Fisheries Committee on May 28th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Lanteigne.

That was the best use of 30 seconds.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

We have a weak chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I'm going to try the same tack as Mr. LeBlanc.

In fact, the situation is bad. Assuming what you're telling us is true, someone somewhere is not doing his job, or something is happening that is completely falsifying certain assessments.

Ultimately, I'd like to hear your opinion on assessment methods. There are various ways of doing it. I understand very well that a fisherman on his boat can easily assess what's going on at sea. That's one form of assessment. There are others. We know a lot of things about other places, but unfortunately it seems that our data on the ocean bottom are worth what they're worth. I'd like to hear your opinion on potential assessments. What makes an assessment of this type 100% reliable and others not?

I get the impression it's a combination. I get the impression that a good combination can really help facilitate matters and find the really valid orientation. Otherwise, it's like steering a ship: if you think there's no iceberg to the left and there ultimately is one, you hit it; it's automatic. I prefer there to be a kind of precautionary principle.

I'd like to know your opinion on the subject.

[Robert Haché]

That's a question I'm happy to answer.

The best example happened last year. The snow crab stock behaves weirdly from time to time. That happened in 2001 and again last year. The crab stock was scattered. It was scattered in small groups across the southern gulf. That made it a very interesting stock, but extremely hard to fish, Mr. Blais, because the southern gulf is big. When we just have small groups, you can miss them.

Last year, the fishermen noted that the harvest was tough. The fishermen in Quebec, in Gaspésie, and the fishermen back home had trouble harvesting crab. Similarly, in 2001, we had trouble harvesting crab as well. In 2001, some traditional fishermen left as much as 50,000 pounds of crab in the water because of its behaviour.

We have a scientific advisor, Professor Gérard Conan. He explained that to us. He told us that we could have very good commercial biomass, but very bad fishable biomass. That's apparently because of the way the crab is distributed in the water, as a result of cold currents and so on.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

On the other hand, Mr. Haché, there is one undeniable given: and that's the cycle.

[Robert Haché]

Yes. We never said the cycle didn't decline. We're not claiming the cycle doesn't decline; it declines.

I simply want to finish. Last year, when they did the survey, they did it with their trawl in the same scattered biomass. So they found less crab, just as the crab fisherman had found less. The situation—

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

My problem is a problem of time, as you very well heard. I'll have the opportunity to put other questions to the fishermen who will be here later.

I'd like to ask Mr. Basque one.

Mr. Basque, you said you wanted to take measures, that the Mi'gmaq nation would eventually have to take measures, that is to say that it would have to adopt its own laws, its own system.

What does that mean in everyday language? Do you have any specific examples?

[Jeff Basque]

I am not a technical person who has much to do with the actual scientific work of managing snow crab. I would have to defer your question to other people who are not here today. It's a good question.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Basque, perhaps I was unclear, perhaps you didn't understand my question. It doesn't concern the scientists' opinions, but rather what you said earlier. Considering everything that is going on, you say you weren't consulted, that you were never consulted, that none of this makes any sense, and that you will therefore have to take extreme measures.

I'd like to know what the extreme or special measures you refer to are. Next season, will you decide to go to sea on such and such a date and fish a particular quantity? Will it stop there? How will you operate?

[Jeff Basque]

As I said before, we will consult with our people. We do have some scientific research in our own communities. We're going to be working with other Mi'gmaq nations, and we have already started doing so. We are basically going to have a framework that is in total contrast to the decision-making framework you have now.

As I said, the basic ideology is you take what you need, not more. You make decisions based on the science, not politics, as seems to be the case. We saw the cod fishery sink in 1992. Today we have the snow crab. Tomorrow it's going to be the salmon.

So there is a bit of space that the Mi'gmaq have inside the Canadian constitutional order that we're going to fill. As I said, we're going to be open to other stakeholders, considering first that the Mi'gmaq have priority access to this resource, unlike the other non-aboriginal fishers represented here in this room.

Conservation is key. As I said, we trusted the system, the Fisheries Act and the DFO regulatory regime. But let's get real here: it's not working. You're spending tons of money and the people who are deriving their livelihoods from the resource are paying for really bad decisions. It is just mind boggling, really.

