Fisheries Committee on June 7th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today again.

I'm going to follow a line similar to Mr. Byrne's and talk on the assessment and the recalculation of the biomass.

When Mr. Moriyasu gave us the numbers that day, he started with some pretty significant numbers for 1985. For 1995 they were a little lower, and for 2005 they were a little bit lower. I guess I twigged to that, because it makes me wonder if we're going to see a continual decline in peaks every ten years. When you start at 150,000-and-some tonnes in 1985, and all of a sudden we're down to a significantly lower peak in 2005, it makes me wonder what kind of signal that's sending and what message DFO is taking away from that. That's my first question.

The second one is that Mr. Haché gave us some numbers from Moncton, as Mr. Byrne mentioned, and he sort of suggested that in the last number of years the harvesters have felt that DFO has been pretty close in its numbers. They believe that back in the mid-1990s the extrapolation that you did back was much higher, so that we're really not seeing that declining. Can you help me understand? I guess when you plot these two numbers, they end up being quite different on the graph. Can you explain that difference? And are you concerned that, if we believe DFO's numbers, there's a hugely declining peak every ten years?

[Marc Lanteigne]

First, regarding the difference from the past, when we recalculated based on the increased surface area from 25,000 square kilometres to 35,000, it meant that our estimate was biased on the low side because the area we covered was smaller and we then expanded. It also means that the exploitation rate during that fishery at the time was not 40% but was more like 30%. Although we calculated a 40% exploitation rate at that time, it would have been a 30% exploitation rate based on the new biomass, the expanded biomass. So it was good news that the exploitation rate was not as high at that time.

We also looked at other indicators to see if that would make sense. We looked at the percentage of old crabs in the catch, and we saw that there was a high percentage of older shell crab in the catch at that time, so it kind of matched the fact that the biomass, as we expanded, did give a true estimate of the entire population of crab, although the fishery was targeting only a small portion of it. That's why there's a difference between the two peaks.

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

I understand that, but at the end of the day you had a large amount in 1985 and in 1995, but in 2005 it was lower. What am I supposed to extrapolate for 2015 from the same thing? Is it going to be 65,000 or 60,000 tonnes because the exploitation rate has gone up? I'm getting concerned here that we're going to be seeing a decline in peak every ten years, as opposed to a cyclical stock.

[Marc Lanteigne]

Yes, and your point is taken. We've seen these two cycles: a high peak and a lower peak. Maybe there's a potential that we'll be having a smaller peak in the future. Other fisheries have shown similar declining cyclical peaks. This is why we adopted the precautionary approach, by the way. This is one of the reasons we embarked on having limit reference points and having the cautious, healthy, and critical zones with defined stock levels, to try to avoid this kind of situation of cascading decline over the years. This is the objective, but that will have to be adjusted as we go along.

You have to realize that the science is evolving all the time. We're doing research not only on stock status, but also on sexual maturity and how many bearing females you need to produce a good healthy stock. That kind of research is going on, and will probably help in the future to better adjust that precautionary approach.

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

At the Moncton meeting, Mr. Moriyasu indicated he was going to give the committee a table of everything. I don't know if that's been submitted yet. If it hasn't, if you could take action to submit it to the committee, that would be helpful for us.

In both Sydney and Moncton we talked about the process, and one of your slides, slide 33, talks about management and conservation:

One of the most successful aspects of this fishery is the consultation process. Comprehensive harvest plans and joint stewardship arrangements were first developed with the snow crab industry.

And they talk about an open dialogue.

The testimony we heard in Moncton was a little bit to the contrary. They said some things go into a black hole, and in the fall they provide information to DFO. Really, they don't see much of the process after that.

Could you elaborate a little bit on the information that you have and your timelines for making those decisions? And when you have these consultation meetings with the fishers, what makes up the advice to the minister? Is there input involved in the advice to the minister? There was some question as to whether that was happening as well.

[David Bevan]

Yes. The process we have right now, of course, is that under the Fisheries Act, the minister is responsible for deciding who gets to fish, when they fish, how much they fish, how they fish. All of these details rest with the minister. All the major fish plans are sent to the minister for a decision.

