Speaker: Ms. May
Time: 08/06/2022 15:20:18
Context: Question

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP): Mr. Speaker, today is World Oceans Day and our oceans are in distress. They are getting hotter. Acid levels are rising. Oxygen levels are dropping. The heat absorbed by our oceans due to global warming is equivalent to seven Hiroshima bombs every second, every hour, every day.

Approving TMX pipeline and Baie du Nord just makes matters worse. As it is, net zero by 2050 is not a goal; it is an epitaph. When will the government take the climate crisis seriously as the emergency it is?

Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the member that we do take climate change very seriously. That is why, in our emissions reduction plan, it is an ambitious sector-by-sector path for Canada to reach our 2030 emissions reduction targets and on to net zero by 2050. It has broad support from environmental groups, industry and farmers. It is going to deliver clean air, a healthy environment and a strong economy. That is what Canadians want and that is what we will deliver.

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Today, June 5, is World Environment Day, and June 8 is World Oceans Day, with the full week marked in Canada by legislation as Environment Week.

Under other prime ministers, Environment Week was a big deal. When I worked for Tom McMillan, environment minister under former prime minister Brian Mulroney, Environment Canada distributed $1 million in funding to community and environmental groups across Canada for community awareness-raising activities during Environment Week. This effort to give very small grants to groups across Canada for Environment Week continued under prime ministers Chrétien and Martin. No more.

The focus on June 8 on our oceans is a rare time when we actually turn our attention to the source of life on earth. As terrestrial creatures, we tend to forget that life on dry land is not possible without life in our oceans. Our survival is intimately connected to the oceansfor the protein we consume from the fisheries, for the role played by oceans in carbon sequestration and moderating climate, among other essential functions.

The threats to the health of our oceans are growing as never before. As the excellent report from Justice Bruce Cohen on the fate of the wild British Columbia salmon pointed out, the threats are multiple and complex. The Cohen report enumerated the threats to salmon, closely mirroring the threats throughout the oceans: land-based sources of marine pollution, over-fishing, climate change, aquaculture operations, loss of habitat, to name a few. The fact that the federal fisheries minister has still not responded to this landmark report does not bode well.

Warming waters

Among the many threats, as Justice Cohen noted, the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is the greatest threat of all. The impacts of climate change on the ocean are as complex as the myriad interconnected threats from all the other reckless actions of humanity.

Warmer water has immediate negative impacts on some critical ecosystems. In the tropics, warmer water triggers bleaching of coral reefsending the life in those extraordinarily biologically diverse bits of paradise.

In Canada, warmer inland waters, particularly in critical salmon habitat in rivers and streams, essentially eliminate salmon habitat. Salmon are entirely dependent on cool waters for spawning and for the new fry to travel safely out to sea.

And, of course, in our Arctic waters, global warming is causing dramatic and dangerous loss of Arctic ice. The impacts on ecosystems are profound. The loss of ice has local effects, such as threatening the survival of polar bears and the Inuit traditional way of life. It also has global effects, such as driving the climate into new extremes of life-threatening intense storms, heat waves, and droughts.

Ocean acidification

Perhaps the most devastating threat created by our collective failure to effectively limit the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is that of ocean acidification. The increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is transferring carbon to our oceans. The gases in the atmosphere and water mix. Carbon moves from atmosphere to ocean. Most of this transfer has been beneficial in playing a critical role in pulling carbon from the atmosphere.

Over the last 200 years, it is estimated that the oceans have absorbed about one-third of all the greenhouse gases released through human activity. Certainly, the climate crisis would be more aggressive and dangerous if the oceans had not been providing this key “netting out” effect.

However, as that carbon loading has continued unabated, the carbon in the ocean is changing the chemistry of ocean water. Generally, ocean water is alkaline (or basic). However, as carbon mixes and changes in its chemistry, it becomes carbonic acid. Over time, the ocean is becoming acidified.

The impact of ocean acidification is already having measurable impacts in weakening the shells of crustaceans. All crustaceans need carbonate in order to build shells, but carbonic acid is corrosive to crustacean shells.

