THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 16, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met with videoconference this day at 9:04 a.m. [ET] to study the federal government’s current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada’s fisheries and oceans including maritime safety.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: My name is Fabian Manning. I’m a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador, and I have the pleasure of chairing this committee and this meeting this morning. Today we are conducting a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please advise me or the clerk, and we will work to resolve your issue.
I would like to take a few moments to allow the members of the committee who have joined us here this morning to introduce themselves, beginning with the senator on my immediate right.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Smith: Larry Smith, Quebec.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
Senator Busson: I’m Bev Busson from British Columbia.
The Chair: On February 10, 2022, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was authorized to examine and report on issues related to the federal government’s current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada’s fisheries and oceans. Today, under this mandate, the committee will be hearing from representatives from the office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to discuss their recent reports related to our mandate.
On behalf of the members of the committee, I thank you for joining us here today, and I would ask you to introduce yourselves, please.
Jerry V. DeMarco, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this opportunity to discuss two recent audit reports on species at risk, which were tabled in Parliament in October 2022.
I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. Joining me today are Milan Duvnjak and David Normand, the principals who were responsible for the audits.
Our reports Protecting Aquatic Species at Risk and Departmental Progress in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies—Species at Risk, along with the associated backgrounder on biodiversity in Canada, demonstrate that Canada’s biodiversity is at serious risk, with the list of endangered, threatened and special-concern species growing longer every year. Each species that we lose to extinction further upsets the delicate balance of our ecosystems and breaches our collective duty to protect and recover species at risk.
In our report on protecting aquatic species at risk, we looked at whether Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, working with partners, protected selected aquatic species assessed as being at risk under the Species at Risk Act.
Overall, we found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s approach to protecting species assessed as being at risk contributed to significant delays in listing species for protection under the Species at Risk Act. The department focused its knowledge-building activities primarily on species of commercial value. This left knowledge gaps for some species, which directly affected the actions needed to protect them.
The department had yet to provide advice to cabinet on whether to provide legal protection for half of all species assessed as being at risk since 2004. We found that analysis to support advice on listing species for protection was sometimes unclear and insufficient and that the department avoided listing many species if they had commercial value, such as cod.
For species that have been listed for protection, Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not have enough staff to enforce compliance with the Species at Risk Act and the Fisheries Act, the two main statutes for protecting aquatic biodiversity. For example, the number of staff dedicated to enforcing protections for freshwater species at risk in the department’s largest regions was low.
Gaps in knowledge about species, a bias against protecting species of commercial value under the Species at Risk Act, significant delays in listing species for protection and limited enforcement capacity all have adverse effects on ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
I will now turn to our annual report on Departmental Progress in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies—Species at Risk. In this audit, we looked at how Environment and Climate Change Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Parks Canada contributed to meeting the species-at-risk target under the healthy wildlife populations goal in the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy.
[Translation]
Overall, all three organizations identified in their individual sustainable departmental strategies the actions that they planned to take. However, it was unclear how these intended actions would support meeting the species at risk target. This is because the organizations’ plans included only some of the conservation and recovery activities needed to track and demonstrate progress.
Consistent with these gaps in departmental strategies, progress reporting by the three organizations on their planned actions missed some aspects of conservation and recovery activities that are needed to provide a complete picture. Measurable actions and clear reporting on progress are important for conveying to Parliament and to Canadians whether Canada is meeting its biodiversity commitments.
Reporting is important, but results are what really matter. Unfortunately, on that score, the picture is not a positive one. Over the past eight years, results have stalled well below the target for species at risk recovery. As noted in our biodiversity in Canada backgrounder, there is no overarching biodiversity legislation at the federal level.
However, the federal government has repeatedly committed to protecting Canada’s biodiversity with specific legislation to protect species at risk both on land and in the water. There is a patchwork of laws relating to biodiversity, including the Species at Risk Act, which was passed nearly 20 years ago. The act aims to prevent any further extinctions by protecting and recovering species at risk across Canada, whether they are of commercial value or not. Protecting nature for its own sake and for its importance to Canadians is at the heart of this legislation.
The urgent need to better address the biodiversity crisis is further recognized in the United Nations’ Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted in Montreal in December 2022. I am greatly concerned that as a country, we are simply not doing enough to address the loss of biodiversity. This is an issue that we have raised in many audits, most recently in these two reports and our biodiversity in Canada backgrounder.
Halting and reversing the loss of species in decline or at risk of extinction calls for urgent action by the federal government and other jurisdictions. As time passes, the risks to these species increase and, with them, the difficulties and costs involved in their recovery. This is not a burden that should be placed on future generations.
This concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.
Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, commissioner. I’m sure we’ll have interesting questions from our senators, and we’re going to start with our deputy chair, Senator Busson.
Senator Busson: Thank you all for being here. The work you’re doing is incredibly important, focusing on biodiversity, and specifically from our committee I would like to focus on Fisheries and Oceans.
