HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2021

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

3:36 P.M.

CHAIR

Keith Bain

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply will now come to order.

We’re meeting today to consider Resolution E9.

Resolution E9 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $19,493,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, pursuant to the Estimate.

THE CHAIR: With that, minister, you have one hour for your opening remarks.

The honourable Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

HON. KEITH COLWELL: It’s a great pleasure that I get an opportunity to talk about the great work that our department is doing in fisheries and aquaculture in the Province of Nova Scotia.

I want to start off by indicating - I talk about this often, probably people get tired of hearing it from me, but it’s so important - fisheries in the Province of Nova Scotia, including our wild catch and our aquaculture activities, are the number one exporter in Nova Scotia. They represent over 39 per cent of the total exports. That’s something we all should be proud of in the province as so many people in all of our constituencies are involved in the fisheries, either directly or indirectly.

When I took the portfolio in 2013, we were at $974,000,000. There was a tremendous amount of support the Premier - the previous Premier - had done when we worked in Asia, all over Asia, to open up new markets. I’ve had a fantastic marketing team. I’ve got a fantastic team in both departments who really care and are dedicated to the industry.

The industry itself is incredible to work with. We’ve forged new partnerships with them, and, indeed, we are partners with the industry. That makes all the difference. We listen to their concerns. Sometimes we don’t agree. Most of the time we come to an understanding and that’s just as good as agreeing and sometimes better because it means that we’re listening and working together to help the Nova Scotian economy grow.

Even in the last year with COVID-19, we did very well in the fishing industry exports. The year before, we did $2.3 billion, which led the country in exports of fish. We are the number one leading exporter of fish products in the country. We were No. 3 in 2013.

I’m so proud of the industry, so proud of our staff and the great work that the whole team is doing. It’s a team effort. Everybody comes up with new ideas and concepts which we embrace, which we want to move forward to make sure that Nova Scotia gets the best return we possibly can on the investments we put forward in marketing and product development.

We’re lucky to have more and more value-added products. Again, that brings more money home. I’ve talked many times of how every export dollar we can bring into the province is the equivalent to $7 in our economy.

When we look at the industries that I represent, fisheries and aquaculture and agriculture, we are by far the biggest employer in the province when you take into consideration all of the direct jobs and indirect jobs in the service industry. It is the biggest business in the province. For so many years, agriculture and fisheries and aquaculture were looked at as, well, not really good careers. Today they’re an incredible career. Opportunities. There are all kinds of people to work in the industry, at all different levels. In some of our industries, we have PhDs working for the businesses themselves, people with accounting degrees, marine biologists, managers, accountants, and the list goes on and on. It’s a very solid and long-term career opportunity for people.

We started with a scholarship program two years ago for fisheries and aquaculture. For students who work, a Grade 11 or Grade 12 student works 500 or 1,000 hours at a fish plant or an aquaculture site, you get up to a $1,000 scholarship from us, depending upon the number of hours they worked. They get paid full-time on the job they do, and the hours can be accumulated over a couple of years. Then the money is paid directly to a university or a community college, wherever they decide they’re going to go, to go into their fund to help with their education. This is in addition to everything else the companies do, and at no cost to the company. We found that quite successful and indeed, we want to extend that even further, to encourage young people to have a career in the fisheries and aquaculture business.

When we look at the great things that have been done and the world market that we have been dealing with, as I’ve already said, over a year ago we had $2.3 billion in sales in fisheries. When COVID-19 came along, we were afraid that we weren’t going to be able to sell our products, were not going to be able to export the way we did, and we’re very close to $2.2 billion this year in sales. That says a lot for the industry.

One of the ways we’ve accomplished that, for the Chinese New Year this year - even though China was very difficult to get things in because of COVID-19 - we managed to sell very close to $18 million worth of lobsters. Actually, over $18 million in lobster, for the Chinese New Year, strictly online this time.

We’ve made memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with them, a large grocery store chain there, and indeed, it’s been very exciting. We had actually over one million people online looking at the event we had - 100 million people, I mean, not a million but 100 million people in China. That shows how much penetration we’re getting and how great our marketing efforts have been. Again, this is a combination of our staff and the industry.

It’s an exciting time. The fishermen are making a better income than they’ve had probably in a lifetime. Again, when I came to this department in 2013, they just marked $3 a pound at the wharf. This year, the price has ranged anywhere from about $8 up to $16 or $17 a pound at the wharf. That’s just the lobster industry.

We’re seeing great landings at great prices for our crab, great landings and great prices for our halibut, and the list goes on and on. Again, that’s because we’re adding value and improving quality for our end products and it is starting to show.

This year, we had to deal with COVID-19. It was a very trying time for our processors, trying to figure out how they could operate with 200 to 300 people working in a fish plant or on a boat in very close proximity to each other. I can tell you it was very successful. Again, I want to congratulate the industry for doing that; the Department of Health and Wellness for the great work that they’ve done working with my staff; my staff directly; and the staff at Perennia for the great work they did to put protocols in place. Fortunately, we have not had a problem in the fishing industries thus far, but you never know. It could change tomorrow.

It has really been a team effort again, and I cannot say enough positives about what has happened. With so many thousands of people working in the industry it is so important that this has happened.

[3:45 p.m.]

It’s so good to see the progress we’ve made so far and a lot more progress to happen. We have been working on aquaculture and we have many applications in the queue right now for people who have come forward with aquaculture sites. If they all transpire, and that’s going to be up to an independent review board whether they approve these or not, we have over half a billion dollars of potential investment in the province, all private money, none from the Province. It can really make a significant improvement, short-term in development and long-term in sustainable, high-paid career opportunities for people in the province.

This will be a game-changer for us all. It’s very exciting to see these things move forward. Our independent panel reviewed the first oyster farm file this year. They went through the system and the site was approved. We’re obviously very glad to see our system is working. It’s good to see an independent body doing this and taking all politics out of it - all the potential for anything to happen that shouldn’t be - done properly. Because, as we develop aquaculture, we want to make sure it’s done in a sustainable way, really environmentally friendly, and really looks after concerns in the communities as these operations operate.

We announced a large hatchery in the province - a $58 million investment. This is no ordinary hatchery. This is a hatchery that takes it from the egg to a smolt to a super smolt. A super smolt is a salmon or a trout that would be in the cage - instead of being in there for 18 months, it would be there for 10 months. It’s a total game-changer. That means overwintering won’t be a problem for these sites, and also the time to market would be much faster. Indeed, when the sales increase, they can ramp up their sales and their growth periods much faster. It also helps with cash flow.

This facility will create many jobs as the construction is there. This technology has been developed in Norway. It’s absolutely clean and there is no effluent from it whatsoever. At the end of the day, it’ll also - separate facility that the live fish could be pumped straight into a boat and then straight into the ocean cages so they can be used there, putting less stress on the fish and less carbon. Whereas before, they used to have to hatch them, put them in a truck, ship them a long distance and then dump them in a ship and then out to sea. This way it’ll just be one trip: pump it straight out to the boat and into the pens from the boat. So it’s moving forward very solidly.

As we see the benefits of the things that have been happening and the work that’s been done to make these things happen, a lot of these things are possible from the great work that’s been done on trade agreements. If you look at the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement that is going in place with Europe, that is fantastic. That has meant that some of our products and fisheries and aquaculture and agriculture have, over time - will eliminate tariffs and that will make us more competitive in those markets.

Also, the Trans-Pacific Partnership came into effect on December 30, 2018. This again gets us a great opportunity to market in new operations. There are so many things that can happen with these trade agreements and it’s so important that we work with our trade commissioners in other countries to move our products forward.

I did talk about aquaculture already, but I just want to mention that aquaculture is the fastest-growing food method production in the world. It’s essential to food security for the world. As we see, there’s not going to be enough food in the world to feed the populations at the present rate of growth in populations.

We have tremendous opportunities in that area. When I took over the portfolio in 2013, aquaculture regulations were around five or six pages and really a lot of concern was addressed by the communities, and rightly so. We listened. We listened to the independent report and, indeed, we have come a long way. Indeed, now everything is transparent, most everything is on our website, and the meetings are open, transparent, and anyone can see what the rules and regulations are. The rules and regulations are being followed and will be followed.

We’ve also invested significantly in 75 research and development products in aquaculture to look at environmental interaction studies and other innovations for our companies to adapt to climate change. That investment was invested heavily by, as well as us, also by industry.

Our regulatory framework is some of the best, if not the best in the world. We’re getting accolades from industry from all over the world. They know exactly how our system works, they know exactly what they have to do, and the really good companies want to come here because they know they’ve got a location that’s well-regulated. Indeed, all the companies are made to perform properly and do the proper things. I can tell you, when I deal with the aquaculture companies, they want to do it properly because they’re here for a long time, and to set up a finfish aquaculture site, for instance, you’re looking at half a billion dollars for one site. They want to make sure that their investment is secure and that they can move forward.

In our budget this year, we have a five-year program to support more work, research, development and other opportunities in aquaculture over the next five years. We’re very happy with that. Going back to the commercial fishery, we’ve been working with them. They requested a moratorium on licences, and we’re working on that with them jointly. For processing, we’re looking at new quality programs for lobsters, holding facilities that we’re working on. And we’ve also set up our own international standard for lobster holding capacity. We’re the only ones in the world that have that, and that now is being monitored by an independent company out of Europe that certifies organizations to a standard. Our standard is the only one in the world for lobster, and it’s very high, and very important when we’re marketing our products.

I know I visited one company in Europe that buys and sells fish and fish products and they’re building a facility to our standards, using our training programs - our Lobster Handling Course - they’re going to have their staff, once COVID’s over, trained to give the course in their own country for themselves and their customers. And they’re only going to buy Nova Scotia lobster, or lobsters that have been certified to that standard. They can take that standard and market that to their customers to show another level of security when they buy products. It’s very exciting to see all this happen.

Our sports fishing industry for so long has been almost ignored by government after government. It’s a great opportunity to have people come, enjoy beautiful Nova Scotia, enjoy the outdoors, our wonderful people in the province, and our beautiful scenery. I know everybody who comes to Nova Scotia really enjoys it here. It’s the hospitality of the people. Beautiful place we have. I know one gentleman, a high-ranking individual from a company from China, was driving in from the Stanfield airport and he said, I’m in heaven. He said, there are trees. That’s the kind of attitude we get, and when he actually got a chance to see more of Nova Scotia, he was even more impressed with it, instead of just concrete buildings and pavement. That’s the kind of reaction we get.

Our sport fishing season last year couldn’t open on April 1^st because of COVID-19. With great work with the Department of Health and Wellness, we did manage to open a month later, which was really good. We were worried that we weren’t going to sell very many licences because we were a month late opening. We took some flak on it and people were very concerned, but the health came first, and indeed we did the right thing - the Department of Health and Wellness did the right thing. We did open it in May. We thought that our sales would be down in licences. Actually, last year we sold over 76,000 sports fishing licences, the highest number since 1985. That’s quite an accomplishment. It is attributed to some of the programs we’ve been doing with sport fishing in the province, but I think, too, people wanted to get out into the outdoors where it’s safe and away from COVID-19 and enjoy the outdoors, that maybe some people hadn’t done it in a long time.

The other thing that I’m really proud of is our staff, and staff in other departments, for the work they did in putting our fishing licences online. There are - my director of inland fisheries came to me almost every year and said, I want to put this online, and when I found out what the price tag was - $3 million - there’s no way we could possibly afford to do it. Somehow, through great effort by themselves and some of the other departments and staff in the other departments, they managed to get this online for a very modest cost. We’re very, very happy about that. It means that people can buy online fishing licences that they couldn’t get online before.

Our fishery is worth about somewhere between $60 million and $70 million a year. That doesn’t sound like a lot of money when we’re selling $2.3 billion in export sales in fisheries, but it’s a big contributor to our growth and a big contributor to Nova Scotia. As people become more and more environmentally aware, they will enjoy the outdoors more. The more we can do that, the better we’re going to be.

We also, recently, for the first time that I’m aware of ever, put a marketing strategy together - before COVID-19 started - to encourage more people to come and visit Nova Scotia, and more Nova Scotians to go fishing, whether it be salmon fishing, trout fishing, bass fishing, whatever the case may be. We really have a new brand. We have materials up on Instagram and Facebook, and professionalizing - we work with the guides to professionalize the guides to take them to another level, which they really embraced: put packages together where they could work with a hotel or a bed and breakfast, or whatever the case may be, to do a package deal, giving some cooking lessons for shore lunches. All kinds of different things. It’s been a really great experience for our staff and the guides working together to really bring the quality of our product even higher. A lot of our guides were already there. Some were just beginning. It sets a new standard. This is something we feel that long-term will help us grow our sports fishing industry.

You know, when we talk about all the things we’re doing - in this last year, we had a problem, and we have a problem in another lake now, where somebody illegally introduced bass in the headwater in a small lake to the St. Marys River. Now bass will devour every kind of fish in the river: every trout, every salmon, all the small ones, all the eggs, eels, everything. Somebody put that in illegally. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find them. We haven’t charged yet, but that investigation will continue. What our department did, and it’s the first time we’ve ever done this in Nova Scotia - we immediately blocked the area off so the bass could not escape, it wouldn’t get into the main watershed. We did some testing below this small lake and prevented them getting out. We tried all kind of activities like electro-fishing and actually fishing. People went there and caught fish of all sizes. Of course, the native fish were - most of them were released, but the bass were kept and recorded for size and weight and all that, and how many they caught. That didn’t work.

What they decided to do was to try rotenone, which is a chemical that can be used which doesn’t last long in the water, but it does kill all the fish in the area. Before we did that, we went in and removed as many as the eels as we could, as many of the bass, as well, but then all the other trout and any of the small fish that were there, where different types of fish before we applied the rotenone.

We did lots of consultation on it, including with the Mi’kmaq, and we have support from everybody, including the Ecology Action Centre and the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. The list goes on and on.

[4:00 p.m.]

We did apply the rotenone in October. Indeed, we proved that we did eradicate the bass population there. The lake will be monitored over the next five years and we’ll reintroduce the native fish in that lake.

Compared to New Brunswick, which has had this problem for some time, we set a new standard. They didn’t do this, and because of that they now have a bass population they can’t deal with in some of their major rivers that will destroy the wild salmon population. We’re spending a lot of money and a lot of effort trying to restore some of the rivers to a good sports fishery for salmon, as well as trout and other ones.

The salmon industry this year - of course, we’re down in sales and licensing salmon because a lot of the people who had typically come to Nova Scotia to fish salmon and spend quite a lot of money here, actually, when they come - we were down with quite a lot fewer licences. I think 700 fewer licences than the year before. But that will come back with the enhancements we’re doing. That gives us a little chance to also keep up the work we’re doing on the rivers.

I want to thank Dr. Eddie Halfyard, who works for Perennia, whom I am responsible for as minister. He works closely with the Nova Scotia Salmon Association and all the other salmon and trout and sportfishing people in the province. Through his guidance and work, they have set a new standard for bringing the pH levels up in rivers through liming projects and other river restorations. Now we can take that and improve that and put it in other lakes.

Over the last 15 years, we’ve had 11 rivers that have had population enhanced by our staff as well, with salmon fry, parr, smolts, and pre-spawning adults. That was made possible by Mr. Halfyard, in addition, and I’ll come back to him in a minute. This program wouldn’t have even been possible without our two provincial hatcheries at the Margaree Fish Hatchery and Fraser’s Mills Fish Hatchery.

