatic monitoring program to assess the cumulative effects of impacts on the Mackenzie watershed. All parties must be involved, including the Mackenzie Gas Project proponents, and all parties must be prepared to provide their share of the necessary funding for such an initiative.
Fourth, we recommend DFO be asked to expedite the formal approval of the Tarium Niryutait marine protected area and that the oceans planning initiatives currently being undertaken receive adequate funding for full implementation.
Fifth, we recommend that the committee support Inuvialuit efforts to gain greater control over fisheries resources of the Beaufort Sea, particularly as related to the control of large-scale commercial fishing.
Our sixth recommendation is that, for its report on the Western Arctic, the committee give similar consideration to the need for increased funding for a multi-year, multi-species fisheries ecosystem research program, as you did for the Nunavut fisheries and as the U.S. government has committed to the U.S. portion of the Beaufort Sea.
That concludes our recommendations, Madam Chair. However, I would be remiss not to mention that successful cooperative management requires respect, trust and commitment. DFO has been a good partner in the Western Arctic. We recognize and commend their actions. They have done a good job. Please share that with their minister.
Thank you, and we would now be prepared for what questions you have of us.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gillman. Senator Patterson, I have not introduced you yet. We are glad to have you with us.
Let me begin by asking you a few questions. Is co-management widely accepted among your people, and is it supported?
Mr. Gillman: With 23 years of experience and Mr. Kotokak's long term with the committee, I would ask him to speak to that question.
The Deputy Chair: Are your people accepting this co-management idea with DFO?
Mr. Kotokak: The communities do work well with co-management with DFO. We travel to the communities. We do community tours. We ask their concerns on marine mammals, and we do work well with them. There are many projects that we support in the communities, that the communities want, and we do work well with them.
The Deputy Chair: What exactly are DFO's responsibilities?
Mr. Ayles: DFO's responsibilities in the Arctic generally are the same as on the east and west coasts. With the NWT, they have the full responsibilities. Legislative responsibilities have not been turned over to the territorial government the way they have been to the provincial governments, so DFO has broad responsibilities. The Inuvialuit Final Agreement gave the FJMC some of those ministerial responsibilities. The hunters' and trappers' committees and the FJMC have responsibilities such as allocation of resources within communities and between communities, particularly for subsistence fisheries. The minister cannot decide that this fisherman gets that fish or that fisherman gets those fish. It is up to either the hunters' and trappers' committee or the Fisheries Joint Management Committee.
As a committee, we also have responsibilities to recommend and to advise the minister, and those words mean different things under agreements, and the minister has to respond to us within a set period of time. We make recommendations on research. We fund research that we give to government departments and government scientists to do. We sort of advise them or recommend to them that this is how they should spend their money. We are supposed to be involved in international negotiations or discussions that would involve Inuvialuit fisheries in some way. Those are just a few examples.
The Deputy Chair: What about the Coast Guard? Do you have a relationship with them?
Mr. Gillman: Because of our focus on fisheries and marine mammal management, our relationship with the Coast Guard is pretty negligible. There are opportunities for some of the science programs that the FJMC funds or helps to fund to take place on Coast Guard vessels, and we have a few of those projects ongoing at this time. Most of our focus is on the natural resource element rather than the shipping or the other concerns the Coast Guard is related to.
Mr. Kotokak: The communities do have a working relationship with the Coast Guard, but not so much our committee, I think.
Senator Hubley: Thank you very much for your presentation this evening. It is always a wonderful experience to visit the North, and our recent trip was no exception, I assure you.
I will ask my question on climate change. There seem to be many issues now pertaining to climate change, including the rising ocean water levels, coastal erosion, erosion along the Mackenzie River and the delta, the thawing of the permafrost, unpredictable weather patterns and storms, dangerous ice conditions, unreliable wildlife migratory patterns and invasive predatory species. I am sure that has to have a significant effect on your way of life. What kind of science and research facility do we have to address some or any of these conditions? Who is dealing with it?
Mr. Gillman: I am pleased to see that you are well versed on what we anticipate will be the large-scale effects of global warming or climate change. Dr. Ayles would be best positioned to answer your question from a science perspective.
Mr. Ayles: There have been a number of large-scale oceanographic studies over the past decade, such as the joint ocean ice study that you may have heard about, which has been presented on TV and radio, and a study called the Canadian Arctic Shelf Exchange Study. These are big, major oceanographic studies looking at ice and oceans. They have involved Canadian universities. Laval University and the University of Manitoba were the coordinators of that last one I mentioned. They also involve many international researchers from many different countries as far away as Spain, working in a coordinated way off icebreaker research ships. The Amundsen used to be a government Coast Guard ice breaker. It is now being turned into a research vessel. There is also ice work on the shelf itself for a number of months.
