Evidence of meeting #36 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was things.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Tim Purdy  Vice-President, Purdy Fisheries Limited
Peter Meisenheimer  Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

4:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE

Is there anything that can stop them?

4:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

Peter Meisenheimer

It's a very thin border. It's very difficult. When we were dealing with the Asian carp stuff, the Ministry of Natural Resources people approached the Border Services guys, and I am told the Canadian Border Services guys were just effusive in their gratitude. They had nothing. They didn't understand the issue. They didn't understand the technology that was being used to transport these things. They didn't know how to identify the fish. There are many fish that can be moved in legally that are carried in exactly the same tanker trucks in which the Asian carp come in.

Something like the snakehead may not even necessarily be brought in predominantly for the food trade in these live markets in Markham and north Toronto. There is interest in them from aquarium collectors as well. The problem with them is they get huge. People think they're cool when they're little, but when they get big, well, they're not so cool anymore. It's fairly clear that some of these exotics that are crawling around the United States right now were brought in by the aquarium trade, without much in the way of permitting required at all.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE

It would be education that's missing there too, wouldn't you think, Peter? The fact of the matter is, I do not believe society in general wants to destroy things, but people do not realize what harm they're doing when they bring this stuff in.

4:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

Peter Meisenheimer

That's it up to a point. I think actually there was a lot of real clarity about what Asian carp did when they were brought into the United States. They were brought in with the express purpose of cleaning up nutrient-rich waters that were nutrient rich because they were polluted. They were polluted in part through aquaculture activities and agricultural activities. They were deliberately released by people with the full knowledge that these things would go out and filter the water clear. Nobody thought about what came next. It was not part of the thought process.

There's an awful lot of revisionist history that's been circulated around these things from the folks down in Arkansas and elsewhere in the southern States. The U.S. state agencies were deliberately releasing these things into bayous to clean them up. It was no surprise to anybody when they got loose.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE

I'm sorry, but they cut me off.

4:30 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

Peter Meisenheimer

Did I use up all your time?

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE

No. It's good. We need to hear that.

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston

Thank you very much.

We'll move to the five-minute rounds now, and Mr. Donnelly will lead off.

May 2nd, 2012 / 4:35 p.m.

NDP

Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses. To the Purdy family, I appreciate your passionate testimony, and the same goes for Mr. Meisenheimer as well.

I'll start with Mr. Purdy. You mentioned the shipping industry as a real focal point. We heard earlier this week, on Monday, at our standing committee here about U.S. changes to legislation that are coming. I'm wondering if you've seen those drafts, if you know about that, if you feel those changes go far enough for the American side, and if there's anything related to shipping on the Canadian side that you could recommend this committee should look into, or if you have any suggestions or recommendations on that.

4:35 p.m.

Vice-President, Purdy Fisheries Limited

Tim Purdy

I honestly haven't heard about any of the conditions you're talking about. Ten or twelve years ago I was part of the fishing element with the CMAC, and they were talking back then about the different things they were going to bring in with the freighters, exchanging ballast water and things like that. Back then I was part of those meetings and I listened to them, but I haven't heard anything recently about the changes you're talking about. Sorry.

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC

Do you think, though, that that issue is probably one of the—I get this from your testimony—most significant things that we as a committee, or as the Canadian government, could focus on to deal with aquatic invasive species?

4:35 p.m.

Vice-President, Purdy Fisheries Limited

Tim Purdy

I do. I think if we can stop—and I know you guys probably know the number better than I do—however many they say come in every year.... If we could at least get that number way down, we'd have a lot better chance of not having the next zebra mussel or something like that come in when we really don't know what the long-term effect would be.

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC

Okay. Thank you, and good luck. I love the value-added approach that you're providing. It's an excellent example for a lot of the fishing community across the country.

4:35 p.m.

Vice-President, Purdy Fisheries Limited

Tim Purdy

Come and visit me and I'll show you first-hand what it tastes like.

Thank you.

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC

Mr. Meisenheimer, in your testimony you talked about another $3 million a year needed, at the very least, for dealing with the sea lamprey program. We know there are many other invasive aquatic species that are threatening the fishery in the Great Lakes.

We've also heard that there are cuts to DFO. The department is facing cuts, and they're going to have a hard time in terms of the marine science, which I would assume is an important element of tackling this issue. I'm wondering if you could provide any comment on that, in terms of the marine scientists or any of the proposed changes to the Fisheries Act dealing with this suggestion, beyond providing more resources, which I think is an obvious suggestion.