Much of the focus of your audit centred on whether Fisheries and Oceans adequately protected aquatic species designated as being at risk. It was found that there were more collected data and knowledge of commercially valuable species compared to non-commercially valuable species. Your audit goes on further, stating that without a change in the way the department gathers data, “. . . it will be difficult to take appropriate actions to protect many species.”
Does the department have the financial and human resources capability required to conduct research on all aquatic species under their umbrella of responsibility? Can the department better leverage other sources of research, such as academia, to help fulfill the department’s mandate regarding research on endangered species?
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you for that question. Your question directly relates to two of our recommendations: 7.27, in terms of knowledge gaps, and 7.32, about collaborating with other jurisdictions to make evidence-based decisions. I’m in full agreement that more work needs to be done by the department in both gathering data and collaborating with other governmental and non-governmental actors in improving its information base.
We found in particular that — with respect to freshwater species, which are usually not of high commercial value — knowledge and information gathering was more limited than with commercial species. Interestingly, and it’s not indicated in the report, I can tell you that in the case of both information gathering and enforcement, we note that there is less emphasis on the central part of Canada, where most of the freshwater species are found. It is interesting to note, and it is not in our report, but most of the aquatic species that have gone extinct in Canada have been in the freshwater area, not in the saltwater area. It’s not just a hypothetical problem in the sense that the species that have often been at most risk, and including about 8 to 10 that have actually gone extinct — most of those, all but one — are freshwater species.
There is a consequence to not putting emphasis or enough resources on freshwater species, because they’re important for their own sake, even if they don’t have commercial value. We’ve seen with the history in Canada that this lack of attention to protecting freshwater species has had real consequences in terms of species that have gone extinct and numerous others, but still can be saved if further efforts are made.
Senator Busson: If I could clarify the second part of my question, I’m incredibly interested in what you had to say about that. Is it a matter specifically of “misfocused” investigations and data research or a lack of resources to do the work that the department needs to do?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes, that’s an excellent question. We were clear in our report, especially with respect to enforcement, although some of the same issues apply to information and knowledge gathering, that there was a lack of resources in the central part of Canada, where freshwater predominates. We were not recommending reallocating resources from the coasts to the centre. We don’t believe it’s a case that there are excess resources on the coast that could be diverted to the freshwater. In all likelihood, it’s an increase in resources that’s needed rather than a reallocation of resources. We haven’t seen that there is a surplus of capacity on the coast. It’s just that comparatively there is even less capacity inland.
Senator Busson: Great. Thank you so much.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much for being here. This was very interesting. I was trying to write, but you talk faster than I could write. If my notes sound a little bit jumbled, forgive me.
You said there was no report on cod. I’m from the East Coast and I found that unusual — because we’ve had a moratorium on the cod fishery for so long — not to have a report to see how the species is doing. You also spoke about the bias in listing species at risk that are commercial, so it would be the same kind of thing; cod would certainly be commercial.
I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit. It seems very unusual to me that if you’re going to do a report on species at risk, that you would not do cod and that you would not do species that are commercial, because to fishers they would seem to be the most important things that they would be concerned about at least.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. We do refer to cod in the report. I’m going to get the exhibit for you. Actually, several populations are noted in Exhibit 7.6 in terms of the history of the situation and in Exhibit 7.8 with respect to the fact that there was a do-not-list decision made for Atlantic cod. It’s obviously been the highest‑profile aquatic species in Canada because of the grave consequences that occurred, which I believe was the largest layoff in Canadian history with the moratorium in 1992, and it shouldn’t have gotten to that point. As we know, there are lots of lessons that can be learned from that.
As an office, the Office of the Auditor General has reported on the issue before in terms of the assistance program that was put in place after the moratorium. We actually made recommendations back then that are still relevant today in other areas, including the controversial “just transition” file that you’ve heard a lot about lately.
We do speak about cod. The decision whether to list it or not is actually open again, and it is a question for cabinet. Obviously, we do not audit cabinet decisions, but that is something that will be coming to the fore again at some point because it has been reassessed as being endangered again, at least the more southerly populations, and it remains to be seen.
An interesting note about cod, though, is that back in 1992 — I guess it was the spring or the summer — when the moratorium came into place, the initial thought was to have a moratorium for two years to allow it time to recover to the point where it could be commercially fished again. It’s now 2023, and there’s been some marginal recovery, but nowhere near the hoped-for recovery. It’s a very complex system, the ocean ecosystem, and simply putting in a moratorium doesn’t mean automatically that the fish will bounce back.
It is a difficult question and it is one that many lessons can be learned from in terms of taking a more precautionary approach to things.
Senator Cordy: I think those of us from the East Coast can all remember John Crosbie making that announcement in his home riding, which was very courageous of him to do it there and not from Ottawa. Nobody thought that here we would be here in 2023 and still no change or even worse. Thank you for that.
