Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue No. 48 - Evidence - March 19, 2019
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 19, 2019
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications, to which was referred Bill C-48, An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast, met this day at 9:02 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator David Tkachuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Today, we’re continuing our study of Bill C-48, An Act respecting the regulation of vessels that transport crude oil or persistent oil to or from ports or marine installations located along British Columbia’s north coast, also known as the oil tanker moratorium act.
Before I do that, because we are being carried via the Internet or on camera, I’m going to have the senators introduce themselves, and then I’ll introduce the witnesses.
Senator Jaffer: My name is Mobina Jaffer. I’m from British Columbia.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: I’m Julie Miville-Dechêne from Quebec.
Senator Gagné: Good morning. Raymonde Gagné, Manitoba.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: Good morning. René Cormier from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Simons: Hello. I’m Paula Simons from Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Dasko: I’m Donna Dasko from Toronto, Ontario.
Senator Dawson: Dennis Dawson, Quebec.
Senator Plett: Don Plett, Manitoba.
Senator Manning: Fabian Manning, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Galvez: Rosa Galvez, Quebec.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu from Quebec.
[English]
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: I’m David Tkachuck, from Saskatchewan. We have all these cards so you don’t have to remember all our names, witnesses.
For our first panel today, we are pleased to have appearing before us, from the Council of the Haida Nation, Mr. Jason Alsop, President; and from the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, Ms. Marilyn Slett, Káwázil Chief. Thank you for attending our meeting. We’ll start with Mr. Aslop, followed by Ms. Slett.
Jason Alsop, President, Council of the Haida Nation: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the committee. It’s good to be here today. My name is Gaagwiis, Jason Alsop. I am the President and official spokesperson of the Haida Nation and also a board member of the Coastal First Nations.
The Coastal First Nations is an alliance of First Nations that includes the Wuikinuxv Nation, Heiltsuk Nation, Kitasoo/Xaixais, Nuxalk, Gitga’at, Metlakatla, Old Massett, Skidegate and the Council of the Haida Nation, with approximately 10,000 members, representing 50 per cent of the population of the central and north coasts, and Haida Gwaii.
For at least 14,000 years, the ecological riches of the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii have supported equally rich cultures. Together, the hereditary chiefs and political leaders of First Nations along British Columbia’s northwest coast support the oil tanker moratorium act. We have one of our hereditary chiefs with us here today in the building.
Located on Canada’s Pacific Coast, our collective territories represent one quarter of the world’s remaining coastal temperate rainforests and 40 per cent of Canada’s Pacific coastal waters.
Many of the marine species that live in or travel through our territories are listed as threatened or endangered species under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, and several others are proposed to be listed. These species at risk include all seven species of salmon; the blue whale; northern resident killer whales; and seabirds, such as ancient murrelets; and many species of rockfish and the northern abalone. On Haida Gwaii alone, there are 1,068 genetically distinct salmon populations and about 50 species of seabirds associated with Haida Gwaii. Each year, over a million seabirds converge on Haida Gwaii to breed, while others visit Haida Gwaii as a major stopover and feeding area.
To help protect these species and our territories, we have negotiated collaborative government-to-government agreements with federal and provincial governments to develop and implement several marine use plans. Honouring these agreements provides the federal government a unique and powerful opportunity to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Haida Nation and Coastal First Nations agree that Canada has taken an important step in reconciliation with First Nations by proposing this legislation. Our world’s oceans are facing unprecedented threats — ocean acidification from climate change, marine plastics, garbage and the declining conditions of corrals and reefs — and yet we remain optimistic. The oil tanker moratorium act will support Canada’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and greater marine protection.
For us, a sustainable economy balances cultural preservation, economic development and environmental protection, while recognizing the connections between the land, the sea and the people. Our goal is to create long-term opportunities for community members and future generations to make a living in a way that is respectful of the territory and the beings we share it with. An oil spill would undermine these efforts and put our people’s livelihoods at risk.
As we rebuild our sustainable fisheries, we estimate it will provide 1,000 new jobs, $12 million each year in profits and provide $30 million in income for our nations and partners.
We strongly support Bill C-48. We know from experience that the region’s remoteness, unpredictable weather systems and navigational hazards mean the risk of a catastrophic oil spill is simply too great.
For the Haida Nation, we follow our Haida Nation Constitution, which outlines the roles of our elected Council of the Haida Nation, of which I’m the president, the band councils and our hereditary chiefs council. As a nation, we reach consensus on our political direction through an annual assembly, and we are held together and to account through our constitution and our Haida accord. The Haida Nation collectively holds Haida title and Aboriginal title and rights to our territory that includes the entire archipelago airspace of Haida Gwaii; and the surrounding waters, including the Dixon Entrance, half of Hecate Strait, Queen Charlotte Sound halfway to Vancouver Island and westward beyond the 200 nautical mile limit.
Haida Gwaii is 250 kilometres long, 90 kilometres wide at the top, narrowing to a point at the bottom. If you took all the shoreline around all of these islands and bays and you unravelled it, it would stretch into a straight line, the length of which would be 4,700 kilometres. That is far enough to stretch from Haida Gwaii on one coast to Prince Edward Island on the other. Imagine having to clean up an oil spill over this distance.
In recent years, higher surface water temperatures have led to an increase in hurricane force winds that can produce waves anywhere between 60 feet to 100 feet in height. Add to this the 24-foot tides we experience, the narrow channels, the size of large crude carriers, navigational challenges and human error, and this is a recipe for disaster. Very large crude carriers draw anywhere between 80 to 100 feet of water, and as they get caught in hurricane-force winds, the big tankers act like sails, causing them to have a difficult time staying in narrow channels and pushing them toward the rocks.
We urge the committee to adopt this bill, thereby taking a step towards the implementation of UNDRIP and a means to respect the Haida Nation’s free, prior and informed consent in relation to shipping through Haida waters.
The alternative would be a decision to put the Haida Nation in peril, to jeopardize our identity as a culturally distinct nation, a nation that is born from the ocean and that has relied on the ocean for food, transportation and spirituality since we first arrived on Haida Gwaii. This relationship to place has contributed to the development of advanced house and canoe building and maritime technologies, along with one of the most complex and widely recognized art forms in the world. Our Haida art is an expression of our history and relationship with Haida Gwaii and has come to be recognized internationally as a symbol of Canada.
The Haida Nation is firmly in support of formalizing the moratorium on crude oil tankers in the region through Bill C-48. For the Haida Nation, prevention is the priority. In recent years, several large cargo vessels have come dangerously close to grounding and causing a major spill in Haida territorial waters, including the Simushir in 2014, the MV North Star in 2015 and the MOL Prestige in 2018. These incidents and recent studies demonstrate that vessels travel too close to Haida Gwaii and that rescue tugs are stationed too far to be effective in a marine emergency.
Recent incidents such as the Solomon Trader at the Kangava Bay UNESCO World Heritage Site and the oil spill at Husky’s SeaRose energy platform have shown us that advanced technology remains insufficient for preventing oil spills. We know that current response plans can only recover a fraction of the oil spilled from coastal environments and little to none of the oil spilled in open ocean scenarios.
If we look back at the 1978 West Coast Oil Port Inquiry and the 2012 Joint Review Panel for the Enbridge Northern Gateway hearings, along with voices from today, the message is loud and clear that both the Indigenous people and Canadians who reside in the North and central coasts and Haida Gwaii in B.C. are against oil pipeline developments and tanker traffic along our coastlines and homelands, regardless of who benefits.
To the residents of the area, this is a life or death issue. We are not extremists, but a determined opposition to tanker traffic from all walks of life. The area is poorly suited for oil supertankers, and any risk of an oil spill that would jeopardize our culture and way of life is too great.
We urge the Senate to do the right thing and to adopt Bill C-48 as a genuine act of reconciliation that will ensure the long-term protection of Canada’s Pacific Coast for the benefit of Indigenous people and all Canadians.
Thank you, Haawa.
Marilyn Slett, Káwázil Chief, Heiltsuk Tribal Council: My name is K̓áwázil Marilyn Slett. I am the elected Chief Councillor of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council. I am here to speak on behalf of the Heiltsuk leadership, which is represented by both the Heiltsuk Tribal Council and hereditary chiefs, the Hemas. The Heiltsuk Tribal Council and the Hemas work together to lead the nation. I am also president of Coastal First Nations and will speak about the economic sustainability and cultural values of the central coast First Nations.
The member communities of coast First Nations are committed to being part of finding solutions to address global issues and creating a sustainable coastal economy. We will not be part of the destruction of fragile ecosystems. Instead, we will be part of a movement that embraces cultural, environmental and economic sustainability.
For years, First Nations communities along the Pacific Northwest have been restoring and revitalizing our local economies. Today, coastal nations are working with governments and industry to build a conservation-based economy, including renewable energy, ecotourism and responsible fisheries.
On January 2012, the coastal nations commissioned a study and review of the offshore oil and gas development in British Columbia. This is one of the most comprehensive studies on oil and gas. According to the study, 44 per cent of the coast is identified as ecologically and biologically significant. Streams and rivers sustain 20 per cent of the world’s wild salmon. More than 400 species of fish reside off the B.C. coast. It is home to three of B.C.’s five major herring populations, 88 per cent of spawning rivers for eulachon, and hundreds of watersheds in the region provide critical spawning habitat for approximately 58 per cent of all anadromous salmon populations. Over 25 species of dolphins, porpoises, pinnipeds and whales and over 100 species of marine birds are found in the area. It is the only known location in the world for a 9,000-year-old ancient sponge reef.
Commercially, the area supports a diverse economy dependent upon commercial fishing, aquaculture, ecotourism and marine transportation. The coastal economy possesses immense growth potential. According to our study, marine-dependent market-based economic activities generated $386.5 million in revenue per year and supported 7,620 jobs. Estimates of the total annual benefits of marine-dependent activities in our traditional territories that could be impacted by an oil spill are as high as almost $30 billion in 2010 Canadian dollars.
As Heiltsuk people, we are inherently connected to our lands and our waters. We are survivors of attempted assimilation and attempted cultural genocide. Our environment provides sustenance for our minds, our bodies and our spirits. Our culture and teachings are rooted in our relationship to the natural world and harvesting cycles. These two things cannot be separated. We rely on the ocean and the lands for the food we consume and for the medicines that heal the physical parts of our being.
