Fisheries Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Donald Walker]

Yes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

What are the prospects that that will be able to continue? And what are some of the great lessons learned that could be applied to some of the other regions?

[Donald Walker]

The great lesson learned is that you have to get the industry involved. Once they put their own money into the resource they have a stake in it. There's a sense of ownership in what you're doing if you get a return on it.

We've gone through the process, and the first step has taken nine years. We haven't seen the results we were hoping for, but we've maintained a stability. That helps us want to continue forward. Our biggest problem with all we've done is it's taking longer than we expected. The hardest job we have right now is convincing fishermen to continue, when you know the process will take longer than they expect.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

So you're not 100% sure you're going to have a third mandate yet.

[Donald Walker]

We hope we will.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I'm amazed we know so much. You talk about the percentage of lobsters that reproduce below the minimum legal size, and we have all these stats. It's fascinating, yet we don't know about the lobster landings, and we're speculating, as page 13 of your report talks about, on the amount of biomass that's actually out there. That's what I find amazing. In your chart, from 1890 to 2010 you can almost draw a straight line from 1890 and you're back to the same. So intuitively that kind of suggests that the stocks are down.

What kinds of things have been recommended so we can get a better handle on that? One of the recommendations you made in your report was around improved indicators of stock size. What are the kinds of things that can be done to actually help us nail down what that stock size is and make the landings mean something?

[Jean-Guy d'Entremont]

The simplest thing is landings information, and it's hard to get. There are reasons. Remember I told you there was non-compliance in the fishery? We heard during the consultations that lots of lobsters are sold under the table on the black market, so they're not recorded. Once monitoring takes place at dockside, it could change what actually happens now. This is what we heard at the consultations.

In assessing a stock, the first thing you need to know is how much you're removing from it. There are biological references, such as when lobsters are mature. You can take a lobster and a scientist can study it and determine whether that lobster is mature or not. That's measurable. What we don't know are the simplest things, such as landings, and the size of the lobsters being landed. Those things aren't monitored because there's no quota. If there were a quota it would demand all this information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

We have a couple more questions, and I'm going to ask for brevity in these next few questions. We have a few items of committee business to discuss after the delegation leaves this morning.

Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

We got into dockside monitoring. I'd probably like to go a little further on that in the future, but I'll leave it for today.

Mr. Allen, I'd like to let you know that female lobsters taste way better than male lobsters, and Newfoundland lobsters taste better than P.E.I. lobsters. I thought I'd put that on the record.

Where do you see us going with market research and development in trying to market our lobsters? Was that part of your mandate? Do we need to look a little more at market research and development?

[Gerard Chidley]

I'll just touch briefly on it, and anyone else can jump in.

That's one of the big concerns, and that actually comes right back to Mr. Allen's question also on the lobster. When we were in the middle of the 2007 consultations, the thought of the Marine Stewardship Council was that food traceability was a large issue. It was starting to loom. We didn't know how it was going to play out, how it was going to end. For certain species they were applying for certification.

This was one of the big worries about not having landing data and a baseline. If you have a baseline or you can develop ways to have a baseline and say that for anything below this baseline we do this, and for anything above this baseline we can increase a little here, then you're halfway there. But without any documented information....

I am sure that a fisherman knows every pound of shrimp or every pound of crab or lobster he catches, and he knows he wants the value for that pound. It's not that the information is not there. It has not been documented under a program. The information's out there. It's just a matter, I think, of getting it onto the table. Therein lies the problem with certifications and where we're going on food traceability. As of right now, as a council, we only have to do the report and present it to the minister. We don't follow up. But because we're fishermen, we're always in tune with what's happening in the industry. We're all multi-species fishermen, and whether your council is made up to do herring or to do crab, you still have guys on it that are in the mix.

There are always discussions about what's going to happen here. That is one of the big concerns. Because of the food traceability in the future, we're concerned that the lobster fishery in Atlantic Canada could get shut out of some main markets. We may not even be able to control that unless some proactive stuff is done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Stoffer.

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

I have one last question. On page 49 there is a recommendation for organizational capacity within the lobster industry. We have the FFAW, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers, representing the fishermen and plant workers in the north; the MFU, the Maritime Fishermen's Union; the PEIFA, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association; the Eastern Shore Fishermen's Protective Association; etc.

I think that's actually a very good recommendation, but the one concern is you have cooperative fisheries and community-based things now like Fogo Island and Sambro, for example. If they are independent of these organizations, are you recommending that they be part of those organizations, or operate simultaneously?

[Jean-Guy d'Entremont]

All we're saying here is that if you have 100 fishermen in the room now, and DFO wants to consult with them, they have 100 different opinions.

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

I know.

[Jean-Guy d'Entremont]

We're saying please organize yourselves; think about what your fundamental objectives are, and then determine that, and come back with one voice. Then we'll have movement, and we'll have leadership.

That's what we mean here more than anything. We're not trying to say one group is better than the other. It's just the fact that there's very little uniformity in moving forward. That diversity of opinions is one reason things don't move forward.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Kamp.

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

I'll be very brief, Mr. Chair. Thanks very much.

Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing.

I read, I think in a newspaper article, that a lobster fisherman was quoted saying he needs at least $5 a pound to pay his costs. If lobster prices are well below that, and look like they might stay below that for a while, given the recession that we're in, what advice do you have for us or for the government on how to deal with that situation?

Then I have a question on something I'm just curious about. Has there been any movement toward lobster aquaculture in Canada to sort of fill this gap perhaps?

[Jean-Guy d'Entremont]

On aquaculture and enhancement of lobsters, we do have a paragraph on that. Before you continue enhancement projects and setting stage IV lobsters into the ocean, what we've heard is that the returns are very poor economically. Before you go into large projects of that type thinking it's going to fix the problem, there should be an economic analysis of that.

There's a female lobster on the chart that I gave you. The chart is titled, “How many eggs does a female produce?” Regarding the cluster of eggs, there are more eggs there than were released in Atlantic Canada this year. So if we take care of the female, I think we're better off. We get more bang for our buck than lobster enhancement, which costs a lot. It is a matter of taking care of the females and taking care of the resource, which is critical. This is our opinion in the report, but we have a section that you can read if you want more information.

As to the first question you wanted advice on, concerning the price of $5 a pound, the issue is that each fisherman has his own limits. In areas such as area 34 in southwest Nova Scotia, where they have very large vessels, they fish two or three days in a row. They stay out fishing. They have crews and lots of expensive bait and fuel. They need more money than the guy who has a little boat. So you almost have to look at it, if not individually, at least LFA by LFA, because they have more of a standard. It may only cost $2.50 for one fisherman to survive, but the other one needs $4.50 or $5. So it's pretty much an individual situation.

I think you have a good opportunity to ask them directly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Once again, I'd like to thank the members for coming in today and providing us with--

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Chair, would it be possible for us to ask these very well-informed witnesses to give us some more guidance on what we should do on our trip? Every minute has been valuable. So I was just thinking, if they were us, what would they be doing out there? No one asked that question.

Maybe they could provide a memo, a couple of pages in length, on what we should accomplish from their perspective when we're there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

It's certainly something that we could ask them to provide to the committee, some advice on the trip we are planning.

Certainly any and all advice would be much appreciated, if you would like to do that. Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming in today. Your comments and your patience with our questions are very much appreciated.

I thank all members for their patience as well today. I tend to be lenient in the times to ensure that we're able to get the most that we can out of the time we have with you. The exercise we go through is to garner the information, so we really do appreciate the time you spent with us here today.

Committee members, I'd like to have a brief in camera session to discuss some future business. If we could, we'll go in camera for the final ten minutes.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]