Fisheries Committee on April 28th, 2014

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Monsieur Lapointe.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Chair, I did not want to make the following comments while the scientists were still here, because I wanted to let my colleagues do their important work on the Newfoundland and Labrador file.

In the document sent to the committee members, the comments paragraphs are translated into French, but almost all of the graphs are in English only. The worst example is the graph on page 7, which is very technical. There isn't even a legend in French to allow us to translate the components of that graph, that is in English.

Might we suggest to the various departments that they not do this anymore? If at the very least they could include a legend or key in French I could work quite well with a graph that is in English only. This could well be the only graph that exists on the industry. However, it is not acceptable that the members of the committee be given so much technical information that is not translated in the least.

I have just learned that once again a witness does not have a French version of his statement. This happens constantly and it happens in several committees. Every time, I am told that it will not happen again. Could someone tell me what steps will be taken so that this no longer happens? How are witnesses informed that they can access technical support to have their statement translated several days before they arrive in Ottawa?

I am not exaggerating, Mr. Chair. This is probably the twelfth time I am told in three years that people understand my problem and I am assured that this will not happen again. That answer is no longer appropriate. I want to be told what is going to be done to prevent this from happening again.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Monsieur Lapointe.

I understand your point of order. I appreciate it. You're correct. It is unacceptable. Documents of this nature should not have been distributed, let alone.... When they come from the department or from anybody who comes before the committee, we don't distribute them without the unanimous consent of the committee. That has been the practice of this committee in the past and it will continue to be the practice in the future. When we have unanimous consent, we will circulate documents. Until that point in time, we do not circulate them. This will not happen. I can assure you of that.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Chair, this happens so often that if I start to refuse each document that is not translated I am going to be holding up the work of the committee.

Let me go back to my basic question, which is this: what is being done, practically speaking, for documents to be translated properly before the beginning of committee meetings? What is being done to prevent the situation I described from occurring again? It is not enough to be told that we will make sure there is a consensus. What will I do if one time out of three a document has not been translated? Should I, one time out of three, refuse that the document be distributed to all of the committee members? My English is not bad, but that is not the issue. However, just because I can understand 85% of the documents that are given to me in English, I cannot pretend that we no longer have two official languages in Canada. That is the point I have reached, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

To your point on committees, you're within your right to do that if you want to hold up committees on that basis. This committee does not distribute...and this is a very rare occurrence that this has happened. I won't accept that this is a normal occurrence. This is not a normal occurrence before this committee. This committee distributes documents that are translated in both official languages. We respect the Official Languages Act and will continue to respect the Official Languages Act.

Sir, I take issue with the suggestion that we come on a regular basis.... We do not come on a regular basis seeking unanimous consent. When—

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Let me finish.

When witnesses are contacted for this committee, they make their presentations available and we send them for translation. That has been the practice. That will continue to be the practice if they're not translated when they come in. We'll continue down that path.

I'm not going to debate this all day. I'll make the point that the practice of this committee has been in the past and will continue to be in the future that documents are distributed in both official languages. That's it. Thank you.

All right. Having said all that, I want to welcome our witnesses here today.

Mr. Snook and Mr. Dale, thank you for meeting with this committee. I apologize for the late start.

Mr. Snook, I believe you're going to make the presentation. Please proceed whenever you're ready. Simultaneous translation is available.

[Jamie Snook, Executive Director, Torngat Joint Fisheries Board]

Thank you. This is the first time this board has presented to such a committee, and thanks for allowing the map to be distributed. I know we will follow up with a lot of correspondence to give to the committee about all the board's recommendations over the last five years.

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to present to the standing committee. The invitation was greatly appreciated by the Torngat Joint Fisheries Board. The board does have a wealth of fisheries knowledge and experience, and is composed of seven members appointed by the Nunatsiavut, federal, and provincial governments.

The board is a creation of the 2005 Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement. We point out that the land claim covers waters that are both within and adjacent to shrimp fishing areas 4 and 5, and that's the reason for the map we distributed. The area you see in red is the land claims agreement.

The board's primary responsibility is to make recommendations directly to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on a long list of marine species, but most relevant to the discussion obviously is northern shrimp.

