Fisheries Committee on Nov. 9th, 2006

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Given your collective experience in the industry, is that something you guys would say, that if there is a chance something might go wrong, it's more likely that it would be on setting days that it would go wrong?

[Gary Dixon]

Yes, the season opens with a gun and a timeframe. There's a lot of pressure on.

[George Rennehan]

I think you'll find today a lot less of that than you did a few years ago, because of the larger boats, and because everybody is more safety-oriented.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

But if in fact the statistics--and this will be my last point--pointed toward that, then I would see that this would be a tool for educating the fleet, and maybe, whether they police themselves or there is some other type of policing of it, it would be an education process we could go through with the fishermen, as opposed to having an overkill through regulation.

[Melanie Sonnenberg]

I think that is exactly what we're advocating: you will get more buy-in from the industry. Remember, as Gary has said, when you start off a fishery basically with a gun.... It's not that long ago; I can remember when they started the lobster season with literally a gunshot. When you start with that kind of pressure, it's enormous.

But in 25 years of working with the industry, I've seen huge strides in the decisions that are made on setting day. Some of those have come from serious accidents, but some have come from education and awareness. And you're exactly right, that's what we can buy into. That's what industry is about; that's where we're going. But heavy-handed regulations aren't going to make people smarter, and they're not going to make people conform.

[Harland Martell]

In answer to that, on May 2, 2006, in Ottawa at the CMAC, in its Standing Committee on Fishing Vessel Safety, there was a presentation made, and I know Melanie, Lisa, and George will remember this. I can't remember the name of the individual who did it, but it's on the record, and we've since corresponded through the NSBA on this particular issue.

I got a sour tone from our chairman, Victor Santos-Pedro, when I brought it up after this particular presentation was done, but it was a U.S. Coast Guard representative who gave the fatality and statistics report for a similar ten-year period on the east coast of the United States, from Maine down to the Gulf of Mexico. It was the identical time period, with the exception of an overlap of one year. In those statistics, he presented pie charts and graphs and everything showing the various types of fatalities and instances.

Other than today, I normally walk around at CMAC with all the stats they have presented to me. I made note at the end of his presentation that his stats were virtually identical to the Canadian stats for the same time period. Yet the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. government have absolutely no restrictions, regulations, or stability requirements for any fishing vessel in the United States, other than a carriage requirement for lifejackets.

When I made that point, Victor gave wind to me and didn't think I was very appropriate in doing it, but I felt the question could not go unanswered. The gentleman—whose name, again, I can't recall, but it is on the record—fielded that question. His response was basically that the American boat builders, as we do, wish to build a good product. They don't want to carry a lot of liability. They are trying their best to put out boats based on various volunteer regulations, such as ABYC and other regulations that exist in the industry.

However, it was cited as a conclusion in his report that the reason for these fatalities and the instances was due largely to operations in part and poor maintenance. Again, all the regulations in the world aren't taking care of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

Mr. Thibault.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Thank you, Chairman.

In keeping with the previous presentations that we have had on the question of a cull of seal to preserve the cod stocks, we should congratulate Gary for helping preserve the apple stocks by culling the deer.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

I was thinking when you mentioned the accidents that there are very few accidents I can remember of the capsizing of lobster-type vessels, of Cape Island-type boats. There was one a couple of years ago, coming across from New Brunswick to the Digby area--I think they might have been coming up to Port Lorne, or someplace up there—during icing conditions, with the traps on board. In keeping with the letter you just read, if I remember correctly, the person in the wheelhouse, who was not the captain of the vessel, might not have felt the signs, coming across, that it was getting dangerous. I think he was the brother of the captain or something.

If you look at the lobster fleet—the Cape Island, the Northumberland, the hard-chine, all those boats that have evolved now that we currently use in the lobster fleet, and the smaller groundfish boats—if we were to rebuild it now, knowing this, that we have a safe fleet as it came out of the yard, at the very least, and you guys all know what's out there because I know you take rides on the wharf to see what the other guys are building.... What percent of those do you think would not meet the stability test? Second, what would be the cost, do you think, of...? How many of them would have to do stability tests, with the regulations being proposed?

[Gary Dixon]

Of all the lobster boats that are out there—the combination lobster boats with a minimum of a less than a five-foot fish hole—I personally can't think of one that wouldn't meet the standards.

[George Rennehan]

I don't think it's the matter of passing the stability test that's the concern. The concern is having to do the stability test.

