Fisheries Committee on Feb. 24th, 2015

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Excuse me. Could you also, when you're speaking to it, touch on enforcement and elaborate on how it is progressing, being a new fishery, and that type of thing?

[Andrew McMaster]

I'll turn the enforcement question back to my boss, but speaking on the values, we're looking at anywhere from $1,250 to $1,400 per trip that is charged by the charter operators; that's for a group of one to six people. Looking at that, you're looking at a gross revenue that has increased significantly since 2010 and up to 2013. The 2010 estimated gross revenue was just about $100,000, and in 2013 about $1.5 million. It's a significantly growing industry. The number of trips has grown significantly as well as the number of charter boat operators participating in it.

With regard to the mortality rate, we have a 10-tonne national allocation, which comes off the top of Canada's national allocation for bluefin tuna, that is applied to address any mortality in the fishery. The science estimates are, right now, that the mortality rate is just 3.4%, so it's quite low in respect to that hook and release fishery.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

That's very important, and I'm pleased to hear it.

Mr. Stringer, I appreciated your answer to my friend Mr. Sopuck. It's sometimes quite difficult to evaluate the value of the commercial fishery and the recreational or whatever you call the catch and release, because people fly in, rent hotel rooms—it is new money coming to an area. But we also have to keep our eye on the commercial fishermen, who have to survive too.

[Kevin Stringer]

Commercial fishery continues to be a real focus for the department. There is no question that more value can come out of the recreational fisheries. Charter fishing is one thing we're certainly looking at and something on which we really look forward to the advice of this committee in your study, something that really is development.

Enforcement is a challenge in the recreational fishery. It's a challenge everywhere—I won't speak specifically to tuna fishery enforcement—but generally with respect to the recreational fishery. You have thousands of participants involved. We have very specific management rules, which I told you about, in lingcod and striped bass that is between 50 cm and 65 cm. There are 4,000 people out there on the Miramichi and in the southern gulf with their nets trying to figure that out. You only have one per day. We don't have an enforcement officer behind each tree watching them.

This is a challenge. It is something we continue to think about while looking for new ways to monitor. We require logbooks in the case of some of the bigger ones; input that comes back to the department or to the province at the end of the season. There are actually prizes and incentives to do it.

Enforcement does take place. I have some stats that I can share with you. For example, in the Newfoundland salmon fishery or in the Newfoundland recreational fishery writ large we had 250 violations in 2014. In 2013 there was 70,000 hours of enforcement by guardians and by RCMP officers. Charges were laid, warnings were given, there were 59 salmon nets seized, 109 salmon seized, and 11 boats seized. So there is action taken.

We also work with Crime Stoppers and we have Report a Poacher websites that we're developing as well. It is an interesting and challenging issue in both the charter operations but also the recreational fishery generally.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much.

I would add that I don't think you need to have a fisheries officer following the tuna boats because it's pretty basic and it is worth a lot of money and going to continue to grow. I'm certainly very pleased to hear the mortality rate is not high at all, which can be a concern.

In this whole area of recreational fisheries, we've done a fair bit on invasive species. Can you elaborate on the concerns you have and what species it will affect?

[Kevin Stringer]

Aquatic invasive species seems to be the emerging issue in terms of fisheries protection.

In terms of fisheries protection, there are five physical threats to fisheries: overfishing is managed through deciding who gets a licence, etc.; pollution is managed through section 36; water flow is managed through section 20 of the Fisheries Act; habitat is managed through section 35 of the Fisheries Act. As for the invasive species, the changes to the Fisheries Act that we made in 2012 that Parliament passed now give us the authority to address invasive species, and we have a regulation that is currently undergoing formal consultation. What it will do when it is passed, presuming it's put into effect, is ban or prohibit the sale, transport, and possession of aquatic invasive species, and there's a list of what those species are. It will also give ministers, federal and provincial—and territorial if they want it—the tools to eradicate and address aquatic invasive species.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Will that also involve importing into the country or into a province? There's a big problem. People, if you're fully aware, do not really understand what they're doing with the invasive species.

[Kevin Stringer]

You can't import the aquatic invasive species under this piece into the country. Then there's the interesting issue of a species that happens to be native to the Prairies but not elsewhere. What do you do in those cases? That has been kind of interesting to develop because aquatic invasive species is to that watershed or to that ecosystem, so we've been working on that.

The one that everybody knows about that we are concerned about is Asian carp. That is a huge issue if they do get into the Great Lakes. We've been trying since 1955 to deal with sea lamprey. If we have to address Asian carp as well it will be a huge issue for commercial but also really for the recreational fisheries in the Great Lakes.

But there are others across the country such as some of the bass species in New Brunswick, tunicates, green crab, northern snakeheads. There are a number of species that we're concerned about that do have an impact on recreational fisheries as well as commercial.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stringer.

Mr. Weston.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have three questions. I'm really glad you're here. We're doing a study that interests British Columbians and all Canadians, I think.

First I'm hoping my colleague, Mr. Sopuck, will close his ears for a minute. As a self-proclaiming author and one of the real proponents of this recreational fisheries program, I'm very proud of him and I really like the idea that individual MPs can really change our legislature and the world through an initiative like that, and we've all benefited. Congratulations to you, Mr. Sopuck.

My first question deals with the program. We've heard about the $8 billion and we've heard about how the program has resulted in large-scale funding and about rehabilitation of recreational fisheries. My first question is this, and I'm going to go through all three. Is that the sole source of funding from DFO for recreational fisheries' habitat conservation?

