THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, October 24, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 9:02 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and its work; and, in camera, for the consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Bev Busson (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, good morning. My name is Bev Busson. I am a senator from British Columbia and deputy chair of this committee. I have the pleasure of chairing today’s meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Before we begin, I would like to 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’re not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the sticker on the table for that purpose. Thank you 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 would like to take a few moments to allow the members of this committee to introduce themselves.
Senator C. Deacon: Good morning. Colin Deacon from Nova Scotia. Welcome.
Senator Cordy: Welcome to our committee. I’m Jane Cordy, and I’m also a senator from Nova Scotia.
Senator Petten: Iris Petten, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan, Toronto, Ontario.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran, Manitoba.
Senator M. Deacon: Welcome. Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator Ravalia: Welcome. Mohamed Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Cuzner: Roger Cuzner, Nova Scotia.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: Réjean Aucoin from Nova Scotia.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
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: Dr. Michael Siefkes, Director, Sea Lamprey Control; Dr. John Dettmers, Director, Fishery Management; and Dr. Andrew Muir, Director of Science. On behalf of the members of the committee, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to be with us today after an unavoidable cancellation of our scheduled meeting last week. I do apologize for that again. We have last-minute changes that really force us, with no discretion, to have to make changes. We hope you can forgive us for that.
Dr. Muir, if you are ready with your opening remarks, go ahead, please.
Andrew Muir, Director, Science, Great Lakes Fishery Commission: Good morning. My name is Andrew Muir, and I am the Science Director for the Great Lakes Fishery Commisison. I was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
Honourable committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. Together with my colleagues, Dr. Mike Siefkes, Sea Lamprey Control Director, and Dr. John Dettmers, Fishery Management Director, we are honoured to be here today to represent the three prongs of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission — sea lamprey control, fishery management and science — which reflect the primary duties of the commission under Articles IV and VI of the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries.
I will begin by stating that the commission strongly appreciates the exemplary work that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada does in its role as an agent to the commission in delivering sea lamprey control and the great work that it does in Canada around habitat, for example. At the same time, we note that there are opportunities for this government to support DFO in developing the science and habitat regulatory capacity to strengthen its regional partnerships with the commission, allowing full engagement in evidence-based decision making to support management for the health and sustainability of our nearly $8-billion annual Great Lakes fishery.
With respect to sea lamprey control, the nearly 65-year-long control program has reduced sea lamprey abundance across the Great Lakes by 90%, allowing Great Lakes fisheries to thrive. Without sea lamprey control, Lake Superior, for example, would not be celebrating a fully restored lake trout fishery, one of the greatest restoration success stories globally. Sea lamprey control must be maintained, however, on an annual basis and be bi-nationally coordinated.
The COVID-19 pandemic allowed a test of those assertions when control actions were affected in Lake Ontario during 2020 and 2021. As a result of that unsanctioned natural experiment, sea lamprey in Lake Ontario exploded in numbers by an order of magnitude, and the damage to fish was astonishing. Some anglers reported catching a single fish with as many as five sea lampreys attached. Clearly, we cannot be complacent with the need for continued and coordinated application of sea lamprey control.
The COVID pause was a horrendous natural experiment that tested the very notion that we need a Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Without the coordinating role of the commission and the strong network of collaborators committed to sea lamprey control delivery, as well as the encouragement of the fishery management community, sea lamprey would rapidly spiral out of control and have catastrophic effects on the economy and livelihood of Canadians, Americans and the nearly 130 Indigenous communities that border our Great Lakes. Sea lamprey control is therefore a requirement for successful Great Lakes fishery management.
With respect to fishery management, the commission facilitates a Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries, a voluntary and non-binding agreement that encourages all Great Lakes agencies with a fishery management purview to work cooperatively to manage fish stocks of common concern. Without direct fishery management authority, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission serves as an effective, neutral, independent facilitator of a consensus-based process that has garnered worldwide recognition as a model of successful interjurisdictional fishery management.
Without the joint strategic plan, fishery management today would likely revert to where it was during the 19th century: Agencies would be managing their waters without consideration of the broader understanding that fish freely move across borders, and managers would be thinking locally, rather than thinking broadly, about sustainable harvest. Cooperative fishery management is essential to a healthy, sustainable Great Lakes fishery.
With respect to science, the Great Lakes Fishery Commission’s research programs and scientific accomplishments drive the success of both sea lamprey control and fishery management in the Great Lakes. The commission leverages considerable additional resources, both financially and through strong partnerships with federal, state and provincial governments, Indigenous communities and academia to implement external competitive research programs in both fishery and sea lamprey science. It directly oversees several special projects that are aimed at tackling the big problems in the basin, so-called wicked problems in fisheries such as connectivity among the basins, the potential for evolution of lampricide resistance in sea lampreys and basin-wide conservation and restoration challenges.
The commission fills a unique niche among Great Lakes agencies by coordinating science, funding sea lamprey science — I’ll note that no other entity has a responsibility for funding sea lamprey science — and making that science accessible to managers for decision making through our science transfer program.
I’ll conclude by noting that the viability of the Great Lakes fisheries is reliant on the well-being of our Great Lakes basin as a whole. Everything in the basin is connected such that what occurs on the landscape hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away ultimately drives the productivity of fisheries and can have an impact in your backyard. This ecosystem connectedness argues against divided governance and narrow agency mandates and is exactly why we need a Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Madam Chair, thank you, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity and interest in our programs. We stand ready to address any of your questions. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Muir. We have a long list of people who are interested asking you some questions.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you to the witnesses, and thank you, Dr. Muir, for an excellent introduction.
I’d like to read from the House of Commons report on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission which recommended:
That the Minister establish with Fisheries and Oceans Canada that its role in the management of invasive species (sea lampreys) in the Great Lakes should become that of a contractor to the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission (GLFC), similar to the role of U.S. agencies.