One thing that we wouldn't do is muzzle one of our top scientists who has pointed out to decision-makers, “Listen, you have to cut. I'm waving the red flag here.” We wouldn't put a muzzle on the guy because he's giving us bad news. You have to make the tough decisions now when they are needed, in the interests of the future, or you're going to pay down the road heavily, because you're destroying the capacity of the resource to regenerate itself.

We do actually have an existing law that will be amended. We do have our own regulations. We're going to put those on the table today actually. I am meeting with the other chiefs of the Atlantic, and this is what they have agreed to do. Now, whether DFO decides to listen and take us seriously is its choice. We can work together. We can work against each other. Nobody wants confrontation.

We've been there. Listuguj has been there. We've had our resource threatened. The resource is part of who we are, and I speak specifically about the case of our wild salmon fishery. So it's the same with the other fisheries resources.

We hope to work with the stakeholders, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and we're going to work with our people. Right now we have almost a consensus, I would say, for what we want to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Basque.

Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all of you gentlemen for coming out and sharing your testimony with the committee today.

I'm a new member of Parliament. I'm from the west coast. I was just elected in November, so I'm new to this process, but I'm very passionate about the west coast fishery, and certainly I'm very interested in learning about the east coast fishery.

When I heard the motion to look at the snow crab industry and for our committee to travel to the east and meet with you to hear your perspectives, I was very supportive and wanted to do that. In fact, I was a bit late in the process in trying to adjust our travel plans to include Shippagan as one of the places to visit. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get in there in time to do that adjustment. At least we are here. We're hearing what you have to say, and I'm certainly hearing some interesting comments, given what we heard earlier from the department.

I want to pick up on the science issue, and I'll come back to that, but I want to go to Mr. Basque for a second.

We heard earlier from the department that there was in fact consultation with first nations on arriving at the decision it came to, and I'm struggling with that. Mr. Basque, could you just comment or clarify whether you were consulted on the decision that was arrived at?

[Jeff Basque]

I worked with a coordinator who is the assistant director of our natural resources department. You know, on this issue and notion of consultation, first of all, as aboriginal people, as Mi’gmaq people, we don't have the same notion of consultation, I think, as the federal government or provincial governments. I've seen the Province of New Brunswick's written notion of consultation, and it comes nowhere near meeting the definition, the standard, that is set by us and is set by the Supreme Court in its series of decisions concerning consultations. So telling a group of people like the Mi’gmaq, who have priority rights to this resource over other non-aboriginal users, stakeholders, what we're going to do and informing us what its intentions are and what it is going to do is not consultation.

Consultation involves hearing our concerns, taking them seriously, and acting on them at the strategic planning level, not after you've made a decision, not after you've made a policy. But this is what the federal government has done. Serious consultation has never considered.... Its decision clearly does not take into consideration the interests of the Mi’gmaq.

I've outlined a couple of points on this. I more specifically talked about the honour of the crown, which it has failed to uphold. On the consultation issue, no, we reject any claim that we were consulted.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Basque.

If I could return to the issue of science, in terms of the recommendations that have been made, maybe Mr. Cameron could provide his thoughts and comments on this.

[Doug Cameron]

I'll try to be brief. From 1997 to 2001, when we were acting under a five-year plan, industry contributed more than $2 million to the DFO to undertake science. We found, though, that after a few years, science was acting on its own and coming up with schemes and systems telling us what the results would be. They were suggesting the range of catches and all that sort of stuff. So we started to pull back on our financing; in fact we reneged on it.

I have found almost every year since, when we go to the science meetings, something new has happened without fishermen being involved. When we talk about the precautionary approach now, to my knowledge, fishermen were never involved in the process leading up to the final determination of the precautionary numbers that were mentioned.

[Robert Haché]

I want to specify this very clearly. We were involved in the establishment of the precautionary approach, but in the precautionary approach there were two aspects. We suggested an approach that was precautionary, but at the same time we indicated, and science indicated, to DFO that in order for the precautionary approach to work, the managers had to balance fishing capacity with resource availability. This is an aspect that DFO people did not mention to you this morning. The whole precautionary approach can work as long you have a viable industry to work with.

The other point I want to make is that when we decided to quit partnering with DFO, it was basically when people decided to establish this overcapacity in the fisheries on a permanent basis. We said we're not in the game anymore. This is the reason we quit our financing in 2003. In negotiating with DFO at the time, we had on the table an amount of $2.3 million per year, an investment from the industry to améliorer the science and the management.

