THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 1, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 6:35 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and its work.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening. My name is Fabian Manning, senator from Newfoundland, and I have the pleasure to chair this meeting. Today, we are conducting a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Before we begin, I would ask all senators and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents. Please make sure to keep your earpiece away from all microphones at all times. When you are not using your earpiece, place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you all for your cooperation.
Should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk, and we will work to resolve the issue.
Before we begin, I ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Kutcher: Stan Kutcher from Nova Scotia.
Senator Cordy: I’m Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
Senator C. Deacon: Not to be outdone, Colin Deacon from Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Okay, come on. Someone else.
Senator McPhedran: I don’t know if I say to be outdone but Marilou McPhedran from Manitoba.
Senator Ravalia: Mohamed-Iqbal Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Duncan: Pat Duncan from the Yukon.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: Réjean Aucoin from Nova Scotia.
[English]
Senator Cuzner: Rodger Cuzner, Cape Breton.
Senator Busson: Welcome. I’m Bev Busson from British Columbia.
The Chair: On September 24, 2024, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was authorized to examine and report on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Today, under this mandate, the committee will be hearing from the following representatives from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission: Gregory McClinchey, Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs; Dr. Marc Gaden, Executive Secretary; and Stephen Domeracki, Deputy Executive Secretary.
That is my Newfoundland version of your name, just so you feel special.
On behalf of the members of the committee, I thank you for being here today. I understand that Mr. McClinchey and Dr. Gaden have some opening remarks. Following the presentations, I am sure the members of the committee will have some questions for you. Whoever would like to go first, the floor is yours.
Marc Gaden, Executive Secretary, Great Lakes Fishery Commission: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and senators. It’s a great pleasure for me to be here.
Ethan Baker, our chair, and Earl Provost, our Canadian Section chair, framed this discussion nicely last week, so I won’t reiterate their points except to say that we are eager to answer your questions and to elaborate on anything they may have raised.
The Great Lakes Fishery Commission has a single secretariat. We’re headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We have a mix of Canadians and Americans on our staff, all of whom view the Great Lakes as a passion project. I, for example, grew up outside of Detroit. My father is Canadian and while I don’t know if I’m a Canadian citizen — I’d love to be, if that were the case — I might, myself, epitomize the truly binational nature of our staff.
I grew up enjoying the Great Lakes, spending time each summer on a boat visiting communities up and down the shorelines of Lake Huron and Lake Erie, seeing firsthand how the Great Lakes is an ecological, social and economic engine. The international border divides four of the five Great Lakes but also eight states and the province of Ontario. Scores of Indigenous tribes border the lakes.
In Canada, the Province of Ontario touches four of the five lakes. That means we’re dealing with a lot of partners, which means it’s complex but also a tremendous strength because we have a lot of folks we work with who are interested and engaged in Great Lakes policy.
Given the nature of freshwater governance, the Great Lakes operate in a milieu quite different than the saltwater environment. There are no “federal waters” in the Great Lakes, so the states, province and the tribal communities have primary management authority over the fish in the lakes.
Federal agencies in both countries play important and supporting roles, but it is important to note that day-to-day management decisions have been recognized for nearly 130 years as being within the control of the subnational governments.
Traditionally speaking, fishery jurisdictions have struggled to cooperate effectively on fishery management in the Great Lakes. In fact, dating back to the beginning of European settlement in the basin, my own historical research has revealed scant examples where any two jurisdictions have had the same regulations, programming or fishery focus. Sometimes even the most basic ideals, like should we stock fish versus control harvest, were wildly different among the jurisdictions.
In the face of collapsing stocks, Canada and the U.S. tried unsuccessfully, first in 1908 and then in 1946, to establish a treaty to govern the Great Lakes fishery. Both times the treaties failed largely because of inappropriate federal overreach into subnational jurisdictions. It’s a threat that looms today as well as we deal with governance.
At the same time, there was very little science being conducted prior to 1955. The government’s $50,000 contribution to Great Lakes science in 1955 was paltry or trivial. Joseph Murphy, an MP from Lambton West, used a much better word at the time, “picayune,” basically noting that the contribution was tiny. He made that during a House hearing over the fishery in 1955. But the U.S. wasn’t much better, either, which meant that most of the science on which fishery management decisions were based, prior to the formation of our commission, was based on political science.
The jurisdictions used this lack of information to justify a lack of regulations and, thus, a competitive approach to the Great Lakes fishery emerged. The gravitational pull of the weakest regulations prompted the proverbial “race to the bottom” and tragedy in the Commons. I’m sure senators will appreciate how absurd it is to try to manage a fishery without data. Yet, prior to our formation, that was the norm. The sea lamprey invasion in full force by the 1940s was the proverbial last straw.
This divided governance situation with the eight states and Province of Ontario each trying to do their own thing was an open door for lampreys to infest every corner of the Great Lakes. So severe was the threat that commercial fishers and the governments at the time mused that the Great Lakes fishery could vanish within a decade, putting ourselves again in the 1940s.
Those governments, encouraged by forward-thinking diplomats from External Affairs Canada and the Department of State, never gave up on the need for a binational treaty. They knew then what we know now: Without partnership and genuine collaboration, the Great Lakes fishery is doomed.
Finally, in 1955, the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, under which we operate, was approved, and it succeeded. Everything we do is rooted in the convention, and Mr. McClinchey will speak to how the convention works, and what some of our priorities might be.
Before that, I’ll note that I distributed to the senators a copy of a journal article that explains in a lot more detail the history of the fishery treaties of the Great Lakes, spanning from about 1890 to 1955. For the history buffs, you might enjoy reading a little more detail about how all this came about.
Gregory McClinchey, Director, Policy and Legislative Affairs, Great Lakes Fishery Commission: Thank you, Mr. Chair. While the convention under which we operate gives the commission a three-pronged mandate of lamprey control, science and cross-border collaboration, the importance of fostering the relationship between the two nations, and the subnational units, is clear. As Dr. Gaden has said, history shows that without partnerships, all else has proven to fail.
The fraught Canadian government interface noted by Commissioners Baker and Provost, and the one that the Prime Minister has now pledged to fix, first metastasized in the 2000s. The long-standing nature of the relationship decline underscores that the details of a machinery of government, or MOG, change are not only important, but if ignored, will lead to conflict, as happened in 2021 when the U.S. section walked out of our meetings in frustration.
We want those days to be relegated to our history. That is because we must be diplomats, as our commission does not have the ability to usurp subnational authority. Rather, we must find voluntary consensus on which to manage the fishery, a truly divisive issue at times.
Certainly, senators will appreciate how challenging fisheries management is, and I assure you it is not less so in a freshwater environment.
Our processes prompt joint, consensus-based decisions, not competition.
Our role is to ensure science-based fishery sustainability. To protect the credibility of that science, it must be funded and independently directed by the commission to ensure a basin-wide focus rather than management within a silo. The independence also ensures that each jurisdiction has some “skin in the game,” so they too can claim it is “their” science. It serves no purpose to quarrel over facts.
The same is true for lamprey control. As the U.S. Department of State, or State Department, said in a 1955 hearing, it’s all or nothing, meaning the individual states or the province can try to control lampreys within their own borders, but lampreys will simply move to where the control is not happening.
Surely these lessons remain relevant today.
As for tomorrow’s challenges, the commission continues to focus on invasive species writ large, including work to close pathways like the Chicago canal, which is an open door for invasive carp.
We must get serious about aquatic infrastructure renewal, both for invasive species control and habitat restoration. Science has a role here too. Would it surprise senators to know that the commission’s FishPass project would “smarten up” dams by sorting fish approaching the dam, in real time? Unlike traditional dams that are just barriers, FishPass uses technology like facial recognition to stop invaders without eliminating the passage of more desirable species.
In this context, we need to learn from the past and avoid apathy. In the face of climate change, resource drain, and aging infrastructure, we can’t afford to risk future success to bureaucratic quarrelling. Your help in fixing these problems is absolutely critical.
This commission has a long and successful track record of creating a culture of cooperation. In fact, our joint strategic plan of management for the Great Lakes fishery and our lake committees, which are the cornerstones of our successful binational collaborations, have proven their ability to manage disputes and to turn competitive inclinations into cooperative results.
We have made and continue to make tremendous contributions to science aimed at helping the jurisdictions manage their fisheries, and our science doesn’t sit on the shelf as proven by projects like FishPass.
