Thank you. This is the first time this board has presented to such a committee, and thanks for allowing the map to be distributed. I know we will follow up with a lot of correspondence to give to the committee about all the board's recommendations over the last five years.
Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to present to the standing committee. The invitation was greatly appreciated by the Torngat Joint Fisheries Board. The board does have a wealth of fisheries knowledge and experience, and is composed of seven members appointed by the Nunatsiavut, federal, and provincial governments.
The board is a creation of the 2005 Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement. We point out that the land claim covers waters that are both within and adjacent to shrimp fishing areas 4 and 5, and that's the reason for the map we distributed. The area you see in red is the land claims agreement.
The board's primary responsibility is to make recommendations directly to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on a long list of marine species, but most relevant to the discussion obviously is northern shrimp.
We are in a position today to speak to the management recommendations that the board has presented consistently over the past five years. These recommendations have covered topics such as total allowable catch levels, allocations, and a position on the last in, first out policy, the draft national policy for allocating fish for financing purposes, the fisheries management modernization process, and the northern shrimp external review, so we have provided copies for the committee. Unfortunately they weren't translated ahead of time, so we will send those electronically and have them made available.
Our area of focus is the Labrador Inuit settlement area, which includes a marine component referred to within the agreement as the zone. We have provided the map for your reference and reiterate that the shrimp area is both within and adjacent to this land claim.
Furthermore, based on the land claim language, the board is the primary body that advises the minister on the conservation and management of the shrimp resource in this area. The zone makes up 24% of area 4 and 34% of area 5, yet the main adjacent user, the Nunatsiavut government, has access to only 3.7% of the resource in areas 4 and 5 combined.
We make these points because a clear inequity has developed over time. There have been missed opportunities when the resource was healthy, and now opportunities are being missed as the resource declines.
To explain what we mean, in 1997 DFO held extensive consultations that led to the development of six principles to govern new access to the shrimp fishery. These criteria included the conservation of the resource, the continued viability of the offshore industry, adjacency, increasing aboriginal participation, access to inshore vessels less than 65 feet, and employment in both the harvesting and processing sectors.
The 1997 criteria were later replaced in 2003 by the new access framework, which established three prioritized principles. In priority order, they were conservation, recognition of aboriginal and treaty rights, and equity. These are then considered against the three traditional criteria of adjacency, historical dependence, and economic viability.
So we've seen two considerable efforts to provide guidance for new access when the fishery has expanded, yet no comparable effort for a contracting fishery. The main mechanism specific to a contracting fishery scenario was the thresholds established in 1997 and the last in, first out policy, which emerged in an unclear way in subsequent years.
For the purpose of this afternoon's discussion I'll focus on conservation, recognition of aboriginal and treaty rights, and adjacency.
Conservation is paramount and is considered independently of all other criteria. The board has consistently advocated for the full and transparent implementation of the precautionary approach framework and the harvest control rules included in the IFMP, and considers these to be sufficient safeguards against conservation concerns, if applied.
With that said, there has been little cause for conservation concern in areas 4 and 5 until this year. In the case of SFA 4 the estimate still puts the resource status in the healthy zone, and the projected exploitation rate of 9.9% is still well below the 15% target. SFA 5 has been stable, but the 2014 estimate was negative, and the projected exploitation rate based on a 10% reduction exceeds the target. Without getting into case examples, the board does note that the IFMP has not been followed consistently, either on the way up or on the way down, for this resource.
I'll move along to aboriginal participation in the shrimp fishery. Only part 13.12.7 of the land claims agreement references shrimp specifically, and I quote:
If...the Minister decides to issue more Commercial Fishing Licences...for shrimp in Waters Adjacent to the Zone...the Minister shall offer access to the Nunatsiavut Government through an additional Commercial Fishing Licence...or by some other means to 11 percent of the quantity available to be Harvested under those licences.
The interpretation of this clause has been uncertain and has been a cause for some dispute between the Government of Canada and the Nunatsiavut government, focusing on the use of the word “licences”. There have been no new licences issued per se, but there have been significant allocations—4,651 metric tons since 2008—with only 300 metric tons allocated to the Nunatsiavut government; 1,700 metric tons to the northern shrimp research survey; and the balance split 90:10 between the offshore and inshore fleets.
The question is to the letter of the agreement versus the spirit and intent, and the honour of the crown to uphold the agreement. From the legal advice it was given, the board certainly doesn't feel the agreement was intended in any way to be a limiting agreement, and it expects its facilitation in the fishery to be enhanced, not limited in the way it seems to be sometimes. The Nunatsiavut government has consistently interpreted the 11% reference to be a target percentage share of the overall resource in areas adjacent. Currently the Nunatsiavut government has 2% in area 4 and under 5% in area 5, so as I mentioned, 3.7% overall.
More generally, the board recognizes that increasing aboriginal access to economic opportunities is not a goal just of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but is a goal that is more broadly shared across government.
Adjacency figures prominently in both the 1997 criteria and the 2003 principles, and we note again that the Nunatsiavut government has a settled land claim that is both within and adjacent to these two areas. We draw your attention to the map we have provided. The inequity is glaring when you compare the Nunatsiavut government percentage of the fishery in SFA 4 and SFA 5 to their land claim. We're in a process of doing further analysis that you will be able to compare. We already know the results of the analysis, but the adjacent users, both to the north and the south of the Nunatsiavut government, are dramatically higher, and they hold the majority of the allocations.
The board has submitted recommendations annually since 2010. In 2010 and 2011 the board recommended that the exploitation rate be increased from about 8% to 14%, recognizing the disparity between area 4 and all other areas. The board also recommended that 75% of this increase be allocated to the Nunatsiavut government.
In 2012, 2013, and 2014 the board recommended that the total allowable catch be increased by 15% as a stepped approach towards parity with other areas. The new course was entirely consistent with the IFMP, and the recommended allocation of 75% to the Nunatsiavut government reflected our analysis of the department's allocation criteria and the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement.
For SFA 5 the board recommended status quo in 2010-13, and this year recommended a reduction of 15%. Again, all of these recommendations are grounded in the IFMP.
In 2010 the board recommended a process to discuss the last in, first out policy, which never happened. Each year since 2010 the board has recommended that the Nunatsiavut government be exempt from its application, judging it to be in conflict with other policies intended to increase aboriginal participation in the fishery. Exempting aboriginals from the LIFO policy at this time would act as a way to increase their overall participation at a time when the biomass is declining and ocean habitat is changing.
So there are many interest groups that have made their positions known in recent weeks about cuts to shrimp quotas. As a neutral board, we feel strongly that we've provided confident advice to the minister, and ask that these perspectives not be overwritten.
That's the end of my notes, but I'll point out that the board, in the case of shrimp, has made some very favourable recommendations to one of the funding parties of the board. But when you look at the board's whole body of work, that's not always necessarily the case. It just so happens, in the case of shrimp, that there is a very clear inequity that has been there.
One of the glaring examples that we also recommended and didn't feel should've happened was when 1,700 metric tons in that area was allocated towards shrimp science. That was a significant new opportunity that became available and basically it was paying for science in multiple areas, but area SFA 4 paid the whole price for it. It was again another opportunity that was missed.
With that, those are my comments. We'll try to help to get caught up on time and answer questions as best we can.