I want to acknowledge the great work that is done by the numerous volunteers. I know I’m going to miss somebody, and I apologize for that, but there are so many volunteers and so many organizations: the Inverness South Anglers Association, Antigonish River Association, the Margaree Salmon Association, just to name a very few. I know the St. Mary’s River Association on the Eastern Shore is a great organization that is just starting up their work, and many more, giving countless hours to doing these things.

As we did our stocking program, working with these volunteers, we stocked the Margaree, the Middle River, Mabou, and West River in Antigonish. We put in a total of 237,000 salmon parr and smolt. In addition to that, we do hundreds of thousands of trout every year, all over the province.

I want to thank all the volunteers and I apologize to the ones I didn’t have on my list here, but they’re just as important as the ones that I mentioned.

There’s also been a lot of help from Waughs River from volunteers to collect over 300,000 eggs so we can use those in our hatcheries to bring in some more salmon. We also released pre-spawned salmon into the West River Sheet Harbour, all in an effort to improve it.

If I go back to the work that Dr. Halfyard has done, I remember when I first came to the department and heard about the project he was working on through the Salmon Association. He was working directly for the Salmon Association. At that time, they had - I know that river, and as a child I could see the salmon jumping there. Today we can now see the salmon jumping there occasionally - not as many as we need to yet, but it’s coming.

They started talking about liming, and I said, and he said, why don’t we lime this by helicopter? So I contacted the Minister of Natural Resources at the time and I said, we’d like to do a helicopter liming project and we don’t have any money to pay for helicopters but I will help pay for the lime if you can get the helicopters. Well, we had a meeting with the helicopter pilots and then the Department of Natural Resources at the time. The meeting didn’t go very well. They thought maybe they’re not in the business of liming, but they were very gracious. They listened to what we said.

We’ve kept working away at it. They did some more studies to prove exactly how well this would work and how long it’d be effective. Some of this liming can last up to 50 years and will complement the doser that they had in the river at that time. It just puts the lime in the river and is an immediate repair just in that area. When it’s gone, it’s gone. You have to keep dosing steadily.

Over time, we worked with them and they finally agreed to it and said, okay, we will - we’ll do a small project and we’ll start it. Three or four years ago now, we started that project. I can remember talking to the helicopter pilots who were on site that day and I managed to go and see what was happening. We brought in some equipment from, I believe, New Zealand or Australia - a hopper to put the lime in. The pilots at that time - they were only just starting - said the hopper has got some problems and we think we know how to fix it. That’s great, so let’s fix it and get it done. You couldn’t have seen a happier group of pilots in all your life. They were excited to do this. One of the pilots had actually done this in Alberta. It really brought a lot to the table.

We were going from a situation where they weren’t interested in participating in to a situation now with the modifications on the hopper. They helped redesign a new hopper. Now we’ve got a bigger one. They managed to get bigger helicopters now. We’ve successfully limed, I believe, 263 acres of land by helicopter. That’s a significant difference, and we’re already seeing a difference in the habitat for the salmon in that area.

Also, we’re developing a machine that we can drive through the woods roads and spread lime on by land. With that, we can do it almost year-round and have a bigger effect on the overall thing and a lower cost in tying helicopters up, but we’re still going to use the helicopters. They’re doing so much now that it’s really positive. We’re looking at more rivers to put this technology in place and we’re working with that.

There has been a lot of work done in co-operation with Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Salmon Association on pilot projects. I can’t say enough positive about the Nova Scotia Salmon Association. They’ve been there all the way. They started this. This is the first time the Province has really stepped up and helped them in a major way. They continue to be the biggest supporters of these river habitat improvements through countless volunteer hours and fundraising themselves that they put money into these projects. I personally want to thank them for that.

I already talked about our hatcheries. Well, we’ve had some major problems on our hands with our hatcheries - not with the hatcheries themselves or staff or anything like that. Just the opposite in that regard. Hurricane Dorian - we were without power for eight days. Staff worked very hard. They cut trees down. They were down on site. If I recall right, they had to refuel the generators every four hours, seven days a week during Hurricane Dorian. They got through that with almost no fish loss.

The drought last year at Fraser’s Mills caused us a great deal of trouble. Again, the same situation. Water levels were very low and forced us to pump water from the outflow back into the hatchery, reuse it, and reclean it. Again, the same routine. They had to work with the pumps and to run those seven days a week, refuelling and all the same to solve it.

I want to thank some of my staff who worked on this too: Alan McNeill, my director. I want to thank Stephen Thibodeau, James Ellis, Jeff Smith, Marielle Turner, David Dewar, and Struan MacIntosh for their efforts in ensuring that our facilities didn’t fail. They saved every fish and they did an extraordinary amount of work to make that happen, basically working 24 hours a day.

It was with sadness this year that our Manager of Fisheries Enhancement, Darryl Murrant, is retiring after 27 years. He was really incredibly active in the department. He stepped up 10 years ago to take over this program and he really set new standards and moved forward.

I can say that about all my staff, especially in the inland fisheries. They are a special group of people who care about the habitat, care about the fish, care about the water, and care about the people who fish in the province.

I can say this again, too, about my staff in our fisheries division who look after aquaculture and also our marine fish disease division. We have a great group of people who care about their work and indeed are connected with industry and work with industry very closely. Many times I get calls from plant owners, fishing organizations - you name it - thanking me, telling me to thank my staff about the great work they’ve done. We don’t tell them enough. You always hear stories about how people in government don’t do their work. Well, I can tell you that the staff in all my departments are incredible to work with and have done an incredible job to help Nova Scotia’s economy and also to help the people who we actually work for.

Another thing that has happened in the hatchery operation in Margaree is that the Margaree Salmon Association members volunteered to help us clip 200,000 salmon parr and smolt prior to stocking. That’s a pretty big job. They actually did that and they also helped to collect brood stock from the Margaree and Mabou rivers. Just an idea of what kind of great people we have.

I want to talk about our commercial fishing group that works there. They work on all the different issues that the commercial fishery has. They are a great group of people. A lot of times they can foresee difficulties that are coming that most people wouldn’t get to see. It’s very positive to work with these people. We have people working on our funds for the federal-provincial funds that are helping industries get modernized and develop new processes.

We also have people who deal with the fishery every day, when DFO was working with the change of quotas and working on that. We have dedicated staff who look at the habitat, shoreline cleanups, marine cleanups. We put a marine cleanup program in place just over a year ago. Any organization can apply to our department for a grant to do a cleanup in their community. There have been very successful cleanups completed, which we’re very happy about. In return for that we want to get a list of exactly what was gathered up and how much of each thing. We use that information to look at better cleanup processes and, indeed, to maybe hold some of the people accountable who are dumping these unnecessary things in the ocean. It all moves to a cleaner technology, a cleaner ocean, cleaner water for us all.

I also want to talk about food security. When you look at the marine aquaculture in our traditional fishery, they are crucial to social and economic issues around food security: employment, value-added food products, and maintenance of essential services in rural and coastal communities.

Growing our food and reducing the amount of food we import is critical. Every time we can reduce an import, it means it is almost the same as an export. Financially, it’s almost identical. It also reduces the amount of carbon footprint that comes into our province and is created to get products to us. It really does help overall, plus it increases more job creation in our province, which is critical too.

[4:15 p.m.]

Our changing climates cause a lot of new adaptations we’ve had to do around our food security, and most everybody has seen some of those with hurricanes, dry spells, and all the other things we’re seeing - ocean temperatures rising. The list goes on and on. We need to produce enough food in our province to feed our families in case of emergency - and not just in case of emergency, but also to ensure that we have a strong economy in the province.

Food supply is one of the main things we can do to help grow the Nova Scotia economy back to where it should have been. Our sales have been pretty constant through COVID-19. If we can increase those after COVID-19 with more awareness of food security - and as with Agriculture, we have a team working on Buy Local. We’re very excited about that. You’re going to see a lot more information out in the coming months as we start seeing more products identified as local products in the grocery stores. We’ve developed a relationship with all the major food chains, including Sobeys, Loblaws, Walmart, Costco, and all our farmers’ markets. The list goes on and on to sell our products, a clearly marked Product of Nova Scotia. That is coming. We’re excited about that. The more we can do to promote Buy Local, the stronger our province is going to be.

As we can see by the population growth we’re getting in the province, there are going to be more and more Nova Scotians here requiring food. It’s a lot better that we can supply it locally, and we’re adding value to all these products, too.

We have an ongoing program to encourage people to develop new products and new processes so that they can keep food fresh longer, more easy-to-use products you can easily heat up or cook yourself instead of having to come home after a long day and try to put something together that you may not do if you don’t - and healthy food. That’s really important to us all.

I talked briefly about the Atlantic Fisheries Fund. We have a great partnership with that. That program is putting a lot of money into Nova Scotia companies. Not only that, Nova Scotia companies themselves are putting a lot of money - they’re pretty well matching the money that’s put there. We’ve seen millions and millions of dollars invested in new technology, better equipment, better holding facilities, and everything you can imagine to help make our businesses more successful.

When you look at all the work that our department has done on all levels, including our regular commercial fishery, our sports fishery, and aquaculture, the department and the industry are poised to really grow even more. It can’t catch more fish, but we need to get more value out of the fish we have and, indeed, put more of the results of that harvest and process back in the economy of Nova Scotia, as well as food supply for us.

When we look at our sport fishing, it’s a fantastic way to put a lot of money into rural Nova Scotia, and not just rural Nova Scotia. A good salmon fishing trip, when we can get COVID-19 over and can get people back in the province, which - you’ve got a really fantastic marketing campaign set up for it, and we’ve always started on some of the - well, someone will pay anywhere from $1,000-$5,000 a day for salmon fishing. Imagine the economic impact of that as we move forward, especially with the guides bringing their game up to higher standards than they’ve ever had before. That’ll help make the experience better and people won’t mind separating from their hard-earned money to enjoy a beautiful day on the river or a lake in Nova Scotia.

I want to thank all the companies that we work with and my staff for the great work they’ve done and continue to do. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board. Our Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board has done a great job of making money available to our young fishermen so they can buy licences. Licences are so expensive now because we’ve been so successful with marketing to put the value up at the wharf. So now we’ve got programs in place so that young fishermen can either take over their family’s licence or buy one from someone else who’s retiring.

Again, when I came to the department in 2013, one of the big problems was succession planning. People didn’t know what they were going to do. But I can tell you that in the fishing industry, and in the agriculture industry, that has changed. If you go into meetings, you see a lot of younger people at the meetings when we go back to them again, and there’s excitement about family taking over family businesses, new people with young families getting into the industry that maybe hadn’t been into it before. They have great ideas and new ideas that we really need to embrace and to help our economy grow.

I truly believe we live in one of the best places in the world that you could live, with the record we’ve had with COVID-19 with the lowest cases probably in the world per capita so far. Let’s hope it stays like that. We’re very fortunate to live here.

With those few words, I will end my discussions.

THE CHAIR: I don’t know what the committee might want to do. It’s 4:21 p.m. right now. We’re 15 minutes shy of when we should be taking a break. Maybe we could start and then at the 15-minute mark we will take a break. It’s going to be the PC caucus at this point.

The honourable member for Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg. You have one hour.

BRIAN COMER: I thank the minister for being here today. I’m looking forward to discussing some interesting issues in our province with Fisheries and Aquaculture.

My first question for the minister is: I would just be curious to hear your thoughts - I know you’ve been in the portfolio for roughly eight years - on how the federal government is handling the moderate livelihood fishery.

KEITH COLWELL: Thank you. I just want to ask my staff a couple of questions.

The federal minister’s statement on March 3^rd put a lot more clarity around this. That probably should have been done from Day 1, because they did have the authority under the Marshall decision to stop what a lot of people believe is an illegal fishery. That’s for DFO to decide, but I understand their doubt in enforcing that now. They have indicated they will buy licences, not create licences for the moderate livelihood fishery. People have to fish in season, and they all have to be licensed, whatever that licence regime is going to be with DFO.

All the problems that we’re seeing in the communities around this probably could have been averted if the federal government had followed the guidelines and set down a Marshall decision too. If you’ve had a chance to look at those, you’d understand what I’m talking about.

BRIAN COMER: Just in regard to the LFA 27 - that’s the area that I represent - multiple fishing harbours, primarily lobster, crab, different types of fisheries - their season is due to open in approximately six weeks down here. I did send a letter to the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on March 15^th, which I cc’d you on as well. I didn’t get a response, so hopefully I can get one today.

Something I’m really hearing about is people don’t want a repeat of what happened in southwest Nova Scotia in regard to escalation and violence, quite frankly. Many of my constituents are asking if additional resources - whether it’s DFO, law enforcement, what have you - are being allocated, given that the season is just around the corner. There appears to be a great deal of anxiety, to be honest, in my constituency. I’d just like to hear your thoughts on that, if that’s okay.

KEITH COLWELL: I would agree with the anxiety that the fishermen have seen, and the industry overall. That question I can’t answer. I know that they’re out on the water doing some enforcement and seizing some traps. I know that charges have been laid. I can’t say anything past that. There’s some other information I can’t share. That’s strictly DFO, and hopefully the federal minister will respond.

I’ve written to the federal minister on some of these issues many times. Sometimes it takes many months to get an answer. I think they’re struggling with how they’re going to resolve this permanently, and it’s a serious problem for us all. Even in the international marketing we’re doing, the more this blows up and the more of a problem it is, the harder it is for us to go to the marketplace and sell our products that come out of the clean waters of Nova Scotia. If there’s a whole ruckus going on with everybody, then that makes it a little bit more difficult.

BRIAN COMER: I know something you just brought up at the end of your comments, minister, is buyers’ licences. I’ve spoken to a number of lobster buyers in my constituency. My understanding is that there’s been a moratorium in those licences for quite some time.

I’m just wondering if that is because of conservation measures or because of requests from the buyers, and what that dialogue looked like with the Province and the DFO.

KEITH COLWELL: The buyers’ licences are strictly under our responsibility, not DFO. The buyers have to buy product from a licenced fisherman, and DFO decides who the licensed fishermen are and what their regulations are around that. Once that’s established, then the buyers are free to buy from anyone who meets that requirement. If they get caught buying from someone else, they can lose their licence permanently and be charged under our Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act.

We put a moratorium on processing buyers licences at the request of the industry. There are a tremendous number of buyers licences out there that have not been used in many years. The old regulations we had, even for buying - I’ll just use lobsters for an example. There were really no handling requirements put in place. It was really not a good situation. With the lobster handling course, we’ve put in place Level 3, I think, and I think we’re working on Level 4 now to educate people on how important it is to properly hold, transport, and handle lobsters. Some of the things that were happening were just destroying the stock, when it landed, just destroying the lobsters.

We’ve been working with the industry, both in the fishing side and the processing side. I’m glad to see a lot of people taking our courses and implementing some of the holding facilities. We’ve got a great working relationship with Université de Sainte-Anne. We set up, actually, a Lobster Centre of Excellence in Meteghan. We work with them, and they’re also working in Arichat on their facility there. They’ve come up with a lot of good work in conjunction with my staff to make sure we’re getting the best price we can for our product.

