Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, committee members and members of the public. Thank you for inviting us. I'm going to speak to you today on behalf of André Martin, our president. He obviously can't be here as he is fishing for lobster.
I'm going to provide you with some brief background on the Maritime Fishermen's Union to enable those who don't know us to get to know us better. The organization represents 1,500 inshore fishermen in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. They own and operate their own fishing businesses. They employ more than 3,000 fishermen's helpers. The MFU advocates multi-species fishing and our objective is to combine the licences for lobster, herring, groundfish, scallop and other species. The organization is legitimately established under provincial legislation and is subject to an official recognition process every four years—it is important to mention that—in order to be accredited in New Brunswick.
Over time, the organization has tried to establish a balance between the current interests of its member fishermen and those of future generations. It is very important to emphasize that. We work with our members today, but also for future generations of fishermen. With regard to snow crab, the MFU's history mainly starts in 1991, following the cod moratorium. The MFU had made a request to share the very lucrative snow crab fishery based on the following three essential arguments: first, there is snow crab near the coastal regions where the inshore fishermen work; second, the inshore fishery has a multi-species fishing strategy designed to diversify resource management risk, in view of the fact that there is more than one licence and fishery and that, when times are tougher for one fishery, you can rely on another; lastly, the inshore fishermen wanted a fair distribution of profits from sea resources for the largest possible number of participants in the fishing industry and the largest possible number of rural communities in New Brunswick and elsewhere.
In response to those requests, the federal fisheries minister Mr. Tobin, who was in the position in 1995, authorized the inshore fishermen to fish for snow crab. In his documents, he said he wanted to ensure a fair sharing of that common public resource. Subsequently, in 2003, Mr. Robert Thibault, the federal fisheries minister at that time, in turn proposed to maintain the sharing of snow crab, but talked instead about new access. He said he wanted to enable fishermen to plan these fisheries for the longer term.
Mr. Hearn also opted for this continuity. He even said he wanted to make the sharing agreements permanent and stable by 2010. This year, the current federal minister, Gail Shea, will be moving toward stability and ensuring it until 2014. In fact, by 2014, the inshore fishermen of the MFU and others will already have been involved in the snow crab fishery for 20 years.
With regard to the recent decline in the snow crab biomass, which seems to be the most pressing issue today, in view of the cyclical behaviour of snow crab, scientists began to present evidence of biomass decline already in 2006, for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In 2007, scientists were also recommending lowering the overall quota. In the wake of those recommendations, MFU recommended a cut to the overall snow crab quota. In 2008, MFU recommended a 20% reduction in the quota allocated to the fishery.
In 2009, the industry in general disregarded the advice of the scientists, and the traditional fishermen even intensified the political lobbying in Ottawa to preserve the status quo. In 2010, the minister had the courage to accept the opinion of the department's scientists and cut the quota by 63%. In our view, the rate of landings in the Bay of Chaleur during the 2010 season seems to show that the minister was right.
I'm also going to speak briefly about myths and realities. For a few months now, it has been suggested that the decline in the snow crab biomass was caused by too many fishermen or traps at sea. In MFU's view, that seems quite illogical, for the following reasons. The total crab fishing fleet consists of approximately 400 boats. If we assume that every boat has an average of 100 traps, that means a total of 40,000 traps at sea. By comparison, the lobster fleet in the southern gulf, with its nearly 4,000 boats, which have an average of 275 traps each, has a total of 1.1 million traps at sea. If we compare the two, the lobster fleet currently has 10 times as many fishermen and 27.5 times as many traps as the snow crab fleet. The lobster fleet has been managing to gradually increase its biomass in the past few years. However, the biomass is still inadequate and the economy is inadequate for the fishermen, who depend on a number of species.
I'm coming to my conclusion. It's quite clear that the number of fishermen does not seem to be the cause of the problem in the case of snow crab. What then is the problem? We asked ourselves that question. And we've come to a conclusion. This morning, I listened to Joel Gionet's remarks. We agree with him: the cyclical nature of the stock seems to be a much more logical explanation and to be the main reason for the decline in snow crab biomass. It is therefore important that DFO managers continue to be very attentive to the advice of the department's scientists, as has been the case this year. In MFU's opinion, in the past few years, there has also been an issue of monitoring and protection that has had a very negative impact on that fishery. We would like to emphasize this point.
In our view, MFO's protection and conservation section, which has to patrol an enormous fishing area in the gulf—an area that is very hard to cover—for lack of human and material resources, too often focuses on monitoring activities close to shore or in coastal areas and too often neglects the frequent practice of selecting crab based on quality. In our view, this practice seriously undermines the crab biomass, since selected crab causes large volumes of rejects. There is also a high mortality rate. Special attention should therefore be focused on this practice.
Since time is passing quickly, I won't do a review. I believe our points have been addressed. Thank you for your attention.