Some are portraying the UNFA boarding provisions as that the Canadian inspectors could board a vessel of another country. That's the case. If there is no response from the flag state of that vessel within 72 hours, the Canadian inspectors can bring the vessel back to a Canadian port. That is also the case.
What is not the case is that the vessel is subject to Canadian courts, Canadian law, etc. What is the case is that the vessel can remain in port until the flag state says it is satisfied it's in compliance, or let it go, or they come and do the inspection. But Canada has no authority to take action against the vessel in port, outside of the authority of the flag state. The flag state is still the body that will have to deal with the non-compliance. I think that's important to keep in mind, because portraying the UNFA as superior to the current NAFO is based on an assumption that something can happen once we have the boat in a Canadian port, and that's not the case.
What happens under NAFO is that they've signed onto NAFO conservation enforcement rules that oblige the flag state to remove the vessel from the NAFO regulatory area under certain conditions, when there's a serious infringement or where there are repeat infringements, and take that vessel back out of the NAFO regulatory area and into a port. That's what happened in 2007 with the serious infringement. That vessel was removed prior to the end of its trip and taken back to a Spanish port, where it was found to be in non-compliance and had serious consequences for the vessel in terms of lost fishing opportunity and significant fines in the range of over 200,000 euros.
Looking at the old convention versus the new on slide nine, the new is a precautionary approach, an ecosystem approach versus single-species management. We're moving in that direction internal to our waters as well, because that's a more sustainable way to manage.
On the governance, we move from a simple open-ended objection procedure with little onus on the objecting party to justify it to an improved objection procedure, where the onus is on the objecting party to demonstrate that the objection will not create a conservation concern and there's an opportunity for the objecting party or NAFO to request an ad hoc panel with short enough timelines that the objections should be resolved prior to any problems in the regulatory area.
Decisions used to be simple majority. They're now two-thirds. The reason we want two-thirds is because we want to make it more difficult for people to change quota keys.
There was no dispute settlement process. Now there is a dispute procedure with an option to submit to a compulsory binding dispute settlement procedure pursuant to UNFA and UNCLOS. So we can move quickly into a binding procedure if that's the way to solve the problem.
We have good faith and abuse-of-rights clauses. The intention is to try to reach consensus and to make decisions that are inclusive and do not create isolated parties. We have this designed in relation to other international agreements. The functioning will be changed to make it more streamlined.
So the governance choices: simple majority consensus decision is the default; more frequent use of votes leading to more frequent decisions that are one-sided versus two-thirds as a last resort and leaving fewer people isolated. Objections: now we have objections with conditions and dispute settlement. Unilateral action was often the result in the old governance model. This is a more inclusive convention, and there's more follow-up to transparency.
Moving ahead, we are going to keep creating the conditions for change multilaterally. The overarching objective is to achieve sustainable fisheries, basing the implementation of fisheries management decisions on scientific council advice. We are looking to address the overfishing in NAFO, and as I said, we have successfully combated the IUU in the North Atlantic. I think we're fairly well situated in the North Pacific relevant to high-seas drift-netting as well. Our problem is that it has now re-situated to Africa and Southeast Asia, and we're looking at measures by which, in the multilateral fora, we can resolve that issue as well. I think I'll leave it at that.
I would note that there was an incident recently. Last week, subsequent to the sinking of the Spanish vessel, another Spanish vessel was boarded by fishery officers from the Cygnus. That was while the Cowley was in port. The Pescaberbes Dos was found with two citations.
Those citations were not serious infringements. However, the Spanish government has decided that the citations were evidence that the vessel was engaged in something in this reporting. They decided, based on the information provided by Canada, to seal the holds and to withdraw the vessel from the NAFO regulatory area. They have invited Canadians to be present when that vessel is inspected in Vigo upon its arrival.
Now, this means that the vessel had to leave with only half a trip--a serious economic blow. It will be inspected. If found to have misreported, it will be subject to significant sanctions by the Spanish government. I think it's just another indication that the compliance in the zone is good. The serious response by the Spanish is indicative of the fact that anybody cheating in that area will have to face the music.
The other thing I would point out is that the effort in the NAFO regulatory area is now down significantly; the Spanish have cut their presence by 87%. The TAC for halibut went down to about 40% of what it once was; the Spanish are now down to 13% of what their presence used to be.
The presence of the vessels in the NAFO regulatory area is now in balance with the fishing opportunities. Cheating is going down because people don't need to cheat. It's estimated that the Spanish vessels fishing out there are making a 17% return on their investment, which in this day and age is a dream world for almost anybody. The need to cheat has been removed. The opportunity to cheat has been removed. They fill their boats up legally now. That drop in effort has been a significant gain for rebuilding stocks in the NAFO area.
Just one last point I would make is that it's not just on the water with respect to compliance; it's also in the water with respect to the fish. Yellowtail flounder has rebounded fully. American plaice is on the right trajectory. The 3M cod amount was over the conservation limit to allow a fishery to open. NAFO decided not to do that. They want to let it grow bigger before they start to reopen that fishery.
It's the same thing for 3M redfish--over the limit. Science advice was that it could have been a 3,500-tonne fishery. NAFO declined that, and is letting that rebuild. For 3LNO redfish, same thing.
Those are significant changes from behaviour of the past. NAFO is actually declining fishing opportunities in an attempt to allow a better rebuilding of those stocks. We're seeing quite a change in the behaviour of the organization.
Thank you.