Fisheries Committee on April 23rd, 2013

[David Burden]

I actually use Cambridge Bay as my middle ground for the Arctic. So everything west of Cambridge Bay is the western Arctic to me, and everything east is sort of the.... I haven't really, even in my mind, gotten it figured out as to what the eastern heart is, but Cambridge Bay is for our purposes east or west.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay, thanks. That helps clarify a little bit.

Where are your DFO offices located?

[David Burden]

We have offices in Inuvik and Yellowknife, in the western Arctic, and we have an office in Iqaluit, in the eastern Arctic. The director of northern operations, whom I mentioned earlier in my remarks, currently resides in Inuvik. He will be moving when the transportation routes are opened. He'll be coming across, and probably by late June he will be situated in Iqaluit.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

You talked a little bit in your opening remarks about the small craft harbour in Pangnirtung, and I think you said it was hopeful it would be opened in June of this year, or the summer of this year.

[David Burden]

I hope I didn't say “hopeful”.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay. It will be.

[David Burden]

It will be, yes, or you'll have a new RDG the next time the committee asks. I'm safe in saying that, in that we substantially completed the work before the freeze-up last October. I was in Pangnirtung just as we were wrapping up operations. The wharf is actually complete. We haven't got the bollards on. We've got some electrical work to do and we've got a little bit of work to do with the marshalling area off to the side. But we've had vessels using the facility over the latter part of last season.

We expect the last bit of equipment that's required to complete the electrical work to come up on the first sealift, so that will be loaded in May-June. That work will be done over July, and we expect the commissioning to happen in the latter part of July, early August.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

What kinds of activities will it support once it's up and running?

[David Burden]

It will support the Cumberland Sound inshore fisheries.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay.

When we talk about the fisheries in general across the northern Arctic region, which ones are expanding and which ones are shrinking?

[David Burden]

I'm not really certain that I would say anything is shrinking. As I said in my remarks, the fisheries are an emerging fisheries. Fifteen, twenty years ago, there really weren't a lot of fisheries in the eastern Arctic.

So there's a lot of pressure being exerted to expand fisheries for Greenland halibut and for shrimp. Those would be the main species. I think you could see more char being prosecuted, but again, it's access. There are a lot of areas where it is, but you've got to be able to get it to a plant while it's still viable or marketable.

In the western Arctic, if I had to point to an area where I have concerns, it's related to the commercial fisheries on Great Slave Lake. Maybe the focus there needs to be moving more to the recreational fisheries, which I think if you looked at the dollar amount and the economic return, it would have a much higher potential value. And we've got that demographic challenge that I mentioned. So if there was an area.... It's not so much lack of fish; it's lack of resources to prosecute that fishery.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Which industry would have the greater weight, the harvest of the marine mammals or the fisheries?

[David Burden]

Primarily we'd be talking about in the eastern Arctic. It depends upon the community and I guess it depends upon how you're asking your question. If you are asking it from the community's perspective—

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I am asking from both the community perspective and the economic perspective.

[David Burden]

As I said, you can't underestimate the value of the traditional fisheries, and I'd put marine mammals into that. It's huge, as a food cost to a community.

The commercial fisheries related to shrimp and Greenland halibut or turbot are prosecuted by a few people for the larger community, and through the arrangements in the land claim and with the community associations, they all benefit from it. But it's a few people prosecuting it for the benefit of the greater good. You can answer that question either way and come down with an answer.

I don't think there is a right or a wrong to it. It depends upon what your perspective is. If you're a young family trying to feed your kids and you look at what it costs to bring in milk and fruit and vegetables and that kind of stuff, you're going to be thinking that the traditional marine mammal harvest, as well as char and those kinds of fisheries, is fundamentally important to you. As dollars and cents in the economy of the north, it's going to be looked at from the commercial value of turbot and shrimp.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Ms. Davidson.

Go ahead, Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Do you expect Pangnirtung, when it's completed, would expand the inshore fishery substantially?

Also, you mentioned that Great Slave Lake would be better, sir, as a recreational fishery area. Is that because the infrastructure is not there, or is it the numbers of fish, or are the fish smaller? Just what is the situation?

[David Burden]

The reason for that small craft harbour is that there is a plant in Pangnirtung. It's providing good employment and it has had good returns. With the small craft harbour facility, there is the potential for exploiting the potential much further on the inshore and just having more of a summer fishery than we've seen to this point in time.

The important thing to remember with the Pangnirtung small craft harbour is that it's going to help the inshore fishery in Cumberland Sound. It's not going to do anything to bring in either shrimp or fish from the east because the transit would make it cost prohibitive.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

It's too far.

[David Burden]

Exactly.

If I were the Nunavut government, I think I'd be looking for something out on the coast, and I'm sure when you go, if you're talking to them, that will be one of the issues they'll be talking about.

On Great Slave Lake, the issue there is not fish. It's the high cost of transport to get fish to market and, as I said, the demographics. The young people can make more money working in the resource sector than they can fishing, so they're moving away from it, but those who are involved in the sport fishery or recreational support of it, as outfitters and so on, are doing very well. There are an awful lot of tourists who will come up and pay an awful lot of money to fish in world-class pristine lakes.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

That is just going to expand and expand.

[David Burden]

From the discussions I've had with my counterpart from the Northwest Territories government and with Inuvialuit and others in and around the western Arctic, that's an area they see as having potential to exploit, yes.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Do you have a concern about the development in the Mackenzie River basin? Is there any difficulty with contaminating the waters downstream?

[David Burden]

I don't think it would be any different in the Mackenzie than it would be in the Yukon or anywhere else. When we're looking at any resource development, we are involved in the review from a fisheries and fisheries protection program standpoint, so we'd be looking at it as commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries. We would work through the approval agency and provide technical support and advice to them, and we'd obviously be working with our co-management authorities to ensure that all of that is taken into consideration. We would want to see the proponent providing us with the scientific information to allow us to make informed decisions on what those impacts could be and what the appropriate mitigation measures would have to be in order for it to proceed.