Fisheries Committee on June 3rd, 2008

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

That's good.

The witnesses before you provided some anecdotal evidence. In particular, there was an account by Mr. Cyril Burns. I don't know whether you had a chance to read that. I think he was under contract to be involved in a test fishery. It's a bit disturbing, if you read it at face value. It seems to indicate that DFO is looking for places not to catch fish so they can justify their position on this. If they do catch fish, that kind of bothers them.

I wonder if you can comment on that.

[Sylvain Paradis]

From what I understand, and I wasn't part of any of those discussions with Mr. Burns, he was contracted to catch fish for another research program we had; it wasn't part of the overall survey program. From what I can see, it happened that he caught a lot of fish. I cannot comment on whether he was told he would never be hired again because he had caught fish.

I don't think there's a deliberate effort from our scientists to pick people who don't want to catch fish, especially when they know there are benefits for the fishery.

[David Bevan]

Some of that behaviour was before the Larocque case, as I recall, and there were some opportunities to make use of that fish by the person involved.

There's an old adage in fisheries management about fishing being like dipping your cup into a barrel of water: you can always fill that cup, right up to the point where you've emptied the barrel. That's been the case in the cod fisheries. We've seen that in northern cod, when the offshore catch renewed effort was very high and kept going up, right to the last set, when the moratoria had to come in.

People can always go out and catch fish. These guys are professionals. They know how to set on the concentrations. There's not a problem to do that, but it doesn't mean that the whole ocean is full of fish.

I think that's something we have to be knowledgeable about. The reason we use time series data is to create an opportunity to see a trend. And we're seeing a trend in the southern gulf that is very disturbing. It's downward, and it's substantially lower than anything we've seen in the past. We have to take that into consideration.

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

Mr. Bevan, I think in your comments you said that although there were some fishermen here who had a different view, that many, and perhaps most fishermen in the southern gulf, agree with the department's position that it's in decline and in serious trouble.

I think you sometimes do telephone surveys and so on. Can you tell us how you reached that conclusion?

[David Bevan]

We reached that conclusion through the advisory process and through feedback we get from fishermen's organizations and groups.

There were questions last year about why we had a fishery of 2,000 tonnes. I'd remind the committee that even at 2,000 tonnes the TAC wasn't taken--only about 75% of it was taken. That's an indication of significant problems as well.

So we had a fishery last year where we were not seeing an abundance of available fish and people were wondering why one would want to continue to target a species that seems to be in decline. It's not unanimous. Obviously there are people who really need this fish, and that need is reflected in their desire to continue to have a fishery.

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

Okay.

By the department's estimates, there's a spawning biomass of 36,000 tonnes in 2008. If you followed the desires of the fishermen and had a TAC of 4,000 tonnes for the next three years, what would that do, in your estimation? Do you know what that would do to the spawning stock biomass in terms of tonnage?

[David Bevan]

One thing I note from the RAP is that the science advice is that the spawning stock will go down no matter what we do. It will be extirpated if the trends continue over the next few decades. If we fish, we can accelerate that. If we fish 2,000 tonnes, it's expected to be extirpated within the next 20 years; if we fish 4,000 tonnes, that will accelerate it further.

We are looking at the need for time to evaluate what we can do with respect to grey seals and what the other factors are that are causing this high mortality. I think if we go for 12,000 tonnes over the next three years, we'll see some significant impacts.

[Sylvain Paradis]

I don't have a firmer number, but the SAR recommend that if there's no fishing, the extinction would be in 40 years. If we fish at 2,000 tonnes, it would be in 20 years. So at 4,000 tonnes, it will be even faster.

I'd like to raise the issue of the precautionary approach that Mr. Couillard brought forward.

In an environment where the stock is in a very unstable, very low status, I think it's our responsibility to take our time to make decisions that will not jeopardize the stock. If we hold back and we do a good assessment and we look at it again with the fishermen and we find there are a lot of fish, the fish are going to be there next year and it's going to be good news for everybody. If we find the situation as bad as we claim, we will not have dug the hole even deeper, and that's where the precautionary approach comes about. If the fisheries are in very good shape, no one is challenging the science. The science is there; the stocks are increasing; the TAC is increasing and everyone is happy. In this case, the trend is downward.

No one is challenging the northern cod this year because we had a TAC and everyone is excited, and we see an upward trend, and we'll continue to work together and make a good assessment. But I think that's where the precautionary approach comes about: if it's risky, let's take a bit of time and do a good job before taking on a risky business. That's part of what we call sustainable development, sustaining a long-term fishery with a good environmental condition.

