Fisheries Committee on March 10th, 2009

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Randy Kamp]

A final comment on the amendment, Mr. Weston.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I think the French and the English aren't consistent here. I think more consistent with Raynald's motion in English would be something like “increase the number of deputations to the European Parliament”. I think “d'accélérer les représentations” is different from “increase pressure”. So I'm happy with the French, not so happy with the English.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Randy Kamp]

We're not going to fix that right here.

Let's vote on the amendment at this point. The amendment is to—

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Chair, it's inaccurate.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Randy Kamp]

Well, no. The amendment is whether we replace “increase pressure on” with “continue urgent dialogue with”. If this amendment passes, then the French translation would also have to be passed in that regard. If it doesn't, then we have another issue. But we do have some witnesses waiting to speak to us.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, the notice of amendment was moved, but I didn't hear someone second it.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Randy Kamp]

There is no seconder required.

All those in favour of the amendment to replace “increase pressure on” with “continue urgent dialogue with”?

(Amendment negatived)

I think we can probably move right to a vote on the motion itself in the unamended form, unless there's any urgent discussion needed on this. I think we probably heard both sides of the issue.

All in favour of the motion?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

The French or the English? We'll deal with the French?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Randy Kamp]

Yes, that's fine.

I'm not sure whether we have a protocol.

It's translated by those who tend to know what they're doing, so I'm a bit surprised if it's really deficient. I think we understand the general tenor of the motion, that the government should do everything possible to advocate on behalf of the seal hunt.

Let's vote on this and then I can get back to my place.

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much.

Well done, Mr. Vice-Chair, you did a very good job.

Thank you for unanimously supporting the motion. I think that the message will be stronger as a result.

We now welcome our witnesses, Mr. Earle McCurdy, Commissioner, and Mr. Raymond Andrews, also Commissioner.

I invite Mr. McCurdy to make his presentation first.

[Earle McCurdy, Commissioner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to come today. I don't have any kind of detailed presentation, because I didn't come looking for this gig. I was asked if I wanted to appear, and I said I'd be glad to.

Members might like to hear that an interesting thing developed in my taxi ride over from the hotel this morning. I hopped in the back and asked if the driver could take me to West Block. I don't know if the guy was new or if he didn't hear correctly, but he asked if I could direct him how to get there. I told him that first he has to secure his party nomination, then he has to get himself elected, and I believe after that it's pretty straightforward.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Earle McCurdy]

On the matter of the NAFO, I just want to give a real brief background on my role in NAFO. I'm not obviously a government representative, so therefore I've been to a great many NAFO meetings and never once had the opportunity to speak one single word officially at the table, because the way it works is that the only spokesperson for each country is the government representative who heads the delegation. So while we're called commissioners, with respect to the amount of authority we have, commissionaires might be a little closer to the mark.

In any event, I went to my first NAFO meeting in 1983 and have been to all but perhaps four or five of the annual meetings since. I proposed as sort of a guaranteed solution to fishing violations that if violators are subject to being sent to witness the entire NAFO meeting every year, you'd soon clean up any abuse to the regulation, because it is a pretty tedious process to go through. I've been there with various administrations in power in Ottawa, and at best, it's always a frustrating proposition.

The choices in NAFO, as are most things in life, are generally between two or more not particularly palatable options, and it's never exactly as you might see it. When the issue of the possibility of a new convention came along, what it ultimately came to was whether the new or the old convention was better.

One thing that I think is important to be mindful of is that at the time it was debated, the new convention, hand in hand with the proposed changes in the convention, had some quite significant changes. One in particular was to the NAFO enforcement and control mechanisms or measures, which was a significant deterrent to serious violations. That was really what the choice came down to at the time.

I think what put some people off was the characterization that the outcome of this NAFO reform was equivalent to custodial management, which in my opinion is nonsense, to claim that. Now, having said that, custodial management is kind of a nebulous term; it's nowhere fully defined. But if you accept, roughly speaking, that it means something along the lines of the coastal state not controlling the fish so much, but enforcing the shares of others in the zone outside 200 miles, I think that's probably what most people think of by way of custodial management. But it isn't a term that has any international standing. It's almost as much a slogan as anything. Nonetheless, just for the record, if we could get something along the lines of what I just described under the heading of custodial management or whatever other name anyone chose to give it, we'd jump on it in a flash.

