Okay.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lawrence MacAulay
The problem we have is that there's only about three minutes left.
As an Individual
We as the industry in LFA 34 have worked with DFO over the years to create a sustainable lobster resource management system. The following is a snapshot of input controls our inshore lobster fishery management system uses.
The first thing is owner-operator. Next, we have a six-month season. We have a set trap limit. We have in use a standard trap size. It is mandatory to have escape hatches. We have a restriction on the overall length of our vessels. We have a mandatory minimum carapace size. It's mandatory that all berried females be returned, and numerous licence holders v-notch berried females voluntarily. This is supported by the majority of the lobster fishermen.
We would request this from you people, the parliamentary standing committee. We have differences of opinion on what is being presented by FRCC, so we would like to have a copy of the documentation sent to us of what is being presented by the FRCC to this committee, if it would be possible, so we would be able to raise some....
As an Individual
Thank you.
I'm just flipping through, because I have eight pages here and I want to cut it down.
The deterioration of our lobster fishery. Management controls through the effort of DFO to eliminate the licence holder and the owner-operator are causing us some grief because we were not consulted over this. It is important to note that this has caused a lot of difficulty amongst the reps and many of the fishermen, because they see it as a detriment to the industry.
I request that the committee provide another window of opportunity so that we can present information for you in writing.
With that, I will close. I don't want to take any more of your time.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lawrence MacAulay
Thank you very much. It's no problem; you can provide any written submission to the committee at any time. We would be very pleased to have it.
Mr. Hines.
Robert Hines As an Individual
I'd just like to talk to you a little bit. I think Ashton pretty well covered everything.
The input controls in our fishery have managed to get us to where we are. I believe they are part of the problem that exists in our fishery. Everybody is able to reach a certain standard. Right now we have a fishery in which our input controls haven't changed much, but our effort has changed greatly because of people maximizing the input they can have in the fishery. I think that is leading us to a place where conservation might become an issue. We're not really seeing the effects of it; our landings are being maintained because of increased effort. Actually, we might be taking more of a resource than what we realize.
That also flows into the marketing part, because we're maintaining higher levels of landings in our fishery, and marketing has become an issue in some respects.
With no disrespect to Mr. MacDonald, Clearwater is not the only entity in the fishery that can provide a quality product in the marketplace. There are some dealers in the local area who provide an excellent product, a very competitive product. Clearwater sort of has a supply of product because of their offshore licences, which makes it a little more able to market product consistently. It sort of puts them on an unlevel playing field. But with respect to the local dealers, I think they're doing a tremendous job marketing. One of the issues they run into is the availability of air freight, because they're not consistently in the marketplace due to the seasons. They can't receive premium dollars going into some of these markets that they can't be into consistently.
It's a very untrue statement to think that Clearwater is the icon in the industry as far as quality goes.
Thank you.
Conservative
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses today. It's a pleasure to have you come in and be with us and share your knowledge of the industry.
Mr. Hines, you talked about quality. A few of my questions are about quality. Let's put in perspective quality from the boat to the shore and get some idea.... I know we heard Mr. MacDonald this morning, and maybe he led us to believe that the quality isn't there coming from the boats to shore. So my questions are going to be on that aspect, to get an idea of what the quality of the product is, because obviously that's the first step in the chain, and an important one.
On mortality rates, this morning we were led to believe that there's a lot of mortality in the lobsters coming to shore, and a lot are being dumped. It is as high as 10 million to 15 million pounds. I'm just wondering if you feel that this is a fair assessment of the circumstance. Would the industry, in your opinion, be open to some sort of dockside monitoring to see where we're to when it comes to the dock? Is that an avenue that perhaps we should pursue?
As an Individual
Well, as far as dockside monitoring, the logistics of making that happen would be a struggle. I don't see the necessity for it. The fear, from a fisherman's perspective, is that dockside monitoring is inevitably the precursor to quota systems, and I think Ashton's opinion and mine is that we don't really need to go there.
As for quality out of the boat, for the most part, these boats are landing lobsters on a daily basis. The lobsters are out of the water, we'll say, for a maximum of 12 hours. Quality is not an issue coming out of the boat. The lobsters are handled appropriately. Some of the newer vessels in the fleet, such as ours, are fishing offshore. We have live wells in our boats, so the lobsters are kept in water. If we're staying overnight--maybe we're out for 48 hours or something like that--the lobsters are kept in water from the time they come aboard the boat until they're taken out at the dock. So as far as quality issues in the boat, I don't see any quality issues. Lobsters are handled in most people's boats as eggs are handled.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
You're saying that what we were told this morning about the mortality issue is not happening.
As an Individual
It's not an issue from the boats' perspective, unless a circumstance happens where a very minimal amount of product might get lost. If somebody happened to leave a crate of lobsters on the deck for an extended of period of time, it might have become frozen or something like that, but it's not an industry-wide issue.