The potential assault on all crustaceans would have a devastating impact on the food chainultimately threatening all life in the ocean. As the head of the NOAA (the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), Jane Lubchenco, told the National Geographic, ocean acidification is the “equally evil twin” of the climate crisis.

As a society, we are failing to confront even those manageable and local impacts of treating the oceans as a resource so abundant that we make the mistake of assuming it to be infinite. As we cannot manage the conventional threats, little wonder we turn a blind eye to the threat posed by our use of the atmosphere as a free dump for fossil fuel pollution to the life in our oceans.

Originally published in Embassy News.

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“The new regulations will reduce scrutiny over dumping of hazardous material at sea,” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands.  “It is not clear whether the renewed permits for dumping will be accompanied by greater monitoring.”

The regulation changes stem from amendments to Canadian Environment Protection Act (CEPA) in the June, 2012, Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act. Previously, permits issued by the Minister of Environment for projects involving disposal at sea were valid for one year and not renewable.

The recent amendments will require Environment Canada to make decisions within 90 days of the application, will allow permits to be renewed, subject to new criteria, no more than four times for “low-risk, routine” projects.  They also reduce the amount of time that a person has to submit a notice of objection in regard to a permit from 30 to 7 days, starting from the date of publication of the permit.

“This new renewing process with little or no verification and a much shorter time for objections could be very damaging,” said May.

In Canada, an average of three to four million tonnes of material are disposed of annually at sea, mainly to ensure that shipping channels and harbours are kept clear for navigation and commerce.  Substances considered for disposal include dredged material; fish waste and other organic matter; ships, aircraft, platforms, and other structures, and inert, inorganic geological matter.

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On Thursday, October 18, the committee met in camera to discuss “Closed Containment Salmon Aquaculture.” The Minutes can be found here.

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Green Party leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands, Mary Gorman, Save Our Seas and Shores Coalition, Dr. Lindy Weilgart, Research Associate in Biology at Dalhousie University and an expert in seismic impacts on marine life, and Dr. Thomas Duck, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, also called on Canadians and regional provincial governments to join them in stopping the Harper Conservatives’ aggressive extraction agenda in the Gulf.

“We need as many concerned Canadians as possible and their provincial representatives to join us in our call for an exploration moratorium in the Gulf of St. Lawrence” said Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands. “Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just spent the past few months pushing through his pro-oil budget and omnibus Bill C-38, and now he thinks nothing can stop him. We have to demonstrate that’s just not the case.”

The elimination of federal regulations for offshore development are likely to have dire consequences for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a highly sensitive ecosystem with over 2,000 marine species that spawn, nurse, and migrate year around, including lobster, herring, snow crab, mackerel, tuna, endangered blue and right whales, leatherback turtle, and harlequin ducks.

Environmental assessments for exploratory drilling, which can be as dangerous as production drilling, were eliminated in the new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 (CEAA 2012) introduced in Bill C-38. It should be recognized that the largest oil spill in American history, the BP Macondo Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, was an exploratory well.

Environmental assessments of seismic blasting were also eliminated. “Marine mammals and fish are highly impacted by seismic surveys. Whales can strand and die, often bleeding from their eyes; dolphins can go rigid, catatonic, and drown, and the hearing cells in fish can be ripped apart. To carry out this destruction in as productive and biologically rich an area as the Gulf is madness,” Dr. Lindy Weilgart warned.

The Harper Conservatives are eliminating environmental regulations and protections to fast-track offshore drilling in spite of the fact that the Gulf provides a renewable global and regional food source, generating a thriving fishery – including Mi’kmaq and Acadian fishers – which, together with the tourism industry, is worth one billion dollars and creates approximately 50,000 related jobs. At the same time, the Harper Conservatives have not amended the current industry liability limit which now stands at 40 million – nothing compared to the billions BP has spent in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf has unique characteristics making exploration and extraction particularly risky. It is a partially landlocked, inland sea with strong, counter-clockwise, tidal currents that only empty into the Atlantic once a year. There is no feasible way to clean up an oil spill because the Gulf is one of the windiest regions in North America. Due to the currents, one oil spill could damage five provincial coastlines (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Newfoundland).

