Thank you, Randy.
We've handed out a document that outlines what we hope to present here today. We'd like to show how the monitoring, control, and surveillance program applies to the reform process. We would also like to describe the elements of the current Canadian NAFO enforcement program and some of the progress we've made in recent years.
The NAFO reform process has two elements. First, we have the convention reform process, which my colleague and I are not in a position to speak to. Second, we have the reform of the NAFO conservation enforcement measures, which took place in 2005 and 2006. Specifically, we would like to speak about the elements of this process as they pertain to monitoring, control, and surveillance. We would then like to review the effectiveness of the existing NAFO monitoring, control, and surveillance regime in the context of the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. In this way, we hope to determine the changes needed to strengthen the scheme and make it more effective and efficient in its operations, results, and expenditures.
I turn now to key elements coming out of the post-reform process and key measures we have achieved. There is now an enhanced follow-up provision in regard to certain serious infringements such as misreporting of catch, misreporting of area, and targeting species under moratoriums. This provision allows for the immediate recall to port of a vessel suspected of being in contravention of the measures.
In addition, we have clarified for NAFO members the penalties and sanctions that may be employed by flag states for serious infringements. This results in greater transparency. It forces them to state what happened to these citations and what they did about it.
We've also achieved improved control measures for stocks identified in our rebuilding plan. For example, we now have a provision under which all vessels that fish for Greenland halibut in the NAFO regulatory area must be inspected upon returning to port, including Canadian vessels.
We have enhanced bycatch requirements and established the definitions of bycatch and directed fishing. We have achieved provisions whereby vessels have to move when they encounter excessive bycatch. In the most recent measures, as they pertain to 3M cod and the opening of that fishery, we have retained 5% as opposed to the more normal 10% for actual directed fisheries.
We have achieved improvements in the recording of catch and stowage plans. For enforcement officers, stowage plans are very important. It's our way of understanding what's actually being put in a particular part of the vessel's hold. As one inspector leaves and the next inspector comes on board a few days later, you get a good picture of what fish are being stowed where. It's an important component, something we achieved as recently as 2006.
Enhanced port state control has been achieved as well. Since last year, before entering a port state, flag states have been required to declare that the catch on board is proper, that all the procedures are in place, and that all the proper authorizations have been acquired. We have also achieved an improved vessel monitoring system. In the recent NAFO meetings in Norway, these measures were updated and improved, so that now we will get one-hour reporting as well as the reporting of course and speed.
Within the NAFO regulatory area, I want to bring to your attention the areas known as 3M and 3N. That is the nose and tail and the Flemish Cap, and it is principally the area we're talking about. We're equally responsible for sovereignty and the patrol of boundary lines.
Canada spends approximately $30 million a year on the NAFO enforcement program. This includes our program, the conservation and protection program, the coast guard vessels, the air surveillance contract, and contributions from the Department of National Defence, which also patrols in airplanes and aboard ships. We have, as a result of that, approximately 800 dedicated coast guard and DND days for patrol in the NAFO regulatory area. I would like to highlight that the way we manage, the vessels are actually on alternate weeks. We want to maximize our presence as much as possible. On the return to port, they get approximately 12 hours' turnaround to change crews, change fisheries officers, provision and so on, and get back out.
A very important component of our program is that we stay out in all weather. In the recent storms, with winds of 100 knots, the Cygnus was on patrol. We are also out there during Christmas and the holiday season. We don't alter the program in any seasonal way.
We have 23 inspectors in the NAFO unit. Some of these inspectors have 25 and 30 years' experience; others have less. These inspectors receive various types of training in addition to the regular fishery officer program and are often seen by their colleagues in the NAFO area as people they can look to. They provide training for people from other countries, and we have had requests—as recently as last week from St. Pierre, for example—for training on import inspections. We also provide on-site training for United States inspectors, as well as some from Europe—the Baltic states, and so on.
We have an air surveillance program dedicated, contracted, and delivered by provincial airlines as well as by the Department of National Defence. I would like to note that the significance of the air surveillance program is the coverage area, of course—we have close to 300 flights a year in the area—but it also has significance for sovereignty, for the protection of Canada's 200-mile limit.
The air surveillance program contributes to our marine security program in a broader sense as well, but the air surveillance program has been instrumental in addressing the issue of boundary line violations that were so prevalent back in the 1980s. And of course it's very important for us, in gathering data, to match up with other sources of information in the NAFO regulatory area. We enjoy quite a lot of cooperation, as just noted, with other countries.
But a key, I think, to the whole program is not just the application or the deployment of significant large capital resources, such as ships and planes and so on, and the use of vessel monitoring systems, but how you integrate it—forensic analysis. It's the use of those resources to get a sense of the picture, to be constantly forward-looking.
A violation is the result of the actions of one master, and a citation of the ability of inspectors to intercept at any particular time. But the use of the information in a broader way to integrate where they are fishing now with what the historical patterns are and what the seasonality component is, matching what an inspector sees at sea with where the vessel is actually fishing at various times, is very important to our ability to understand what we believe the catches to be and what we believe the situation currently is.
Specifically, I would like to note some of the post-reform results. We have seen a very significant reduction, as no doubt you have heard, in fishing activity in this area from the 2003 period onwards. There has actually been a 70% decline of fishing activity in the NAFO regulatory area in that timeframe, and approximately 50% more recently.
Some other measures, of course, pertain to bycatch and so on. We have had vessels called back to port since 2006, and on every occasion we have had an opportunity to participate in the inspection.
Thank you.