The DFO witnesses we had here on Tuesday evening suggested that they’re not contractors and can’t be contractors — because we have a different system in Canada — to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in terms of delivering the sea lamprey program. I don’t think we’ve heard anything but praise for the work of the folks on the ground at DFO, but we’re challenged by a lot that we’re hearing from the senior levels, so I want to differentiate that quite clearly. Can you clarify what is actually fact here? Maybe Mr. Siefkes, if you could?
Michael Siefkes, Director, Sea Lamprey Control, Great Lakes Fishery Commission: In contrast to what you heard on Tuesday, the way the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada operate as control agents of the commission is similar and only differs in the nuances between the two federal governments and how federal agencies interact with their respective agencies. In that respect, they carry out the program in very similar ways as control agents to the commission. They both operate under memorandums of agreement with the commission, so there are signed contracts, essentially, for the work that they do. That is essentially how the work is conducted. I can explain a little bit more about the advisory board process, maybe at a later time, but just to be pointed with your question, that’s exactly how they operate — as control agents and contractors of the commission.
Senator C. Deacon: I wouldn’t mind if you expanded a bit, because everything was clouded significantly in our meeting on Tuesday. Certainly, I will speak only for myself. I came away with less insight than I entered the meeting. If in any way you can continue to expand on the details around how that relationship with DFO is papered and paid for, I would appreciate it, and I think the rest of us would, because it was confusing.
Mr. Siefkes: Sure. Probably the best way to do that is to walk through the advisory board process that the commission has, and it serves the convention and the signatories to the convention. Afterwards, I can provide the actual memorandum of agreement to the Senate here so you can see exactly what is spelled out within that agreement.
As Dr. Muir pointed out in his opening remarks, the need for sea lamprey control in individual tributaries in areas of the Great Lakes varies on a year-to-year basis, so it needs to have a binational approach — a border-blind approach, even a lake‑blind approach — so that we’re applying it in areas that are in need of the most sea lamprey control. To do that, we have the Sea Lamprey Control Board, which is the direct advisory board to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Now, the advisory board also has underlying task forces and work groups that serve as operational focus groups that then advise the advisory board on recommendations about sea lamprey control. That level is where the discussions between the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the DFO happen at an operational level to figure out what exactly needs to be done for sea lamprey control in a given year.
Senator C. Deacon: The tactical response is determined there.
Mr. Siefkes: Exactly.
It all serves the control board process, so it starts at that grassroots ground level, goes up through the workgroups and the task forces that then formulate their own recommendations to the Sea Lamprey Control Board, which comprises lake managers, researchers and other outside experts, such as integrated pest management experts.
Also, the control agents have two representatives. They’re members, but non-voting members because of conflict of interest issues, and they all serve on that board. That board comes together in a consensus fashion to create a program and a budget for sea lamprey control, which ultimately goes to the commissioners for approval.
Once the commissioners approve that budget, we work on the operational agreements, the MOAs, for both DFO and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to put together those work plans, essentially, for the coming year.
That’s the process. That’s how it’s done. All of the discussions that happen with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Fisheries and Oceans Canada at that level all serve that process. If there are discussions happening outside that, it would go against the convention and against the process of the commission.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you for bringing clarity to something where none existed after our previous meeting. Thank you, sir.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much, and congratulations on the work that you do and continue to do.
I’d like to dig a little deeper on the issue of lampricides. We heard from earlier testimony that you’ve been using the same lampricide for 50-plus years. You mentioned the risk of resistance. Are you including newer technologies in working towards other modalities, DNA analysis, et cetera? Furthermore, to what extent do you engage your Indigenous and tribal partners with respect to their knowledge on a go-forward basis to protect not only against sea lampreys but also other invasive species?
Mr. Siefkes: As far as lampricides go, you are correct. We’re using the lampricides we developed about 65 years ago to control lamprey. And you’re correct in pointing out that we do have concerns when it comes to resistance developing towards these lampricides. I can let my colleague Dr. Muir speak more on the research that’s ongoing into the development of what we call “next-generation lampricides” that focus on different physiological mechanisms of toxicity, are greener, break down more rapidly in the environment and are more selective. We have active research programs looking into that at this point.
We’re also looking at ways to use non-lampricide methods: trapping adult sea lampreys; what we call “sterile male releases,” where we can overwhelm a system with sterile males to prevent reproduction; and other means of controlling the adult form of the sea lamprey. We have ongoing research in that realm too that we’ve been successful with on smaller scales. We’re taking a careful and cautious approach as we build those to ensure that we’re being effective with those methods before we expand them out a bit further.
As far as how we’re engaging our Indigenous partners and communities around the Great Lakes, often, especially for the work that’s ongoing in some of these what we call supplemental control tactics, like the trapping and things like that, we actually directly engage with the Indigenous communities on some of the Great Lakes where those experiments are being conducted. They’re an active part of that research project. They’re collecting lampreys, running the traps and doing a lot of the assessment work that we need to do in order to measure the effectiveness of those experiments.
Outside of that, any time that we have control activities that need to happen on reserve lands or on reservations on the U.S. side, we consult with our Indigenous partners and get their concurrence before we apply those lampricides, especially those that go through reserve lands.
More recently, we’ve taken that a step further where we’re doing more consulting, not only on reserve lands or reservations but also traditional territories as well. We’re having conversations with our Indigenous partners in that respect to make sure that we’re doing the work in a way that is respectful to them and their communities. Part of that, I believe, will be incorporating more of the work that we do as sea lamprey control delivery people to engage more with the Indigenous partners where there’s willingness and capability to have them help us in that regard as well.
Mr. Muir: With respect to resistance of lampricides, we currently don’t have evidence that resistance has evolved. We have indications that it could possibly evolve in the future. This work we’re doing that my colleague described is forward-looking. It’s a perfect example of the integration between concerns raised by the fishery managers, the needs of the sea lamprey control program and the science we generate to support that.
