Thank you, David.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to discuss this most important fishery with you and the standing committee.
I say “most important fishery” in the context that, as this group already realizes, I'm sure, the lobster fishery in Atlantic Canada has been the largest fishery for a single species in the country in terms of value. The landed value in 2007 was $562 million. In addition to this value, we must also recognize the spinoff businesses that the fishery supports and the added value of processed and exported products.
Unfortunately, the current economic downturn has recently hit all Canadians fisheries hard, especially those in the higher end of the market such as lobster. Nevertheless, lobster fishing remains a mainstay of Atlantic Canadian communities today, with over 10,000 licensed fishermen as well as others in the processing sector and exporting industries.
A total of 25,000 Atlantic Canadians make a living in this industry. With this context, it is essential that the lobster fishery be managed in a fashion that ensures that, in benefiting from the resource today, we do so in a sustainable manner. Simply put, we must ensure that future generations of Canadians have at least the same opportunity to take benefit of this legacy resource as we do today.
It was for this reason that Ministers of Fisheries and Oceans have twice now asked the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council to look at the Atlantic Canada lobster fishery and to advise them on approaches that government and industry can use to ensure this important goal is securely met.
The department is certainly pleased that the committee has taken this important fishery as a focal issue and that you'll soon be travelling across Atlantic Canada to discuss and consult with interested parties. We know, of course, that you've recently met with chairman Jean Guy d’Entremont of the FRCC and his executive team and that you're now quite familiar with their most recent recommendations from their report, A Sustainability Framework for Atlantic Lobster 2007.
The department has retained three principal messages out of this report and has called for regional staff to work with the industry on how best to advance these in their respective fisheries. These three objectives are improved controls on fishing effort; better information about the resource and the fishery; and improved governance. The department considers that the FRCC report is a very useful reference for departmental managers, scientists, and the industry, as it discusses revised management approaches that will take the lobster fishery in the broad directions that the council has outlined.
There are a number of new initiatives that are under way in numerous fisheries that are the direct result of the FRCC's recommendations. These initiatives are in addition to the regular program of science and management activities that we conduct related to lobster year in and year out.
The lobster fishery is a long-established one, and one where the management system has evolved in close association with the communities that the fishery has supported for generations. The effort control approach to management that is used in the inshore fisheries is to some extent unique, and for that reason so is the science program that supports this management system. The effort control approach to management that we use in all but one of the Canadian fisheries, lobster fisheries, is basically similar to that used by our American neighbours for the same species as well as that used by the closely related European lobster fisheries in the North Sea and adjacent waters. It's a style of management that lobster fishers widely support and may be, in many ways, an approach to which this species is well suited.
Other approaches to management based on output controls, such as quotas, would of course demand knowledge about abundance of populations that would be challenging to acquire and maintain in a comprehensive fashion. That said, we recognize that the world continues to evolve and adapt to emerging pressures, and the Canadian lobster fishery must do so as well. Consumers are more demanding today that fisheries be not just sustainable, but they be demonstrably sustainable.
Eco-certification and labelling for sustainability is a real and rapidly emerging requirement to access and maintain key markets, especially for higher-value products. As well, states that impose strict conservation measures on their fisheries increasingly require that measures of at least the same effect be taken by the other states that export to them.
Collectively, these pressures require that the government, the industry, and the many other interested parties work together to keep the Canadian lobster industry well managed for the times in which we live and sustainable over the long term.
In the department we have many expert and dedicated staff who work with each other and with the industry on these matters on a regular basis. The department has made lobster a priority species for new funding recently received to stabilize the collaborative science program in the wake of the Larocque decision, which this committee has heard about in the past. We are introducing new initiatives under the fisheries renewal action plan to guide decision-making in all Canadian fisheries, including lobster, toward a more ecosystem-based approach.
I would say the FRCC report complements these efforts very nicely by providing independent corroboration that these broad directions are important and appropriate and by outlining some of the tools that would be available for use in achieving them.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. My colleagues and I would be very pleased to entertain your questions and comments.
Merci beaucoup.