To get to that point, we go through what's called a RAP, a regional assessment process, where the science advice is discussed in public with peers and with stakeholders present. So there's a very public process to establish the stock status report.

The stock status report then is moved from that process to one in which we have an advisory committee. The advisory committee will discuss the stock status. They'll look at the management of the fishery and provide advice as to how they think it should be managed, what the TAC should be, what the approach should be, what the conservation measures should be, and so on. That then goes into a decision memo for the minister to consider. Their advice is reflected in the memorandum to the minister. Then there will be briefings of the minister. Following that, there will be a decision.

Obviously at that point, when we take the points of view of the stakeholders and move to the decision-making, there is no process described in the Fisheries Act for this to take place. How the minister's discretion is used is not described under the current Fisheries Act. That's one reason the government has proposed to move ahead with the new Fisheries Act, to make that whole process more transparent. Making these processes more transparent is a goal of the department and the minister. But if you're on the receiving end of this, certainly you can understand why they would have that view from time to time. They'd make their points, and then they'd wait for the decision to be announced. There's no clarity on the process.

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

When the stock status report is at the advisory committee, what is the timeline for that advisory committee to start preparing a decision memo for the minister?

[David Bevan]

The decision memo is prepared by the departmental staff at the advisory committee. They'll start the process of preparing the memo right afterwards. There are discussions between science and the managers, and between the various regions engaged in the fishery. So the memo would take a couple of weeks, or perhaps a bit more or less, depending on the nature of the issues being put to the minister. Then there are briefings with the minister, and the minister seeks input from a variety of sources prior to or in the course of making that decision.

It's fairly tight. The science is done earlier in the year. I think it was done around February this year. Then following that, there's an advisory committee meeting in March. The intention is to get the memo to the minister in early April. Then a decision is made, and then people get on with the fishing.

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

When does the information come in? You have your catch per unit effort, you have your pot surveys, and you have your post-trawl. When do you get those data points, from a DFO perspective?

[David Bevan]

The trawl survey is in the fall. The fishery provides the information on the catch per unit effort, etc. So in the fall they come in. Then the scientists do the analysis. That all goes to the RAP. The RAP will then evaluate it and peer-review it.

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

So there's about a six-month window until you get to the actual report with your data points.

[David Bevan]

These are all established by the staff well in advance--the process that is planned out and the schedules for all of this--to ensure that people know when it's going to happen and they can make themselves available to participate if they so desire.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Ms. Foote.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Thank you.

I want to pick up on some of Mike's comments. I guess we all know that there are questions from time to time about science when it comes to the fishery, no matter what the species. I'm just curious about how long science is indicating, at this point in time, the downturn will be with respect to the snow crab.

[David Bevan]

It's expected to be down into 2011, with possible rebuilding in 2012 in this particular population.

We're also seeing shifts, of course, in other populations. In the Newfoundland fishery there were lower TACs in some areas and higher in others. The Scotian Shelf went up a little bit.

We are noting the significant ecosystem shifts in the north Atlantic. The temperature and the oceanographic regime--they're changing. We no longer think we're managing a constant where fishing is the only knob you have to dial up or dial down in order to control outcomes. Clearly, in something like shrimp, with a 15% or less harvest rate, the change in abundance there is caused by recruitment. We're concerned about where that's going, because we're seeing the shifts being reflected in lower TACs in some areas.

It's too soon to tell whether the very different--very different--conditions that were present in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this year will have an impact on productivity, and, if so, on what species, and how it will be manifest. We are not dealing with a constant: ecosystems go through big cycles in terms of the populations that rely on them.

So it's anything but 100% predictable when it will happen, but we're making the conditions ripe for rebuilding in 2012.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I'm curious.... When you talk about the industry viability, and you list all the different factors that affect the viability of the industry and you list what needs to be done here to ensure the long-term viability, what type of consultation is there with those who are on the front line? Sometimes we hear, of course, that this happens in isolation from the people who are actually engaged in the fishery. Sometimes the fishermen will tell you that they're not consulted.

I know what happened with the cod fishery. Some people will tell you that the cod was rebounding and yet they were told that they shouldn't be out there catching them, or that they couldn't, or that the TAC wasn't being increased.