The problem we've had in the last few years with this discrepancy between the industry and science in terms of the status of the stock is that if those investments were there, that problem would not exist. They're not there because for political reasons DFO decided to spread the thing all over and make everybody unsustainable in the long run.

These types of situations do not promote good management and good performance in the industry. That's another example. This is why we're saying we need to bring this to the Auditor General. This thing has lasted for too long. Everybody's struggling, and it's basic.

One last thing in terms of science. The problem we have is that what is happening in the fishery.... We don't say we know better, but the thing we see in the fishery contradicts what they say they see in their trawl survey. There needs to be an audit of that. Our scientists need to go with them to check that.

I don't know if that answers your question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Ms. O'Neill-Gordon.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to welcome all the guests here this morning, especially Mr. Cameron for coming from our neighbouring province. It's great to have you with us this morning.

As most of you know, I am the MP for the Miramichi area, and although Shippagan and Caraquet are not in my riding, they are close enough that I certainly have many friends and great acquaintances there. I'm happy to see Mr. Haché join us to work on their behalf this morning--and all of you as well.

Over the last week we have certainly been listening to many concerns and recommendations as we have travelled along the different areas. As we are here in New Brunswick, I'm wondering what recommendations and concerns you would like us to take back to our government.

Mr. Haché, I know you did mention the task force as being one recommendation, and I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that.

Are there any of you who have any other recommendations that you, too, would like to see us bring forth?

[Robert Haché]

The first recommendation would obviously be the support of this committee in our request for an audit of the management of the fisheries by the Auditor General. I think that would be a very useful exercise. The other one that would be very useful and practical is this idea of a task force--and you used a good word, Madame O'Neill--on the whole scientific process and assessment of the snow crab in the southern gulf, with the very strong involvement of industry in that process. I think these are the two-pronged main actions that at least we believe could bring this thing forward positively.

[Tilly O'Neill-Gordon, Conservative, Miramichi, NB]

You also mentioned new entrants coming into the industry. Although we've known the snow crab fishery has grown over the last 10 years, do you think there are now too many fishers there and how do you see this as being remedied then if this is another obstacle? We know the obstacle about the biomass is one, but we're also facing this as well.

[Robert Haché]

Basically, here, it's a very easy principle, and it is within the policy framework of the Atlantic fishery within the department. You can establish a process, a schedule, whereby the last people who come into the fishery are welcome in the fishery when the commercial biomass can sustain them, and at a certain threshold--it could be economic, it could be a biomass threshold, or it could be in conjunction with the precautionary approach system--they are asked to leave the fishery. You have to make sure that you do not destroy the fishery in an effort to save another one. Then the whole purpose is dead. If you have a problem with one fishery, don't solve that problem with another one. You have to be careful at that level.

Our suggestion here is basically the same process we had between 1995 and 2002. In those years, new entrants were welcome in the fishery, and they participated, and during certain years they were not invited into the fishery. This is a way to préserver le chèvre et le fou, allowing for more sharing but at the same time protecting the viability of your industry.

These things can be worked out. You need to sit down and do it.

[Jean Lanteigne]

Mrs. O'Neill, I will add to that. We need to look at short-term solutions. We also need to look at longer-term solutions. I mentioned previously that some of our fishermen...it is mostly affecting the younger ones, the ones who don't have all kinds of money. They are tied up with all kinds of debts and all kinds of financing situations.

That would also answer part of Mr. Donnelly's questions, and also Mr. Byrne, when he was asking about the science part of it. We are working in silos. Scientists have their say and the fishermen say something else. We have to look to a new model. There's a breach of confidence right now and it doesn't work anymore. So we have to take time, sit down, and if we have to reinvent the wheel, let's do it. Let's try to find a way that this is going to work, because right now.... We just heard from the first nation, and they confirmed to us what we've been saying: this model doesn't work anymore. The fishermen just plainly don't believe what scientists are saying.