We continue to trade seafood between nations and host potlatches that tell our creation stories, passing on the knowledge of our territory instilled in us by our elders. Our community is in the heart of what has been termed the Great Bear Rainforest. We are an island far from any city. We rely on the marine resources to feed us, to nourish us and to keep us healthy. The ocean is greater than a human being. When it is harmed, we are harmed. All the life in the ocean has purpose. We must speak for the ocean and all the life within it. This is our responsibility.
For Heiltsuk, a marine oil spill is not a hypothetical academic exercise. Heiltsuk has experienced the traumatic impacts caused by a marine oil spill first-hand. In October 2016, the Nathan E. Stewart and its barge ran aground and sank in Heiltsuk territory, spilling over 110,000 litres of pollutants into the ocean. The spill occurred near Gale Pass, a major Heiltsuk harvesting area. Some of the devastating impacts included impacts to traditional harvesting, Heiltsuk’s commercial clam harvest, Heiltsuk culture, as well as impacts of the response efforts and the strain on the community. We have been forced to pursue litigation in order to address our losses and obtain a robust environmental impact assessment.
Despite the devastating impacts we experienced as a result of this spill, it is a relatively small spill when compared to the amounts carried by supertankers on our coast. To put this into context, the proposed tanker ban is on vessels with a 12,000 metric tonne capacity, carrying 128 times the amount that was spilled by the Nathan E. Stewart, a spill that is inconceivable. And if it were to happen, Heiltsuk Nation would be completely vulnerable because there have been no substantial improvements to the spill response regime.
There remain no improvements on spill response times by having a response station on the central coast, an incident command system that is clear and operational to ensure workable response protocols for first responders, the ability to recover oil and, especially, diesel, and requiring a robust environmental impact assessment and remediation. Canada and B.C. have failed to meaningfully support an Indigenous Marine Response Centre. An IMRC would create faster spill response times on B.C.’s central coast and incorporate Indigenous knowledge on waters, the weather and specific dangers in the area.
As coastal communities, we hold a deep interconnection of mutual respect with the ocean. Reflecting on the words of our elders, who also provided testimony at the 1977 West Coast Oil Port Inquiry, an oil spill would finish us.
We hold no intentions of leaving our home in search of other opportunities if our territory was to be destroyed by an oil spill, which is a high possibility if this bill is not passed. There is much work to be done, and the oil tanker moratorium is a significant step towards improving the marine oil response regime.
The oil tanker moratorium is good and sound public policy that will protect First Nations and coastal communities and cultures. We call upon the senators of Canada to pass Bill C-48.
Before I conclude, I want to let you know who joins me today here from Heiltsuk is Yáláki. She is an elected leader and she is representing her father.
The Chair: Can we see who you are introducing? Keep standing until she is all done.
Ms. Slett: This is Yáláki.
The Chair: Thanks, Ms. Slett. Keep going.
Ms. Slett: She represents her father who is one of our hereditary chiefs, Gaahlaay Qatuwas, and she is also an elected leader. Thank you, Meghan.
Gaagwiis is a member of our community. She’s our community communications strategist, and her father is also a hereditary chief in our community. Christopher Lechkobit Carpenter is an up-and-coming Indigenous scholar and loves to interpret policy for us. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Senator Cormier: My first question is for Ms. Slett. On November 7, 2017, in response to a question from an MP on the regulations accompanying the act, you said the following before the House of Commons committee:
We have seen a list of persistent oils in the schedule. We believe that there should be flexibility in the regulations and the consultations. We want to be able to drill down on those regulations through the consultation process.
Ms. Slett, can you explain to us how you want to be consulted about the list in the bill, and would you be open to a periodic review of that list of prohibited substances?
[English]
Ms. Slett: I heard about the last few seconds of that, but I’m going to try to answer the question. How we would like to be consulted and periodic reviews of the bill and what that could or should encompass?
Senator Cormier: Yes.
Ms. Slett: Certainly, we would be really open to ongoing collaborative processes where we can work with the government on the implementation of the bill and what that could look like in terms of regulations on shipping. We would be very pleased to be able to provide that commitment of collaboration, certainly in the creation of regulations made under this bill, if passed.
Some of the areas that we would like to see reviewed could include things like — and these are some of the things that we have put forth already — around the Pilotage Act, recommending strengthening the roles of the Pacific Pilotage Authority. These are Indigenous shipping cabinets that can assist.
The Fisheries Act lacks Indigenous power of enforcement in making decisions.
With respect to the Canada Shipping Act, we were really wanting to take a look at some of the areas that are what we would call a very sensitive area, maybe it’s a food-harvesting area or a special place, a sacred place in our nation, where it would be a no-go zone. Where the Nathan E. Stewart ran aground was one of our major harvesting sites, and it has had a deep and negative impact on our community. There are other areas, a lot of areas like that, within our nation. So looking at the routes that the ships travel is important and should be reviewed. Capacity and certainly the persistent oils and what they can carry is something as well.
We also had some concerns around the environmental impact assessment because when the spill did happen, we’re going on three years after the Nathan E. Stewart and the terms of reference for the impact environmental assessment is basically just coming under way with agreement by the parties. That’s a long time to wait because the impact happened right away and those types of assessments need to happen immediately.
Senator Cormier: In your brief, you said also that the Government of Canada and the B.C. government —
[Translation]
—have not supported the building of an Indigenous Marine Response Centre. Could you explain to us what an Indigenous Marine Response Centre would consist of, what would be its responsibilities and mandate, and how the collaboration and cooperation amongst various existing levels of stakeholders would take place?
[English]
Ms. Slett: The Indigenous Marine Response Centre is coming out of the Nathan E. Stewart and talking with coastal communities. We are the first responders. These incidents happen in our traditional territories. We know the areas, we know the waters, we know the danger areas and the weather patterns and the tide patterns, and we have people that are out there helping.
The Indigenous Marine Response Centre would be a centre that would assist in a marine protection platform, and we really do bring it forth because there is a gap. There is a gap because there is no presence of marine response protection on the central coast. So it’s not something that we have put forward to provide social licence for more tankers; it’s a gap that already exists.
The Nathan E. Stewart, for example, ran aground at 1 in the morning. It started sinking at 9:30 in the morning. The first response vessel showed up 18 hours later. That’s far too long and way too late.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Thank you very much, first of all, for your testimony, which was very interesting and we’ve all been reading a lot on this issue.
First of all, I would like, if it exists, you spoke about three near misses along the Haida territories. Do you think you could send us some written material on those near misses? I never heard about them? That’s information I need.
I will ask you a difficult question that we’ve been struggling with — well, me, anyway, in this committee — which is the division among the Aboriginal tribes.
I believe you are a majority along the coast, favourable to the ban. There are two tribes that are against it, but also many tribes inland, in B.C. in Alberta, who are saying and who are arguing that they want to get out of poverty. Reconciliation also means dealing with the different tribes and not only with certain tribes. So those are arguments that I’m struggling with. I would like you to comment on this, from your perspective.
Mr. Alsop: Haawa for your question. I think we come here today as representatives of the coastal First Nations. I mentioned a number of us who are working closely together. The majority of the leadership on the coast is united in support of this moratorium. We all have our own unique governance structures. I referenced that the Haida Nation is all working together, the Council of the Haida Nation with our hereditary leadership and our band council representatives as well.
A lot of the confusion comes from the issue of different governance systems in each area. A lot of it, to be honest, has to do with the policies of assimilation over the years that have sort of disconnected our people from our traditional governance systems and ways by taking people out of the community and away from the systems that were in place for us to carry on with traditional governance. So each nation and group is at a different stage in a transition of recovering from this cultural genocide and rebuilding our governance systems. At this time, different nations are at different places.
In terms of the reconciliation component of this, to us, a big part of the way we see reconciliation is making things right from the past wrongs. Having us respected and recognized as the title- and rights-holders to our territories is really important in that process. From a Haida Nation perspective, we do not consent to the tanker traffic as a result of these projects.
As nations, as we are growing, we need to find ways to work together and communicate about these things. One thing between the Haida and the Heiltsuk is that we have a peace treaty together where we have come together honouring past historical treaties to work together when it comes to activities that would overlap both of our territories.
The majority of the coastal nations are together on this, and I think there is a disconnect in some cases between the band council system and the hereditary system and the people. I think you are hearing a lot from band council leadership. There is not necessarily evidence of support from the people as well.
It can be a challenging situation to understand from afar, but the reality is that, when it comes to reconciliation, it is not about, necessarily, economic projects; it is about title and rights to your territory. If we have that ability to work government to government, which includes First Nations to First Nations as well as federal and provincial, and if we have the ability to manage and collaborate in the management of our territories, we can develop sustainable economies that will last over the long term. A lot of what our people are used to are the boom and bust economies, and a lot of people in leadership today are looking at the next big thing. To be honest, from my generational perspective, a lot of the younger people today are looking to develop sustainable economies and to end that cycle so we can continue to heal, grow and rebuild our traditional governance and modernize it in a way that does work to be able to engage government to government.
Ms. Slett: We are aware that there are other First Nations that don’t support the bill, but we are marine First Nations and we are dependent on the ocean. We came here today to share that perspective around the risks posed by super tankers and oil spills in our traditional territories. I know Jason just mentioned it, but our well-being is tied to the environment. That is certainly what brought us here.
In terms of the other communities that don’t support the bill, we can’t speak for other communities, but we can speak to what impacts us as a result of other projects, either in another community or by industry. The threats of super tankers and oil spills in our community is very real. These are the things that brought us here today.
I would suspect that, if this bill is passed, there would be an opportunity for further communication and collaboration as the bill is implemented. I would think that other — and all — communities would be able to partake in that.
The Chair: For clarification, Mr. Alsop, you mentioned the majority of coastal nations. What would that be — 50 per cent, 60 per cent?
Mr. Alsop: I was speaking for the coastal First Nations that I mentioned that we are here to represent, and that makes up representation from the Wuikinuxv Nation, Heiltsuk Nation, Kitasool/Xaixais, Nuxalk, Gitga’at, Metlakatla, Old Massett and Skidgegate. That’s who we can speak for today.
The Chair: And they are all in favour?
Mr. Alsop: We are all in favour of that.
The Chair: So when you say “a majority of the coastal nations,” what are you referring to?
Mr. Alsop: The coastal First Nations — the communities and nations I’m talking about — we make up the majority of the north and central coast, that area. That’s who we’re speaking for today.
The Chair: Okay, so that would be about 60 per cent of coastal First Nations in total, or 70 per cent? What would it be? Of the coastal First Nations, what does your organization represent?