There are starting to be some studies. A number of studies were related to IPY, International Polar Year, on the fisheries across the Arctic.
There are two problems. First, not much is focused on the fisheries part of it. The focus is the oceans part of it, and from our perspective, there is not enough understanding of the connection between the atmosphere, the ice, the water into the primary productivity, secondary productivity into fish and then to beluga whales and bowhead whales and coastal fishes. That is important for the Inuvialuit. So we do not know how those things will affect a lot of work in these broad-scale things.
Another problem is that these things tend to be a one-shot deal. You may get a lot of money for IPY or a lot of money that someone has put together for a four-year program or something like that, and then it sort of tails off and someone else starts something else in 10 years. That is part of the nature of the research. Not much is government-led any more; it is university-led, and the universities get money from NSERC and other sources but have a commitment for a single project. We see the need for some long-term monitoring programs, for example, that no one else has responsibility for except the government. That is where we see the failure.
Senator Hubley: We did hear that on our trip to the North. It seems there has to be some way of gathering that scientific knowledge that each of these groups and universities are gathering and to have some sort of not necessarily control over it but to have the facility to access that information, to share it with the people who will be most affected by these changes.
We did sense that was not in place yet. If it were to happen, who should be the lead? Who should take the lead on the research and scientific studies happening in the North? The example we were given was that many are students who have advanced, taken an interest in the North and do a doctorate or something in that area, but that is it, and that information should perhaps be put together as part of the puzzle so we get a better picture of what scientific work is being done and its value. If there was a lead to be taken on that, who would you suggest?
Mr. Ayles: Those are great questions and something we struggle with ourselves, even for the small projects that we fund. Mr. Kotokak knows the kind of problems, because people come to him and say, "What happened to that whitefish tagging study you funded about 10 years ago? Where did those whitefish go? We wonder where it has gone." We know a report was published and it may have been in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, and then someone prepared a poster and went out to the community, but we still have not figured out how to make this readily available so we can pass all the messages on. It has to be translated, and I do not mean translated into Inuvialuit but translated from scientific into layperson's language. Part of that is our responsibility. I do not know that it is any one group's responsibility. I think the IPY has a program for communication, and I think those big oceanographic programs have responsibility. They brought students; they went into classrooms in the North. It is everyone's responsibility, but I think we are still struggling with how to do it.
The Inuvialuit Communications Society has a role to play. They bring a lot of this into the communities too. I do not have a real answer for you.
Mr. Gillman: To add to those comments, what you are really striking at is the failure to have a real vision for the coordination of Arctic science and research. Individual departments, individual committees all have a little tiny piece of the pie and we do the best job we can, but until IPY came along, there was not any true coordination of Arctic science investigation, so this is where our focus has to be.
Those opportunities have been presented to us in the past. Following the initial Berger inquiry, the sum total of science dropped off instead of increasing. It should have happened in reverse. We would have been much more prepared for the state of things today if we had had an ongoing, coordinated research program in the Arctic. Instead, we abandoned the scene for 15 years until new pressures came along, and now we are reacting to them. It was an excellent question. I am not sure whether we have helped you very much with it, but we see the same need.
Mr. Kotokak: Madam Chair, maybe I could partly answer a question on erosion. When you went to Inuvik you must have met community members from Tuktoyaktuk — that is where I am from — by the Beaufort Sea. In the last 15 or 20 years, we have had really bad erosion there. I am sure you have heard about it. In the last four or five years, the community has tried to work on the outside where it was really eroding.
As for climate change, when we hunters and fishers travel with the FJMC, we communicate with others communities, the outlying communities like Sachs Harbour. Those people are getting different species of water fowl and different types of fish, and they let us know about what is going on.
Senator Watt:
[Senator Watt spoke in his native language.]
It is too bad that we do not have the translators here, and I think we need to revisit that at some point to correct that situation. This is not an isolated issue. It has happened before. I am sorry about that.
First, since you highlighted the six sets of recommendations, and I would imagine the IRC is very much behind your initiative, why did you bring those six recommendations? You feel there is a need for scientific studies, and including the knowledge built into it at the same time. Is Inuvialuit Regional Corporation not in partnership with that pipeline that is supposed to be coming down the pike? Not only the regional corporations are involved in that, but they are in partnership along with Gwich'in. I would imagine that there are communications between those two groups who are seeing the same problems coming before them in two times if that project gets underway. Am I correct on this?
Mr. Gillman: Thank you, senator. I would say first there is a structural difference that you have to appreciate. The FJMC is a cooperative management body, which means that it has representation and responsibilities to Canada and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and to the Inuvialuit. The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation is an Inuvialuit organization created by the same land claim agreement with totally different responsibilities.
Yes, we coordinate on some aspects, but the cooperative management committees do not work with the corporation in that sense. Where we identify common issues facing the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, we do coordinate. You notice that we did support their recommendation concerning the Coast Guard inadequacies of equipment and supplies to address Arctic oil spills and pollution in the future.
