Fisheries Committee on May 28th, 2013

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Am I to understand that these bodies of water are more accessible to the recreational or the commercial fishery? Am I correct?

[Nathan Millar]

They are all road and highway accessible.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Which fishery is not road or highway accessible? What I'm thinking of, and I guess I'm out to lunch on this thought, but I would expect that in an area like that, a recreational fishery way out clear of highways would be quite an experience. Obviously I don't pick up that's the direction you're in at the moment because you do not feel you have the market for that. Is that correct?

[Nathan Millar]

It's a good question. I invite you all to come up to experience fishing—

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You see what goes on in B.C. and everywhere, and everybody wants to do it and it's a pull both ways. Here you have such a territory and it's basically not happening.

[Dan Lindsey]

There are not any huge barriers for it to happen. We don't have a lot of barriers. What we have is a wilderness tourism licence and a person can acquire it. There are very few limitations on it. So if you wanted to take people out to fish on a remote lake, there are very few barriers to allowing you to do that. It's get a licence, and there are hardly any caveats on it. Your only caveat is if you wanted to build a number of lodges, that gets into a bigger review.

But overall we expect that if there was a very lucrative aspect to it, there would be a lot more people coming in. You're probably right. There hasn't been that, other than for those who have established a fairly good market and been able to attract mostly European folks coming over. So we have some flights from Germany and Europe directly to Whitehorse, and I think that helps that industry quite a bit.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Donnelly.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, both, for being part of our committee today and providing your testimony.

My colleague asked about the Yukon's relationship with Canada. I'm interested in the United States and your relationship, if any, with Alaska. I'm wondering if you could compare how you manage your fishery to how the Alaskans manage their fishery. For instance, what are the major differences? I appreciate that yours is heavily a recreational fishery versus the Alaskan emphasis on commercial fishing.

I'm also curious—it was brought up about aquaculture. I'm wondering if there are any differences there in terms of that. My understanding is that the Alaskans don't do aquaculture. They are more into ocean ranching. Basically, could you highlight the main differences between the Yukon and Alaska?

[Dan Lindsey]

Sure. Alaska is a lot more heavily populated, of course, than the Yukon. Alaska has both the Arctic and the Pacific marine fisheries, which are incredibly huge. For things like the pollock industry, the economics around that are hugely significant to the state and to the communities on the coastline.

There really isn't a comparison. They are largely focused on the salmon, halibut, and pollock offshore industry. Their interior management of fresh water isn't substantively different from the situations we encounter. Their greater focus is obviously on the marine and anadromous fish.

We deal with them. Of course, salmon is DFO's mandate, but we generally deal with the Alaskans on the Yukon River Panel in trying to make sure that enough fish come into the Yukon as part of the treaty, which hasn't happened in the last few years. We have a pretty reasonable working relationship with them, but their focus for the most part is definitely marine. It's just so much more.... The economics around that and the livelihood issues associated with all the communities are pretty integral to the marine industry.

Nathan might have some additional information on our liaisons with Alaska.

[Nathan Millar]

Yes, I think Dan is right. I think there are some fundamental differences in terms of the types of fisheries that Alaska prosecutes compared to what Yukon does. They have very large offshore fisheries. Dan mentioned the pollock fisheries. America's largest fishery takes place in Alaska. A lot of the communities tend to be coastal. They're very oriented towards salmonids and other anadromous fish. These systems tend to be a lot more productive as well, because of the marine influence and the productivity of the systems.

But I would agree. I think generally their management of freshwater systems is not that different, to my knowledge. In the systems that we would manage, they would be similar. I think there are a lot of commonalities. We have a good relationship with Alaska. We have a reciprocal licensing agreement whereby Yukoners can purchase a recreational fishing licence in Alaska at the same cost that an Alaskan would pay, and vice versa.

Dan mentioned the Yukon River Panel, which is under the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and is a particular annex to that treaty that deals with management of salmon in the Yukon River. Of course, it's a shared resource, so there's a group of individuals who work together on managing that shared resource.

Those are a few of the differences and highlights.

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

Thanks very much.

I have time for a very quick last question here. Again, Environment Yukon's 2010 report was referenced. A quote in there states that a “[m]ove towards ecosystem and watershed based management and increased emphasis on management of river systems” is a priority that guides the direction of fisheries management in the Yukon.

I'm wondering if, in a very short time, you could say quickly why that move was a management priority in the Yukon.

[Nathan Millar]

I think it stems largely from an information gap, a data gap. We have been focusing our management efforts on lakes, on large and small lakes that are readily accessible. We know that a lot of fishing goes on in rivers. They tend to be much more difficult to study, which is partly why management is focused on lakes.