Mr. Alsop: I don’t have specific numbers. I would estimate around 70 per cent.
Ms. Slett: Our communities on the central coast, north coast and Haida Gwaii are the main communities that make up what has been termed the Great Bear Rainforest, the B.C. coast that we’re talking about today. We are the populations that have populated that coast for thousands and thousands of years. We’ve made reference to industry coming in and out. There are actually several industry towns that are virtually ghost towns now after an industry has wrapped up and moved on. In Heiltsuk territory, there is Namu, Ocean Falls and others up toward Haida Gwaii and the north coast. We are the primary population serving and representing the coastal nations on the coast of B.C.
Senator Gagné: Thank you for your presentations.
Mr. Alsop, you mentioned in your presentation that you have negotiated marine use plans. You said that particular plan was negotiated with government and other stakeholders. Could you give us an idea of what that marine use plan is?
Mr. Alsop: Sure. Thank you for your question. On Haida Gwaii, over the last 35 years, we’ve been working collaboratively, government to government. Starting back in the mid-1980s — I’m sure you’ve all heard of Lyell Island or Athlii Gwaii, which led to the protection and creation of Gwaii Haanas. Gwaii Haanas is the southern portion of Haida Gwaii, which is currently recognized as a Haida Heritage Site under our authority and jurisdiction. In 1993, we signed the Gwaii Haanas Agreement to work collaboratively to co-manage the terrestrial area. Within that original agreement, we included plans to work together for the marine portion as well.
In 2010, Canada and Haida together signed the Gwaii Haanas Marine Agreement, which also added a National Marine Conservation Area, under Canadian designation, to protect not only the terrestrial area but the ocean area 10 kilometres out into the ocean. It is one of the only places I know of that is managed from mountaintop to sea floor and includes protection of the ocean space in that area.
We recently completed a management plan — a land-sea-people plan — which added to that protection to actually close approximately 40 per cent of the area to fishing and commercial activity, so 40 per cent of that protected area in Gwaii Haanas is now off-limits for commercial fishing and commercial activities. That’s a really important step. The rest of the area is to be managed through ecosystem-based management. That’s the expectation of Haida Gwaii, in our lands and waters, is to manage to a higher standard. That’s in Gwaii Haanas.
Together with the province, through our Kunst’aa Guu – Kunst’aayah Reconciliation Protocol, we have also protected a number of our coastal areas along Haida Gwaii. All together, over 50 per cent of the land base is now protected. That includes the foreshore, which the province has designated as conservancies and which, under Haida legislation, are Haida Heritage Sites. The foreshore areas are being protected, and we are working out management plans as well there that will combine the terrestrial plans with the foreshore area.
The other important agreement we have is a memorandum of understanding with Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, for the SGaan Kinghlas-Bowie Seamount, which is about 120 kilometres off the northwest coast of Haida Gwaii. This seamount is a biologically rich, nutrient-dense area. It is another marine protected area for which we are finalizing a management plan in collaboration with the federal government.
We are working on both levels, federally and provincially, to continue to improve the management of our homeland and to manage to a higher standard.
Senator Gagné: How do you manage marine transportation around the resupply of your communities and the industry in the area?
Mr. Alsop: That’s one of the areas we’ve been progressing in in recent years. I mentioned earlier the Simushir incident in 2014, which highlighted the threats and dangers. Since then, we’ve been working together with the federal government on things such as regional response planning.
Places of refuge is another area. At one time, that was something that was all done by the federal government, without any collaboration or consultation. As a result of the findings from the Simushir forum that we held after the incident, working on places of refuge is one of the important areas we highlighted to make sure that, if there are vessels in trouble, they are moved to the appropriate places and not to put at risk our more sensitive areas near communities.
Those are some of the things we’ve been working on to improve that situation. We are also part of a new project. They call it MAIS, the maritime awareness information system. We are setting up an office where we can start to monitor all the traffic that’s going on and to see, in real time, all the vessels that are transiting around Haida Gwaii. There is a lot of effort going into improving that situation.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much for coming to speak with us today. I think I am not the only person on this committee who is wrestling with two very real, legitimate public policy issues. One is to protect the ecosystems that you have spoken about so eloquently and to recognize your right to control your territorial lands; and the other is the economic imperative of allowing inland First Nations, and my province of Alberta, to be able to get its goods to market.
Do you see any room for compromise around the Port of Prince Rupert to create something like a corridor that would be the one path in and out? Is there a way, do you think, that there could be some transit of tankers but still protect the vast majority of the ecosystem that we’re talking about?
Ms. Slett: Both of our communities had such near misses, with potential disaster. The Simushir that Jason talked about earlier was virtually in front of Haida Gwaii and would have been devastating to their community.
Senator Simons: But that wasn’t a tanker.
Ms. Slett: Yes, but we are still talking about shipping and compromise, as you put it. We are not anti-development. We don’t stand in the way of development, but we have serious and grave concerns about what supertanker traffic can do to our communities. We have lived in these areas for 14,000 years strong, sustaining ourselves in a way that we’ve been able to survive, and we cannot bear that risk and put our communities at risk for the interests of others that are not relying on the ocean as we do.
Senator Simons: Is there a danger, do you think, that by focusing on a tanker ban we might actually be neglecting real problems that you are having right now? I’m shocked when you are talking to me about the marine response and the lack of a response team in your area. I have a concern, which I think Senator McCoy spoke about earlier, that while we’re focusing on these big supertankers, which are the double-hulled industry all-stars, that we are not paying attention to the real and present dangers right now of ships that are perhaps less ocean-worthy but which are also carrying significant numbers of pollutants. Are you concerned at all that this government might slap on this tanker ban and then not deal with the other issues that are already posing a risk to your territories?
Ms. Slett: It is certainly one of the issues that coastal First Nations and, independently, the communities, have been pressing for, increased marine response in our communities. There is a gap there. I talked about the 18 hours to get a marine vessel for clean up — 18 hours too late, in our case.
We see that the development has to strike a balance with the needs of the communities that will be most impacted and affected by something that could go wrong, and it has been our experience that something goes wrong. We’ve had theQueen of the North sink outside Haisla territory, and the Nathan E. Stewart. Other ships have gone into danger zones in our territory, and our people are the first responders out there.
For us, are there compromises? Not a compromise that would affect the livelihood and sustainability of our communities that have lived there for thousands of years.
Mr. Alsop: Thank you for your question. For the Haida Nation, I don’t think we see any scenario where there is an ability to compromise for a corridor, considering that any projects that are being conceived inland or along the coast ultimately result in tanker traffic that would come through our territory and risk our culture and way of life and our history, as Marilyn has articulated.
I think it is really important to move forward with this act, and what it will do — answering your second question — is it will finally take this threat off the table for us and allow us to really dig in and focus on that work. You can imagine how many things we deal with as a government. I understand that this government deals with a lot of things and can relate, but we have focused and dedicated people who are working to continue to better the lives of our people and our communities. By being able to move forward with this act, you will be able to bring some level of peace to the North coast and Central coast and Haida Gwaii and allow us to, as you mentioned, continue to focus on improving response to the traffic that’s already quite busy coming in and out of the port of Prince Rupert with container traffic. As well, there are a number of liquified natural gas projects being proposed to add more tanker traffic as well.
There is still a lot of work to do in waterway management. There is still a lot of work to continue to do to look at the way that projects are approved. I think there is some good work happening, looking at the turn pole process which, right now is flawed from a Haida perspective, because projects are looked at from the source to the end line but doesn’t really include the impacts of tanker traffic within those. I believe reviews of that are happening now, and there are opportunities to continue to work collaboratively government to government to improve how we are managing shipping in our territories. I think that’s a big part of the Oceans Protections Plan and through some of the reconciliation framework agreement that a lot of coastal nations are working on to deal with the existing traffic.
So I don’t see, for the Haida Nation, any real compromise on that for a corridor.
Senator Plett: Thank you to both the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Alsop, I want to touch on the question that Senator Miville-Dechêne raised earlier and your response, and far be it from me to get into a debate here with witnesses. That’s not what I want to do. Her question had to do with consultations, I believe, with other First Nations, other than the ones you mentioned.
You know, sir, three and a half years ago, we had a federal election. A government was formed that I didn’t support and still don’t, and I still spend my almost every waking moment trying to correct a wrong that happened three and a half years ago and I’m going to continue to do that. However, three and a half years ago, Justin Trudeau won a majority government and he speaks on behalf of Canada.
Both of you here are representing I don’t know how many people, but you are representing I am assuming thousands of people here today. You’ve been either elected or appointed to represent those people. And yet, to Senator Miville-Dechêne, you said that band council leadership of other First Nations were speaking on behalf of themselves and not their people. I fail to see how they are not speaking on behalf their people and you are speaking on behalf of your people. Now, if I misinterpreted your answer, I apologize. I want you to be able to correct that answer. But I believe you are here speaking on behalf of certain people. I’m speaking on behalf of certain people. And band council leadership, in any of the other First Nations that either you have consulted with or others have consulted with, also have a mandated right to speak on behalf of their people.
Mr. Alsop: Thank you for your question. I guess I’m speaking for myself, from the Haida Nation. We are governed by our own constitution and we are governed by our own hereditary leaders working together with the band council. So we are all bound together through our own design. As an elected president, I am able to speak for all the people in the broader territory, which includes the terrestrial area and the marine space, and the airspace, in our case. And so I was speaking generally in terms of the band councils that are a creation of the federal government and have come from the Indian Act. They were not designed originally to serve our people in that true way that connects with our traditional governance systems. So the actual accountability is to the federal government and through the Indian Act and not necessarily to the people legally.
Although some band councils are able to function and work beyond the reserve boundaries, technically band councils are formed to manage the reserves. When the federal government created the reserve system to limit us from our territories and separate us, you know, there were times when you were not even allowed to leave the reserve without permission of the Indian agent. And then, later, the Indian agents were replaced by band councils to enact federal policy. So some communities have been able to grow and expand that, but from a real legal, practical sense, the jurisdiction and authority speak to the reserve and the reserve territory only and not the broader territory of our nations, which we have been alienated from.
Senator Plett: I am not sure that you answered my question but we will agree to maybe — absolutely, Ms. Slett, if you want to answer that, for sure.