“As coastal landowners, we feel betrayed and abandoned by our governments who are gambling recklessly with everything we have worked for our entire lives – our property values and net worth along with our Gulf’s pristine beauty, recreational pleasures and unique maritime culture,” stated Mary Gorman.

“I would like to formally welcome Prime Minister Harper to the 21st century and advise him that humans are not the only species on the planet. It is long past time to shuck off this anthropogenic attitude of superiority and mastery and learn a small lesson in humility. It is good for the soul. While the rest of the world is embracing change, our government is clinging to 20th century philosophies and business models. This may have been acceptable in the 1950s, but we have moved on. We urge the Canadian government to do the same,” said John Percy, Leader of the Nova Scotia Green Party.

This aggressive extraction agenda is taking place as the government’s ability to monitor negative impacts has been greatly weakened. Professor Thomas Duck highlighted the ongoing reduction of scientific capacity at Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“Sound policy is informed by science, yet the Harper Conservatives have dismantled much of our capacity to monitor the impact of fossil fuel exploration and development. The elimination of scientific assessments and oversight — indeed, the whole of Harper’s war on evidence — puts the health and safety of Canadians and their environment at considerable risk.”

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As Farley Mowat documented decades ago in Sea of Slaughter, we have already caused a drastic loss of biodiversity in our oceans.  The Magdalen Islanders once hunted walrus, we had Orcas on the east coast, seabirds once blocked out the sun in their enormous numbers, while the coho, sockeye and steelhead salmon runs kept hundreds of B.C. canneries humming, and sea otters existed in large numbers, hanging on to their kelp moorings to munch on abalone.  As beautiful as our oceans are today, what we see is a tragically decimated and threatened water world.

Our oceans are facing numerous threats — over-fishing, pollution from both land-based and marine sources, astonishing levels of plastics circulating in the oceans — an estimated 143 million tons of plastic currently imperils life in the seas, and the dual climate change-related threats of increased temperatures and acidification are the most dangerous of all.  On top of all this we have the increased threat of oil and gas development in fragile ecosystems.

Recently, we have seen a growth of off-shore oil and gas, creating conflicts in some areas between fishing and fossil fuel industries.  The US-Canada agreement to keep oil drilling off Georges’ Bank on the east coast was extended in May 2010 to December 31, 2015.  A similar measure is urgently needed for the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  The Gulf is the most biologically productive marine region in Canada and is essentially an inland sea, as it is surrounded by four Atlantic provinces, with Prince Edward Island in the middle.  Any oil spill would be caught in the counter-clockwise currents of the Gulf, bringing disaster to a multi-billion dollar fishery.   Despite this and despite the fact the promised regional environmental review promised by the Minister of Environment in June 2011 has not yet taken place, the Gulf of St. Lawrence is specifically targeted in Budget 2012 for oil and gas development.

Similarly, recently the Harper Conservatives have launched an oil rush for license bids in the Beaufort Sea.  There is no ecosystem more fragile than that that is ice-covered (at least at the moment) for much of the year.  It is worrying that the National Energy Board has recently accepted industry demands to remove the requirement that any project must be capable of drilling a relief well in the same drilling season to cap any blow-outs.  This is conditional on industry having another viable technology to achieve the same end. So far, the industry has not explained how it will meet this relaxed requirement.

At the same time as the Harper Conservatives aggressively promote off-shore oil and gas development, as well as super-tanker traffic with bitumen crude heading west from Kitimat through some of the most treacherous waters on earth, they are also cutting the emergency response measures to cope with disaster.

Environment Canada’s Environmental Emergency Programme has been shrunk from regional offices, including one in Vancouver, to one office in Quebec.  Ten Coast Guard operations are being shut down.  In BC alone, we are losing the search and rescue operation in Vancouver plus marine communication operations in Kitsilano, Comox and Tofino.  The cuts affect the ability of the Coast Guard to monitor and deal with marine pollution offences. As well, the safety of mariners could be affected.