We are in a position today to speak to the management recommendations that the board has presented consistently over the past five years. These recommendations have covered topics such as total allowable catch levels, allocations, and a position on the last in, first out policy, the draft national policy for allocating fish for financing purposes, the fisheries management modernization process, and the northern shrimp external review, so we have provided copies for the committee. Unfortunately they weren't translated ahead of time, so we will send those electronically and have them made available.

Our area of focus is the Labrador Inuit settlement area, which includes a marine component referred to within the agreement as the zone. We have provided the map for your reference and reiterate that the shrimp area is both within and adjacent to this land claim.

Furthermore, based on the land claim language, the board is the primary body that advises the minister on the conservation and management of the shrimp resource in this area. The zone makes up 24% of area 4 and 34% of area 5, yet the main adjacent user, the Nunatsiavut government, has access to only 3.7% of the resource in areas 4 and 5 combined.

We make these points because a clear inequity has developed over time. There have been missed opportunities when the resource was healthy, and now opportunities are being missed as the resource declines.

To explain what we mean, in 1997 DFO held extensive consultations that led to the development of six principles to govern new access to the shrimp fishery. These criteria included the conservation of the resource, the continued viability of the offshore industry, adjacency, increasing aboriginal participation, access to inshore vessels less than 65 feet, and employment in both the harvesting and processing sectors.

The 1997 criteria were later replaced in 2003 by the new access framework, which established three prioritized principles. In priority order, they were conservation, recognition of aboriginal and treaty rights, and equity. These are then considered against the three traditional criteria of adjacency, historical dependence, and economic viability.

So we've seen two considerable efforts to provide guidance for new access when the fishery has expanded, yet no comparable effort for a contracting fishery. The main mechanism specific to a contracting fishery scenario was the thresholds established in 1997 and the last in, first out policy, which emerged in an unclear way in subsequent years.

For the purpose of this afternoon's discussion I'll focus on conservation, recognition of aboriginal and treaty rights, and adjacency.

Conservation is paramount and is considered independently of all other criteria. The board has consistently advocated for the full and transparent implementation of the precautionary approach framework and the harvest control rules included in the IFMP, and considers these to be sufficient safeguards against conservation concerns, if applied.

With that said, there has been little cause for conservation concern in areas 4 and 5 until this year. In the case of SFA 4 the estimate still puts the resource status in the healthy zone, and the projected exploitation rate of 9.9% is still well below the 15% target. SFA 5 has been stable, but the 2014 estimate was negative, and the projected exploitation rate based on a 10% reduction exceeds the target. Without getting into case examples, the board does note that the IFMP has not been followed consistently, either on the way up or on the way down, for this resource.

I'll move along to aboriginal participation in the shrimp fishery. Only part 13.12.7 of the land claims agreement references shrimp specifically, and I quote:

If...the Minister decides to issue more Commercial Fishing Licences...for shrimp in Waters Adjacent to the Zone...the Minister shall offer access to the Nunatsiavut Government through an additional Commercial Fishing Licence...or by some other means to 11 percent of the quantity available to be Harvested under those licences.

The interpretation of this clause has been uncertain and has been a cause for some dispute between the Government of Canada and the Nunatsiavut government, focusing on the use of the word “licences”. There have been no new licences issued per se, but there have been significant allocations—4,651 metric tons since 2008—with only 300 metric tons allocated to the Nunatsiavut government; 1,700 metric tons to the northern shrimp research survey; and the balance split 90:10 between the offshore and inshore fleets.

The question is to the letter of the agreement versus the spirit and intent, and the honour of the crown to uphold the agreement. From the legal advice it was given, the board certainly doesn't feel the agreement was intended in any way to be a limiting agreement, and it expects its facilitation in the fishery to be enhanced, not limited in the way it seems to be sometimes. The Nunatsiavut government has consistently interpreted the 11% reference to be a target percentage share of the overall resource in areas adjacent. Currently the Nunatsiavut government has 2% in area 4 and under 5% in area 5, so as I mentioned, 3.7% overall.

More generally, the board recognizes that increasing aboriginal access to economic opportunities is not a goal just of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but is a goal that is more broadly shared across government.