[4:30 p.m.]

It’s sort of a roundabout answer to your question, but it’s really a complex answer. We need all the buyers to either be connected to a holding facility - we’re just talking about lobsters. It’s pretty well the same on all this stuff, but holding facilities and processing are different. Handling is a little bit different. They’ll make sure that the lobsters live - they’re living healthily and their quality doesn’t deteriorate to the point that they have to be destroyed or thrown out because they die. In the past, there was a lot of that going on and that’s being reduced - and also to make sure that we get the best-quality product. At the end of the day, the fishermen get a better price and everybody wins. That’s where it’s at. It’s a difficult question to answer because it’s so complex.

BRIAN COMER: To be a bit more direct, I guess my question is: Can the Province now issue a new buyer’s licence under the moderate livelihood or does it have to be defined by the federal government first in order for this to occur?

KEITH COLWELL: Actually, the Mi’kmaq own several buyers’ licences and processing licences. Those licences have to be operated just the same as anyone else. If organizations like the moderate livelihood that they had - that was an illegal fishery as far as we’re considered, because DFO didn’t recognize it as a legal fishery. When they establish that as a legal fishery, then they can apply or they can buy a buyer’s licence from somebody and it will be approved, if they wish to do that but they already have some. Even the Mi’kmaw buyers aren’t allowed to buy from their own people unless it’s by a licensed lobster fisherman - I’ll just use lobster as an example - in season.

Those are our rules and nothing has changed there. We enforce that. We’ve taken a lot of heat from it because of that, but we have to do it that way. We’re looking for quality. We have to have a process in place. As soon as DFO identifies someone as a licensed harvester who is fishing within season, they’re recognized by us.

BRIAN COMER: My last question - switching things up a little bit - revolves around seafood exports. I know you mentioned the relationship between Nova Scotia and the Asian markets. I think you said it was somewhere around $2.2 billion.

Something I’ve heard from fishers in my constituency is that they’re just curious as to why there isn’t more of a diversification in the exports. Why not be more focused with the European Union or heavily focused in the U.S. or different areas globally? We saw what happened last year in Asia due to COVID-19, which is nobody’s fault, but I mean, there was a big risk there of losing a lot of lobsters and other types of exports. I’m just curious as to whether diversification of markets would be currently explored by the department.

KEITH COLWELL: I can tell you, that’s what we’re doing. That’s why our sales are up to $2.2 billion this year. We’ve explored different markets. People say, why are you selling to China? Well, China is our third-biggest customer now for seafood. That really was hardly on the map before that.

We’re very diversified. We’ve been marketing very seriously in Europe, all over Asia - not just in China - a lot of work in the U.S. We’re marketing all over the world. That’s why our numbers are so high and they stay so high. It’s hard for people who fish every day and don’t really have the time to look at what happens with marketing to understand. Marketing is about getting out there and creating a demand for a quality product.

The fishermen help that by delivering a quality product to the buyers or the processors or whatever the case might be. That’s the first step on the chain. Then those buyers and processors have to handle the product in a way that keeps that quality the same as it was when it was landed, or as close as you can do that. You can’t improve quality - with fish, once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Then they add value to that - maybe they cook it, they freeze it, whatever they do - or ship it live. Those markets are already diversifying. That’s what we’ve been doing. That’s why the sales have gone so high. That’s why it’s gone from $3 a pound, just before I became minister - a big study that was an absolute waste of money, deciding what you had to do to get more money for the fishermen at the wharf. It was a really simple answer: marketing. It’s that simple. We’ve done it.

THE CHAIR: Member, you have 30 seconds.

BRIAN COMER: Well, my next question - I think we’ll probably pick it up after break - to the minister is actually in regard to climate change and water temperature and migratory patterns of lobster. I know it’s something that’s kind of in the preliminary stages of research, based on my understanding. I was just looking to get some further information on where we stand as to our knowledge in that area.

THE CHAIR: Thank you for that, member. That gives the minister 15 minutes to prepare to answer that question.

With that, we’ll recognize the COVID-19 protocol. We’ll take a 15-minute COVID-19 break, returning at 4:51 p.m. when the member for Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg will still have 51 minutes left.

[4:36 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[4:51 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply will resume.

The honourable member for Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg. You have 45 minutes left for the PC caucus this first round. The floor is yours.

BRIAN COMER: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I’ll wait for the minister to return.

I believe the last question I alluded to was in regard to the impact of climate change, specifically the global increase in water temperature and how that’s impacting migratory patterns of lobsters and other crustaceans that are very important commercial goods in our province.

KEITH COLWELL: One thing I didn’t mention was CMAR, our Centre for Marine Applied Research. That is in the ocean cluster in Dartmouth. For the past three years, they have been monitoring 40 to 50 sensors all the time, recording continuously. They’re looking at things like water temperature, water currents, dissolved oxygen, PH, wave heights - all kinds of different data.

Believe it or not, DFO was responsible for that in the past and they had almost no data on near shore - in other words, where the inshore fishermen fish on those seines. We’re going to continue that and improve it. We’re working with Dalhousie on some of those and definitely with DFO on other ones, so it’s really a joint venture. This is a thing that has to be done and we have to start monitoring.

Again, the information we had was not near what we need. We are very concerned about the water temperature rise. Not only the water temperature rise - we just want to see what elements are there as well.

This is a real success story. Not only did we start monitoring this information, but there were no really available products to do it with. This has been a spinoff company from the ocean cluster that was in place there. They have since developed a lot of this equipment and are selling it worldwide, so it’s been a success story all over. It’s all part of what we’re doing in aquaculture and the marine fish side of it - anything to do with the ocean. This information will be readily available and we’re going to have it up online.

Just excuse me for one second. I’ll find out when that’s going to be.

The other thing is - we do have this online. Our Open Data Portal on the Province of Nova Scotia website has a lot of this information on it. It’s going to be on it. Some of the data are actually transmitted live as it happens. This is the first time that we’ve had this available to us. I’ll have to get you how you go onto that site because my staff couldn’t tell me the exact name of it. It’s a different sort of name. I can supply that to the Committee.

BRIAN COMER: I’d like to thank the minister for that answer. My next question is going to be with regard to the loan board. I know a significant deterrent, I guess you would say, for newcomers trying to get into the commercial fishery is the cost. In the 1990s, you could probably get a licence for $50,000 or $100,000. At this point, it has increased exponentially. You’re talking close to $1 million in most cases, whether you’re in Yarmouth or Arichat or Main-à-Dieu. I’m just wondering what programs are in place for those who weren’t born into the fishery, essentially, and how they could navigate the potential funding to allow them to participate in this part of the economy.

KEITH COLWELL: I can tell you just briefly a little bit, but I’m also going to check with my loan board CEO to make sure that I’m not missing anything. We have a lot of new loans to buy licences in the fishing industry. We can hold the licence for collateral now, so it makes it really easy for us to make these loans.

[5:00 p.m.]

I know there’s a down payment requirement there and there’s a requirement for experience on a boat, if you’re going to buy a licence, so there are a couple of things there. I know our loan portfolio has increased dramatically and that’s because of younger people getting into the industry, which is good. If you just give me a second, I’ll get you more information.

Okay, it’s a good thing I asked my staff, because these numbers keep changing all the time. New entrants have to have only a 5 per cent down payment, which is something we have not done before. The term on the loans can be up to 20 years. It’s up to them. Our normal term on loans is five to seven years, so we’re really encouraging young people to get there.

We’ve had 28 per cent of all our new loans this year to new entrants - in other words, young people who are buying out licences from people who have been there. Sometimes it’s family. We’ve had 235 new loans in this past 12 months, so it’s pretty impressive.

The other thing we can do is if they have someone - say, if it’s someone who wants to take over a licence from somebody who is a captain that they have been working for. The captain can also sign a loan guarantee to help them get money in lieu of other things that they might have to do, and guarantee the loan that way, as well as taking the collateral on the licence.

We’re just trying to make it as easy as possible for new entrants because it is so expensive. I don’t know what the average loan is, but I think it’s around $1 million - just one second. Yes, the average loan - I was right - in the Yarmouth area is around $1 million and in the rest of the province, in Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it’d be around a half-million dollars average. It depends upon how good a deal they get for the licence and, indeed, what the earning capacity of that licence is.

BRIAN COMER: This will be my last question and I will be deferring to my colleague, the MLA for Argyle-Barrington. Minister, I guess my last question - thank you for your time and your honest answers. The fishing season in LFA 27, in my constituency, is due to open in six weeks, as I mentioned earlier. If we have no direction on safety and increased safety measures for fishers by that time, is there anything you can do in your capacity as minister and our capacity as MLAs to get this done and get an answer in a timely fashion? I guess this is my final question.

KEITH COLWELL: When it comes to the fishers themselves, we have no authority. None at all. Now, the federal government minister has told us that they’re going put all the safety issues in place. They’re going to put more enforcement, including their own enforcement officers and the RCMP, on the water and on the shore to make sure everything goes smoothly. They don’t want any more issues with that. I know they’ve issued some orders - I don’t know if they’re public or not, so I can’t talk about them - to change some things that have happened near your area that I think are a positive step forward and will give the fishermen some confidence that the federal government is applying the same rules to everybody in the fishery. You would have heard this as well. With the same rules, the fishermen - as long as everybody plays by the same rules, they’ve got no problems.

Just one second, the staff has something they want to tell me, too.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience.

There are all kinds of things we’ve been working on. One of the most exciting things is the Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia, that really works with our department. We’re ex-officios on their board. Transport Canada is involved in that as well. They do things like man overboard drills, all kinds of things and it’s really helped the industry. I can’t say enough positive about them. They really, really work well. I would suggest maybe the MLA could reach out to them. You would find that they’re great to work with and always anxious to share their successes. They have a five-year safety plan. This is the last year of that, and hopefully there’ll be more funding with that.

Our workers’ compensation rates have dropped since 2010 from 5.55 per cent to 4.9 percent last year, saving a total of $750,000 for fishermen in particular over that time, which shows that that part of the safety is really good.

The COVID-19 programming we have done with both the processors and the fishermen has worked really well. Through our Atlantic Fisheries Fund (AFF) programs, we’ve put money into the COVID-19 protocols and, again, with Perennia, to streamline the application process and how it works. That’s really put a lot of resources into the hands of both the fishermen and the processors.

The other part of this, our Coastal Resource Coordinators (CRCs) - our outreach workers - and fisheries are dealing with the fishermen and the processors every day and working with Public Health. Public Health has been a tremendous support for us through this program. We spent a lot of time on the phone and in meetings with Public Health when this all started. They’ve been very responsive and have looked at the different programs that different plants have had, and some of the bigger fishing boats, and really listened to the industry and at the same time protected the people.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Argyle-Barrington, with about 24 minutes left in the first round for the PCs.

COLTON LEBLANC: I thank the minister and his staff, who are joining the committee virtually. I also want to recognize their ongoing efforts during a very different year, and how they’ve been able to support an industry that is not only important to the province, but certainly to my region. It is the economic backbone and the driver in my constituency and the neighbouring constituencies, so I do want to recognize that.

I do want to go back to the minister’s comments during my colleague’s initial questions regarding the moderate livelihood issue, and the minister’s comments that either - and I just want to clarify this - either that the minister of DFO, her statement on March 3^rd, either should have been or could have been made earlier. If the Minister could clarify that, please.

KEITH COLWELL: I can’t speak for the federal minister, but if she had made those statements very early on, it would have saved a lot of trouble for everybody.

COLTON LEBLANC: The minister referred to the fishery as being illegal. I’m wondering if there’s been, in communication with the minister and the department, any concerns regarding the fishery for the upcoming season - or the upcoming year, rather, because we’re already in Lobster Fishing Area 34’s active season.

KEITH COLWELL: I’m always concerned there’s a safety issue if, indeed, the federal government doesn’t get this all under control as they should be doing. Other than that, if those things are addressed and if DFO follows through in what they said they’re going to do, it should be a reasonably safe and harmonious season. That’s what we’re hoping for.

I know they’ve committed to putting more resources on the water, including the RCMP, in addition to their staff. Also, to make sure that their staff are on the water this year. There was - and I haven’t totally confirmed this, but there was a rumour last year that their staff were told to stay off the water. That didn’t help anything at that time. The member may know more about that than I do, but that came from very reliable sources. I can’t say it for sure as minister, but just one second while I check with my staff here, too.

[5:15 p.m.]

KEITH COLWELL: As the member would know, it’s pretty quiet there at the present time, so let’s hope that they can resolve this issue and we don’t have an issue anymore.

COLTON LEBLANC: You know with the beautiful sunshine, it is warming up in Argyle-Barrington and I’m sure the member for Clare-Digby could say it’s warming up outside there as well. There are discussions that things are warming up on the water. I appreciate the insight that the minister is bringing to the committee this afternoon regarding enforcement and perhaps he could provide a little bit more insight of when that enforcement would start.

On the same line of enforcement, under the Fish Buyers’ Licensing and Enforcement Regulations, under the Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act, it talks about the enforcement. The minister spoke about this with my colleague from Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg about buying fish or fish products, and the minister made that correlation with the legal catches.

I’m wondering if he can explain the process and what enforcement has taken place over the last year, I guess.

KEITH COLWELL: Some of the enforcement I can’t comment on because it’s still ongoing - investigations are ongoing. You really have to talk to enforcement per se, to the Department of Environment and Climate Change, because they do our enforcement for us. They keep us informed when it is appropriate. If we have information that is supplied to us, we would pass it on to the Department of Environment and Climate Change to follow up on.

There was a task force at my request quite a while ago. I wrote to the then-minister of Fisheries - that was two ministers ago - and requested that a task force be put in place with the RCMP, Revenue Canada, Canada Border Services Agency, DFO, ourselves, and I can’t remember who else might have been involved in it, to really look at illegal fishing activities. Those are all illegal fishing activities. Anyone who doesn’t have a proper commercial licence or who sells product out of season could be investigated, could be charged under the process.

Again, for obvious reasons, I don’t really want to know about those investigations. The fewer people who know about that, the better. As they go on, I know there have been charges laid, some people have been convicted. If we can find somebody who has been convicted and it involves buying and the buyer bought illegal stuff, there’s a very good chance that we may want to, or will, cancel their licence permanently and it will not be issued to anyone else. That possibility is there.

I just want to check with staff again and see if there’s anything new.

Again, I forgot about this. It’s a good thing that I’ve got great staff who work with me. In June 2020, I did write another letter requesting this same sort of approach, even though some of it was already under way, to Minister Jordan and asked for a review of this again to make sure there’s a task force in place, make sure it’s working. We did get a letter back, finally, on January 12^th of this year that outlined some of the things they’re doing. We forwarded all that information to Minister Wilson at the Department of Environment and Climate Change for its enforcement staff to work with. When you say you’re not getting an answer back from the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, don’t feel bad.

COLTON LEBLANC: I thank the minister for that response. To dive a little bit into that response, I guess the minister would have had concerns that the task force may not have been working as it should have been, so perhaps he can clarify that. In the same vein, can he briefly explain the coordination between the Department of Environment and Climate Change, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture? I assume it’s quite complex when it comes to looking at these types of incidents.

KEITH COLWELL: It’s not complex from our standpoint because we’re not enforcement. We would report to them any information we have and they would follow up on it. It’s my understanding that there is a good relationship between the Department of Environment and Climate Change and DFO, but, again, you’d have to talk to the minister about that.