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

In this case, the data seems to show that it's heading towards extirpation, regardless of whether we fish or not. It's just a matter of time, given the current conditions. So is the approach then that we should fish it as little as we can in the hope that perhaps the conditions will change? In other words, maybe with natural mortality, non-fishing mortality, conditions will change and perhaps we'll have the possibility of recovery in the future.

[Sylvain Paradis]

That's the picture we've seen in the northern gulf, and that's why we have to be cautious. Two years ago the trend in the northern gulf was going down. It's going up slightly this year. I think we may have a similar issue in the south.

We're seeing another trend. People are claiming and they go to information that the cod are recovering, the northern cod out of Newfoundland, and we'll be looking at it.

So it's very important to be cautious in the way we move forward together.

[David Bevan]

Productivity goes up and down in the ecosystem. In the past we didn't look at that and we created horrible problems when we kept fishing at one level and assumed a stable state in the ocean. We all saw the horrible costs this caused us. I think we need two things in the southern gulf. We need to make sure we don't do something irreversible. Second, we need a bit of time to look at the causes of low productivity and high mortality. If it turns out to be seals, we need to do something about them.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Good luck with doing something about the seals.

Before we go to our second round, how many gulf cod stocks are there, for my information?

[Sylvain Paradis]

There's the northern gulf, the southern gulf, and the 3Ps, which is a mix in southern Newfoundland, which is like a bit of the northern gulf sliding in, and a bit of the northern cod coming in, so that's at least three in the gulf area.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Yes, I've been in situations where I've heard the northern gulf people argue that they and 3Ps were the same, so I wondered how many there really are.

There's another thing for my information, again, before we go to my colleagues. The gentlemen who were before you want to standardize the criteria and methods in the south and the north. Can you tell me what the difference is right now in the assessing and so on? What's the difference in the—

[Sylvain Paradis]

The approaches are fairly similar, but because of environmental conditions sometimes you don't do the job the same way. In those two stocks, the methods are fairly similar. We're not using the same years, but they have been calibrated. We have fairly consistent ways to do business. The model includes the same kinds of factors: mortality, size of fish, maturation, year class, and so on.

We're looking forward in September to getting real, clear guidance from the fishermen about what they would like us to do in a different way.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Simms. We're going for a second round.

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

Can you give us an update on the latest stock assessment reports for the gulf area and for northern cod? Have they been released?

[Sylvain Paradis]

Yes. I have copies here for both the northern and southern gulf cod, and they're on the website of the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat.

Are you looking at the spawning biomass? For 2008 the spawning biomass is at 36,000 tonnes for the southern gulf, driven down from 43,000 tonnes last year. Last year the minister approved 2,000 tonnes, and we're waiting for the decision this year.

In the northern stock, in 2007 we were at 29,000 tonnes. This year we're at 26,000 tonnes. The minister last year approved 7,000 tonnes for the fishery, and has given 7,000 tonnes again this year.

The spawning biomass is a bit lower because we see some natural upturn and the mortality has shrunk.

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

That was my next question: what has the announcement been for a directed fishery in northern cod? You said it's the same as last year.

[Sylvain Paradis]

Yes, it's 7,000 tonnes.

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

What I find odd is that just a short time ago you cut the red fishery in 3N and 3NO, and the reason given was cod bycatch. That's interesting.

Do you have a comment on that? We're certainly not talking about the inshore stocks. Assessments for the past three or four years for northern cod have been that the inshore stocks are at a fairly healthy level, but they're at a dangerous level in the offshore.

[David Bevan]

The 3NO stock is in serious trouble. It is unable to sustain the bycatch. We've been making tremendous efforts internationally and nationally to drop that bycatch. We have made real progress in doing so, but that stock can't take directed fishing. It can only take bycatch, and we have to keep that to the lowest possible level.

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

I'll pass it to my colleague Gerry.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Bill Matthews]

Mr. Byrne.

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

Mr. Paradis, it seems to me you've articulated something that sometimes inflames the situation among fishermen. You've both testified that more than once DFO has been wrong. But the precautionary principle should remain wholly that it's better to be wrong and that there are more fish than wrong and there are no fish.

The consequence of imposing a moratorium on the southern gulf would probably result in about $10 million lost to the economy. Yet there seems to be the approach that if you're wrong, that's great, because it means there were more fish there than what you anticipated, and we'll have better fisheries in years to come. But there would still be $10 million in lost revenue, of economic activity.

When is DFO going to come to the point, when articulating the precautionary principle, where you also say you are going to impose upon yourselves a discipline to put in place the scientific scrutiny to make sure you get it right? Right now you're simply shrugging your shoulders and saying, “If we get it right, we get it right. If we get it wrong, we get it wrong. But we'll always err on the side of caution.” When is science going to be factored into this more?