Fisheries Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

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

Unfortunately, minister, I must admit to you, very realistically, that my patience has turned into impatience. It's as simple as that. People are impatient; I'm impatient, and one species is currently taking advantage of this: the grey seal. We need another targeted harvesting plan, a serious decision. This is a necessary decision and one for preservation of the resource as well. That's why, if the department and you continue to do what you're doing, it will be easy to accuse you of poor management in this matter. It makes no sense for us to be still waiting and for you to ask us once again to be patient in this file.

Furthermore, with regard to wharves, small craft harbours, we know very well that the 2010-2011 budget, the one that expires on March 31, will no longer contain the $200 million over two years. So we will unfortunately be going back to the square one, where we were two years ago. We know that those amounts made it possible, even with this effort, to meet perhaps one-third of needs. So two-thirds of needs have not yet been met.

What are you considering doing? Have you made a request to Cabinet to improve the 2011-2012 and subsequent budgets? Is there a plan for the wharves across Quebec and Canada to make them safe and, at the same time, to discharge your responsibilities as minister and as a department?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, honourable member.

You're quite right; we doubled our investment in small craft harbours over the last two years, which has allowed us to address a lot of the harbours that had health and safety concerns and were most in need. We do understand that there are still a number of harbours out there that need to have work done to them to ensure they are safe for fishers.

This has probably been the biggest investment in small craft harbours in history. I'm just glad that we had the budget passed so we could do that work on small craft harbours. These harbours are always, of course, a budget item or line item in our budget. We'd always like to have more money, but we have made considerable progress with the harbours around the country for our fishing industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Donnelly.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, thank you for appearing before us today to provide some answers to our questions on the fisheries and oceans file.

Minister, in your opening remarks you mentioned the potential impact on the environment and wild species from aquaculture. You also mentioned that you saw no reason why Canada couldn't exceed many of its global competitors.

On those two points, I'd like to add that I think there has been proof on both coasts of the impact of aquaculture on the ocean ecosystem, and specifically on wild salmon. Certainly on the west coast, which I am most familiar with, the scientific research has shown there have been impacts on the wild salmon from farm sea lice.

While the farms do provide jobs on both coasts, there is also a real danger of losing jobs in other industries from this impact. I'm glad to hear the department has looked at moving to closed containment, but I'm just wondering if you can comment about when you see the industry moving to closed containment.

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

As I said in my remarks, our research has shown that closed containment can work on a small scale, but it's not viable for large-scale operations.

If I might just go back to your comments about the impacts of sea lice on the wild fishery, I've heard it said over and over again that this was the case and that it was the cause of the demise of the Fraser River sockeye. But this year we have had record runs in the Fraser River, which begs even more questions about the impacts, because obviously sea lice on farmed salmon did not factor this year. So I think there's a lot more science to be done.

You asked about how we figure we can expand in Canada. In talking about expansion, I would note we have a lot more farmed species besides fin fish. We have a lot of different species that are farmed, so there are a lot of opportunities in a lot of different areas.

But I think what we have to get to is sustainable development and ensuring that it's sustainable.

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

Thank you, Minister.

I have just a follow-up comment. I've talked to many of the farmers, including some of the biggest aquaculture farms on the west coast, and they're very concerned about expanding. They haven't been able to expand, and in seven years there have been no new licences. And the impact on their industry has been the real or perceived problem with sea lice, or what the public views as environmental concerns. That's one of the things that really does limit this industry in Canada.

Looking at things like closed containment could provide a win-win situation for the environment, for the public, for the industry, and for the government.

I just want to move on to the Fisheries Act. There's been talk of a new fisheries act being introduced this year. I wonder if you could give us a comment on the Fisheries Act and if in fact a new act is coming this year. And if so, are you able to provide a list of all those you've consulted regarding this new act?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

We do intend to reintroduce legislation. As you know, we've already had a couple of runs at it, and I would hope that the folks around this table would really work for the industry and not play political games, because I think this is too important.

There have already been extensive consultations done the last two times around, so we do have a lot of information. I do intend to bring the act forward, and I just hope that everyone will take it seriously, because this is a lot of time and effort on everybody's part and it affects our industry, our economy. So I hope we will have your support on this.

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

Because I have limited time, I'm just going to have to go right to my last question before I that beep, and that is on lighthouses.

Minister, before your Conservative government took power, you committed to maintaining staffed lighthouses. I wonder if that commitment still exists today.

