Evidence of meeting #8 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 convention.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Commissionner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I'd like to refer to your point first that foreign vessels are fishing within Canadian waters in Nunavut. I personally don't know of that occurring in the recent past, but I do know that Canadian fishing vessels sometimes offload in Greenland.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
I meant that they're Canadian flagged but owned by other countries.
Commissionner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
Yes, that's a very technical legal question of ownership. I understand what you're saying.
I really can't say whether or not it would be a deal breaker to remove that clause from the proposed changes to the NAFO convention, because I haven't been privy to any of that discussion. But as I read it now, the document that all 12 countries have before them is the one they're working with and trying to ratify at their own Parliament. So I really can't honestly answer that. I don't know if Earle has heard anything to that effect either.
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I guess it's always easy to second-guess negotiations done by somebody else. In the world I have to operate in, you have to make choices between the real choices--not the ones you wish for--on the table.
On that one, the full debate on NAFO reform did not take place at the full NAFO table. A lot of that was done by side working groups and in heads-of-delegation meetings. So to a degree we're subject to what we're told by the people who conduct that. I think ultimately what they came back with was that the total package that emerged appears to be as good as it's going to get. The question for the Canadian delegation was whether to proceed or let it drop, because Canada really was, I think as much as anyone, the instigator of the whole process. The view of the delegation was that the warts on that one were less objectionable than the warts on the current agreement.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming. I think you've made an important contribution to our analysis of this issue.
Let's return again to this thorny issue of custodial management. I agree with you that it's been defined in a number of different ways. By the most obvious definition, it's a difficult one to achieve.
Let me give you a couple of others. This one is from this committee's report in 2003, a report on custodial management, actually:
By custodial management, the Committee did not intend that Canada should claim sovereignty over or exclusive rights to the resources of these regions of the ocean but that Canada should assume the role of managing and conserving the fisheries resources of the NAFO regulatory area in a way that would fully respect the rights of other nations that have historically fished these grounds.
Then in 2002 in a report on overfishing we said:
The essential purpose of custodial management would be to establish a resource management regime that would provide comparable standards of conservation and enforcement for all transboundary stocks, inside and outside the 200-mile limit.
One of the notions of custodial management has to be this notion of conservation. If, by having as its goal custodial management, the government means--and I think it does--that we need to do something that brings foreign overfishing to an end, do you think we're closer to achieving that through what we've achieved through NAFO since 1978, and in the changes we're proposing to NAFO, and in the way NAFO is operating today? Obviously conservation and sustainability need to be important concepts here, rather than having every country keep its share. Do you think we're closer to that?
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I think what's fundamentally different about the concept of custodial management, in the minds of most people who advocated, as compared to what's proposed under this new draft convention for NAFO, is the question of the power to enforce. We can force vessels in certain circumstances into Canadian ports, but we can't force them into Canadian courts, and that's the fundamental difference.
Under the proposed reform of NAFO, the flag state would have to relinquish its sovereignty over its own vessels in order for Canadian courts to have the authority to penalize offenders. I don't see that happening, and I don't think there's any chance of that happening under that proposed regime. Through the changes we have, I think, some improved enforcement measures, but the proposed regime, if it comes into effect, will still leave the enforcement authority over those vessels with the flag state, not with the coastal state. So that's where it's fundamentally different from what most people view as custodial management.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Yes, I understand that point.
Mr. Andrews.
Commissionner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I certainly think it's not just the convention and the measures themselves, but that another thing we have to look at is the attitude of the people who are doing the fishing. In my humble opinion, the attitude has changed. The amount of overfishing has been reduced substantially over the last few years; there's no question in my mind about that. And although I did not see a commitment to improved conservation for a long number of years—and I mean decades—I am now beginning to see it, particularly over the last three or four years. The amount of overfishing is down. The catch of moratoria species, which was basically way up there for many years, is now down as close as it can get to zero.
One of the best indicators I've seen recently of a commitment to conservation and the rebuilding of stocks was this year, when the scientists came to the NAFO table and said two of your species, two of your stocks, are in much better shape than they've been for maybe ten years. If we had followed science in a pure science management relationship, we would have said okay, start fishing some redfish and cod in 3M. But the decision of NAFO, collectively, was not to start fishing but to give the stock additional time to rebuild and then to go and catch it.
So I've seen these things happen. And I guess, in many respects, stock recovery is now starting to happen in areas I didn't expect it would happen. At our last meeting we listed off four or five of the stocks that were showing some improvement and a trend upwards, as opposed to flat or downwards.
So I would have to say yes to the measures and the convention, but more importantly, the activity on the waters has changed substantially, and we are seeing big improvements.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Raynald Blais
Thank you very much.
Before starting the third round of questioning, I would like to ask a question about goodwill.
When we are dealing with sovereign states, I always thought that we could count on goodwill. In the past, that has not been the case. You mentioned it, of course, when you brought up the question of the objection procedure.
Whatever the formula is, if we do not show goodwill, are we not at an impasse once more? If that is so, what would the solutions be?
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
That's a tough question.
I think it ebbs and flows over time. I agree with the comments that Mr. Applebaum and Mr. Parsons made last week—I forget who, but I think it was Mr. Applebaum—that there were signs these countries were cleaning up their act after the turbot war. But over time, the reverberations of that bullet died down, and they started to slip back into their old ways. By 2002 or 2003, we had a real mess out there. Shortly after that, the increased enforcement came along, and that's given rise to an improved environment now—probably aided and abetted by the heightened ENGO interest in fisheries matters, the focus on sustainability, and so on. I don't think the kinds of horror stories that happened in the eighties and early nineties could really happen again. I can't see the European Union, for example, being able domestically to get away with what they did over here 15 or 20 years ago.
