Fisheries Committee on March 13th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

We'll discuss it further the next time Mr. Blais asks questions.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

First of all, Madam, welcome to Ottawa.

As my colleagues indicated, your résumé is very impressive, and I congratulate you on that. I wish you the best of luck with DFO.

One of the concerns we have, of course, is getting information out to the fishermen in their communities in a timely fashion. I have three e-mails here that came to me in the last couple of days, and they're typical of what I get throughout the country on a regular basis.

Here's one from the Sportfishing Defence Alliance. It says that for 82 days now he's been waiting for one simple answer from a DFO official named Mr. LeBlanc. He hasn't gotten it yet, and he wants to know why.

Here's another one. Another gentleman in Victoria has been waiting for a long time on an answer regarding reinstating salmon enhancement programs—still no response, even though he's e-mailed, phoned, and the whole bit.

Here's another one that is quite disturbing, from the west coast troll fishery. It comes from Kathy Scarfo and Roy Alexander, who I'm sure Mr. Bevan would know. I'll just read it to you:

Last week, we were officially notified by the DFO negotiator on the Pacific Salmon Treaty that the U.S. had made an offer to eliminate our fishery for $16 million. DFO lead negotiator informed us that they intend to return with a counter proposal that while not completely eliminating us would result in enough fish for only 6 of our 168 licenses. While in principle, we disagree with the elimination of our fleet, we have been warned by your officials that if we did not accept the buy-out as proposed, they would continue to reduce and eliminate all access to fish from our licensed fleet and we would be left with nothing.

I just can't see why DFO would operate in a manner of that nature. What I would like to do is to give you these—I know you're new here—and ask that you or your officials when you have a chance could call these individuals and give them the answers they're looking for. This particular one is most urgent. They're asking for a meeting with some senior officials, if that's possible.

The reason I do that is because that is consistent with what we get across the country. They send e-mails, they phone, they go to meetings; all they're asking for are basic answers, and they can't get them. I'm hoping that while you're here, being new blood in the department, you could shake the department up a bit and make them understand that if the taxpayer is looking for a response to a question, even if it's not the answer they like, they should have it in a timely manner. Would you agree?

[Claire Dansereau]

Yes, I do, actually. You have seen the movement of my career: I've been inside of government and I've been outside of government. I have been in provincial government. Outside of government I was in an NGO, and I know the difficulty of trying to access information, to get these people to even talk to you. I understand the difficulty of being faced with the bureaucracy, and I take it really seriously, as does the deputy minister and the minister. We have a minister who's very closely involved with the issues. We have a parliamentary secretary as well. I think there is absolute support for the notion that we need to be able to answer questions when they come up.

I don't think any department could ever be 100% perfect on something like that, because e-mails get lost or.... But if the systems are in place that allow it to happen, and if the philosophy is supportive of that type of response, then we should be able to satisfy most people. So I'll take your e-mails and I will look into those individual cases. But I can tell you that the department as it's currently structured is trying very hard to reach that. Obviously we can improve, and if it means even improving systems on just our general Internet site and things like that, we will do that as well.

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

Thank you.

On another issue, we had discussions before regarding the coast guard itself. It's probably unfair to ask you this at this time, but it's just something to reflect upon in the future.

A certain party that is in government now actually assured us that one of its goals may be the opportunity of the coast guard to be not a special operating agency, but a stand-alone agency. There's been a lot of talk, at least down on the east coast, about actually moving coast guard out of DFO and into the realm of, say, the public safety minister. Instead of Mr. Hearn, it would be Mr. Day.

Those discussions were when the Liberals were in power and also with the Conservatives, although nothing has really moved on it. It's just idle chat right now. We'd like to make the minister's life a lot easier, to give him less responsibility.

Is that something you would consider even looking at, in order to ensure enhanced safety and security measures, revamping the coast guard, not just for fisheries and environment and immigration, but also to aid in our security of our three oceans, to make it a stand-alone agency under a new minister, in this case the public safety minister? You don't have to answer if you don't want to.