You spoke about species at risk that need urgent action, and that’s certainly imperative, but the average time to list a species under the Species at Risk Act is 3.6 years, with some taking up to 11 years. I mean, the species could be gone in 11 years if it’s a species at risk. And you spoke about the cod fishery and you said it should never have reached that point where there had to be a full moratorium; there should have been steps taken before that.
That, to me — taking up to 11 years to have it listed if it is considered to be a species at risk during your study — just seems bizarre.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes, there are a number of issues related to that question, senator.
We do have Exhibit 7.7, a list of both the average years to provide advice on listing as well as the amount of time of some of the longest periods — up to 11 years, as you mentioned.
In my view, this is one of the lessons that has not yet been learned in Canada, which is to act. The government speaks to climate change and biodiversity as worldwide crises, as does the UN. Those two crises, along with pollution, are considered the triple planetary threats in terms of environmental issues; yet, many of the actions do not reflect that urgency. And time is taken.
This is the very initial stage, right? This is to decide whether to list after the scientific body, COSEWIC, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, has already determined that the species is at risk. The determination of that taking up to 11 years does not reflect the fact that we are in a biodiversity crisis. And it also does not reflect what’s in the Species at Risk Act and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ policy, which is the precautionary principle that one shouldn’t wait until perfect information is available before taking action that would help prevent further harm to the species or further environmental harm. The fact that the department does take this amount of time to provide listing advice is one of the major problems in the implementation of this act.
One of the issues — it’s not set out in our report — but one of the issues that may be relevant to this committee given the title of today’s hearing and so on — and looking at it with the more modernized Fisheries Act, with the changes that came into play four years ago — is whether the Species at Risk Act itself needs to be updated to better reflect a precautionary approach and to better reflect what is now known as a biodiversity crisis.
It was written over 20 years ago. It has a lot of process and a lot of time taken up in process, and there is not a lot of emphasis on outcomes and results. That is something that could be the subject of questions that this committee may have for the departments in terms of whether it may be time to open up the Species at Risk Act to make it more effective and more results-oriented in terms of protecting species at risk and sustaining fisheries and other populations for the communities that depend on them.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much for your comments, and thank you to you and your staff for all the work that you do.
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you.
The Chair: I just want to follow up on Senator Cordy’s questions.
Just last week we had an announcement — well, a few weeks ago now, I guess — that the fish stock surveys won’t happen in Newfoundland and Labrador and the East Coast this year because of the decommissioning of vessels and not having the proper vessels, I guess, to be able to do the research.
You mentioned in one of your answers to Senator Cordy that cod has been listed in the danger zone again. I happened to be in St. John’s on July 2, 1992, when John Crosbie made the announcement, and very few people in that room, I know, thought it was going to be for two years, but I don’t think any of them thought it was going to be for 20 plus years.
There are a variety of opinions on the stock assessment when you talk to people on the wharf versus when you talk to people who put forward the science. I’m wondering, just for the record here, what work you have done on the cod itself and what the results of that work are in relation to the reports.
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
In terms of specific work on the cod situation, the Office of the Auditor General did issue a report on the assistance program that followed from the moratorium approximately 20 years ago. Then, as I touched on with Senator Cordy, we have references to cod in this report.
We don’t have an audit plan that’s aiming to look specifically at that species, but I would like to share with you that we have recently begun an audit on the department’s monitoring capacity for fisheries in general, including cod, and hopefully eventually there will be a commercial fishery again for cod if the stock does recover. So we are looking at that but at a programmatic level, not at a species level, in terms of the DFO’s capacity to adequately monitor species.
We touch on that in this report, because we note that there are a number of species that are considered what is called “data deficient.” In other words, they don’t have enough information about it, and we made specific recommendations that the department has agreed to — with timelines, which we are happy to see — where they are undertaking to help fill those gaps.
It’s never possible to know everything about a species. You can do sampling; you can do monitoring and so on. That’s why I would like to return to the point I made earlier with Senator Cordy: It is advisable to take a precautionary approach so things don’t get to a tipping point, as they have in situations with cod or, actually, in modern times with some of the West Coast salmon runs as well, in terms of getting to the point of catastrophic declines.
We are looking at the capacity of the department to monitor fisheries and we would be happy to be invited back to speak to that report next year once the report is completed.
The Chair: I look forward to that, because the total allowable catches have been based on scientific knowledge that was gathered three, four, five years ago or maybe longer than that, and that is what causes a lot of animosity among the people who make a living from the oceans, that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans bases their total allowable catches on outdated science, as far as these people are concerned.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes.
The Chair: I certainly look forward to that report.
Mr. DeMarco: I should add on that. You made me think of one other thing, which is that science-based decision making is important, but community input is also important, community knowledge, traditional Indigenous knowledge and so on. Those are all factors that should be taken into account.
Humans are part of the ecosystem. It isn’t just a matter of scientists having the only knowledge about a species.