We’ve had a reasonably good relationship with DFO. We don’t agree with them on a lot of things. Any time that they cause grief for our fishers or our industry, we stand up for them and work with them. It wasn’t that they weren’t doing a good job - because some of these investigations take years to really get done. This is a big business. It’s not just a moderate livelihood fishery. This goes way beyond that.

We’ve been meeting regularly with an organization set up by fishermen to look at this illegal fishing activity. There’s a lot of it that goes on - illegal buying and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you very much more than that because it could jeopardize an investigation. Not that I know very much about it, but I just can’t take a chance on it at all. We want to get convictions. When you get some convictions and make examples of a few people, it might stop some of this operation that’s costing the province a lot of money, costing the fishery a lot of money. Fishermen themselves, it’s costing them money. They’ve got to understand that.

If any of this stuff becomes really public again, it could injure our marketing efforts too. We’ve got to come across as a really professional organization in harvesting, processing, marketing, everything. We’ve got that professional approach to the industry now. We’re respected all over the world for our quality product and the great people who work in the industry. A few people could ruin it for everybody. It doesn’t matter if it’s moderate livelihood, if that’s the problem, or if it’s somebody from the regular fishery who’s just not following the rules. We want to get convictions and we take them seriously.

COLTON LEBLANC: I appreciate the minister’s response. Veering course here - still connected to the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, though. We spoke at length during committee this afternoon about new entrants into the industry. What I’m hearing here in Argyle-Barrington is some challenges with the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board, which I hope to be able to address in the time that’s remaining. It’s regarding wharf infrastructure. It’s like having a brand new shopping centre, but not enough parking spots at that shopping centre to accommodate everyone. That’s what we’re experiencing here.

I just want to hear the minister’s thoughts on that. I’m sure he’s hearing it from industry, but his comments on that and if he’s echoing those concerns to his federal counterparts.

KEITH COLWELL: We are definitely echoing that to Transport Canada and to the federal minister of fisheries. It is a serious problem for us. It’s one that we’re very aware of. Unfortunately, if we spent all the money we have in the province and dropped everything else we spend money on, including health care, education, roads, everywhere, we wouldn’t have enough money to fix the wharves in the province.

Prince Edward Island is in the same boat. This is an Atlantic initiative. All the provinces are having the same problem. All the provinces are asking them to invest more money in the wharf infrastructure in the province, as it’s a huge economic benefit to the province’s fishery. Indeed, it’s been a big problem. A really big problem, but, again, we have no resources to do it. We lobby all the time on behalf of the industry, and hopefully the federal government will put more money into the wharf infrastructure.

COLTON LEBLANC: Although it’s not a direct provincial concern, it is a provincial concern because of the impact that it has on the economy of our province, 39 per cent of our total exports. Just to follow up on the minister’s comments there, there’s this one zone, one area here, I believe, it’s by the Western Zone of the province, is $500 million worth of wharf infrastructure, if memory serves me correctly. There is a huge need, and I do hope that the minister continues to advocate on behalf of the province to his federal counterparts for these much-needed infrastructure needs.

I’ve heard from a couple of different sources that boat appraisals, or boat appraisers, are difficult to come by. This is private, and the roles that these assessors have with financial institutions for insurance acquisition and such things. I’m just wondering if the minister can enlighten the committee on requirements to become a boat assessor/appraiser because there doesn’t seem to be much information out there and it is a need that has been identified for private operations.

KEITH COLWELL: I can tell you right offhand that I have no idea, but I’m going to ask my staff and see if they know, but I know it’s a problem.

One good thing: we do have our own appraiser on staff. That’s only for our own loans. I don’t know if he does any part-time work or not. I’m not sure and I don’t really care. Typically, it’s a naval architect who has to do that, and there’s really no designation for it that we know of. We deal with this all the time. If a naval architect comes along and makes an appraisal on a vessel, we would take it. Other than that, it would have to be somebody who has - I don’t know what kind of credentials. We don’t even know. We do have an appraiser on our staff who is a naval architect.

[5:30 p.m.]

COLTON LEBLANC: I thank the minister for his response, for consulting with his staff. I find it a little troubling that we have a title of boat appraiser or boat assessor, but we don’t know what education they need to become that. Like, can I go on and follow a couple of YouTube videos and become that? I just don’t know. It would be nice if there was a standardized approach that this is what would be acceptable, beyond just having a naval architect.

Let’s go to aquaculture review boards. I’m wondering - there’s a process to follow, consultation and whatnot. I’m wondering, if there’s a disagreement at any point of the process, what’s the process at that point, then?

KEITH COLWELL: The independent review panel is totally independent. They are totally independent. The decisions they make are final. If someone doesn’t like the decision, they can appeal it to the Supreme Court. They have 30 days in which to do that.

It’s not something we would appeal, whatever decision they make. It’s up to them to get all the information. It’s our job to provide all the information from all the stakeholders, including our view on applications that come in. We will not forward an application that isn’t complete.

Saying that, then there’s input from experts and a proponent at a hearing that’s almost identical to a Utility and Review Board hearing. I have never been to one and will never go to one as long as I’m minister because that would be a real conflict for me. Our staff go as witnesses. They are interrogated by the board and make sure that all the information and everything is there as it should be. They follow the regulations and rules we have in place for approvals and taking into consideration all the presentations - pretty well exactly the same as the Utility and Review Board would be. I’m just going to see if I can get you some more information.

We have a stakeholder advisory group that we’ve structured as part of our regulations. Anyone who has any issues with any of the regulations or anything like that can make an application or write notes to us and it will come before that board for recommendations for a regulation change or whatever the case may be.

I am the chair of that with Chief Terrance Paul from Membertou, and we have people from the general public, aquaculture people, fisheries people, fishermen. The Ecology Action Centre was on it for a while and they’re still invited to come, and any other group that would be, sort of, stakeholders or interested in this.

We do that and we’re doing constant improvements to our system all the time, based on what feedback we get and what’s going on.

COLTON LEBLANC: I’ll try to wrap this up quickly. The minister spoke in his opening remarks regarding sport fishing. It’s also in his mandate letter from the new Premier. Is that specifically focused on sport fishing in lakes? Or does the minister see it within his purview to explore opportunities, such as longline fishing for swordfish and whatnot, in the waters off Nova Scotia?

KEITH COLWELL: Number one, you are not allowed longline fishing for swordfish unless you are a commercial fisherman. But, yes, sport fishing - we’ve actually dealt with the tuna association a lot. We’ve worked with them a lot and will continue to work with them. Any sport fishing activity we can get involved in, we’ll work with the association.

I know there’s an interest in halibut fishing. There’s some interest in that, but it has to be under existing quota, or a quota holder to make a deal approved by DFO to go sport fishing for halibut, which would be a real ball on a handline. I’ve done it myself a few years ago, when you didn’t need a licence to do it. That was quite a few years ago.

Any opportunity we have with sport fishing, we’re very interested in. If you have anyone who’s interested, we want to talk to them.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time for the PC caucus has expired.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham for the first 15 minutes before we take our COVID-19 break.

LISA ROBERTS: I appreciate this opportunity to be here and have this opportunity to ask questions.

Just a quick clarification following up on some conversation that happened last week when you were appearing as the Minister of Agriculture. You spoke with the member for Kings North about the Avon River. I just wanted to confirm: Are you working to find a solution that would involve keeping Pesaquid Lake and maintaining its water levels?

KEITH COLWELL: Yes.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you. And you said that the community wants the freshwater lake. I’m wondering if you could just expand a little bit on who exactly you mean by community? Is it the communities of the entire watershed? Is it the town of Windsor, mainly?

KEITH COLWELL: Mr. Chair, I’ll answer this question, but this would be an agriculture question, not a fisheries question. But I will answer the question.

It’s the whole community of Windsor, Falmouth, any place that would be flooded if the aboiteau isn’t kept in place, or a new one - preferably a new one - put in place, as fish passage would solve a lot of the problems that there’s a lot of concern about.

LISA ROBERTS: You said last week that the protest has not been helpful. Can you expand on that? Not helpful to whom?

THE CHAIR: I think, minister - I don’t know if you ought to answer that, but this is, as you mentioned, the agricultural side. I’ll leave it up to you if you wish to answer.

KEITH COLWELL: I may as well answer here because it’ll only come up in Question Period, anyway.

If, you know - the stakeholders we’ve been working with for a long time - all the stakeholders - we really just need to come to an understanding of what needs to happen. The applications have been put in to DFO for a new aboiteau. I’ve addressed this - the fish passage - in a major way, which the existing aboiteau does not have. It was never designed for it and can’t be put in it in any sensible way. If the stakeholders at all levels were to get together and agree on what’s going to be there. That aboiteau protects over $300 million of infrastructure, including farmland, including buildings that would be underwater. Also, very valuable farmland would be under salt water. Incomes of farmers and part of our food security and safety.

At the same time, we have to be very careful about our fish stocks and make sure we maintain them absolutely the best we possibly can. That’s a very important part of our economy and part of the ecosystem too.

It’s sort of a roundabout answer, but that’s really what the issue is.

THE CHAIR: I would ask that from now on that everyone please keep their questions confined to the topic we’re discussing today, which is Fisheries and Aquaculture.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham.

LISA ROBERTS: I have one last question, which is just about the fish passage, and I realize that this is more fish that relate to federal jurisdiction, so, again, I’ll leave it to the Chair and the minister.

I’m wondering if you’ve seen the proposed design for the upgraded aboiteau, and if you’re confident that it allows for adequate fish passage?

THE CHAIR: This will definitely be the last question if the minister wishes to respond.

KEITH COLWELL: Yes, I’ll respond to that. I haven’t seen the final design because that’s something that the experts are - in our department we have staff who are very capable of that. They’re dealing closely with DFO on it, and the Department of Transportation and Active Transit, and looking at the best technology that’s available today to be put in place to do that.

We feel that’s there now in the proposal we put forward. Fisheries and Oceans Canada may come back with some amendments or changes they want to do. If they want to do that, that would be fine, too, and we would make those changes.

LISA ROBERTS: About the federal Aquaculture Act - there’s quite a national conversation happening around aquaculture. Sometimes the conversation seems oddly disjointed between British Columbia and the east coast. The public commentary for the Federal Aquaculture Act closed in February. What input has the provincial department been asked to provide?

KEITH COLWELL: We’ve been aware of that for a very long time. There has been a third federal Minister of Fisheries now who has put that forward, who has talked about this Act. We originally - and all the provinces agreed to it - a light Federal Aquaculture Act - in other words, an act that recognizes the provinces’ control over aquaculture in their areas, with overarching standards that would have to be in place - that we already have in place, anyway - around the environment, around all kinds of different things.

We do not want the federal government to take over aquaculture in the province of Nova Scotia. It’s been a disaster in B.C. - an absolute disaster - there’s no other way to put it. Nobody’s winning out there. It doesn’t matter who you talk to, it has not done very well. It’s just not good, what they’ve done.

LISA ROBERTS: Do you expect to see the federal government taking up regulatory authority for aquaculture in Nova Scotia? I’m understanding that you don’t want to see that happen. When do you expect, I guess, it will have greater clarity about that?

KEITH COLWELL: We’ve been very, very clear - all of Atlantic Canada has been very clear. Actually, there’s aquaculture even in the Prairies, and they’ve been very clear as well, and other parts inland - aquaculture. None of the provinces, except B.C. - and they admitted at a couple of meetings they were at that they were sorry they ever got the federal government involved in it. Pretty well all the provinces are in favour of a light aquaculture act with general overreaching principles that we think would be very positive. If they stick to that, I think it would be a great idea. If they come into the provinces and decide they’re going to take over aquaculture, it would be a very difficult problem for all of Atlantic Canada, if not for the whole country.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you for that answer. The last time we were here in the Budget Estimates process, you said that there was no tracking of the Doelle-Lahey report because the department never had an implementation plan, and the recommendations weren’t binding, and that, in fact, your regulatory regime exceeds what was recommended by Doelle-Lahey. Is that still your view? Does that reflect what you would say today?

KEITH COLWELL: Well, we call it the independent report. It’s our report, not their report, to start with. It’s like any government report that comes in. If you check what we’ve done against what that independent report was, you’ll find that we have, in a lot of cases, gone well beyond what was recommended. In other cases, we’ve accomplished what they’ve recommended. In very few cases, we have not done everything they requested because some of the things aren’t possible to do. All of the other things were done. So we’ve got a really good record on this one, a really good record, and because of that, we’ve got the best regulations - we feel, probably in the world - around aquaculture.

[5:45 p.m.]

Just one second. Staff just reminded me that near the end of the independent report, it indicated that no checklist - and they were very clear about that, about the report. As I’ve said, we’ve exceeded or met or not been able to do some of the things which - there’s almost nothing that was in that report that we haven’t done. But there is no checklist requested in the report and when the report comes in to government, the government deals with it to the best of - and uses any report to assess what we’re going to do. A lot of really good work was done in that report, that we put in place. I’m glad we had the report, let’s put it that way.

LISA ROBERTS: Thank you. A demand letter was sent by Ecojustice, a law firm working in the area of environmental law, on January 12^th to the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Department of Environment. Part of it reads, and this is a quote:

“Despite promises of increased public transparency and accountability, it is clear that neither of your departments has meaningfully altered its approach to the regulation of aquaculture in response to the Doelle-Lahey report and the reformed regulatory scheme. By facilitating ongoing violations of the Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act and the Regulations, and by continuing to deny affected communities their right to weigh in on Kelly Cove Salmon’s lease expansion applications, the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Department of Environment are fundamentally undermining their own regulatory scheme and subverting the rule of law.”

The demands in this letter concern ongoing lease and licence violations at five aquaculture sites operated by Kelly Cove Salmon and they requested a response to their letter by March 12^th. I’m wondering if you could give any update on your response and any actions you’ve taken since receiving that letter.

KEITH COLWELL: I’ll be upfront and honest with this whole thing. We did receive a letter. I don’t know when we’re going to respond to it. A lot of inaccuracies in the letter. We are indeed the most open and transparent aquaculture operation in the country, if not in the world. If you go on our website now, you’ll see more information posted there than has ever been posted ever before. Every time we get a FOIPOP from somebody wanting information, we automatically put all the information on the website. We started doing that about a year ago.

The violations you are talking about are boundary amendments. The boundary amendments haven’t made it to the independent review panel yet and they will deal with the boundary amendments - whether they allow them or don’t allow them. Whatever they are going to do will be their choice based on the information provided.

The information in that letter is not very accurate and they really haven’t done their homework, to be quite honest.

LISA ROBERTS: Maybe because I have read the whole letter, I’ll just ask a clarifying question: Is it appropriate or acceptable to the department, and within the regulatory regime, for an aquaculture operation to operate beyond its boundaries when there hasn’t been a process to apply for an adjustment to its boundaries?

KEITH COLWELL: The whole process took us quite a while to put in place, as you can imagine, because we want to do it properly. It’s in place now. I can’t tell you when it will go to the review board because that’s not my decision. Once I allow an application to move forward, that’s the last thing I have to do.

The system is in place to look after this. It will be looked after. We had to give the company time. Because of the delay we had in getting all this set up - it took a long time to make sure it was all set up properly. It is now. I don’t know where in the process it is, but maybe if I have just enough time here, I can ask my staff where that’s at.