[Claire Dansereau]

I'm not going to pretend to know the answer at all. I really don't know the answer to that question. I think it is something the coast guard and the commissioner of the coast guard need to put their minds to and the government of the day needs to determine.

For me, form always follows function. If we determine there's general agreement on the function, then where it's placed is a secondary question for me.

No, I won't say any more on that.

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

Fair enough.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

That's your time, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Dansereau, for coming. It's always a delight to welcome to committees on Parliament Hill somebody from Baie-Comeau, and having spent most of your adult life in B.C. is also a good thing.

I have one issue I want to raise with you, and then I'll pass it over to one of my colleagues. I understand from your comments that one of the files you've been given is the whole issue of gravel removal, particularly on the west coast. As you know, the Fraser River runs through my riding, so it's an issue I follow fairly closely as well. It's never without controversy in my riding and in the area.

When gravel extraction is done on the Fraser River, I think there are two things I'm looking for, and whether they can both be done at the same time I don't know. One is that DFO officials aren't overly obstructionist, that they're actually part of the process in a constructive way, but also that DFO is doing its job in terms of protecting fish and fish habitat. Some would think you can't remove gravel and do that.

I'm just wondering what your comments are on this, what your involvement is, and if you can comment at all on the gravel removal projects that are probably nearing an end. As I understand, the authorizations were for March 15 and perhaps to the end of the month. What can you tell us about the approach that DFO takes with respect to gravel removal in these projects in particular?

[Claire Dansereau]

Thank you.

For those who know the history, it's a very interesting situation. It's a typical resource quandary, because protection of fish has to be paramount to the department, but for the province there's a very real concern that, depending on how the snowpack melts in British Columbia, there can be flooding and there are many communities along the Fraser that could be affected by that flooding.

The province, at the moment, has situated gravel removal in the hands of its provincial emergency response program, PEP. My responsibility right now is to work with the provincial government and our people to help get us away from a crisis response to how this should happen and develop more of a long-term planning approach, which takes as its core the two fundamental requirements—that we remove the gravel in such a way that we ensure maximum flood protection, while protecting fish to the maximum of our ability as well.

The link between flooding and the growth of gravel, because gravel keeps getting deposited every year, is not necessarily straightforward. It's a matter of picking those sites where there would be maximum benefit to the flood control program, recognizing that the bulk of the flood control program has to be the building up of the dikes and the other work the province has to do, but gravel removal has a certain role in it.

To answer the specific question, for this year the removals that were planned for this spring are almost complete, and now we're working on a medium plan for what needs to be done next January and then a long-term plan so that we don't have to deal with this on a yearly basis, out of fear of what may happen. As in all resource management, it ought to be on a planning basis, and that's the plan we're putting together right now. I think we're generally satisfied.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

So DFO does factor in, tries to address, the question of whether the gravel removal is actually going to address flood concerns.

[Claire Dansereau]

What we want to do is work with the province to determine.... First of all, for us it's fish protection first, and once we set that aside, we ask whether it's possible that there are areas that can also address some of the flood fears. Then we combine the two sets of considerations at the same time and in that way we reduce some of the fear around the flooding. We're not sure that there's a direct link as much as some say between the flooding and the gravel, but there can be some link, so any way we can help actually is what we intend to do.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Five minutes, Mr. Keddy.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

I would like to thank Ms. Dansereau for appearing at committee today. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

I look at this as an opportunity for the committee to get to know you a little better and for you to get to know us. Most times we're fairly civil to one another and the committee doesn't work too badly, but we never miss an opportunity to take a shot at the other team, so to speak. I wouldn't want to miss mine this morning. I do congratulate you on your new position, and I'm sure that bringing a fresh face to DFO, with all respect to Mr. Bevan and Mr. Hegge, is not a bad thing.

I have to pick up a little on the point that Mr. Byrne made on the WTO. I would expect that you would find it refreshing that finally we have a minister in charge of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who has taken an issue that the Liberals hid very successfully for five years--and I realize you can't comment on politics and I appreciate that--and made sure no one knew who was at the WTO, and finally has allowed the sun and the air of the light of day to flow upon it. We now can actually do something about it, because it is a very important issue to all of us, on both coasts.