Ms. Slett: I want to add to Jason’s comments. Indigenous communities are diverse in governance structures. Heiltsuk are very proud to have a seamless relationship with our hereditary leaders, and we do this collaboratively. The Heiltsuk Tribal Council — Meghan and I are here from HTC, and we represent the political leadership, and our Hemas represent the traditional leadership. This is the leadership that has sustained our community for thousands of years, and they also provide the guidance over the title and rights of Heiltsuk people. We support their guidance. So for us, we are very proud to have this seamless relationship within Heiltsuk. We are a stronger community for it. But certainly the Indian Act band governance system is a colonial system put onto Indigenous communities.
Senator Plett: Thank you for those answers.
I just read that apparently there are about four large tankers a week that leave Valdez, Alaska, which is just north of the proposed tanker ban. So there is tanker traffic awfully close. Does this concern you? Do you have any concerns that this tanker traffic limits the effectiveness of Bill C-48?
Mr. Alsop: Yes, for sure, it concerns us, all of the traffic in general and the oil tanker traffic in particular. The Exxon Valdez spill is famous around the world. It is still something that is spoken about a lot in this context, and so that was the example, the real wake-up call of the threats that are all around us as well, and the impacts are still remaining in that community, in the recovery. We are definitely very concerned about the existing traffic, but I don’t think that this act affects that. This will be effective to remove the threat of even more traffic closer to our territories, increasing the risk.
For us, I don’t know how to describe it. I guess to understand where we’re coming from is to understand what this cultural genocide means, to have a population decimated originally by introduced diseases like smallpox and have your population whittled down to a few hundred. To start to regrow and rebuild from that and maintain your culture and perseverance, despite the federal policies, is a triumph of our nations and our people.
As nations, where we’re at is we’re just awakening and coming out those very difficult times where the federal policies and industry have been really running all over our territories and damaging our homelands and affecting us in very deep and profound ways that new generations are just beginning to emerge from relatively unscathed.
To have your territory already be heavily logged and all of those resources leaving your territory for the benefit of others, to have your fisheries resources taken and your people displaced from that industry, and to continue to be confronted now with liquified natural gas tankers and oil tankers, it really affects us from having that peace of mind to be able to start to move forward and be part of this resurgence of our economies.
I don’t know if you could appreciate what it would mean to us to be able to have that immediate threat of new traffic removed so that we could continue to build our sustainable economies on the coast, including moving forward with renewable energy as part of that solution.
Senator Plett: I think we all appreciate what you’re saying, and we all appreciate the hardships. There are some of us that believe this would decimate the Province of Alberta’s economy or, indeed, a good portion of Canada’s economy because of a risk of something happening — not something happening, but a possible risk. Life is full of risks. Senator Simons made reference to the fact that tankers nowadays are built a whole lot better than they were. Granted, they are larger so a spill is more decimating, and I understand that, but the risk of spillage is also a lot less than it was 50 years ago. Anyway, that’s a comment and you don’t need to reply to that if you don’t want to. Thank you.
Senator Galvez: Thank you very much. I understand perfectly the emotion of your speech and your message because I come from Peru. When you talk about colonialism, invasion, genocide and chicken pox and all of this, I can imagine. I have the capacity of imagining. That is the emotional part of the problem.
But I’m a technical person, and my profession has taken me to study oil spills. I couldn’t agree more with the opening remark of Chief Slett who said that oil spills are not theoretical and are not hypothetical. It has occurred in the past — you mentioned Exxon Valdez — and it has occurred very recently at Deepwater Horizon, where engineers said it would never happen, but it happened to the biggest oil company in the world, BP, which had all the capacity to come and answer and respond to that.
You seem to have done important work looking into oil spills, so I have two questions. Have you found an oil spill, small, medium or large, where the oil was recuperated and there was zero impact on the environment and on human activities? My colleague talked about risk, and I think you have all the factors to increase that risk: the load, the type of petroleum, the tides, the weather and the presence of archipelagos. All the factors are combined there. I perceive that the risk of an oil spill is high, so in the event of one, how will it affect your coastal communities? And also how will it affect the communities that people are trying to say that you don’t agree with about the pipelines and the exportation of oil? How will it also affect them if an oil spill happens? I believe they will also be impacted.
The Chair: Are those two questions?
Senator Galvez: Yes.
Ms. Slett: Are we aware of any oil spills that have been cleaned up and from which there have been zero impacts and everything has been fine? No, I’m not aware of anything like that, nor is that our experience with the Nathan E. Stewart.
How does an oil spill affect other communities that may be in opposition to this bill? It doesn’t, because we are the ones that are on the coast. We are the coastal communities. This tanker traffic and the tankers are going through our respective traditional territories.
Mr. Alsop: Thank you for your question. I’ll add that we also haven’t found any examples where there is zero impact. Even the smallest examples have a huge impact on the community and the people, particularly those who rely on the area for food.
One of the most important things for us is probably salmon, and I mentioned that in my speech. One of the things that is exciting is this reinvestment in salmon. There was a new investment into the B.C. Wild Salmon Policy, I believe, of over $140 million to rebuild and support salmon in British Columbia, and things like that could be affected.
You guys are hearing from a lot of different people and technical experts. One of the things to consider is that there will be an impact no matter what happens. For example, you’re going to hear from pilotage authorities and others, and it’s an interesting situation that it creates. I read about this in the 1978 inquiry. Essentially, when you talk to some, they will say the risks are low or zero and they could navigate the area. But we really are the people who have the most experience in the area collectively. Our cultures and a lot of our oral traditions are passed down and share this history of our waters and our relationship with the waters. We have a very deep understanding of the real risks and the threats. When you ask a pilot if they can navigate safely or confidently through these waters, you’re putting them in a difficult position where you’re questioning their professional ability. Of course, they’re going to have to say, “Yes, we can do that.” Otherwise, they’d be admitting incompetence. That’s important to recognize. I’m a basketball player. If you ask me if I’m going to hit the game-winning shot from three, I’m going to tell you yes every time because I’m confident in myself, but the reality is I could miss as well.
Senator Dasko: Thank you so much for coming today. I’ve learned a lot by listening to your statements and answers.
My question is about the fishery and its potential. You both used words like, “We have to restore the fishery. There is potential. We have to move forward with it. We have to build it.” I want to get a sense of what there is now. What is the Indigenous fishery right now? Also, where do Indigenous people work in the fishery? What is the state of it right now, and also what is your vision for the future of the fisheries with regard to your people? Is it a commercial fishery? Is that what you are hoping for, expecting or building toward? Is it more local? What’s the vision you have of how this will develop?
Ms. Slett: The state of the fishery right now is that it has been in a steady decline, but we are working with both governments, B.C. and Canada, as well as industry, around the restoration and rehabilitation of our streams and watersheds. Jason just spoke a few minutes ago about the recent investment announcement in wild salmon in B.C. Those are the types of things that will help our communities with the enhancement opportunities we seek.
The vision is that we will be able to have sustainable and long-term employment for our community members as mariners. That’s who we are on the coast; we’re mariners. Our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers were all fishermen. We also practise our traditional values through that as well in terms of going out, taking a little and leaving a lot. If your family has a right to a stream, your family also has the right and responsibility to steward that. Going forward, we see the continuation of stewardship and enhancement, as well as the growth potential and economic opportunities to get people back out fishing and providing sustainable income for their families.
Senator Dasko: Mr. Alsop, were you going to answer that?
Mr. Alsop: Just to follow up, you want to get more participation back into the commercial fishery. For Haida Gwaii, roughly 30 per cent of the coastal fishery comes out of our waters, but our people are only a small percentage of those active. There are many reasons why that happened over time.
In the early days, our people were the pioneers and early leaders in the commercial fishing industry. In fact, on Haida Gwaii, over time, our people moved from building canoes and canoe technology to building their own seine boats and gillnetters. We were building our own boats right in our communities. We were independent. People were able to hire their family, feed their family and be self-sufficient and look after each other in that way.
Not only that, we were also involved in creating new fishing opportunities, like the herring roe on kelp or the spawn on kelp fisheries that was essentially brought to commercialization by our people, which opened up new markets in Japan and around the world. It created new opportunities.
We’ve always been at the forefront of that industry, but there were policy issues and things that led to the changing of quota and management systems. Slowly, our people were squeezed out of the industry. There still is a thriving fishing opportunity happening; it’s just that we are not part of it.
Part of the collaborative work, together with the government, is looking at how we can become more active participants in that industry, with a little bit of security. It’s also about getting into integrating the value chain, the processing and getting right to markets so that people can actually know who caught their fish, know the fishermen who caught it and have that relationship back to the place. It’s really important for people today to know where their food comes from and understand how it got to their plate to really appreciate it. That’s a big part of where we’re going, in addition to restoring habitats and being able to also continue to be able to live off of the resources. A lot of these discussions are around jobs and money, which at the end, then, everyone says to put food on the table. The food is already there for us, and we just want to continue to protect and maintain that. A lot of our people sustain themselves off the food that our territories provide.
Senator MacDonald: I thank the witnesses for being here this morning.
I have a statement and a question. You raised legitimate concerns about risk. Risk is always a concern. I flew to Ottawa this week. I suspect both of you flew to Ottawa this week. We just saw a couple of major plane crashes. We take risks. There’s always risk. The key is to manage risk.
On the East Coast of Canada, we manage 288 metric tonnes of oil every year in the water. B.C. has 6 million metric tonnes; it’s not even close. You talk about fishing grounds. The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are the greatest, most productive fishing grounds in the entire world, and we’ve been extracting 500 million barrels of oil a day for the last 25 years and managing that risk. So risk is something that we should always be aware of, but risk is something that can be managed.
You mentioned earlier that some of the First Nations are operating under outdated governance structures. Perhaps that is a reason why they oppose Bill C-48. It’s my understanding that the Nisga’a Lisims is B.C.’s most modern treaty nation, and they signed their treaty in 2000. Is it not true that they have a democratically elected government that opposes Bill C-48, or am I mistaken in that? Is my understanding correct that they oppose Bill C-48?
Ms. Slett: Is that a question, whether they oppose?
Senator MacDonald: You made the argument that one of the provinces is operating under an outdated governance structure, but they are a modern treaty nation and they oppose Bill C-48. Is that not correct? Why would they oppose it?
Ms. Slett: I have heard that they do oppose Bill C-48. I don’t know the specifics of why they do. But we are here to talk about why we support Bill C-48.
You had mentioned and talked about the risks, and that we all take risks; we take risks every day in our everyday lives. For us, the risk is too great. It is too great, not on just me as a single person, but my community that has lived on the coast for 14,000 years-plus and our future generations to come. That risk is borne onto and placed onto everybody. That risk is just far too great.