Of course, the sea lamprey numbers speak for themselves, as populations are down 90% since control started, a testament to the outstanding work of the Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as service delivery agents operating under the commission’s direction. But sea lampreys are a coiled menace that spring back without constant control.
These successes would not be possible without bilateral relationships and good governance — conflict-free governance. This is why our commissioners have placed such a high priority on these matters.
We are particularly grateful to this committee for its interest in our programs and plight. The commission would also like to offer a special note of appreciation to Senator Cordy for her personal leadership as an individual senator and as the Senate co‑Chair of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Group.
Without the help and genuine interest of senators and other lawmakers and officials, we would be unable to deliver future Great Lakes successes that are in keeping with the scale of our past success.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We stand ready to answer any questions.
The Chair: Thank you to our witnesses. We go first to our deputy chair, Senator Busson.
Senator Busson: Thank you all for being here to enlighten us further on the issues and the challenges that you face.
I have to first say that I myself have had a number of visits from Mr. McClinchey, and I have a full scale-size lamprey eel guarding my office that alarms my visitors and the cleaning staff from time to time. It’s a great reminder of why we’re here today and certainly a reminder of how invasive and threatening these creatures are.
We were happy to hear that the Government of Canada intends to transfer responsibilities for the Great Lakes fishery from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, to Global Affairs Canada, or GAC. You said your colleagues talked about this at our last meeting, but how do you feel this announcement will change Canadian and American relationships? Do you see this as a positive change and, if so, could you talk a little bit about that a little bit, please?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, we have been very happy with the decision to change the machinery of government from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to Global Affairs. It is something our commissioners have been advocating for some time, partially because the government and the interface with Canada have not worked well together for going on 40-plus years. It finally came to a head several years ago when the commission was having trouble functioning. Then it really came to a head a few years ago when the U.S. section could no longer meet with the Canadian section primarily because it was a budget meeting with no budget to talk about. We had money issues, but we also had issues concerning the governance.
How can it change? We hope it’s done right. Our commissioners who were testifying last week suggested that the Great Lakes Fishery Commission be a part of the process so we can help ensure that it’s done right. If it’s done right, it could be a cleaner governance process. It could be done in a way where we no longer have to worry about battling with the DFO folks on Kent Street. Instead, we could focus on the program and ask how we can deliver better restoration in the Great Lakes. How could we do more sea lamprey control for fewer dollars? How can we invest in habitat restoration?
All of that took a back seat to efforts to deal with some very fraught and very difficult governance issues. I am very optimistic, but it is important that this be done right so that we don’t go back to the old way of doing things that caused such problems.
I’ve been on the commission staff for about 30 years. I have to say it was personally disheartening and a low point a couple of years ago when the commissioners couldn’t meet. We operate by consensus. These folks are friends; they work well together. But the way the Canadian government was interfacing with our commission just made it impossible for us to operate.
Senator Busson: I have a quick follow-up question. Your colleagues last week talked about their hope that this might be expedited to completion by year-end. Are you being consulted in this? There was some conversation about having a Canadian champion, like someone from Privy Council Office, to work on this. Do you have any in-the-trenches kinds of recommendations to offer, to make sure this gets off on the right foot, so to speak?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question. The short answer to whether we were consulted is no, but I’ll say, “Not yet.” We have had some informal conversations with folks, mainly at Global Affairs Canada, about how this can go but also with the DFO. We’re getting a general sense of how this might happen.
I highly support the testimony of our chairman and our Canadian section chair given last week to this committee, and that is as soon as possible. We have budget meetings coming up. We’d like to make sure we know how this governance will happen. The end of the year is good. It doesn’t seem like it’s that complicated to me. Maybe we could make it the end of the month; we can put a challenge out there.
It’s important to say that we need to be a part of the process mainly because we want to make sure that things that might look good on paper, with all good intentions, are not Trojan horses. They should not take us back to where we have been, even if it were with good intentions. We have a lot of experience on governance. We know what will work and what won’t work. We want to be a part of that process. I am encouraged by the informal conversations. I really hope we can continue on this path, but, no, we have not yet been formally consulted on that.
Senator Busson: That is good to know. Thank you very much.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you very much for being with us today. As you mentioned, your role is complex. It creates a lot of opportunities when partners are strong and united, but we heard some very troubling testimony, especially last week, about budgets being appropriated by the Fisheries and Oceans Canada away from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Was this an isolated incident in terms of a failure in the governance responsibility? I’m hoping it is, but if it isn’t, can you provide us more information, in the interests of doing a proper post-mortem of this relationship and of making sure we’re setting up for success in the future? Only for that purpose, can you describe other incidents to help protect against this in the future, please?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, the incident was not necessarily isolated. In fact, it was a reflection of the structural deficiencies that were going on in Canada. The agency has a job to do, and that is to take the money appropriated by Parliament and make sure it’s transferred to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission so we can carry out the convention. We had a gatekeeper, and there was an opportunity for those funds not to be sent in their entirety to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. I don’t know the use of those were, but I do know that, on at least two occasions, because I was personally involved in it, that funds appropriated by Parliament for the fishery commission were not sent in total to the fishery commission in their entirety. The most egregious, of course, was in 2021, when Parliament made it right, after years of not keeping up with the funding formula, and then on the eve of our budget meeting, we saw millions of dollars were withheld by the department.
That was a structural deficiency because the department had no right to decide for themselves how to use those funds. Instead, they were to just pass it to the fishery commission. The fishery commissioners, under the convention, have the right and responsibility to set the program to make those decisions. If those funds were withheld, and some of them were, then the commissioners weren’t making the decisions; the folks at DFO were. That’s a problem.
This change in governance proposes to make it much cleaner. Global Affairs Canada cares about the relationship between the United States and Canada. They would govern that and make sure that the fishery commissioners, who are duly appointed by the Privy Council Office and the President, are given the ability to carry out the program.
Senator C. Deacon: Are there other issues? We absolutely have heard about the reappropriation of funds dedicated to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. But are there other types of issues that we need to prevent in the future, issues that have occurred in the past, that have prevented Great Lakes Fishery Commission from fulfilling our shared responsibilities? Can you cite those, please? If we don’t know, we can’t help to make sure that they do not occur again.
Mr. McClinchey: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I get into the answer, I will point out that Senator Deacon had asked a similar question on this topic at the last meeting, so the commission did provide some documents to the clerk. Those documents give some examples and provide some specifics.
This shortcoming or lack of responsiveness in governance was there. Yes, there was money, but we were clear from the beginning that money was a symptom, rather than the actual problem itself. I can give an example. We went about three years with most of the commissioners not having been appointed, just waiting for appointments. You met with two of those commissioners last week. They are the board of directors, if you will, of the commission. They are absolutely instrumental in setting the program and to ensuring that the convention mandate is met. When those simple things weren’t happening, that made it very difficult for the commission to run.
I would add another complaint. It wasn’t necessarily the outcome of the budget deliberations but rather the lack thereof. The entire structure of the commission is intended to share information. We are an organization premised on partnerships. We work with folks from all different levels. Our previous executive secretary had a favourite expression — the “black box” that is the budget discussion mechanism. Commissioners would begin their discussions about the program, where it would need to happen, the costing of it, but there was just no real interface with the machinery of government source.
We would find out how much the commission was going to get from Canada’s allocation of funds only after the field season had ended. It’s not like I can point to certain big things, but there were lags and seeming inconsistencies or occasions where the things that the commission required to do its job and to effectively fulfill its treaty mandate just were not lining up. The tools were not being provided by the interface.
Senator C. Deacon: Could I ask one quick question? It will be yes or no. Is it possible for you to provide us with a list of the key performance indicators, or KPIs, that will be central to achieving success under new governance? That would be very helpful for us to have if you could send that to the clerk. Thank you.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much to the three of you for appearing before our committee. It has been very helpful as we study the Great Lakes. I think that certainly you can see a lot of Nova Scotians and West Coast people; one Ontario person. We certainly know the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific so it is really nice to be spending some time doing the Great Lakes. Thank you all for the great work that you do.
Mr. McClinchey, I’ll start with you. The Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries says that the commission is supposed to use the agencies, public or private, to implement this whole agreement. Could you tell us what agencies the Commission uses and how things are implemented, discussed or decided?
