Fisheries Committee on March 24th, 2015

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

That dovetails back to my original question. Because we're laying out the theoretical challenges that could occur, what is our practical experience with that application to date? Do we know that?

[David Henley]

That's a good question. I don't have any detail on the exact seizures. That's something that perhaps the minister or the department could speak to.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Okay, fair enough. Thank you for that.

Do I have a little time left or am I done?

I have three minutes. Okay, so we'll move on.

Thank you, I appreciate your input on that piece. Like you said, it's not a deal breaker but certainly a valid point of consideration.

Can you talk to us about how IUU fishing is currently prevented from entering Canada? How is Canada—this is open to both of you—affected by illegal, unreported, and unregulated fisheries when it approaches other countries? How does that affect the Canadian context and our Canadians fishers and producers?

[Patrick McGuinness]

As you say, it's really hard to measure in terms of our major markets. For example in the United States, Canada, and so on, it's not an issue.

In China, it's is an expanding industry and we are concerned about that. It has increased substantially. It's our third largest market. We see opportunities in South Korea opening up. It's an issue with respect to that marketplace. Vietnam is an important marketplace for us.

We're talking about sales from our top 10 markets. There are a couple of key, growing markets, particularly in Asia-Pacific.

If Russia ever comes back, in terms of IUU fishing, it will be a challenge.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Stopping IUU fishing is not only a laudable and critical objective, but it obviously also makes up a certain percentage of the marketplace. In your estimation, what does that do to the market? As that declines, does that drive our prices up, which would be advantageous to our fisheries in terms of what they can sell to the market? How does that impact the market?

In every case, some of this unregulated product does influence market prices and market share.

[Patrick McGuinness]

I would say that in terms of the wild fishery in particular, it's a price issue. If we can attack that, get that out of the marketplace, Canadian prices in those markets would increase.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

This isn't just about a management; this is really an economy-based piece.

Were you about to add something, sir?

[David Henley]

I would say that at least in theory it would increase the fish that are available to be caught legally, especially the straddling stocks. The IUU fishing is taking away fish that could be caught within our exclusive economic zone.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

That's a good point.

How is Canada's reputation globally in taking a lead on these particular issues in terms of Canadian fisheries' adherence to the rules and regulations that are set up?

[Patrick McGuinness]

I think we have a good reputation at the meetings of both the UN and the FAO. Canada was an articulate spokesperson on the issues. Actually, it was quite expansive on the challenges and what seems to be workable or not. Canada is fairly articulate in these meetings and has been looked upon as a leader, and is also very capable of gathering like-minded countries to join the march.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, both.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Leef.

Mr. Lapointe.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In an article published in 2014 in Le Devoir, the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, published the following statements via a press release:

[...] illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has escalated over the past 20 years, especially in the high seas [...]

This echoes the concerns of my colleague Mr. Cleary. The article goes on to say:

[...] and is now estimated to amount to 11 to 26 million tonnes of fish harvested illicitly each year, worth between $10 and $23 billion.

That is enormous. The article continues as follows:

The various available estimates indicate that at least 25% of world fishery is illegal or unreported. According to the FAO, this practice “jeopardizes the livelihoods of people around the world, threatens valuable marine resources and undermines the credibility and efforts of fisheries management measures.”

A major problem was identified by the FAO in this file, and the article says this about the issue:

Flag states are already required to maintain a record of their registered vessels together with information on their authorization to fish [...] However, many fishing vessels engaged in illegal activities circumvent such control measures by “flag hopping”—repeatedly registering with new flag states to dodge detection, which undermines anti-IUU efforts.

Will Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act allow us to fight, if only to some extent, major problems of this type? If not, what intelligent measures could we take in some future bill to attack the source of the real problem that threatens fishery stocks in Canada and everywhere in the world?

[Patrick McGuinness]

I have two comments. One is that you have to understand that these types of reports saying that 25% of the fish are IUU really haven't been substantiated. There are feelings that's a fairly high level.