Could you repeat the second part of your question, please?
Senator Watt: I am not quite sure I remember the second part of my question. I will try my best. In terms of the co- management aspects — I am trying to make my question easier to understand — and the co-management responsibility that you have under your organization, is that also part of the responsibility of regional development corporations to a certain extent?
Mr. Gillman: No.
Senator Watt: Are they completely distinct from one another?
Mr. Gillman: Our principal partner is the Inuvialuit Game Council, which is an Inuvialuit structure. The short answer to your question is no; it is not the same.
Senator Watt: Who administers the beneficiaries, that is, the Inuvialuit? Who looks after the interests of the Inuvialuit?
Mr. Gillman: It would be the Inuvialuit Game Council.
Senator Watt: The Inuvialuit?
Mr. Kotokak: The Inuvialuit Game Council, yes.
Senator Watt: The development sector deals with strictly the business aspects of it?
Mr. Gillman: That would be the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.
Mr. Ayles: Yes, and the local development corporations.
Senator Watt: From what I am hearing, you are basically telling us that we do have a problem with regard to implementing certain parts of the agreements contemplated within the Inuvialuit settlement act. For that reason, you are saying that in order for us to be able to have a proper implementation mechanism in place, we need some additional funds.
In a sense, the decision makers are your people, your crew, but they lack a certain power because of the lack of funds. Is that what you are telling us?
Mr. Gillman: I will ask Mr. Ayles to speak to that first, and perhaps I will have a follow-up comment.
Mr. Ayles: That is part of what I said. The Inuvialuit Final Agreement was signed in 1984, before things like the Oceans Act, before the Species at Risk Act and COSEWIC, and before climate change. These sorts of things have come upon my committee and other committees like that. There are additional government or outside things that were not considered in the IFA. I was trying to say that the government has sort of imposed the Oceans Act or brought in the Oceans Act and has funded it within the government organization, and we are forced to respond because we are the agency that has responsibility, sort of, for oceans.
It was not really thought about when we did it. For example, climate change has come about. In 1984 we did not consider funding for climate research, and now it is a big issue for us. We have no funding for that. That is what we meant when we talked about implementation.
Furthermore, in the IFA, this committee does not have the control over commercial fisheries that the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board does because there was no Beaufort Sea commercial fishing, and what was more important was the bowhead whales and beluga whales. That was the focus of that agreement. With climate change, we see the possibility that large-scale commercial fishers could come into the Beaufort Sea and start fishing it, and Mr. Kotokak could say nothing. It is really up to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans now. We are trying to work with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to see how we can ensure that the Inuvialuit have some control over it. Those are ways that are problematic.
Senator Watt: On the American side, on the Alaskan side, are they doing full-fledged commercial fishing? Does that interfere with your activities?
Mr. Ayles: No, they are not. In fact, in August they passed a fisheries moratorium for the Chukchi Sea and American Beaufort Sea, the western Beaufort Sea. They fish in the Bering Sea for pollock. There are big commercial fisheries there. The local people, the local small fishers, and even the fishers in the Bering Sea, got together through the North Pacific fisheries advisory committee, which advised the government to ask for a moratorium of at least 10 years until more information is gathered on the productivity of the American Beaufort Sea and Chukchi Sea. That was passed last February. They asked the government and, in August, the new American government approved it. There is a 10-year moratorium while they develop a fisheries management plan. That is the way they do it administratively. They must do a certain amount of research before they can consider opening it. There are still some small commercial fisheries, but they are not large.
The Deputy Chair: That was the exact understanding that we had about the Americans when we visited Juneau, Alaska. We were there, in Juneau and in Sitka, but the Juneau people told us that there was a moratorium for 10 years and the scientists would be working on all these things in the meantime. That is exactly what these people told us.
Senator Robichaud: In the Beaufort Sea, you say you need more research and an agreement over the control of large- scale commercial fishing, but there is no large-scale commercial fishing now, is there?
Mr. Gillman: That is right.
Senator Robichaud: In Nunavut, they had an exploratory fishery at one time. Quotas were given to some interests that were far away from Nunavut. These exploratory fisheries found a way to become permanent. Is there any danger that this could happen in your area? Are you protected against that kind of activity? Someone has to go out there and see what fishery resources are there. I do not know whether it is crab or clams — you mentioned char — but there is also pollock, which could be migrating now or coming into the Beaufort Sea with climate change and the ice going away. How can we help you ensure that you have a say and that what happened in Nunavut does not happen in your area?
Mr. Gillman: That is exactly what this committee has been focusing on for three or four years now, looking at some precautionary approaches in the Beaufort Sea that would protect it from what has happened in every other commercial venture in the world, namely, the destruction of the resource base and often far greater impacts than you could have predicted simply from the fishing activity itself.