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

Well, what have said...of course, we're in tough economic times, and that's no secret. We have asked the Senate committee on fisheries to go out and talk to folks in the regions, talk to people who either work at lighthouses or might use the service, because DFO's responsibility is to ensure that we have working lights for mariners. When we talked about de-staffing lighthouses, there was a public outcry that this was going to jeopardize marine safety. Well, before we make any decisions, I want to ensure that we're not jeopardizing marine safety in any way.

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

Finally—I'm going to hear that beep anytime now—according to a recent audit, if an oil spill happened in Canadian waters today, the coast guard would not be able to contain or clean that up. This audit revealed that there was a lack of training, outdated equipment, and a lack of proper management systems.

I just wonder if the government is prepared to commit the necessary resources for the coast guard to protect our oceans and coastline from a catastrophic oil spill.

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

One of the things I can tell you that we have done already is invest heavily in the renewal of our fleet, which is very important.

I do want to say as well that when it comes to oil spills, if it's an offshore oil spill—I don't know if members are aware of this--when a company drills for oil offshore, they are required to have their oil spill response plan and they're required to have the capacity to carry that out.

If a tanker is in Canadian waters, they are responsible to have their oil spill response plan, and they're required to have the capacity to carry that out.

The coast guard works as a monitor in these situations, but the coast guard also must have its own oil spill response capacity because the coast guard is responsible for any spill that might happen where we can't find the origin of the spill, and things of that nature.

The audit did reveal that we have some work to do as far as developing a national program for oil spill response, because really what happens now is that it's more regional. So a lot of the recommendations are administrative, within the department. The coast guard has not fallen down on responding to oil spills. On any spills that have happened—they respond to about 1,300 on an annual basis—they have done quite successfully.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for being here and, Minister, for your willingness to take questions on a variety of topics in addition to aquaculture.

Let me start with one that's more an east coast issue, and then I'll transition into some west coast questions.

In recent years I guess, but certainly in recent months, tuna has been kind of a focus of attention in the fisheries world, at least Atlantic bluefin tuna has been. I know Canada is involved in that fishery. I understand that last year at CITES, it was a focus of their attention, and there was an attempt made to list bluefin tuna. As I understand it, Canada didn't support that initiative. So I was wondering if you could tell us Canada's position with respect to CITES.

But then more recently, ICCAT, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, had its meetings, which finished not many days ago. I wonder if you could update us on what the developments were at that meeting and on Canada's position in terms of whether we were disappointed with the results. Could you also tell us how the industry is doing in Canada?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

Thank you for those questions.

First, let me go back to the CITES recommendation that bluefin tuna be listed as an endangered species. If bluefin tuna had been listed on CITES, a ban on trade in bluefin tuna among countries would have been put in place. It would not stop domestic fishing. So any country that consumes all of its tuna would have had no restriction on the bluefin tuna fishery. That would mean that the countries that are the violators, which are currently involved in overfishing bluefin tuna, would have kept right on fishing bluefin tuna, and Canada would have been penalized, because we export all of our tunas. So that would have done nothing to solve the problem.

What we said was that we want to manage bluefin tuna through a regional fisheries management organization, which is ICCAT. So this year we went to ICCAT, and Canada has taken a decrease in the total allowable catch for the last three years because we're good, responsible managers of this fishery. In this year, we've seen some success in the rebuilding of the stock. Science is showing us that the stock is rebuilding, so we want to be cautious, and we want to ensure that we allow it to rebuild.

This year's meetings led to a small reduction of the Canadian total allowable catch of about 11 tonnes, which is very small. We certainly can live with that. In Canada we have the best-managed bluefin fishery in the world. We fish with a hook and line. Every tuna is tagged and accounted for, so we're doing our part to rebuild the stock. Of course, through ICCAT, we must ensure that the rest of the world does its part as well.

We were disappointed that some of the management measures we put forward for stronger reporting did not get adopted, but we're going to continue to work on that.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

So there are two populations--I'm not sure what the right technical word is there--both the western and the eastern. Western Atlantic tuna, I guess, is what Canada primarily fishes and there's also eastern.

Do we have any concerns about the effects of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the future of western Atlantic tuna?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

We have some concerns, but we won't see the results of that for a number of years. Given the preliminary information we have, we don't think the tuna population will be affected. The Gulf of Mexico is the spawning ground for tuna, so it will be a number of years before we see what the results of that will be.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Okay, thank you.