When we look at the longer term...right now you can't finance. There is not a damn young guy, 25 or 30 years old, who can go to the bank or a credit union, or wherever, and say, “I want to purchase from my father or my next door neighbour...and I want to get into crab fishing?” Are you crazy? Did you lose your head somewhere? It doesn't make sense. Who is going to fish? Who is going to take that relève? The answer from DFO is, “We don't look into that part; the province has to look at that.” How the heck can the province look into that when DFO is playing all kinds of political games? There is no way you can get an accountant to sign a pro forma that he can go to the bank with. The figures don't stand up. Nobody will do that, because DFO is playing a political game, and there's no way anybody can finance a licence.

So when you're saying, what do we have to look at, we have to look into the long term and how we're going address that. Who is going to go fishing? Who is going to take that crab, or that shrimp, or those scallops, or whatever it is out there?

[Frank Hennessey]

I'm hearing again about what we should do. We went through this before in the cod moratorium. We were never going to repeat the mistakes of the past, but we seem to be good at it. We like to criticize science. No, they're not right on with what the fishermen are saying. We did that in 1992 or 1993. Science drove the cod fishery down to a low TAC. We said, “You're wrong.” The size of cod and the condition of the cod were excellent. Our catches per unit effort were never so high. We said, “This is what you wanted and we're there.” “Yes, but we're not seeing recruitment. We have a major problem.” Nobody listened, and we kept at it.

Science today on crab is saying the same thing. It's my understanding that there's a large loss of females. The recruitment in juveniles is not there to the extent they want to see, and they're worried. Yes, there are good catches this year because there are fewer fishermen on the water. They've got a smaller amount to catch, so you catch it quick. The crab that are being caught are big, they're big crab, and they're full. There are areas where they're not showing up. There are areas where things are going right fast. I think we should be very cautious.

As a fisherman, I'm tired of listening to the politics that cuts my wages, and the people involved don't.... I think a good way to run the department would be that part of their wages should be based on the biomass in the water. If they can rebuild it, they get an increase in wages; if not, they lose.

What we're going through is ridiculous. In the 1970s, we had Atlantic Canada management, which worked pretty well. Pretty well the whole system in Atlantic Canada was based on the same rules and regulations. You went to a meeting, generally the whole works.... We used to do 53 ground stocks in three days. Everybody was treated the same.

Then, to make it better, we went to regional management. Then, to make that better, we went to area management. Then we went to micro-management. Then we went to crisis management. Now we're in co-management, because the managers have taken in the industry to help manage. You pretty well see in any business where you take in new managers...the managers aren't doing their job; they're making a mess of it. That's what happened.

In all these years, the fisheries got worse, the fishermen got less, and the department stayed the same. In fact, it's better. At one time, DFO meant the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Today it's pretty well the Department of Fisheries Officials, because they're the only ones sustaining their own biomass and rebuilding--fisheries employees.

It's a disgrace. I'm getting tired, after 40-some years on the water, of seeing the mess and where this thing has ended up. All we're doing is studying.

I mentioned the cod in 1993. I want to give you an example. If you can all remember, the first thing that came out was the dumping, discarding, and misreporting model, where the fishermen were liars, crooks, and blackguards who ruined the fishery. That went across Canada. That's still there today. But three years after the fishermen came off the water, when we were telling them something was wrong, something had been wrong for ten years, but they had it all factored in. They were doing their studies every year. The fishery stocks were still going down devastatingly fast with nobody on the water. So they started to do a natural mortality model. Natural mortalities point to 20% of the stock—something killed besides fishermen.

After they finished their model, all of a sudden in 4T it was 0.4%. They took that 0.4% back to 1986. That's what destroyed the fishery. It wasn't all fishermen. We killed fish; that's what we're supposed to do.

But that's never been corrected. Now science is saying natural mortality in cod is 0.8%. It's never coming back, but we had a couple of thousand tonnes of fish, and to manage the fishery and rebuild it, they took the fishermen off the water.

Those are some examples. Our policies and our management aren't working in the fishery we have today.

Unemployment started in the fishery in the 1950s. It was to supplement the fishery. Now the fishery is only supplementing the unemployment. This whole thing, the fishery, is turning into a make-work project for stamps. It's nothing but a disgrace for the industry we had in Atlantic Canada and where it's led to--gone. I'm terribly scared that we've gone too far.

When we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, we should read what the past was all about.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hennessey.

Gentlemen, on behalf of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, I want to thank you very much for coming this morning and taking the time to meet with us, to share your comments and thoughts and to answer our questions. It's greatly appreciated.

We'll take a short break while we set up for our next guests.