Mr. McClinchey: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you to Senator Cordy for the question. As I mentioned earlier, the commission is very much an organization driven by partnerships. Most of what we do is partnership-driven. We work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and DFO, as we have talked about here, but we also have a series of other partnerships. Whether this is other branches of government — the United States Geological Survey, or USGS, Environment and Climate Change Canada — we hope to work more closely with them on things like our infrastructure program that we are beginning to advocate for. But also institutions. Post-secondary institutions, the University of Toledo, Carleton University, et cetera. There are a number of those private partnerships and local governments, talking directly with stakeholders, with First Nations interests on the U.S. side is certainly something that we have worked very hard on. Also, as I mentioned in my opening statement, our joint strategic plan for management for the Great Lakes is about outreach, managing across borders, but within that envelope we have a lake committee process that brings together all of the stakeholders.
Dr. Gaden was talking about in the days before our current convention where you had this divided governance tendency where states and the provinces were working independently of each other and not necessarily coordinating their activities, and it, frankly, led to a giant mess. That lake committee process helps to do that, and it is fostered by a treaty that actually says we are to use existing resources, whether they be in government or private, whenever possible. Part of that is to prevent us from growing giant bureaucracies that swallow money and are inefficient. We are a very lean organization. We are not a particularly large organization but we do these things the best we can. The other side is because there was a recognition in our treaty from the very beginning that we are not supposed to impose our will on the partners. We don’t manage fish. We manage people or help to facilitate the management of people who manage the fish. So bringing them together in those collaborative processes, as Dr. Gaden mentioned, that are voluntary, consensus-based and results driven. That’s why partnerships are so critical and why we work with such a wide range of partners.
Senator Cordy: Perhaps all three of you can tell us, how does it work? You have the Canadian section. I’m not even sure where your head office is.
Mr. McClinchey: Michigan.
Senator Cordy: For both. That makes it a little easier then. Can you perhaps go over that with us, how it all works and the two countries come together?
Mr. Gaden: It is a remarkable agreement, the convention. We have a single secretariat office. Some treaties might have headquarters in one country and another — the people who formed this envisioned the staff working together. I found some historical evidence that in the 1950s when they were trying to decide where to locate it, the Province of Ontario made a pitch and Michigan made a pitch. I never figured out why Ann Arbor ultimately won but it probably had something to do with the university giving us space.
But the convention also says that decisions made through the convention have to be made by consensus. How does it do that? It says one vote per section. So there are two sections, which means that any decision has to be made by the consensus of both sections. It was very much envisioned that the people then who would implement the treaty would be doing it because it is based on the science and the decisions and there is a consensus on that science. It is really baked into our agreement that way.
Over the years I have been on staff, I can tell you that the commissioners are very driven by trying to find consensus. They don’t do anything over the dead body of the other section. We come to an agreement on how things are to be done. That’s how it’s baked in. The lake committee process that Mr. McClinchey talked about through the joint strategic plan is also based on consensus because you have eight states, the Province of Ontario and U.S. tribes, each of which has the independent right to do what they can do in freshwater fishery management. So any decision that is made through that has to be by consensus because nobody has the ability to tell another state what to do. That was why they placed that responsibility in our treaty.
Senator Cordy: When you look at the Convention on Great Lakes fisheries, it charges the commission with taking action and making recommendations to protect and improve the shared Great Lakes fishery. Dr. Gaden, given that the mandate is pretty broad — and you sort of touched on it in your last answer — how does the commission determine priorities and the actions that the commission is going to take?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question. Mr. Chair, first and foremost, when making decisions the commissioners would ask the questions: What does the convention say? What are our responsibilities under the convention? What is our mandate? And what can we do to help achieve that mandate? It is rooted in the convention, but it is a rather remarkable agreement. Because in some cases the convention is quite specific. It says you shall control sea lampreys in the Great Lakes; there will be a lamprey control program. You will conduct science in a binational way and the like. But in other places, it basically says that we are to take steps to maximize the protection and improvement of quote, “stock of fish of common concern.” It doesn’t identify what those stocks are. It just says they have to be of “common concern.” That, written in the 1950s, means that we are not stuck in managing or reflecting on a fishery that is what it was in the 1950s. It means that when emergent threats come forward that the fishery commission has a lot of options, as long as we stay within the bounds of the convention to address those “stocks of fish of common concern.”
How do we decide that then? In the cases where the threats might be emergent or we need to be strategic. We have a strategic vision, which is laid out in a document, outlining a high-level vision of the commission about how we would restore and where we would devote our science to deal with fish stocks of common concern and the like. There are strategic discussions then at our meetings where the commissioners have a think tank and we look at the emergent threats. We have a very skilled staff who attend meetings from other organizations. We produce science and digest the science and turn it into actionable use. That’s how the commissioners decide. We look at the threats that are coming. We ask questions like: Is the infrastructure we are building going to be resilient to climate change? How do we better understand that?
None of what the commission does is in a vacuum. We have a lot of partners, many of which Mr. McClinchey talked about. That’s how we basically come up with the strategies and priorities for the fishery commission.
Senator Cordy: Thank you.
Mr. McClinchey: Mr. Chair, would I be able to add something to that? It is a bit of an amalgam of the answers to the questions asked by Senator Deacon and Senator Cordy. That is about performance indicators. There are those out there who will say some of this is very complex — the machinery of government move is very complex. Some of the processes we are instituting are very complex. But in fact, the commission is set up in a way that, if I can say, is brilliantly simplistic. There is a commission with the commissioners, and at the top of it all there is a secretariat; beneath it there are divisions and so on. It is a very simple structure. I’ll happily send that to the committee.
What it does is it touches off this process that is just very sensible. That putting people who have shared interests and shared objectives in a room to talk about what needs to be done, giving them the information they need to make educated and informed decisions and then empowering them to do it. That’s really what the commission’s central role is.
Where we got off the rails, if I can say that, is when things became overly complex and these systems started to leak in and we were dealing with some of the flawed interface bits. We’re hoping that this machinery of government correction will allow us to get back to basics, build those partnerships, whether that’s with DFO or other agencies of the Canadian government and private partnerships so we can get back to that simplistic mandate, which is to help manage the fishery in a proper manner.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today. If I could direct my first question to you, Dr. Gaden. During our last meeting, invasive species control, particularly sea lamprey management, was discussed as a top priority for your commission. Can you update us on any emerging species threats, the current status with the sea lamprey and the kind of technological advances you might be using to prevent this kind of future threat?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. The sea lamprey invaded Lake Ontario in the late 1800s through shipping canals, so it swam its way in through canals and was first seen above Niagara Falls in 1921. When you read the literature at the time, it was sad. The commercial fishers at the time knew what was coming when they saw the proliferation of lampreys in the lakes. They leave gruesome wounds on fish. Each one will kill about 20 kilograms of fish and then move from fish to fish as it kills fish during its lifetime. The lampreys are very destructive, and they need to be controlled.
We went into high gear in the 1950s after the fishery commission was formed to try to find control measures. Prior to the formation of our treaty, each of the jurisdictions was trying to do its own thing, and then the lamprey would just move over to Ohio or to a different state that wasn’t doing the lamprey control. As Mr. McClinchey noted, to attack the lamprey was an all or nothing endeavour. It had to be done basin-wide. That’s why they put in place a commission.
Today, the lamprey control program is highly coordinated through the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I have to say the professionals who carry out lamprey control from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are some of the finest people I’ve worked with. They know what they’re doing. They care deeply about the Great Lakes. They saved the Great Lakes fishery — the lampreys were taking far more fish than humans were before the control program began — and they are dedicated to this. It is just a great partnership that we have with the Ontario and Prairie Region, which houses the DFO crews that do lamprey control, as well as Michigan where the sea lamprey control crews are housed.
How are we doing? Before the pandemic, we were at our target or below target in most of the Great Lakes with a 90 to 95% reduction in lamprey numbers. It is a boots-on-the-ground program, so we were restricted in travel. We couldn’t even cross the border for a while. It hurt the lamprey program because we have to go to streams and remove the lamprey. We saw the numbers surge. I just got the numbers, the survivors of the 2022 season, which come back to spawn this year. The numbers are still high because we are seeing the survivors of the lessened treatments of that year.
Where are we going in the future? We are looking at everything. Today, we control lampreys using a lampricide, which is just what it sounds like. It is a pesticide that is selective to lampreys, discovered in the 1950s. There are physical barriers that we are trying to “smarten up” that Mr. McClinchey talked about. We are looking forward into things like bile acids or odours, pheromones that lampreys give off, better trap designs. We are even potentially looking genetics as a way to do that.
Senator Ravalia: Besides the lamprey, do you see any other emerging threats or any other species that may be of concern to you?