We have undertaken and sponsored a workshop to look at the evolution of resistance. We have also funded a couple of research projects associated with looking at the potential for that the evolution, and we’re funding the work that my colleague described with respect to developing new lampricides with different modes of actions.
I will also add that with respect to the work we’re doing with Indigenous communities, we’re funding two Indigenous-led research projects associated with these types of concerns in the sea lamprey control program, understanding perspectives from Indigenous communities directly and using that information, ultimately, to help evolve the program to address some of these concerns. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Ravalia: I appreciate it.
Senator Ataullahjan: Senator Ravalia asked my question, so I’m scrambling to ask some other questions. Do you have any role in the restoration of freshwater habitats? Also, what role is climate change playing in the population growth of lampreys? This is the warmest October that I remember. Can you tell me a bit about that?
John Dettmers, Director, Fishery Management, Great Lakes Fishery Commission: Thank you for that question.
I might start out talking about habitat and saying that from a fishery management perspective, fishery managers around the Great Lakes clearly recognize the importance of high-quality habitat to sustain viable fish populations as things go forward.
We also recognize that many parts of the Great Lakes are very severely degraded. Each lake committee, structured to look at fishery management priorities across each of the five Great Lakes, has developed what we call a short list of environmental priorities. We are seeking to work with our partners on those priorities to effectively improve fish habitat in those particular areas. Especially in the U.S., we’re partnering with a variety of federal agencies to make some of those inroads to improve fish habitat. In Canada, we very much want to work more closely with DFO in the region to develop that work, along with the province and some of the other municipalities and conservation authorities, to bring together a cohesive habitat program.
Until just very recently, because of some of the funding issues that you have discovered in previous testimony, one of the things we have been unable to do from within my fishery management program is to develop those sorts of relationships in Canada simply because that funding was withheld from us.
We’re very interested. We have priorities. We want to make further steps to improve habitat. We know, especially in Toronto, that there are lots of opportunities. Areas around the Toronto Islands, the new initiative on the Don River and some of the other areas like the Credit River are very important in the context of fishery managers. We’re very interested in that.
I would turn to my colleagues here to answer more of your questions about climate effects on various fish populations.
Mr. Muir: With respect to climate change, we know that most fish live in water for most of their lives. That presents particular challenges with respect to how climate and temperature in particular affect all elements of an organism’s physiology, their behaviour, their movements, the timing of everything and, ultimately, reproduction, so life, birth and death. Climate is a key controller or a master controller of all of what happens in aquatic environments.
Our fishery research board and sea lamprey research boards have been really concerned about changing environments over the last number of years. For the last few years, we have been having discussions and thinking about how we specifically address changing environments on our Great Lakes fisheries. We organize our research under various bigger, broader themes. They have concluded that climate really is intertwined with all of those themes. Focusing specifically on climate change as a research area or theme is not all that productive given that it’s woven throughout everything. We have elements of climate science that are intertwined with all of what we fund and all of what we do in science.
I will give you one example of things we’re doing, which may tie into a response from my colleague Dr. Siefkes. We have a project now looking at the specific effects of climate on the sea lamprey control program and its delivery because most elements of the delivery of lampricides and, in particular, the functioning of barriers are all influenced by temperature. Temperature affects hydrology, how the chemicals work and the physiology of the animals. We’re working on a science transfer project to mobilize all that science around climate and environment and climate change and how that could lead to developing an action plan to make the sea lamprey control program climate-ready for the next 20 to 50 years. That’s one example.
Mr. Siefkes: For sea lamprey control, we’re already seeing the impacts of climate change. Probably the biggest way that change is bearing out around the Great Lakes is the increasing frequency of catastrophic rain events and flooding.
The other piece of the puzzle in the program to control lampreys is what we call sea lamprey barriers. They are physical structures, dams, on Great Lakes tributaries that block sea lamprey access to productive upstream habitats. We have about 500 barriers around the Great Lakes that are really important to sea lamprey control in that regard. The barriers protect over 50,000 kilometres of habitat that could become infested with sea lamprey. By being in place, they prevent the need for about $17 million of lampricide treatment every year. However, with climate change and these increasing rain events, we’re seeing more frequent flood events that can overtop these barriers. Sea lamprey can escape upstream. The barriers themselves are threatened as far as their structural integrity. We are looking to better understand flow dynamics and geomorphology into the future so we can design and shore up our barriers to ensure they block sea lampreys and prevent the need for expensive lampricide control upstream of these barriers.
Dr. Muir also alluded to the fact that lampricides are often affected by temperature when it comes to their effectiveness. We know that they are less effective during warmer temperatures. Therefore, with increasing temperatures on the tributaries, we might see lampricides become less effective because of climate change.
We might see the number of sea lamprey streams that harbour sea lampreys change in response to changing temperatures. For instance, in Lake Superior, we are seeing adult sea lamprey growing larger due to warmer temperatures. Lake Superior is one of the fastest warming lakes. If we see larger lampreys, it means they have a greater reproductive potential, which means more lampreys.
We need to understand this going forward so we can keep sea lampreys in check and ensure the longevity and livelihoods of those who rely upon the fishery around the Great Lakes. Thank you.
Mr. Dettmers: I will add one more point of view. It is important to tie both habitat and climate change together. In June, our commissioners formulated what we call an infrastructure plan, which we are going to be rolling out to both governments. Part of that infrastructure plan is to think about ways in which we can work with sea lamprey barriers to improve them as well as to improve fish habitat in various parts of the Great Lakes. Just know, for your information, that is something our commissioners are interested in, too, as we move forward.
Senator Ataullahjan: I was just reading about the barriers. It says that almost 40% of the adult lampreys are captured. Is that correct?
Mr. Siefkes: On the streams in which we have traps, which is about 37 only around the Great Lakes, we capture about 40% of the sea lamprey populations within those particular tributaries in traps. It is a small subset of the sea-lamprey-producing tributaries around the lakes in which we have traps.
Senator Ataullahjan: Talking about having conversations with Indigenous communities, are there any Indigenous members on the advisory committee?