Senator Ataullahjan: The audit found that the Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not have enough personnel to enforce compliance with the Species at Risk Act and Fisheries Act, particularly in the combined Arctic region, Ontario and Prairie region.
Why were there fewer fishery officers assigned to the Arctic, Ontario, and Prairie regions than other regions? In your view, did this reduced number of available fisheries officers affect the department’s ability to collect information?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. We found that capacity is an issue, both on the information gathering side in terms of the science and collecting community knowledge and so on and on the enforcement side in the central and Arctic regions of DFO’s jurisdiction.
You could invite the department to try to explain why, but we did notice that there is often a bias in terms of resources within the department on enforcement and information gathering — and on listing, for that matter — as between commercial species and non-commercial species.
They’re not exactly synonymous with marine and freshwater because there are some freshwater species that are also of commercial value, but we do see a lack of attention to the freshwater species with respect to both information gathering and enforcement. But as I said earlier, I’m not an advocate for redirecting capacity from the coastal regions to the centre. I don’t think there’s excess capacity in any of the regions, so it would be a matter of increasing resources in order to fill this gap, rather than reallocating resources.
Senator Ataullahjan: The other thing you said was that the Fisheries and Oceans’ approach contributed to significant delays. They have yet to provide advice to the cabinet. Why the delays?
Mr. DeMarco: That’s a question we can only partly address because it’s the department that makes those decisions in terms of getting the information package ready for cabinet to make a decision, and then it’s up to cabinet to make that decision on whether to list.
We found that it is as complex as they indicate in their response to our recommendation in this regard. It is a complex process — gathering information from stakeholders, from the scientific community and so on, on listing.
A question that should be raised, though, is whether it is a worthwhile investment to spend so many resources and so many years essentially revisiting what has already been determined by the scientific body that the species is at risk or not. It’s because many of the socio-economic factors are coming into play in the listing phase under Canada’s Species at Risk Act.
Without a science-based listing process, it’s almost inevitable that there will be a huge amount of debate and delays like this for controversial species, including those that have commercial value, because all of those socio-economic considerations about what should be done about the species are getting funnelled into the listing decision as opposed to downstream decisions on what will be done in terms of recovering and protecting the species.
Canada’s Species at Risk Act does have a cabinet-based listing process as opposed to a science-based listing process that you do see in other jurisdictions, and that is one of the reasons why it gets bogged down at that phase.
Unfortunately, as Senator Cordy mentioned, it can run afoul of the precautionary principle because these species can further decline while they’re awaiting a decision on whether to list them.
I’d like to see more resources on actual protecting and recovering of the species rather than lengthy deliberations on whether the species should be protected or not. The Species at Risk Act is meant to protect and recover all endangered and threatened species and to prevent special-concern species from becoming endangered or threatened, yet we see these long delays that are not commensurate with the urgency and the magnitude of what the UN now calls a biodiversity crisis.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.
The Chair: We will go to Senator McPhedran. Before we do that, I want to thank her for sending along some samples of seal meat to us this morning. I appreciate that.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to each of you for being here and giving us so much important information. I hope this question isn’t too far afield, but I did notice that there didn’t seem to be in the reports or materials that we have from your office and others any reference to the potential risks of deep-sea mining. I know that France, for example, has taken a strong leadership role on this in shifting their policy. I wondered if you had any connection to make between potential deep-sea mining impact and our focus here today.
Mr. DeMarco: You’re correct. It is far afield from the scope of this report, so we don’t have anything to say on that in the report.
The issue of inshore mining, in terms of effluent from metal mining and pollution and impact on fish, was the subject of a recent report from our office, but in terms of the oceans, it’s not something that we’ve looked at. We do have on our list of potential topics the marine protected areas, and it would certainly come up in that context if we undertake an audit on that topic in the coming years.
I can respond to your point in a general way. The aquatic and marine ecosystems to which you’re speaking are very complex. It is often difficult just to keep track of individual species and their populations. That’s embedded in a larger ecosystem, with effects that come from beyond our borders, effects from climate change now in terms of acidification and ocean temperature changes and so on. So it is important to look at it in a holistic way, and it is perhaps an issue that we will be able to address in a future audit.
Senator McPhedran: If I may, just as a single parliamentarian, I would like to ask if you could please add that to your list. We’re having a conversation here about biodiversity and many aspects of that, and I think this has now been identified as a clear and important factor for us in Canada to look at more closely.
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you for that suggestion. Protection of the marine environment is certainly on our list of potential audit topics for future years, and it’s an important one. It’s also something that gained increased attention at the December Biodiversity Conference of the Parties in Montreal in terms of a new target for protecting the marine environment worldwide at 30% by 2030. Canada is committed to that as well.
We’ve taken note of your suggestion and thank you for that.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
Senator Smith: Thank you for allowing me to participate with you today.
