Fisheries Committee on May 3rd, 2007

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

Right, but my—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Peter.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our witnesses.

It's an interesting discussion we have before us today. We're talking about science, conservation, and sustainability. I don't think anybody around the table questions that we need science to deal with the fishery today in order to be sustainable and effect appropriate conservation levels.

We also heard from Christina Burridge that it's a very competitive world. We have competitors on the other side of the world who can produce and provide a product to our own market for a fraction of the price.

We're dealing with a dynamic that changes extremely rapidly. If you look at the history of the fishery in the last few years, tremendous change has been forced on the fisheries. We all acknowledge that.

Regarding the whole issue of science, there are lots of different types of science, and DFO is putting more money into science in the general sense.

For the benefit of the committee, I'm wondering if you could help us. We talk about the types of scientific activity: sentinel fisheries, test fisheries, stock assessment, and science surveys. Could somebody do a rapid discussion of these?

If anybody around this table has been involved in test fisheries, we'd appreciate some comments, if you have any.

[Chris Cue, Senior Director of Fishing Operations, Canadian Fishing Company; B.C. Seafood Alliance]

I can give you a quick one on the herring that we just went through. We have an extensive herring program. In the past, we went out for the whole month of March and did charter systems, where you test the fish, put it in and it goes back to the biological station for overall stock assessment.

What happened this year was that at the beginning of February, we were finally given what I'd call a donation of about $300,000 to do a condensed version. They called it the roe quality test program, but instead of doing it for the whole month, we got about 12 or 14 days out of it. It wasn't enough to give us the reality of what was in the water for that month. It was condensed right down.

Christina said $900,000. A lot of that went to DFO personnel, who sort of took over from our herring conservation to take the dive surveys that were done only on a sporadic basis. They weren't fulfilling the whole science that we have.

When it comes to herring next year, we're going to have a smaller TAC, since we didn't fulfill our need for science because of the late timing of getting approval for the costs of our charter program.

When it comes to salmon, we have charter programs that are out in the ocean and work their way back. They give us information on a steady basis about how the fish are showing up in the grounds prior to getting to the spawning grounds. Without that, we would have no way of knowing how many fish are coming, what the diversion rates are, or any way to set up a proper business plan regarding how to catch fish.

Without those systems in place, you are going to struggle until the fish get to the spawning grounds. That's not going to be a very good thing if there are too many of them there. We need that forward-looking science.

[Ron MacDonald]

Is it possible for Geoff to answer that? He has a real practical situation here in B.C.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Sure, we'd like to hear from Geoff.

[Geoff Gould]

Thank you.

Since about 2000, we have done a soft-shell charter program. We test the crab to see when they're moulting. When they moult is when they mate. If we fish on the moulting crab, they're very fragile; we kill them. It's just silly to fish the moulting crab; they're not marketable, and it's illegal to retain soft-shell crab.

We started these charters around 2000. Prior to that the fishery was open for 365 days a year, and we were probably harming the resource. Fisheries brought in an ultra-conservative closure date of March 1 to August 1, months that the fishery would be closed to protect the moulting crab. We started the charters around the same year. We test the hardness of the crab shell and gather other useful data for fisheries: sex, injury codes, the size of the crab so we know the stock assessment, and that kind of stuff. As a result of these charters, on average, over the last five years we have attained an additional 67 days of fishing per season.

The opening, which comes by August 1, or sometimes as early as June or July, is when the bulk of the crab are caught. We probably harvest 80% of the crab catch in those first six weeks. The crabs come out of the deep and migrate into the shallows to moult and mate. If they're ready to go in June, which it looks like they might be this year, and you don't fish them until August 1, you have a chance of missing the entire fishery. This science is not just giving us additional fishing time; it's allowing us to fish the crab when they are harvestable and in their best marketable condition—clean, shiny shells with no barnacles, and stuff like that. It really helps in the marketing of them.

Just to show you the chaos that's going on, this year we asked the fisheries department for funding and they said they had none. We were open in January and February. Three of our fishermen who had done the testing in the past volunteered their time and their vessels and their crews' wages to do testing. We brought in the minimum amount of data that our fisheries person thought we should have, so we have some data this year. Now we're closed. We are in a situation where we have to test in May, June, and July if we want to open before August 1. Our fishermen are going to have to pay. They're not crabbing otherwise, because they're closed. They're going to have to use their own gear, their own boat, pay their crew, pay for their own grub, and pay their own fuel in order to test. Otherwise, they won't have a season. Running one of these boats is probably about $2,500 a day. You're looking at the fishermen going into their own pockets for a hundred grand or more, just so they can have a fishery.

The way the data is shaping up, if we open on August 1 we're going to miss them. The crab are going to be gone. After they've been up in the shallows fooling around, they take off. We don't know where they go, because we don't have that science. We can't catch them once they get out of the shallows. If we don't do that testing this year, we stand to lose the biggest portion of our fishery. The landed value in Prince Rupert is about $22 million a year. We could miss that whole thing.

If charters were properly funded by DFO, the approximate cost of a full charter package would be about $300,000. It's a small investment for a big return for the government.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Did you say you had crews who went out voluntarily?

[Geoff Gould]

Yes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Was that science data monitored by DFO, where it was recorded and went into the system somehow?

[Geoff Gould]

Yes. The crew we use on our charters has been trained by the DFO biologist. There have been three or four boats that have been more or less taking the charters. The crew is well trained in sampling these crabs. We have an annual seminar for them. Over the year they probably handle 4,000 to 5,000 crab each, which they test and monitor and all that. They're pretty good at it.

