Is Fisheries and Oceans Canada being gutted like a salmon or merely having the fat trimmed so it can work better and cheaper?
For NDP candidate Craig Speirs, it’s the former because $57 million in cost reductions could cripple DFO’s ability to respond to critical incidents.
Case in point, the death of thousands of fish in the North Alouette River two years ago last spring.
“Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows residents are all too aware of what can happen when the DFO lacks resources,” Speirs says.
“In May of 2009, thousands of fish were killed on the North Alouette River."
But that is being disputed.
“Craig obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said Conservative candidate Randy Kamp, formerly secretary to the fisheries minister.
“I’ve been there. I’ve been involved in the process of strategic review.”
The department just underwent a normal cost-cutting review, as does every other ministry, to ensure it’s running efficiently and as cheaply as possible. The cuts will be implemented over two or three years.
“Taxpayers expect their money to be well spent,” said Kamp, “so that we do have the ability to fund things that are important – like habitat protection.
“We do this on a regular basis.” If you have a $2-billion budget, you can find savings and efficiencies, he added.
Kamp pointed out the government also reversed previous Liberal cuts to the department and added a new office.
According to Kamp, Speirs is just looking for an election issue when focusing on the issues in the North Alouette River in the last two years.
Speirs, in a news release last week, said the money was to be “slashed” just when the Cohen Commission on the loss of the Fraser River sockeye salmon could offer recommendations on improving salmon stocks.
“DFO is on life support and Stephen Harper offers amputation.
“Where is Randy Kamp in all this and how is he responding to these challenges? He has done what he always does between elections, he disappears. We need MPs that stand up and defend our water,” Speirs said.
He added that if the cuts aren’t having an effect, “How come there are no boots in the river?”
Kamp counters: “If he wants to talk about the North Alouette he should at least get his facts straight.”
Kamp acknowledges the department could have done better than waiting a week to respond to reports of excavation along the North Alouette River in the middle of May 2009.
“I didn’t think DFO did everything in the best possible way.”
But when Jack Emberly reported the death of thousands of fish May 25, 2009, Kamp said Fisheries passed on the file to Environment Canada, which was on site the next day.
“They found three [dead] stickleback and one sculpin – and no real evidence that there had been many thousands of fish killed.”
That incident then went through due process. “The system worked.”
Emberly, though, says when Environment Canada officers came out it was pouring rain and they couldn’t see into the water. “The fish were there – they [Environment Canada] were just so stupid and incompetent they couldn’t see them.”
In better weather, Emberly said he saw a metre-wide strip of dead fingerlings on the river bottom, stretching from the Neaves Road bridge upstream about a kilometre. He estimates there were 1,000 dead fish in every square metre and that three days later even after tidal flushing in the river, he still managed to collect 20 dead fish in an hour.
“What have they got planned for the watershed if they don’t want fish to be part of it?” Emberly asked.
Kamp pointed out the federal department worked with the B.C. Ministry of Environment on the investigation and eventually Fisheries Act and Water Act charges were laid against members of the Aquilini family, headed by Francesco Aquilini, in connection with the installation of an intake pipe connected to cranberry fields owned by Golden Eagle Group, part of the Aquilini Investment Group. That case is currently before the courts.
Francesco, Paulo, Elisa and Roberto Aquilini, along with Richard Matis, were charged in February with 11 counts under the Water Act, the Fisheries Act and the Dike Maintenance Act, in connection with the installation of an irrigation pipe in the North Alouette River in May 2009.
Francesco Aquilini heads the Aquilini Investment Group, which also owns the Vancouver Canucks.
Golden Eagle Group, operates almost 5,000 acres of berry farms in Pitt Meadows.
“A pretty significant corporation was charged, so the system worked,” Kamp said.
“At the end of the day, the owner of the Vancouver Canucks was charged.”
Speirs also cites testimony from the Cohen inquiry, quoting a fisheries habitat and enforcement manager saying that staff in the Interior are “very disillusioned,” about being unable to keep up with the pace of development in the Thompson, Okanagan and Shuswap regions.
“We can’t keep up,” said Jason Hwang.
“We are not able to pursue smaller occurrences that in the past we have pursued and prosecuted.”
Regulatory streamlining, a poor referral system and staff cuts have reduced DFO capacity to respond, his note said, resulting in failure to achieve no-net loss of fish habitat where developers must compensate for any damage.
Hwang’s note also warned logging in the Interior had increased massively to salvage timber killed by mountain pine beetles.
“We are totally disengaged from operational forestry,” he wrote. “We don’t have a handle on what is going on, and are not providing any meaningful guidance on what we would like to see for fish.”
Kamp said he didn’t know the specifics.
But in high-growth areas, there may be challenges, he said. “The department is always open to looking at that,” and adjusting staff levels so they can do their jobs, Kamp said.
Green party candidate Peter Tam sympathized with Kamp. “If he speaks out, he’s going to be sacked. So that’s the kind of regime that he’s under.”
He supports environmentalist Emberly’s charges that Fisheries and Oceans Canada is evasive and ineffective.
Emberly even questions the future existence of the department. “I don’t think they want the DFO because it’s too much trouble for industry.”
He wanted to know why Kamp isn’t responding to the demands for river management made by the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Environmental Council.
For Tam, “It is absolutely clear that the DFO have no intention in carrying out their duties and enforcing the Fisheries Act.”
Cost cutting and constant squeezing of resources in Fisheries could be followed the same exercise in Environment Canada.
“The current government has no regard for the environment whatsoever.”
Tam said people in the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge area “are generally very environmentally conscious,” who instead have to fight their government for environmental regulation.
“It should be a partnership. We really shouldn’t be fighting each other this way.”
Liberal candidate Mandeep Bhuller says the fisheries department has become too politicized and that too many decisions are being made from an ideological base.
And he said Kamp keeps passing the buck, blaming other departments. “To me, he’s brushing that responsibility off as an MP and government.”
There seems to be a disconnect between Fisheries and Oceans Canada between the public, he added.
– with files from Jeff Nagel