We know that the Inuvialuit treasure their beluga, the bowhead whale populations that exist there, and the Arctic char. Furthermore, they are dependent on the ecosystem balance in the Beaufort Sea for the well-being of those populations. That is why we have adopted the position that we want to see some additional precautionary protective measures put in place. We do not pretend to know exactly what those are, but we have looked at the moratorium that the U.S. has put in place as perhaps one tool we might be able to use. We think that there already exist within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans framework tools that we might be able to use.
The concept of not allowing exploratory fisheries unless you have a scientific examination first, an allowable quota and an understanding of the health of the stock would go a long way to defusing that approach.
Mr. Ayles: That is correct. Under the Inuvialuit Final Agreement there is no formal way that we could have a say. It just does not address commercial fisheries beyond what was there before, which was nothing. DFO has policies of adjacency, and the local DFO office has worked very cooperatively with us. When small commercial fishery endeavours from the Pacific Coast have asked for exploratory licences, they have been very forceful in asking that they ensure they have a partner with the Inuvialuit. Sometimes that has worked and sometimes not.
However, with all the problems that have come up, we are starting to think that we need something greater than just policy instruments, because policy is just policy. The commitment is as good as the people who make the policy.
We are trying to work with the Inuvialuit Game Council on one side and with DFO on the other, and with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, which, because it is the industry, has some interest too, to find a more secure mechanism.
Our recommendation to you is that you encourage DFO to work cooperatively to ensure there is a mechanism to make sure that the Inuvialuit get a say in any decisions that might affect the resource.
Senator Robichaud: I do not think there is any question that we will encourage DFO to work with the communities. We were in Nunavut. Some work was done there, but at the end of the day it is the minister who has the final say. It does not matter which government is in power. Sometimes they have a tendency to allow some exploratory fisheries, and once people have put their equipment in there, they think they should continue, even though they have a local partner.
Every time we had a meeting there, Senator Adams talked about the fact that the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board had allocated resources to a few communities and others were shut out. DFO was saying that they do not do the allocation, as you said a minute ago, that that is done through Nunavut Wildlife Management Board. There is much work to be done to ensure that communities are aware of what is happening so that they can be included in any exploratory fishery from the very first steps.
You say you are looking for cooperation. You should put elements of a solution to them. We will be making a report, and we are looking for ideas from the local area upon which we could encourage DFO and the minister to take action.
Mr. Ayles: We do not have a specific solution yet. We have the same concerns, but something like a moratorium that could be done under the Oceans Act might be possible. There is an integrated oceans management planning process that might address this kind of thing. That is why we need to work with the Inuvialuit to see exactly what they want. For example, they would like local fisheries to still be possible under the Fisheries Act and the Oceans Act.
Mr. Gillman: On a positive note in that area, the FJMC is formulating a workshop within the next six weeks to do exactly what you suggested, that is, come up with a suggestion that this committee, because of its responsibilities to the minister, can take forward as a plan for the next period of time.
We hope that it will address and protect the Beaufort Sea from any exploratory or experimental fisheries that would allow a toehold, as you described, from outside commercial interests. Yet, we still appreciate that the final agreement gives preferential rights to the Inuvialuit and that they want to protect their ability to harvest close to their communities, because they need the resource for their well-being.
It is a difficult situation. We hope we will have something to advise the minister on in the next period of time. If the committee stands to support that direction, we would be most pleased.
The Deputy Chair: We will be looking forward to that as well. That will be good. Coordination and communicating with each group is very important.
Senator Dallaire: This is the first meeting of this committee that I am attending. In 1980 I was involved with the U.S. Marine Corps in a study on circumpolar security during the Cold War. In 1987 I was involved with the military looking at establishing a major base in the North and also nuclear-powered submarines for security, and I have maintained an interest in the area.
I am not knowledgeable about all the elements of your concerns, but I would like to be assisted in trying to achieve your aim. Your aim is to assist the minister in the management of fisheries. You have existed since 1986.
Whom specifically do you report to?
Mr. Gillman: We report and provide advice to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and we also report to the Inuvialuit Game Council, which is an Inuvialuit organization charged with the management of wildlife and fisheries inside the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.
Senator Dallaire: Do you have direct access to the minister?
Mr. Gillman: Yes.
Senator Dallaire: I am a bit taken aback by the amount of research that has to be done on the availability of fish, the impact on the Mackenzie River and all of that. You have centuries of experience, skills and knowledge of the Aboriginal people in the area. Why is there a need for so much science to argue what protection and implementation is required to provide for the security of the stocks? I do not see why you need all that science when you have the background you do and why that background is not sufficient to get whatever resources you need from the two departments.
