Thank you very much and welcome to the Magdalen Islands. I especially want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to express the concerns of people in the lobster fishing industry and the community that depends on it.
Today, I am accompanied by the President of the Association des pêcheurs propriétaires des Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Mr. Mario Déraspe, as well as Mr. Christopher Clark. They will have a chance to answer your questions following my presentation.
It is possible that I will ask for your indulgence if my presentation goes over the 10 minutes allotted to me. We had very little time to prepare; we did not know whether you were going to be able to land.
Basically, we are going to be talking about biology, management and landings. Some of you are well acquainted with the lobster fishery. It is important that we all be on the same wavelength before starting the questions. Of course, we will be talking about profitability and vision—the aspects of interest to you—in other words, what we can do to deal with the crisis currently affecting the industry. I have tabled some tables and graphs that deal specifically with the Magdalen Islands. I will not comment on them now, but during the discussion period, we can look at them in more detail.
In the Magdalen Islands, the lobster fishery is competitive. It operates by controlling the fishing effort. In the Magdalen Islands, just like everywhere else, concentrations of lobsters are found on the rocky seabed. In terms of biology, it is significant for us, here in the Magdalen Islands, that female lobsters reach sexual maturity when they are more than 79 mm long. In the Magdalen Islands, females reach maturity when they are 83 mm long.
The federal government has responsibility, as well as the necessary tools, to ensure conservation of the resource, particularly through management plans. However, the Magdalen Islands long benefited from delegation of fisheries administration to the province, but which was repatriated in 1983.
You undoubtedly know that, since the early 1980s, with the exception of the lobster fishery and the snow crab fishery, to a lesser extent, all the other fisheries have pretty well disappeared, whether we are talking about cod, herring, mackerel, redfish or any other species. We obtained five or six permits following the transfer of fisheries administration from the province to the federal government.
I would now like to address the question of stock conservation. At our request, the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, or FRCC, looked at overfishing of lobster stocks. This may not often have been mentioned. Previously, the FRCC looked only at the cod fishery.
At the time, the FRCC was advocating egg production, lower exploitation rates and improvement of the stock structure. The FRCC's objective was to double egg production.
In the Magdalen Islands, we achieve this by increasing the legal minimum size. Between 1997 and 2003, we increased the legal minimum size from 77 to 83 mm. This allowed us to double egg production and meet the productivity goal set by the FRCC.
In Quebec, about 600 licences are issued. Of that number, 540 are fished, including 325 in the Magdalen Islands. That is an approximate figure. In Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia respectively, 1,300, 1,600 and 3,300 licences are issued. That gives you an idea of the number of licences per province.
You have met with officials from Fisheries and Oceans. Licences are granted based on lobster fishing areas, or LFAs. Each area has its own number, but some areas are much smaller than others. In the Magdalen Islands, we are lucky to have an area that fits with the biological pattern of the lobster, which is a relatively sedentary species. We never wanted to divide our area into sub-areas, as has been done in other regions, as it would make management extremely difficult. So, we have always avoided splitting up our area into different smaller areas where every fisher is “master in his own house”. That would cause problems in neighbouring areas. We want to keep our area intact.
Generally speaking, many of the management measures used here resemble those in other provinces, but some of them are peculiar to the Islands. Our season is nine weeks long from opening to closing. Specifically, there are six fishing days per week, from Monday to Saturday. The minimum size of a catch is 83 mm. In the past, the maximum number of traps was 300; it is now 288 and continues to fall.
Of course, we release any egg-bearing females that are caught, and large traps are prohibited, which is peculiar to the Magdalen Islands. It is mandatory for the traps to have an escape hatch for small lobsters and it is prohibited to haul and bait traps more than once a day. There is a minimum number of traps per trawl, as well as a maximum trawl length—which again, is peculiar to the Islands.
The fishing season begins in early May, when the ice has melted, and ends when the lobster moult in early July. The lobster size had already increased from 64 to 76 mm. As I said earlier, it was only from 1997 to 2003 that we increased it from 77 to 83 mm.
We abide by conservation plans, which are now implemented over a five-year period.
In the United States, the size is 3¼ inches, or 82.5 mm. In terms of the general status of the stocks, I mentioned earlier that we had doubled egg production. A ten-year plan has been put in place with a view to decreasing the fishing effort. It involves two phases, and we are currently in the fourth year of Phase 1. The number of traps was reduced from 300 to 288 in 2009, and we will continue to lower that number gradually. We will be removing three traps per year until Year 10.
As regards the catch, we operate the same way as everywhere else. We use traps and passive gear. Here it is an inland fishery only. As I explained, the traps are made out of wood or metal.
In terms of landings, you are surely aware that a little more than 50 per cent of lobster comes from the United States. It is called homarus americanus. Canadian lobster represents a little less than 50 per cent. In Canada, 50 per cent of the lobster comes from the Gulf and the other 50 per cent comes from outside the Gulf. That gives you a good overview. The table shows that Nova Scotia lands more lobster here. For Quebec, it is about 5 per cent of production, 70 per cent of which comes from the Magdalen Islands. So, for Magdalen Islands, we are talking about a production level that is normally about 4 per cent.
In terms of how our landings have evolved, you may want to have a quick look at the table. We reached a peak in the early 1990s. In our view, we reached it too quickly. That was probably due to too rapid an increase in the fishing effort. There has been a decline in 1996, 1997 and 1998. That is when we really decided to bring the situation under control. Thanks to the steps advocated and defended by leaders of the Association, with the support of fishers, of course, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, we were able to turn things around. Since then, we have seen a constant progression. We went from 4 million to 5.5 million pounds. That is a phenomenal increase. It is almost a 35 per cent increase. The important thing to know here is that, this time around, we moved slowly and gradually. This did not come about as a result of an increase in the fishing effort. On the contrary, we enforced the management plans and we controlled the fishing effort.