So I'm just wondering what type of consultation process is taking place. You identify what needs to happen to ensure the long-term viability, but who is coming up with this list, and are you in fact consulting with the fishers themselves?

[David Bevan]

Following the 2007 announcement by Minister Hearn about “ocean to plate”, in terms of trying to build value into the fishery, creating stability of access and allocation--that's the shares, essentially--and trying to have fishermen focus not on fixing their problems by getting somebody else's fish to fish, which is a zero-sum game, but rather seeking ways to add value, we had a series of so-called summits. We had a crab, shrimp, and lobster summit that looked at the characteristics of the industry, not just with fish harvesters but also with buyers, processors, and, more importantly, I think, with the people who market the product and who buy the product on the receiving end. They looked at the characteristics of the fishery and looked at where we were not getting the best value and how we might change.

That's where these things come from. They come from those kinds of discussions with a group of people from the industry--not just harvesters but also processors, provinces, marketers, buyers in foreign countries, and so on.

[Judy Foote, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Is that an ongoing process?

[David Bevan]

That was a special process that we conducted at the time. We did not get the uptake on the kinds of changes...which is unfortunate. That was before the real economic crunch hit. Had we started down the road of changes, we may have been able to mitigate some of the difficulties that everybody is now going through as the prices have fallen and costs have gone up.

So no, it wasn't a constant. We are looking at trying to promote change through considering such things as eco-certification and how we are marketing our fish, but that is not a constant process where we have these large gatherings of a great number of people to discuss things like the structure of the industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Monsieur Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day, gentlemen.

Apparently, some topics were discussed in Moncton and questions were put to you. Unfortunately, one of the problems with small committees is that not everyone can attend the meetings. I'm likely to ask you questions that you have already fielded, but I would still like to hear your answers.

You stated that the fishery operates in cycles. You showed us a graph of landings since 2001. However, most likely you had to go as far back as 1990 or 1992 to establish the crab fishing cycle, irrespective of the zone involved.

I'm going to ask you a series of questions and if you don't have enough time to answer them right now, I would appreciate your sending us a short, written response.

I'm curious about the impact of certain factors, percentage-wise. For example, what is the impact of the number of fishing licences and quotas allotted per licence? Does the natural cycle of the crab factor into the equation? I'd like to know which of these factors impacts the crab population and to what extent, percentage-wise.

I'm also wondering if, based on these cycles, we could establish a median line. We're told that the minister is the one who issues licences and allocates quotas, which is quite normal. Could a median line not be used to agree on a certain number of licences per zone and, if we see that crab stocks increase, whether marginally or significantly, could we not then agree on the quotas per licence, while maintaining the same number of licences? Would that be feasible?

I believe Mr. Bevan mentioned that conditions in the gulf were different this year from those in previous years. This seriously exacerbates the fishers' problem. In 1992, for example, in the northern part of the gulf, 500 licenses were issued. In 2009, 750 licences were issued. This is not a significant difference. However, in Newfoundland and Labrador, the number of licences issued increased from 750 in 1992 to 3,400 in 2009. Were we not inviting problems by allowing such discrepancies between the number of fishers, the number of boats and the quotas allotted? I'd like to hear your views on this subject.

[David Bevan]

I do not believe the number of fishing licences is a problem or that it has an effect on conservation. A decline in crab stocks or in prices will lead to economic problems. The management of this fishery is predicated on total catches, on the size of each crab and so forth. The problem is not that there are more or fewer traps, Economic conditions are the problem.

If too many fishers cannot earn a living, if they earn too little, this will probably affect their actions. They have to find a way to cover their costs and to make ends meet. Newfoundland fishers have exhibited a range of problems in terms of their actions. Fines in the order of $400,000 have recently been imposed. This has nothing to do with crab conservation.

[Sylvain Paradis]

I'd like to tell you a little about the precautionary approach that has been embraced. Getting this approach applied to fisheries management decisions has been an amazing victory for us because historically, there were no so-called critical, cautious or healthy stock status zones. By working with the fishers, we were able to note variations in stock levels over time, establish the boundary and determine the level at which crab stocks would no longer be threatened and would be able to regenerate, thereby turning a critical or cautious zone into a healthy zone. I believe that level was determined to be approximately 38,000 tonnes.