My second relates to tourism, which is a huge source of revenue for our country and certainly for British Columbia. A west coast MP has to be concerned about fisheries and tourism. My question is, given the large number of foreign anglers—you mentioned 400,000 foreign anglers—do our fisheries and tourism departments work together? How do you think we could improve on that?

The third question is how important are our DFO scientists to recreational fisheries? There is a lab in west Vancouver often known as the DFO lab. In my opinion it has some great scientists there. Perhaps we can do better still in how we harness their ability and their expertise to promote our recreational fisheries.

[Kevin Stringer]

I'll start on the first one and then I will ask Melinda to comment on what we do in terms of the recreational fisheries partnership program.

The first question was: Is that really the sole source of funding? I'll make two points. One is, part of our program is to require partnerships. For every dollar we raise or that we provide to a program, we're actually able to leverage an additional $2.25 for the project. We have managed to partner—and I'll ask Melinda to speak to this—with hundreds of groups in terms of leveraging funds and volunteer hours, etc.

We also have other programs that address habitat restoration. Our salmonid enhancement program on the west coast in particular has a significant habitat restoration component to it.

The Pacific Salmon Foundation had an initial $30-million grant but they also have the funds annually from the conservation stamp and we work with them on that in terms of habitat restoration.

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

How much was that initial grant?

[Kevin Stringer]

The initial grant was $30 million. The moneys they get from the conservation stamp is about $1.2 million. It depends on how many people get the stamp per year. Then there is funding from the salmonid enhancement program.

There is a similar program on the east coast with the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Foundation. Again, $30 million was the initial amount of money they utilized.

There are some other programs. There is something called AFSAR. It's an aboriginal support program for habitat restoration for species at risk. There may be one or two others.

There are certainly a number of things we do, but the recreational fisheries partnership program has been a real focus for us in terms of developing partnerships, leveraging other funds, and doing some really important work.

[Melinda Lontoc-Roy, Advisor, Fisheries Protection Program, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Just to follow up on some of the numbers that Mr. Stringer was sharing, if we're looking at the results from last year, 2013-14, where we funded 74 different organizations to run 94 projects, those 74 organizations partnered in turn with over 380 partners. The leveraging and the partnership aspects of this program are working well.

In addition to the volunteers, again for the same projects we had over 1,700 volunteers, separate from the partners who were volunteering their time.

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

What is that number, again?

[Melinda Lontoc-Roy]

There were over 1,700.

[Kevin Stringer]

On tourism and fisheries, I can't tell you that I know of any formal relationship that we have with our colleagues at CTC. I think there is some opportunistic engagement but it's something that could probably be expanded. It's opportunistic because some of the people who work in our office used to work in the tourism office so they're connected. But in terms of a formal relationship, I don't think we have that strong a formal relationship. It is a really interesting thought, particularly as that's on the west coast.

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

If I can interrupt, a round table on tourism that I co-chaired with Senator Nancy Greene Raine, has just produced a report on tourism through Deloitte's on how we can improve in this area. I think there are some real areas where through collaboration, your department and CTC could really achieve even greater outcomes.

[Kevin Stringer]

Yes, that is very interesting..

Alain spoke about scientists. I'm going to give him the microphone again. What I can say is that on all of our fisheries—and I'm on the management side—we depend fundamentally on science. Our advice about how to manage, I would say, is a bigger challenge sometimes in the recreational fishery where it's hard to get good information about how much exactly was caught. It's a bit more difficult, but I'll ask Alain to comment.

[Alain Vézina]

You ask how important departmental scientists are in this enterprise and whether we could enhance that in some way.

Right now the DFO scientists are very key in many issues related to recreational fisheries, and I gave a few examples earlier, but I'll repeat that.

A lot of our work helps inform habitat issues relative to the recreational fisheries, animal health issues relative to the recreational fisheries and invasive species, so they are all critical pieces in order for people to manage and make decisions about recreational fisheries.

In terms of the direct assessment of the recreational fisheries, we do some work in areas where we have the primary responsibility like in the north and in some fisheries in the Great Lakes that are both commercial and recreational. We do the assessments there. Otherwise a lot of that research is done by the provinces.

We collaborate a lot with the provinces and with the watershed organizations. The DFO scientists are involved in partnerships to make sure we have the best possible science to inform people who make decisions about the recreational fisheries.

I think we're key. I just want to point out that we do have a couple of laboratories you didn't name that are really focused on freshwater science, like the Great Lakes laboratory in Sault Ste. Marie. All they do is freshwater science. Of course, we have the Freshwater Institute where there's still a lot of excellent freshwater science being done.

We play a key role, but we can't be alone in this enterprise. It's a very complex ecosystem. We're willing to work with partners even more, but we have some capacity issues. We can't be everywhere at once, so working with partners and developing relationships especially with watershed conservation, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, and all that will really help improve the science.

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

Thank you.

So we're good, and we can always be better. If we are to be the international centre for science for fisheries and the world leader, what would be two or three things you would like to see, for us to keep growing over the next 10 years, looking long range?

[Alain Vézina]

On the recreational scale?

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

I'm talking about the science that includes recreational fishing.

[Alain Vézina]

That's a good question.

I think that exercising some leadership and assembling partners around critical issues is increasing our national and international visibility. We can play a leadership role in some very specific cases. That is mainly what I see. In terms of investment, we must instead look at how…

to better harness the resources that are there rather than try to drum up money ourselves so to speak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to a three-minute round now, and we're going to start off with Mr. Cleary.