Mr. Gillman: There are a couple of questions in there, senator. First, yes, there is a void of scientific information in the Beaufort Sea and in the Arctic, but there is also a considerable list of accomplishments that have been put in place since the signing of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement. This committee does not have a large, science-based budget. We take small amounts and leverage other scientific investigations.
The state of knowledge of the Western Arctic beluga population between 1986 and today is not even in the same ballpark. In 1986 we did not understand how many whales there were. We did not understand the impact of the current harvest levels in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. Through the combination of the science investment of the FJMC, DFO and the traditional knowledge of the community, we were successful in establishing the harvest level and the scientific basis for the population estimate on beluga whales and in putting in place a beluga management plan for the Western Arctic, which still functions today. We are comfortable with the health of the beluga stock to the point that we are investigating other situations. Certainly, we would like to know more about species other than beluga, where such an investment has not taken place and where the challenges will be in the future as hydrocarbon development in the Beaufort Sea impacts areas far greater than merely the local harvest area outside a community. The challenges have changed and the need for greater investment in science and knowledge to address those is probably escalating at the same level.
Senator Dallaire: You have been there for 20-odd years and have made accomplishments. We know that that entire region will be opening up. The fact that climate change has accelerated does not change the fact. It is within our borders and we knew this was coming. If you have direct access to the minister and act with the authority of the minister, which I suspect you do, I do not understand why you do not have the funding to do much more research that should have been done by now. You have an authority to influence significantly other departments with regard to protection — not only oil spill protection but also physical protection, such as who handles the factory ships that come in. I am sure there will be more answers from the Coast Guard.
We have been up there a long time, and yet we are still scrounging for assets to do what should have been done before in order to get ahead of the game versus trying to catch up. Is my information wrong?
Mr. Gillman: The investments being made by BP and Exxon in the Western Arctic are in the neighbourhood of $1.7 trillion, but what is the federal government currently investing in science research in the Beaufort Sea? Our committee has a budget of $600,000 per year.
Senator Dallaire: I rest my case. I do not remember the exact figure, but in the long term it takes humongous amounts of money for the work plus the costs of navigation and security. I have the impression from what you said that you are on the scrounge and that you hope to get funding and influence people to do fundamental research in respect of the future of that region. I do not understand why you do not have the authority or the funding to do much more.
Mr. Gillman: Having been on the other side of the equation, we understand the many challenges that the minister has to face across the east, west and north coasts of this country. The ability of his budget to stretch to accommodate all the challenges he faces has been limited. We have met with the minister on occasion to plead our case. You cannot adjust the language of the land claim agreement or the allocations easily. The department has increased its investment in Arctic science, but not at the pace we would like to see.
Mr. Ayles: It is difficult to know what to add to that. You talked about traditional knowledge and science as if one replaced the other, but they do not. They are complementary, and we use them to address questions in different ways. One month ago, Mr. Kotokak was part of a bowhead tagging program, whereby they put satellite tags on bowhead whales to see how much they have moved into the Eastern Beaufort Sea and where they go beyond that. That study is funded by industry, DFO and the FJMC. Tagging and tracing the bowheads over the next nine months involves high- tech science, although the traditional knowledge is at work when it comes time to get the bowhead whales. It is a case of bringing the two important elements together.
As Mr. Gillman said, we might talk to the minister, but many others talk to the minister as well. We were both in DFO as senior managers. When we appeared before the joint review panel complaining about the lack of knowledge of the Mackenzie River and the insufficient baseline information for the proponents to make such claims, they asked Mr. Gillman and me, "Did you not work for DFO? Were you not the regional director general? Why did you not do something about it?" We said that yes, we were, but we have only certain priorities. We are not trying to lay blame. It is simply that we do not have sufficient information about the Beaufort Sea. It is not that we can blame the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans or any officials of DFO or the universities. It is just that Canada does not know. We are all responsible, including other countries from whom we take knowledge. We do not know as much as we think we need to know.
Senator Dallaire: What documentation do you have ongoing within the ministry to change your authority vis-à-vis the various statutes so that you are able to do your job properly? Is there a process whereby you can change your authority to accomplish your mission?
Mr. Gillman: I am afraid we are reactive in this case. Mr. Ayles went through the list of changes to the Oceans Act that have occurred since the IFA was signed. In the instance of a marine protected area, we are changing our responsibilities in relation to that, in agreement with the minister, to be the administrative body for the marine protected area as it is proposed in the Western Arctic. This will bring new responsibilities and new funds to the FJMC from the department.
There is a mechanism for change, but it does not happen easily. The MPA is in its ninth year of development, hence our recommendation to you that it proceed as quickly as possible.