Mr. Siefkes: Yes, we have representation from U.S. tribal interests on the Sea Lamprey Control Board at this point. That person is an employee of the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. He serves on the control board.
Senator Ataullahjan: Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: I’d like to thank the witnesses. It would seem from your testimonies that research is extremely important and that a lot of money is spent on the lamprey. How are research findings shared or used by the commission? For instance, are the findings from this research passed on to our colleagues in the U.S. and implemented? Do you also receive findings from research done there?
[English]
Mr. Muir: Thank you for the question. I will begin the response, and others can add to it.
With respect to the science we are funding, it is not just with respect to the sea lamprey but also on the fishery side. We are funding a number of types of research. What makes the research we undertake and fund unique is that the commission is scaled to the ecological processes that occur within the basin. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that what happens across the entire landscape affects what happens, for example, in Lake Ontario. One of our previous commissioners, a University of Toronto distinguished faculty member Henry Regier, used to refer to the basin as the “Great Laurentian River.” The notion is that it is a giant river that flows downstream, so everything that happens upstream affects downstream.
The commission is uniquely positioned to undertake that kind of work at that scale, unlike other entities. We can tackle big problems that span the basin, such as advancing ecosystem science to inform management and sea lamprey research. We fund an entire biological station with a world-class program that is dedicated to sea lamprey research. We have been engaged in large-scale lake- and basin-wide restoration programs for lake trout, for example. The commission has been leading the way on helping support Indigenous-led science. We also invest in basin‑wide programs like the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System, GLATOS, a basin-wide network of researchers that uses new and advanced technology to track the movement of fish throughout the basin. We’re able to address those big, broad types of questions through our research programs. The commission is unique in that, because of our mandate, we are able to connect those dots — connect the siloed or narrower mandates of individual agencies across the basin to tackle these larger issues.
Mr. Siefkes: To speak to it from the sea lamprey side of things, one of the greatest things, at least in my mind, that the commission enables in its unique mandates is the integration of research with operations and management. It is crystal clear on how this works on sea lamprey control: We embed the researchers in these advisory task forces and work groups that advise the control board that then advises the commissioners. It is this innate, natural science transfer that happens from the researchers to the people who are putting in the control on the ground.
Sea lamprey control is built through science. We adapt it pretty much on an annual basis, based on the most recent science and research results we have. Being able to do that allows us to stay ahead of many of the potential pitfalls that we have as we move forward with things like climate change or lampricide resistance — things like that.
The commission also has a science transfer program that builds the research that Dr. Muir and his shop do, and it bridges that with the fisheries managers around the Great Lakes, not just the sea lamprey control agent. That, in itself, I believe, is one of the big things the commission does: Making sure the integration of the science happens.
Mr. Dettmers: To follow that up, Dr. Siefkes and Dr. Muir are both making excellent points. To tie that together from a fishery management perspective too, fishery managers also have, in their lake committee structures, technical committees where researchers are embedded. They share this information directly.
Then, to your point, senators, about how we integrate and use that information, a lot of it comes through two things. One is science transfer, which Dr. Muir and Dr. Siefkes mentioned. I can tell you that fishery managers are grateful.
There are a few examples here that I want to share with you. One is that managers have struggled with how to think about and incorporate environmental DNA into their decision-making. Dr. Muir’s group, through the science transfer program, funded a project — and is actually now nearly completing a followup project — to help fishery managers understand how to think about eDNA and how to move forward with that in decision-making. It has really helped to clarify their thinking about what eDNA means and does not mean and how to then incorporate that into their decision-making. They are thankful for that.
Dr. Muir also mentioned the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry network. Again, those projects are of great interest to the managers. A recently completed project very much helps Lake Erie managers, as an example, understand how fish are moving and, with that information, they can then communicate to their stakeholders about what it means and what that means to their thinking about allocating quotas and harvest limits as a result of how fish are moving.
The last point I will make again relates to acoustic telemetry. We are engaged in a battle with grass carp on Lake Erie. Grass carp is an invasive fish. Acoustic telemetry of some of those fishes has been extremely important to help managers control that population by understanding the behaviour, where those fish are spending time and how they migrate, to capture and remove fish from the population. Those are just a couple of examples.
Mr. Muir: To the senator’s question, I would also make a point about a lot of the science that we fund and some of the bigger questions. The utility of the work we do extends well beyond the basin. We are tackling problems with global significance. Sea lamprey in the Great Lakes are a pest, a nuisance, that we’re trying to tackle. In their native range, in the Atlantic and in Europe, they are highly valued. They are a very important species, and they are imperiled, so they are of conservation concern there. We have formed partnerships with folks in Europe so that they learn from the science that we are generating with respect to addressing sea lamprey control in the Great Lakes. They are using the flip side of that for conservation purposes.
Another example is work we have funded with respect to developing a smart barrier. We have a project called FishPass which is designed to try to address this question: Can we allow the valuable fish species that we are trying to restore to pass barriers or dams while, at the same time, keeping out the things we want out, such as sea lamprey? Those would be smart barriers. The work we are doing there involves folks from all over the world. This is a global problem. Can we restore connectivity to protect our valued fisheries but, at the same time, address invasive species?
I wanted to add a little bit to the question, senator, to demonstrate the broader value of the work we do.
Senator Cordy: Thank you so much for your information and the way that you have answered the questions, as three scientists. Even I can understand it all clearly. It’s been a pleasure having you here this morning.
My question is for Dr. Dettmers. What does it mean that we have subnational governments and tribes who actually have primary management authority over the Great Lakes fisheries? Can you tell us how that works? If everyone in the subnational governments can go in and do what they want, that probably will not work. How do you get everyone to work together in the best interests of the Great Lakes?
Mr. Dettmers: That is a very insightful question, Madam Chair.
