Fisheries Committee on March 20th, 2007

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

NAFO is currently engaged in a reform that will hopefully improve the fisheries outside Canada's 200-mile limit. We've discussed it over the years, and we've all been party to those discussions, and certainly party to the concern we have as Canadians about the overfishing outside of the 200-mile limit.

In regard to the NAFO reform—and the minister has put forward and been successful in creating some wonderful reforms at NAFO—I'm just wondering if you could tell us about the status of some of those reforms at the present time.

[Loyola Sullivan]

I alluded earlier to some specific areas that were part of the NAFO conservation and enforcement measures. Three of the ones I alluded to earlier came into effect on January 1. I guess the significant change to the convention that will be on the table in Montreal in April at a meeting for discussion is the objection procedure. In particular, for example, as we alluded to earlier, if we set a quota for the Faroe Islands of 3,000 tonnes and they fish 8,000 tonnes, they would have to go through an objection procedure—that would be through an independent—to justify their case. That's one specific aspect.

The other part that would change the convention I think for all countries, all states, is there would be an ecosystem-based approach and a precautionary approach. In other words, these send fundamental messages to people that, in the precautionary approach, we adhere to science. If we're going to fish stocks, there's a certain reference point, and a reference point dictates a certain level of fishing effort and quota, and adhering to these.

Those are some of the fundamental changes. We're certainly hopeful that the April meeting will bring positive results so that we can see some real, meaningful action by countries. You can forever and ever run your surveillance and do your monitoring; you have to change behaviour on the high seas. I think I alluded to that earlier. There has to be a fundamental awareness by countries to accept responsibility as flag states in carrying that out, and UNFA is one of the instruments that addresses that, in carrying out that responsibility. That's why it's so important. And in NAFO we had just about all the contracting parties agree with UNFA, except the two I alluded to earlier.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

I just have a couple of quick questions, if I could, on the seal harvest.

In your role, would you be—“expecting” might not be the right word. Would you be in a position to make recommendations to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in regard to quotas for the seal harvest?

[Loyola Sullivan]

That wouldn't be my responsibility. My responsibility will be to advance Canada's efforts internationally on the sealing issue and to defend the seal harvest on an international basis. And not necessarily just to defend; I think it's to promote the seal harvest, not defend it, because it's sustainable, it's humane, it has an economic value, and it has a cultural value. It has, in fact, a constitutional value with treaties and that.

They're the types of issues. It's not to influence. It's not my role to be an adviser on setting domestic quotas, and so on. That's not part of my mandate.

[Fabian Manning, Conservative, Avalon, NL]

When you mentioned in your opening remarks—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Manning. That's just a little bit over time.

The next questioner will be Mr. Matthews or Mr. Cuzner. We have two names down.

Mr. Cuzner.

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

Mr. Blais feels I should give you a couple of minutes to settle after you've been rattled from the searing questions from the other side.

[Loyola Sullivan]

I don't get rattled.

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

Thank you for being here, too, Ambassador.

Could you give me an indication? Let's look at NAFO. At a NAFO meeting, do you become part of the official delegation, the Canadian delegation? You sit beside the minister, shoulder to shoulder with the minister, at the NAFO table?

[Loyola Sullivan]

As to what role I play with the minister, I haven't had discussion on that. The NAFO meeting, of course, is not coming up yet. What has been the customary thing in the past, I can't allude to. I am going to defer on that, because I know the minister is the official representative of the country.

[David Bevan, Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Aquaculture Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Actually, the minister has delegated that to officials. Generally speaking, at NAFO meetings we go with a mandate from the minister, and we obviously check in with the minister, but we have two commissioners and an official who would represent the country at the table. So there are some changes being contemplated in who the commissioners should be, but right now it would be me as the head of delegation at the NAFO meeting. We have to look at the makeup of commissioners at this point in time.

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

So the primary function on the part of the ambassador would be to address, through the NAFO process, some of the irritants that you have identified. He would engage in bilateral meetings outside of NAFO to try to address some of those and set the table prior to NAFO meetings? I'm just trying to get a sense as to what the role would be there.

[Loyola Sullivan]

I'll certainly answer. If you want more specifics from Mr. Bevan than I would have, I'll certainly defer to him.

There is no doubt about it. I met with the EU ambassador on two occasions. I'm meeting with the Danish ambassador on areas of mutual interest to us overall in this area. Of course, Denmark—the Faroe Islands and Greenland are aspects. I'm not going to pre-judge our meeting, but there are issues that we would want to discuss. This is my initial meeting with the Danish ambassador on this issue, for instance, but there are issues that are of concern to us as parties. My role generally would be to push to try to resolve those issues at my level.

Officials will meet and try to iron out issues. If they need a higher level of intervention on behalf of the minister, as it's not practical for ministers to intervene in every single bilateral case, I will make representation with the appropriate people at that level, the minister or the specific ambassador, to do that and hopefully resolve things on a bilateral basis.

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

Is it common that the NAFO nations or other nations of the world would have ambassadors for the fishery? Is it a common position?

Could you or Mr. Bevan answer?

[Loyola Sullivan]

I'll give my personal view of it.

It's not necessarily that nations would have ambassadors in specific areas. For ambassadors to other countries, there have been various ambassadors in the past who were appointed for special purposes, and Canada had three previous ones. For other countries, to my knowledge, it's not a normal part to have an ambassador for a specific purpose. There are probably a small number of countries that have significant investments in the fishery, as we would have.

I don't know if there is anything specific.

[David Bevan]

It's not common. It reflects the interest of the Government of Canada in trying to move ahead on this agenda.

