All posts by Peter Mazereeuw

Canada leaving endangered marine species high and dry: conservationists

Database assignment three
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Canada has not protected enough of its marine habitat to help the dozens of species of whales and fish that are in danger of disappearing from Canadian waters, say environmental advocates and experts.

The federal government has protected less than one per cent of Canada’s ocean territory, according to an analysis of Environment Canada data. That ranks Canada second-to-last among G7 nations in percentage of marine territory protected.


The United States has protected 15 times more of its ocean territory than Canada has. Australia and Russia, two non-G7 countries, have protected 14 and 3.5 times more, respectively.

“I don’t think that there’s any question that, in terms of marine protected areas…Canada’s performance has been underwhelming in comparison to many countries around the world,” said Scott Findlay, an expert on conservation and ecosystem management at the University of Ottawa.

That’s a problem for the at-risk species that live outside of the few protected areas of Canadian ocean territory, said Chris Miller, a national conservation biologist at the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society’s (CPAWS) Nova Scotia chapter.

“At-risk” species are those in danger of extinction, or of extirpation—meaning the species that is no longer found in an area in which it has historically lived, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

More than 80 species of at-risk marine fish and mammals—as well as the leatherback sea turtle, a reptile—spend at least part of their lives in Canada’s 5.7 million sq. km ocean territory, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

CPAWS Nova Scotia is advocating for a connected “system” of protected areas within the Bay of Fundy, which lies between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to serve as safe havens for at-risk species native to the bay, such as the North Atlantic right whale and Inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic salmon.

The North Atlantic right whale was once hunted close to extinction, and has had trouble recovering in part because breeding-age adults are occasionally hit and killed by ships travelling through the bay, said Findlay.

Just a few such deaths per year can seriously harm an engendered and slow-to-reproduce population such as the right whale, he said.

Shipping lanes in the area have been changed to help remedy this problem, but more needs to be done to protect the at-risk species in the Bay of Fundy, said Miller.

The Inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic salmon, which spends much of its adult life in the bay, is nearly gone. At last count in 2008, fewer than 200 of this salmon population remained, down from about 40,000 earlier in the 20th century, according to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

The federal government has identified and protected important habitat for the salmon in freshwater rivers and brooks within Fundy National Park on the New Brunswick coast. However, the remaining Inner Bay of Fundy Atlantic salmon are likely dying because of “ecological changes” in the waters of the Bay of Fundy, not in the park’s protected rivers, the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website says.

A Newfoundland Atlantic Salmon jumps out of the water. Unlike its relatives in the Bay of Fundy, this Salmon is likely from a population that is not threated. Photo courtesy of Tom Moffatt, Atlantic Salmon Federation.
A Newfoundland Atlantic Salmon jumps out of the water. Unlike its relatives in the Bay of Fundy, this Salmon is likely from a population that is not threated. Photo courtesy of Tom Moffatt, Atlantic Salmon Federation.

“Canada has made no progress in identifying the critical marine habitat of inner Bay of Fundy (Atlantic salmon) despite the fact that these populations were listed (under the Species at Risk Act) about ten years ago,” said Sue Scott, a spokesperson for the Atlantic Salmon Federation, in an email.

The Atlantic Salmon Federation is a New Brunswick based-non-profit dedicated to conserving the Atlantic salmon and its ecosystems.

The federal government has protected eight marine areas in Canadian waters so far, including one around the Musquash Estuary, which feeds into the Bay of Fundy. There are eight other marine areas designated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada as “areas of interest,” which the government is working towards protecting. None are located in the Bay of Fundy.

Parks Canada is not considering establishing a protected area in the Bay of Fundy, according to an emailed statement from spokesperson Véronik Mainville.

Fisheries and Oceans spokesperson David Walters listed the Musquash Estuary protected area in an emailed statement when asked whether his department was considering establishing a protected area in the bay.

A protected area is “a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values,” according to Environment Canada.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, an international non-profit union made up of more than 1,000 NGOs and government agencies, uses the same definition.

Fishing and other commercial activities may be allowed in protected areas if the government determines it would not harm the recovery of the at-risk species that live there, according to the Fisheries and Oceans website.

Canada, as a signatory to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, has agreed to a target of protecting 10 per cent of its marine territory by 2020, Federal Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan said in his 2012 report to Parliament.

The federal government protected just one-tenth of one per cent, or just more than 730 sq. km., of marine territory over the past three years. Altogether, about 52,000 sq. km have been protected over the past several decades.

“We really need to be starting now” to come close to the 2020 target, said Miller.

There are three different federal government agencies that can protect marine areas: Environment Canada, Parks Canada, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Canada’s federal government has historically focused more on the conservation and protection of land habitat, said Findlay.