Meanwhile, the entire contaminants programme within DFO has been shut down.  Nearly all of the DFO scientists studying marine toxicology across Canada are being laid off – 75 scientists. Dr. Peter Ross, a globally respected scientist from BC, recently dismissed from DFO, lamented, “The entire pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine environment in Canada’s three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists scattered across Canada – one of which will be in BC.”  (quoted in Times Colonist, “Ottawa sinks pollution checks,” May 20, 2012)

Most shocking, as the Prime Minister presses on to put super-tankers in the Hecate Strait, ranked by his own government as the fourth most dangerous body of water on the planet, scientific studies to determine DFO’s Centre for Off-shore Oil, Gas, and Energy Research (COOGER) is closing, ending work in progress in many areas, including a “Baseline Hydrocarbon Study in Hecate Strait.” It was studying impacts of oil and gas leaks, counter-measures for an oil spill, restoration of environment after any spill, among other key areas.

For Oceans Day, June 8, 2012, our Prime Minister is land-locked.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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“In my riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, there are at least two important lighthouses that will be affected, at Porlier Pass and Portlock Point.  We have been working with citizens who want to see these structures preserved,” said Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament and Leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The two most affected lighthouses in Saanich-Gulf Islands are:

1. Porlier Pass Rear Range on Galiano Island which is an “active” status lighthouse that has not yet been nominated for heritage status.
2. Portlock Point Lightstation which is a “surplus” status lighthouse not yet nominated for heritage status.

Other affected lighthouses in the riding have been nominated for heritage status, including Active Pass Lightstation and East Point (Saturna Island) Lightstation.

The Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act, passed in 2008, provided a process whereby citizens could nominate any federally-owned lighthouse for designation as a heritage property.  Other lighthouses will be sold off.

“The Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act was a bit of a misnomer and it is really a way for the government to divest itself of lighthouses,” said May.

Under the Act, community groups could apply for ownership of the lighthouses, however there is no associated funding for maintaining the buildings.

“Lighthouses are a source of pride for coastal communities and the tourism benefits alone justify their maintenance and indeed, their enhancement,” said May.

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It was agreed that the Committee start hearing witnesses from Federal Departments on the study on invasive species that pose a threat to the Great Lakes system, starting on Monday, April 2, 2012, and that Members should send in their list of potential witnesses to the Clerk

The in camera minutes of the meeting may be viewed here.

On March 26th, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO) met in camera to commence consideration of a draft report.

They then resumed in public to vote on two motions. Both votes were negatived 6 to 5.

The decisions made in public and in camera can be viewed in the Minutes.

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They then resumed the meeting in public at 4:13pm pursuant to the Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the Committee on October 18th, 2011 to resume the study of closed containment salmon aquaculture.

Witnesses from Port McNeill and the Regional District of Mount Waddington made statements and answered questions. As well, Fin Donnelly (MP for New Westminster-Coquitlam and Port Moody) motioned the following:

”That, because fleet separation and owner operator policy is critical to coastal communities and protecting independent fishers in the inshore fishery, the Committee reaffirms its support for fleet separation and owner operator vessels in the inshore fishery and oppose any move to eliminate this policy”.

On February 27^th the Committee featured a witness brought in using video satellite from British Columbia to discuss closed containment aquaculture and regulation within BC. Dr. Roth, the witness, is the aquaculture industry specialist for the BC Ministry of Agriculture and provided the committee with detailed information on the current state of aquaculture legislation in BC and its relationship with DFO. He further provided recommendations on how to best move the aquaculture industry forward, and reiterated comments from previous witnesses regarding the financial hurdles facing closed containment systems.

The committee also debated and passed a motion to release a statement from the committee supporting the sealing industry in Canada. The motion also urges the federal government to continue its efforts to open more international markets for the industry, and the motion requires the statement be read in the House of Commons for potential discussion by other Members of Parliament.

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On Tuesday, December 6^th, the committee held a videoconference with from representatives of Overwaitea Food Group and Albion Fisheries Ltd.

On Thursday, December 8^th, the committee held a videoconference with Professor Colin Brauner of the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia and Catherine Stewart of the Living Oceans Society. Before the committee adjourned, Patricia Davidson  (Sarnia-Lambdon, Ont., CPC) gave notice of a motion to have the committee conduct a study of invasive species that pose a threat to the Great Lakes system. More details on the motion can be found here.

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