This is a very interesting governance situation in the Great Lakes. Many of us are familiar with the coasts where national priorities tend to take precedence. From historical precedent, the Great Lakes governance of fishery management was delegated to the states and the Province of Ontario fairly early on. They, along with the tribal management authorities on the U.S. side, all have demonstrated management authority. We have seen over the 19th and early 20th centuries how that didn’t work, as you say. Every jurisdiction managed fisheries in its own segment of the lakes. Fish don’t respect that and move wherever they please. Dr. Marc Gaden, as the historian of the group, did great dissertation work on this. We have seen, from the mid 1800s on, opportunities to try to collaborate and manage fish populations cooperatively. They all failed primarily because, as you might expect, no individual jurisdiction wants to give up its authorities.
Finally, in the mid 1900s, the situation got very bad, and a combination of overfishing and sea lamprey drove the formation of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Along with that came a recognition that states, the province and the tribes have to manage fisheries cooperatively. As time went forward, they agreed they would manage fisheries cooperatively through this structure called a Joint Strategic Plan for Management of Great Lakes Fisheries. As Dr. Muir noted in his opening statement, this is a voluntary and non-binding agreement. It has served us well since 1981 when it was first written and adopted.
It is a very interesting process. Because it is a strategic framework, it doesn’t get into specifics. It allows all of the signatory jurisdictions, which are primarily subnational but also some national jurisdictions — DFO is a signatory, as an example — to support the idea of cooperative fishery management. They can work together to solve these difficult problems and then move forward and convince their own sitting governments that this is the right thing to do. It is not legislated, by any stretch of the imagination. It works, I think, because of commitment to the strategic principles of consensus. For example, there is no use of Robert’s Rules of Order, as an example. There is information sharing. It is a commitment to ecosystem-based management. It allows them to then freely discuss things in an open environment, to share that information and take the time needed to make what we hope are wise decisions.
To build on an example of that, you heard one of our advisors Jane Graham talk about Marine Stewardship Certification of the walleye and yellow perch fisheries in Lake Erie. The Ontario Commercial Fisheries’ Association is a major part of that. But the Lake Erie Committee, through this Joint Strategic Plan process, very much supported and helped drive that initiative. It has helped them build relationships with their stakeholders and their affected fisheries to essentially embrace this very sustainable approach to fishery management.
Senator Cordy: Does the commission actually play a role in getting people together if there is an issue? Do you bring the groups together?
Mr. Dettmers: Yes. I am sorry I didn’t answer that part of the question directly. The Fishery Commission’s role in this process is to facilitate the whole thing. We bring folks together. We do this, at a minimum, once annually for each lake committee in a public meeting. Of course, there are many more meetings than that happening virtually and sometimes in person. We just came off of a meeting to come here where all five of the lake committees come together to deal with issues of basin-wide importance. That meets twice a year.
The Fishery Commission is a very important piece of this cooperative fishery management because we allow folks to come together in a neutral environment. We help pay for the opportunity to be in that same room. We don’t necessarily pay for the travel of people to get there, but we provide host responsibilities, if you will. Because we do not have any direct fishery management authority, we can be a more even broker. We can listen empathetically to all sides of the story and try to bring everybody together into consensus. It seems to have worked quite well over the last several years.
Senator Petten: I understand that, last week, there was an Order in Council that transferred the ministerial responsibility for the Great Lakes fisheries to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. What role did you play in that? What changes do you see coming about as a result of it?
Mr. Dettmers: Madam Chair, I will start and my colleagues can follow up.
While we were aware that this was going on, we didn’t have any direct role in it. Our executive secretary and commissioners had more direct roles in that. We are certainly looking forward to that change. At our level, these discussions that happened to make this change occur are certainly very important. We’re pleased that those have happened. The process at our level has been a huge distraction. We’re happy to have it behind us. I will say it that way.
Is there anything either of you would like to say in addition?
Mr. Muir: Well said, sir.
Senator Petten: We have had an interesting study as part of our study of the Great Lakes fishery. I am thinking about it from the perspective of writing our report. If you could have a recommendation that you would like to see included, what would it be?
Mr. Dettmers: I will start, and others can feel free to jump in.
There are so many things that are important in this process. The first thing that comes to mind is — as you have heard from others — to make sure that the change is fully executed and make sure that change happens. I know our commissioners have suggested that by the end of the year would be great, so that is something I would like to reinforce.
From my lens on things, again, we have strong relationships with individuals of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in the region. However, programmatically, DFO does not have the same depth and interest of “programmatic devotion,” if you will, to the Great Lakes that we see from federal agencies in the U.S. That would be something that I would be interested in seeing improved: a greater appreciation and interest, from a corporate perspective, for the Great Lakes and the things that can be done from a science and habitat management perspective.
I might see if either of you have anything to follow up.
Mr. Muir: From a science perspective, we are eager to see this transition. We are excited. We are optimistic that good will come of this. We are certain that, with this transition, some of the great things in the relationships that we have with our colleagues at DFO will not be affected.
In the opening remarks, I alluded to, maybe subtly, that I think there is an opportunity to better support the science within the region. Many of the resources, I feel, are distributed along the margins of the country. It would be great to see some broader investment in the region in science. At least during my duration in this role at the commission, which is 10 or 12 years or so, there has not been a tonne of collaboration with DFO on science at a programmatic level. We certainly work very well and closely with a few scientists within the basin, and one of the DFO scientists sits on our fishery research board. However, there is an opportunity to do more there.
Since this transition has begun, we have had more collaboration with DFO science than we have in my tenure here at the commission. In fact, we have a workshop set up a few weeks from now to work with DFO scientists in the region, learn about what each of us does and where there are intersections with respect to the mandate and the work that is going on. That is a positive. I do not know if we can attribute it to the specific change in the machinery of governance, but it is very positive from my perspective.
Mr. Siefkes: I would be remiss if I did not personally call out the great work in the region of Fisheries and Oceans Canada in delivering sea lamprey control on the Canadian side of the border. We’re in the place that we are now with 90% reductions because of the hard work they have done over the years with sea lamprey control. That has been broadly recognized within this testimony by not only this panel here but others who have testified. I would certainly like to see in your report a recognition of the work the region does.