Mr. Gaden: Probably the biggest threat that we’re facing would be the invasive carps. These are carps that were imported into the southern part of the United States decades ago to keep fish ponds clean. Some of them are still stocked, supposedly in sterile form, to keep golf course or neighbourhood ponds clean. They are algae eaters. They feed at the low end of the food web. They are a natural way of keeping the ponds clean. But as often happens, you get an aquaculture facility flooded out, and these carps made a run for it. They have been making their way ever since toward the Great Lakes. There is a manmade canal that connects the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes Basin. There is a natural divide there, but it got blown through in the 1800s to deal with sanitation problems. Well, it’s a highway for carp potentially into the Great Lakes.
We have had a great coordinated response. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans did the risk assessments of the invasive carps — Bighead carp and Silver carp — and it helped with the science and policy to convince people like U.S. senators and members of the U.S. Congress about why we need to move heaven and earth to keep these fish out.
We’re also concerned about the movement of invasive species through ballast water. Ballast water is a vector where you can have critters hitchhike a ride, and then they get discharged. It’s largely addressed in the foreign vessels but is now a problem with the vessels that never leave the lakes. Transport Canada has been a true leader in trying to stop the interlake movement of these, and I’m disappointed to say that just last week the United States government issued a rule looking at interlake shipping of ballast and determined that the retrofitting of ships or the application of ballast technologies on ships that never leave the Great Lakes is going to be delayed significantly. That’s something we were disappointed in. I will have to give kudos to Canada for trying to make a strong case on why in the Great Lakes that had to be uniform for both countries.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. I’m going to ask you the question that I asked Commissioner Baker last week, and he suggested I should ask you. Being a Toronto senator, I am very aware of what’s happening in the lakes. We are dealing with outdated infrastructure, invasive species. We have heard about sewage and fuel residue, which is creating a toxic environment for fish, wildlife and human beings.
As for your biggest strengths and biggest challenges, we heard a bit about the strengths, but we were hoping to hear from you about the challenges.
I’m just reading about the lampreys. They are from the Atlantic Ocean, but they spawn in freshwater rivers. What changed? Was it all of a sudden the canal and we saw this influx?
And we keep hearing about the zebra mussels too.
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question. It packs a punch. Forgive me if I work backward on that. It is hard to say just how bad zebra mussels and their cousins, quagga mussels, have been on the Great Lakes. They are filter feeders so they feed on the low end of the food web. They are taking things out of the food web that everything above it depends on. So if you are a fish that eats plankton, you will have that robbed from you by the zebra and quagga mussels. For a fish that eats the fish that eats plankton and you get the picture how that goes. That’s a bottom-up effect.
The lamprey is top-down effect. They just latch onto fish, and they bore a hole through the side of the scales and skin of the fish and feed on the fish’s blood and body fluids.
So those two types of species are exerting bottom-up and top‑down effects. They both have, in their own way, nasty effects on the ecosystem in the Great Lakes.
Lampreys are controllable. As I mentioned in my previous answer, we have reduced the populations by about 90%. There is nowhere on the planet where an invasive species is controlled on that spatial scale with that level of precision. Lampricide attacks the lamprey and leaves the non-target fish intact. As I said before, it is easy to kill fish, but it is very hard to kill just what you are after, and the lampricide was a miraculous discovery in the 1950s. We are looking at other techniques to control the lamprey.
As for challenges ahead, coming from Toronto, you would appreciate, as we do, that there is a lot of need for habitat restoration. We have habitats that are highly degraded rivers that have been channelized. Infrastructure in those rivers is long past its “use by” date. So the Great Lakes Fishery Commission has an infrastructure plan. We have submitted it to government just recently. The plan pays attention to all three legs of our stool. It has lamprey control because infrastructure is important for lampreys. Lamprey barriers are very low-head dams that keep them out of the spawning grounds. It has our science infrastructure, for which we partner with universities, labs and stuff. It also has habitat restoration.
I’m really excited that the second phase of our infrastructure plan does have substantial attention to habitat restoration, tied specifically to how these habitat projects can lead to the achievement of fishery objectives, which are agreed to by all of the jurisdictions.
On your lake, for example, Ontario and New York, through our committee structure, have come to an understanding of the environmental objectives that are needed to reach their fishery objectives. Habitat is a big part of that. It is wonderful that a consensus was reached between New York and the Province of Ontario through our structures. We are really excited about being able to devote some attention to that, working with agencies like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, like the Province of Ontario, like the conservation authorities. I could go on.
Senator Ataullahjan: Again, just doing some research, we are seeing an alert in 2024 for exotic species. Are you beginning to see any exotic species? People buy fish or other species and when they decide they have no need for them, they release them.
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question, Mr. Chair. It’s a problem. The sale of live fish at fish markets is something that law enforcement officials are really on the lookout for. I understand, later this week, you will talk to folks from the law enforcement committee. I would not steal their thunder. Our law enforcement committee works very hard to train officers to know what to look for and how to spot the illegal movement of live fish across borders, whether it is across state borders or between Michigan and the province of Ontario over the Ambassador Bridge or whatever.
I was gratified, for example, a year or two ago, when I was crossing over between Port Huron and Sarnia and the border guard asked who I worked for. We got talking. He said he had spotted someone trying to bring in Asian carp, and he knew what to look for. I told him I was so glad he was trained. He understood the connection between stopping the movement of those fish and preserving our wonderful $8.8 billion Great Lakes fishery. That was very heartening to hear.
I’ll leave you with one other thing. There is a lot of concern with the internet. People can buy things online, which can be shipped from wherever. So much of it is moving around, and there are not enough inspectors out there. There are initiatives afoot with some of our sister organizations, like the Great Lakes Commission, to scour the internet and understand where these invasive species are coming from and try to put a stop to that.
Senator Ataullahjan: I’m interested in the lamprey barriers you talked about. What else do they keep out? I’m very ignorant about that. And in talking about the internet, I saw a story where a guy was trying to smuggle snakes in his pants.
Mr. Gaden: He is braver than me. There are not a lot of inspectors. The large dams keep everything out, so it is a problem because fish need rivers. A dam can keep out important things like trout and sturgeon and walleye, but the dams also block messy things like sea lamprey. We have that conundrum. As Mr. McClinchey noted, we are trying to smarten the dams so they can sort the fish automatically, let the things that need to pass through and block the things that need to be blocked.
Amazing advancements have come even in a couple of years since we started this. Technology like AI could help us with that. But for a lamprey barrier, you only need a low-head weir that’s probably a little shorter than these tables here. They are very small bits of infrastructure that can keep out small fish like the lamprey that cannot jump and navigate the dam. They would also keep out fish like round goby and other invasive species that we do not want in our rivers. I hope the invasive carp never do get into the lakes; they want to keep those fish out, as well as fish diseases and parasites. Sometimes, these dams are the only things protecting the upstream from invasive things that are in the Great Lakes.
Mr. McClinchey: Dr. Gaden articulated a number of specific challenges very well, but I would add that one of our biggest challenges is apathy. I grew up on the Great Lakes, just outside of Goderich, Ontario. It’s very easy to look out on the lakes when you are camping, cottaging or fishing, doing all those wonderful things, and imagine there are no problems there.
I have a pass working in this place as well and working with legislators who are really strong on Great Lakes protection, but it is really hard because we hear so often that there is no crisis happening right now. “So what is the problem?” The lamprey has taught us one really important lesson: It’s an awful lot easier to prevent something from becoming a problem than to control it once it is present and established. I want to throw that out there.
When committees like this one come together to do this kind of study, we are reassured because it reminds us that people are here working on these issues and trying to advance solutions before the problems become terribly entrenched.
Senator Duncan: Thank you for your presentation. I’m kind of walking into the middle of a movie in this, so forgive me if this issue has been raised. I’m interested in invasive species particularly because, a few years ago, Senator Cordy and I attended the Pacific Northwest regional conference. Business and the western governments were meeting together from both Canada and the U.S. There was a workshop on invasive species. It might have been the mussels in Manitoba that just horrified us; it raised alarm bells. The presentation talked about the differences between Canada and the U.S. in dealing with invasive species between lakes and rivers. I think it was Michigan that had a terrific program on invasive species awarenesses for the public. I know the Alberta government has a campaign called, “Wash your boats.”
There is little public education, though. This particular section also emphasized the need for legislation in Canada. Is that one of the recommendations, or issues that we might see coming out of your work? Will there be recommendations for legislation, either state and provincial or federal?
