Fisheries Committee on March 22nd, 2007

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Unfortunately, I have to leave to go to the House, but I want to say it was an honour to have met you. Good luck in your deliberations.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I would like to say to our committee group, before I go to Mr. Kamp, that we will, through the chair and the clerk and our researcher, send you a copy of the Fisheries Act, Bill C-45, and the deliberations that will be going on around the act. We will also send you a letter outlining oceans-related legislation from Canada.

“Oceans-related” doesn't translate well.

[Dr. Bomer Pasaribu]

Thank you very much.

Mr. President, my colleague from Indonesia would like to ask some questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Yes, of course.

[Nurhadi M. Musyawir, Parliamentary Delegation from Indonesia, Commission IV (Agriculture, Forestry, Ocean, Fisheries and Food Products)]

There are four questions. Do you want me to do them one by one or do you want all the questions?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Please ask them one at a time.

[Nurhadi M. Musyawir]

All right.

One, has Canada's law regulating the oceans and the fisheries all this time been effective in implementation?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I'm going to turn this over to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I think it was my turn anyway.

As Mr. Pasaribu has mentioned, we have a number of different statutes that affect our fisheries industries and resources. The primary one is our Fisheries Act. It was passed in 1868, 139 years ago. It's the legislation we're trying to modernize through Bill C-45, which was mentioned. Bill C-45 will repeal and replace the old Fisheries Act with a new Fisheries Act. The Fisheries Act that we have has worked quite well over the time we've been a country, although it needs some changes,

I think we could probably have a debate in this group on how effective our enforcement has been. We try hard to enforce the laws and regulations that govern fisheries. I think in general we do a fairly good job, but enforcement costs money. We need fisheries officers, habitat inspectors, and all of those. We probably don't have as much money as we wish we had to be able to enforce it properly.

That's part of the answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

The only thing I would add to that--and I'll try to be concise--is that I think, and I think our membership would agree, that enforcement against foreign overfishing, which is a problem in Indonesia, has been very good in Canada. We arrest boats that come inside the 200-mile limit, we force them to go to court, and we seize their catch.

Many of our enforcement difficulties have been within our own fleet--that's enforcement of overfishing by our own fishermen inside the 200-mile limit. It's a big job to make sure that everyone abides by the rules and regulations.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

I have a question.

When you were talking about illegal fishing, Mr. Pasaribu, were you talking about foreign vessels coming into your economic zone within the 200-mile limit, or outside?

[Dr. Bomer Pasaribu]

Yes. They are in the space, in an exclusive economic region. There are so many illegalities, even in what they call it, in their....

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Do you mean illegal fishing by foreign vessels?

[Dr. Bomer Pasaribu]

Yes, they are from Thailand, Vietnam, and China. It's a big problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I wanted to explain, and I don't want to give you too much to interpret. I'm going to try to be more brief with my wrap-up comment.

We only brought in our 200-mile limit in 1977. Prior to 1977, it was a 12-mile limit. Literally, on the coast of Nova Scotia, where I come from on Canada's east coast, you could see Spanish trawlers, Cuban trawlers, all the countries in the European Union, the British, the Irish, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Icelanders, the Danes, the Swedes, and the Norwegians. They were all fishing there. After 1977, we had an exclusive economic zone out to the 200-mile limit, and we had the capability to arrest anyone inside the 200-mile limit.

Mr. Calkins would like to make a quick comment on that point.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

If I could just add to this, it's very important that you be able to observe your economic zone. We have ships that can arrest and detain, and that's been pointed out, but we don't do a lot of patrolling with them. We actually patrol from the sky. We see what's going on from the air, and then we send out the ships. Otherwise, you would need so many ships. I think that's an important component as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Do you want to try your second question? We're running short of time here, and we have another group, but we will take another 10 minutes to wrap up. So we'll take your other question.

We'll try to keep our answers shorter.

[Nurhadi M. Musyawir]

For my second question, is there is any regulation given to law institutions or to traditional society regulating the rights to manage the coastal area?

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

I think the general answer is that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the responsibility of managing the coastal fisheries. There is some cooperation and co-management with various groups, but it wouldn't be accurate to say that traditional groups or aboriginal groups are responsible for the management of fisheries. They get involved in it and co-manage it in some respects, but enforcement falls to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Maybe just as a brief add-on, I would point out there are coastal zones. So the province of Nova Scotia has a certain territory in which Nova Scotian fishermen fish. That's described under licences. New Brunswick has another area; Quebec has another area; and British Columbia, on another coast, has another area.

We will send you a map of the way the fishing zones are broken up.

We'll try the next question here.

[Nurhadi M. Musyawir]

Is there ever any conflict between the U.S. and Canada regarding the management of the coastal area? How do you give protection to Canadian citizens who are caught in the act of overfishing in another region or to a foreigner who gets caught overfishing in the Canadian region?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

On the east coast of Canada, most of the ocean border between Canada and the United States is defined. We don't fish across that line. Georges Bank has been very clearly defined. There is another area in the Gulf of Maine that is not as clearly defined, and there are still jurisdictions claimed by the United States and by Canada; there's a bit of a no man's land, if you will, there.

I will turn to Mr. Kamp to describe the salmon fishery agreement on the west coast in British Columbia.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

The question you raise is a good one.

It's a very big challenge, because on the west coast of Canada, we have several species of salmon. It's a migratory species. They spawn in the rivers and lakes of British Columbia and Alaska, for example, and then they go into the ocean and up to the north Pacific. When they're ready to spawn again, they come back. Of course, they pass through Canadian waters, and some try to spawn in streams of the United States.

We have a fairly complex treaty with the United States, called the Pacific Salmon Treaty. It's actually going to expire and needs to be renewed.

During the 1980s, we had what was called the salmon wars. We had no agreement on who should catch the fish, how many Canadians could catch and how many the Americans could catch. We do it better now.

But on the other question about what assistance we might offer to a Canadian who is charged by an American authority for illegal fishing, I don't know if we provide any assistance in that regard. I don't know of it happening, but it might.

Perhaps the department could answer that one for you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

If we have time, we'll hear your last question, and then we have to move on to our next delegation.

[Nurhadi M. Musyawir]

The other question is in regard to the environment. What is the Government of Canada's policy for protecting the environment from man-made pollution or natural disasters?

Thank you.