Adjacency figures prominently in both the 1997 criteria and the 2003 principles, and we note again that the Nunatsiavut government has a settled land claim that is both within and adjacent to these two areas. We draw your attention to the map we have provided. The inequity is glaring when you compare the Nunatsiavut government percentage of the fishery in SFA 4 and SFA 5 to their land claim. We're in a process of doing further analysis that you will be able to compare. We already know the results of the analysis, but the adjacent users, both to the north and the south of the Nunatsiavut government, are dramatically higher, and they hold the majority of the allocations.

The board has submitted recommendations annually since 2010. In 2010 and 2011 the board recommended that the exploitation rate be increased from about 8% to 14%, recognizing the disparity between area 4 and all other areas. The board also recommended that 75% of this increase be allocated to the Nunatsiavut government.

In 2012, 2013, and 2014 the board recommended that the total allowable catch be increased by 15% as a stepped approach towards parity with other areas. The new course was entirely consistent with the IFMP, and the recommended allocation of 75% to the Nunatsiavut government reflected our analysis of the department's allocation criteria and the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement.

For SFA 5 the board recommended status quo in 2010-13, and this year recommended a reduction of 15%. Again, all of these recommendations are grounded in the IFMP.

In 2010 the board recommended a process to discuss the last in, first out policy, which never happened. Each year since 2010 the board has recommended that the Nunatsiavut government be exempt from its application, judging it to be in conflict with other policies intended to increase aboriginal participation in the fishery. Exempting aboriginals from the LIFO policy at this time would act as a way to increase their overall participation at a time when the biomass is declining and ocean habitat is changing.

So there are many interest groups that have made their positions known in recent weeks about cuts to shrimp quotas. As a neutral board, we feel strongly that we've provided confident advice to the minister, and ask that these perspectives not be overwritten.

That's the end of my notes, but I'll point out that the board, in the case of shrimp, has made some very favourable recommendations to one of the funding parties of the board. But when you look at the board's whole body of work, that's not always necessarily the case. It just so happens, in the case of shrimp, that there is a very clear inequity that has been there.

One of the glaring examples that we also recommended and didn't feel should've happened was when 1,700 metric tons in that area was allocated towards shrimp science. That was a significant new opportunity that became available and basically it was paying for science in multiple areas, but area SFA 4 paid the whole price for it. It was again another opportunity that was missed.

With that, those are my comments. We'll try to help to get caught up on time and answer questions as best we can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Snook. I appreciate that.

We're going to do a five-minute round here. We're going to start off with Mr. Chisholm.

Go ahead, Mr. Chisholm.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming and for your patience with us as we begin to look at this issue.

We have five minutes. There are a number of questions there in terms of the land claims, participation of your board in this fishery, and so on. I wonder if you could expand a little more, though.

It's interesting what you said about the last in, first out policy. You described the principles from 1997 and then the three principles of 2003, and that the LIFO policy kind of appeared somewhere. It's interesting to us because, of course, when the water hole is expanding nobody has a problem, but when it begins to contract then it's a problem. It's a question of how you deal with that. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about those issues of adjacency and your concerns with the LIFO policy, or whatever it is.

[Jamie Snook]

Well, I'll reiterate a couple of points and I'll get Aaron to add to why we make the comment about how LIFO appeared in a bit of an unclear way. Essentially, there is a land claim agreement, a treaty signed by the Nunatsiavut government and the federal and provincial governments. It is the only treaty in the country that has the province involved, so it was the first of its kind. It does include a marine component that's both within and adjacent, so there are clear treaty rights that need to be considered. When you consider the principle of adjacency, that's defined in the agreement. But the fishing areas 4 and 5 are clearly adjacent. There's no doubt about that.

In relation to LIFO, in recent years a lot of the aboriginal groups were some of the last to be facilitated into the fishery—in a small way at that in a lot of cases. So it would seem contradictory to now facilitate them right back out of it by applying this policy, especially when there's a treaty in place. Certainly it would appear to go against the spirit and the intent of the agreement. We're not lawyers, but that's the language that certainly gets used a lot when we have analysis done on our behalf.

The LIFO policy, and I'll let Aaron speak more to it, seems to be a policy that materialized in an unclear way through different drafts of the integrated fisheries management plan. That it no doubt protects the interests of offshore industry would be my suggestion, and I don't feel it should be paramount or override all of the other points that we're making here in relation to treaty rights and adjacency. As you can see, the aboriginal share of the resource is still very small, so the recent cuts were very unfortunate.

I don't know if Aaron would like to add anything to this.