4:35 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

Peter Meisenheimer

I guess it would be politic to begin with one of the things that I think is good about what's being proposed, which is legislation to address the Larocque judgment. This is going to make some small amount of money available for research through formulas that used to be used but no longer are.

On the other hand, as an industry, in Ontario we have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in primary research in recent years. As a tiny industry, that's a lot of money. We were levying our members a penny a pound on perch and pickerel for one set of projects and 1% of total landed value for another to pay for university researchers to do fundamental research. Frankly, we think that should have been done with government dollars, but it wasn't going to get done if we didn't pay for it.

What happens when you don't have stock assessments, when you don't have good ecological analysis is that managers become extremely risk averse. They don't allocate fish when they aren't sure. The more they know, the more risk they are prepared to shoulder, because the more certain they are about the numbers they're dealing with.

We've seen a spiral over the last few years where the perceived risk profile in management agencies everywhere, whether they be provincial or federal, has gone through the roof. Over and over and over again you hear, “We don't know, and we don't want the northern cod happening here.” Those are the words you hear all the time. If you ask what the northern cod has to do with this situation, the answer is, “Well, we don't know.” If you ask if they can actually explain what happened with the northern cod, they don't know that either. That's the reality of using a common property resource for economic activity. You are at the mercy of a risk management exercise that involves a whole lot of stuff that's beyond your control.

When public agencies aren't doing the work to underpin their decisions in a way that they are comfortable with their own decisions, it has fallen to us to go out and do a lot of that work ourselves, at a time when we really can't. The economic climate for us over the last few years has been absolutely brutal. The largest, oldest fish processor in the province was closed in bankruptcy in 2009. We've lost thousands of jobs in the last 15 years. On Lake Erie alone, since 2000, we've gone from over 70 tugs to under 50. It's rough out there. We're in a position where we've made the call that if we don't do this work, we're going to get shut down.

I'm really concerned about the idea of less science, and I don't like it.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sopuck.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Going back to your testimony a while ago about live fish markets, are you telling the committee that any of us can go down to a live fish market in the Toronto area and see live Asian carp?

4:40 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

Peter Meisenheimer

No. You used to be able to very commonly. It's very clear that some of the fish that were apprehended at the border as recently as a year and a half ago were headed into the live fish trade in Toronto. Everybody down there now knows that they can't do that.

As well, I think everybody down...or not everybody, but some people down there know where they can go to do that. I mean, the story you hear is that the reason these fish are showing up at the border alive is that, to guarantee freshness, they keep them alive until very close to the border, and then they drain the water out of them. That's a violation of U.S. federal law. They are simply not allowed to do that.

I believe the reason they're doing it is that these fish are incredibly robust. If you drain the water out of them close to the border and carry them across dry, you can throw water back at them on the other side and they all come back. Within the space of 15 or 20 minutes, they're swimming around again. They're tough as nails, these things. Then, when you get them into Toronto....

They've busted the same guy now twice. He paid a $55,000 fine the first time, and then he was back at it a year later.

The thing that's remarkable about these things is that, as I told you, 14¢ a pound is what the guys in the Mississippi are being paid for these things at the dock. I find it almost impossible to imagine how anybody would bother shipping them the distances they ship them when that's the going market price for a landed dead Asian carp. It just beggars the imagination. I just can't imagine, right?

So we're asking for a protocol where these things may not be brought into the country unless they've been gutted. If they're dressed, they're dead.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Okay.

Do you know if there's been any outreach to those communities who have Asian carp in their diet to talk to them about the seriousness of what may be occurring?

4:40 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

Peter Meisenheimer

I can't really speak for the ministry on this one, but my understanding is that, yes, they have done some of that. They have an ongoing initiative, I think, working with some of the folks.

They're Asian fish markets where these things are being sold. They cater to the Asian community in the greater Toronto area. They're largely centred around Newmarket and Markham, in that area. There's a number of them. They bring everything. They sell eels. They sell the whole business.

So the ministry has an ongoing initiative with them, and they're working with them, yes.

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

I would assume that in Lake Erie there's common carp.

4:40 p.m.

Executive Director, Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB

Is the difference between the common carp and the Asian carp strictly their feeding habits? These Asian carp are pelagic feeders. Is that the big difference?

The common carp seems to have sort of shouldered its way into many fish communities. It seems that room has been made for it, to speak colloquially.