The other issue, as I mentioned in my presentation, is that at some point in time we're going to have to drill down and determine what IUU fishing is. By definition, for example, if you have a fishing vessel that is registered with a flag of convenience country such as Belize, and then it's fishing in the high season and all that sort of stuff, that vessel is not regulated because flag of convenience countries don't monitor the performance of their fishing vessels.

We really have to start to deal with those types of issues.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Do you have any idea of what could be done concretely through legislation to attack this problem? I am thinking of our fishermen in the Gaspé who may not see their grandchildren fish cod since the problem persists. We have a duty to begin solving the problem in some concrete way.

[Patrick McGuinness]

Well, among the concrete measures that could be taken, one is subsidies for fishing vessels on the high seas. Another is that you could make a declaration that registering any vessel under a flag of convenience is by definition an illegal activity. Those are very dramatic types of measures that would directly affect, if you will, IUU fishing.

But to get a consensus to move forward on them would be difficult. I have suggested that there could be coalitions of active environmental groups and fishing nations such as Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, if we could come together to start that type of dialogue to move forward more directly.

There's no question that the port state measures agreement, if it goes right across, will be effective, because then the prospect of being identified as doing IUU fishing and not being able to get the product into the key markets will have an impact.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

That might contribute a bit to solving the problem.

Mr. Henley, your association suggests that we change the wording of the bill so as to eliminate the requirement that a protection officer consent to a vessel being released. Could you explain the rationale behind that?

I would really like Mr. McGuinness to tell us what he thinks of your suggested amendments to the bill, which seem eminently appropriate to me.

[David Henley]

Thank you, Monsieur Lapointe. I think your question came through as changing labelling. I'm not sure that we raised the labelling issue, but certainly anything that would indicate—

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

The note I have here says: “[...] to delete the requirement that the protection officer consent to the vessel being released”. There is no mention of labelling.

I don't know if this is a translation problem, but I would like this to not be deducted from my speaking time.

[David Henley]

Thank you. I understand now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

I think what he is referring to, Mr. Henley, is the part of your comments in which you talked about the officer.

[David Henley]

I'm sorry; I understand now.

The issue with the protection officer is similarly that the requirement of consent is consent from someone who is not an independent, impartial person like a court or a tribunal.

Just to add to Mr. McGuinness's comment, I think you hit right on the fundamental challenge of international law, and that is that no one country can really act as a policeman outside of its boundaries. That is the conundrum that all countries in NAFO and across the world face. The only way to address it is by international cooperation through these types of agreements. As Mr. McGuinness has pointed out, it can be very challenging to get agreement internationally, and for that reason it tends to be incremental.

From the CMLA's perspective, this amendment to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act to bring in the port state measures agreement is one of those fundamental steps. It certainly does not get us all the way, but it moves us a few feet closer to the goal.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have just a couple of brief follow-up comments. In its most simplistic analysis, the fisheries world could be divided into port states and flag states. If there were no such thing as flags of convenience, then perhaps all of the high seas problems would be solved if all flag states were responsible and, for example, lived up to the code of conduct for responsible fisheries, which Canada takes very seriously. I think many jurisdictions don't take it quite as seriously as Canada does.

However, that isn't the reality and so we have to try to solve the problem with port states. We're trying to make it less economical, I assume, for these rogue IUU fishing enterprises. It must be a very expensive, costly operation to fish on the high seas and take product back to a port where you're actually going to eventually sell it at a profit. In order for high seas fishing to be profitable to these enterprises, they have to find some economies, and I guess they're illegal economies.

That is just a comment. You can comment on it if you like.

Mr. McGuinness, you seemed a little unhappy with the EU's unilateral action to deal with an issue. IUU fishing is part of it, but responding to a growing desire for traceability on the part of consumers and so on is another part. I'm sure you're not opposed to that, but I find it interesting that although the IUU is kind of at the front of this, in a sense, over the years—correct me if I'm wrong—some of these IUU vessels have borne the flags of EU states, such as Spain, for example.

A comment on either of these would be fine.