Fisheries Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brodie.

Monsieur Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

First of all, let me say that I am sure that your presentation was very interesting, but I really did not understand a lot of it.

I would like to know if you find the NAFO amendments satisfactory or not. Your presentation seemed quite theoretical to me: the kind of work you do, how you do it, and so on. But I am more interested in knowing whether or not you think that you will be able to do a better job under the amendments that have been negotiated, and why?

[William Brodie]

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I alluded briefly to that in my opening statement.

We don't think the proposed amendments to the convention would have a major impact on the functional work or role of the Scientific Council. However, we note that several important considerations are covered in the amendment, such as taking a precautionary approach, such as recommendation of the ecosystem approach, and biological diversity. So there are a number of important aspects of the amendments on which the Scientific Council will be asked to provide advice and to which it will be asked to pay attention to in its work. That's an important consideration with these amendments.

Also important is the continued recognition of the Scientific Council as an equal constituent body, as a member of NAFO equal to the management body, which would be the commission under the amended convention.

Those are important considerations, which I think needed to be raised and of which the committee needed to be aware.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

In your opinion, those are important points. I repeat, in your opinion.

Are the changes to NAFO's Scientific Council going to make it stronger or not?

[William Brodie]

It will be able to provide advice under the precautionary approach. It will be able to provide advice under a wide range of ecosystem approach considerations. Those are strong scientific aspects to consider. The fact that it has been recognized as an equal constituent body and will be able to carry out its work independently and provide clear, transparent scientific advice within the organization of NAFO is important. Operationally, all the rights of the Scientific Council to participate in its work are clearly guaranteed under the new convention. I don't see any concerns from that perspective in the convention amendments. In fact, I see some things on which the Scientific Council will now be requested to provide information that were not the case under the old system.

So yes, I think it's a positive development in many ways.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

If I am not mistaken, you work by consensus. In other words, if one of the contracting parties or one of the countries does not agree with whatever view, it can, scientifically speaking, just say that it does not agree with your position and that is that. So you have no power to require anything. It is an advisory body, you work by consensus.

That was the case before, and it would be the case if all countries, or most of them, ratified the document. So I am having trouble understanding what power the NAFO Scientific Council can have.

Could you give me a really concrete example? I get the impression that you are limited in the possible ways you can become involved, even after the amendments.

[William Brodie]

The Scientific Council strives to achieve consensus on all its advice, and with very few exceptions since the creation of the Scientific Council in the late 1970s, that has been achieved. In the rare instance when the Scientific Council has not been able to achieve consensus, it still produces its report, plus it includes any minority views of other contracting parties that disagree. The Scientific Council chair would then present the report of the Scientific Council and note that there was also a minority position. It still produces its report with I guess you would consider it the majority view and any minority reviews.

As I say, I can remember one instance in approximately 25 to 30 years when that has occurred. It's an extremely rare occurrence for the Scientific Council not to be able to achieve its goals by consensus.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Could you tell us about the time when there was consensus, please? You say that it has happened at least once before.

[William Brodie]

Yes, it was this year. Japan had some reservations with the Scientific Council advice on the science for Greenland halibut and filed a minority report.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today.

Sir, I'm just paraphrasing you here now, but I believe I heard you indicate the amendments to the new NAFO agreement would allow for a more precautionary approach, an ecosystem-based approach to science on some stocks. Am I correct on that?

[William Brodie]

Yes. Those things are referred to specifically in the....

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

Okay. What were we doing before then? I've been on this committee since 1997. I've always heard we've taken a precautionary approach, an ecosystem view of international straddling stocks and stocks within our own waters. Why would you need to put that in an amendment when you already do it?

[William Brodie]

It's something that has come in over a period of time. The precautionary approach, for example, was formally adopted by NAFO, I believe in 2003 or 2004. The ecosystem approach has come into full force, I would say, even more recently with the creation of some committees within NAFO, but it wasn't entrenched in the convention.

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

Okay. So here's my problem with the so-called precautionary approach. When I hear that word, it means we're concerned about a particular stock, 3M cod, for example. We want to make sure that whatever we do, we take the strongest of efforts to protect the integrity of the biomass--so I assume--and you offer a sort of quota from, say, 3 million to 12 million. In my view, the precautionary approach would be that you take the minimum, the bare minimum.