Mr. McClinchey: Last week, I attended a committee meeting in Wisconsin. In that case, all the partners were American, from various states. Canada and the U.S. have tremendous differences, but even between U.S. states, there are amazing differences in the kinds of threats they are dealing with and the regulations they have in place. We talked about everything from invasive hogs to invasive hippos. Who has regulations for that stuff? The point is that there is some really frightening stuff out there. What might be invasive in Florida could be actually lacking here. Most people don’t appreciate that sea lampreys are a huge menace in the Great Lakes, but they are actually endangered in many parts of the world where they should be living.
The short answer to the question is, yes. There should be additional measures. Dr. Gedan mentioned ballast water earlier. Canada is a real leader there. Ballast water represents a huge door into the states, provinces, countries, for invasive pests and predators. We have to get serious about closing those doors, and that’s why we talk about things like properly managed and maintained aquatic infrastructure, making sure that infrastructure is strong and able to deal with not only climate change and increasing storms, but actually it should keep out the things that we need to.
In many cases, it’s fairly easy. You have purpose-built dams that keep out lampreys. In some cases where dams and barriers are being redone, for just a few dollars more, you can make them so they work for things like the sea lamprey. There is a lot of stuff that can be done there.
Certainly, the commission, in our own science program, it’s a binational, multi-million dollar science program which has been identifying those things by working with partners.
The second is the working with partners. You mentioned part of the problem is that we have a state or a province that will enact a piece of legislation or a regulation, and it’s really great except that it doesn’t match up or marry up with the neighbouring jurisdictions so it creates gaps. That’s where I think the Fishery Commission has really shone in the sense that we have brought those parties together. So the eight states, the province, the Indigenous communities that are on the American side of the border brings everybody together to foster those regulations and so on. Is there more to be done? Absolutely. It’s important that it be coordinated.
I’m a little biased. I always say the most important thing we do is the coordination across boundaries because without it nothing else works. Although, I am sure our director of science will quibble with me when you meet with him later this next week that his science is important, and it is. But certainly marrying those regulations and laws together would be important.
Senator Duncan: Sharing a border with Alaska, I can totally appreciate where you’re coming from. That cooperation and collaboration are incredibly important. Thank you for your answer. I look forward to your further presentations. Thank you very much.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you for being with us.
I’m going to slightly direct this in a different way. I realize that we will be speaking to the scientists later. Having you here, I’m really interested in what is the secret of your success in terms of utilizing the science to drive your actions; not just the conduct of the science, but using it to actually drive actions. What is the secret sauce? You have done great investment in telemetry instrumentation. That’s been fantastic.
You have scholarships for a new pipeline of scientists. You got a whole ecosystem ecology mapping systems on climate change. That’s outstanding. But how did you, as a commission, decide that you’re going to invest in the science and you will use the science to drive the action that you have got?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. It’s rooted in the convention and is part of our DNA so to speak on science. As we noted, the lack of science led to inaction and an excuse not to do anything. It was very much on the minds of the people when they wrote our treaty that science was going to be coordinated across borders and used by both countries so that the fishery could be improved. That came out very clearly in the hearings in 1955 over our treaty about the value of science. It’s actually baked into everything that we have done since we were formed in 1955 and to root things in science.
We have had science directors over the years who have always been forward looking. They have always looked at what the needs of these changing Great Lakes are. How can we apply the science that we do to management? We don’t have any interest in science sitting on a shelf. We want to apply it. How do we do that?
We use the bench strength of the best scientific minds throughout the Great Lakes Basin. Remember, our convention says that we are to use existing agencies, public or private, to the greatest extent practicable to carry out the convention; that includes universities, which includes the scientific arms of agencies like the Michigan Department of Natural Resources or the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. or whatever state.
We lead science by coming up with science theme areas that are broad areas saying that this is what we need to devote attention to. Then we put out a request for proposals to the scientific community asking for a good proposal that would help us achieve that scientific objective. We crowdsource it, if you will, with the universities where we basically say the best scientists out there, if their proposal passes peer review, we will fund it and we will take extra steps to put it in the hands of the people who will use it.
But what is important in the theme here is the border-blind cooperative nature of how we do this, where we reach consensus on what the scientific needs are throughout the Great Lakes Basin.
Finally, the fishery commissioners don’t do this in a vacuum. They don’t sit back at the meeting and decide this is what the science is going to be, it comes down from on high. Rather, we ask the managers themselves, what would help you do your job? What would help you and your management? What would help you to lead to better outcomes in the Great Lakes fishery? We make sure that the science is peer reviewed so that we’re not wasting the money on that.
Senator Kutcher: If I can summarize, it seems to be baked into the DNA of the organization, is that fair?
You said earlier that you weren’t sure why Ann Arbor was chosen. It occurred to me that the brown jug has been around since 1936.
Mr. Gaden: There we go.
Senator Kutcher: That might be just what tipped the scales for Ann Arbor.
Mr. Gaden: I had not made that connection. Ann Arbor kept the brown jug just this past weekend, so sorry if there are any Minnesotans. It’s a football reference.
Senator Kutcher: Sorry. We’ll take it offline.
Mr. Gaden: Yes, go blue. When I went back and I was trying to find why Ann Arbor was selected, and it was, prior to our formation, a hot bed of science through the U.S. Department of the Interior. They set up a laboratory there. It’s now called the Great Lakes Science Centre, part of the U.S. Geological Survey. Some of the data sets we have on the Great Lakes led by that go back almost 100 years now. Ann Arbor’s kind of in the middle of the Great Lakes Basin. We’re not on a lake, but it is quite close to a lake.
There was a science connection, so we were housed at the university for the first decade of our existence. I think that the facility that the Ontario Ministry offered was a little bit too remote, so when it came down to the two, Ann Arbor was just more accessible. It’s a great place as well, and I’m glad they chose it because I am a Michigan Wolverine’s fan. I teach at the University of Michigan, and I love living in Ann Arbor. It’s a great place to be.
Mr. McClinchey: The commission is headquartered out of Ann Arbor. We also maintain biological stations in Ludington and Marquette. There is work being done in other areas.
On the Canadian side of the border is the Sea Lamprey Control Center in Sault Ste. Marie. There is obviously a discussion that could be had on the appropriateness of that geography. For those who know the Great Lakes, Sault Ste. Marie is at one end. There has been discussion in more recent years of having some kind of southern station to conduct that work, but certainly the geography has been evolving in that sense. But it’s something that is of constant concern and that our commissioners continue to monitor and to consider options on how to perhaps more efficiently deliver the program.
As I said, we have a finite budget. We work hard to keep our budgets flat as much as possible. That means making sure we go after those efficiencies. Mr. Domeracki might speak to the financial efficiency attained by making some decisions with regard to Marquette and Ludington. But there are some other efficiencies that we might be able to be obtained by considering other options on the Canadian side when the time is right.
The Chair: Thank you.
Stephen Domeracki, Deputy Executive Secretary and Director of Corporate Services, Great Lakes Fishery Commission: Regarding the background of the two biological stations that we built — now it’s five years, time has flown by — we were presented with an opportunity. We had a station that the staff had outgrown. We tried to work with other government agencies to get a new building, to put our staff in there. We just couldn’t do it in a quick and timely manner, so we went to Marquette.
My background was in banking for 15 years. I have an MBA. I have a pretty good background on break even costs, but we were able to build these two new stations, state of the art, get the staff what they needed at a fraction of the cost projected to us. We’re flexible enough in our structure at the commission to be able to do that. And there is a real payback to the program. Now we have those buildings fully functional, and the staff just love it there.
Senator Cuzner: I can’t think of the sea lampreys or invasive species without thinking about your old boss, Paul Steckle, the member from Huron—Bruce. And I know that you are engaged right up to your ears, so you come to the position with a great deal of knowledge and a great deal of passion. I appreciate that.
I very much appreciate you sharing, Dr. Gaden, with the panel the success that you have had with the lamprey program, because it was — back in those early 2000s, it was very much a hot issue, and it was a crisis, really. I appreciate you sharing that success that the vaccination program of the lakes yielded a better overall biosphere for the lakes.
How do we arrive at the Canadian portion of the commitment? It’s funny. Usually panels come before certainly a House committee and probably a Senate committee too, and they talk about good work that can be done but they need more money. You guys are just looking for the money that was promised and not allocated. How do we arrive at the Canadian allocation? Getting back to Senator Deacon’s point about key performance indicators, your commissioners were very purposeful in wanting to not look back. They were forward looking and I appreciate and respect that, but there must have been things that couldn’t be done because of the lack of funding. If you wanted to elaborate on that a little bit and address it. They talked a little bit about staff were expected to do more with less, but there had to be some programs, some things that you weren’t able to get done with that funding shortfall.