When you come to the shore and look at the facilities onshore, yes, there have possibly been some issues in the past with some of the holding facilities, but not for the product in the boat.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
You talked about a quota system, and perhaps we can get into that a little more. On dockside monitoring, when you think about it, there's dockside monitoring for crabs. Crabs and lobsters are similar creatures. It's important to make sure that the crab is alive when it gets to the dock for processing purposes. They have it for the crab industry. What is the difference between the crab industry and dockside monitoring and a quota system that's similar to what the lobster industry has?
As an Individual
The crab fishery is ruled by an overall TAC. In that respect, it's essential for dockside monitoring to manage the amount of product coming ashore. The lobster fishery is not ruled by an overall TAC. We deal with input controls. The necessity is really to fill out our logs on a daily basis. If any of the officers come aboard, there's a record of our landings for the day.
I see dockside monitoring as having a couple of negatives. One is the quota system. The other one is that it's another downloaded cost to the industry to be able to facilitate that. If you have a harbour with a hundred boats coming into it, how many monitors are going to be available? How are you going to operate so that the fleet can be back on the water within another 12 hours?
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
I have another question. You briefly touched on v-notching. On our journeys I've been asking questions about v-notching. It's something the Americans use a lot. In my home province, they do it bay by bay. It's different. Do you think we should look at that as a way to keep the female, and for conservation?
As an Individual
I should bring you up to speed here a little so that you'll understand. We're in the process of writing that as we speak. It's in my notes, but I skipped it. We're in the process of writing what is known as a conservation harvesting plan for the department.
There are going to be tools we will use in the event of a decline in our industry, in our landings. We're now close to a 100-year high. We're not quite there, but we're within a very small, minute, little speck of being at a 100-year high. In the event that there is a decline, we're looking at measures that will come into being to put more lobsters into the water to reproduce.
We voluntarily introduced v-notching quite a few years ago. At that time, it was deemed by the minister that there would be a minimum size increase. The fishermen were not supportive. They reacted by saying they would not v-notch. A large number of fishermen still v-notch, but they don't talk about it. We know that because we see a lot of v-notched lobsters in our catch. It's evident. It's a tool we use.
Liberal
Scott Andrews Liberal Avalon, NL
Is it something we should explore a little more to make it mandatory and really move forward on v-notching?
As an Individual
We are using that and other tools in our conservation harvesting plan.
I'll explain the way in which we approach the department. We approach the department by saying it's wiser from the fishermen's perspective for the fishermen to bring in the tools or the measures. If a measure will not work or does not work or is detrimental, if it's been brought in by government or DFO, then it can't be changed. You'd live for a lifetime without being able to correct a problem that was created by a wrong measure being put into place. We promote that it's wiser for the fishermen to bring in measures. If they do not work, then they have the ability to change them and bring in something that will work.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you very much.
Monsieur Lévesque, and I believe you're going to share your time with Monsieur Blais.
Bloc
Yvon Lévesque Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for having come to meet with us this morning.
I also wish to thank our colleague, Greg Kerr, for having welcomed us with such pomp in his riding.
We are talking about processing plants. And what frightens me is seeing large plants snuff out the smaller ones, seeing a loss of competition in the lobster market and seeing fishermen paying the price for this. On the other hand, people say that a larger plant will have greater means so as to be able to process lobster appropriately, and there is also the issue of quality control.
What you are saying is that when you unload your boat, the lobster that you have in your hold is as good as when you caught it, that it is a sure thing and that it does not matter that you may have had it on board for two or three days.
Last year, when we travelled about the country for our small craft harbour report, I was impressed by the pounds. I wondered about the sheets of plywood that we were seeing in the bay, and what was underneath then. They looked like sidewalks on water, and I later learned that they were holding tanks. In my area, we have whales and seals, so we do not put our lobster in pounds.
Do you know for how long lobster can be kept in these pounds and in the holds of your boats? Is there any risk over time that the quality of the lobster decrease?
As an Individual
What happens is that generally the fishermen in LFA 34 are day fishermen. You go out and you come back, but you keep your lobsters in water. Most of the time you keep them in circulating water. You bring them in and put them in what we call lobster cars, or holding facilities. You put them in crates or cages, or you'll put them in a tubing system, where there's a little window or a little slot for each lobster to go in. The quality that you put in is the quality that generally you take out.
How long can you hold them? You can hold them in the tubing system and maintain their quality from December until March, because what happens generally is that the water cools down, the temperature goes down, and the lobster becomes dormant. It doesn't go to sleep, but it is not active; it's almost like hibernation. So they will be maintained in good quality. I eat them; they're perfectly good.
In the springtime of the year, the challenge comes when the water temperature goes up. So what you do is you have a large tank, just as you're going to see today, the holding facility. It's like a huge swimming pool. It has circulators, air, and water. It also has temperature control. It brings the water temperature down to about 32 to 36 degrees and holds that lobster. I personally have held lobster from the second week of May until November, and they're just as tasty in November as they were in May.
Does that answer your question?
Bloc
Yvon Lévesque Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
Are there lobster predators that reduce the stock?