The first hearing on that will be in May. That’s the first pen-fish aquaculture site. That’s a boundary amendment and it’s already on the public domain.

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Another hour has gone by. Following COVID-19 protocol, once again we’ll take a 15-minute COVID-19 break, returning at 6:06 p.m.

HON. PATRICIA ARAB: Mr. Chair, can I just talk to you offline for a sec? I mean, everybody can listen, but you don’t have to. I’m a little confused because we have a lot of members in the Chamber right now. I understood that video had to be on only for those who are counted as quorum. Maybe you can direct any of the ones observing to turn their video off, so that we know who’s meant to be in and who’s not, if that’s okay?

THE CHAIR: That’s fair. If those people are still there, those who are part of the committee have their video on, those who are not, video off, please.

PATRICIA ARAB: Thank you, I appreciate that.

[5:52 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[6:06 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply will come back to order. Just a reminder again - we mentioned this offline before: anybody who is participating in the meeting is asked to have your video on. Those who are not participating, just leave your videos off.

With that we’ll go back to the NDP caucus with their final 45 minutes.

The honourable member for Halifax Needham. You have until 6:51 p.m.

LISA ROBERTS: To get back to my question, we were talking about the demand letter and I appreciate your answers related to that.

I did want to know what the status is of the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Regulatory Advisory Committee. The minutes posted on your website began in August 2015, and end in June 2018. So is that committee meeting? If it’s continuing, can you make minutes available?

I’ve got a bunch of questions related to it, but maybe I’ll stop there and see maybe if you’ll address them.

KEITH COLWELL: Just one second here. The committee is still active. We took a pause because of COVID-19. And just one second. I’ll get you more information.

There actually was a meeting in 2019 as well, and we’re going to have a meeting in May of this year. We can’t post the meeting minutes until we have the meeting in May to approve the minutes of 2019. That’s why they’re not posted.

LISA ROBERTS: I’m sorry, what month did the meeting happen in 2019?

KEITH COLWELL: We’d have to check the exact date, but we’ll get back to you before the meeting is over.

LISA ROBERTS: I would like to know. I think that the role of that committee is important enough that it would make sense to have minutes on the website. I appreciate if the minutes haven’t been approved yet, that is important.

Could you update us on who is on the committee? Do you have representation from all the groups set out in the Terms of Reference?

KEITH COLWELL: Actually, on our website there is a list of all the members of that board. The Terms of Reference are under there and it is under the department’s laws and regulations. It’s all there.

LISA ROBERTS: We will go looking for that. Under the Terms of Reference for the committee, there is a list of outcomes and that includes a comprehensive review at five‑year increments. I would like to ask the minister: Can the minister tell me what the status of this is?

KEITH COLWELL: Actually, we are doing ongoing changes all the time to the regulations. I will just give you a couple of examples. We instituted an institutional licence. So, say Dalhousie University wanted to put an aquaculture site in to do some research, we can licence them to do that, or some other organization. Those aren’t long‑term leases: they are for a specific amount of time for a very specific purpose, and that can be done with a company or without a company. It could be a company that does it in co‑operation with the community. There could be all kinds of different ways to do that, but it is not a permanent licence.

The other thing is we are changing the regulations around traceability of skate fish, based on our traceability committee. We have worked very hard to come up with a system that we are going to implement. Also, our experience is that we have seen, as well, to keep fine‑tuning this all the time to be more accountable and more tuned into actually what goes on in the field to the point of making sure that regulations allow things to happen which shouldn’t be happening.

LISA ROBERTS: Just to clarify, the comprehensive review of the aquaculture regulatory framework at five‑year increments is part of the Terms of Reference of the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Regulatory Advisory Committee. What you just talked about sounds like work that is happening inside the department and not at that committee. I would like to ask the minister: Will the committee be conducting a regulatory review?

[6:15 p.m.]

KEITH COLWELL: This, the things we’ve changed, those things, some of them would have been discussed at the meeting. Anyway, they have an input into all of those things, but I will just double-check that. I’m not familiar with this five‑year review.

Actually, our advisory board goes through this all the time. At every meeting, we have to talk about changes that we are looking at, changes that they would like to see. It’s a very open dialogue and, as you will see by our members on that committee and the people they represent, it’s a pretty robust committee. It has led to some significant changes in our regulations, and they will continue to do that as we can move forward.

LISA ROBERTS: I have some questions about the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small‑Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication. This is a set of guidelines to which Canada is a signatory.

I am wondering if the minister is aware of them and if you have taken a look at how you could take responsibility for advocating for Nova Scotia being in compliance with these guidelines or collaborating with the federal government on them.

KEITH COLWELL: We are familiar with that. Again, this is a federal initiative - the only way that we can do this and it has not come to the federal table with the provinces and territories and the federal government yet, their process - and if it’s going to be a fishery that allows people to get food almost like the Atlantic fishery that the Mi’kmaq are talking about, that is something that DFO has 100 per cent regulation over, not us. They control all the harvesting activities. But we will bring it forward. It has not even been brought forward, at all, to the table, the federal‑provincial‑territorial table, which is sort of weird, when they put it in place.

LISA ROBERTS: Your mandate letter does mention fisheries in the context of school food. Is the minister looking at getting more fish and seafood on the menus in our schools?

KEITH COLWELL: Yes, in the schools for sure and any other public institution we can. It’s a very healthy food and it’s a food that young people should experience at a school. It’s a little bit more complicated to cook it in some cases than maybe some of the agricultural products we have, to make sure it’s handled properly. But that’s not an issue as most people who work in these school kitchens are very excellent providers for their family and excellent cooks. So, that’s something we’re definitely very interested in.

LISA ROBERTS: Nova Scotia regulates fish processing, including buying. Do you have a list of all processing plants and their ownership in Nova Scotia, and is that a list that we could access?

KEITH COLWELL: I just have to check here. I think it’s on our website.

Yes, the companies are obligated under our Act to let us know who the owners are of the company. Any change in ownership, we have to know about. That information is publicly available. We can make it available to the committee, but the only information we can release is the name of the company and the species they have a licence for. We can’t provide any contact information under the Privacy Act that the federal government has.

LISA ROBERTS: I know that there’s a moratorium on issuing new processing licences and there has been for a number of years. You talked about that with my colleagues in the last hour. Since there’s been a moratorium on issuing of new licences, is corporate concentration in the processing sector increasing?

KEITH COLWELL: I don’t think so, from what we’ve seen. We get applications for everybody that changes ownership for anything. There have been a number of ownership changes, I think probably a couple of consolidations, but not a lot. Not what you would think. It’s just an ongoing, evolving situation. That hasn’t changed, to my knowledge, for a number of years that I’ve been in this. It really hasn’t changed that much at all.

LISA ROBERTS: Would you know what the average wage is of people working in fish processing?

KEITH COLWELL: Well, that’s a question. It’s different for each fish plant, but I know the ones that I talked to, and I talk to a lot of them, they pay well above minimum wage. Just a second, I’ll see if I can get some kind of number on that. Yes, my staff doesn’t know any better than I do. I know for a fact, and they know for a fact, that typically the wages in a fish plant are greatly varied because they have accountants, they have engineers, they have all kinds of different people working on them besides the people working on the floor.

The people working on the floor of fish plants are paid well above minimum wage. They have all kinds of benefits they never used to have, in order to keep them in their fish plant, because it is a very competitive market out there to get good workers and workers who are skilled.

When I visited fish plants, all the workers were extremely happy, and they like what they are doing. It’s an interesting place to see. You can’t go visit them now, of course, because of COVID-19, but there’s nobody there who doesn’t look very happy. They are all very happy workers. The employers typically look after their employees very well.

One of the employers in the province said one time that someone asked him if he had any bad employees. He said, no, I have all good employees, just sometimes a job that they need to do isn’t the right job for the employee. They move the employee to another position that they are happy in. That particular company has no trouble at all collecting or holding staff and that is typically the case in these plants. They are in rural areas, they are paid above - very well, and their benefits are very good.

LISA ROBERTS: I know - certainly from conversations at the old Natural Resources Standing Committee and elsewhere, including, I think, one of your conferences, - that finding labour, meeting the labour needs in fish plants, is actually a challenge. I am wondering if the minister could estimate what proportion of the work in fish plants is being done by temporary foreign workers and whether those benefits you are talking about are being extended to them?

KEITH COLWELL: All the benefits that typically would be for a worker - but some exceptions might be that they are not allowed to for some reason or another, like under Revenue Canada or something like that - are extended to the temporary foreign workers and more than that, because typically they would subsidize or provide housing on top of that. When you take all those costs into consideration, they are probably making more than plant workers who are from the local area. So they look after their temporary workers very well.

For the number of people employed in the fishing industry, the number of temporary foreign workers in all of the fishery is around 500 and so it’s a very low percentage. When you look at the direct employment, I believe, in the fishing industry, and that’s just direct employment, it is around, I believe, 18,000 people, so it’s a pretty low number. Just one second and I’ll get clarification. I had to ask the people who knew. We had actually 314 temporary foreign workers and the number of plant workers is 7,000 in the province, so about 4.5 per cent. It’s a very, very low number.

LISA ROBERTS: You are the Minister of Agriculture as well as the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. I’ve had this conversation with the Federation of Agriculture, about temporary foreign workers not being in receipt of MSI coverage - not being covered by MSI - and I am wondering: I assume that also in fish plants, temporary foreign workers are not covered by MSI, which I think results in an extra expense to the operators of that plant. It also can be dangerous for those workers. I would like to ask the minister: Would he support expanding MSI coverage so that temporary foreign workers are covered?

[6:30 p.m.]

KEITH COLWELL: In the province and under the federal regulations, the person or the company that hires the temporary farm workers has to have a medical plan for them. That’s part of the federal requirements. If you want any more details about the question, I asked them, on behalf of the industries, to the Department of Health and Wellness and got a response. You should ask the Department of Health and Wellness for the answer on that because they are the ones that decide how that works and there’s reasons why they don’t put it under MSI.

LISA ROBERTS: As we’ve already referenced, you do regulate the buying and selling of fish products and oversee the legislation related to that. Those regulations stipulate that buying and selling must be in accordance with the terms of a licence from the minister. For Mi'kmaw harvesters exercising their right to a moderate livelihood, this has meant that they cannot sell their catch.

You’ve referenced the communication from federal minister Bernadette Jordan earlier this month announcing that she would be confining moderate livelihood fisheries in this province to DFO’s commercial season. I am going to quote a unified response from the 13 Mi'kmaw Chiefs in Nova Scotia. They wrote, on March 5^th, saying:

“Your letter and announcement this week have failed to meet the Constitutional duty to consult, do not provide for minimal infringement, and do not accommodate the fishing Rights of the Mi'kmaq. No science or other evidence has been provided to justify the imposition of commercial seasons on our moderate livelihood fisheries.”

Given this statement, I think it’s fair to presume and indeed, I think I’ve heard people speak to this, that they would be of a view that provincial laws that prohibit buying and selling, based on DFO-issued licences, are a second infringement on the right to a moderate livelihood. I’m wondering what conversation, if any, you have had within the department about resolving this.

KEITH COLWELL: You’re not going to like my answer, but the answer is we’re in a court case and I can’t talk or comment.

LISA ROBERTS: Have you made any requests to the federal minister for the science that restricts moderate livelihood fisheries to commercial seasons?

KEITH COLWELL: Again, that’s a decision for DFO to make. They don’t ask us for advice on this stuff, typically, and if you give advice, they seldom follow it.

LISA ROBERTS: I’m going to move quickly because I am quite possibly going to cede my last 10 minutes to MLA Paon. I’ll mention that to the Chair now.

Just quickly, oil and gas exploration offshore pose a risk to our fisheries and many would say that the risk is not worth it. Numerous stakeholders, from activists to fishers to municipalities, have expressed great concern. As the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, do you support the call for a public inquiry into offshore oil and gas?

KEITH COLWELL: That’s a position that our government has taken. You should talk to the minister responsible for that.

LISA ROBERTS: The Georges Bank offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling moratorium is actually due to expire on December 31, 2021. That Bank is incredibly important for the fishing industry and the resource. As Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, would you consider asking Minister Porter to extend the moratorium?

KEITH COLWELL: I believe, and I could be wrong with this, I believe it’s already been announced they’re going to extend that moratorium. I believe it has been. We support that moratorium.

LISA ROBERTS: I appreciate that clarification.

Under the Trump administration, a U.S.-China trade war developed that benefited Nova Scotia seafood exports. I’ve seen it reported that the 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs by China on imports from the U.S. resulted in a 36 per cent drop in U.S. seafood sales to China. Of course, you have talked about the development of the Asia market. I think the changing political climate is another potential risk that is well beyond the abilities of Nova Scotia to control.

I’m wondering what you anticipate the impact may be of the Biden administration or of Canada and others taking a strong stance on human rights violations by China?

KEITH COLWELL: Well, to start with, I’m no expert on human rights. I’ll leave that to people - it’s very important to me with the area I represent - it’s personally very important to me.

What I can tell you about our trade with China in particular, and other countries we do - our trade has increased while other parts of Canada’s trade has decreased during the unfortunate ongoing jailing and other activities that have been going on between Canada and China, in particular. We’ve been fortunate - we have not been affected. That’s because our former Premier went and talked to China, as I have. We’re in a business deal with them. We’re not in the politics of what goes on in the country. We always support our country without question, but it has not affected our sales.

LISA ROBERTS: The Owls Head protected area was envisioned by many people for decades as a possible gateway to a marine protected area on the Eastern Shore. You probably know about the vision for - I think it’s 100 Wild Islands. That planning process has gone quiet. I know there were concerns from lobster fishers, though I understand that lobster fishing, unlike finfish aquaculture, is generally considered to be an acceptable activity inside a marine protected area.

I’m getting the impression that you’re in frequent, though maybe not always productive, dialogue with DFO and maybe with Minister Jordan directly. Can you provide any update on that hoped-for, in some quarters, marine protected area?

KEITH COLWELL: The comment I can make on the marine protected area is that the whole - pretty well the whole community in that area is against the marine protected area. DFO didn’t do a proper job of consulting with the community. They told the fishing industry one thing, and then turned around and said that there are some areas they weren’t allowed to fish in.

DFO didn’t believe it. The former minister and I told them what was happening, what was going to happen. They went to a public meeting they had and the fishermen - all the fishermen - and not only fishermen, but a lot of the community went and expressed their extreme concern over the loss of their livelihood for a marine protected area.

That’s why the thing has gone quiet over time. DFO figured they’d just come in without proper consultation put in place. The community was very much up in arms about that. There was a national park almost dumped on them years ago that they weren’t very happy about. They look at this as the same scenario, again, without proper consultation.

We’ve made those views of the community known to the federal minister, successive federal ministers, actually. I have really no idea what they’re doing now with marine protected areas. It has gone all quiet. It’ll be interesting to see what they do. I would think they’re going to wait until after our next election. That’s my guess. That’s just a guess.

LISA ROBERTS: I believe that I’m almost at the 10-minute remaining mark, so I will cede my time to MLA Alana Paon.

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cape Breton-Richmond.

ALANA PAON: I thank my colleague from Halifax Needham for ceding me some of her time.