Also, we have been talking at least a little bit today about the clarity of the role in the process of how sea lamprey control is planned for, budgeted for and conducted. It would be a great benefit to everybody to make sure we have clarity in that regard.
The Deputy Chair: We had the good fortune to have two people from Global Affairs Canada here visiting with us earlier this week. If it is any comfort, they are incredibly motivated on the relationship side, to answer your concerns, Dr. Dettmers. If there is any consolation in that, I thought I would share that with you. This sounds like a very good start, according to those officials.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you for being here. It is a learning morning for all of us.
I was intrigued by your reference to COVID and that period of learning. I wondered if it was, in effect, an unexpected control experiment. It sounds like you leaped on it and learned a lot from that. I’m particularly interested in the species other than the sea lamprey. What do you know about them? What benefits the sea lamprey presumably does not benefit many of the other species in trying to create some kind of balance. In particular, what would you say the major learnings were from the COVID period?
Mr. Siefkes: I know we want to talk about more than sea lamprey. However, when we think about other species, especially in the lakes and how COVID may have impacted them, perhaps the greatest impact, at least on Lake Ontario, where, in 2020, there was no sea lamprey control that happened because of travel restrictions and the proximity of our sea lamprey control agents being located nearly 1,000 kilometres away from Lake Ontario, is that we saw fish like lake trout, sturgeon and some of the other salmonid species that are really important to recreational anglers were being preyed upon by sea lamprey at a really catastrophic level. We have multiple pictures from folks who were catching fish with four or five sea lampreys on them. We know that a single sea lamprey can consume 40 pounds of fish in its parasitic life stage, which lasts between a year to a year and a half. During COVID, we saw an order of magnitude increase in sea lampreys, which means we saw an order of magnitude or more increase in the devastation that happened to those fish.
Mr. Muir: Thank you for that question. I will add that, maybe broadly, much of what the commission does is based on coordinating, facilitating and building relationships. A lot of what we do is relationship building. A lot of those good relationships are built upon trust. From a science perspective, that was a lot of what we observed impacted by COVID. There were not opportunities to get together as much as we normally do. Several new people on the science front came into the program at the beginning of COVID, and it was multiple years before they even met their colleagues they were working with in person. So we saw impacts there. There were impacts with respect to completing a lot of our research projects. We are still riding that wave these many years out in terms of people completing projects. Students were not able to be brought on board. There were many implications and effects from that perspective in the science program.
Mr. Dettmers: Briefly, to your question about impacts on other species, most of the other species in the Great Lakes are fairly long-lived. That impact is maybe difficult to assess still. My guess is that those COVID impacts are not going to be a huge factor, but that is just a guess at this point.
To follow up on a couple of things my colleagues said, in the case of Dr. Siefkes, probably the first indication we received that things had gone badly as a result of not having treatment in Lake Ontario in 2020 was in 2021. At that time, my lake managers were telling me, “Oh my God. There are lampreys everywhere on all sorts of fish.” From creel surveys and all the different assessments, they were universally saying that lampreys were everywhere. On behalf of the fisheries managers, we appreciate the way the control program adapted and quickly got on top of that again so we could bring lamprey numbers down across the basin.
I concur with Dr. Muir about the impacts of COVID on relationship and trust, which is so integral to what we’re doing. We limped through it over a couple of years, doing everything remotely, but we have learned through this process that there’s no substitute for the way this arrangement of cooperative fishery management occurs — being in-person, together, having time outside of meetings to build relationships and establish trust so we can then have the formal discussions. That’s very important.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here and for the work you do.
I’m trying not to duplicate my colleagues, because there were questions that touched on what we need to know beyond sea lamprey. We’ve learned a lot there, and I know there’s more to learn. I’m also interested in the transfer of responsibilities that Senator Petten talked about, and just a final comment or validation that we’re hopeful that this change in responsibilities still allows the science and the research to continue. If I were at your end of the table, that would be something to be hopeful for.
For all of this to be happening and for the groups that are working together, my other area is communication. Mr. Dettmers, you spoke about the setup of a group, the management and trying to meet face to face. How does the commission communicate information or measures to the governments of Canada, the U.S. and the tribes? Are you happy with the way the communication is going? The piece that intrigues me is communication with the public. There seems to be a huge population around these parts of the Great Lakes. How are we ensuring that the public is well aware of the issues, the hard work being done and their roles in the challenges that come your way?
Mr. Dettmers: Thank you for the question.
We rely on our communications directorate to have that strong communication with the public. They are on social media, do various posts and are responsible for press releases, so we may not be the best people to answer that, but again, we can follow up with additional specific information in writing if that’s helpful.
We clearly are communicating with governments at multiple levels. As our commissioners build a budget, we then communicate that to the governments so that they are able and aware to fund us through discussion as appropriate. We brief governments on a regular basis through work that Mike may do from a sea lamprey control perspective but also other ways such as testifying before committees or working with legislative groups on each side of the border. I know some of you are involved in those interesting binational Canada-U.S. legislative groups, and we’re active in keeping those folks informed. That happens multiple times a year.
Mr. Muir: With respect to your point, senator, about the effect of the transition from DFO to Global Affairs on research and science, ironically, I think this transition frees us up from some of the encumbrances and conflicts that possibly prevented some good collaborations, relationship development and pursuit of common goals in the past. I’m optimistic, actually, that the change will be beneficial in allowing us to better work together, identify those common elements of the work we do and collectively identify solutions towards tackling those problems with Canada. The indications thus far are that that could be the case. I continue to be optimistic that the effect of the transition to Global Affairs on science will be positive.
The Deputy Chair: I have a question of my own. It was rolling around in my brain. I think Dr. Muir or Dr. Siefkes mentioned that, in other parts of the world, lampreys are considered a desirable species for, I’m assuming, a food product of some kind. What happens to the lampreys here, other than ones we get to apparently touch and feel when we can? What happens to the lampreys in Canada? Is there any commercial use for these products?
