Fisheries Committee on May 5th, 2010

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Allen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I just have three questions. For whatever time is left, one of my colleagues might want to use that.

On your “Significant Decreases” page, I have two areas. One is the invasive species. I understood from the earlier comments that some of that is going to be re-accessed for 2010-11. That's to come up with a strategy for dealing with aquatic invasive species. Where would the money be in this budget to actually deal with a work plan where you had to get rid of an invasive species? Next, and maybe first of all, when is that strategy going to be done?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Mr. Chairman, I'm wondering if I could have one of my technical experts respond to that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Sure.

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Thank you.

[Roch Huppé]

Maybe I could tell you in the meantime that the $4 million has been reintroduced. The actual number is $4 million in an ongoing purpose for that under budget 2010, so it's the same amount going back in.

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

But you call it a “strategy”.

[Roch Huppé]

Yes.

[Sylvain Paradis, Director General, Ecosystem Science, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

What happened five years ago when we had the first plan is that we sat down with the provinces and developed a full action plan with numerous actions. Then, what the government decided to do was to invest in prevention, because when the different species are established, it's very difficult to deal with.

The $4 million is actually for direct activities. There's $2 million of the $4 million that is attached to the sea lamprey program in the Great Lakes. It's a Canada-U.S. joint agreement that has been going on for about 50 years now. This $2 million was actually to bring the Canadian contribution to par with the American one.

The extra $2 million is for the performance of various scientific activities, policy and regulatory activities, and all associated socio-economic activities. For example, $600,000 is being provided to the regions to do monitoring and detection of new species.

There's about $600,000 that is going directly to research. Out of the $600,000, there's $200,000 that goes to support a joint DFO-university research network on invasive species that is funded by NSERC at the level of $1 million per year. Over the last five years, we've had that. The network is based at the University of Windsor and they're coming back with a proposal to expand further and have some Arctic activities because we're facing new challenges up there.

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

So for example, if someone introduced--I won't call it an alien species--a species that is common in North America but not in the specific watershed, would that same type of funding come out of there for action taken by DFO to eliminate that?

[Sylvain Paradis]

The department has been putting in more than this $2 million. We have other funds like those in the habitat program and the fisheries management programs where we can actually devote some of those resources to direct watershed action.

We have the smallmouth bass issue in Miramichi--

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

Yes.

[Sylvain Paradis]

That was introduced. There is currently an action plan being developed jointly with the province to take some action.

Some of the funding to do this is coming from funding pots other than this limited $4 million due to the fact that this is an expanding sector of activity.

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

The other reduction is a re-profiling of funding for the St. Andrews Biological Station. You've re-profiled $7.1 million. Can you tell me what that means?

[Roch Huppé]

Like I said, we had spending patterns to complete the construction--just give me a second and I will flip to the right page--and basically that was earmarked as part of our budget for the funding for the St. Andrews Biological Station. Some of the money we had put aside starting in 2007 and 2008, and we had the money set aside in 2008-09, 2009-2010, and 2010-11 to complete that project. We're talking about $200 million.

As I said earlier, as we moved into that construction project, some of the costs had been deferred to further years through what we call the annual reference level update process. What we did with the authority of the central agencies was to move money from one year to the other year so we wouldn't lose that money because it was for a construction project.

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

So it's not going to have any negative impact on the construction?

[Roch Huppé]

No. The funding envelope stays the same. We're just moving the money around because the spending will happen in different years.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

Welcome.

In the lobster fishery there was $15 million for transitional funding. Was it $8.5 million that was used? How much of that went into the fishermen's hands? Will this program continue and will it follow the same criteria?

One of the biggest concerns in this program was the 25%. You had so many fishermen who were at 24%, 23%, and 22%, and in very difficult situations financially, but that meant they didn't get the money. I'd like you to address that problem.

[David Bevan]

We received the money with terms and conditions that had to be met in order for us to flow the money out. There were standards or conditions that had to be met by the various lobster fishing areas and by the people who were applying for that assistance.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

I might add, though, that these conditions were put in place by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans without consultation with the fishermen.

[David Bevan]

They were put in place by the Government of Canada and we were charged with the responsibility of administering the program and adhering to those terms and conditions. Those terms and conditions were targeted to people who had experienced a significant drop in income and who were reliant on that income. If there was an area where individuals had a suite of licences and their income didn't drop by the required amount, then they were not eligible. If they made over a certain amount of money, they were not eligible, and so on and so forth.

Most of the money was put in the hands of the fishermen. There was an amount for administration and then there was an amount that was lapsed as a result of not having the uptake. Many of the fishermen were able to offset the lower prices by increasing fishing effort and by catching more lobsters. There was less uptake than was originally expected or anticipated, and that money was lapsed. The vast majority of the money that was spent was put in the hands of the fishermen who qualified.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

So you would say over 90% of the money.... Was it $8.5 million? Or what was it?