With respect to the saltwater species, have you had a chance to review whether the federal government is effectively engaging its international partners in sustaining fisheries and preventing extinction? Behind that question was the thought that we read a lot about foreign countries using our waters, from the North and from the South, and we read about especially China, in the last few years, purchasing fishing licences, et cetera.
When you’re dealing with your international partners, is there a sustained continuous review that says that these people are actually participating in helping us to preserve what we have in moving forward in a positive way?
Mr. DeMarco: More and more environmental and sustainable development issues are being recognized for the interconnections between countries and continents. Fisheries are probably the most obvious one in terms of the potential for there to be a tragedy of the commons in terms of overfishing, whether domestic or foreign fleets, and so on. Canada has obviously had a long history of issues with regard to that, dating all the way back to the “Turbot War” and even earlier in terms of issues with respect to foreign fleets and so on.
Canada does have the largest coastline and also a huge amount of fresh water, so we’re uniquely positioned as stewards of a lot of the marine and freshwater biodiversity in the world but we also have the responsibility to try to protect that. Unfortunately, in the track record to date, we have had several extinctions of species, especially in the Great Lakes region, and we’re now in the three digits of species at risk in terms of aquatic species.
It is an issue that requires international attention, as Senator McPhedran just mentioned. We do participate in the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. I’m actually going to be at their meeting next month, so I’ll raise this as an issue of concern that we need to find ways, both in terms of intergovernmental cooperation in dealing with international issues like that and as audit offices, to try to figure out how to tackle some of these issues.
We have been leading the way on tackling another international issue in terms of auditing climate change. That is something that our office takes great pride in, in terms of the leadership that the Office of the Auditor General has provided in looking at domestic commitments to addressing climate change in their international context.
We have recently engaged with the international community to look at the interface between biodiversity protection and climate change amongst audit institutions, so this may be one of the topics that we could look at in that regard.
Senator Smith: Do we have the physical assets to be able to have proper surveillance with our international partners? It’s one thing to have relationships with people, and it’s another thing to make sure that people recognize that Canada is going to stand up to protect its assets, which are all sorts of different species of fish. Do you feel we have the physical capabilities to do an adequate job because of the size of the ocean that surrounds us?
Mr. DeMarco: Canada is blessed by a large geography, but it’s also difficult to keep an eye on everything. The oceans are vast, so it’s impossible to know what is going on everywhere. Obviously, there is legal and illegal fishing that can contribute to the problem. There is no way of looking at everything all the time, but, hopefully, if Canada works with its international partners in a way that is effective, then there won’t be as many cases where, as I mentioned, there’s a sort of tragedy of the commons where other nations may be contributing to the problem rather than contributing to the solution. As we are an audit office, other than collaborating with other audit offices around the world, it’s more for the Government of Canada to deal with that rather than us.
Senator Smith: Right. Thank you.
The Chair: I wonder if you could, for the record again, elaborate on the species going from not at risk to extinct. There are six categories here. When I look at the report, I look at something like the polar bear, which was not at risk in 1986, and within five years, by 1991, it was of special concern. North America’s most common bird, the passenger pigeon, is extinct now. It was the most common bird at a certain time and went extinct in 1985.
I wonder if you could go through the list from “not at risk” to “extinct” and explain each one in brief, at least for those who may be tuning in to follow the process.
When I go back to my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, all we hear all the time is that we’re in danger, threatened, somewhere in the middle — not extinct, but we’re a long way from not at risk. Maybe elaborate on the different levels there for the record, thanks.
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you. A whole terminology, or even language, has now developed to try to categorize the levels of risk associated with biodiversity. It’s at the species level as well as the population level.
We have in Exhibit 7.2 an explanation of the categories from “not at risk” to “extinct.” It’s interesting that you talked about the progression from not at risk to higher levels of risk and extinction. Our hope is that it’s no longer seen as an inevitable progression and that we can sustain species at the “not at risk” level. In other words, keep common species common as opposed to wait until they’re at risk and then take rearguard efforts to recover them.
You pointed out that Canada has the dubious distinction of having — even some of the problems are pre-Confederation — as a geography, some of its most common species go into the endangered category or, in the case of the passenger pigeon, actually go all the way to extinct. Giovanni Caboto, or John Cabot, as he’s known, talked about the superabundance of fish in his voyages to the East Coast, particularly cod. Jacques Cartier mentioned the superabundance of passenger pigeons, I believe, when he was first landed at Prince Edward Island. As you go west, there was a superabundance of bison and salmon on the West Coast and caribou in the northern regions. These were all species that were incredibly important for the Indigenous peoples of Canada, and yet, in post-colonial times, we’ve managed to see a drastic decline of many of these species. Not just the rare species have gone extinct but some of the more common species.
To answer your question, when we talk about “not at risk” — and when I say “we,” it’s everyone who is speaking about this issue in Canada in terms of the definitions that are used by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada — that is a scientific evaluation that the species is not at risk in the current circumstances, so essentially a green light; they’re okay for now.
