Fisheries Committee on May 30th, 2006

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's a minimum of $35 million, because I'm fully aware, as you are, of the needs of small craft harbours. We don't have enough, even with this, but it would be a start.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

I just wanted to see if it was in line with what the department people are looking for.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Byrne.

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

I'd like to address the question or the issue of whether or not a report from this committee to the House to augment the budget of the DFO's small craft harbours branch would be an amendment to the budget. I don't think it would be. Such a decision could be a cabinet decision and performed through supplementary estimates.

Therefore, in terms of balancing, Mr. Manning had a very valid suggestion that we should not lowball this and we should actually ask for what is required. Mr. MacAulay's issue is that we need to act, and act quickly, to resolve the capital deficit.

I think we could suggest to the House that in this fiscal year the government appropriate additional funds and, on advice, use the process of supplementary estimates to do so, as opposed to suggesting a budgetary legislative amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Gentlemen, we are still debating the motion. We have witnesses waiting who we've invited to committee. The motion's been made and the motion's in order, the words of the original motion. We are certainly getting sidetracked by the motion, and we can debate it all day.

I'm going to read the original motion. It uses the word “recommending”. We're recommending; that's not asking and that's not debatable. It was my understanding that we're not telling the House they have to add money. We're simply recommending that they put more funds into the budget for small craft harbours.

I don't know the procedures. I do not believe there's any onus on the government to accept the recommendation or not, but it is a recommendation from committee that we certainly have a deficit in the funding of the budget for small craft harbours and we would increase that budget.

Monsieur Blais, you had your hand up a moment ago.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I am not sure I understand. You can correct me if I'm wrong but you seem to be saying that asking for an amendment to this budget would not lead to an amendment of the Estimates. Is that what you're saying?

I understand that the committee can decide to deal with any issue such as the situation of small craft harbours -- that is my fondest wish -- in order to report to the House with recommendations if necessary. That's what I want.

However, I don't think that we can ask today to amend the 2006-07 Estimates. We could send a letter to the minister to tell him that we would like that some monies be reallocated but, if we send him a motion to amend the 2006-07 budget, that will require a vote in the House, I believe

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Obviously the committee can't amend the budget, but the committee certainly operates of its own volition.

The motion reads: “That the committee report to the House recommending that the government consider the advisability of raising the current budget....”

We're using numbers here. We can debate whether we should have regular numbers plugged in:

That the committee report to the House recommending that the government consider the advisability of raising the current budget of $86.6 million contained in the 2006-07 budget by $15 million for the fiscal year of 2007-08.

We're saying it's for next year, because this budget's already there; it's for the fiscal year of 2007-08.

Ça va?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

A minimum of which, Gerry, it gives the government.... Certainly, if they take heed directly from us, which I expect they will, they can put the money right in any time. We'll take it at any time, but it certainly leaves the door open to shove in $15 million if they wish, right away.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Roy, very quickly. We do have witnesses waiting.

[Jean-Yves Roy, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

I second the motion, Mr. Chairman, and I call the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We will vote.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

We will move along briskly here, gentlemen, without a break.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), I would like to recognize our witness for our study of grey seals. The group is the Grey Seal Research and Development Society, and the witness is Denny Morrow.

Denny, welcome to committee. I know you've appeared here on several occasions, I believe, in the past. You certainly are aware and very much an advocate of fisheries issues straight across the board, not just grey seals. It's nice to have you back again.

[Denny Morrow, Secretary Treasurer, Grey Seal Research and Development Society]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also the members of the committee, for the opportunity today.

To give first of all a bit of introduction, I work as the executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association, which is an association of over 60 processing companies and exporters on the mainland of Nova Scotia. Our combined export value last year exceeded $400 million. The companies I represent are involved in exporting almost all the varieties of seafood we have on the market in Nova Scotia. I would also remind the committee that Nova Scotia is the number one exporter of seafood in Canada, with over $1 billion exported last year.

The industry is under extreme pressure right now, as is the industry in Newfoundland for the very same reasons: the American exchange rate, fuel prices, electricity rates, and Chinese competition in our markets.

