Fisheries Committee on May 28th, 2013

[Dan Lindsey]

It's an interesting question, because I think under our new.... I always say it's new because I was part of the negotiating crew, but it's different. The first and foremost interest for the majority of Yukon is to make sure that the fish stocks are healthy. I think that's universal.

I think the second thing is that in providing fish for communities, some people will call that recreation, but for many communities there's a heavy reliance on fish, whether it's freshwater fish or salmon. So I would say that the second interest is to make sure that those opportunities are there and that people can still bring country foods into their homes and get out and enjoy the fishing activity. I would say that's second.

Commercial is a far third. There is not a huge demand to have commercial activity in the Yukon, especially if it affects either number one or number two, as mentioned.

That would be, in essence, I think where most Yukoners are coming from.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

[Nathan Millar]

Just to add one point to what Dan is saying, it also comes back to the mandate of the fisheries managers in Yukon. Our mandate is really around ensuring that the resources for whatever fishery is prosecuted remain sustainable.

We don't have a mandate for the economic development of fisheries, which I think is maybe the distinction between our role for Yukon government and the role of a lot of other provincial agencies. When I'm talking to my colleagues on the east coast, I'd say that is really one of their main jobs. Our job here is primarily around management of the resource. Part of that deals with management of the industries, but our main focus is on the resource rather than economic development.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Basically, a large part of it is food source for the population—am I correct?

[Nathan Millar]

You mean the recreational fishery?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Yes.

[Nathan Millar]

It's interesting, actually. We've done studies and we've asked people why they go fishing. The top five answers have nothing to do with catching fish, eating fish, or taking fish home for their freezer. They have to do with being outside, being with their family, and being relaxed. The recreational fishery is slightly more complex than just going out and getting a fish for yourself to eat. It's about all of these other values and experiences that people have when they're doing the activity.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Yes, I can see that.

I'd better go on. We'll leave that. It's interesting.

Regarding the first nations, you co-manage with the first nations. I'd like you to give me a brief summary on how that is progressing.

[Dan Lindsey]

Okay.

The agreements basically lay out the rights of a first nation. This particular comprehensive claim created boards and councils so they could have greater involvement in the overall management of fisheries. When we're dealing with first nations, their rights are identified in the treaties but the boards and councils are constructed to inform management and to direct, to some degree, management activities. These are separate bodies. They're not representative of first nations. They're just some folks who have been nominated by first nations or by the minister. That's been a challenge for us within the initial start-up. Overall, it certainly sets a bit more of a tone as to the direction management takes based on the information and input of the boards and councils.

Instead of the way things were in the old days when Yukon said it was going to do this with the fishery and going to introduce this type of legislation, we're not in a position to do that anymore. We have to respect the bodies that were developed and take some of their guidance into consideration. That certainly has shaped how Yukon manages the fishery.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. MacAulay.

Mr. Chisholm.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, gentlemen.

I want to follow up on that line of discussion a bit. According to what you just said, we're managing the fishery more along the lines of the sustainability of the fishery as a food source or whatever, rather than in terms of the commercial or economic development aspects. That's interesting.

One of the points I wanted to make was that when we had senior officials from DFO here a few weeks ago, they talked about the northern fishery. One comment that was made, which stuck with me, was that the priorities for their activities were the subsistence fishery, the recreation fishery, and then the commercial fishery. I was trying to square that in my head and what that meant. You've just put your finger on it.

Let me move from there. You also talked about the relationship of the first nations and the Yukon government with the boards and councils that manage the fishery. That must be quite an interesting process. Could you comment on that process of managing the management activities with that goal in mind?

[Dan Lindsey]

It was a learning curve for all of us when the councils and boards fell into place and as more came along with each successive individual first nation final agreement.

You're moving from generally a fish scientist or fish biology focus to now considering a lot of human dimension issues, for lack of a better term, or social scientist type of issues. We weren't all that prepared for it. It was a situation where we had to slowly learn those skills and work with groups that collectively had very strong influences. It's no doubt created more upfront time, when we plan. In the long term, once you reach it, you have buy-in from the communities and the general public. From a territorial perspective, those are the people you're interested in.

It's been dynamic; that's for sure. At the end of the day, we still have the opportunity for the first nation governments to deal directly with the minister, on a minister-to-minister basis. The boards and councils are separate entities. They don't represent either government or first nation, but they bring first nation people and others together in trying to identify concerns. They generate many of these concerns on their own. Some, we bring to them and say, "Here are our challenges. Here's our dilemma. Here's what we're dealing with. What do you think about it?"

It's worked well from our perspective, but by no means has it been a simple process. At the end of the day, I think it's better than what we had previously, which was an arbitrary, single-minded focus.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

It's interesting to me. I introduced myself as being from Nova Scotia. I'm the fisheries critic for the official opposition. I've been dealing with the small boat fisheries off the Atlantic coast for 20 years.

That whole consultation management process, with the people who are involved, needs a lot of work. I was particularly interested in how your system works and am interested in learning more, so that we can come up with a better system in our small boat fishery, which would allow for greater participation and ownership of the decisions—hopefully, decisions that are made in the best interest of a sustainable fishery.

[Nathan Millar]

An additional value that comes forward in a system like this is that the identification of a problem or issue is no longer the sole responsibility of the management authority. Now, you're getting all these people who have very intimate knowledge of the resources, being on the land, saying that they see a problem and that something needs to be done about it. There is a real value-added component, from that aspect, of this system we're working in.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.

Go ahead, Mr. Woodworth.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, to the witnesses, for coming today.

I'm going to start with what I think are fairly simple questions, which I know you have the answers to and I don't. The first is that, as I look at the map, it appears to me that the north shore of the Yukon is the Beaufort Sea. Is that correct?

[Dan Lindsey]

Yes, that's correct.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Okay.

It doesn't appear to me there is any large port or entry point from the Yukon to the Beaufort. I wonder whether your fisheries industry is a Beaufort Sea fishery in any respect, or is it entirely a freshwater fishery?

[Dan Lindsey]

Our legal obligation is the freshwater fishery. There have certainly been discussions about the offshore fishery, particularly off the Beaufort. There's no road access to that, so largely the activity right now comes from the delta, from Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Aklavik, and from some of the communities of Inuvialuit and Gwich'in that fish there. There are very few suitable port sites on Yukon's coastline, with the exception of perhaps Herschel Island, which is wedged between the Ivvavik National Park and Herschel Island Territorial Park.

But it is the area where we certainly are seeing some of the warmest trends going, some of the close to six degrees, if I'm not mistaken, in warming activity. It's probably one of the hotter areas in the world that's changing, so we are seeing a lot more ice-free conditions in that area. We actually are starting to see salmon—chinook salmon, and I believe there's been coho salmon—that have never been seen up there before. Maybe they're doing a little bit of a loop around the Bering Sea.

But again, it's not our mandate in the offshore.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Regardless of mandate, it sounds to me like there aren't very many Yukoners who would be doing offshore fishing. Is that correct?

[Dan Lindsey]

That's correct.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

So we're really here to talk about freshwater fishing, correct?

[Dan Lindsey]

That's right.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

All right.

Regarding the role of DFO in relation to habitat, can you tell me if there have been any significant habitat issues or challenges in the last six or seven years for the Yukon fisheries? Or has it been running pretty smoothly?