I'm certainly of the view that the amendments to the convention, if passed, would not be as attractive an option by any stretch to the people who traditionally depended for a living on those stocks that straddled the 200-mile limit.

I neglected to mention up front that our organization represents both fish harvesters and plant workers throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. So the brunt of the overfishing by NAFO member states, and for a while by non-member states, has directly caused a great deal of damage, economic hardship, personal hardship, community dislocation, family dislocation, and so on, for 2,000 of our members throughout the province. It's been a very bitter experience ever since the formation of NAFO, really; I believe it was in 1978 or 1979 that the first NAFO meeting was held.

Anyway, I didn't have anything in particular to vent about. I was asked to come as commissioner, and said I would. I think this is probably sufficient to get the ball rolling.

I'm more interested in responding to questions and having a dialogue now.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much. That is a good way of going about it. It lets us have more questions when we come to the questioning rounds.

Mr. Andrews, do you have any comments that you would like to make?

[Raymond Andrews, Commissionner, Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization]

First of all, I came under almost the same conditions as Mr. McCurdy, in that I was invited to come, so I didn't think it would be wise or necessary to present a long dissertation on the background, and things of that nature, but I'd just like to point out a few.

First of all, I started out in DFO, of all places, in 1962, so I do have a little bit of history attached to some of this. Having been at my first NAFO meeting in 1979 and having covered about 60% of them since then, I've had the unique experience of wearing at least three hats, one with the federal government as a bureaucrat and a political adviser, a second as a provincial deputy, and a third while being involved with the territorial government in Nunavut and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and their activities in fisheries.

For a long time, I guess, I was one of those who was very concerned about the way NAFO was operating and the lack of progress. I don't mind saying that, because there's a long history of very difficult situations.

The other obvious part I've played in this is that for a few years I was with Fishery Products International, the big fish company that disappeared a couple of years ago, and that gave me the industry perspective on the whole NAFO scene and indeed an expanded background in fisheries generally. I retired a few years back, but still do work in fisheries, primarily out of Nunavut, and some activity in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Nova Scotia.

I appreciate the opportunity to come here. Like Earle McCurdy, I'm much more interested in trying to the best of my ability to answer questions, as opposed to pontificating on my background and experience with NAFO.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Raynald Blais]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and to both of our witnesses.

Those of us who had an opportunity to read the Senate report on NAFO reform would be very much enlightened by your backgrounds. You gave very thorough and comprehensive presentations there, and I'm sure that all members of the committee read the transcripts of the Senate proceedings, as well as the final report. So thank you very much for your candour.

Both of you are current-day commissioners of NAFO. This committee heard evidence that in the lead-up to ratification of the revised convention, various countries are now at the table and seeking revisions to quota shares. One particular example that was noted to us was the Faroe Islands, which are looking for a much greater share of shrimp.

As NAFO commissioners, would you have been made aware of that request or expectation by the Faroe Islands--that is, by Denmark in respect to the Faroe Islands? Or is your role as commissioners mostly at the level of the annual general meetings and the buildup to those?

For example, are you aware, Mr. McCurdy, that the Faroe Islands have a pretty substantial request for increased shrimp shares right now?

[Earle McCurdy]

Yes, but at one time our involvement was less than it has been more recently. In the last several years, DFO has developed a practice of having several Canadian industry consultations a year on NAFO issues, perhaps three or four during the course of the year prior to the meeting, in which there are updates on various NAFO files and an opportunity for input from industry people on whatever the options might be for dealing with the issues of the day.

So, yes, we would certainly have been familiar with that, and it's a longstanding sore point with the Faroe Islands, dating back a decade or more.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Are you aware of any other requests that are currently on the table by EU member states, or contracting parties to NAFO generally, looking for increased shares prior to ratification?

[Earle McCurdy]

I don't know if any others have linked demands for shares, and I'm not sure if there is a link.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

With or without linkage, though, Mr. McCurdy.

