Thank you very much, Mr. Blais.
I am Patrick McGuinness, the president of the Fisheries Council of Canada.
I thought I'd give you some background and maybe talk a bit about sustainability and, of course, end up with the position of the Fisheries Council of Canada with respect to the proposed amendment to the NAFO constitution.
First, I've been involved as an industry adviser to the NAFO delegation since 1985 as vice-president of the Fisheries Council of Canada, now as president, and in that reign have overseen the publication of three documents.
The first one was in 1987, Foreign Overfishing: A Strategy for Canada. Basically, what we took away from that is that Canada had basically developed good cooperation with East Bloc countries, but that type of cooperation was undermined by the activities of Spain and Portugal and, at that time non-NAFO members, South Korea, Mexico, and the United States of America. We did this report in-house.
In 1990, we hired the Oceans Institute Of Canada to produce the document called Managing Fisheries Resources beyond 200 Miles: Canada's Options to Protect Northwest Atlantic Straddling Stocks. This was a great document in terms of 101 for international fisheries management.
The take-away from that document was simply that the Law of the Sea was like reading a book with the last chapter missing, and that was simply to say there is nothing in the Law of the Sea that really addresses straddling stocks and the issues and demise of the resources that we saw on the high seas. Basically, what the Law of the Sea was saying is that if there is a difficulty concerning fishing on the high seas of straddling stocks, the countries should seek to agree to measures as to how that should be handled.
With this document and recognition that there was nothing in the Law of the Sea that could help us address the issue, we started a campaign to try to see if there could be amendments to the Law of the Sea to address this issue. Really, the response from the international legal lawyers who are involved in oceans issues was this: you people in fisheries had your day in 1982 with the Law of the Sea, and what the Law of the Sea gave you was the fact that you have an economic zone out to 200 miles, so you should be very thankful for that; and as far as the Law of the Sea is concerned, your issues have been dealt with.
At the same time, what was happening was an emergence in terms of the issues of biodiversity, and there was the development of a convention with respect to environment and development. So what we basically did with respect to straddling stocks was to redefine the issue. The issue really became one of biodiversity--if you will, the destruction of fish stocks on the high seas, migrating in the straddling stocks, and so on. Our position was that something should be done internationally to deal with the straddling stock issue.
The UNCED conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, I believe, agreed with that concept and gave the message that the United Nations should look toward developing international rules and regulations with respect to the management of highly migratory species and, of course, straddling stocks. In the end, that led to the 1995 United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, or UNFA. Of course, that was also one in which Canada took leadership, and we are very gratified by that development. Nevertheless, in NAFO the issue still seemed to be quite difficult in terms of bringing responsible fisheries management and to stock overfishing.
That led us to continue our quest, and in 2003 we contracted with Dalhousie Law School to develop this document, basically entitled Straddling Fish Stocks in the Northwest Atlantic: Conservation Concerns and Options. We actually got some funding assistance for this from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and from Nova Scotia.
This document identified some recommended or possible amendments to the NAFO convention. Basically, it stated that if it's to be amended, it should incorporate UNFA principles. There should be, if you will, a bilateral type of diplomacy to see whether there can be some common vision among the major beneficiaries in terms of the allocation of stocks--Canada, the European Union, and Russia--on addressing or amending NAFO so that sustainability would be the vision of the future.
It identified decision-making problems in NAFO. It recommended that NAFO have an in-house, accessible dispute settlement mechanism.
Many of the issues coming forward are very important, but they're very much with respect to fisheries management issues. It recommended that the NAFO constitution really start to move and use words like “ecosystem-based management”.
The Fisheries Council of Canada has been in the game a long time. We've actually been hiring people to help us develop a strategy.
I just want to talk about sustainability. One of the big issues the Fisheries Council of Canada has been working on, in concert with an organization we're members of, the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations, is the rehabilitation of the image of fisheries management. We have a problem in fisheries management in terms of the world's perception of us. We've had a record of considerable problems with fish stocks, both in national waters and in international waters.
The bottom line is that worldwide we're in the marketplace competing for a share of stomach with poultry, pasta, meat, and so forth. There's no question that food safety is not our issue. Food safety may be the meat industry's issue. Our issue, in terms of vulnerability, is sustainability. When you talk to retailers and food service operators, they want to ensure that when they're serving their customers, those customers can feel, with respect to the species they're eating, that they are part of the solution and not part of the problem.
What we've seen over the last number of years is that with major retailers in Europe, particularly in the U.K. and in France, and in Wal-Mart and Loblaws here in Canada, with respect to fish and seafood, sustainability is the watchword. To a certain extent, that's a reflection of failures, if you will, in fisheries management either nationally or internationally. To try to address that issue, you basically have to modernize fisheries management.
Our job, in terms of the world marketplace, is to prove two things when we're out there selling fish. One is that we're not ruining the stocks. The other is that we're not ruining vulnerable marine ecosystems. There is pressure on our industry and on fisheries management from the marketplace and, in particular, from environmental NGOs.
As I say, I'm co-chair of the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations, which is the Fisheries Council of Canada, the National Fisheries Institute in the United States, the Russian fisheries federations, the Spanish fisheries associations, Australia, and New Zealand. Basically, industry gets the message. Industry gets the message that if we're going to be in this business, if we're willing to compete in the marketplace, we're going to have to demonstrate to consumers and to the world that what we're doing is sustainable.
In that background, around 2004-05 Canada decided to lead that message with respect to the modernization of NAFO. But really, for an institution that has been spending many years fighting over who gets how much fish--give me the fish, don't give it to you--there was a fairly quick pickup of this message that we have an outside world there, and just as Canada has to clean up its fisheries management regime, NAFO does also. So quite to my surprise, that was picked up.
With respect to the amended convention that we have in front of us, let me just say that the Fisheries Council of Canada has been involved in the process from the beginning. In that process, of course, we have our own industry advisory group that gives us advice as to how we should move, but I can tell you frankly that I've also had discussions and input from Bob Applebaum. His input and advice to us has been very important, as we've gone through the draft, in terms of getting specific types of changes that the Canadian delegation basically bought into and about which, at the same time, they were able to convince their colleagues from other countries.
But in terms of what we're looking at now, from the Fisheries Council of Canada's point of view we do not see any tangible negatives in the document. But we do see specific improvements with respect to the current NAFO regime.
We like the emphasis on consensus, and when consensus is not reached, in order for a proposal to be adopted there has to be a two-thirds voting rule. We like the fact that there's an accessible in-house dispute settlement mechanism. And we like the fact that the document codifies in NAFO a management regime that can be described as modern.
Our recommendation to Parliament will be to ratify the document as presented.
Thank you very much.