Senator MacDonald: I will pick up where Senator Robichaud left off. You mentioned the U.S. moratorium and the beluga, the bowhead and Arctic char and how important it is to the local communities that you protect these species. The U.S. Arctic Fishery Management Plan identified snow crab, Arctic cod and saffron cod as a potentially viable commercial fishery. On the Canadian side of that division, have we done any tests with regard to those species? Do we have enough information on those species to make informed decisions on how to proceed?
I identify so strongly with snow crab and cod when it comes to the East Coast of Canada. We all know the problems that occurred with the cod fishery, and we want to ensure that we do not overfish and destroy the snow crab fishery, although we have not reached that point yet in the Beaufort Sea. May I have your thoughts on that?
Mr. Gillman: I will ask Mr. Kotokak whether he has eaten snow crab during the last week outside of Tuktoyaktuk.
Mr. Kotokak: No.
Mr. Gillman: I will ask Mr. Ayles to answer your specific question about those particular stocks and what we know about them.
Mr. Ayles: The quick answer is no. We know there are Arctic cod and saffron cod, and we know the populations can be quite large, but only from anecdotal evidence. Some of the recent studies have looked at the larvae of cod and found large numbers in some areas. I do not recall that any of the small, exploratory fisheries or others have talked about the snow crab in the Beaufort Sea, but we really do not know very much about it at all. No studies have focused on the overall production of any of those species, but what few studies have been done show that the Beaufort Sea primary productivity, the basic from which everything else is built, is probably quite a bit less than in the Eastern Arctic and probably quite a bit less than in the North Pacific. It is also probably less than the American North Slope area. It is not very productive, we think; however, we do not really know.
Senator MacDonald: You do not really have much information on it, then.
Mr. Ayles: No, we probably know less than the Americans do.
Senator MacDonald: How do we avoid making the same decisions that got us into so many problems on the East Coast of Canada?
Mr. Ayles: That is what we are trying to figure out with the game council and with DFO. We first started talking about it publicly at a big oceans conference in Tuktoyaktuk in 2006. We said we need to think about it, and it was part of the findings of that conference. However, this recent U.S. action has really brought it forward and raised everybody's interest in it.
We are not sure how to do that, but we are certainly well aware of the problem and want to make sure that everybody else is, too.
Senator Patterson: Thank you for the presentation. I was struck that a lot of good work has been done on the development of a marine protected area. I think you said it was nine years of work. Obviously every stakeholder is involved. I am very familiar with the importance to the Inuvialuit of the beluga in the delta. However, it has not been finalized. When was it submitted?
Mr. Gillman: I cannot speak exactly to the date that the regulatory package was submitted, but it has been at least 14 months since we understood that it was in process. It is the key that would allow the next steps around the MPA that would allow the implementation to occur. Once you have a regulatory package in place, then you can write the management plan for the MPA. Then we can write an administrative agreement that allows this committee to deliver on that management plan and we can start putting projects on the ground.
It is key that the regulatory package, which brings the MPA into being, is signed, sealed and delivered, and then the rest of the steps can take place. Right now we all basically sit in limbo waiting for that to happen — hence, our recommendation that you support us.
Senator Patterson: I was pleased to hear you have a good working relationship with DFO in the region of the Western Arctic. Do you have any idea what the hiccup is, because the decision is being made at the minister's level? Are your colleagues in DFO telling you whether there are problems? What is the holdup?
Mr. Gillman: We have written to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I had a response from her in August advising me that it was in process and that we should continue to work with the Central and Arctic Region regional director general on the issue. We are doing that. We understand also there are some complications because of the number of parties that are attached to boundaries on this particular MPA — the Yukon Territory being one — and we understand there is a discussion on some of the adjoining areas, which is delaying it. However, we have no control over the resolution of that, and that is why we are urging that the minister expedite this process.
Senator Patterson: We know wildlife is not too cognizant of boundaries or lines on maps.
Mr. Gillman: Correct.
Senator Raine: Some of my questions have already been asked and answered. I just want to ask a simple question: Do you think Canada should implement a 10-year moratorium on commercial fishing in the Beaufort Sea, as the Americans have done?
Mr. Gillman: Mr. Ayles is our lead on that the file, so I will let him handle that hot potato.
Mr. Ayles: What I think is irrelevant. We have to do something. Exactly what we have to do, I do not know. We have different legislation from what the Americans have. It is quite a different process there. We have not gone through the processes we have in Canada. There are ways we could do it.
I do not think we should be allowing large-scale commercial fishing until we have a better understanding of what is possible, and anything beyond that would be my personal opinion. We need to do something.
Senator Raine: Do you mean something similar?
Mr. Ayles: Something similar, that is right — something that will allow the Inuvialuit to continue the sustainable resource that they are dependent upon. We want to have bowhead and beluga whales and anadromous whitefish and anadromous Arctic char there. We do not want to have something disrupt that.