[Earle McCurdy]

With or without linkage. Certainly the United States clearly has been continuously looking for something so they can go home and say we got something out of NAFO. There are a couple of parties who from time to time will pop up and say “What about us”, but don't really seem to press the point much beyond that, Korea being an example.

The other outstanding objection that's been filed for a number of years under the objection provision is by Iceland with respect to shrimp on the Flemish Cap, where it's managed according to the number of days you're permitted to have a vessel on grounds, versus the normal way of doing it by quota. They're of the view--which I happen to agree with--that by quota is the more appropriate management measure. So they object on principle. They manage their fisheries by quotas, not by days on grounds.

Those are the only ones I can think of offhand that are currently outstanding. The Europeans and ourselves are probably the strongest advocates of the status quo on quota shares, for the obvious reason that we have the most to lose by any tinkering with current or traditional quota shares.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

These basically have been longstanding requests that have not been agreed to by contracting parties, longstanding grievances. In this particularly delicate year, we'll call it, of ratification, or period of ratification, if any of these requests were suddenly agreed to by Canada, for example, or supported by Canada, it would create that linkage towards ratification, but that's a subjective opinion and we'll leave it be for now.

What I want to zero in, to you both, is the whole notion of this NAFO control inside of 200 miles. The provisions of the revised convention do actually allow NAFO, at the direct intervention or request of the coastal state, to manage inside of the exclusive economic zone of the contracting party, the coastal state.

We noted at the committee level that there was no such reciprocal or comparable agreement for Canadian control outside of 200 miles. I called it a quid pro quo. I expressed the belief that it would be a natural flow or extension that if you're going to accede to the possibility of NAFO foreign control or majority foreign control inside of 200 miles, then it just seems naturally flowing that you'd also negotiate the possibility of the coastal state, Canada in particular, having control outside of 200 miles.

From your own points of view as commissioners but as well as long-time participants in the industry, how's that going over?

[Earle McCurdy]

My take on that particular point and my understanding of where that language came from was that it was modelled on NEAFC, which is the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, which deals with the other side of the Atlantic. I'm not absolutely certain, but that's my recollection. But in any event, there is one stock I can think of that Canada does exercise a degree of control over outside 200 miles, namely the northern cod stock, where in the quota NAFO has a practice of accepting the Canadian total allowable catch and doesn't actually set that figure. But having said that, that's a kind of an outlier; it's not the norm.

On this business of what could notionally happen under that wording, Canada would have to propose the measure, they'd have to go to NAFO and ask, would you please manage a stock inside our zone, and then they'd have to also support the measure in the ensuing discussion for it to happen.

Currently, under the old convention that's in place today, right now as we speak somebody on behalf of the Government of Canada could go to the Spanish government and say you can take your whole armada and fish in Conception Bay if you'd like. In other words, if the government of the day were to say we're prepared to do that, then they're not defending our sovereignty at all. So while notionally that could happen, to me it's unimaginable.

I participated in a debate in about 1986 where industry people and government officials of the day concurred that the business of trading access to fish in the Canadian zone in return for support on NAFO measures, in return for market access and so on, had to stop. So that hasn't been in place, even though today there's nothing to stop the government from saying to whoever they want to give it to, whether it's NAFO or an individual NAFO member country or whoever, come on in to our zone and fill your boats with fish.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. McCurdy, time is limited, unfortunately. What you're saying is very valuable, but times are changing. We have the European Union. We began with the seal hunt. The EU appears to be engaged in a process. All international experts have declared illegal under WTO rules the banning of the Canadian seal importations by the EU. The European Union is moving towards certification of seafood imports. In other words, in those countries, those importers or exporters that wish to import seafood into the EU will actually have to have it certified by the EU in order for that to occur. Sustainable harvesting practices would be included as a measure for that certification. The world is changing. Is it plausible or possible that the very tactic or tool that you suggest the Canadian government would never agree to will become a pretty big carrot and a stick under pressure of someone saying “we will not certify you unless you allow us access inside of 200 miles to observe your practices and enforce your own practices”?