Fisheries Committee on Nov. 1st, 2018

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

If strange is required, I'm your man.

Thank you very much, Chair. That's a fine job.

I also want to say thank you to our panellists who are here today.

I'll come to Ms. Gelfand later, but first I want to reference your speech.

You say, “For example, they can establish protected areas, set speed limits for vessels, close or restrict fisheries, and set distances for whale-watching boats.” All of that is a multi-departmental disciplinary action, obviously.

Mr. Burns, can I get you to comment on some of this stuff? With regard to some of the measures, I'm familiar with the speed limit for vessels. To a certain extent, I am familiar with protected fisheries. However, in the department's mind, what was the most effective tool when it comes to right whales on the east coast?

[Adam Burns]

Certainly the strategy this year focused on two key approaches. One was around the vessel speed reductions, because collision, with vessel blunt force trauma, was one of the key causes of mortalities last year. The other was entanglement.

With the time available to us, the approach that we took in 2018 was one of, to the extent possible, keeping fishing gear away from right whales entirely. That was the basis for the static and dynamic closures.

As I said, the U.S. has been engaged in this for 20 years. They've implemented a variety of gear modifications and additional approaches, changes to season—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

You're saying that the—sorry to cut you off—speed limits were probably the most effective. That's the one I've heard about the most.

[Adam Burns]

Certainly from a vessel collision perspective, the speed reduction was key.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Give me another perspective, or is that the only one?

[Adam Burns]

For fishing gear entanglement—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Yes.

[Adam Burns]

—the key would be the closures.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Was that also effective, or not?

Last year it was 12 endangered North Atlantic right whales representing 3% of the world's population, and so far this year, none. Can we definitively say that this stuff is working, or is there something else out there that we just don't know about? Is it a migration pattern?

[Adam Burns]

What I can say is that the presence of North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this year was certainly similar to last year, and overlapping with the fishing grounds. We observed far fewer entanglements this year than we did last year, and no mortalities.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Ms. Gelfand, in your speech you talked about 14 action plans, seven of which were not quite sufficient.

Can you give me an example of an inefficiency with some of those parameters that you measured?

[Julie Gelfand]

What we indicated in the Species at Risk Act was that they had 14 species. There were only four out of the 14 species that had their recovery strategies done on time. That means 10 out of 14 endangered or threatened species recovery strategies were not done on time. Most recovery strategies and action plans were late, although action plans for some of the species were finalized in 2017.

I think the main message of our audit was that—and, in fact, Mr. Burns said it—the U.S. has been working in this area for 20 years; he said that we've only been doing something for the last couple of years.

Our audit was saying exactly that. Up until the time that we had those 12 right whales found dead, all these tools that we had at our disposal were not being used very much. I can't say it was zero, but they weren't being used to the fullest to protect marine mammals.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I see. Then it's an issue of being incomplete, meaning that they're under way but they're not going fast enough, or at least as fast as originally intended.

[Julie Gelfand]

Once a species is listed as endangered, you have one year to come up with a recovery plan. It's not happening for most of the species. If a species is listed as threatened, you have two years to come up with a recovery plan. That's not happening.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

That's for half.

[Julie Gelfand]

Sorry?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

None of that is happening, but for half of them it's much slower.

[Julie Gelfand]

Well, only four out of the 14 were done on time, so 10 out of 14 were late, anywhere from three years to potentially a lot more years late.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Just so we're clear, it's under our own SARA.

[Julie Gelfand]

Yes, it's under the Species at Risk Act.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I'm rushing along here, sir.

[The Chair]

You're short on time, sir.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I'm short on what, sorry?

[The Chair]

Time.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I was just checking. Can I have one more? Do you mean I'm done?