However, Canada doesn’t fare any better compared to its international peers at protecting land habitat: it ranked dead last compared to other G7 countries and Australia, Sweden and Russia, according to Environment Canada data from 2012.

Other developed countries have been more successful at marine habitat protection because their leaders made it a priority, said Miller.

Canada’s federal government has earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for conservation projects on land and in the water over the past several years, and announced a national conservation plan earlier this year.

While Fisheries and Oceans Canada is working towards establishing eight new marine protected areas, Parks Canada has an “ultimate goal” of establishing 29 protected marine areas in Canadian waters, said Mainville.

The creation of a marine protected area “might be too blunt of an instrument” for conservation in some areas and for some species, said Findlay, though he could not say whether that was the case for the Bay of Fundy salmon or right whale populations.









Glut of Somerset ward bail violations remains a mystery to authorities

Database assignment two
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By Peter Mazereeuw

Ottawa’s Somerset ward has a bail problem.

Residents of Somerset discharged on bail—release from police detention after an arrest and before a court date, usually with specific conditions of good behaviour—violated the conditions of their bail at a rate ten times the city’s average last year, according to an analysis of police statistics.

Just more than 15 bail violations were reported per thousand residents in Somerset ward in 2013. The next-highest rate, in Rideau-Vanier, was 6.4. The median rate among wards–which is not influenced by the high number for Somerset ward—was just 0.59 bail violations per thousand residents last year.

Those numbers are similar to the rates of bail violations in 2012. Somerset ward led the way with 19.5 violations per thousand residents, followed by Rideau-Vanier at 6.4. The 2012 city median rate of bail violations per thousand residents was 0.54.

Police track crimes based on the number of incidents reported, instead of arrests made, because one incident can sometimes involve multiple arrests, according to Statistics Canada.

Somerset ward includes much of Ottawa’s urban centre, stretching from the Rideau Canal to the east, the Rideau River to the north, the Queensway highway for most of its southern boundary, and the O-Train tracks to the west. The bars, drug activity, and community housing within the ward, and even the Elgin Street courthouse, likely account for its high rate of reported bail violations, say the Ottawa police and others who work in the bail system.

Somerset ward actually trailed its downtown neighbour, Rideau-Vanier, in its rates of the other most commonly reported crimes last year, including assault, mischief, fraud and theft under $5,000.

Rideau-Rockliffe, Gloucester-Southgate, and River wards had the next highest rates of bail violations last year, but none cracked 1.5 violations per thousand residents.

National and provincial figures for bail violations are difficult to determine; Statistics Canada lumps them into the broader category of failing to comply with a court order. The national average for that category of offences was just more than 3 violations per thousand residents last year. The rate for Ontario was 1.74, and the rate for Toronto was 0.98.

People involved in altercations in or around downtown bars are sometimes also on bail, and are found to be violating bail conditions such as abstaining from alcohol, said Ottawa Police spokesman Cst. Marc Soucy. As a result, more bail violations are reported in neighbourhoods in Somerset and other wards with many bars, he said.

Violating conditions of bail is a summary offence, and as such is punishable by a fine and/or up to six months in jail.

Ottawa police also spend more time in downtown wards such as Somerset and Rideau-Vanier, and so are more likely to encounter people drinking in public or violating other terms of their bail, said Geraldine Castle-Trudel, a criminal defence lawyer who works in Somerset ward.

Soucy was unable to explain why Somerset ward had a rate of bail violations nearly three times higher than the sometimes rowdy Rideau-Vanier, which includes the Byward Market and has higher rates of reports for many other kinds of crime.

“We can’t explain from year to year what happens. It always depends where the offence occurred,” said Soucy.

“We don’t analyse trends for breaches [of bail],” he said.

Ottawa’s John Howard Society, a non-profit that supervises bail cases in the city, also couldn’t account for the much higher rate of reported bail violations in Somerset ward compared to other wards.

Sue Morse, the society’s bail program coordinator, said many of the people on bail she supervises live in Vanier or Lowertown (parts of Rideau-Vanier) or in Centretown (part of Somerset), but she couldn’t explain why so many more violations were reported in Somerset ward.

The John Howard Society meets with people to help guide them through the bail process and to help them “remedy issues that may have contributed to the alleged misconduct,” its website says.

These meetings are a mandatory condition of bail, and Morse said she contacts police if individuals under her supervision miss more than one meeting without contacting her.

Ontario’s bail supervisors generally have “flexibility” in their obligation to report violations of bail, said a July report on Canada’s bail system by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

While most supervisors reported multiple missed appointments, there were greater differences in reporting between supervisors and police officers when it came to violations of requirements to abstain from drinking.

The vast majority of Ottawa’s bail supervision is done through Morse’s Lowertown office, she said.