Minister, it’s a pleasure to have a little bit of time to chat with you today with regard to Fisheries and Aquaculture. One of the things that I know was mentioned, I’ve been following along here the last couple of hours and heard some conversation with regard to the condition of wharves. Obviously, we’ve had a great deal of divestiture of what would have been federally owned infrastructure in wharves and divested to not-for-profit organizations within our coastal communities.

Usually what happens in that divestiture process is that prior to the transfer, there’s a grant given, and a cleanup done either at the harbour or the wharf prior to the transfer. But then what we’re getting into that this stage, because there are so many of these that have been transferred, is that there’s no money available to do maintenance and upgrades. So, no capital funding, basically, available through the federal government, and certainly not, even though you mentioned earlier the importance of these pieces of infrastructure, no money available through the Province. It’s a bit of an unfortunate Catch-22.

I have a lot of these wharves in my community. I would like to ask the minister, and understanding of course that this is quite an expensive investment, but I think that obviously it’s an investment that would be in keeping with some of what the minister has discussed with regard to the importance of growing our provincial aquaculture, and of course fisheries in this province as well: Can the minister give me some advisement on how he has seen some other communities move forward with being able to access granting programs? Is the minister in talks with his federal counterparts to look at maybe a provincial-federal funding agreement or partnership to be able to take care of some of these issues that are happening around rural Nova Scotia?

KEITH COLWELL: It’s a very important topic you raise. These wharves are critically important to the industry. Unfortunately, the Small Craft Harbours program through DFO has the best of wharves over time and as you’ve said, they have provided a substantial amount of money to do some work - if the harbour authority goes forward and puts a proposal together properly, they can get some - but they don’t have enough money.

We’ve been jointly working with the other Atlantic provinces to put pressure on the federal government to put more funding towards wharves. So far, they haven’t done that.

Just one second, I’ll check with the staff in case anything is forgetting.

As I’ve already said, the Atlantic ministers are united on getting DFO to invest more money in wharves - and they are really pushing the federal government hard to get more money for those wharves - realizing as you have, and the community has, how important they are to rural communities, and indeed to the fishermen and other people in tourism and everything else.

[6:45 p.m.]

One thing we have noticed, typically, if an aquaculture operation moves in place, they’ll upgrade the wharves in an area and still have them usable by everybody who traditionally used the wharf. So as that expands that could help some but it’s not going to cure the problem. The real answer is to get the DFO to really put more money into this.

ALANA PAON: Thank you, minister, for your candid reply. I’d love to continue on this route. It’s a very frustrating situation to be in, in a rural coastal community. You can just not get an answer, not to mention have a difficult time basically getting the federal government and the provincial government to sit down at the table at the same time and try to talk about not only the current needs, because obviously maintenance has become an incredible issue in some of these areas. It’s not just for the wharves.

Minister, if I may add it’s also that we have several areas in my constituency where the breakwaters, which would of course be out further in the mouth of the harbour to be able to protect us from storm surges and just regular foul weather, they are obviously protecting the wharves that are further in. They are also protecting provincial roadways that we need to move product to and from the wharves and to and from the processing facilities. It’s really a massive issue and we’re putting a lot at risk when money is not being invested.

I guess my question is, I know the federal government, and you’ve been working hard with your counterparts, to try and have the federal government come forward with some more funding for this, but I guess: What do I tell people in my community who are currently struggling and don’t have some private dollars coming in, private investment to an aquaculture project, what do I tell them with regard to how they can find a successful solution to the problem of their wharves and their breakwaters falling apart?

KEITH COLWELL: You are making a very good point and one that we often talk to the different harbour authorities on. Some people don’t have harbour authorities and that makes it even worse, they can’t even get federal money. It’s a real big problem, and as I say even for us to cost-share on the wharf repairs in the province, there’s no way we could financially do it. This is such a big problem.

Over the years, some of the wharves, when the harbour authorities took them over, didn’t really apply for money when there was money available to get the work done. That wasn’t their fault because the wharves were in pretty good shape and they figured they were okay and would get the money when they needed it. Now that the money is harder to get, they are paying the price for it, which is not fair and not right.

I tell - it’s exactly what I tell you right now. If there’s anything we can help with, we send letters of support all the time for our harbour authorities, outline how important it is to the economy not only to Nova Scotia but to Canada to maintain these wharves. Sometimes they listen to us and make some money available.

I would suggest that the best way to do that is to work closely with your MP and see if the MP can get funding another way to help with the wharves. Now the Chair is probably going to ask me the same question about the wharves in his area, and everybody that has a wharf. It’s a really difficult situation but the federal government simply has to address it. It’s that simple.

ALANA PAON: Again, thank you, minister. I like to think of myself as a solution-oriented proactive, as opposed to reactive, individual. It has confounded me that I have not been able to find a solution to this mammoth problem that is obviously growing. You know, when your roof starts to leak, it doesn’t get any better, it only gets worse from there. When wharves start to fall apart, and breakwaters start to fall apart, it only gets worse from there. Obviously with our climate change and more severe weather patterns, we are even further at risk.

So I guess, minister, if I may ask just one last thing: Would someone from your office be willing to commit to come in on meetings on a couple of areas that I’m having some difficulty with, and be able to help to liaise with that problem?

KEITH COLWELL: The answer is yes. We’d be only too pleased to do that. Hopefully, we can get better results. I’m as frustrated as you are. Let’s put it that way.

ALANA PAON: No time to ask any more questions, but I just want to say thank you to the minister and his department. I know that the last year has been challenging for all of us and I appreciate you being willing to assist in this matter. I’ll be reaching out to your department.

THE CHAIR: That concludes the next hour of questioning. I think we had briefly gone over what we were doing prior to.

We have 15 minutes left before our COVID-19 break. Minister, I don’t know if you can do your closing remarks in those 15 minutes or not, but the floor is yours.

KEITH COLWELL: I can definitely do it in those 15 minutes. If you could let me know when I have about a minute and a half left so I can read my resolution, I’d be pleased to do that. I don’t want to miss doing that because I’d be in big trouble with my staff if I didn’t.

I really appreciate the questions that were brought forward today. The concerns that were addressed by my colleagues in all parties were real and indeed things we have to address and work forward to finding solutions.

We have to find new ways to do things. One thing that we’ve been doing - I’ve mentioned aquaculture as a solution for some of the problems on the wharves. Those are innovative approaches. That’s private money that we can get that doesn’t cost the taxpayers money and, indeed, would help resolve some of these problems. As we move forward and look at different things that we can work on together, that’s one of the things we can do.

When you look at where we’ve come with the fishing industry in the last seven years, eight years, we’ve made tremendous strides - not just our department, but the overall industry. The industry has seen a major attitude change. We’ve seen a change on how we do business: a better-quality approach to our products a highlight of that; a willingness to work together with our department, with industry, with the communities to make these positive things happen in the community.

These jobs that are careers - I’ve stopped using “jobs,” I really talk about careers now - in the fishing industry are real. You can take a young person who can buy a boat. We’ve managed to put programs in place that protect the Province from bad debts and also at the same time protect the young people who want to buy, for instance, a fishing licence. We’ve made it possible through our loan programs. That didn’t happen by accident. It’s a lot of work we did. We worked with the commercial industry, talked to them. Our staff came up with - and our loan board which is appointed and actually runs the loan board - is very proactive. A lot of experience. Those things are very important to us.

We’ve had the young people take over from either their parents or from someone whom they worked with who has built a retirement fund and hopefully can make a good dollar when they sell a licence, that they can retire and live a decent life after retirement. A young person can make an investment in something that, in quite a short time, depending on the catches of course, can have a very lucrative income for the rest of their lives. It’s hard work, it’s a hard business, but, again, if you work hard in the industry, you can make a very good living. That’s very positive. The more marketing we can do to get the higher value for those products, the better off we are.

It’s been a privilege for me to work in the industry all this time. There are a lot of challenges, always will be. I think we have a lot of opportunities in aquaculture. As I said earlier, we have, in the queue if all these are approved - they may not be, who knows - about $500 million worth of private investment. That’s totally private investment, none from the province whatsoever, no loans from a loan board, none of that stuff, on top of anything else that may be done.

The industry itself, the commercial fishing industry, the processing facilities now - with the moratorium we put on licences we’ve now got a better idea of what they can do and there’s been millions of dollars invested since then, in upgrading technology, equipment, labour-saving devices in their plants, traceability, all these things that we really need to do to grow the economy. The more we work on that and the more we make strides, the better off we are.

It is coming to the day where technology is really taking over. Where they used to have maybe 100 people cutting fish on the fishing line, which you would see in the wet and damp and all that stuff, we’re probably going to have one or two people, one person, or three people: one person maintaining the machine, one person to maintain it in the off-shift and the other one to operate it. That’s what we’re coming to. We’re coming to that, not because we don’t want to employ people, it’s just because we can’t find the people. But those jobs are very well paid and with great benefits and all the wonderful things you want for every one of our citizens in the province. So it’s an evolution of what’s happening.

We’re working on a cost of production program that will also affect the fishing industry to keep the detailed costs of what your ongoing day-by-day, minute-by-minute costs are to run the facilities: what it costs for your power, what it costs for your fuel, what it costs for labour, everything that’s in your business. If you asked anyone in business if they had that kind of tool, they would jump at it in a minute because that’s what makes money and doesn’t make money. If you can identify where you’re losing money, you can make some good changes in your business and become more efficient, more profitable and indeed identify things that you typically didn’t realize that were happening.

I personally went through that in my own business and luckily have found a good accountant and he showed me very quickly things I should do to improve the profitability of my company. I instituted them and it really did work.

So these things that we’re looking at, we’re basing all our decisions now on real science. We’re doing research that had not been done before. We don’t do research any more for the sake of research, we identify problems and do research to resolve the problem. We’ve taken a completely different approach on how we do business.

This fisheries and aquaculture business, and I’m not here to talk about agriculture today but it’s all the same. We make decisions based on science and good business sense. When you put those two things together all of a sudden, you’ve got an environment that people, number one want to invest in; they want to get employed in it; or own the operations, whichever they choose for themselves. In this country, we have the opportunities to do that and to grow as big as you want or stay as small as you want. Those are the kinds of programs that really help.

As we talk about all this, we see the change. We’ve talked a lot about aquaculture today. Aquaculture is the future. Over 50 per cent of all seafood consumed in the world now, I think it’s up to 54 per cent now, is aquaculture. And it’s going even further all the time. As that is perfected and as the efficiency - it’s one of the most efficient types of food production in the world. It’s way ahead of almost anything else when you look at how much it costs to feed. The chicken is the closest next thing. They are about 2.2 pounds of food for every pound of protein you get out of chicken. Salmon and trout run between 1.1 and 1.2 pounds of input to get one pound of protein. The protein from chicken is very healthy. The protein from salmon and trout are even healthier, the omega-3 oils. So, there are all kinds of positive things.

On the other side of that, we’ve got to make sure we look after the environment when this has happened. And we are doing that. We monitor it all the time. Our department has invested in a boat that we can go out in any kind of weather to visit sites, to take enforcement people out, also for our veterinarian to go out or a scientist to go out and do checks.

We’ve invested in a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) so that we can dive on the sites with an ROV without a diver, take samples, videotape what is going on, whatever we need to do. Those are all investments we’ve made since I’ve been minister.

[7:00 p.m.]

We also have a state-of-the-art fish lab, one of the very few fish labs outside of DFO in Atlantic Canada. Our chief fish veterinarian is one of the top authorities on fish health in the world - in the world, when you think about that. He’s the one who has directed and moved our industry along on such a solid base. He has very capable vets who work for him.

I was talking to a young person who was working for Hope for Wildlife. They’d come to my property to release some foxes. They have a big property next to mine. The young girl was saying that she was going to become a vet. I said, did you ever think about becoming a fish vet? She didn’t even know there was such a thing, and that’s our fault. We should be telling young people about these interesting careers, and a fish vet right now in Nova Scotia – there are probably openings for 20 or 30. That’s no exaggeration.

I know the aquaculture sites - I think Cooke employs - I talked to one of their vets one day, and I think they’ve got somewhere between seven and 15 fish vets on staff. They don’t fool around with this stuff. They’re very serious about fish health. Our vets do all kinds of things. They work in the commercial industry, they work in the aquaculture industry, the whole gamut.

By our Act, if there’s any kind of disease that’s tracked, the veterinarian who works for the company - either the contract ones or strictly for the companies - by law has to report anything back to us in a very short time period, and then our vets will go in and take samples and verify if, indeed, what the vets have thought about - the company vets or the contracted ones - is accurate. If it is accurate - accurate or not, they will do their own investigation. Whatever they find, that’s what we’ll look after and that’s what we’ll do.

It’s been a big change in the last eight years since we started. We go back to the young people. You know, we need young people to stay in this province. On an aquaculture site, the average wage is $58,000 a year, in rural Nova Scotia. That’s a lot of money in rural Nova Scotia - with all the benefits. I mean, all the benefits - all the health care benefits, everything you could imagine. They’re serious about keeping and looking after their staff. Their turnover in staff is almost zero.

When you look at all that and you see all these happening and how they have affected the economy in local areas - I travelled to Norway and talked to councillors in one of the municipalities there and had a very frank discussion with them about finfish aquaculture. They had been an oil town and the oil dried up, and they went to aquaculture. The conversation - at the end they said, the oil companies treated us really good, there was no problem. Norway, I think, is the second-greenest country in the world, and here they are, they have aquaculture and oil drilling. Doesn’t make any sense if you listen to people who are anti-everything. But it’s true, they are, and they said aquaculture is the best thing that ever happened.

They said they trained the local people, they hired the local people. They pay really good money. They cause absolutely no problem at all with the commercial fishery. They work with the municipalities to help the municipalities with offsets. If the municipality needs something and the community can’t afford to pay for it, the aquaculture organization will come in and help them do that, working with the community.

I went to Tasmania and met with the industry there and the people in the community. They said they have - which we mandate here, as well, in Nova Scotia - advisory committees in the community. They said at first it was what’s going on, and all this stuff. We found out they’ve really got a working relationship going on. At the end of it, they said the meeting sort of went from what’s going on - you know, complaints about stuff. They said they had noise complaints, so they said, when’s the . . .

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Just to make the minister aware: one and a half minutes.

KEITH COLWELL: Okay, thank you. What the complaints were, and they said, well, what time of the day is the noise problem? Some pumps they had to run, and they would run them when the community wasn’t a problem. They really did work with the community.

THE CHAIR: Shall Resolution E9 stand?

The resolution stands.

We have reached again our COVID-19 break for the evening. We still have another hour to go. This will give us time during the break to have the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage join us and she will have the first hour for her opening remarks.

So we are back at 7:21 p.m.

[7:06 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

[7:21 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply will now come to order. We are now meeting to consider the Estimates for the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage as outlined in Resolution E2.

Resolution E2 - Resolved that a sum not exceeding $117,098,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, pursuant to the Estimate.

The honourable Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage.

HON. SUZANNE LOHNES-CROFT: Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s a pleasure to be here. I usually sit where you sit. I’ve sat there for many years during Estimates, so I’m on the different side of the table this time.

Good evening, everyone. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are in Mi’kma’ki, the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaw people. I am pleased to be here today to highlight the work of the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and to speak about our priorities for the year ahead.