Mr. Siefkes: Unfortunately, because sea lamprey in the Great Lakes are feeding on sometimes relatively old fish like lake trout, they become heavily contaminated with heavy metals such as mercury. We have had studies done on the contaminant levels within sea lampreys, and they can be very high and way outside the limits that you would want to consume. Their use as a food product is certainly not advisable, probably not even permissible, given the levels of mercury within them.
We don’t catch enough of them probably to have a huge commercial value. We use a lot of them for research and communication purposes. The ones that we don’t use typically get disposed of. The other aspect of that is sometimes it’s not good to create a commercial market for something you’re trying to get rid of so that you don’t create an artificial reason to keep them around.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much for indulging me.
Senator C. Deacon: This has been truly enlightening, and you’ve just inspired us all, especially by the work you’re doing.
I want to ask more about the technologies you’re using and moving towards. We’ve heard from DFO in other studies that they still rely on trawling as a method for ocean stock quantification and tracking. There are so many new technologies that can allow those same insights to be provided in a non‑destructive manner, be it eDNA, creel or recreational fisher tracking, commercial fisher tracking and information and sonar. There is so much that can be done that is non-destructive outside the fishery itself. Can you speak about the cost savings and the opportunities that are created for greater insights? It’s an expensive, time-consuming and destructive activity to use trawling as your principal method. Just talk about the experience from the Great Lakes in that regard, if you could, please, and looking into the future, over the horizon a little bit, too.
Mr. Muir: There’s a lot to unpack there. Many new technologies have been evolving from a research-and-development perspective within and outside of the basin. We’re constantly, in our science programs, looking for opportunities to refine those technologies, develop them and apply them in the Great Lakes. There are a number of initiatives that I might use to highlight the kinds of things we’re doing. I’ll talk a little bit about the potential opportunities there.
We currently are developing a Science Transfer Program to tackle exactly this issue. The idea is to launch, this fall, a webinar series with experts who are developing particular technologies and looking to apply those to the Great Lakes. We will provide lunchtime webinars to inform fishery managers of the potential utilities of these new technologies, the limitations and the uses. We’ve already heard about the environmental DNA project that we advanced through our science transfer project. That project’s providing tools for the fishery management community and the sea lamprey community to help them employ that particular technology.
There are a host of others. We partner very closely on the U.S. side with the U.S. Geological Survey out of Ann Arbor, the Great Lakes Science Center. They have a specific program aimed at advanced technologies. They’re exploring and developing a number of things. One is advanced platforms for doing surveys with Saildrones that can be deployed. They go out on the lake and run autonomously. You can control certain elements from a computer in Ann Arbor. They’re collecting large amounts of data and, you’re right, there are efficiencies to be gained there. There are opportunities to deploy the drones on a broader scale. That work is under way. We’re not yet seeing them being adopted on a broader scale. My colleague can talk about some of the challenges there.
That same Science Center is also investing in some research, which we’re supporting, to develop a new video surveillance technology to survey round goby. You’ve probably heard about round goby in the Great Lakes, a very small fish that invaded from the Ponto-Caspian region. The goby, along with quagga and zebra mussels, have basically re-engineered the entire bottom of our Great Lakes and the benthic communities living there. These small fish live in the very large biomass among a large number of animals, on the bottom of our Great Lakes. They are very hard to survey with traditional technologies like trawls or sonars because they live in the crevasses of the rocky shoals. This group is developing an advanced video system attached to a drone to survey the surface of the lake bottom. It can use artificial intelligence, AI, to pick out the goby. It can also distinguish and survey other fish that live in the benthic environment at the bottom of our lakes. It’s a promising and very cool technology. Those are a couple of examples of the kinds of things we’re investing in and helping to coordinate with partners.
Senator C. Deacon: Do you have anything else you could offer to our clerk as examples of how you’re moving ahead and looking over the horizon to use technology to make our jobs more effective and cost-efficient? You seem to be an exemplary example of an organization that is focused on that. We would appreciate anything you have because it gives us evidence to help push forward and push back at certain points in time when we’re getting resistance on choosing the only way forward.
Mr. Dettmers: We’d be pleased to provide you with more of that information, absolutely. Thank you.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for speaking about the travel to Washington to meet with senators and members of Congress. I’ve had the opportunity on a number of occasions to travel with the commissioners and Greg McClinchey, who is here today. It’s an excellent opportunity. You tend to meet with all the senators and members who are from the Great Lakes District. It’s a great learning opportunity from both sides. Thank you for mentioning that.
What difference has it made to have a Great Lakes science program since the commission started in 1956? What would have happened if we didn’t have the science program?
Mr. Dettmers: From my perspective, the commission’s science program helps fishery managers to move forward. Information is provided to them that they then use in their decision-making process. As an example, the fact that Dr. Muir’s shop funds research to restore native fishes has helped us with lake trout management. It’s currently helping us on a very ambitious, forward-looking effort to restore some of the lakes’ native prey fishes, which we call coregonines. This is a broad collaboration among fishery managers, the commission science program and our partners at the U.S. Geological Survey, which Andrew just mentioned. The science side can interface with managers. Managers can request specific science, which then informs their decision making and helps advance this cooperative process. It’s a combination that gives managers confidence to move forward as well as insights on the right species to use in restoration. What are the right considerations when bringing a species back in terms of habitat use? Are there risks to consider? Perhaps we should not do it in this particular system or with this particular species. Managers have all kinds of good ideas. Scientists, though, help ground those ideas to provide a fruitful path forward.
Mr. Siefkes: For me, the answer is really simple. The commission’s science program was responsible for identifying and developing the lampricide that we use today. Without the science program of the commission, we probably would not have developed that. Of course, over the 65 years or so that it’s been used, lots of questions have come up about how it works, about what it does in the environment and about what sea lampreys actually do to fish in the Great Lakes. The basis of understanding all of those questions is the work done by the science program at the commission. Thank you.