I would like to express a plea to the minister today to come to Nova Scotia as soon as possible, hopefully this summer. We need the same kind of summit as was recently held in Newfoundland, where the minister gets to meet with the industry leaders and understand what the issues are. Perhaps by putting our heads together we can come up with some effective strategies.

I have to underline the urgency of this. I live in an area of Southwest Nova where right now there are boats that are on a cash basis for fuel, where one of the big auto and truck companies is repossessing trucks from fishermen, where we're facing very soft markets, especially in the United States. I hope the minister will hear this plea and that we can get to see him, hopefully this summer.

Now on to grey seals. I'm the secretary-treasurer of the Grey Seal Research and Development Society. We have a number of processing companies and fishermen's organizations that form the board of directors of this organization.

Starting off, what is happening with grey seals from a commercial fisheries perspective? In 1980 the estimated herd size was about 30,000, with a concentration around Sable Island and few seen in western Nova Scotia or Cape Breton waters. In 2006 the estimate of a year ago was about 350,000 to 400,000, with new breeding-pupping areas and concentrations from Cape Breton to coastal areas around the Gulf of Maine.

Unlike harp seals, which remain in the Gulf and off coastal Newfoundland and Labrador for a few months before moving north to the Arctic and Greenland, grey seals are in our commercial fishing waters and around our coast for 12 months of the year. These animals average between 600 pounds to 1,200 pounds as adults and they are eating large amounts of fish and seafood from our shallow fishing banks and coastal waters. They live in a cold water environment that requires more caloric intake on a yearly basis than that of the entire Nova Scotia population of nearly one million people.

While the grey seal population has increased more than ten-fold since 1980, our cod and other groundfish populations continue to decline or disappear off eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. A commercial fishing moratorium has been in place for cod in these waters since 1993, yet the stocks continue to decline because of unexplained high natural mortality and the seeming disappearance of whole year classes before they become large enough to spawn.

This decline in cod and some other commercial groundfish stocks is spreading westward, to areas where fishing and fish processing has until now been able to survive.

The few cod that are harvested for science and analysis from eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton are infested with seal worm parasites and seem stunted in growth. This phenomenon is spreading westward, and our industry fears that we will soon be facing a complete shutdown of the groundfish industry.

Grey seals may not be the only factor, but the ecosystem impact of the more-than-tenfold increase of these large predators is in our view poorly understood and greatly underestimated.

World demand for wild-caught ocean fish is increasing, so we do have an opportunity; this is not a dying industry. Our competition in Norway, with an annual cod quota exceeding 200,000 metric tonnes, in Iceland, with a cod quota exceeding 150,000 metric tonnes, are reaping the benefits through fresh, frozen, and salted exports. By the way, the Atlantic Canada cod quota is less than 25,000 metric tonnes when you add Newfoundland and Nova Scotia together.

Fishing communities are thriving in those countries while we increase our export of young people from our fishing communities. Both Iceland and Norway manage their seal herds at fewer than 20,000 animals and make no apologies for doing so. Norway even licenses foreign hunters to harvest seals as a part of tourism.

A fish-processing industry continues to exist in southwest Nova Scotia, where a modest fishery for haddock, cod, and pollock has survived until now. This industry is under tremendous competitive pressure due to less attractive exchange rates with the American dollar, declining fish stocks, Chinese competition in frozen and added-value products, fuel price increases, and a shrinking supply of labour. The continued increase in the grey seal population and the growing numbers along coastlines and on islands in western Nova Scotia endangers the modest amounts of fish available for harvest. Increasingly, this fish is infested with seal-worm parasites that make it uneconomical to process and export.

Impact Issues: Grey seals eat cod and other commercial species. In Iceland, where there is abundant cod, scientists estimate that cod makes up between 20% and 25% of the seal diet. Our fishermen have observed that grey seals prefer to eat the soft bellies, liver, and gonads of large cod, so the tonnage killed far exceeds the tonnage eaten. Grey seals also prey heavily on the small numbers of juvenile, immature cod and other groundfish species in this region before the cod are old enough to spawn.