[Aaron Dale, Policy Analyst, Torngat Joint Fisheries Board]

I can add just a little bit as to how LIFO emerged as a policy position of the Government of Canada. I wish I could add more, but as Jamie said it has been unclear as to how that came to be a policy position of the Government of Canada. In 1997 with the shrimp resource expanding dramatically and I guess with intentions to include new entrants and to grant new access to the fishery, there was quite an elaborate process to develop those 1997 criteria as to how those decisions will be made on who was granted access.

One of the chief concerns certainly was protecting the viability of the offshore fleet and that was accomplished by establishing thresholds. Thresholds were set at the 1996 TAC for each area and for all areas combined. There was no mention of a last in, first out policy. How did it come about? As Jamie said, it's unclear. I know the external review commissioned by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and conducted by Ernst and Young in 2012, which was an independent review of the decision to apply LIFO in SFA 6 in 2010 and 2011, concluded that it was discussed in 2000 at a northern shrimp advisory committee meeting and that it emerged in 2003 in the integrated fisheries management plan, and that was the first time it was explicitly stated as a policy position of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. But as Jamie said in his earlier comments, there certainly was no process comparable to the 1997 process that established those criteria or the 2003 process that established a new access framework.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Leef.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, as well, to both of you for attending today.

I don't know if you were sitting in on the last bit of testimony, but we heard some comments on the changing ocean conditions. You're up in areas 4 and 5 and it sounded like we're seeing more sort of ocean condition impact in the more southern regions. Is your board hearing about similar ocean condition changes? What is the driving force, at least from your perspective, on the stock declines in those areas? Also, how has your input into that been brought to the minister and how has it been received?

[Jamie Snook]

I could make a brief comment on that.

The board, as I mentioned, was created by the three governments, but it has a very modest research budget. I can't even call it modest, really, in comparison with the DFO research budget. We often have DFO present to us on the science. We don't add to it that much, frankly. We get briefings from them regularly. Really, that's about all I can add to it in this setting today.

One of the points I would like to make, though, is this. When DFO was here earlier, they were talking about how the warming temperature has positive and negative effects, depending on the species. We've been encouraging the minister to take more of a holistic view of the fishery in relation to the Nunatsiavut government because there are only two main fish plants in that area. The turbot, crab, and shrimp fisheries are all kind of interrelated. So in our more recent recommendations, we're asking the minister to consider three of those fisheries when she makes decisions in that area.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

When you are talking about a holistic approach, I know you're specifically referencing looking at what you do to one species and how that impacts another, and seeing the totality of the ecosystem itself. But in terms of study and research—and I appreciate that you're also dealing with a different level of research budget—is there any contribution of the board on traditional knowledge, or does that play as easily for ocean-based species as it does for terrestrial, land-based species?

[Jamie Snook]

There's no doubt that's an area that, on the marine side, hasn't been as prevalent in the analysis. We, as a secretariat, actually do work for another board in the land claim agreement, which is related to wildlife and plants. That's considered much more. There's a lot more.

That being said, the board recently initiated a local knowledge program with fishers and did its first interviews this year. It is something we're hoping to introduce. It's not something we have results on today that we can share with the committee.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Sopuck touched on it toward the end of his questioning with DFO around the influence of natural mortality, largely from the predator species, and they did touch on the seals a bit. Of course, you're farther north along this food chain, where I would imagine the influence of that seal growth and population is probably a little more than in the south. What impact is that having or what discussion level is going on, without being scientific about it? How are people responding to the boom in the seal population? What influence do they think it has on the shrimp and other fish stocks?

[Jamie Snook]

There's no doubt there is a lot of seals. In all of our conversations, it hasn't come up a lot in the context of the shrimp fishery, to be honest. So we were interested to hear DFO's comments as well.

Certainly those come up regularly, though, with other species that we're involved with, such as the polar bear population, which is also benefiting from the number of seals. They eat a lot of char, we know. A lot of local knowledge recently has touched on the wolf population as actually eating a lot of seals, and that's being observed. That's, then, having an impact on the quantity of caribou, so the seals come up a lot.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

From shrimp to caribou....

[Jamie Snook]

But I have to say that from a traditional knowledge perspective, I haven't been part of much discussion in relation to shrimp.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

In terms of—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Don't I get a MacAulay minute?