We had DFO here the other time say no, it went up to 5 million, or whatever it was, because of the economics of it. Obviously, it may not be economically viable to go out and catch 3 million, but 5 million might be. It's not exactly what they said, but I think they looked at the economics of catching it as well.

I assume a scientist--and we're going to have Boris Worm on Thursday. I assume your number one concern is the biomass of the fish stocks. When governments or NAFO say they'll take the higher amount, even though it's on the low side, wouldn't you have concerns about that?

Also, while you're thinking of that, do you ever offer advice on the catch methods of various fish stocks, not just seiners or gillnetters, but draggers, trawlers, etc.?

Also, do you ever see these international observer reports unedited when they go back because of the bycatch and concerns of that nature?

My last one for you is--and I say this because many environmental groups say this--that dragging is the worst method of fishing you can have on any fish stock. As a scientist, would you agree with that statement?

That should do it. Thank you.

Take your time.

[William Brodie]

Thank you.

I think there were four questions in there.

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

Yes, no, no, yes.

[William Brodie]

Yes to question three. I have seen observer reports and various other reports that offer details of fishing in the NAFO areas.

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

The reason I say this is that we don't get to see them unedited.

[William Brodie]

On advice on catch methods, occasionally we at the Scientific Council are asked to provide information on certain catch methods. Usually the questions pertain more to mesh size, or maybe to bottom fishing versus mid-water fishing; I'm thinking of redfish now.

I remember many years ago looking at questions on longlining for Greenland halibut, for example, so yes, it does happen. It's not a common occurrence, but we are asked occasionally to provide information on fishing gear and catch methods.

A more recent example would be that of providing information on ways to reduce cod bycatch through gear technology. We've provided some recent information. In fact, there is a standing request from the Fisheries Commission to the Scientific Council to provide additional materials on ways that bycatch might be reduced. I think this perhaps would fall within that general type of advice. We've also provided advice on the use of what's called the Nordmore grate to exclude groundfish bycatch from shrimp trawls. I think there are probably a number of things within that category.

I think your last question was on whether dragging is the worst form of fishing. That's not a question we've considered. I suppose there's a potential for fishing gears of any sort to do harm on certain types of habitat if not used properly, but we haven't evaluated or considered the impacts of dragging versus longlining versus gillnetting. Certainly there would be features with all of those gears that would have to be monitored closely depending on how they were used, what types of fish they were directed at, what types of bottom they were used on, and so on.

With regard to your question on the precautionary approach and 3M cod biomass, simply taking the lowest number all the time is not really how we would view the precautionary approach. We would view the advice provided by the Scientific Council as consistent with the precautionary approach. If, for example, the range of catch options provided gave a very low risk of something negative happening to the stock, such as dropping below a certain level of biomass or not increasing fast enough, under a range of options we would consider the precautionary approach under all of those features.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Brodie.

Mr. Kamp.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Brodie and Mr. Gillis, for being here.

I'll begin, and if there is more time left, perhaps some of my colleagues will have a question or two as well.

Perhaps I can just start out with a clarification, because I think there is a little confusion around the table on the issue of Canada's jurisdiction over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks outside of the 200-mile limit. Perhaps you can tell me if I'm right in thinking that although the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea allows Canada to make that claim, it's a process that Canada must engage in.

In fact, Canada is currently involved in seabed mapping and so on in order to make that claim, which has to be submitted under that convention by 2013. We're making good progress toward that.

That's my understanding. Is it yours as well?

[William Brodie]

Perhaps I'll defer to my colleague, Mr. Gillis, on that one.

[David Gillis, Director, Fish Population Science, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

I'll certainly provide what information I can.

As part of the issue you're raising, there are activities under way right now, as you've said, to increase our knowledge of the seabed outside 200 miles, and there's obviously a schedule that will be followed to bring this to completion.

My understanding of it is that Canada, in the meantime, through its arrangement with NAFO, is referring to the advice that comes from the NAFO Scientific Council for those areas outside 200 miles, and that advice is provided to the commission table. As for whether that will change in the future, I think we'll have to wait. It remains to be seen.

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

I guess my point would be that really it's not quite accurate to say that NAFO, by the recent decisions made in Norway, is intruding on what we could accurately call Canadian jurisdiction--at this point in time, at least.

Who pays for the science that NAFO does? You say NAFO doesn't do the actual research, but I guess the Scientific Council.... Who pays the bill for all of that?