The next level is “special concern,” and that is an alert that there are problems associated with it based on either numbers or population trends, risks and so on — a combination of factors, including biological characteristics, that they may fall into the threatened or endangered species categories if not managed properly under the management plan that’s required under the Species at Risk Act.
Progressively worse is “threatened,” and then you have “endangered.” With endangered, you’re essentially in the emergency room, if I can use that analogy, and drastic measures are required to prevent either its extirpation, which is the next category, which is lost from Canada but still exists somewhere, typically either in the United States or in zoos or captive breeding programs. “Extirpated” means a species still exists physically, but no longer in Canada.
Then there is “extinct.” Almost 20 species in Canada have gone extinct in modern times, and that does include, as you mentioned, what was once our most common bird in North America, the passenger pigeon.
Hopefully, with the tough lessons that have been learned in North America in terms of our impact on biodiversity, we do not repeat that with other species and, working with our international partners, we do what was committed to in Montreal in December, which is to live more in harmony with nature and to halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity by 2030 in Canada. Our international partners have also committed to that. Hopefully, we don’t see that list of “not at risk” to “extinct” as an inevitable progression, but something we are trying to stop in order to keep species in the “not at risk” category and to recover species that are at risk so that they can be delisted and put into the “not at risk” category in the future. That’s the ultimate goal.
The Chair: Does Environment and Climate Change Canada use a different process for gathering data on species at risk than Fisheries and Oceans? If so, is there an opinion on which one is more efficient or works better than the other, or is there a difference in how they collect the data?
Mr. DeMarco: There are differences in sampling and methods for terrestrial versus aquatic species and among different taxa. Whether you’re trying to census mammals or insects, there would be very different methods. Yes, there are different methods used depending on the type of species and environment and also the abundance of the species. Some species are very hard to track because they’re already extremely rare.
They’re all supposed to feed into the same process under the legislation, which is ultimately the Minister of Environment and Climate Change making a recommendation to cabinet on whether to list or not. We do have a recommendation about the problems that we found in that regard in this audit. In particular, in recommendation 7.64, we recommend that they better clearly establish the roles and responsibilities as between Environment and Climate Change Canada and DFO because the act sets out a particular process for Environment Canada receiving information from and consulting with DFO. In practice, we found that Environment Canada was largely devolving that responsibility to DFO, even though the act requires Environment Canada to have a central role.
The departments have agreed with us on that, and they will be undertaking, by December of this year, efforts to more clearly establish the roles and responsibilities under the Species at Risk Act.
Senator Ataullahjan: As a senator from Toronto, I’m interested in the Great Lakes.
Do you think enough is being done to protect the biodiversity of the Great Lakes? The only time we hear about anything, especially with Lake Ontario, is if there’s another invasive species. Other than that, I don’t hear anything else. Is enough being done to protect the biodiversity of the Great Lakes?
Mr. DeMarco: No. More can definitely be done in restoring the Great Lakes so that they are once again great in terms of their biodiversity and water quality and so that they’re swimmable, drinkable and fishable.
There used to be much more extensive commercial fisheries in the Great Lakes, and unfortunately the history, on both the American and the Canadian side, is that the ecosystem has been drastically changed, not just from overfishing and so on but, more specifically, with respect to pollution and invasive species. A lot of efforts are being made to try to clean up the Great Lakes.
We can’t restore them to their original state. Several of the species are gone completely, but we can certainly make further efforts in restoring water quality, restoring habitats and so on.
There’s an entire program about identifying areas of concern and funding cleanups. Many harbours and mill sites around the Great Lakes became heavily polluted in early industrial times, and there has been progress. There’s no doubt that there have been some specific good news stories in terms of cleaning up harbours and so on, but continually there are threats of new invasive species and new types of pollutants as well.
We must remain vigilant and not write off the Great Lakes. Even if they may be a shadow of their former selves in terms of some of the biodiversity that was present hundreds of years ago, they still are one of the major freshwater attributes of Canada as a nation, and the United States, and we do need to work to protect them.
Hopefully, with this report and our report last year on collaborating regarding water basins — where we looked specifically at water basins like Lake Erie as well as others outside of the Great Lakes like Lake Winnipeg and Saint John River — continued efforts can be made to restore the water quality and the biodiversity of the Great Lakes. Hopefully, at some point in the future, the limited commercial fishery that exists in the Great Lakes could perhaps be recovered as well at some point if we are successful in restoring and sustaining fish populations in the Great Lakes.
Senator Ataullahjan: I’m just looking at some of the notes that we got, and we talk about the salmon that was abundant in the Lake Ontario watershed. That salmon no longer exists, but the reintroduced Atlantic salmon — how is that doing? Do we have any facts and figures on that?