Senator MacDonald: Why would the risk be any different on the West Coast than the East Coast?
Ms. Slett: We depend on a healthy ecosystem.
Senator MacDonald: We’ve been fishing for hundreds of years on the East Coast. I can’t give you the number of members of my family that have drowned fishing in the past 300 years. Lots of people fish. There’s risk in fishing. I’m saying the particulars on the East Coast — coastal living is really no different on either coast. We’re managing risk on the East Coast. Why can’t it be managed on the West Coast?
Ms. Slett: We talked about some of the most diverse ecological marine areas on the planet being part of the area that we’re talking about. We talked about the well-being of many Indigenous communities in this area that are linked to the health of the sea. We talked about our traditional harvesting that is central to our traditional societies — central to who we are as Heiltsuk people is tied to a healthy ocean. We depend upon natural resources for food, health, culture and economy.
We also have a court-recognized right called the Gladstone right. Jason had talked a moment ago about herring spawn on kelp. Right now, we have people in our community who are out harvesting SOK. It’s the start of our brand-new harvest new year, marked by the harvest of that commercial Aboriginal right.
These are the things that sustain us, and these are the things that are also put at risk. We would also support further improvement measures anywhere for marine oil protection. That goes for the East Coast, which you’re talking about, in terms of improving the types of measures that we’re talking about here.
Senator MacDonald: What about if we had a better response mechanism on the West Coast — let’s say in the northern waters near the Prince Rupert and Port Simpson area? You said 18 hours isn’t quick enough. Like anything, whether it’s an accident on the highway or anything, we want quick response. What response would be quick enough, and could the authorities put together a response mechanism that would help mitigate the risks and help alleviate your concerns?
Ms. Slett: One of the things we have put forward is not so much the authorities putting together a marine response but working with the Indigenous communities that live on and know the coast. For us, for Heiltsuk, we have put forward the Indigenous Marine Response Centre. I was really clear that it’s not around increasing traffic but having a presence of marine response on the central coast. As it stands right now, there is none, and we’re still vulnerable to what can happen there.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I want to thank our two witnesses. I listened to you with as much openness as possible, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for your culture. What quantities of natural resources related to oil do your communities consume annually?
[English]
Mr. Alsop: I don’t have the exact number in front of me right now. I will say that, on Haida Gwaii, we are still reliant on burning diesel for powering our grid and for the majority of our power. There are smaller ships that do come and replenish that, but that is something that our people — not just our people, but all the people of Haida Gwaii — want to change. A big focus for us going forward is getting off diesel and implementing renewable energy for Haida Gwaii. It’s a challenge that we face, but it’s a challenge we’re willing to take on and from which we’d like to transition.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: All the goods you consume in your communities — be it food, clothing or medical services — also require a high consumption of oil products to get to your communities, right?
[English]
Mr. Alsop: That is the case. We do rely on —
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Here is my question: Being in favour of the bill, you seem to be opposed to any exporting of oil from central Canada to the West Coast. What they say in central Canada, and in Alberta in particular, is that they mine for natural resources and assume the risks of mining, while you do not want to take any risks, but you consume the products anyway.
As Canadians or aboriginal communities, how do you think those risks assumed by consumers and producers can be split evenly? Basically, your position is completely closed in terms of any exporting of oil from the centre to the shores. I have not sensed any potential compromise in your case. I have visited many villages in northern Canada, and those communities consume a lot of oil for heating and electricity, among other things. How can a compromise be made between producers and consumers to ensure that everyone is benefiting and the risk is being managed jointly?
[English]
Mr. Alsop: Thank you. It’s important to recognize, again, the broader context of how we got into this place for our communities. It wasn’t necessarily our choices or decisions to create the systems that are in place; they were heavily imposed upon us for the benefit of others, and not in consultation with us or working together. So what we’re looking forward to is a government — can I answer?
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I understand, but if your community was to wake up tomorrow morning without oil or energy, that would create health problems and other significant issues for your communities. If oil stopped coming to your communities as of tomorrow, there was no transportation to bring consumer goods or oil for fishing vessels, you would experience more significant problems in terms of quality of life and impoverishment. How can a balance be established between your communities, which consume those products and will continue to consume them for a number of years, and producers from central Canada who want to make the economy benefit all Canadians?
[English]
Mr. Alsop: Thank you. I was trying to provide a bit of context to get to my answer. All of those systems of how we fuel and how things work were not by our design; they were imposed upon us. The way forward to balance it is to come up with a plan to transition from where we’re at today to renewable sources.
In terms of sharing the risk, it’s important to recognize the bigger context I was speaking of and that, from our territories, particularly Haida Gwaii, we have been giving to Canada, B.C. and the world for many, many years. Many of the forest resources have come from Haida Gwaii. Many of the fisheries resources that others benefit from come from Haida Gwaii. We even had the whaling stations — the original fuel sources — on Haida Gwaii as well. In terms of balance, we’ve been giving and giving and giving to this country and to others to benefit. All that wealth has left our communities and our islands and is in the bank accounts of people in Canada and across the world. We’re trying to balance that equation and not have another industry imposed upon us and these risks imposed upon us, entrenching us further down this path of fossil fuel as the only way.
If this government can support this bill, it sends such a positive signal to Canadians, to the world, to Indigenous people and to our relationship that we’re embarking on this process of change, collaboration and looking forward, not continuing to be entrenched in this old relationship. We need to be able to signal that we’re making a big step forward. For us, approving this bill would show that, and this transition to trying to balance that equation. Our communities and territories have been giving to this country and this economy for so long without that being balanced and reciprocated.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: I have one last comment: Why not take advantage of the situation to take control of those resources in order to make your communities richer? We still have oil for another 30 or 40 years, according to our experts. Why not take advantage of it to enrich your communities by demanding to profit from that mining as much as the producers?
[English]
The Chair: You mentioned in your initial statement that the reason you were opposed to the bill was for greater marine protection and reduced greenhouse gases. How would you reduce greenhouse gases? You said those were the two main points.
Mr. Alsop: I think what I said is that this act will support Canada’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gases and greater marine protection.
The Chair: How will this reduce greenhouse gases?
Mr. Alsop: In the medium or short term, I think it has the potential to begin the transition to renewable resources sooner than later. That’s where we would like to see things go, not just for our territory but for the country, to move into thinking about renewable energies and renewable resources. There are lots of opportunities in wind power and tidal power.
The Chair: How would banning the pipelines do this? How would banning the tankers do this?
Mr. Alsop: It forces this change, I believe. It sends a signal to new generations and new academics for people to start looking at solutions and that we’re moving on to a new way of thinking, looking at those renewable resources and energy opportunities that are there through tidal power, wind power, solar power and biofuels.
The Chair: Why don’t you just say what you mean? You want this banned so that the oil sands and the oil industry will stop production. Why don’t you just say it?
Senator Galvez: Point of order.
The Chair: I am just asking the question.
Senator Galvez: You are putting words in the —
The Chair: No, I’m not.
Senator Galvez: Yes. You are saying —
The Chair: I’m asking for clarification on what he means by “greenhouse gases.”
Senator Galvez: That’s impolite, chair. That’s very impolite.
The Chair: I am trying to be polite, Senator Galvez. I’m just asking the question about what he means by — he said there were two main reasons for this ban, and they were greater marine protection and reducing greenhouse gases. I’m asking him what he means. This is 50 per cent of the — or I don’t know if it is 50 or 40, but they are two of the reasons he is giving. I’m just asking what he means.
Mr. Alsop: I think I answered your question with what I meant, that it signals a shift towards renewable energies and putting all of our collective energy in Canada towards that goal and starting to create this transition. A lot of bright minds are working in energy in this country, and there is a great opportunity to evolve.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator McCoy: How to boil this down? First of all, I’m struck by your concerns, and I think you have very legitimate concerns. I think you have very legitimate concerns about what is happening today in the waters surrounding your communities. I think Canadians should be looking for a way of saving you harmless in today’s conditions, and I think we have not done that. So your testimony today has been very helpful.
I think my question would simply be — and you might want to come back to us, but you’ve given us some idea, particularly in Chief Slett’s testimony — what we could do to help you in your discussions with the federal government, and others, in putting together a regime that is worthy of Canadians. We can do better.
Ms. Slett: Thank you for your comments and question. We have developed a proposal, a vision of an Indigenous Marine Response Centre. We can make it available to the committee. It does an analysis of Canada’s own stats from the Pacific Pilotage Authority and the Coast Guard, and it also looks at the risks we’ve been talking about here today. I can provide that.
We are an alliance of high-capacity, organized, forward-thinking First Nations that work together and that comprise the coastal First Nations. We’ve done a lot of work and thinking around what marine protection should look like, and we would be pleased to be able to continue that conversation with Canada to meaningfully bring those opportunities of marine protection into our communities.
The Chair: If you could, Ms. Slett, please forward to our clerk whatever information you may have, and we’ll distribute it to members of the committee.
Senator McCoy: I’m from a landlocked province, but I would like to be part of those consultations as well because it does seem to me that Canadians help one another. Thank you.
Senator Jaffer: A number of people have asked about the percentage of people who are supporting this. For the coastal nations, I know you don’t have that now, but if you could provide it.
I have a quick question for you. In the last committee meeting, we heard from Western Canada Marine Response, the entity responsible for responding to spills on Canada’s West Coast. They advocated a robust response. There is a long quote that I was going to give to you, but basically they said they could develop a comprehensive plan to deal with spills. What is your opinion of Western Canada Marine Response’s goal to create a comprehensive plan to respond to spills on the West Coast? They were saying that they would be sensitive to wildlife and that they would develop potential projects. Here also, you have people saying, “We could provide to you a fast response.” So then what is your issue? Why are you still concerned?
Mr. Alsop: I think a lot of the things that Chief Slett has mentioned are important in terms of having Indigenous response capabilities. Because we are the first ones on the scene, we will be the closest to most of these incidents. Having our own ability to respond in a quick manner is important, and so it is important to have a collaborative effort in terms of response, not necessarily one organization being solely responsible. So having, you know —
Senator Jaffer: I’m sorry; I don’t mean to be rude, but the question that is being asked here is that if you had faster response time, then you are protected. So why, then, are you wanting this ban?