I'm fishing with one boat that was built in 1981, one that was built in 1983, and one that was built in 1972. May I add, they're accident free in all those years. And they all require—

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Just to clarify my question, that's the point I want to make. If you had 60% of them that weren't going to pass, the stability test might be a reason to do it, so that modifications can be done on those boats. That's the point I'm trying to raise.

[Harland Martell]

There's never been an issue of whether the traditional Cape Island-style lobster fishing boat or the Northumberland-style lobster fishing crab boat that we see.... I'm not going to talk about some that have been modified to such heights, and galleys and everything else, but the traditional ones. You can basically go down to the wharf and 95% of them will fit in the category of “Don't worry, they're going to pass”.

It's the cost of getting someone to say they pass, such as the one we did, worst operating condition. I asked, “Tony, did it pass worst operating condition?” He said yes. I asked, “Marginally?” He said, “No, there was no problem.” So that was the issue, but it cost $8,000 for this particular individual to have somebody tell him that.

In Ottawa, the Transport Canada situation is looking at it from an evidence perspective. No doubt, should some day some lawyer pull us into court asking, “How do you know it will pass? How do you know that specific boat will pass?”.... Well, we know, but if you don't have some professional saying it will, some judge or some lawyer is going to say, “We don't know for sure.”

If you look at some boats that have had capsizings over the years.... There was one in the past that I played a little role in, only as a worker moving some stuff around. It was one that capsized, it was assumed, when the drag had fallen off and capsized overboard--years ago, back in the very early eighties. Well, after it was righted and brought to shore, they did a stability test on it, and guess what? It passed. So obviously something dramatic had happened.

There was only one person on board, and he was found dead, of course—in the engine room. So something happened on deck when he was there. They can only assume that maybe one of the doors fell off, hooked the bottom, snagged, grabbed the top, and fetched up. That had nothing to do with the boat under its normal operation; that was an accident. Maybe the guy shouldn't have been sailing on autopilot at the time, being down in the engine room by himself. I don't know. But all said and done, in any accident that I can think of, that might have happened.

We can take another one that happened right in my community a number of years ago. It was a seiner. In fact, I think it was called the Scotia Swan or the Flying Swan—something of that nature.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

That was George.

[Harland Martell]

George, yes. George died in that particular accident. With that vessel, it was an accident where the power block snatch locked, and the catch they had went to the bottom and pulled it over. Yet that vessel had full stability booklet.

You'll find that many vessels that have gone down have had full stability booklets. There are other circumstances that came into play, including the possibility that it was operator error by someone who didn't abide by the particular requirements of the safety or stability booklet.

I feel that if you have, as Gary says, the starting of any season off a gun—and there's a lot of economic pressure there—even if you force a fisherman into the stability booklet, he may feel the economic pressure to try to go beyond what he considers the safe operation load and may say, “I've done it before and I got back home. I'll still do it and I'll try to get away with it.” Even if you did it, who are you going to have out there to stop him from doing this? And once he leaves the wharf, who's going to see him anyway?

With that, I'll leave it be to the next questioner.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Martell.

Mr. Byrne is next.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Melanie, you mentioned you were at a meeting yesterday, and you mentioned something about a memorandum of understanding being signed or proposed yesterday between Transport Canada and DFO. Could you very quickly tell me what that was?

[Melanie Sonnenberg]

I hope so.

We arrived on Monday. National CMAC is a four-day process. We arrived Monday afternoon; much to our surprise, an agenda item was an MOU to be signed by the two deputy ministers for Transport Canada and DFO.

That memorandum of understanding--if I had my briefcase, I'd leave it here for you. We'll get you a copy so that you can have a look at what their objectives are. Basically, I think it's been that all along we have said.... Harland talked about the cut-offs and things, and that there has to be a mesh between these two departments, and they have to talk to each other. Suddenly, from some things that have happened--and I won't get into listing what I think those things are--they felt they needed to put paper to this, so we had a formal signing of a document that basically outlines that Transport Canada and DFO will meet nationally and regionally two times a year, internally, to talk about a number of issues that are common. Then there's going to be another forum at which industry stakeholders and a whole array of government folks will sit down and hash out some issues.

There's not a lot of clarity around it yet. It seemed to us who were there that this is a reactive-type gesture between the two departments. What they told us was that they're working on sorting out the details and that it was a DFO-led initiative.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Okay. You've answered the question. What—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We can take some credit for that.

