Fisheries Committee on May 8th, 2007

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses today.

The other day in the House of Commons Minister Strahl, the Minister of Agriculture, indicated in regard to the concerns of possible heavy flooding off the Fraser River that gravel extraction will be one of the options. Of course, that may have an effect on salmon runs or salmon beds.

I'm just wondering what the department is doing to prepare to work with the people who are concerned about the excessive flooding in order to mitigate any damage that may happen to salmon beds or salmon runs.

[Larry Murray]

I think I said at an earlier session that we have an MOU with the province. We're involved with all the technical authorities. We work with the Fraser Basin Council to ensure that the technical requirements are achieved. And certainly, there is significant controversy on all sides of this issue.

We did have in place arrangements that would have allowed the extraction of, I think, 800,000 cubic metres this year. I think the challenge really is in striking that balance.

I think the minister has been clear as well that if it is an issue of fundamental public safety, that will take priority at the moment. That's not the case, and I think there are significant discussions going on in respect to dyking and other options that I think are probably more significant than gravel removal in terms of flood control.

But I think there's been a fair amount of work. We're engaged and the regional director general has been personally engaged on this file in the last few weeks, so we do agree with the urgency of it.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Doubleday, you indicated in your slide here that allocations previously used to fund collaborative arrangements had been returned to fishers. That's what it says.

Mr. Robert Haché appeared before us the other day, and he said, regarding the decision in area 12 in 2006, that 1,000 tonnes of crab had been allocated, and they've asked DFO to give the money back to the licence holders because of the Martineau judgment. The judge had clearly said the quota was taken away for science purposes and that the quota should be given back to the fishermen. We've asked the department to give that back to the fishermen, to the licence holders. There was a question on what the response was, and he said they're holding the money and now they have to go to court to get the money.

In your slide here you said that it was returned, that allocations previously used had been returned to the fishers. Can you explain why Mr. Haché and his group haven't received those funds or allocations back yet?

[Dr. William Doubleday]

Certainly, I'd be happy to explain. The slide talks about allocations of fish. That means that this year there's no 1,000 tonnes of crab set aside to finance a research project.

I believe Mr. Haché was referring to the money that arose previously, which is in a suspense account, and the disposition of those funds is now before the courts.

[Larry Murray]

Could I piggyback on that one, Mr. Chairman.

In relation to the very serious question Mr. Stoffer has raised, we have the blues, and certainly I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions around the blues. We would be very happy, Mr. Chairman, if we could work with the clerk and outline from that testimony last week all the areas that the committee would like written responses to, that being one of them.

I don't think we could do justice to do that entirely today, it would probably take us a few weeks. But we would be very pleased to work with the clerk and come up with written answers to all the questions Mr. Stoffer has raised. That's not in any way to preclude those questions today, but from a departmental perspective we would like to answer all the questions that are potentially there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

From the committee's perspective, we would love to have all the answers.

[Larry Murray]

I don't want to imply we have all the answers, but the best answers we can give.

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

Being in the cooperative mood that I am...but there are many concerns here. The biggest question I have is, is DFO still asking for money to fund various activities from organizations, or individual fishermen, or any groups of that nature so that they can go fishing?

As you know, Mike Featherstone indicated to us that he was told by the department just recently that if they don't come up with $200,000 there'll be no reports, there'll be no updating of the stock assessment, and that will lead to a decrease in quotas. We've heard this throughout the testimony.

If we can get answers to those types of questions later on, that would be most appreciated.

[Larry Murray]

Maybe I'll start that one, because I would like to make one point here. That's not in any way, shape, or form to say that we do not understand the concerns of industry around this very complicated area, and the frustration. I accept that, but the statements concerning coercion on the part of the department and that kind of thing are entirely unfounded, totally spurious, and we don't accept those at all.

Certainly we're still working with industry on collaborative arrangements, and we look forward to having no doubt quite a heated dialogue, to some extent, on the policy framework, and where we're at, and where we're going more broadly.

I'll ask Bill or Kevin to answer the more specific questions.

[Dr. William Doubleday]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We continue to want to enter into collaborative arrangements with the fishing industry. There's nothing in the court decision that forbids this. We're not threatening anyone that there won't be a fishery if they don't give us money for a collaborative arrangement. We believe we've received sufficient funds in the 2007 budget to allow necessary conservation requirements to be met, so that fisheries will be able to proceed with or without collaborative arrangements.

I believe some witnesses indicated that in the absence of this additional information there would be a less sound basis for the management of the fishery, and there's certainly some truth in that. This could mean that in the short term some catches may be higher, some may be lower, but there's no direct connection between having specific additional information and whether the quota is higher or lower. It makes things more uncertain. We're not requiring agreement in order to have a fishery, and we believe we have sufficient funds to meet the essential conservation requirements to allow fisheries to proceed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Doubleday, we're going to leave that and pick up on this again, because we're almost two minutes over time on that answer. I appreciate that some of these answers are more complex and I'm trying to give DFO staff and the minister time to answer them, but we are running out of time.

Just before we go to Mr. Lunney, I have a quick question, if I might, on these collaborative arrangements on quota, if you will, for the production of science.

The difficulty with that--and I'm sure you're well aware of it--is the fact that the fishermen are never satisfied and never happy with the agreement. They always feel that there are winners and losers being picked, quite frankly, by DFO. There's quota given to certain directed fisheries and there are other directed fisheries in the same fishery--maybe hook and line, or handliners, or the inshore fishery--that are not getting quota, whereas another group, maybe the longline fleet or the dragger fleet, in most cases will get quota.