That data is accepted by the fisheries department as being completely legitimate and usable.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Do you have an agreement with DFO? Would you describe that as a joint project agreement in your fishery, or are you without an agreement at this stage?

[Geoff Gould]

In the past we would put charter bids out in November. Successful vessels would be decided by the association and DFO to make sure they were the appropriate people and they had a trained crew. They would bid on the charter in terms of pounds of crab that they would accept. They were allowed to harvest crab during the closure under a scientific licence to pay for the charter. It was a workable system. Not every fisherman agreed with it, but it was considered acceptable.

Obviously we cannot use the resource now. If they go out and test in May, they have to take it out of their own pockets. If we miss that season, that's not just money out of the crab fishermen's pockets; there are fish plants in Masset and shore workers in Prince Rupert. As we know, when the fishermen are making money it's not just profit to a few of them; it benefits the economy. It benefits the federal crown. The government gets most of it back.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

I think your comment is of interest to many people. In fact, Mr. Haché and Mr. Featherstone would like to say something.

If I may, I will give the floor to Mr. Haché.

[Robert Haché]

This is just a very quick example. With snow crab, you have stock assessment surveys. They're done yearly. They allow you to know, in real time, how much available commercial biomass there is in the water. As an example, in 2003, just before Larocque—the decision of Larocque comes from this situation—the co-management agreement failed. Negotiations with the department failed because the department wanted to increase the capacity in the fishery to an unsustainable level—just to give you an idea—from 130 licences to over 700 allocations. At that time we said that we were not going to finance our own destruction, so we refused the co-management agreement.

When the minister saw that, he cut the quota by 4,000 tonnes, saying he would have no money to finance the science. To cut the quota by 4,000 tonnes in 2003 meant a lack of income of $25 million for communities in northern New Brunswick and on the Gaspé Peninsula. After that, they decided to use the 50 tonnes from Larocque, and we said no, they could not do that. That's why we went to court with Larocque, to put things in perspective.

These are the types of situations we're faced with.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

You have the floor for a few seconds, Mr. Featherstone.

[Mike Featherstone, President, Pacific Harvesters Association; Co-Owner, Oceans Master Foods; Vice-President, B.C. Seafood Alliance]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members.

We've talked about test fisheries. We've talked about stock assessment. The other aspects of fisheries management include—For example, in our fishery we've collected lots and lots of data with stock assessments, but that data needs to be analysed and reported on. That is also a really important part of fisheries management, because then you have exploitation rates and natural mortalities and all the other things to sustainably manage a fishery. Once the fisheries are sustainably managed, we also need to focus on maximizing the economic value of taking that precious resource and bringing it as a value to all Canadians.

Now, we talked about joint project agreements. I'll give you just a quick example, because I know we're constrained by time here. My fishery this year had to cancel its joint project agreement, not necessarily because of Larocque—because we didn't fund from fish, we paid everything over the last number of years directly out of our fishermen's pockets--but because we've been impacted by an illegal, unregulated, and unreported Russian fishery that has decimated our markets. So here you have a small, valued fishery that has 600 to 800 shore workers in Vancouver. And all our fishermen live in coastal communities along Vancouver Island and on the north coast, as well. And we were only able, in spite of all our efforts to fish—

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Could you identify your fishery?

[Mike Featherstone]

We are Pacific urchin harvesters. It's a red sea urchin fishery.

We were only able to fish 50% of our market. We collect our fees through a licence fee by regulation. They have to have a validation logbook to go fishing, which the association gives out, and we collect a $5,500 fee, for a total budget of $600,000. When only 50% of the quota is taken, only 70 licences out of 110 are activated, and that left us with a $200,000 shortfall. So in spite of still contributing $400,000 to the government, not being able to economically survive with our joint project agreement, I had to cancel that agreement with the minister. And now, at a recent sectoral meeting, we were told that—

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

I have been extremely generous with the time. I would not want to jeopardize the other people's speaking time. I have been most generous; I will give you exactly 30 seconds more.

[Mike Featherstone]

Thank you.

So what we were told was that the effects of no funding.... And I'm not saying no funding. We still gave $400,000 this year from a collapsing fishery, due to international markets. If there were no surveys, there would be no updating on the new stock assessment model, there would be a decrease in confidence, and there will be a decrease in quotas.

This is a fishery that's given millions of dollars over the last ten years, cooperatively, to our partners in DFO. And now, because of economic returns that aren't there in the fishery because of illegal Russian fishing, we've been sort of left with no opportunities to fund our science. So we fully support this demand.

I appreciate you giving me just a little extra time. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

It seemed to me that what you were saying was extremely important and relevant. That is why I gave you a little more time. Of course, you will appreciate that you can always come back when you have not had time to complete your answer, in the answers you provide to later questions.

Please begin, Mr. Simms. You have five minutes.

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

Mr. Eidsvik, you brought up something earlier that is somewhat alarming, to say the least. Are you saying that post-Larocque, when by all means we're no longer supposed to fund science through the allocations of catch or what have you, there is money out there now that is being collected and being used? Is that correct?

[Phil Eidsvik]

Unequivocally, post-Larocque, there were at least two fisheries that I know of where millions of dollars were collected in the full knowledge that the fisheries were illegal.

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

Did this receive the tacit approval of a DFO office?