Before I proceed, please allow me to introduce the members of my senior team who are joining me here today. With me is Dr. Késa Munroe-Anderson, the new Deputy Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage; and to my right, your left, would be Rebecca Doucett, the Director of Financial Advisory Services. I am also surrounded by an amazing team of professionals.

The mandate and work of Communities, Culture and Heritage is fundamentally about investing in the people of Nova Scotia - in their communities, their businesses, their ideas, culture and heritage, health and well-being, and the ties that bind us together.

Our goal is for Nova Scotia to be a place where culture, identity, expression, and economy prosper, a place that is known for strong, empowered, and vibrant communities and a strong, creative economy. Where more Nova Scotians have access to opportunity for healthy, active living, we are working to address systemic racism, advance cultural diversity, and increase initiatives to promote and preserve and celebrate Mi’kmaw culture and heritage.

As a department, we are working to ensure equity, diversity, and inclusion are fundamental to our decision-making and our programs and our hiring. Through our programming, we are making important investments across the province. In the fiscal year 2021-22, 76 per cent of the CCH budget will be invested directly in communities through our various programs. This represents about $89 million flowing to communities through libraries and museums, recreation facilities, arts and culture organizations, professional and aspiring artists, businesses that want to make their premises more accessible and welcoming, organizations that are working to reduce poverty, and so on.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary public health orders to combat it had a profound impact on our sectors in 2020 and it continues to be. It cancelled performances and season schedules. Theatre stages went dark, music venues were silenced, and galleries, museums, and libraries were empty of visitors. Box offices shut their ticket windows. Tour dates vanished. Musicians, performers, and artists were deprived of audiences and audiences were deprived of seeing, hearing, and experiencing their art.

Recreation facilities closed, or reduced hours, and that seriously reduced access. COVID-19 cancelled, delayed, or altered seasons for various sports and led to the postponement of two major sporting events: the North American Indigenous Games last Summer and the IIHF World Women’s Hockey Championship last Winter, not to mention hundreds of smaller events in communities across this province. No matter how big or how small the event, it impacted somebody.

COVID-19 also impacted community organizations across the province and their ability to provide their services and programming, as well as to find volunteers to fundraise and to support their very worthwhile efforts. As you know, Mr. Chair, many of our volunteers here in Nova Scotia are seniors. Seniors were very affected and are the most susceptible to COVID-19, and so without their services our communities lost quite a lot.

Our culture and heritage sectors, communities, sports and recreation sectors, archives, museums, libraries, and community organizations contribute a great deal to our province and its people in so many ways. They are also important contributors to our economy. According to the most recent Statistics Canada data, culture and sports contributed $1.08 billion to Nova Scotia’s gross domestic product in 2018. These two sectors created 15,571 jobs - and that is the 2018 statistic. I imagine the numbers are even higher today.

I am proud to say that the sectors served by Communities, Culture and Heritage showed amazing resilience, determination, and creativity in coping with the challenges of COVID-19. In many cases, they pivoted to offer online performances and programming. We did our best and we continue to do our best to support them in those efforts, and I’d like to think that Nova Scotians did their best too.

For example, Celtic Colours moved its entire internationally celebrated music festival online and many musicians embraced a digital approach to sharing their performances. Libraries, galleries, and museums offered enhanced online programming to families and others isolated in their homes.

Throughout this challenging past year, our staff at Communities, Culture and Heritage and those at African Nova Scotian Affairs, the Office of Acadian Affairs and Francophonie, and the Office of Gaelic Affairs have worked tirelessly and collaboratively with organizations and individuals to support them and to help them adapt to our current reality.

Communities, Culture and Heritage helped stakeholders pivot to address the COVID-19 reality, and what a reality that was. Its impact on their operations through a move to support online performances, new fundraising approaches, and new ways of providing their services and performances.

[7:30 p.m.]

We also advanced already-approved operating expenses more quickly to assist stakeholders with their cash flow. We were very quick getting that money out the door, initially, to some of our stakeholders, who really were at a loss as to how they were going to cope. We worked with our clients and our federal funding partners to develop COVID-19-related support programs and funding. Combined with funding from the federal government, CCH provided millions of dollars in emergency support to our sectors this year to assist arts and cultural organizations, community organizations, and sports organizations all across the province.

In November, our Culture and Heritage development division announced the COVID-19 Emergency Support Program for Arts and Culture Organizations. In total, 89 arts and culture organizations received $2.1 million in funding as a one-time grant. Applications closed in early December and by late January the grants were flowing to organizations. I think that was a pretty good turnaround, Mr. Chair.

During the pandemic, the department has also offered other programs to support arts and culture organizations, including a digital stream through the Creative Industries Fund, and more than $898,000 invested in 55 projects. Among those funded was Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia, a well-known, award-wining, international touring company based in Windsor, which received $30,000 to support MermaidTV, a new digital project designed to showcase professional puppetry productions and engage children, parents, and educators through online puppetry construction workshops. The funding helped them purchase equipment and software that employ artists and technical staff.

Among the other projects were $5,000 for the Cape Breton Music Industry Cooperative livestream project, and $8,000 to the Lunenburg Doc Fest for a virtual documentary film festival. Arts Nova Scotia also created a new COVID-19 response screen to support professional arts groups and organizations to enable them to continue to work and participate in the arts community in the context of COVID-19. A total of $56,000 was distributed to 12 organizations through this grant.

In addition, Heritage Canada distributed $1.9 million to 100 community museums through the Museum Assistance Program, with one-time emergency funding, including $655,000 to our provincial museums.

As importantly, our Culture and Heritage Development staff regularly reached out to stakeholder organizations and individuals to help inform them regarding the impact of COVID-19 and the related health protocols, for their input regarding funding programs, and to be a supportive ear for their concerns and issues.

Our Communities, Sport and Recreation division also regularly reached out to the sports and recreation sectors and to community organizations to assist them in dealing with the impact of COVID-19 and to keep them informed regarding the implications of COVID-19-related health protocols.

Last April, the province announced $1 million in funding for the United Way organizations across the province to help meet the needs of the most vulnerable Nova Scotians for food and shelter. The United Way administered the investment on behalf of five provincial United Ways and worked together to ensure registered charities serving marginalized people and applicants from regions without a United Way were able to access funding. I have to say, Mr. Chair, I worked, myself, with the United Way in Bridgewater because we wanted to ensure that the nursing homes received their tablets. We were able to use some of their statistics and we worked collaboratively with them to make sure that the nursing homes got the right number of tablets so that they could communicate with their family members.

I was so impressed by how easily they collaborated. They had their statistics, they knew how many were needed in each nursing home, right down to how many should be in per wing of a nursing home. That kind of work saved other organizations that you would probably have to pay someone to go in and do all that work, and that was done as a charitable participation program for them.

Through that investment, 17,156 people were provided with food, medication, cleaning supplies, and other personal-need items; 6,143 people were provided with social, emotional, or personal support; 868 people were provided with transportation for such needs as medical appointments; 668 people were provided with shelter and housing support; $28,037 was spent on delivering costs for food, cleaning supplies, personal items, and medication; 1,387 people assisted individuals with self‑isolation; and 815 people were provided with access to technology.

Communities, Culture and Heritage also worked with our partners to provide $1.36 million to address COVID-19 food initiatives by partnering with organizations like Halifax Meals on Wheels and the VON’s Frozen Favourites, to help hire staff, buy food, and make meal deliveries. Mr. Chair, you are probably familiar with Meals on Wheels; they are across the province. I know many Lions Clubs participate, for one thing, and the VON, in these programs.

Usually, they have mostly worked with volunteers, but as you know, as I said earlier, many volunteers, because they were seniors, were not available to help out in the volunteer ways that they normally are. It was important to be able to have some people who are paid to work on it or to reach out and find new volunteers who were available.

In response to a request from Royal Canadian Legion Provincial Command, Communities, Culture and Heritage also provided $100,000 in additional, one‑time support. Of that total, $75,000 is to provide support to help the Legion branches stay open and operational at a time when they needed it most. I also know many Legions took up with the opening funds that were available to organizations to get started with their PPE, as well.

An additional $10,000 went to Legions’ Meals on Wheels programs, and $15,000 in support went to the Veteran Farm Project, which gives military veterans access to environmental rehabilitation through working on a small farm.

Communities, Sport and Recreation helped distribute $3.75 million from Heritage Canada to assist provincial sports organizations impacted by COVID-19. Eighty-one provincial sports organizations benefited from this support. Likewise, our Archives, Museums and Libraries division also reached out to our stakeholders in the regional library system and in the provincial and community museums sectors to offer support, advice, and assistance.

The impact of COVID-19 on Nova Scotia’s provincial archives, museums, and public libraries varied. All institutions were closed from mid-March to late June of 2020. I remember having a tour recently of the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History with one of my staffers and they were sort of reliving where they were a year ago when they were setting up their new exhibit. I went down to take a look at it a couple of weeks ago and they were saying, oh my goodness, this is déjà vu of last year. Here we were all excited about the March break and - boom - the shutdown happened. They were really looking forward to providing programming this March break and I understand that it was quite successful with the uptake.

All three institutions transferred a significant amount of information and programming to online formats. Museums and libraries even became distribution sites for free, reusable cloth masks, distributing more than 500,000 masks across the province, while some libraries posted pop-up COVID-19 testing sites.

Communities, Culture and Heritage provided financial assistance in a number of ways. Together with Community Services, CCH offered $500,000 in one-time funding that enabled public libraries to invest in technology to help them ensure that communities have continued access to internet and digital service devices.

As part of last year’s budget announcement, the province also introduced a $500,000 library development fund to encourage the development of innovative library programs. This year, that $500,000 was repurposed to assist 16 libraries to adapt their spaces and their programming to COVID-19. The funding also helped mitigate the financial pressures caused by COVID-19-related costs.

African Nova Scotian Affairs, the Office of Acadian Affairs and Francophonie, and the Office of Gaelic Affairs kept in regular communication with their stakeholders, providing support, advice, and assistance. In particular, African Nova Scotian Affairs works closely with the Association of Black Social Workers, the Health Association of African Canadians, and community groups that are instrumental in keeping COVID-19 cases low in African Nova Scotian communities. These groups joined hands with the African United Baptist Association, the African Canadian Services Branch, the Nova Scotia Health Authority, the Department of Community Services, and African Nova Scotian Affairs to form a COVID-19 impact team. That team, Mr. Chair, provided a foundation to help government effectively communicate the COVID-19 emergency procedures to people of African descent through culturally appropriate communications, community involvement, and Afrocentric graphics.

Communities also led initiatives to further spread the information, including Facebook town halls with medical officers of health and other health officials, social media partnerships with community influencers, and printed flyers and posters. These pandemic leaders in the African Nova Scotian community are examples of some of the many ways Nova Scotians stepped in to assist their fellow citizens over the past year. Here are just a few among the many that our department engages with and supports: Kings Volunteer Resource Centre in New Minas operates a provincial volunteer linking website, volunteerns.ca, with annual support from the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage. In May of 2020, the centre partnered with the province to retool its website to recruit essential service volunteers. Over a period of a month, in the late spring of 2020, volunteerns.ca saw 224 people step up to volunteer. Six hundred and five applications for volunteer positions were posted on the website and 6,000 new visitors came to the site.

[7:45 p.m.]

Mr. Chair, I’ve gone on that site myself. I encourage you and other members of the Legislature to go on that site, and anyone viewing. It’s a great resource for a non-profit organization, anyone looking for a volunteer. You can go in and register to be a volunteer or to be a receiver of volunteers. I would encourage all of you to try and check that out. It’s a great resource for your constituents as well.

Since 2016, the Mobile Food Market has hosted markets in communities throughout the Halifax Regional Municipality that face barriers to accessing fresh produce. A team of two staff and countless volunteers load the produce and travel every week to communities, allowing people to access healthy food where they live.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, the Mobile Food Market quickly expanded their services and began to deliver emergency food hampers to seniors from Sheet Harbour to Enfield to Herring Cove. With support provided by the province, they delivered more than 1,000 hampers and 4,000 produce packs, with the assistance of more than 170 volunteers.

I think you’re hearing volunteers quite a bit in my talk here today because volunteers have really been vital in any of our work at CCH. Many of the organizations that apply for grants are run by volunteers, and you’re hearing about how important a role volunteers play in the COVID-19 and the pandemic recovery, and also helping people to cope.

I must say, I was privileged to be able to see the new Mobile Food Market. They came and they did a little promotion in various locations. They went to the Grand Parade and they came down to the Legislature. I visited the Mobile Food Market and was able to talk with the staff. It’s so clean and it’s set up perfectly. They helped design it, and it will go a long way to helping them serve the communities. They have a great voucher program, and it’s a great way for people to get healthy, fresh, and local food, and nobody has to feel ashamed. It’s such a welcoming place. I encourage anyone who is in some kind of leadership role to make a visit with the Mobile Food Market. You’ll be very impressed with the work that the employees do, and their volunteers.

At the outset of the pandemic, the Reserve Mines Senior Citizens and Pensioners Recreation Club rallied to support vulnerable seniors in their community. With support provided by the province, 13 volunteers in several rotational shifts worked 45 hours a week to cook, package, and deliver 144 meals three times per week to vulnerable seniors and adults in their communities.

The team at South Shore Public Library, led by Troy Myers, nimbly shifted their services within days of the shutdown to ensure the entertainment, education, and recreational needs of the citizens of the South Shore continued to be met during all phases of the pandemic. They arranged for curbside and bookmobile pickup, online registration, and the distribution of take-and-make craft kits for children.

South Shore Public Library serves the communities of my constituency, and I must say they really communicated well during this period. They were great with social media and putting ads in local media sources. They got the word out so that people could enjoy the services of the South Shore Regional Library.

From speaking to individuals and partners in their communities, the staff at Pictou‑Antigonish Regional Library knew that as much as people wanted their services, they also wanted people to connect with, especially, the staff. The Pictou‑Antigonish Regional Library’s CEO, Eric Stackhouse, made it a priority to connect his staff with community members and to show them how the library, as an organization, was being safe. Not only did the regional libraries reopen, but they increased their opening hours in two of their largest library branches to 7:00 p.m. They also introduced some new services, including their successful author series, via Zoom.

Mr. Chair, being an MLA, you would know how important libraries are to our communities. It is just a valuable service for people who are lonely, people who are intellectuals, people who just want to have a quiet corner to read a book, or to socialize with people. I remember in early days when libraries were a “shhhh” place. There was no talking, there was no music, there was no giggling or laughing, and many of us who have gone to university, you were very ‑ you tiptoed around the libraries. They’ve just changed, and they are hubs now for communities.

There are all sorts of activities going on. There are book clubs, there is so much exposure to technology, and for many young people, it’s a place they go after school. It’s not child care, but often a lot of children find it a safe place to be if they don’t want to go home to an empty house. They have been well‑accepted in many communities, and many communities actually run programs for after school.

Also, I think during this time period, when many parents were working from home and also doing classes online with their children, having these libraries have these services was a saving grace for many of them. It gave them a little bit of a break, but also provided activities, like the pick-up crafts that the South Shore Public Libraries offered. It’s wonderful to see that our staff at our libraries were so creative at this time.