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. With species that have distinct populations — and by “distinct,” I mean either geographically distinct or genetically distinct or both in some circumstances — we have the Atlantic salmon, which obviously, as a species, was not only found in Lake Ontario but was found throughout eastern North America in terms of water bodies that are connected to the ocean. Unfortunately, we lost the genetically distinct Lake Ontario population. It is an extinct species in terms of that population. Under the Species at Risk Act, we use the word “species” even if we’re talking about a population of a species or subset of a species. So several different genetic lineages of Atlantic salmon have been reintroduced into Lake Ontario with the hope that there will be some Atlantic salmon there, even if they aren’t exactly the same type of genetic profile that was there originally.
This is not something we audited, but I believe there was mixed success, and it depends on the source population and the genetic composition of the source population of Atlantic salmon that has been used to reintroduce in Ontario. It remains to be seen how successful that will be. That has occurred with other species as well, where we might lose the genetically distinct species that was present or population that was present and we have to look to another source to at least try to recover something that resembles what was there before. This is the situation with eastern elk as well, which was lost, but we are bringing in some western elk to try to replace that component of the ecosystem.
So it remains to be seen. I don’t know whether it will become a self-sustaining population given the genetic differences between the current source populations and the original Lake Ontario population.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.
Senator Busson: Your answer to Senator Ataullahjan’s question raised perhaps another question for me. Being from the West Coast, I think some of us are reminded by exchanges like this that there is commercial fishing in the interior of this country and not just out on the coast. I, for one person, having lived in Saskatchewan, know that there’s actually a commercial fishing industry in Saskatchewan, which astounds a lot of people who aren’t informed about that.
In your conversations and in your audit, you point out major gaps that were found in the enforcement compliance area with regard to the Species at Risk Act and the Fisheries Act generally and quite a disparity between the enforcement on the coast and in the inland waterways.
In your opinion and through your investigation of the data, do you have any idea why there are fewer fisheries officers assigned to the Prairies, to the Arctic and to the Ontario regions than there are to the other areas?
Mr. DeMarco: So we did, as shown in Exhibit 7.11, lay out both the number of species at risk in the regions as well as the number of fisheries officers available to enforce both the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act. As best as we can tell, notwithstanding that there are some small commercial fisheries inland, including Lake Erie and so on, most of the effort is put towards sustaining commercial fisheries. With information gathering and enforcement, there tend to be more resources put to the coast because most, but not all, of the commercial fisheries are on the coasts — on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, not so much on the Arctic coast.
That’s as far as we can tell in terms of that. The department did note to us, too, that this is a specialized area of work and that there’s not an overabundance of potential fisheries officers waiting to be hired, so they do have to recruit and train people to do this sort of thing. It is ultimately a question of if Canada wishes to prevent any further extinctions in the freshwater realm, knowing that we have lost several species over the past few centuries, then they’ll have to put the resources to that, even if it’s not something that has a huge payback in terms of protecting a commercial interest, but more from the perspective of protecting the biodiversity and the significance of nature in Canada in terms of protecting that inheritance that we have.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much.
I usually speak about the East Coast, but to Senator Ataullahjan’s and Senator Busson’s points, we can’t forget about the freshwater lakes, the Great Lakes particularly, which take up a large portion of our country, and how tests might be done to protect that biodiversity. It has to be in cooperation with the U.S. We can’t talk about anti-pollution measures on the Canadian side and not on the American side because the waters don’t care what side they’re on or the boundaries.
One of the things I’ve heard is that the Canadians are sometimes lax in putting up funding for protection of the Great Lakes. I’m not saying they don’t care about it, but the Americans seem to always be coming to the table with more than the Canadians. Have you noticed that, or would that be part of what you would deal with?
Mr. DeMarco: Because we haven’t audited the Great Lakes Restoration programs recently, I’m reluctant to provide an opinion on what the current state of funding is. It also has changed over the years, depending on administrations that are involved and so on. I don’t have any numbers for you in that regard, but along with the marine protected areas, protection of the Great Lakes is something that we may revisit because of the long-standing work being done on both sides of the border in addressing areas of concern, especially polluted harbours and so on.
This is something we can add to our list as a potential future audit, but I don’t have a number for you on whether Canada is paying its fair share in terms of the kitty for Great Lakes Restoration work at the current time. I’m sorry.
Senator Cordy: At least now there is official dialogue and an official Great Lakes Canada-U.S. working agreement, so that’s a positive thing. I will be meeting in Washington on the Great Lakes in a couple of weeks’ time, so I can ask those questions there. Thank you very much.
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you. Maybe you’ll have an impact on the answer if we ever do an audit in the future. Yes, through the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the International Joint Commission and so on, there are those mechanisms for cooperation, but the funding has to be there as you noted.
Senator Cordy: Yes, totally. Thank you.
Senator McPhedran: I want to add, both for the record and to your examination of the question of non-ocean fishing, that in Manitoba there are more than 200 commercially fished lakes and that one of the big challenges articulated by leaders from the fishing industry, which is a combined effort of Indigenous fishing leaders and non-Indigenous fishing leaders in Manitoba, is the overlap between provincial jurisdictions and federal guidelines and the near absence of federal officials in the province.
