Fisheries Committee on May 1st, 2007

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

First of all, I just want to comment that the fishermen on my side of the Northumberland Strait, to their incredible credit, established their own carapace size limits, which were more stringent than DFO required. They actually for years threw back legal lobsters. It's just like throwing money back into the water, but they did that in the interest of conservation. It seems ironic that now they have to pay a huge price because of the conservation measures or whatever has happened there. They've evaporated.

When do you think you might have a response on that?

[David Bevan]

There are a couple of things on lobster. There's going to be a report from the FRCC coming out over the course of the summer. We hope that will help inform the minister and the department as to what steps could be taken with respect to lobster conservation. The other reports that are being developed by the regional director general, in consultation with the deputy ministers, should be out in the next number of months. They won't be there for this fishing season, but they will hopefully be there to inform our decisions relevant to the next season.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Would you put me on the mailing list for that?

I have just two other quick questions here. Just as a matter of curiosity, I looked in the main estimates form and it says that we're spending $12 million more on air cushion vehicle reprofile and $20,000 less on active fishing harbour sunset. Could you tell me what those are?

[Commr George Da Pont]

I can explain, Mr. Chairman.

The air cushion vehicle is a replacement for an existing air cushion vehicle in Quebec. It's been delayed, actually, two or three years, primarily because there were propeller issues that had to be resolved with some of the other air cushion vehicles in that design. We've had to reprofile the money from year to year, and I'm happy to report that all the issues have been settled and that air cushion vehicle is under construction. We're expecting delivery of that vehicle next year.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

And on the final point?

[Cal Hegge]

The second point refers to the $20 million for small craft harbours that were to have sunsetted at the end of last fiscal year. This is now going to continue, but at the time of the documents, of course, it was assumed that it was going to sunset. So that $20 million is actually going to continue on.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So it's not gone; it's still there. Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you, Mr. Casey.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you for the seven minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

If I could have just a point of clarification on Mr. Casey's question, which lobster fishing area is it?

[David Bevan]

It's LFA 25.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

How many licences are in LFA 25?

[David Bevan]

Several hundred, but I don't have the number off the top of my head. I'll have to send that to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Has that increased in the last ten years?

[David Bevan]

No, it's been stable for the last number of years, ever since we brought in a restricted entry back in the seventies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Okay, but all the licences are being utilized?

[David Bevan]

That's been a mainstay of that area, so most, if not all, were being utilized.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you.

Are Mr. Cuzner and Mr. Simms going to split their five minutes?

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

I'm just going to ask a first question off the top.

I think, as has been indicated, the report put forward by the committee and tabled by our chairman yesterday will hopefully be a great aid to the industry as well as to DFO in allowing the industry to go forward.

One thing that the committee was really taken by was the intensity of resources that go into monitoring the seal hunt. When we look at the total fishery and we see what it would take to monitor the crab fishery or the lobster fishery or whatever, are we able to extract what the cost might be for the seal fishery? Some of the costs that are incurred there are to monitor protesters, and hopefully we've put forward some recommendations that will look at trying to see some of that money returned.

Are you, as a department, able to extract the costs of the harvest?

[Larry Murray]

Since we're at main estimates, I would say yes, Mr. Chairman, but how quickly we could do that, I'm not sure.

[David Bevan]

We don't have activity-based accounting. What we do have is proxy, so we know how many hours our fisheries officers would spend on the seal hunt. The seal hunt has been very intense, in particular in the last couple of years. The hunt on the front was very short. All the quota was taken in a very short period of time, a day or so, and that means you have a lot of people involved for a very short period of time, whereas other fisheries go on for weeks and take different kinds of resources.

We could give you some proxy in terms of the number of hours spent versus the total number of hours of patrol, and that would give you an idea of the relative cost of monitoring. I think, though, the fact that the officers have to be on top of very large ships is another big factor in the costs. They aren't on program boats or in cars. They have to be deployed in very difficult conditions, obviously.

We may not be able to get all that--

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

That may be something that will come out in the department's response to the study, as well.

[Larry Murray]

I would say the other part of our response to the seal hunt, as with a few fisheries--it's certainly enforcement and reassuring the world that we are monitoring that one--is a big search and rescue component, so that we're immediately available. It's not just fisheries enforcement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Very quickly, on the area 4Vn, we had input from a fisherman who talked about 340 tonnes of cod in 4Vn being allocated to draggers. They're wondering...in this particular submission. It says:

A meeting is going to be held in Quebec City at the end of the month to make a final, by district, allocation of groundfish between mobile and fixed gear. DFO says this will be final--in other words, not a reversible decision for 15 years, they say. The division will be based on historical catches.

What is the latest on this? Will the draggers end up with 80% and the longliners with 20% in 4Vn? And is this a 15-year window?