So how do you arrive at it, and what do you do without it?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. How we arrive at the program is that the commissioners themselves, under the treaty, are charged with developing the program to implement the treaty. We are informed — the commissioners, I should say, are informed by boards that are made up of experts in — let’s just take one of them.
The Sea Lamprey Control Board is made up of officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, academic experts, and they are out there with all of the information about how many streams need to be treated for lampreys in this year and which streams they are. They have 70 years of experience of working on these programs together. They will say, “Commissioners, you’re going to need to treat” — it’s usually about 100, 110 streams — “this year, and this is what it would cost to do that. There is the lamprey program, and this is our recommendation to you, commissioners.”
The same would go with science, then. These are the science needs that the commissioners have already identified. There is a research board that will review the proposals and make sure that they are scientifically sound and pass peer review. “Commissioners, this is our recommendation for this suite of science projects.” And the same would be for everything in our program. You get the thrust of how we do this, through committees and recommendations.
Then the commissioners would cost it out, and there is a formula that they agreed to, where the lamprey program is paid 69% by the United States because all of Lake Michigan is in the United States. Science and everything else that we do is shared equally by the governments. And then, knowing the total cost of it, the funding formula, you would say the U.S. share would be this and the Canadian share would be that. The commissioners that would present that to the parties consistent with what the treaty says how they are to do that.
So it’s not backward, where the parties say, “Here is the money; now you develop a program.” They develop the program, and then we communicate with the parties regarding the cost to do that.
The problem was in Canada, for decades, when we would present that to the parties, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, which managed the portfolio, would only put up to the government what they would get back to deliver the lamprey control program. So we had a case where Canada was, essentially, not paying for anything other than what DFO was getting back to control lampreys, and that’s why we had such a problem. What wasn’t being done? Well, science. Any science that was being done was paid for entirely by the United States, even though it was supposed to be shared 50-50 by the countries.
What wasn’t being done? We weren’t keeping up with infrastructure. Sea lamprey control requires barriers and traps and that type of thing. What wasn’t being done was the application of new technologies, like the smart dams that Mr. McClinchey talked about. We weren’t maximizing the cross‑border cooperation. That has what we call transaction costs, because the agreement itself says that folks are going to meet with on a regular basis. That’s very hard to do when one party is not funding that, to say, “We got to bring the people together to work across borders and to come up with a joint program there.”
There were a lot of things that were not being done, because when the budgets were sent up, they were only — in Canada, the agency that was supposed to be putting the entire budget up was essentially only asking for the amount that they would get back.
Senator Cuzner: Does Fisheries and Oceans Canada still have a big role to play?
Mr. Gaden: Fisheries and Oceans Canada has an essential role to play in our program. They have been our partner in lamprey control since 1957, when we were formed. As I said earlier, they do a tremendous job on that. They saved the Great Lakes Fishery, so did the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under our umbrella, with the lamprey control program.
With the decision to move the machinery of government to fix that problem so that we could have a better interface with the Government of Canada does allow us to focus on things that departments like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans do best, and that’s, in this case, lamprey control. We’re eager to work on habitat restoration with the department. We have already had some conversations with the DFO folks in their Ontario and Prairie Region. The leadership out there is tremendous, and we’re looking forward to rolling up our sleeves and actually working more closely with the folks out there on doing things like habitat restoration. Yes, they have a very important role to play.
Mr. McClinchey: If I could add to Senator Cuzner’s question and, I suppose, by extension, to Senator Deacon’s question as well. You referenced Mr. Steckle, and yes, he was a great champion for our program, but there was also a time when DFO proposed a 100% cut to the program, which would have imperiled all of this back in around 2000. I would have to check the date of that.
What the impact is, over and above what Dr. Gaden is talking about, is that even today, we have not really been able to address some of those inefficiencies coming out of the way lamprey control is delivered. So, for example, our own numbers will tell us that somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 20 or 25% more lamprey control could be applied and still be cost efficient. I mean, we know there is a point at which the exercise becomes not cost efficient. It becomes cost-prohibitive to continue to control beyond that point. There is still a gap that we haven’t covered.
Dr. Gaden had mentioned that there are certain rivers — there will be a cycle of rivers. The lamprey’s life cycle is not one year in length, so it varies depending on water temperatures and all those kinds of things that go into it. A river might only have to be treated every two years or every three years, but the problem is, if we dispatch a crew out of Sault Ste. Marie to treat a river on, or a tributary of Lake Erie and the weather is bad when they get there and they can’t treat that, they can’t stick around, because they have been on the road for three weeks. What does that mean? It means that the river might not get the kind of treatment it needs.
So information was provided to the clerk just yesterday about some of the things that were not done and some of the costs that went along with that. But looking at it, the impact on the program continues today. Don’t get me wrong; the program is very good, but there are certainly gaps that we’re working very hard to correct and to get past that legacy of underfunding, whereas now we are funded in a much better place.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: I thank our guests. I encourage you to put on your headphones if you need to.
I really enjoyed the discussion and information on lamprey and carp.
My questions have more to do with the fact that the aim is to transfer the file to the Department of Foreign Affairs. What is the reaction of all the stakeholders, especially Indigenous peoples, to this transfer? Have you had any discussions with them? I’ll have a question about funding afterwards.
[English]
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. The announcement to move the file from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to Global Affairs Canada came as a great relief. The main reason for this is because with the fraught, broken governance structure, the Fishery Commission was really limited in its ability to function. When the Great Lakes Fishery Commission is limited in its ability to function, then we can’t carry out our coordination role, and we can’t help the states, province and the tribes to work together. They were very aware and cognizant of that.
We can’t forget that until this was addressed, our commission went more than a year, about a year and a half actually, without meeting and two years without passing a regular budget. That would really inhibit the ability of this commission to function.
The states and the province and the tribes depend on us to coordinate, to help them work across borders, to help them identify their shared fishery objectives. It’s a process that has existed since the 1960s, and when there is a break in that process and when it doesn’t function, it really gets to the heart of the culture of this region and how we work together in fisheries. I would say that there was a great relief that we’re on the move now and getting past the governance issues and we can focus on the task at hand, and that’s implementing the convention.
I will also add, by the way, that members of the U.S. Congress took very strong notice of the governance problems and were quite distressed by the fact that we couldn’t meet and we had trouble passing budgets. They wrote to the Prime Minister. These are members of the U.S. House and Senate. They were concerned not only about the budget part, but also about the governance, and very happy to see that the Prime Minister has made this decision to change the governance in Canada.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: Thank you for your answer. If it is transferred to the Department of Foreign Affairs, what guarantee do we have that the same problem will not occur and that the envelopes will be automatically transferred? On the other hand, what guarantee do we have that the funds will not be used again for other projects? If I understand correctly, Fisheries and Oceans Canada will still remain a partner.
[English]
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, we have a lot of confidence that Global Affairs Canada is a more appropriate agency to be the machinery of government for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission simply because it’s the job of Global Affairs Canada to ensure that Canada and the U.S. have good relations.
The problem that we had primarily with Fisheries and Oceans is that it’s an agency that carries out domestic programs, and also that the commissioners or the people who would interface with the Fishery Commission, are of a marine mindset. The role of the federal government in marine areas are very different than in fresh waters. I don’t think that the department understood fully really what the Fishery Commission was and how the Canadian government should be interfacing with this commission. I think their frame of reference is very much in marine and saltwater. It’s a very different governance arrangement that exists in the fresh water.
I can say this with experience because I saw the commissions that would come to the commission without an understanding of what the federal role is, with the mindset of how they would operate in a marine environment, not really understanding the role of the provinces and the states.
Moving to Global Affairs Canada will move it into a department that actually understands that the primary thing is to make certain that the Canada-U.S. relationship functions, that the Fishery Commission is able to do its job under the treaty, and that’s a very different culture than what we have had before.
We’ll also add that what gives me confidence is that this model has worked very well in the United States since our founding in 1957, where the U.S. Department of State has been our interface with the Fishery Commission into the U.S. federal government as opposed to another agency. It’s worked extremely well and efficiently. It gives me confidence that Global Affairs Canada will be a welcoming home.
We’ll also add another thing. The informal conversations I have had with officials at Global Affairs over the past few weeks have been very positive. They seem ready to roll up their sleeves and work with us and welcome us to that department and so I’m encouraged by the early interactions that I have had with that department since this move was announced.