I wanted to add that to the record because the pandemic has had a very serious impact on these commercial fishers in Manitoba, and there are ongoing issues about creating a balance between a viable commercial fishing industry and protection of the larger environment.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes, the theme of interjurisdictional cooperation and cooperation between government and communities and stakeholders comes up in the second recommendation in this report on aquatic species at risk and is front and centre in our water basins audit from a little over a year ago, where we happen to have selected, of the three water basins that we did an in-depth look at, Lake Winnipeg as one of them. I would commend you to have a look at that. You or your colleagues may consider requesting the department to provide an update on how the implementation is going because they did accept our recommendations in terms of improving the level of cooperation and information gathering with respect to water basins.
I’m not sure if you have anything to add on that bit in terms of anything new or if that will have any impact on the ongoing audit regarding fisheries monitoring as well. Is there anything you would like to add as well?
David Normand, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: No, not on this particular aspect because the fish monitoring audit that we’re looking at looks at marine species in the oceans and not inland freshwater species at the moment, but this is something we could look into.
Senator McPhedran: Could you add that to your list and make that another request from me? It may turn into a request from the whole committee, but I would certainly appreciate the update which you referenced, commissioner.
Mr. DeMarco: They should by now have acted on the recommendations that we provided in the water basins audit. It’s important for committees such as this and for individual parliamentarians to hold the departments to account because we make the recommendations, and they give their responses, which are usually to agree with us and to make a commitment, but it’s the implementation that really counts. We move on to a new audit and we may do a follow-up several years later, but, in the meantime, there are other accountability mechanisms including committees such as this that can keep an eye on the departments to make sure they’re following up and doing what they committed to do in their responses to our various audits.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
Senator Smith: Sharing the data across federal departments and agencies seems to be a systemic challenge and problem. Auditor General Karen Hogan appeared before our Finance Committee last night. She stressed the need to improve on data collection and information sharing. My question is this: Do you find in audits on biodiversity that the responsible departments and agencies are collecting good data and effectively sharing it with their partners?
Mr. DeMarco: In this audit as well as in the Departmental Progress in Implementing Sustainable Development Strategies, we recognize that not only is it a multi-departmental issue — which is often called a “horizontal issue” in government-speak — but it’s interjurisdictional, and in some cases, with climate change, oceans and so on, international. There is always room for improvement in that regard. We’ve had some examples of close cooperation. For example, if there is a species at risk that Environment Canada is managing but is found partially in the national parklands, then there are mechanisms for them to work together on that. That’s fairly straightforward. More difficult are some of the examples that Senator McPhedran just mentioned where there are multiple jurisdictions involved.
So there is a level of cooperation I would say in answer to your question, but there is more that can be done, especially in light of the fact of the greater recognition of how interrelated a lot of these issues are. It’s very difficult now to manage any issue, whether it’s health care, financial issues, environmental issues or sustainable development issues, in ways that mirror the departmental silos that were created centuries ago. We do see in many of our audits governments struggling with working in that horizontal plane rather than the vertical, siloed plane. That’s an issue here in environmental issues.
The last time I was in this room was before another Senate committee, talking about hydrogen, where we had very different views between Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada on the same issue, which was hydrogen’s role in mitigating climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, and the structures that have been set up in silos sometimes make it harder rather than easier to address these crosscutting issues like biodiversity, climate change, health and many others.
Senator Smith: There is obviously a group of leaders who have a conscious level of some of the issues and problems, but is there any form of a movement afoot to try to improve some of the antiquated ways that we share or analyze data so that we can be more — I’m not saying avant-garde — with the current realities of the various situations?
Mr. DeMarco: I don’t have an example in the biodiversity area for you, but it’s something that we may look into in the future. We have been looking at that issue on the climate side recently. As the issue has become more prominent as the crisis that it is, some countries have moved beyond just assigning primary responsibility to fighting the climate crisis with their environment department or equivalent ministry and have assigned that role to a central agency. As you know, in Canada more of the central agency roles are about financial issues but not other types of issues. It may become more common in countries around the world for environment and sustainable development issues to benefit from centralized coordination because of the acknowledgement of how important these issues are and the crisis level that has resulted from a failure to effectively address them through siloed approaches in the past.
I would guess that the countries that have started to look at climate change in a more centralized way, like France and the U.K., for example, that some lessons could be learned on the biodiversity side as well.
The Chair: Thank you, honourable senators, and thank you to our witnesses for taking the time to appear before us today.
This has been a very informative and fruitful session for sure. It is something that is a bit out of our regular studies, but something that interests everyone around the table. Thank you for your work and the possibility that you may be back before us again, hopefully with more information on some of the things that concern us as a committee and as senators.
(The committee adjourned.)