Senator Raine: Thank you very much. I am looking at your list of recommendations, and it seems to me there is a lot on the plate. To me it is very strange that the industry-funded cumulative-effects monitoring is not going forward. I think the industry should be funding that kind of monitoring.
How can they just declare that there are no cumulative effects if they have not done the research?
Mr. Gillman: Good question, senator.
Mr. Ayles: I would love to answer that one. We made it very clear that we felt industry had a responsibility, but so do we, so does the FJMC and so does this government. This is a problem for all of us: cumulative effects. We do not really have a good idea of how to control cumulative effects or measure them, but we know they are going to be there. That is one the problems with large-scale industrial environmental impact statements that say there is just one little bit more and it is so insignificant you would never notice it, would you, and it is not there. However, every time they do it, the baseline changes a little bit.
We look back at the Prairies 150 years ago and look at them now. Who said that farmer would have an effect on the Prairies, just a small quarter section? And now the Prairie ecosystem has completely changed. It was not one farmer, one project; it was just a whole bunch of things.
That is an interesting picture that shows the flow of the Mackenzie River.
Senator Raine: I do not know whether our cameras can catch this, but this is a very important map to look at because it clearly shows the volume of water coming down into the Beaufort Sea. We are talking about major industrial development at the headwaters, and if we do not have good baseline science, I think we are really asking for trouble.
Mr. Ayles: Can I agree?
Mr. Gillman: I think we should all agree.
Mr. Ayles: I think that the committee would have agreed. That is what we said when we talked to the joint review panel.
Senator Raine: I will ask one final question: If you had to do one or the other, more research on the Beaufort Sea or getting the baseline right for the Mackenzie River, which would come first?
Mr. Ayles: Well, from an Inuvialuit narrow perspective we would probably focus on the Mackenzie Delta since that is part of the ISR and where we would be responsible for the monitoring, and that is part of the Beaufort Sea as well as the Mackenzie. I think they are all together.
Senator Watt: In your presentation, you said that you would like to have the same kind of access as Nunavut to commercial fishing and things of that nature. What about the infrastructure requirement if you go into the commercial fishing at some point? Is that later on down the road, or is it a matter that would have to be dealt with at some point?
Mr. Gillman: Mr. Ayles has looked at this.
Mr. Ayles: We have may have misspoken slightly. We were not saying we want the same access as they want in Nunavut; we want the same control as in the Nunavut Final Agreement. That agreement speaks to the Nunavut board having a say in future commercial fisheries' developments. The Inuvialuit Final Agreement does not.
Under the agreement, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is solely responsible for new commercial fisheries in the Beaufort Sea. We are not happy with that. We want to have more Inuvialuit control.
We are not looking for more commercial fisheries at all. We are not looking for new harbours, as they may be in Nunavut. We are not going to complain about harbours. I should not state that too strongly, but we are not looking for money for infrastructure development. We are looking for control over future developments in some way. That is what we are trying to say. We have a different set of circumstances in the Beaufort Sea than in Nunavut.
Senator Watt: Does the minister also have authority over what takes place within Nunavut, adjacent waters and things of that nature? The minister having authority over the agreement might give you the power to have control over what is happening; but in a sense, the minister still has the last say. I am not quite sure exactly what you mean by wanting to have to the same kind of mechanism applied to you that is applied to Nunavut. I am having difficulties here understanding where you are coming from on that.
Mr. Ayles: Ultimately, the minister is the one responsible for it under the Constitution, so it will go to the minister. However, as I understand the Nunavut agreement, it speaks specifically to the Nunavut board having a say in commercial fisheries — new allocations, new fisheries.
Senator Watt: Only on the recommended authority.
Mr. Ayles: To recommend to the minister, but the IFA says nothing about that. It says the Inuvialuit have no more rights to new commercial fisheries than any other Canadians.
Senator Watt: You cannot make recommendations to the minister?
Mr. Ayles: No, not under our agreements. We cannot say these should go to the Inuvialuit, or the Inuvialuit cannot say we want that because of our agreement. It says they have the same rights as other Canadians. They cannot claim adjacency.
Senator Watt: That particular region, Inuvialuit, is also a member of the territorial government, is it not? They are served by the territorial government.
Mr. Ayles: Not the fisheries part; that is managed federally.
Senator Watt: That has been completely divorced from the NWT government.
Mr. Ayles: No, the NWT government has not had fisheries management responsibilities at all, even in the inland waters.
Senator Watt: You cannot use that as leverage for putting pressure on the minister.
Mr. Ayles: No.
Senator Watt: The Nunavut, in a sense, can use their own governmental institutions to put pressure on the minister.
Mr. Gillman: I am confident that the minister would respect the language of the agreement and give voice to the Inuvialuit in any type of decision. However, there is no binding statement that would say that if the Inuvialuit say we do not want this, it would not happen. That is why we are urging this type of correction in the language and the ability for who makes the decision about what happens in the ISR.
