Fisheries Committee on June 4th, 2015

[Marc Plourde]

Roughly 21% of those who use our outfitters, so just under 100,000 people, are from outside the province, mainly from other parts of Canada and the U.S. About 5% of visitors are from Europe or somewhere across the Atlantic. Not all of them, however, came for the fishing. I don't have the breakdown by activity at hand. There were 425,000 users overall, and 21% were from outside Quebec, so tourists.

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

A significant chunk of tourists clearly go to Quebec for the recreational fishing. Is there any coordination between your federation and Quebec's tourism agencies?

[Marc Plourde]

Absolutely, we work closely with the ministry of tourism. In fact, we are currently working on a tourism development plan. One of the strategies in the tourism industry development plan revolves around nature and adventure, and that strategy is currently being developed. Sport fishing has been clearly identified as a development priority for the tourism industry, in terms of attracting tourists to the province.

In addition to working closely with the ministry of tourism, we also belong to the national organization. Quebec founded the Canadian Federation of Outfitter Associations, so there is now a national federation representing outfitters across the country. We work together and hope to eventually take meaningful action at the national level.

We recently spoke with representatives of the Canadian Tourism Commission, which could do more to promote sport fishing. We're working with tourism organizations to figure out how we can do a better job of marketing Quebec, and Canada as a whole, as sport fishing destinations for tourists.

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

Maxime Bernier, the Minister of State (Small Business and Tourism, and Agriculture), is a huge supporter of Quebec. In fact, he's originally from Quebec City. Is there any coordination between your federation and his department tourism-wise?

[Marc Plourde]

Yes. Some of our discussions with the Canadian Tourism Commission take place through the Association québécoise de l'industrie touristique, which we belong to and which I am on the board of. Naturally, our organization, which represents Quebec's tourism industry, is building a relationship with the Canadian Tourism Commission. The federation's executive director, Dominic Dugré, is also on the advisory committee set up by Prime Minister Harper. Meetings were held at the beginning of the week. We are at the table and doing everything we can to give Quebec's tourism and sport fishing industry a voice at the national level.

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

You should be especially pleased about all the measures supporting the tourism industry in this year's budget.

Thank you kindly, Mr. Plourde.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I certainly want to welcome the witnesses. Thank you for your excellent presentations.

Mr. Plourde, the Quebec Outfitters Federation Inc. interests me. You're involved in taking care of 425,000 Quebeckers and people from outside Quebec, and approximately 2,000 to 3,000 from overseas. I would just like you to explain to the committee what the outfitters in your organization do. You indicate that you have a management mandate. You spoke about invasive species. It looks like you're an outfitters federation that might be involved with retail, but it looks like you have an in-depth involvement in the fishery itself. I'd just like you to give an outline to the committee of just what you do and what your responsibilities are.

[Marc Plourde]

First and foremost, our federation's role is to represent the industry. We are contributing to the national round table on wildlife, an advisory group established under Quebec's act respecting the conservation and development of wildlife. The round table, then, reports to the ministry of forestry, wildlife and parks.

At the national wildlife round table, we are helping develop management plans for every species of sport fish. In recent years, we've done a lot of work on lake trout and walleye, and we consult with our people and our regional associations as part of that work. Together with other partners throughout Quebec, we are working on those plans.

Not tied to sport fishing quite as directly, something else we are working on for Quebec is a rating system and categories for outfitters' accommodation units. We inspect the 5,000 units every four years. We were mandated by Quebec's ministry of tourism to report on the conditions of the facilities, infrastructure and amenities, and we make that information available to the public.

Furthermore, we work with the ministry of forestry, wildlife and parks to manage the licences issued every year and collect outfitters' fees. That, too, was a role delegated to us by the ministry. We provide that function on behalf of the ministry of forestry, wildlife and parks.

Lastly, we also have special teams that include forest engineers. They work with outfitters to plan industry activities in the area. We provide support to our outfitters in their discussions with other regional users, mainly forestry companies, to ensure that forest management is compatible with our businesses' tourism needs and the wildlife activities in our region. We are very careful to keep the impact of forest activities on outfitters to a minimum.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Lévesque, you were talking about Lake Saint Pierre. If I understood you correctly, there's fishing on both ends of that lake, and it's a sports fishery. First of all, I'd like you to explain in a short form what needs to be done. Also, when you look at the small amount of fishery that takes place there, and the $4 million that it generates in spinoffs, I would think that the potential, if the clean-up is done properly, would be a major economic benefit to the area.

[Jean Lévesque]

Definitely. Lac Saint-Pierre is a widening of the St. Lawrence. At one end, in Sorel, the catch limit is 50 yellow perch, and that's also the case slightly downstream from the bridge, towards the Batiscan sector. The restriction applies only to the Lac Saint-Pierre sector. Area experts probably wanted to protect reproduction areas by preventing yellow perch fishing there.

We think that's ridiculous. The only measures that were taken came from the Réseau de suivi ichtyologique, or RSI. The measures, in our view, don't provide an accurate picture but, instead, may serve to describe a trend. We asked the ministry to tell us what available biomass it used to ascertain the number of yellow perch in Lac Saint-Pierre and determine whether stocks were actually dropping significantly. When the moratorium was lifted, everyone expected the catch limit to go up by 10 to 50 because yellow perch can be found all over the lake.