But having said that, goodwill is strained at best in NAFO. There are some who regard Canada as being greedy and trying to have it all for itself, and who don't think they're getting a fair shake out of NAFO. At best, it's an uneasy process to manoeuvre through.
Commissionner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
No, I would just say that it has been most difficult. I think I've seen very small traces of a better working relationship or improved goodwill, I suppose, in the last couple of years, but certainly it's not one that you embrace fully and say we've arrived, we have all the goodwill we need. But I think, as Earle has just said, with the improved attitude of some of the countries and their people.... And I find some of the work of NGOs particularly encouraging, because they have access into countries in a different form than we have as government. I think that has been making a difference in improving the attitude, if not the overall goodwill.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
A good soldier, a good manager, a good diplomat anticipates what direction things may go down the road in terms of providing effective leadership. The impact of unintended consequences has to guide you and you have to actually work hard to anticipate.
The concern I want to relay to you and get your feedback about is the effect of reversal of moral authority. Right now, Canada is in a position where we assert that foreign overfishing is a major problem on the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks, and we implore upon our partners in NAFO to clean up their act. And we have a certain moral authority to be able to do that because there seems to be a clear body of evidence supporting it.
With the provisions that are prescribed in the revised NAFO convention there seems to be a reversal of moral authority, or a potential thereof, in the sense that we made concerns about the progress, or lack thereof, of conservation of a particular stock. Our contracting parties say “Just a second here, Canada, that's on both sides of the border, of the 200-mile limit. Let's invoke the clause we all agreed to within the convention to allow NAFO, all of us--more inclusive, all of us--to manage the entire stock.” It's up to Canada to say no. It's a reversal of moral authority.
We formally implored upon the contracting parties to clean up their act. In New York City, Emma Bonino, who had a stellar reputation as an environmentalist, the former fisheries commissioner for the EU, was proven to be utterly on the wrong side of the issue when she implored upon the world that Canada was acting irresponsibly in its efforts against the EU on turbot. Now it's up to us to say no, we will not allow the NAFO to come into Canada and to participate in a 12-member state of patrols, enforcement, and management of stocks.
In a world of certification, where the EU is going to certify Canadian fish products as to whether or not they're harvested sustainably, they will be the decider as to whether or not we import those fish products into the EU. They can now say that we have asked for our participation inside of the 200-mile limit, and it's Canada that refuses us, even though Canada has agreed to it within the context of the NAFO convention, and Canada now has something to hide.
That's my concern, gentlemen. It's that, like the EU is doing now on seals--they're acting, we would argue, illegally--they could act just as mischievously when it comes to the provision to act inside the 200 miles by reversing the moral authority.
Do you have any comments on that?
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I suppose they could do a lot of things. In past NAFO meetings, what is particularly galling to me—and certainly, I'm sure, it would be to you if you had to sit there and listen to it—is they've lectured Canada. If there's one area where I took issue with the various heads of delegations for Canada over the years, it's for tolerating it without coming back and throwing a fastball right at their head. They've gone in and lectured us about this very tiny index fishery of northern cod, and they've lectured us about the damage we're doing to the stocks, and on and on, holier than thou. This is the same authority whose member countries caught hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the stock that they weren't allocated back a number of years ago.
Liberal
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
They tried to do that, but the end result was that we just simply said no, we're doing what we're doing, pound sand with a heavy mallet, and we're going to carry on. And that is clearly what we have to say under that provision in the thing.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Quickly, for context, there is a ban on directed fishing for cod outside the 200 miles, but we indeed had an index fishery inside, and the European Union said this is very hypocritical, didn't they?
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
Yes, and they cried foul and we said that was too bad, that's what we're doing anyway. So I think that's an example of where, yes, they've used that, and they got on their high horse. I think that's one area. In fact, I frequently volunteered to take over the microphone, on behalf of Canada, on that particular issue, but for some reason they didn't take me up on it. It was galling. But having said that, Canada simply said no on that.
Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I'm not defending it or looking for it. That's what emerged from those negotiations. I look at what the total package is and which is our better option. That's really what it comes down to. If someone had said “Here, Mr. McCurdy, would you please write the NAFO convention”, I'd have been pleased to oblige, but unfortunately, nobody did.
Bloc
Commissionner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
I have a question and a comment.
You referred to the fact that the EU will soon start to require certification of fish products coming into their jurisdiction. I'm not familiar with anything that “wears the hat of the European Union”, but I am aware of the fact that the Marine Stewardship Council is starting that process and it already has occurred in Canada and in many other countries. I suppose under those conditions, generally speaking that's what's considered to be a processing and marketing activity. If you're buying something from somebody, you require the right to come in and look at the product and the way it was produced, as opposed to the way it was caught. Maybe there is something happening in the European Union that says it goes all the way from the water to the market, but up until now, independent agencies like MSC decide, or companies say, “We will buy only if you do certain things.”
Maybe you could enlighten me, because I'm not sure of anything that the European Union is doing in that regard.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
The concept actually involves an assessment, a judgment of sustainable harvesting practices, including management plans per se.