Mr. Alsop: In terms of response time, I think the damage will already be done. If oil enters the ecosystem, there is very little capability of recovering it in the coastal area, and little to none when it comes to the open ocean, when we are talking about some of the roughest waters in the world. The Hecate Strait, I believe, is the fourth roughest and most dangerous body of water in the world — very shallow, very high seas. The ability to recover anything in the open ocean is basically nil and it would have to be dispersed. Within the environment and along the coastal area, there are rocky, difficult areas to clean up. It will not all be on sandy beaches. There are rough, rocky shoals and coastlines that are challenging to clean up. Even small spills have huge impacts on the marine and bird species, and onto the land as well, and the people.
The Chair: Thank you very much, witnesses. This was a robust and interesting discussion. Thank you for coming all the way to Ottawa to talk to us. We very much appreciate it. Thanks to all the guests that you have also brought along with you.
For our second panel this morning, we are pleased to welcome from Environment and Climate Change Canada, Mr. Kevin Cash, Director General, Water Science and Technology; Mr. Carl Brown, Manager, Water Science and Technology; and from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Julie Gascon, Director General of Operations, Canadian Coast Guard; Brian Wootton, Regional Director, Canadian Coast Guard, Pacific Region; and Carmel Lowe, Regional Director, Pacific Region; and from Natural Resources Canada, Ms. Heather Dettman, Research Scientist by video conference. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for participating. We will start with Ms. Dettman via video conference, followed by Mr. Brown and Ms. Gascon.
Heather D. Dettman, Research Scientist, Natural Resources Canada: Thank you very much. Good morning, honourable senators. It is a pleasure for me to do this presentation for you. In the five minutes I have, I will try to give you a feeling for petroleum chemistry in a nutshell, so it will be a very high-level kind of review. What you should have on your desk is a five-slide presentation that kind of gives an overview of high points and where I’m representing aspects of research programs not just from Natural Resources Canada, but Environment and Climate Change Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
The Chair: We do have that.
Ms. Dettman: If you go to the second slide, you will see that the idea of an oil spill, of oil being on water, is a very complex situation. In this situation, it’s not static. Whatever characterization you can do to the oil to begin with, once it goes into the water, onto the water, then there are a whole bunch of processes that go on simultaneously. Those processes include evaporation from the surface into the air as well as oil components mixing into the water, which can then interact with sediment, which can then go down to the bottom. So basically, the oil can distribute itself between the air, the surface, the water column and the bottom.
As we go to the next slide, I will spend a little bit of time on this one. This whole idea of persistence is around these different sizes of molecules that are in the oil. So in a very kind of simplified way of thinking about it, in words that people might be able to identify with, every crude oil is a mixture molecules that start as really small ones, which would be gasoline, going to slightly larger ones that are diesel, going to larger, larger, larger ones that would be Bunker C. Basically, those distributions of those kinds of molecules are in every crude oil. Depending on the crude oil, you will have more of the gasoline and diesel for conventional crude or more of the Bunker C part if it’s a heavy oil. Within the Bunker C, that actually can be divided basically into two kinds of factions as well, Bunker B part and then the asphalt. That is just meant to sort of cover the whole range of sizes of molecules there.
In terms of persistence, the bigger ones are the ones that are the slowest to degrade from the environment and would be contributing to oil persistence. The smaller ones tend to be the more toxic components because they are more bioavailable, but they tend to be biodegraded, and very quickly. So you have the acute toxicity, but then it will pass relatively shortly.
On the next slide, as I indicated with the picture that I started with, you have those complex processes going on, where the oil is going up into the air, moving into the water, interacting with sediment, being biodegraded, and the rates of all of those processes depend on a number of factors. It depends on the type of oil and how it is able to change with time. It depends on the type of water, whether it is saltwater, brackish water or freshwater. With freshwater, you have different types of freshwater, the hardness of it, the pH of it, these kinds of chemical characteristics of the water. If you have sediment present, then how much sediment is there matters, the type of sediment, whether it is sand, whether it is mud. That affects it. Then there is the energy in the water, whether there is a lot of current or waves or whether it is still. And then, of course, water temperature. So if it is freezing in the winter, you will have different process rates compared to summer, 27 above, kind of thing.
So with the research that we are doing in our three areas with the three departments, we are trying to determine mechanisms of these processes and trying to understand them to better model them for use in response planning.
The next slide gives a very quick highlight of the facilities that we have across Canada for doing our research. We all have various versions of lab scale research, which is the rotary jars on the left side of the slide, where it’s a closed system and you simulate the oil-water interactions to basically indicate tendencies of interaction. Then we have at least a couple of types of tank scale, where the smaller figure in the upper right-hand corner is our facility here in Alberta, which is relatively small but it is open. We have waves. We can simulate most of the processes that go on because we can control both air and water temperature.
In the bottom is the 32-metre facility in the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, at the COOGER facility with DFO, and what they have there is truly a wave tank where they’ve been doing dispersive research.
With all of this and our current understanding of diluted bitumen and how it fits into the whole range of products that are being transported and used in Canada, diluted bitumen falls into the range of all those for the type of oil it is. It can do everything that the others can do, which can include everything from being on the surface to being on the bottom, to being in the water column, on the shoreline and in the atmosphere with evaporation. It is acting like petroleum, which it is.
Existing response measures are effective on working on diluted bitumen, to the same extent that they would be with other petroleum products. Some situations are more difficult than others, but it has the same potential to be recovered and, of course, being in research, we can always improve things, and the improvement can come in two ways. As we work with it, we can understand the limitations for the application of the different response tools and, so therefore, make specific information available on how to use those tools for the different oils. Then the other side of it, of course, is that if you can discover new tools of response, that can help improve as well.
Mr. Carl Brown, Manager, Water Science and Technology, Environment and Climate Change Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs and members of the committee. As manager of the Emergencies Science and Technology Section of Environment and Climate Change Canada, I supervise a team of researchers that undertake a research program to study the effects of spilled chemicals on the environment and the clean up of spills. This morning, I will also speak on behalf of my wildlife colleagues from the department.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has more than 40 years of experience in understanding and responding to oil spills. Much of this research on conventional heavy crude oils and fuels is long-standing. However, emerging challenges in recent years have included unconventional fuels like diluted bitumen. This research continues under the Oceans Protection Plan.
The most basic part of the research involves understanding the physical behaviour and chemical nature of oil. Environment and Climate Change Canada has assessed hundreds of domestic and international oils over years and makes these results publicly available on the Open data portal. This oil catalogue is the largest publicly available, oil spill-related database in the world, and a great majority of the products that we’ve studied are persistent oil products.
Environment and Climate Change Canada also studies how to clean up oil spills, concentrating on both traditional and newer alternative response techniques in both laboratory and large-scale experiments.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has a major focus on the evaluation, effectiveness and toxicity of spill-treating agents, including chemical dispersants and surface washing agents. Much of this work leads to international standards to codify best practices for spill response.
We have also led in the development of oil spill remote sensors and the assessment of oil contamination on shorelines using the Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique, or SCAT. As an example of our work, I would like to highlight the recent studies to survey and characterize the coastlines of British Columbia.
First, we have undertaken surveys on northern, central and southern B.C. shorelines to understand the geology and biology, and to measure current or background levels of oil-related chemicals, pesticides and metals. These shoreline surveys, using both helicopters and ship-based surveys, have been undertaken under the World-Class Tanker Safety System and Oceans Protection Plan initiatives. These allow us to characterize the shorelines and helps with the identification of the appropriate spill-response countermeasures should a spill occur. This is essential to both planning for potential spills and for understanding what the target endpoints for clean up need to be following a spill.
We’ve undertaken shoreline characterization of central and north coast British Columbia using a combination of low-altitude, helicopter-based videography and manual interpretation. This mapping will produce a geo-referenced database containing seamless information indicating the type and morphology of the shorelines for use in case of an oil spill and detailed information describing the upper intertidal, lower intertidal, super tidal and backshore zones being extracted from the photos and videos, including the shoreline type based on SCAT classification, the form, the substrate and the vegetation type along the shoreline.
Knowledge of shoreline types is critical for clean up and response efforts. Proactive identification of environmentally sensitive coastlines supports rapid and effective response to events through the prioritization of areas based on established environmental baselines. Effective clean up efforts and substance removal can then be performed through quick access to the appropriate clean-up tools and techniques.
In terms of oil penetration and retention by a shoreline, we have conducted meso-scale experiments that tell us how diluted bitumen and heavy fuel oils will penetrate into various shoreline sediments and how they are retained, both when the oil is fresh and when it has weathered from exposure to the environment. The results of these experiments have provided new knowledge on the fate and behaviour of diluted bitumen products on marine shorelines and will help inform operational spill response decisions.
We’ve also done some initial work on the current level of contaminants along the shorelines. During these ship-based shoreline surveys, a multi-agency research team at 27 sites throughout the Douglas Channel and west to Haida Gwaii collected substrate and sediment samples. These samples were analyzed to estimate the current level of contamination at various locations along the northern B.C. coastline. The contaminants measured include petroleum hydrocarbons, pesticides and metals. The combined field observations of the research team and subsequent information from the laboratory analyses have shown near-pristine or baseline natural environmental conditions throughout much of the study area.
I will switch now to speak a bit more about the work from our Wildlife colleagues. The central and north coast of B.C. covers more than 15,000 kilometres of remote coastline, supporting over 60 species of marine birds, including seabirds, marine waterfowl and shorebirds. Fifteen of these species breed on widely distributed island colonies, and several of the marine birds are on Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act.
Important habitats in the region include breeding colonies as well as sensitive coastal ecosystems that provide important habitat for marine birds and fish. The north coast has several estuaries of global significance, including the Nass and Skeena estuaries, as well as numerous salt marshes, kelp beds and eelgrass. The north coast is part of the Pacific flyway and is a major corridor for millions of migratory birds moving between breeding grounds in the Arctic and overwintering areas of North, Central and South America.
In terms of marine bird work, under the Oceans Protection Plan, we are collecting baseline information on marine birds at sea in order to better understand the threats facing them and to inform emergency planning and response. Since 2012, we’ve conducted at-sea surveys covering over 4,000 square kilometres, although spatial and temporal gaps remain a significant challenge. In addition to surveys, we’ve been tracking species like ancient murrelets, rhinoceros auklets and storm petrels, using tracking devices in order to assess both spatial and temporal patterns of marine habitat use. The department is also exploring the toxicity of bitumen to seabirds using gene expression as a biological measure of contaminant-induced effects, which will improve work on our bio-monitoring capabilities.