The RSI is the only authority claiming that the yellow perch population has declined or disappeared. We told them that they were indeed right that no more yellow perch remained in the sample areas, but we also pointed out that it was the result of cyanobacteria—a proven fact—and agricultural waste.

The yellow perch changed their patterns. They migrated around the lake and changed their location. Obviously, if the samples don't come from the areas with yellow perch, the findings will be negative. Better measures are needed to manage the biomass and ascertain how many yellow perch there are.

We've realized that slaughtering cormorants is the key because they are responsible for an excessive predation of young yellow perch. Everyone wants to focus on setting up reproduction areas, but what's the point given that we know the growing cormorant population will just eat the yellow perch. Just to give you a sense of the scale involved, 30 tons of yellow perch between the ages of 0 and 2 years is equivalent to an annual commercial catch of 200 tons once they become adults. The pressure is much too strong. And, as everyone knows, the province is responsible for the cormorant, which isn't a protected species.

It's really important to bring these cormorant populations under control to give yellow perch populations the opportunity to brood year after year and allow for better reproduction. We are calling for tighter control of the cormorant population to generate more representative cohorts of yellow perch and ensure their reproduction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. MacAulay.

Mr. Leef.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses today.

Part of the purpose of our study is to expose some of the things that I think all of you gentlemen have clearly articulated today, which is a clear understanding on the part of the fishing community, outfitters, and organizations like yours that not only have the knowledge about what's going on in the fisheries ecosystems, but also invest your time and your financial resources, your volunteerism, and technical expertise into vibrant and healthy fish stocks.

On that point, thank you and congratulations. I hope there is some measure of success for all of us in undertaking this study, us, and that Canadians more generally will understand and appreciate the value of your organizations.

My first question will be for Mr. Lévesque and Mr. Bouchard. You noted, and if I've written this correctly, the damage of pleasure crafts to the river mouth and the reduction of currents leading to an increase in cyanobacteria in the area and, as you just mentioned, some of the migration of yellow perch. You also spoke a fair bit about the cormorant populations and a cull in that respect.

I see some overlap here between provincial responsibilities and federal support. I'm wondering if you can talk most specifically about some solutions around how to deal with the pleasure craft issue and the other things that lead to an increase in cyanobacteria. In other words, what solutions would you propose that would fall under the federal mandate to assist with improving the water pollution conditions in Lac Saint-Louis or Lac Saint-Pierre?

[Marcel Bouchard]

First and foremost, it's necessary to recognize that the federal government has the final say over laws and regulations that govern fisheries. We can't figure out why the province is able to make laws and regulations that would normally have to be approved by the ultimate fisheries authority, in other words, the federal government. How is it that the province can put in place such archaic regulations, regulations that don't make sense or contribute to the solution?

I'll give you a very basic example. When we're talking about farming, that is, of course, in the provincial domain, but when we're talking about shoreline erosion, especially along Lac Saint-Pierre as a result of navigation and pleasure crafting pollution, the issue is federal. Both levels of government clearly need to work together if the goal is to fix the problem at Lac Saint-Pierre. If that isn't the goal, all the government has to do is take a hands-off approach, since the lake is disappearing anyway. Within 50 years, Lac Saint-Pierre will be no more if we don't take the appropriate steps to save it. We're losing a real gem.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Mr. Plourde, you were mentioning a number of outfitters and you described non-exclusive and exclusive outfits—non-exclusive operating on crown lands, and exclusive ranging in size.

Could you expand on the typical regions in which these exclusive and non-exclusive businesses operate in the province, and maybe on what the typical demographic of the community they support would look like? Are they small or medium-sized communities? How important are these businesses to the vibrant nature of those communities?

Additionally, if you know, what size are the supporting industries, such as tackle shops, hotels, gas stations, and the baitfish market, and how important are those to the communities and indeed the entire province of Quebec?

[Marc Plourde]

First, most of our outfitters are in what I would call resource-rich areas, so forest areas. The bulk of our outfitters are concentrated north of the St. Lawrence, on the North Shore, in the Mauricie region, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, in the Laurentians and in the Outaouais. Normally, they are located not too far from small communities, including regional centres such as La Tuque in the Mauricie region, as well as Forestville and Les Escoumins in the North Shore region. We have outfitters in the Témiscamingue region, the Pontiac region and the Gatineau Valley, home to Maniwaki, the birthplace of our outfitting industry. Our first commercial outfitters emerged in those sectors.

The economic spinoff from the outfitting industry is estimated to be over $250 million. The industry generates considerable tourist traffic for these communities. Businesses supplying goods and services in these communities have benefited significantly. La Tuque comes to mind. When fishing season starts, the town really comes to life. Our outfitters really do bring in a lot of tourist traffic. Small communities and small regional centres, where forest areas are often most easily accessible, enjoy most of the spinoff from our industry. The impact is really quite tangible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Plourde.

Thank you, Mr. Leef.

Gentlemen, on behalf of the entire committee, I want to say thank you today for taking the time to make presentations to this committee and to answer committee members' questions. It was greatly appreciated.

There being no further business, this committee now stands adjourned.