[Translation]
Senator Aucoin: I’d like to thank the witnesses who have come to make a presentation today. It’s very interesting and very encouraging to see the studies being done and the organization around those studies.
Ultimately, we’re learning a lot about the positive things that are happening around the Great Lakes. During the first testimonies, we talked a lot about negative things. One thing that struck me was that when we had U.S. Commissioner Ethan Baker here, he said that Canada wasn’t giving its share of research funding. It may have been used for lamprey. This sheds light on where the money went. Based on what has been said, we can conclude that some programs have suffered as a result, because Canada’s share of the funds wasn’t transferred to the commission. Do you know which research programs are affected? Has there been any impact on the Canadian side?
Mr. Muir: Thank you for the question.
[English]
This is a good question. For much of the last 20 years or so, the commission has done what is necessary to invest in the required research because we recognize that fish stocks do not adhere to political boundaries, for example. We have invested in the kinds of work needed to support interjurisdictional fisheries management and sea lamprey control, despite the source of the funding. That is one thing.
In terms of what has been at risk because of that lack of funding, it really did come to a head in 2021 or 2022. We were up against a wall because we were developing a science and research program that is generated each year and approved by our commission for funding, but that program of research, as you can imagine, isn’t all restricted to that one year. Most science projects span multiple years — two or three. In the case of some of our bigger projects, they span a decade — some of the projects I mentioned that are tackling big problems across the basin. So we were at risk during that period of losing the opportunity to continue upward of 30 to 50 projects that we had on the books that were either ongoing for years or were new projects that we were starting. In response to your question, I would say that the entire research program was basically in jeopardy of being affected in one way or another because of the funding issue that came to a head in 2021 or 2022.
Mr. Dettmers: Thank you again for the opportunity to elaborate from my perspective of looking at cooperative fishery management. I’m one of the groups in the fishery commission that the two parties have agreed to fund on a 50-50 basis. We learned through this process of discovery through time that, in fact, DFO had not been contributing any money to cooperative fishery management. My group was seriously affected by that. We didn’t know it at the time.
What have we done since then? We’re ramping up investment in Canada to work on some of these very tricky and complex governance issues around habitat restoration so that we can move more quickly to catch up with what has been happening in the U.S. in those areas.
Mr. Siefkes: Thank you for the question.
From the sea lamprey control perspective, it probably sits a little bit differently than with science and fishery management because sea lamprey control is being done for the commission by DFO, so the funding was there for that. However, as Dr. Muir stated in his opening remarks, sea lamprey control is done for fishery management purposes. Fishery management, in turn, advises sea lamprey control on where it needs to do its control efforts around the lakes to ensure that fish stocks are healthy. The science program serves both fishery management and sea lamprey control to ensure that our programs are doing things the best way that we can, using the latest science.
With the funding shortfalls that we had in fishery management and science, even though it might not have directly impacted the operational program for sea lamprey control, certainly it hamstrung the sea lamprey control program because it couldn’t use science and fishery management to the greatest effect that it otherwise might have because of that shortfall.
Senator Ataullahjan: Gentleman, thank you for being here this morning. It’s been fascinating to listen to you. Thank you for your openness in answering our questions.
Talking about drones and artificial intelligence, we were in Bahrain a few months ago, where, in real time, they were monitoring supply and demand. Is that something that could be used to monitor the species within the Great Lakes and help you identify the species?
I was also reading about gold fish, which have become a big problem because they have been released in certain lakes. Are you seeing more exotic species? You did briefly touch upon that.
Mr. Dettmers: Thank you for that question.
It is truly fascinating to think about these technologies and how we might be able to use them. Again, coming from the meeting we just held this week with fishery managers, one of the very interesting discussions is how to incorporate technologies like drones to help better understand patterns of use by recreational fishers. Instead of human resources, put that onto drones and in other ways artificial intelligence.
I think Dr. Muir gave a really good example of this ability to detect and quantify abundance of round goby, an invasive fish that is now an important prey fish to many of our valued sport and commercial fisheries, so those things are happening or at least are being investigated. I expect in the next few years, we’ll start to see those being incorporated. I know you also heard from our law enforcement officers in terms of what they do. Drones are an effective way to help carry out their law enforcement activities right now in most of our jurisdictions.
I will stop there and turn it over to my colleagues.
Mr. Muir: I might add a few points.
With respect to the deployment, as we talked about earlier, there are a lot of R&D opportunities with respect to some advanced technologies. The “goby bot,” as it’s called, is currently at the stage where it’s going to be deployed for actual use in the Great Lakes to monitor goby populations. That is my understanding. Ontario also has a video surveillance system at a dam on the Credit River through a fishway, so the fish that cannot get past the barrier can swim up through a fishway to bypass the barrier. There’s video surveillance in there that they can use, I believe, to identify species of Pacific salmon that are migrating through that fishway to make their way upriver to spawn.
I briefly mentioned the FishPass project that we have, which is the ability to smarten up some barriers. We have sponsored some research that looked into developing computer algorithms to identify sea lamprey versus other species of fish that might move through a smart barrier like that. The work that was done there identified that sea lamprey can be discriminated using video algorithms from other Great Lakes fish species with almost 99% accuracy. The computer can identify sea lamprey. You can imagine a group of fish swimming upstream through the passageway, and if the computer can detect the sea lamprey, it opens a door and shuffles the sea lamprey off to one side, allowing the other species to pass. That is a technology that will be incorporated into the FishPass project, and there are other examples.
It was a very good question. Thank you for that.
The Deputy Chair: Seeing that we’ve come to the end of our list, and having used up all the time we have for this and then some, you can assume that everyone was fascinated with your presentation and the answers to the questions we had for you. Thank you sincerely for being a part of this very informative session. We hope to put together a report or a letter that I believe will help you in your next steps moving forward. Thank you again for your time and efforts in making this such an interesting session.
Senators, we will suspend briefly to proceed in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)