Just to interrupt for a second, there has been a different approach from Transport Canada since our committee said we need some more information and more facts on this issue. I'm going to take a little credit, or the committee will.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Yes. In fact, Mr. Chair, this whole concept has somewhat come full circle, both locally and in Ottawa, in the sense that we met in front of Transport Canada and DFO officials not 14 days ago, and the point was being clearly made that there is a relationship between hull design--the Transport Canada issue--and vessel length and cubic metres.

Of course, DFO was adamant on the point that the relationship is not there, that vessel length and cubic metres were strictly a conservation issue, and that unless the fleets went to a full ITQ system, they were not prepared to investigate or consider any changes to vessel length. That point was made perfectly clear, and colleagues, this is the point that was being made in St. Anthony.

I think that as professional boat builders, you would probably suggest to this committee that in terms of the many incidents and concerns coming forward now, the issue is not one of hull design, but potentially one of building up and out. What I would think you might suggest to this committee is that if there were vessel stability tests done on a number of vessels that were being constrained because of vessel length, but not being constrained in terms of building up, many of those vessels would probably fail the stability tests, and those affected by that--because they were being closed in, in terms of vessel length--would face probably $300,000 or $400,000 in expenses to get their vessels to meet stability requirements, because they'd have to tear down their entire decking and then consider building a few extra feet on.

You examined the Newfoundland shipbuilding industry, as you do your own. Would that be your personal or professional opinion, that if you were to go with this particular system, almost all boats here in Nova Scotia would probably pass the stability test, your issue being that it would probably cost each and every one of those vessel owners $15,000-plus to do so?

There really is an issue. The constraint in Newfoundland and Labrador.... That particular fleet, in terms of changing fisheries and moving further and further afield, further and further offshore, is constrained by the vessel length and cubic considerations and has been going up and up and up.

If this regulation were put in place today, the impact on the fleet in Newfoundland and Labrador would probably be the most significant. I'm not going to pass judgment here, and I don't want to send the message that Gerry Byrne thinks every vessel in Newfoundland would fail a stability test, because I don't believe that, but there is a concern that many vessels would fail that test, and the only alternative for them would be to completely tear down their decking at a potential cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Harland Martell]

I'll agree primarily with that statement, but we don't even necessarily have to go to the stability. If we want to look after the cod moratorium in 1993, a lot of Newfoundland fishermen were uncertain about their futures as fishermen. Some of them reintroduced some of their inactive licences, and one of them was for crab. However, the cubic number was a restriction based on groundfish, and if you had a vessel with multiple licences, you had to comply with the most restrictive requirement or give up that licence.

Back then, everyone said the cod was coming back, so the fishermen didn't want to give up their cod licence. They tried to start doing something two to five to ten miles from shore, doing their little cod weirs in their little 35-foot boat. They couldn't go beyond 30, 40, or, as we call it, 35 feet. So they said, how are we going to prosecute a fishery that's 100, 150, and 200 miles out there? The only way they could do that with their existing boats, or with new ones, was stick to the 35-footers and go higher to allow for more fuel, carriage of grub, crew, and everything. Then they were operating in a less safe boat out there than if they would have been allowed to get 45- or 50-footers. That's where a lot of fatalities came into place.

Merv Wiseman, a DFO search and rescue coordinator, did a number of reports at the CMAC meetings. He came up with that a number of years ago, back when we first started with the new Canada Shipping Act, and you could see a lot of it was the 35-footers. Not only was it that, but most of the instances—as they call them, not accidents—were where they were called in for service, even if it was a tow. Most of those 35-footers simply ran out of fuel. They couldn't supply enough fuel, carry their bait and crew, and go out the required distance to prosecute the fishery.

Transport Canada will say, well, they don't have to go out that far. But they do if that's were the fish are. Since the funding package was running out after a couple of years, they had to find something new to do.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I appreciate it, Harland, and I want to say this is why this issue is full circle. These are exactly the points that were raised in St. Anthony. These are exactly the points that were raised in Gander.

Quite frankly, for DFO and Transport Canada to appear before our committee and not even mention the fact that they had previously drafted this memorandum of understanding—because, Mr. Chair, this didn't get done in 14 days, and obviously they were at work on it for quite some time—I find disgusting.

The second point I want to make is the fact that there were no real, tangible, true consultations in Newfoundland and Labrador on this particular issue really speaks volumes, and that's my point.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Byrne for being brief.