Fisheries Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I have a point of order.

Excuse me, colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Ms. Barron has the floor.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

My point of order is that we have members who are both yelling into their microphones at the same time, which is impacting translators, and I would ask my colleagues to please be aware of the important work happening by the translators and to please take turns and wait to be addressed by the chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

Mr. Morrissey.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Obviously, as we're seeing here, this is a very emotional situation, which triggers a very emotional debate.

I support the amendment. My concern is that there has not been presented any evidence to this committee that would ensure a reopening of the fishery can be adequately, properly and safely enforced. The reason this decision was taken was in line with a parallel situation in Maine, where they had to completely shut down the elver fishery for a period of time to regain control. Control is a broad term, because you must have the regulations and the methodology in place to actually enforce a very difficult fishery.

Elvers do not come with bar codes on them, so once somebody has one, you need to have the ability and the proper regulations to charge somebody for an illegal one. We heard extensively from department officials about the necessity to have the proper regulations in place to enforce the fishery. What's being done today is to ensure there is a future for this fishery for the people involved, which includes first nation people in Nova Scotia and, to a lesser extent, in New Brunswick.

At this stage, I'd support the action taken by the minister to gain control of a very dangerous situation, a lot of which, let's be clear, is outside the scope. The alleged criminal activity is outside the scope of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Simple items like trespassing are not enforceable by DFO. It's by the provincial police. The provincial police in Nova Scotia, by contract, are the RCMP, who should be enforcing more visibly a lot in those areas.

I cannot support a motion that would direct the minister to reopen a fishery that I am still not convinced or assured can be conducted in a safe manner for those involved, as well as ensure the long-term stability of this fishery, which is what all the regulations that are being considered have been known to put in place.

Mr. Chair, I do welcome the amendment by my colleague, which still brings a degree of urgency to the situation that this committee is studying. It reinforces it strongly. That's why, Mr. Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

Mr. Small.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to be pretty brief here.

The main difference between Mr. Perkins' motion and Mr. Kelloway's amendment to the motion is that Mr. Perkins is asking for an opening of the fishery here in 2024 to give the harvesters and all of the folks who take advantage of the spinoffs from the industry the ability to salvage something of this season. Mr. Kelloway's motion is to keep the season closed this year.

I support my colleague Mr. Perkins' motion to open the season this year and to not have it closed for the full season, because we may not even get it opened in 2025.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're running out of time.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Okay. I'm sorry.

My inner Rick Perkins is really just as anxious about the whole issue, the lawlessness that's keeping honest people away from the living they want to pursue, so I share your frustration. I just hold it in here. I don't let it out as much as some others might.

At the same time, if we open the fishery.... We don't know what the current level of illegal fishing is actually doing to the stock. I don't know the elver fishery at all, but I'm wondering what a legal fishery on top of the illegal one would do to the health of the stock. I think we all agree that whatever improvements have been made in enforcement, they still won't be enough to deal with the sheer mass volume of illegality that's taking place.

The other thing is that we've gone through the IUU study and we've studied the elver fishery. In both cases we've identified that the enforcement efforts, the contribution by the province through the RCMP, has been almost non-existent. We understand that's because the local RCMP members are just as bloody afraid of what's going on on the river as everybody else is. If we're going to really get serious about the whole issue of enforcement, we have to have a discussion on the actual enforcement strategy and where the resources will come from. I don't think they can come from the community itself.

What's the state of the stock? What kind of enforcement strategy is really going to be necessary to get a handle on this? We need to get that done before we even consider opening it up so even more elvers are taken from those rivers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We'll go to Ms. Barron for the last 30 seconds or a minute. I can't see if the clock is actually on.

Go ahead, Ms. Barron.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I do have some points to make, but we have 30 seconds or a minute left, so what happens now? At this point, when this minute is up, what happens with this? Does this carry over to the next meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

In that case, I'll wait until the next meeting, and then we can continue the debate.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

If I may, I want to apologize on my behalf, anyway. I think my inner Mike Kelloway met the inner Rick Perkins today. I apologize to MP Desbiens and the translators for speaking over other individuals. That's not becoming, and I apologize for that.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Same here, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Our time is up. I want to ask the committee if we want to suspend debate and pick this up or adjourn.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Our meeting started at 3:34, so we should be going until 5:34. I have only 5:30 and 20 seconds.

I move that we adjourn debate on the amendment and vote on the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Okay.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

It's on his amendment first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You can't do that.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Chair, I had made a motion to adjourn the meeting.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Why can't I do that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Ask the clerk. The clerk said you can't do it.

Can you explain to Mr. Arnold why he can't do that?