In terms of Indigenous engagement and collaboration, we’ve been conducting seabird research, monitoring and shoreline mapping in collaboration with coastal First Nations to enhance emergency response, increase capacity to conserve marine birds and to support reconciliation. We’ve worked with 14 coastal First Nation communities on the mapping of the central coast, completing approximately 7,000 kilometres during the summer of 2018. We will complete another 9,000 kilometres in 2019.
To date, final data analysis has been completed for Haida Gwaii and the Kitimat Douglas Channel region. I provided a link where you can see some of this information.
Data collected by Environment and Climate Change Canada on the Northern Shelf Bioregion as part of the Oceans Protection Plan includes information on shoreline types, presence, abundance and seasonal distributions of marine birds. These data are used by Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Environment Emergencies Officer to improve how they identify and prioritize areas of environmental sensitivity in the initial phases of responding to a marine incident. These data will support response planning initiatives such as equipment cache requirements, training for local communities and local geographic response strategies.
In summary, Environment and Climate Change Canada continues to be engaged with governments, First Nations, academia, the petroleum industry, spill responders, non-government organizations and the public to identify environmental and oil spill research needs and establish priorities for future activities. Stakeholders have identified the need to improve our understanding of the fate and behaviour of spilled persistent oils. Recent research activities undertaken by our department and by other federal departments have led to an improved understanding of the north and central B.C. coastal environments and the potential fate of persistent oils. That being said, we realize there are some spatial and temporal gaps that need to be addressed in order to provide a more complete understanding of the northern B.C. coastal environment and marine bird populations.
I’d like to thank the members of the committee, and I welcome any questions you may have.
[Translation]
Julie Gascon, Director General, Operations, Canadian Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. It is a pleasure to speak with you this morning. My name is Julie Gascon, and I’m the Director General of Operations for the Canadian Coast Guard.
Today, I am joined by two of my colleagues: Brian Wootton, Regional Director, Programs, Pacific Region, Canadian Coast Guard; and Carmel Lowe, Regional Director, Science, Pacific Region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Our department is the federal lead for safeguarding our waters and managing Canada’s fisheries, oceans and freshwater resources. Our department has the responsibility to support a healthy environment and sustainable aquatic systems through habitat protection, oceans management and ecosystem research.
[English]
November 2018 marked the two-year anniversary of the Oceans Protection Plan. At its core, this plan brings together a wide array of initiatives to enhance the protection of Canada’s oceans, waterways and marine ecosystems. More specifically, the Oceans Protection Plan has allowed us to enhance our radar network and strengthen the systems we use for communicating with vessels so that we maintain an accurate picture and awareness of vessel traffic in our waters; add emergency towing capacity on the West Coast to respond and tow large disabled vessels to safety; invest in new environmental response equipment and provide additional oil-spill response training for Coast Guard members and volunteers who respond to incidents; provide the best available environmental and navigational information for response planning on the north coast of British Columbia in the event of an oil spill; establish a coastal environmental baseline program; strengthen our understanding of how oil behaves in water; and inform the mitigation of risks for marine shipping on the environment by establishing marine environmental quality measures.
In addition to the initiatives I just mentioned, the Oceans Protection Plan brings an important focus on creating opportunities to work more collaboratively with Indigenous peoples and coastal communities. In this context, we are working with many Indigenous organizations and communities to train, exercise and support the purchase of new equipment for search and rescue and environmental response.
Simply put, these investments are increasing Canada’s collective capability to respond to maritime incidents quickly, effectively and efficiently.
We are responsible for ship-source and mystery-source pollution incidents in Canadian waters. Part of our business is monitoring marine traffic patterns and assessing risks on a regular basis. We use this information to allocate resources along our coasts, which is the longest coastline in the world.
[Translation]
In all cases, if traffic patterns and associated risks change, the Canadian Coast Guard works with partners to understand how the risks to the environment are changing so that we can also adapt to ensure the continued protection of the marine environment.
However, regardless of where an incident occurs, we have an established response protocol. When a pollution incident is reported, pollution response officers establish command, investigate and work with partners to ensure an efficient and effective response.
The Canadian Coast Guard responds to several pollution incidents every day, mostly small in nature, although they are a constant reminder of the importance of the work we do on behalf of Canadians.
Regional response planning is piloting a holistic, risk-based approach to environmental response planning in British Columbia’s northern shelf bio-region. This approach takes into account unique regional, ecological, geological and socio-economic factors and will contribute to a strengthened marine safety system through enhanced coordination and more effective response to marine pollution incidents. We are looking forward to applying these approaches to response planning across our coasts.
How a particular spilled oil will behave in the environment depends greatly on the type of oil and the conditions at the time, as Ms. Dettman has described in her remarks.
[English]
During an incident, in conjunction with Natural Resources Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, we provide advice on how the particular spilled oil product is likely to behave. For example, our oceanographic expertise allows to us predict the currents and tides in the spill location, which is combined with Environment and Climate Change Canada’s wind and wave predictions to forecast the speed and direction of movement of the spill, informing response tactics.
Together, our essential services keep our waterways open year-round and enable vessels of various sizes to navigate safely, keeping over $200 billion in annual trade flowing through our ports, while also reducing the risk of a major maritime incident.
We maintain a year-round 24-7 pollution response capacity and capability. To do this effectively, we regularly train and exercise with our partners. Because of this, we are confident in our readiness posture, ability to respond and capacity to work effectively with key parties involved.
In conclusion, Canada’s laws and regulations to protect our waters from ship-source pollution are among the most robust measures in the world, and our network of response capability across Canada is stronger than ever and continues to grow.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We would be happy to respond to any of your questions.
The Chair: Senators, we have about 22 minutes before we close down. Please keep to one question. I only have five on the list. If we finish, I’ll give you another round. If more senators want to ask questions, there is nothing I can do. Maybe we will be able to get these panellists back, or at least we’ll inquire to see if we can.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: My question is for Mr. Cash and Mr. Brown from the Department of the Environment. I paid attention to your presentation, but I would like you to further explain the information you are basing it on. Two aboriginal nations have told us how much they are worried about the impact of oil spills on birds and fish. You have carried out a number of studies and have in particular measured the impacts of oil on birds, but what are the results of those studies? What have you learned and what should we know? What are the dangers of oil spills for our environment?
[English]
Mr. Brown: Thanks for your question. In terms of what we’ve done with the surveys for the northern and central coastlines, we’ve looked at all of the coastlines and measured things like how steep they are and what types of environments they are: Are they sand beaches? Are they cobble beaches? Are they mud flats? By knowing that, we know which response techniques would be appropriate for those types of environments. Also, along with our colleagues in Fisheries and Oceans, we have identified which species are living in those environments. All of this helps us understand what the current conditions are. If a spill were to occur, you need to know what conditions existed before the spill so that, if there is an impact on a shoreline, you will be able to clean up to pre-spill conditions. We’ve learned a lot about what resources are there. It’s up to spill responders to work with local communities and identify the priorities.
[Translation]
Senator Miville-Dechêne: Can you give us a qualitative assessment of the fragility of those coasts and the wildlife, instead of saying that you have done this or that and that you can answer? Are we talking about an especially fragile environment? Is it different on the East Coast? We have talked a lot about differences between the East and West Coasts. I would like to get a qualitative assessment of that environment.
[English]
Mr. Brown: I’m going to pass that one on to Dr. Kevin Cash.
Kevin J. Cash, Director General, Water Science and Technology, Environment and Climate Change Canada: Thank you very much for the question. It’s a very complicated question. Each and every ecosystem is, by definition, unique and vulnerable. There is no capacity within science to rank the East Coast as being of lesser or of greater importance than the West Coast. The actual vulnerabilities are what we were trying to assess through things like the videography and other tests we did.
Even within an ecosystem, there’s tremendous variability. There are parts of that coastline that might be very resistant to an oil spill; for instance, if there were an oil spill that was at risk of coming up against a cliff face or a very rocky shore, the impact of a spill at that point in space, regardless of whether it be the East or West Coast, would be very different than the impact of that same spill reaching shore in a wetland or marsh, because it would be much more difficult to clean up.
I apologize, but in the context of science, it’s very difficult to generalize to the point where we can answer your question. What we can do and what we have been doing is trying to much better understand the vulnerabilities along this coastline so that, in the very unfortunate event of a spill, we are better prepared to respond quickly and appropriately as a function of understanding that vulnerability.
There is always risk. There is always an absence of certainty. But all marine ecosystems, regardless of whether they are West Coast, in the Arctic or on the East Coast in the Canadian context, are certainly vulnerable to these kinds of events, and it’s our obligation to provide the science understanding necessary to, first, minimize the probability of such a spill and, second, to also respond to it in the most effective way.
Senator Galvez: I have one question with two parts. The first part is to Ms. Dettman.
You spoke about the mechanical properties of oil, but you haven’t spoken about the chemistry. Does oil contain dangerous substances? What is the toxicology of these substances? How do they attack the fish, mammals and the birds? What is the lethality of these substances?
On the same area —
The Chair: One question here, please. You are asking two questions, Senator Galvez?
Senator Galvez: No, it’s the same.
The Chair: No, it’s not the same. Go ahead. You’re in charge. Do what you want.
Senator Galvez: Thank you. In your experience dealing with oil spills, have you recuperated more than 50 per cent of the oil? Have you brought back to 80 per cent recuperation of the ecosystem after an oil spill?
Ms. Dettman: Should I answer first?
Senator Galvez: Yes, please. Thank you.
Ms. Dettman: If you look to the third slide that I presented, I actually tried to explain the answer to your question at a very high level.
The toxicity comes from the smaller molecules, let’s say, that are in gasoline, diesel and the Bunker B part of the oil. That’s where the toxic compounds are characterized. The gasoline is the part that has the benzene, toluene, xylenes and ethyl benzene, so you have the BTEX part. That’s responsible for acute toxicity, which is the immediate toxicity. If it mixes into the water, the fish that are immediately there can be affected. The immediate effect comes from that gasoline part.
When you have the diesel and the Bunker B part, those are the parts that have what are called the polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Those are the ones that can have more chronic effects, where the diesel, being smaller kinds of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, tend to be more toxic than the ones in the Bunker B — the bigger ones.
All of that is talking about, as we understand it, measuring exactly those compounds. We’ve done several tank tests now in our facility. Because we have our tank, we spill the oil on the water, and over five weeks, we are monitoring what’s happening with the oil, what’s moving into the water face, and taking samples out and having toxicity measured. We’re actually changing toxicity with time for fathead minnow embryos. Our toxicologist collaborator is doing that.