In reference to the NAFO meeting, we aren't going to resolve all the issues of NAFO in one week. It's a body that looks at the management of a number of stocks but with lots of interest. We require the bilateral resolution of many outstanding issues or coming to a resolution, prior to the meeting, on numerous factors that might be under discussion during the annual meeting.

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

I'm sure I have time for another one.

Could you share with the committee some of the initiatives you have undertaken on the seal harvest to date? I understand there is an initiative coming forward as well, if you could comment.

[Loyola Sullivan]

Probably five days after being appointed, I met with European journalists in St. John's to hear more on the seal hunt and to educate them. I spent an hour or an hour and a half answering questions from the European journalists, in order to penetrate the public of Europe in those regards.

Over the last three weeks or so, we've been looking at a very comprehensive advocacy plan, a trip that would take us to five cities, in five countries—Brussels, London, Berlin, the Hague, and Vienna. It will be over a 13-day period. We're leaving on the 24th or the 25th of this month, at the latest, and we're not getting back until the sixth.

A variety of activities will be held within each area, in conjunction with our people overseas arranging this. There will be participation by Nunavut. They've had discussions with other provinces and other stakeholders in areas on this particular thing. To my knowledge, I think it's funded through the DFAIT budget as an initiative to deal with this.

We've been working on something more comprehensive in that regard for a number of weeks. I would say it has been a significant part of the last three-week period, preparing and seeing what's most strategic, listening to stakeholders here, listening to exporters that may have an impact on it, and those types of areas. It's getting as much input as possible. It's fairly detailed. There's been a fair amount of effort put forward in that regard, and it has taken up a significant amount of time over the last month.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.

Monsieur Blais.

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

Thank you very much. My questions pertain to the seal hunt.

The first one concerns the European Commission. I will try to be as hard and as difficult as Mr. Manning, but I don't know if I can pull it off. The European Commission has plans to hold discussions with Canadian officials on the seal hunt. Are you in favour of striking a task force with European Commission representatives? If so, what exactly do you have in mind? Have you already discussed plans with the ambassador in Ottawa?

[Loyola Sullivan]

Monsieur Blais, in that regard, right now the European community, the European Union, is looking at doing a particular in-depth, very comprehensive look at the seal hunt. They have rendered a verdict on the sustainability of that hunt; they've indicated the hunt is sustainable.

In two different meetings I've had with Ambassador Prince, the EU ambassador to Canada, we've raised that particular issue. I pressed strongly on him yesterday in a private meeting that if we're going to look at the humaneness of the hunt, we will stack our seal harvest up with anybody. We would like it to be all-inclusive—any countries that harvest seals.

I think it's safe to say that's being looked at in the terms of reference. That's one important thing I've asked. I can't speak for the European Union, on what they're going to build in there, but they did indicate that they would hear from us when they frame that. It's important that we have it be all-inclusive, that it's not only the hunt or harvest of seals. I've indicated, I think very strongly, that I feel we should be comparing any animals that are harvested out there in the wild, whether it's the wild boar, whether it's the deer, which I think Mr. Simms referred to. We have to look at a measuring stick of what's humane, within the harvesting of seals and within the harvesting of any wild animals. We would like to see that in their terms of reference too, when the European Union does their comprehensive study. They're certainly interested in putting independent expertise on this. I'm sure it would go out to a public process to get that expertise, and the necessary veterinarians obviously would have to be a part of that.

So I'm not going to render on what the EU will do. But the points I've made have been made very strongly with Ambassador Prince. We will cooperate in looking at our harvest. We want to see it be all-inclusive, and we want to see a broadened base of looking at humaneness within any particular harvest. Those are things we've said very strongly.

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

Regarding the seal hunt, does your international relations policy with Europe tend to be confrontational, or does the focus tend more to be on promotion, information and public awareness? How would you qualify your approach? Is it confrontational in nature, or focussed on compromise, information and public awareness?

[Loyola Sullivan]

Well, overall, it depends on who your target audience is. If your target audience is the public, you would want to put your information out, get facts on the table and lay them out. If you're dealing with media, you want to ensure that they have all of the information needed to make an informed decision.

Some discussions that will occur over the next few weeks will be with parliamentarians. There may be NGOs. There could be other representative stakeholders. There are a variety of things that we're looking at. It's fairly wide. It's not finalized. Some of it's finalized. Some of it's at the stage where it's being completed. It's going to be early April by the time we do our last visit. So these things are all being ironed out. But we're going to have an approach that will reach parliamentarians. I think we need to be getting the message out.

I read some of the transcripts, in the Belgian parliament, for example, of how they're killing whitecoats on the ice. Those were some of the statements that were made. My point is that they're more interested in Europe...some of the comments were made that any killing of animals is becoming not so acceptable. My response on that is if that's the case, stand up with integrity and oppose it on that basis. Don't oppose it on myths and falsehoods and those things that are out there. Have the integrity to do that.

They're the types of issues that we have to get out. We have to get out the facts. I think it's important. We have to be able to ensure, in one-on-one meetings with significant ministers and people in Europe, that these are the facts, that what they're hearing is unconfirmed information based on propaganda campaigns that are feeding off ENGOs and other particular groups.

It's not just a one-faceted approach; it's a multi-faceted approach we have to use in getting the message out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Blais.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Sullivan.

Again, I go back to this process. I'd just like a little history on how the ambassador of fisheries was created. I know there was one prior to 1995. Under program review it was cut out. I don't recall the government, in opposition or in government now, saying they would create a position if they were elected. In fact, I didn't hear any discussion of this at all.

My question is for Mr. Bevan. When the discussion on an ambassador of fisheries was taking place, was this something that happened over a long period of time? Was the posting for it internal or external?