I'm sure Mr. Stoffer will get his press release out immediately on the three e-mails that he gave you today and be able to say that he has passed them right off and now they're looked after, and I appreciate that. But I do have two questions that have bothered me for my ten years as a parliamentarian, ones that have not been answered yet by the department or any government. I was hoping we would see some of this in the Fisheries Act, and it's not there. And that is, how we deal with the question of boat length and the fact that boat length no longer is there for safety reasons. It was an artificial measure put in to control the catch. Now that we've gone to ITQs, everything is in a quota system except the lobster fishery, and that is partially in a quota system because it's limited by the number of traps.

On the boat length, I have fishermen fishing out of Riverport, fishing out of small harbours in southwest Nova Scotia, who fish off of Georges Bank. They're out 180 miles offshore. There's something wrong with doing that in a 37-foot boat, because you can't have your lobster licence transferred from that 37-foot boat to a 45-footer or even a 50-footer. That's a safety issue that really I would like a fresh set of eyes to have a look at and maybe do something about.

The other thing that the ITQ system brought in was the ability to sell fish. We have far too many former fishermen who have used it as a retirement system, who no longer fish. Many of them don't even own a boat, have no intention of fishing, and yet they have 20 tonnes of haddock quota or they have cod quota and they're selling that quota to fishermen who want the fish. Those are issues we've been grappling with. I think the former government grappled with them. I know that the officials grapple with them. But we really do need to do something about that. And I realize that's not as simple as saying this is what we'll do tomorrow.

Do you have any thoughts on those two issues?

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

A four-minute-and-20-second question gives you 40 seconds to answer.

[Claire Dansereau]

Okay, good. That's very good, because that's about how much information I have on the answer.

What I will do, though, is take back the question and talk it over with Dave and do as you say, put a fresh set of eyes on it in the same way as I will on the communications questions.

So thank you for the question, and I can't pretend to have an answer.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Okay, thank you.

And I wasn't too hard on you guys

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, once again.

We've gone through our first round. As we begin our second round, I know some people may be on medication and there are other reasons why they may be off to a rough start this morning. I just want to remind the committee:

The scope of a committee’s examination of Order-in-Council appointees or nominees is strictly limited to the qualifications and competence to perform the duties of the post. Questioning by members of the committee may be interrupted by the Chair, if it attempts to deal with matters considered irrelevant to the committee’s inquiry.

I was nice during the first round. My Irish blood will come out in the second round if you don't calm down. Thank you very much.

Whoever is next--Mr. Matthews.

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

After that ruling, Mr. Chairman, I think I've been side-swiped, because my question had nothing to do with the associate deputy minister's qualifications or her bio or anything. It had nothing to do with that.

I can't help but say that after the minister was here Tuesday, and after hearing Mr. Keddy's remarks, we have nothing to worry about on the WTO issue. If anyone raises it in the future, I will tell them that the committee has been categorically told that it's under control and we don't have to worry about EI or financial support for infrastructure.

So I'm just letting you--

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Feel at ease on your break. Enjoy your break.

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

I will.

So I can't ask a question that I couldn't ask Tuesday because we ran out of time with the minister, so now you're telling me--

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

If the question has relevance to the appointment, I'm sure that Ms. Dansereau can feel free to answer. If I feel compelled that you're going outside the limits, I'll have to--

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

Well, there's no doubt. Before I ask it, I know I'm outside of that boundary, Mr. Chairman.

I want to ask the associate deputy minister and Mr. Bevan about the recent transfer of quota between the Barry Group and Clearwater Fine Foods. Can you tell us how much quota was involved?

[David Bevan]

There was 1,900 tonnes of 0B turbot, which was the bulk of it. Most of the other fish went to Clearwater Fine Foods, approximately 1,600 tonnes. The rest went to a Newfoundland company.

It would be apparent that most of the groundfish quotas held by the Barry Group are being eliminated and transferred to other companies. They're asking us to make those transfers take place, so virtually all of Barry's groundfish quotas are being asked to be transferred to other enterprises.

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

Could you inform the committee what dollars changed hands on this transaction?