Mr. McClinchey: Mr. Chair, if I can add. When this very similar question came up at the House Fisheries Committee, one of the things the commission did was provide a legal document. One of the things that we have repeatedly raised is the notion that the existing interface is somewhat fraught from an existing conflict of interest. We provided some material to the House committee that subsequently has been provided to this committee.
We do think — I know senators are experts on this for the most part — that conflict within those kinds of arrangements does have an impact on how organizations function. I think when you look at Global Affairs Canada — aside from the fact that there is, as Mr. Gaden has described, seemingly a real willingness to have those discussions, to become informed of the ways the commission works and how we’re interacting that perhaps wasn’t always present in DFO in the recent past — in addition, they are not offering programming, right?
Part of the challenge we had with DFO was the dual role they served. They were both the sea lamprey control agent and the machinery of government lead. In a way, they were both the contractor and the contractee, and that just made it difficult. It was just messy. It just didn’t work as efficiently as it could have. We think just by virtue of the separation, it will help.
Of course, as Mr. Gaden pointed out, there seems to be a real willingness at GAC to have a new relationship. It will allow the commission and the DFO to focus on that on-the-ground partnership with respect to lamprey control itself. Hopefully, at the risk of being a little bit idealistic, a new opportunity for partnerships to emerge in the years ahead.
Senator McPhedran: I have two research questions. The first is about 70 years that the lampricide has been used. What research has been done on its impact on any other forms of marine life?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, the lampricide was discovered in 1957 after scientists tested about 10,000 different chemicals to find something that would kill lampreys and not harm fish. Back in the 1950s when they did the tests, they were done in a laboratory, primarily in Michigan, where the scientists were able to narrow into the group of chemicals that would do that. One they discovered was remarkably effective in doing that.
Today in modern pesticide use, anything that you put out into the environment needs to be registered. In the United States with the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, and in Canada with Health Canada. Our lampricide is fully registered for use in the environment for the purpose of lamprey control. We spend millions of dollars on an ongoing basis to continue to keep that registration active to demonstrate to the agencies in both countries that this is a safe pesticide and appropriate to use out in the environment.
A couple of things about the lampricide itself is that it is photodegradable. It doesn’t bioaccumulate. It won’t be detected in the flesh of fish. The reason it works is because lampreys can’t metabolize it, whereas a fish that would have a liver and an ability to metabolize it, it will get processed through their system in a matter of hours and not detectable after it’s done.
You are going to have the opportunity to talk to Dr. Mike Siefkes. He is the director of the sea lamprey control program. He is also a scientist who did a lot of work in these kinds of areas, and he can elaborate far better than I can on how the lampricides work, but also what we go through to keep them registered with both countries.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much. I’m an independent senator for Manitoba with 100,000 freshwater lakes and rivers connected to those lakes, and with Lake Winnipeg, which is the fifth-largest freshwater lake in Canada. I wanted to ask about the geographic scope of the treaty and how you create your cut-off points given the reality of how rivers and lakes intersect.
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question. It is an excellent question. Mr. Chair, the treaty itself is clear. It says that our work is in the Great Lakes itself and the tributaries of the Great Lakes insofar as they relate to the implementation of our treaty. For example, we would go as far up into a river in the Great Lakes as far as the lampreys are spawning in that river or where there might be larval lampreys. So the treaty says where our jurisdiction starts and ends. It ends at the forty-fifth parallel on the St. Lawrence River. As an aside, it stops just short of Lake Champlain, which has a terrible lamprey problem for the same reasons we do — they swam their way into Lake Champlain. Had that problem been there when our treaty was negotiated in the 1950s we probably would have included Lake Champlain as well, but we don’t. There is a Lake Champlain Sea Lamprey Control Program that the fishery commission does support. We get special funds from the U.S. Congress to do that. It doesn’t require a Canadian match. There is a little tip of it in Quebec at the very top of Lake Champlain. But we work very closely with the province to ensure that everyone’s on the same page with that.
So that one was just kind of added to our portfolio by Congress and it is a U.S. section-only thing. We would love to work more closely with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Quebec, with the province to do more lamprey control in Lake Champlain but also the restoration of Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog.
But we end quite a bit east from where you are. We are, however, in the same region of DFO. So the Ontario and Prairie Region, as you noted, has abundant freshwater resources, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the jurisdiction throughout our regions. We have a lot of opportunities to work with the experts and the excellent folks in the Ontario and Prairie Region on things like habitat and large lakes research that is certainly transferable between the Great Lakes and large lakes like Lake Winnipeg and also other large lakes such as Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake in other parts of the country.
Senator McPhedran: Very quickly, is that research exchange and cooperation by agreement or is it de facto?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question. Mr. Chair, it is an excellent question. It is not so much by agreement but rather in what we have in common with large lakes of the world and freshwater ecosystems. We have a network of people who are doing work in large lakes. You have something in your neck of the woods called the Experimental Lakes Area, which is a place where research can be done that’s applicable to fresh water, not just in the Great Lakes but throughout the planet.
We have a special program that we house in-kind. It’s called ACARE. It’s an African Great Lakes peer-to-peer program, where we exchange scientists and sometimes publish papers together on large lakes research with a special focus on African women in science who get grants to come and visit the Great Lakes regions. We have had them up at the Experimental Lakes Area. We have exchanged directly with scientists and published together. We view ourselves more as practitioners in freshwater science. We don’t need an agreement for that. It’s more like this is practicable science that we can learn from other regions and can also communicate to other regions. It is a community of scientists who are doing work in the same types of environments, and they find each other because they need to.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
Mr. McClinchey: If I can add quickly, there is also a process built into what we do, our science transfer mechanism. We do a lot of science. We have a binational multi-million dollar science program. As we have all pointed out, the results of that do not sit on the shelf. But it is also not secret. In fact, quite the opposite. We want to make sure that information is shared outward. It is one of the reasons why, when I believe it was Senator Cuzner asked the question about the funding formula, we talked about it being funded equally by Canada and the United States. That’s because that information can be used in other places like Lake Winnipeg. So there is a built-in science transfer process, which I’m happy to provide information about if there is interest there.
Senator Cordy: Dr. Gaden, you spoke about teaching at the University of Michigan and that when you are teaching, you teach a lot about agreements and governance. You have also given us a great historical background of why the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries is the way that it is. When we are talking about agreements in governance, what makes the Great Lakes agreement between Canada and the U.S. work? I know there are always blips along the road in any agreement or how something works. But what makes this one work? And it has worked for a long period of time.
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, in the class that I teach, which is about global water issues, we spend a lot of time talking about how water is an actual way of uniting folks. We talk about competition over water. But if it is done right, water can be a way to unite. If you share a water border, like we do in the Great Lakes, or river systems throughout the world — think of the Danube River, which is shared by I don’t know how many jurisdictions in Europe. The water could unite, but what really needs to happen is that the agreement needs to be reflective of what the reality is on the ground. There is no one size fits all with an agreement. People think if your agreement ticks the boxes, it will be successful. The answer to that really is: Is your agreement suited to the problem that you need to address?
What’s remarkable about the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries is that it actually is. It is reflective of the reality of the Great Lakes region. You have no federal waters in the lakes. You have eight states, Province of Ontario and tribes behaving like independent nations that are not going to give up that responsibility to manage their fisheries. We were charged to work in that milieu, not to try to change it.
When the governments did try to change it in 1908 and 1946, the two failed treaties, they failed quite miserably because there was a blatant usurpation of the subnational authority and it was never going to fly. It was a bad type of agreement for what existed in this freshwater situation.
Why is it successful? Because it respects the jurisdictional authorities, which was never going to change. It is flexible. We are to address “fish stocks of common concern,” so that we are not locked into what those fish stocks were in 1956 compared to today; what were the threats in 1956 compared to today?
It looks the way it is because it is not heavy-handed. When folks try to be heavy-handed, the states and the province and the tribes will walk away and say, “We don’t have to work together.” We are way past that now. We have created a culture of cooperation in the Great Lakes that works.
Time is also part of it; where it does take decades for people to have that part of their culture to work together. You can’t just say, “Here is an agreement. Go forth and make it work.” People have to get used to working with each other. We have been doing the lake committee process since the 1960s.
That’s what I think is remarkable about the agreement. It is what is needed for the region. It is reflective of what we need in this region. I just think it is a remarkable agreement in its flexibility and the ability to give our commissioners the ability to look at what the threats are, address them; and then what are the emergent threats?