When I did this presentation before the committee on natural resources in the Nova Scotia legislature, I circulated pictures of cod with the bellies ripped out of them that fishermen have sent to me at the office.

Fishermen feel it is unlikely cod or other groundfish species are able to spawn successfully on the shallow banks while large numbers of seals are present. Fishermen have observed seals breaking up schooling fish and chasing them. Spawning requires fish to aggregate on certain shallow banks in the ocean. Scientists have wondered since the mid-1990s why whole year classes of cod seem to have disappeared. Fishermen believe that these year classes were never born. I would remind the committee members again that, unlike harp seals, these seals are in our waters 12 months of the year, especially during the reproductive time.

Grey seals chase fish off the best feeding grounds during the summer months and into less productive, colder, darker, deeper waters. Scientists and industry are observing thinner fish in poorer condition, and this phenomenon is spreading from eastern waters to the west as the grey seal herd spreads. Grey seals are the necessary, warm-blooded animal host for a parasite, pseudoterranova, that is responsible for an alarming infestation of cod, cusk, haddock, and flatfish to the point where one DFO parasite scientist in the late 1990s concluded that mortality of the most heavily infested fish was likely occurring.

DFO scientists continue to wonder what is causing the high levels of natural mortality of cod and other species in areas where a moratorium on commercial fishing has been in effect since 1993. I would mention the funding for that research work on the seal worm, pseudoterranova, was cut off around 2000, just after the report by the scientist at Moncton was released with the conclusion of high possible natural mortality.

Infestations of seal worms sap nutrition from fish, and the worms excrete ketones that have been observed to make fish sluggish. This is something I learned from a scientist when I was in Iceland three years ago. The impact of the parasite infestation is making it uneconomical to process our own fish. One processor last summer reported that cod fillets were literally walking across the work tables. Another salt fish processor reported he can no longer do skin-on dried and salted fish from local landings due to parasites and the cost of removing them. That processor now imports ling cod from Iceland.

Grey seals are destroying gillnets and longline fish before they can be brought on board. Fishermen in some areas have given up their inshore herring and mackerel bait fisheries. Halibut and groundfish longline fishermen are seeing good fish stripped and ruined before they can be landed.

The prognosis for Nova Scotia is more pressure on crab and lobster fisheries, fewer fishermen, fewer processing plants and jobs, and more people from coastal communities leaving for Alberta. Some plants and fishing captains are reporting difficulty in finding crewmen and workers. Fishing is a business, and in Nova Scotia the impact of grey seals is adding to other factors in stressing these businesses.

I will conclude with some facts about the Grey Seal Research and Development Society.

The society was formed in the fall of 2003 by some concerned industry representatives. The society requested a grey seal quota or allocation from DFO and received a two-year allocation of 10,000 animals for 2004 and 2005. That allocation was extended through to the end of 2006. The society has been able to harvest 460 juvenile grey seals in 2005 and about 800 thus far in 2006. It is estimated that 50,000 grey seal pups were born on Sable Island alone this past winter.

Grey seal products differ from harp seal products, and the society is breaking new ground in how to harvest these animals for best-quality pelts and meat. Products and markets must be developed. We are having some success in these efforts, but significant challenges remain.

Sable Island and other key breeding and pupping locations are off limits to the society for harvesting due to provincial regulations and the DFO allocation restriction. There is no recognition by either the Nova Scotia government or DFO of the impact that the grey seal herd expansion on commercial fish stocks is having on the fishing and seafood business and the marine ecosystem that has supported fishing communities in this region for hundreds of years. This is in marked contrast to governments in Iceland and Norway, which have maintained viable fishing industries and have managed their seal populations to avoid an increase.

Rather, we see DFO and the Nova Scotia government approach this with a head-down, quiet support for the development of a small commercial grey seal harvest with numerous restricted areas.

I'll end with that. You have the rest of my report, and I will entertain questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Morrow.

Mr. Matthews.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

I have just a quick question, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much for coming this morning, by the way.

