Back 11 years ago in May 2003, the all-party House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans issued a report titled “Aquatic Invasive Species: Uninvited Guests.”
The committee heard from numerous witnesses who spoke of the threat to Canadian lakes by such invasive species as zebra and quagga mussels.
The committee’s number one recommendation was that the minister of Fisheries and Oceans should consolidate and streamline federal regulations to deal with the threat posed by these species.
In its conclusion, the committee said the federal government’s initiative on invasive species “comes too late, is focused on process and proposes very little in the way of immediate actions.”
Two years later, the then Liberal fisheries minister responded to a new report making the same recommendation by saying the government agreed with the intent of the recommendation for streamlining and consolidating regulations.
But it offered no timetable.
Fast-forward more than a decade and a change in federal governments to 2014 and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is still dragging its heels on bringing forward regulations to address the threat of invasive species.
When the Osoyoos Times asked a spokesperson for DFO recently why this has taken more than 11 years, the question was ignored.
Instead, we received a vague response that essentially echoed the response to our previous inquiries – “It is anticipated that the department will bring forward this regulatory proposal in 2014, and that there will be an opportunity for the public to comment when it is published in the Canada Gazette, Part 1.”
Consultations on the regulations concluded in the spring of 2013 and they still haven’t been published let alone implemented.
The criticism by the fisheries committee in 2003, that the government is focused on process rather than immediate action, applies more than ever today.
Why is this important?
In the absence of these federal regulations, border officials have no authority to search recreational boats coming into the Okanagan from the U.S. that might be carrying zebra or quagga mussels.
It only takes a few mussels or larvae to infect our lakes and devastate our tourism industry and aquatic infrastructure.
The Okanagan Basic Water Board (OBWB) estimates that it would cost this region $43 million a year just to manage the impact of a mussel invasion.
Eradication is almost impossible.
The B.C. provincial government has been no better.
It has simply ignored the OBWB’s requests for provincial boat inspection stations, despite the fact that many western U.S. states and now Alberta have implemented these.
Alberta and Montana are even training dogs to sniff for these aquatic menaces, but B.C. just makes excuses for inaction, saying it is waiting on the feds.
When OBWB wrote to the provincial government in April to request inspection stations, it took B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak two and a half months to respond with a form letter that ignored the OBWB’s request, a letter that had previously been sent to the City of Nelson.
Polak’s office gave the request such low priority that they didn’t even bother to change “City of Nelson” to “Okanagan Basin Water Board.”
OBWB representatives stick to diplomatic language when they discuss their frustrations with the two senior levels of government, but they are clearly frustrated.
They understand the threat.
Since 2003, these mussels have moved westward in Canada, most recently infecting Lake Winnipeg. In the U.S., they have now infected several important lakes in the Southwest.
The federal and B.C. governments have dithered for far too long. Enough about process.
We need action before it is too late.
The time to act is now.