Senator Cordy: Anything to add, Mr. McClinchey?
Mr. McClinchey: No. I think it has been said very well, other than just to underscore that it’s that buy-in. I mentioned that during my opening remarks. It’s the buy-in that is the secret sauce, if I can say that. We are all in the same boat, so let’s start rowing in the same direction. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, no one was doing that.
This process that is now vested in the commission has allowed that collaboration to really take root. It is now the norm. I think if you were to call in the Premier of Ontario or the Minister of Natural Resources in Ontario and ask them that question, do you want to give this up? In those days, in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s, anytime Ontario wanted to do something with regard to the Great Lakes, it had to go head to head with eight U.S. states representing 50 million people. It was a pretty daunting battle that I think, if you look at the historical record, Ontario didn’t fare well in those days.
We now have a mechanism where they sit at the table as equals, they work out problems in a collaborative way rather than in a confrontational way. I suppose I’m posing this rhetorically, but I’m not sure why anyone would want to risk that and throw that process out the window because it is working. As a Canadian, I look at that and think that’s to our benefit. The Americans are working collaboratively. That’s the way down the road.
I think fortifying those processes rather than allowing them to be undermined or forgotten or whatnot is the path forward, if I can say that.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you for being with us today. Very enlightening. One of the documents we just received shows that the reappropriation of funds by DFO amounts to some $70 million over a 24-year period. That’s U.S. funds, which is hundreds of millions Canadian dollars. It is just astonishing.
What I would like to focus on beyond what you have talked about in terms of some of the past troubles and the key performance indicators that you are going to get back to us on, are there other challenges in coordinating our binational responses? Are there differences in policy priorities between Canada and the U.S. where you can foresee some need for us to be looking ahead a little bit? I certainly haven’t picked up on any other than significant ones we have talked a lot about relating to governance, but are there others we should be wary of or aware of?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that. Let me start, and I’m certain Mr. McClinchey has some thoughts on this too.
On one level, at least at our commission, we have a commission that sits together and they have a shared vision for how we can carry out the treaty. I think that develops through our process. Then there are other organizations like the International Joint Commission, or IJC, which deals mainly with water quantity and some water quality issues of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. They have a great interest in that. That’s the type of body that ensures the two nations are on the same page with what’s under that agreement.
The Great Lakes Commission, which is primarily an interstate compact, has some Canadian representation on that which increases the chances that the States and the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec are on the same page on a large number of issues. Where I think the two countries could do better is providing the level of funding needed to restore and protect the Great Lakes. We fall into a trap of calling it like a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, as if there is an end point, when, in fact, we need to have ongoing stewardship to make sure that we can protect the investments we have made and also respond to the emergent challenges, primarily climate change, I would say.
In the United States, there is an initiative called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The priorities for that were developed during the George W. Bush administration, and the funding then came out of the Obama administration, and it has been one of the most popular things in Washington that I have seen in my 30-plus years working in policy.
Senator Cordy, as a Great Lakes and St. Lawrence task force co-Chair, spent time in Washington. I was with her earlier this year meeting with members of Congress about Great Lakes restoration. There’s a Great Lakes task force in Congress as well. I’m sure she can attest to the energy and the amount of attention that is given to the restoration through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. It is the one thing that actually unites people in Washington these days. I can’t think of anything else, frankly. It’s non-partisan. It’s not even bipartisan.
We were excited to see that Canada made a recent announcement of about $420 million for the Great Lakes. Very welcome to see that. The Canada Water Agency that’s in the works and is being developed certainly shows a commitment to more attention to the Great Lakes and fresh water in Canada. I think, however, that the governments could still do more to not only invest in Great Lakes restoration and stewardship, but I have this notion that the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in the United States, the Canadian Great Lakes version of that and the Canada Water Agency would actually be developing shared priorities and doing that in the Great Lakes basin-wide. That would be really great to see.
Mr. McClinchey: The short answer to your question, in my view, is yes. Every single day, there are things that the two countries, the States and the Province of Ontario and so on where they are at variance or have not arrived at the same place yet. It’s one of the reasons the lake committee process is so absolutely critical. If we don’t sit down at the table together, look at the hard science and actually come up with genuine solutions in a focus that is basin-wide rather than our own individualized interests, then we will never get to the place.
There are 180-some-odd invasive species living in the Great Lakes region. Probably with climate change and all of the things like globalization and increased transportation and deteriorating infrastructure, that number is not going to go down in the foreseeable future.
When Canada takes a lead on things like ballast water or when we are dealing with the merging of invasive species regulations or the connecting of those things, those are absolutely critical things. We are talking about a binational program in our organization that has its genesis in one invasive species. We obviously do more than that today, but that was where we took our genesis. Imagine the other 180-some-odd species that are being managed in different ways.
There are a lot of lessons to learn there, and there’s certainly always more work to be done. We had a great partner in the Province of Ontario. Certainly, our experiences with Lake Champlain and Lake Memphremagog suggests there’s the potential for even stronger partnerships in the province of Quebec. The work we have done with MP Terry Duguid with regard to Lake Winnipeg has been good. There’s a lot of those things that are there. Even the member for Niagara Centre, MP Vance Badawey, continues to plug away on the notion of a Canadian Great Lakes restoration initiative. The money that Dr. Gaden mentioned was very much welcomed. It has made a huge difference coming from government, but no pun intended, it’s a drop in the bucket.
We are doing some work with the person who helped to bring this about in the United States, Cameron Davis, to try to demonstrate how the Great Lakes Fishery Commission can take some of those objectives that the government has identified — infrastructure and so on — and do it in an even more efficient way. We hope to have that to provide to senators at some point in the distant future, but those are things we are working on to try to address some of those gaps.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you.
Senator Ravalia: Dr. Gaden, you have alluded to the importance of collaboration between the two countries. I wonder if you can further highlight your relationship with the Indigenous communities and the tribes you have referred to. To what extent is that relationship as viable and congenial as it is between our two countries? Are there any lessons to be learned from Indigenous methodology on a go-forward basis?
Mr. Gaden: Thank you for that question. It’s one that is a high priority for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission to engage more respectfully and fulsomely with Indigenous communities and Indigenous nations that have rights and responsibilities on their territories.
There are many reasons why this is a high priority for our commission. One is simple practicality. It is our objective to control sea lampreys. Lampreys harm fisheries, whether commercial fishing, sport fishing, Indigenous fishing, subsistence fishing or provisioning fishing — all types of fishing that occur in the Great Lakes. Lamprey control is an objective for everybody.
However, lamprey control needs to occur sometime in Indigenous territories, tribal lands on the U.S. side and First Nations. We need to engage with the governments there to work on lamprey control. It has not occurred fulsomely over our history, but we are doing better on that.
Science is another area where the fishery commission is having what I think is a far better understanding over the past decade. We are moving forward on how Indigenous knowledge is conducted and how it can be part of our science program. We have 70 years of history of conducting Western-based science in the Great Lakes. There is a lot of catching up to do because we do acknowledge that Indigenous science is important. We are getting more and more proposals to our research board that would be based on Indigenous science. We are trying to do better to understand how to actually evaluate those proposals and how they can be best conducted. We are eager to fund them.
Our research board is working hard on that. We had a retreat, for example, this summer on the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation in the Saugeen Peninsula of the Lake Huron area. We had several days out camping. We interacted with the elders and the storytellers and the scientists who are doing research based on Indigenous knowledge. That let our research board get a better understanding of how that can be done.
We also have the practical matter of how to do fishery management across borders. In the 1980s, the courts in the United States essentially ruled that the states did not have the authority to license tribal commercial fishers in the Great Lakes. In other words, their rights to manage were upheld by the treaties of the 1800s. In Canada, those types of rulings have not gone that far, so we do have a mismatch where tribes are more involved in the coordination process of the fishery commission compared to the First Nations. To me, that’s a problem. We would like to work more closely with the First Nation, the Province of Ontario and the federal government to find a better way to do that. Thank you for the question.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you.
The Chair: I thank our senators for their questions, and I thank our witnesses for a very informative meeting. Your expertise in this field is very forthcoming. One of the things I liked hearing is that it seems everyone is getting along in Washington these days. We don’t see that here on the local TV news. Anyway, we wish you well. Thank you again. It has been a great assistance to us as we continue with our study. Certainly, if you have anything that you believe would assist us but we haven’t touched on it this evening, or if you have any reports or further information, feel free to pass them on to your clerk as we continue with our study.
(The committee adjourned.)