How do you answer those questions? Have you looked at doing it a different way? Have you looked at putting more observers on board to try to get the science? There's a fair science budget there and it fundamentally doesn't appear to be working.

[Kevin Stringer]

That's along the lines of the last question as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

I realize that.

[Kevin Stringer]

These arrangements generally come from sessions that the department has with industry. When we're working with fishermen and developing an integrated fisheries management plan, we generally say, as the department, here's what we can do in terms of conservation, and here's what we can do in terms of science; here are the types of things we think you're going to need to manage the fishery. When we get fishermen asking if they can just do this, that, and the other as well, that's when we enter into the JPAs.

The idea is that the department sort of gives them the bottom line on what we need to be able to manage a fishery effectively. If they want something more that will help on the economic side, and all that stuff, that's the idea of the JPAs. The JPAs are meant to fit with the integrated fisheries management plans and the collaborative arrangements with industry. That's generally how we try to do it. There are some instances when the department says we need to have something done and we should put out an RFP. So there are many different ways to do it.

On the point you raised at the end, Mr. Chair, on whether there is a different way to do it, we spent much of the last eight months thinking about that. The answer is that there has to be; the courts have said there has to be. We absolutely believe in collaborative arrangements. Most of industry tells us they absolutely believe in them, although some folks in industry were saying, “Yippee, this court case says we don't have to do anything.”

But we do believe in shared stewardship. We do believe that it's a public resource, and when you have a private benefit there's a responsibility that goes with that. As Bill said, we are about to go out on a tour to talk to industry exactly about that. We were unable to do that until we had this policy framework and knew what the budget would be.

What Bill went through was this year's approach. We know that we really need to engage industry for the long term. Industry needs to be part of this solution, and we need to think through how we're going to do this in the fishery writ large. I think some of the questions you've raised will absolutely be front and centre in the discussions that Bill and some of us are starting next week in Vancouver.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you for that, Mr. Stringer.

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for your participation today.

I'll jump into the same stream we're discussing. Larocque, of course, has been inconvenient and upsetting to long-standing practices. Now we're going through a transition period of trying to address that, and it is complicated.

Estimates from the Canadian Fisheries Working Group were between $25 million and $30 million on the amount required to fund research activities previously covered by allocations of fish. We heard a remark that the fishermen think they shouldn't have any responsibility and the taxpayer should pay for all that science.

So we are going through that consultation period, and I'm still trying to reconcile figures. On this slide under new fisheries research investment, we see $10 million for 2007-08, and $12 million for each year up to 2012. That is about $12 million toward what they estimate as $25 million to $30 million needed, not only for the basic science of conservation and sustainability goals but for optimizing the fisheries.

If we did all of the fisheries, it would be another $12 million or $13 million perhaps. Is that correct?

[Dr. William Doubleday]

The $24 million is the industry contribution last year for all these projects. Some of them don't need to continue. Some of them can be brought in line with Larocque without spending money--just by doing them differently. Also, many of those projects involved more fishing than was really needed for science, because they were fishing to generate money. So when the amount of fishing is scaled back, the cost of the operation will be scaled back as well.

In our estimate, about $15 million is related to the scientific work that needs to continue. Basically we have $10 million toward $15 million, which is much more favourable than $10 million toward $24 million.

[Larry Murray]

Let me be clear about the number the industry is using. Our number was in the ballpark, I think. This was raised last week when the 27 million or whatever was mentioned. Our number is about 24 million, so they're not orders of magnitude different, but I think it's everything....

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

We're going through the process now of trying to establish how to balance that, and I commend the department for wrestling with a challenging problem. It's unfortunate, because uncertainty always causes a lot of confusion. Fishermen are facing a lot of challenges anyway, with climate change and with competition worldwide and all of those factors—stock challenges, water challenges, and so on.

You mentioned you're heading out, Dr. Doubleday, to the west coast, and I gather, Mr. Stringer, you're involved in those discussions on the west coast as well.

[Kevin Stringer]

I'm not personally, but one of my staff will be there. I'm doing some of the other tours.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

So you'll be carrying on with discussions with industry. I would ask you to perhaps explain who you're actually meeting, representing industry. Are we talking about one day of meetings, or two or three days? Who are you meeting with in industry on the coast?

Secondly, are these fisheries management arrangements the topic, basically? Is that the main thing on the agenda?

[Dr. William Doubleday]

We're meeting primarily with the BC Seafood Alliance, which brings together a big chunk of the B.C. industry. I understand there will be some additional representatives from fishermen's groups who are not in the alliance but will also be at that meeting. It's a one-day meeting and it's the beginning of dialogue, not the end.

[Larry Murray]

The fundamental document we're taking to it is the draft policy outline we provided to the committee today. The minister has made it clear that we are to meet with industry from coast to coast to coast, so if we don't get everybody, we're open to everybody at some point in this dialogue.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I understand that consultations are going to be ongoing with identified groups that represent certain fisheries, and once you come to an agreement, I see indications they'll be ratified by all of the users of that particular fishery, which may not be identified as the main group. I got that out of some Library of Parliament commentary.

Is that an accurate assessment, that there is a process somehow being envisaged to ratify? Everybody's concerned about consultation. And is the group you might be entering into an agreement with representative of all the fisheries, or just a portion of them in a particular fishery?

[Dr. William Doubleday]

Most of these arrangements involve an association of fishers. Basically, it's between us and them. We assume that the association represents its membership. In cases where there is no association, it's more complicated. I can't give you a definitive answer whether the approach is uniform in all cases or not, but perhaps Mr. Stringer can amplify.