Senator Watt: Even the solution is flawed. If that agreement does not expressly address the particular issue you are talking about, the problem will remain the same. You could rectify the problem now, but it could start again somewhere down the road. Is that correct, because we have to make some kind of recommendations to that effect at some point?
Mr. Ayles: If the IFA was changed, yes; but we are not asking for a change in the IFA. We think there are probably other mechanisms to get the same thing done.
Senator Watt: What about a complementary agreement?
Mr. Ayles: Like some kind of agreement, yes.
Senator Watt: Is that what you are looking for?
Mr. Ayles: That is what we think we would look for.
Senator Patterson: I know some questions were asked previously about this, I think by Senator Hubley. You talked about the failure of Canada to have a vision for Arctic research and the lack of coordination. I believe that was addressed in the Nunavut agreement with the proposed marine council, which unfortunately has not been put in place. I think the idea was to get all the various federal departments that have a stake in ocean management to coordinate.
Is that the kind of coordinated approach you have in mind to create an integrated vision for ocean management?
Mr. Ayles: Under the Oceans Act, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has established a regional coordinating committee for the Beaufort Sea — a large ocean management area. We are a member of that coordinating committee; so are the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and the Inuvialuit Game Council. Other key departments, including Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, are also part of that. I believe we refer to it in some of our documentation.
I think as a coordinating mechanism it is as good as it gets; it is doing all right. However, that is always a problem with government departments. Each one gets its money separately from Treasury Board. DFO has the lead for this, so it is important for DFO to make sure this works, but the other departments do not. They have their own priorities, so it is this problem that we always have with the government. The cliché is "stove-piping" — who is responsible?
The coordination really follows the money. If there is money for a particular thing, everyone cooperates well. If there is no money, it is hard to get them to cooperate.
One research program that works well is the Environmental Studies Research Fund. Some of you may be more aware of the details of it than I am, but it provides funding for research in the Arctic that has some industry focus.
Various government scientists will apply for that kind of funding. They can coordinate at an umbrella level on this type of research and they get buy-in from the government departments.
If it is focused on one department, Fisheries or Environment or INAC, each department has its own priorities that it focuses on, and the coordination seems to disappear. I think the coordination follows the money.
Regarding the Mackenzie monitoring program, in our recommendation to the joint review panel we said there should be a separate funding source that everybody contributes to and then the money would be disbursed. It should not be some money for DFO and then they go to Treasury Board, and INAC and others go to Treasury Board. The next thing you know, someone else has a priority for a fishery on the East Coast or West Coast or a new park someplace else, and the money that was a coordinated program when it went to Treasury Board is suddenly gone because of departmental priorities.
We are really getting far away from FJMC now.
Senator Patterson: You mentioned the need for a coordinated, intensive, cumulative monitoring program. I am sure you made that recommendation loud and clear to the joint review panel, or I trust you did. What are you hearing about the timing of the release of their report? I guess that will answer whether you were heard or not. Do you hear whether they will make their deadline? I am curious.
Mr. Gillman: I could not speculate, but rumour has it they are closer than they have been in the last year. That is a non-answer because we are just not familiar enough with the workings of the committee. We have no direct link to it other than the advice we have provided to it. We will be advised when the report is due and pending.
Senator Robichaud: You mentioned briefly that Exxon and Imperial will be spending large amounts of money for exploration in the Beaufort Sea.
Mr. Gillman: Yes.
Senator Robichaud: Will you have any input into where that exploration will take place? I suppose you are in an awkward position because you do not have enough knowledge about what lies on the bottom or what stocks could be present in those areas.
Mr. Gillman: There are two parts to exploration: seismic activities collect information about what exists in their lease areas, and exploratory drilling operations are confined to identified spots. As to input into that process, no, we do not have any beyond our comments on the environmental screening that we provide to the cooperative committee that exists in the ISR.
Mr. Ayles: There are some areas where we do have more direct control. If the marine protected area is approved, it will absolutely exclude any exploration or seismic work anywhere within that area.
Through the screening committee, we have influence on when and where they do their work. They will have presented this beforehand. They say, "Okay, we will not do seismic work in this part of the Beaufort Sea until after September because we know that whales are going through, and we will have Inuvialuit monitors on board to ensure that if something is happening and there are whales in the area, we will have to shut down." It is not totally open. They have to go through the screening process. We comment on their proposals, and so does DFO, so we do have an influence. It is quite different from the 1970s when it was just wide open. Mr. Kotokak would say they did not know anything about what was going on except there were a lot of helicopters.
The Deputy Chair: We want to thank our witnesses. We appreciate you waiting for us here this evening. Mr. Kotokak, when you go back to your people, you may tell them that the Senate of Canada was appreciative of their hospitality.
Mr. Kotokak: Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)