It was really an acknowledgment of that information gap, but also of their biological importance to those systems as well. I think that's probably the short answer.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Mr. Weston.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's hard to miss the sense of excitement and pride you have about the wildlife, about the collaboration, about the successful relationships with first nations. I think there's a real reputation here. The Yukon comes across as being a casual, friendly place. I think I speak for everybody here when I say that we're excited to visit.

I also want to mention that we don't all wear ties and jackets all the time.

I have three questions for you that relate to best practices. Both of you have referred on several occasions to relationships with partners. One of the things I'm very keen about in terms of the recent budget is the $10 million the government is going to invest in partnerships for habitat enhancement. I'm wondering if you might speak about some of those partnerships.

Second, is there any other thing you're particularly proud of that you want us to take back in terms of a best practice for habitat management?

Third, we're still designing our trip. I'm wondering if there are any places that you think we should be visiting where you feel that some of these best practices are modelled well.

[Dan Lindsey]

I'll speak to the partnership question first.

I think in general when we were under the negotiations for all these comprehensive claims, we had to immediately put our money where our mouth was. We had to work with these boards. They're very strong advisory boards. They're not judicial boards, but they have direct access to the minister, with timelined ministerial responses. If the minister doesn't respond to the board's recommendations within 60 days, we have to give effect to that recommendation.

So we're obviously working with them, trying to land on the same place and respect the provisions of those agreements that really talk about.... They use the same terminology as the old Fisheries Act did for the conservation of fish. The boards and councils really hold us to that test of making sure we're managing that way. The best way to do that is to work with first nations and the boards collectively. Even the report you see in front of you has been reviewed by the fish and wildlife management board, and has been improved or modified with their stamp of approval on it.

I think it's just a common state of business in our new world since the claims here. We need to work with the partners. If we don't, quite frankly we'll generally fail, and we've done that. After the agreements, we tried to do a few things on our own and we found that we were going back to the drawing board. So there have been a number of partnerships. We work closely with them, for example, on the Yukon River Panel. We work with them in the communities. We find that it does take more time to engage, and that's a challenge, but I think at the end of the day the outcome is a lot more long term and lasting, and it feels like people have certainly had their involvement in it.

That's on the partnership side.

As for the $10 million, I could take all of that—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I guess the point I was making, Dan, was with regard to getting many partners involved across the country, not with huge amounts of money but giving them an incentive to work...and it sounds like you've done that in various ways. Have you any great examples that you want us to know about?

Maybe that will move you to the third question as well. Are there any places we should be going to visit that will help us see that in action?

[Dan Lindsey]

We could certainly advise the panel on it. It depends on when you come up. There are different venues and different opportunities to see things, but it depends on the timing. I'm not sure what the timing is.

If you give us some thought on that, we could certainly get back to you on locations where you could either observe or actually attend hearings. You may want to participate in and observe, for example, a board reviewing some particular fisheries matters. That's an opportunity.

[Nathan Millar]

I was thinking that if you have some flexibility in your schedule, August is a really nice and interesting time to come, partly because that's when the salmon are here.

Certainly, there's an experience to see freshwater fish throughout the open water season, but the salmon are in the Yukon in August, and these are some of the longest salmon runs in the world. They've come up 3,000 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean, and to see them arrive in the communities in Yukon at that time of year is a celebration of the natural world, but it's very much a cultural celebration as well. People are very excited to see fish come back to Yukon. It means so much to them.

In Whitehorse, certainly, they're here in August, and a little bit sooner in some of the communities downriver, like Dawson City. I would recommend coming up in late summer. It's an excellent time to see some of the fisheries resources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Weston.

Mr. Toone.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks again for coming today. It's been very informative. I share Lawrence MacAulay's certain ignorance of the region, so the more we can learn, the better, and I thank you for it.

You were mentioning just a moment ago that the conservation fish and wildlife boards and the first nations have been worried about fish conservation. Just to follow up on what my colleague Robert Chisholm was saying, last year in Bill C-38 we changed the definition of habitat protection, so if I could, I'll just go back to that for a moment.

I appreciate your comment that change is coming, and I think that's probably true. I know that DFO last month sent out a discussion paper on definitions for habitat protection. I wonder if your government has had an opportunity to comment. Have you have had an opportunity to send a brief to DFO regarding that?

[Nathan Millar]

It's something that we're preparing right now, actually. We'll get—

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Do you realize that the deadline for comments—