With that we see that the acute phase is over relatively quickly, and I believe that’s the experience in real spills; within a week or two, the acute phase is over. Then the concern has always been, for the polyaromatic hydrocarbons: How long can they be there, and what kind of effects can they have? We have ongoing research in that area to figure out exactly that. Our system is ideal to be getting these examples, quantifying the pH with time. We’ve seen interesting results between conventional crude that has hydrocarbons in it that have never been biodegraded before, and we’re seeing much more activity compared to when we have diluted bitumen, which has been biodegraded. It’s heavy because it has been biodegraded. We’re seeing fewer effects from that.
The work is ongoing, of course.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much, Dr. Dettman. You led into my question beautifully. I wanted to know —
Senator Galvez: I have another question.
The Chair: If there’s time, then he can answer the question.
Senator Simons: I wanted to know if diluted bitumen is easier or harder to clean up. Dr. Brown, you said in your report that you studied the behaviour of diluted bitumen products on marine shorelines, but it doesn’t say what the answer is. Dr. Dettman and Dr. Carl Brown, is dilbit easier or harder as a subject for clean up, and is there anything that can be done to the chemical composition of dilbit with the diluting elements that might make it safer to transport?
Ms. Dettman: Every spill is different. Aspects with recovery, right from the get-go — and this goes to everybody to understand recovery — you are never going to get 100 per cent recovery because the gasoline part of the oils will evaporate. So once it goes in the air, it’s gone. If, by volume, you have 50 per cent gasoline in your oil, 50 per cent will be gone, so 100 per cent recovery will be just 50 per cent, because you’re not recovering the gasoline. That’s one idea to understand.
Then, for what’s left behind, there are different aspects of it. With the heavier oils, you can see them, they’re there, they’re sticky, they’re messy but they are floating and covering the shore. You clean it up, and that tends to recover more of it. If you have the conventional oils that are lower viscosity, they can mix in and disappear — they’ve actually gone away — but they are still somewhere. They just aren’t there anymore.
It’s a complex thing about where it goes if it’s in an open-water situation where it can mix into the open water. Then it’s infinite dilution off in the ocean somewhere, then it’s not causing an effect, and that’s a good thing. The logic for dispersement is that it’s not affecting shorelines, which tend to be the more vulnerable environments. If you’re in an inland situation, then you can’t really do that. It really depends.
If I refer to what happened at Kalamazoo, people focused on how much dredging and work went into recovering the sunken part of the oil, but if you look at the total recovery of what was recovered, 74 per cent was recovered from the surface and from the shoreline, and 26 per cent was recovered from the sediment. Even with all that oil, the fish were not affected. It’s five or six years, and now it’s open, and there haven’t been any observable issues in the fish there.
Senator Simons: So dilbit might legitimately be safer to transport than conventional crude, hypothetically?
Sorry, I’ve probably used up my time.
The Chair: You’ve used up your time.
Ms. Dettman: Should I answer first?
The Chair: Just hold that thought.
Senator MacDonald: Senator Simons did touch upon what I wanted to speak about. We had some information on this given to our committee a few years ago on dilbit, and there seemed to be some uncertainty at the time whether it was actually easier to clean up, or at least not harder to clean up.
Managing risk is always important. It’s a very important thing on either coast, and we have to be cognizant of that. The concerns are expressed about managing risk on the northern shores of British Columbia as opposed to the Lower Mainland. Do we have enough in place? Is there enough infrastructure in place to adequately deal with any potential risk? I keep saying this but I’m going to say it again: we deal with 288 million metric tonnes of oil on the East Coast of Canada. They are only handling 6 million on the West Coast, yet there’s all this concern. I understand the concern, but we handle a lot of it and handle it regularly and safely. Do we need more infrastructure on the North coast of British Columbia to manage any potential spill?
Ms. Gascon: Thank you, senator. I can talk to you about the way we develop our posture. The posture for the Canadian Coast Guard is what we call the number of members, equipment and what response organizations have. This is really informed by risk. You can imagine that, in an aggregate where you have a lot of ship movement and you have a lot of users of the waterways, the risk is highest. It’s the same way if you’re on a huge highway compared to a rural road in the back country. When there are risks, we have to ensure that we have the appropriate posture to be able to respond to those risks. Be prepared, be there, have the equipment, have the partnership, the training and the ability to respond effectively and efficiently.
On the north coast, there’s not as much traffic. Our posture is very well established. We have emergency tow vessels, we have equipment, we have caches, but the risks are less so our posture is matched to the risks that exist. That’s how we developed our ability to respond and how we ensured that we have the appropriate personnel. We do have appropriate personnel and appropriate equipment on the Lower Mainland and as well on the north coast because it matches the risks that exist.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Mr. Brown, I have read your brief carefully. Correct me if I am wrong. Your brief is more focused on methodology in terms of research, right?
[English]
Mr. Brown: Yes, it does.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: So we are talking about methodology, and you confirmed that the baseline condition, or at least the environmental media, is nearly unaltered. Does that mean this bill is a preventive statute and not a corrective one?
[English]
Mr. Brown: Yes.
[Translation]
Senator Boisvenu: Does this mean that it is a just-in-case bill right now?
[English]
Mr. Brown: I’m going to speak about the science. What we’ve seen when we analyze the samples in the northern and central B.C. coastline is that there’s not a lot of indication of hydrocarbon contamination and other contamination there, so the current baseline looks very good. I can’t comment on reasons for legislation.
Senator Dasko: My question is directed toward Ms. Gascon and Dr. Brown. We’ve heard about your research, protocols and processes. I feel very confident in hearing what you’ve had to say. Do we really need Bill C-48? You seem to be able to have the ability and capability to deal with any risks that come. Do we need the bill? I hate to put you on the spot, but that’s my question.
Ms. Gascon: Dr. Brown has answered. I can’t comment on the legislation. I can comment on our ability to respond and our capacity, but unfortunately I can’t comment on the bill.
Mr. Brown: I can’t comment on that either. It’s up to the communities, to Parliament, to decide and to weigh the evidence of the risk, probability times the consequences.
Senator Dasko: Am I wrong in concluding that you have the ability to clean up just about anything that happens?
Mr. Brown: I can say we certainly understand the fate and behaviour of these products a lot more than we did five years ago. That will certainly help inform —
Senator Dasko: And you have protocols and processes in place.
The Chair: If there was a pipeline to the West Coast, say the gateway was reinstated, how many tankers would be coming to the West Coast? We heard the Valdez, four a day. How many would be coming? Four a day? You don’t know that? Okay.
Senator Jaffer: You said you are ready for anything, but we heard from witnesses earlier that it took 18 hours to get help to clean up. That is concerning me because you sound so confident, and people who are on the ground said it took you 18 hours to get there. How fast do you think can you get there, especially in fast-moving waters? As soon as the spill happens, it’s too late. How quickly can you get there?
Ms. Gascon: Are you talking about a specific incident?
Senator Jaffer: Yes.
Ms. Gascon: Thank you very much. I’m going to take the first portion of this question and pass it on to my colleague, Mr. Brian Wootton.
With regard to the Nathan E. Stewart, the response was fast and was effective. We had our protocol in place and we addressed the spill rapidly. We got the vessel out of the water and managed the oil spill.
When I try to explain it to you, to people who are not from the domain, what it is to watch the Canadian Coast Guard response to an oil spill is like watching paint dry. Everything moves so slow. You have to position your vessels, you have to position your equipment, you deploy equipment in the water, you have to work with the weather, with the various conditions, make your appropriate assessment on the safety of your personnel. Watching a response live goes very, very slow, but it doesn’t diminish the effectiveness and the rapidity of the response. In the case of the Nathan E. Stewart, the Canadian Coast Guard did a fantastic response for this particular spill.
Brian Wootton, Regional Director, Programs, Canadian Coast Guard, Pacific Region, Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Thank you for the question. I was the federal incident commander for the Nathan E. Stewart and my current job is director of search and rescue and environmental response. I think this group would care because the Canadian Coast Guard was interested in the whole casualty management spectrum. When Chief Slett told us about the 18 hours to respond, it’s absolutely through the perspective of the shipowner, the polluter, contracting for response vessels to come and work on the wreck and work on the product that had been released. For the Coast Guard, the response was within 30 minutes using our search and rescue assets. We tasked the buoy tender through the wee hours of the morning. Chief Slett told us about the 1:30 a.m. distress call. That buoy tender was on the scene at first light, and our attention was devoted in the first six to eight hours on saving lives. We ended up with someone from the Nathan E. Stewart in the water. They were rescued. We diverted a science ship to come to Bella Bella where we have equipment pre-positioned to support the response.
The unfortunate part is there was a virtual single release of 100,000 litres at the beginning of this incident. Our attention was on the safety of responders for seven weeks and on stopping 125,000 litres of product that remained on the tug from being released into the environment, which we were successful in doing.
Senator Miville-Dechêne: So you were not cleaning up; are you telling us it’s not your job?
Mr. Wootton: No, not at all, to the extent that we can, the first principle is safety of responders, then contain the product, then move to protect critical resources. For example, when Gale Creek was impacted — and Chief Slett told us about the effect on the clam fishery there — the first two tide cycles of whatever diesel went in there had their impacts on the Coast Guard’s ability to get in there and muck out a clam bed was absolutely contraindicated. The strategy was to leave mother nature to her own devices with that type of diesel product. We heard about evaporation rates from Dr. Dettman, for example.
The issue in the weeks that followed was how to protect the outlying areas and how to protect the product that was on board the vessel, how to stop it from entering the environment. The Coast Guard of Canada is a safety blanket. We surged in during that first operational period. We were able to command and do coordination and determine whether the shipowner is contracting for purpose and doing an effective job; that is bringing in the response organization from Vancouver and Prince Rupert, which they did in this case.
Canada is a big country. British Columbia has a big coastline. Chief Slett is absolutely accurate when she says 18 hours to get heavy assets in there for securing the vessel and starting the process of getting it out of the water. Those assets had to flow from where the risk prospect is the highest, which is in the corridor of Juan de Fuca and Vancouver, which is where the response organization has most of its assets for this kind of work.
The Chair: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to have all of you here. We may want to call you back, and I hope that you’ll respond. It was great to hear practical and scientific evidence on this bill.
Thank you, senators, for all the great questions today.
(The committee adjourned.)