Socio-economic differences across the city don’t entirely account for the gap in bail violations either. Somerset ward had a median income of $43,817 in 2005–the most recent census data available on income by municipal wards in Ottawa—compared to $69,743 for Ottawa as a whole. Rideau-Vanier was even lower, at $40,373.

The location of the Ottawa courthouse on Elgin Street could explain some of the violations, said Castle-Trudel.

“It would be very interesting to know how many of those violations occur within two blocks of the courthouse,” she said.

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Ottawa’s courthouse is located on Elgin Street in Somerset ward.

Release on bail often comes with conditions that prohibit contact with victims of the offender’s crime, or those associated with it. Castle-Trudel speculated that individuals leaving the courthouse after a bail hearing could be caught calling the victim or a witness, or, in the case of domestic assault cases, being picked up by the victim.

“Police and special constables are very savvy about that sort of thing,” she said.

Soucy said it is a “possibility” that more bail violations could occur near the courthouse than elsewhere.

However, Jason Gilbert, a criminal lawyer who also works in Centretown, said he believed it would be “very rare” that a person would be caught in violation of their bail conditions in the area around the courthouse.

Ottawa’s most inspected restaurants more likely to be found ‘not-compliant’ with health rules

Database assignment one
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Ottawa health inspectors found infractions nearly three times more frequently than the city average at the restaurants they visited most, according to an analysis of municipal data dating back to the beginning of 2009.

The most serious infractions—those deemed “critical” to food safety, according to health regulations—ranged from failing to wash hands, protect food from contamination, or refrigerate food properly. The majority of infractions, however, were “non-critical”, such as failing to keep surfaces clean or keep a meat thermometer handy.

Inspectors found infractions at Feleena’s, in the Glebe, and Stella Osteria, in the Byward Market, during 68 per cent of inspections, more than three times the city average of 21 per cent. Both of those restaurants were among the 10 most inspected in Ottawa over the past five years, which collectively were found non-compliant with provincial or city health regulations during 58 per cent of inspections.

That doesn’t mean those restaurants aren’t safe places to eat, said Toni d’Ettore, a supervisor with the city’s environmental health protection branch.

A “non-compliant” score is not the same as failing a health inspection, she said. Many of the violations identified by inspectors—such as walls in need of washing—are not an immediate threat to food safety. Any restaurants found to be unsafe are closed immediately, she said.

Just five per cent of inspections last year found infractions serious enough to require “urgent remediation,” according to a May 5 memo from Ottawa’s medical officer of health, Isra Levy, to the Ottawa Board of Health, which governs public health programming for the city.

Clyde Ross, 72, owns Feleena’s and works evening shifts seating customers and managing the restaurant. He says he isn’t sure why Feleena’s has been inspected and found non-compliant so much more often than the average Ottawa restaurant, though he believes it has something to do with how busy Feleena’s gets during the summer months.

Feleena’s has never been fined or closed for a violation, he said.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Inspectors identified 30 violations of the provincial Health Promotion and Protection Act during the 19 most recent inspections of Feleena’s, dating back to October 25 2012, the cut-off point for inspection summaries for the restaurant on the city website. Most were labelled “non-critical” by the inspector—for example, failing to ensure a hand-washing station was available or stocked with soap, or failing to provide an accurate thermometer to measure food temperature.  Five were labelled “critical” for posing a threat to food safety, including four infractions found during an August 29 inspection:  failing to wash hands thoroughly before and after handling food, failing to properly refrigerate food, failing to separate raw and ready-to-eat foods in storage, and failing to protect food from potential contamination.

All of the critical violations were corrected during the inspection, the inspection summaries show.

Those violations are not unique to Feleena’s; the same problems have been identified at many of Ottawa’s restaurants since late 2012, the city’s inspection summary page shows.

Several factors together determine how often a restaurant is inspected, including a risk score that accounts for its intended clientele­—businesses that serve young children or the elderly are inspected more often—whether the staff handles raw meat, and the restaurant’s performance on past inspections, d’Ettore said.

Customer complaints are always followed up with an inspection, she said, adding to a restaurant’s total number of inspections regardless of whether any violations are found.

If a threat to food safety is found that does not require closing the restaurant, it will be inspected the next day to ensure the problem has been addressed, she said. Restaurants are given three days to remedy any violations that do not pose a risk to food safety, or longer if solving the problem requires renovations or significant changes to the restaurant.

Restaurants that are repeatedly found to be not compliant can be issued a provincial offence notice, which can lead to a fine or conviction, if city officials deem it necessary. Those notices are not made public, d’Ettore said.

The city’s ten most inspected restaurants averaged 45 inspections total—9 per year—since 2009, compared to 9 inspections—1.8 per year—on average across Ottawa.  Buffet Indian Aroma on Laurier Avenue led the way with 59 inspections, and was found in full compliance 36 per cent of the time.

Inspections chart1