Now moving back again to talk about financial support provided by the department and the province, other COVID-19‑related supports included an investment of more than $6 million to complete shovel‑ready repairs and updates at Nova Scotia Museum sites. This investment will help repair and restore infrastructure so that our museums can welcome more visitors in years to come. Some of these museums were in great need of this infrastructure help.

Among those museum projects is $1.5 million in additional support for the redevelopment project at Highland Village in Iona, Cape Breton - its first upgrade in almost 20 years. You must be hearing about that good project, Mr. Chair. A new welcome centre, a new washroom, updated landscaping, and interpretive signs will improve the visitor experience.

In addition to Highland Village, the Museum of Industry is having its roof replaced, the Acadian Village is getting $150,000 for repairs and painting, Perkins House will be ready to open this Summer, and Sherbrooke Village is installing energy‑efficient heat pumps. These are just a few examples, Mr. Chair.

In an effort to bolster the spirits of Nova Scotians, and in keeping with the COVID-19 protocols, the iconic Bluenose II ‑ and I must give a lesson right here because some of my staff are shaking their heads. I recently heard a lot of presentations on Bluenose’s 100^th anniversary, and it is Bluenose, not the Bluenose. I know it’s an easy habit and it rolls off your tongue, but Bluenose is the name of the vessel. It’s like, we don’t call you the Bains, we call you Mr. Bains. The same with Bluenose - we call her Bluenose.

In an effort to bolster the spirits of Nova Scotians, and keeping with the protocols, Bluenose II sailed into 30 Nova Scotia ports and passed near to so many in a unique tour fit for the times, dubbed Sail Past Summer. I was consulted quite a few times when they were proposing this event, as the MLA for Lunenburg, where Lunenburg is the home port for Bluenose. It was a really exciting project. I know Minister Glavine, at the time, was quite excited to hear about this program because it was a great spirit-lifter.

Due to COVID-19, the 20-person crew created a Bluenose bubble for training, maintenance, and sailing the vessel throughout the Summer. Visitors were not permitted on board and there were no harbour cruises with passengers. Seeing the ship sail along our seabound coast helped our communities remember that, as with all storms, the sun will shine again.

COVID-19 was not the only challenge to our problems in 2020. We also faced the horror of last April’s Portapique tragedy that tested the strength and resilience of Nova Scotians in many ways.

This year’s Provincial Volunteer Awards honoured our province’s 13 Mi’kmaw communities, and all our municipalities, towns, and villages, with the Lieutenant Governor’s Community Spirit recognition plaque for their efforts during this trying year.

A new award was introduced - the Nova Scotia Strong Award. It was given to recognize the deep level of caring that Nova Scotians demonstrated towards each other. The award was presented to six individuals who organized the Nova Scotia Remembers online tribute to commemorate the 22 Nova Scotians lost in the April 18^th and 19^th tragedy here in our province.

While COVID-19 had a major impact on the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage and our stakeholders, as it did all Nova Scotians, it did not define us. The department had a number of achievements in 2020-21 that were unrelated to COVID-19. Primary among our achievements was our ongoing efforts on equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. Our department’s guiding strategies - the Culture Action Plan and Count Us In - commit to working with all communities to address systemic racism and discrimination, and to embed equity, diversity, and inclusion into all our programs, policies, and practices.

We are also guided by the corporate All Together diversity and inclusion action plan. A number of initiatives are under way, both in the culture and arts programs we offer and within the Department of Community, Culture and Heritage, to address the systemic issues. Here are just a few of them:

Arts Nova Scotia’s Arts Equity program is designed to help both emerging and established professional artists from designated communities to access funding support. The designated communities of artists include Indigenous, culturally diverse, and artists who are deaf, have disabilities, or are living with mental illness.

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Creative Industries Fund’s Digital Project offers funding to cultural businesses, not-for-profits, and social enterprises to adopt digital tools and innovation to manage through impacts related to COVID-19. The program supports projects that foster the work of Nova Scotia’s diverse artists, arts groups, and organizations. In order to qualify, they must demonstrate how the project fosters growth of Nova Scotia’s diverse and inclusive creative sector.

The Screenwriters Development Fund provides investments in script writing costs for film and TV projects. This supports the creation and development of film and TV script projects from Nova Scotia filmmakers that provide Nova Scotia filmmakers, writers, producers, and projects with help to advance and/or to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Supports for agencies, boards, and commissions - otherwise known as the ABCs: Government is seeking to diversify the membership of agencies, boards, and commissions and to help create an inclusive culture. In 2021, our library and museum boards have completed electronic data interchange (EDI) workshops, and more are planned.

I want to just put a little note in here, that as a person coming from the Human Resources Committee before becoming a minister, we often found that some of our boards and agencies were lacking membership, so we’re hoping that this kind of training will serve well for finding people for agencies, boards, and commissions, and also open people’s eyes to finding people who will qualify for the boards and put a different lens on membership on these boards and committees. Sometimes it’s harder to fill because we’re using these different lenses when we’re choosing people to go on these boards, but we think it will strengthen the content of our boards in future years to come.

Treaty education: CCH actively participates on the Treaty Education Implementation Committee led by the Office of L’nu Affairs. The Mi’kmaw Cultural Activities Program supports specific treaty education initiatives, including funding community groups and organizations to promote and preserve Mi’kmaw culture and heritage.

The Diversity Round Table: CCH is currently co-chairing the Diversity Round Table for all government. This interdepartmental forum provides input and advice on corporate EDI initiatives, such as policy reviews, training, and anti-racism resources.

Another achievement marked this year was Premier Iain Rankin’s announcement in March of a $3 million compensation fund to accelerate the efforts to address a legacy of systemic racism related to land ownership in historic African Nova Scotian communities. This fund will be used to resolve cases that involve parties with competing claims and help speed up efforts under the Land Titles Initiative, which was established in 2017 to provide clear title to residents of the communities of East Preston, North Preston, Cherry Brook-Lake Loon, Lincolnville, and Sunnyville. They all qualify under this initiative. We know there are other communities that also are looking closely into this program right now, and there will be more uptake in future years.

In December, CCH provided two initial grants to support the launch of the Eskasoni Transit Service, the first transit service operated by a Mi’kmaw community in Nova Scotia, and that is in Cape Breton. The funding helped with the purchase of two vehicles and a nine-passenger van offering door-to-door service in the community, and a 20-passenger bus providing a fixed-route service between Eskasoni and Sydney. The investment came from the Accessible Transportation Assistance Program, designed to help organizations buy or modify accessible buses or vans. The province invested more than $2 million through community and accessible transportation assistance programs in 2020/21. Under the recently announced reorganization of government departments, these programs have moved to the Department of Transportation and Active Transit.

I will miss that staff. They’ve brought great opportunities to communities through their programs. I myself was involved in one for the South Shore, with getting a link from Halifax to Bridgewater, Mahone Bay, and Lunenburg with Maritime Bus. I was so impressed at the time, and I still continue to be impressed.

Another important community infrastructure investment announced by our department recently was $1.2 million to renovate a former convent and residence in Mabou to create a satellite campus of the Gaelic College. This fund will transform the former St. Joseph’s Convent and Renewal Centre into a refreshed facility called Mabou Hill College. The campus’s offerings will include a foundation year program and Executive Certificate in Cultural Organizations/Event Management, and an Executive Certificate in Music for students. Students will receive credit recognition for courses through Cape Breton University.

Communities, Culture and Heritage also invested $5 million to help make our province’s sports system more inclusive and accessible. The funding will also support a more diverse and representative sports leadership model, promoting coaching opportunities and programming for women, Mi’kmaq, African Nova Scotians and people of African descent, people of colour, and those who coach people with physical and intellectual disabilities. We will see a $2 million investment in kids’ sports; $2 million to increase access to recreation facilities and improve access to equipment; $500,000 for parasports; and $500 to support equity in coaching.

This past year, we also saw a major announcement regarding the new Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. In November, the team at KPMP Architects with Omar Gandhi Architect, Jordan Bennett Studio, Elder Lorraine Whitman, Public Work, and Transsolar was announced as the winner of the international design competition for the new art gallery. The new art gallery will reflect the importance of art and culture in our lives and in our communities and our economy. The new gallery and the arts district located on the Salter Block of the Halifax waterfront will be a transformative designation for all to experience.

Work also continues in an effort to help accelerate the land titles work and, in addition, necessary legislation changes to push that work forward. We have invested an additional $300,000 to support this work in 2021/22 and have created two additional community navigator positions, as they play a critical role in supporting community members and to access the resources needed to gain clear title.

This new fiscal year also sees the transfer of authority for the $25 million Nova Scotia Film & Television Production Incentive Program from the Department of Inclusive Economic Growth to CCH. We’re pleased to have the new authority. Communities, Culture and Heritage manages the fund and the relationships with the other creative industries, so we collectively understand the importance of this sector and the possibilities, especially in light of the favourable climate that exists in Nova Scotia at the moment.

Our budget will also see CCH invest $1 million to support food security initiatives, including nourishing communities to assist Nova Scotia’s most vulnerable residents access healthy food and to encourage food literacy.

Our work on improving our grant programs at the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage will also continue. The year-long COVID-19 pandemic required us to reassess and reconsider some of our priorities, but I am proud to say that my staff at CCH rolled up their sleeves, embraced the new, virtual world, and saw every challenge as an opportunity.

The team of 50 staff completed Phase 1 of the program improvement project. While addressing the need for emergency support for our sectors, the team mapped all 80-plus programs to identify gaps and overlaps among the programs and supports.

Staff are also working to work more collaboratively among divisions, so that if we can’t support an organization in one fund, we can try to make that happen through another fund. We believe our approach in this initiative aligns very well with the program review announced by the Premier. We are looking forward to Phase 2 getting under way in the near future.

I am proud to serve as Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage. Every day, I see the passion and commitment of CCH staff and the hundreds of community organizations we work with. This past year, COVID-19 challenges have been daunting at times, but I have been amazed and impressed by the resiliency and creativity of our staff and our stakeholders as we work co-operatively and collectively to address the challenges head-on.

It remains important to speak to the various initiatives and projects that were funded by our government through the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage over the past year, and I wish to highlight some of these. It is impossible to announce on a provincial scale every single project that received support, and oftentimes we hear about the larger-scale projects. Before and during my time as Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage, I’ve been witness to countless incredible projects that our government has funded through our regularly offered programs across the entire province.

Within our department, we previously held a community transportation file. Our government knows how important it is to have access to safe, reliable, accessible transit. There’s no doubt that connected communities save lives. We have incredible transportation providers across our province that work diligently to provide services on a daily basis. From fixed-route options to point-to-point, our communities are now connected more than ever before.

Accessibility plays a very integral part within our department. Over the past year, staff worked diligently to administer both the business and community ACCESS-Ability funds. This saw a number of accessible renovation projects throughout our province. Some of these big projects include over $6,000 to the Friends of the Big Bras d’Or Firehall, $10,000 to the Bus Stop Theatre, and over $26,000 to Mashup Lab in Bridgewater for accessible upgrades. Our government has an ambitious but important goal: to be accessible by 2030. I look forward to continuing to advance this work while I serve as the minister.

Sports and recreation play a vital role in the life of our province. The benefits of physical activity are well-known and understood. We all know being physically active improves our overall health and well-being, helps us to cope with the day-to-day stresses, and supports the ability to live a long and fulfilling life. I am proud that we are moving along with the goals of Let’s Get Moving Nova Scotia, our plan to encourage more Nova Scotians to move more and to sit less.

This past year, Make Your Move was successfully launched with a focus on middle-aged women like myself. Make Your Move is a public awareness campaign that encourages people to include small bouts of movement in their daily routines.

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I am proud that through our Municipal and Mi’kmaw Physical Activity Leadership Programs, we are supporting 44 staff positions throughout Nova Scotia, servicing 43 municipalities and nine Mi’kmaw communities. These leaders support their communities to develop and implement community-wide physical activity planning. Here in Nova Scotia, we are change-makers in sports. We are proud to support Sport Nova Scotia and our provincial sports organizations to advance the important work that they do.

The promotion of women and girls in sports is an important piece of work we do here at Communities, Culture and Heritage. That’s why I’m so proud to share the news that Amy Walsh, Executive Director of Hockey Nova Scotia, has just been appointed the newest member of the National Hockey League’s Female Hockey Advisory Committee. Amy continues to make all of us very proud and I look forward to following the work she will do on this committee.

While these are all very important funding initiatives that I have outlined from our Communities, Sport and Recreation division, this is only just the surface of the funding that has been distributed to community groups all over the province. The Mi’kmaw Cultural Activities Program is a panel …

THE CHAIR: Order, please. I’d just like to make the minister aware that she has five minutes left in her hour.

SUZANNE LOHNES-CROFT: This work directly aligns with our Culture Action Plan and I am proud to work alongside extremely diligent public servants who take this important work seriously. This past year we saw projects such as $15,000 to support the Confederacy of Mainland Mi’kmaq for a Mi’kmaq History Month video series, and $20,000 for the Winter Mawio’mi project. This is just one example of the important programs where our Communities division makes a big impact to a community.

One other project I want to highlight came from our Communities division. During this past year, Matrix CODE, helping young Nova Scotians connect to the workforce, was a priority for our government. We know that African Nova Scotian youth face systemic barriers to entering the workforce. Matrix CODE is a step towards creating a future where every Nova Scotian has equal access to job opportunities here in our province by way of removing barriers, by providing opportunities for African Nova Scotian youth to learn code and access wraparound services and connect to the workforce in a growing sector.

While funded by multiple departments, Communities, Culture and Heritage, in conjunction with the Department of Community Services, provides $40,000 through Building Vibrant Communities. There was a video that was produced that highlights this important project and I encourage all those listening today to view this online.

As you can see, the department is multi‑faceted and very vibrant. This work continues on through our Culture and Heritage Development division, which is home to the One‑time Emerging Culture and Heritage Initiatives Program. This program’s goal is designed for organizations with the primary focus on cultural and heritage development. This program is also available to organizations partnering with specific culture and heritage interests, providing they are working to build capacity, fostering innovation with Nova Scotia’s culture community, or if they are working to support cultural development within diverse communities.

Prior to my time as minister, there was a commitment to support the Bluenose centennial. Bluenose is an important file within the department, and it is the pleasure of a lifetime for me, as the member for Lunenburg, to serve as minister during this important year. The most famous ship in Canadian history, Bluenose was in a league of her own, as both a racing and a fishing vessel. Canadians have carried it in their pockets for decades; it is the image immortalized on the Canadian dime. It connects us all to the sea and to the skill and hard work and teamwork needed to sail through any storm, but Bluenose is also a symbol of community. It wasn’t just shipwrights and sailmakers, but people from the entire community coming together, making all the materials needed to build a world champion schooner.

So, this centennial, we celebrate 100 years of Bluenose’s reign, and we are also celebrating the determination and spirit found in communities across this land, a determination and spirit that stretches way back thousands of years here in Mi’kma’ki.

Is my time up, Mr. Speaker?

THE CHAIR: Yes, it is, Madam Minister. That concludes our four hours of debate on Estimates for today. What we’ll do is take everything up the next time we meet, and we’ll continue with the PC caucus with questions to the minister for one hour, at our next meeting.

Thank you all for participating today. We’ll see you again very soon, I’m sure. The positive word is: eight hours done. Good night, all.

[The subcommittee adjourned at 8:21 p.m.]