As the document reads, I guess the greatest population of grey seals in the world is around Sable. Yet, as you've said, it's considered a protected zone by both the Government of Nova Scotia and DFO. Why is that?

[Denny Morrow]

I think there's a feeling by some people that Sable Island should be a kind of Garden of Eden, without any human intervention in it, even though I had a birder in Southwest Nova tell me that he's very concerned. For example, the grey seals have taken over some of the islands where you find puffins and other fairly rare birds, and of course puffins don't stand a chance against them. So what we're really seeing is the transformation of Sable Island to grey seals. There used to be a harbour seal colony out there—these are smaller, the common seal—and I understand they've pretty well been driven off the island.

What has happened in other parts of the world when the population gets to the saturation point is that disease breaks out. So the people who think they're doing something really great for Sable Island may not be.

[Bill Matthews, Liberal, Random—Burin—St. George's, NL]

Is the commercial value of the grey seal somewhat diminished compared to the other seals?

[Denny Morrow]

As I said, it's a new product. Just to give you an example, Mr. Matthews, the first year we got $37 a pelt. As you know, from Newfoundland, that's not the average. This past year we got $50. So we're improving the quality of the pelt as our sealers....

Newfoundlanders are very experienced in sealing; in Nova Scotia we're not. So we're training fishermen. We're learning, and we're getting better at it. The company that bought the pelts told us that it's a new product, it's a good product, and the more of it we can put on the market, the better the price will be.

We're also establishing a market for meat. We have a standing order from China for two frozen containers. That's 40,000 pounds. We've sent samples over. And those would be adult seals, not the beaters. The samples were well received.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

Mr. Byrne, and then Mr. Cuzner, if you have a quick intervention.

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

I have a quick comment first, and then a question.

In 1987, in the entire seal harvest in Newfoundland and Labrador, as a result of the moratorium, or the ban on young seals, fewer than 5,000 animals were killed and marketed. Today, it's well over 325,000 per year. That's indicative of what sustained marketing and a commitment to an industry can provide. So if someone were to criticize that you received a quota of 30,000 animals but only killed and marketed 1,300, it would be my response to them that it requires sustained marketing and sustained political initiative to support it. I applaud your presentation.

One question I did have, though, is this. Grey seals also occupy, of course, the other side of the Atlantic, where cod populations are very healthy. What's the status of grey seal populations on the other side of the Atlantic, and what management measures are being taken to either control or harvest those populations? Do you have any data on that?

[Denny Morrow]

Yes. In the U.K., I understand the grey seal population—this is from a report I have from the High North Alliance of about a year ago—was somewhere around 100,000 animals. In Norway, the estimate was there were 6,000 to 7,000 grey seals. They thought that was a bit low, but their target is to try to keep the grey seal population below 10,000, I understand, in Norway. When I was in Iceland three years ago—they won't give you the figures on their seal population over there, because they do an aggressive control program—some fishermen told me there were probably fewer than 3,000.

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

Over the course of time, you have appeared before this committee, and I'd appreciate it if you'd come back again as we conduct further analysis on the seals and sealing in Canada. If you were able to do a little further research about the European situation, in particular about their management or control measures, I think it would be very helpful for the committee to find more information about that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Cuzner.

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

I also thank you for your presentation.

This concerns the utilization of the seal itself. You said in Iceland they keep the population down significantly. Do they try to utilize the meat and the pelt as well, the entire animal? Are they further ahead than we are with that kind of stuff?

[Denny Morrow]

You have to bear in mind the seal numbers in Iceland. We're talking about 300,000 harps harvested in Newfoundland. In Iceland, as I said, they talk about 3,000 or fewer seals. What I did see over there is that they feed seals to mink. The carcass is frozen, and it's mixed in at about a 20% level. There is some pelt.

By the way, I ate seal meat in two Reykjavik restaurants. It was sautéed with a mushroom sauce. I talked to the chef about how he prepared it. It was excellent. So if you know what you're doing with meat—and we understand from our shipments to China that the Chinese now have a process.... They see it as an exotic wild species, a high-end product, not a low-end product.