Let me return to the subject matter of your comments, which is aquaculture in B.C.

I guess we understand that the courts made a decision that gave us the responsibility for the management of aquaculture, which had previously been the province's. Is the department enthusiastically accepting this responsibility? Is it going to be business as usual as it transfers from B.C. to the federal government, or will it be managed in a different way?

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

Well, you know, this was the decision of the courts, so we'll comply with the decision of the courts.

It's been a challenge for our staff over the last 20 months, because, as I said in my opening remarks, we went from standing still to developing a whole new program. By December 18 it has to come into place. You know, some of the biggest differences that we see is that our regulations will streamline the industry more when it comes to service to clients.

So before, the clients would have to go to the federal government for some approvals, for some licenses, and they had go to the provincial government for others. Such as they would have to come to the federal government for a predator license to take care of predators. So we'll streamline all that into one.

Our regulations require more public reporting, which is going to be more work for the industry, but it will be more transparent to everyone, and we will have stronger enforcement and better compliance. So we'll put more resources into the inspecting of fish farms and things of that nature to ensure that they're compliant with the regulations.

I'm just going to ask Kevin Stringer if he might just elaborate on the public reporting requirements.

[Kevin Stringer, Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Policy, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Sure.

As the minister says, we're ready. We take responsibility for the licensing and for the federal regime on December 18. We will have a regulation in place. We will have licences provided, and the licence conditions—which have been circulated broadly to industry but also to other interested parties—speak to the reporting requirements. They speak to what will probably be a major difference in the new regime, as the minister said, which is that there are enhanced reporting requirements on industry, and some of the things that were done by policy previously will now be done by condition of licence.

So we will have regular reporting on fish health, sea lice and other diseases, and on escapes and environmental conditions. Each of the facilities will be required to have a fish health plan and an environmental management plan, and they'll be required to report regularly to DFO on those things.

There are a few pieces that are proprietary information, and we've sorted out with industry what needs to be proprietary. But there will be significantly enhanced reporting on those things, and they will be on DFO's website on a regular basis on those issues. As the minister says, that's a fundamental difference in terms of what the system will look like going forward.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you.

I have just one final topic that's important to those of us on the west coast.

For a number of years, there has been an allocation arrangement for halibut between the recreational sector and the commercial sector, the famous “88/12”, as we refer to it: 88% going to the commercial sector and 12% to the recreational sector. That was a decision that preceded you and your government.

That worked for a while, but my understanding is that there is now pressure on that 12% as being no longer adequate for the recreational sector in recent years. So I'm just wondering what you're doing to somehow resolve this issue.

[Gail Shea, Conservative, Egmont, PE]

I'll respond.

Thank you. This has been a challenging issue for us, and we've put a lot of effort into trying to find a solution to the 88/12.

I just want to say there are a couple of factors here. One of the factors here is that there is no limit to the recreational sector--how many people buy a licence, how many people go fishing--so you never know how many fish need to be there to satisfy the recreational sector.

The other thing is that there is no guarantee in the total allowable catch of halibut in any given year. The 12% therefore translates into a different amount of fish every year. So it has been very challenging.

I'm going to ask the deputy to respond to this, because she has been working on this file with the stakeholders in British Columbia.

[Claire Dansereau]

Thank you, Minister.

It is true that it's a very interesting and tricky question for us to address, because the needs on both sides of the equation are real. As of course the needs for the fish are real. So we have put in place a small working group with a facilitator made up of the recreational fishers and the commercial side to work through. What we have instructed is that there are no limits to the things that they can consider in terms of sharing the allocation and that we will do the policy analysis behind what is suggested.

So that work is ongoing. It's not going as quickly as we might like. The questions are difficult; sometimes we have to step aside because the fishing season is very active and people are on the water.

But there was a meeting very recently and there is another one coming up between the two groups to see if we can reach some kind of consensus for a recommendation to the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

We'll now move to a two-minute round.

Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

During our study on the snow crab, when we were in Cape Breton we heard testimony about the area 23 and area 24 crab management plan. I'm going to ask a couple of questions regarding that today.

We heard that once the TAC went to 9,700 tonnes there would be a 50-50 sharing arrangement. On a typical request, we saw that the department recommended that previous ministerial decisions on access be maintained. So why did the 50-50 sharing arrangement not come into play on the previous ministerial decisions on the TAC once it hit 9,700 tonnes? Why did your department change its mind on that, Minister?