Fisheries Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2009

[Kevin G. Anderson]

Yes, in addition to the regular program for fishery officers, which all of them must go through, everyone in our NAFO unit has the capacity for armed boarding. Both ships are capable of armed boarding to protect our sovereignty. The officers in the unit are leaders and are trained to be leaders of armed boarding teams.

In addition, under NAFO, there is a capacity to have a training status—training ID, if you will—so on some of the regional trips they will go along as a third person, a trainee. We always assign one person as a fishery officer in charge of a patrol. So on an ongoing basis, that forms part of the training as well.

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

So we have 23 officers assigned solely to NAFO inspection.

What about the other NAFO members? Do they have the same kind of thing, and what are their numbers like, if you know them?

[Kevin G. Anderson]

The European Union has a vessel for most of the year in the NAFO regulatory area. I think it was for eight months in 2008, and I believe that's what they're aiming for this year. In addition, some of the flag states have vessels in the area; Spain, for example, had a patrol and navy vessel in the area this summer. Like us, they keep two inspectors onboard the ship. We have two ships and they have one, so they would need half the numbers. In addition to that, we have worked with the United States, who had four different inspectors in the NAFO regulatory area in 2008 and 2009. They went with us. In addition, we've had requests from other countries with whom we will be facilitating joint patrols in early 2010.

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

So who is providing the coordination of that so we know it's actually being enforced and inspected and so on? We do a lot of it, perhaps most of it, and other countries do some, but is there somebody actually seeing that the job happens?

[Kevin G. Anderson]

Yes, essentially the person who supervises our unit liaises with the other inspection vessels. The latter make port calls in St. John's, so we make sure we have meetings with them on what their plans are and what areas they're going to be going to and so on. They have access to vessel monitoring system data, just as we do, and they of course see where we are. So generally there's not a problem with overlap, as we share enough communications to make sure we're coordinated in the area.

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

Maybe I have one final question.

One of our colleagues, and perhaps more than one, has suggested that maybe part of your success is due to the fact that there are no fish. Fortunately, we're now seeing some recovery in some species. We expect to see some directed fisheries, hopefully, in the future.

Is NAFO now structured in such a way in your area of enforcement that it will be able to respond to the additional fishing effort and more vessels that will be out there? Will you be able to keep your track record as good as it is now? Or if there's additional fishing effort, do you think you'll be challenged again to do that?

[Kevin G. Anderson]

I think we have very good capacity to handle any increased activity, because we don't rely anymore just on physical assets of ships and planes. We are embracing the technology that's being made available to us. We are embracing the integration of sources of information. At the same time, as fisheries reopen and we see the changes that we saw this year, with the enhanced vessel monitoring, the maintenance of the 5% bycatch for an actual directed fishery, and measures like that, and we blend the measures as well as the assets and technology together, yes, I believe we have the capacity to maintain a significant program in the area.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, gentlemen.

On behalf of the committee, I want to say thank you once again for taking the time to appear here this afternoon. We really do appreciate your input.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.