Fisheries Committee on Feb. 4th, 2019

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome, guests. It's been an interesting exchange. Some very valuable information has been shared here today from different perspectives.

Mr. Paquette, you talked about unfair lease arrangements for fishers and unfair lease fees. You mentioned that quota licence-holders had done well at the expense of the fishers, and that there was unfair sharing of the resource to harvesters. You made all of these comments during your presentation. I'd like you to share with us, if you can, what you think may be the two or three most important things that could be done to correct the situation you described?

[Roger Paquette]

Let's say, for example, on the west coast or somewhere, there are 114 vessels and there are 60 vessels that are fishing. That's an overall quota. It's a free-enterprise fishery, so for the number of vessels that go fishing, they catch what they catch and that's what they get. You take an area in area F, which is in the northern troll fishery, and I'm not sure how many vessels we have up there, or licences. Let's say it's 150 or 200, and you have 90 or 100 active boats. The other 90 or 100 boats that are not fishing have their licence, so they lease out the quota. So those fishermen, who used to just be free-enterprise fishermen who would just fish, wouldn't have to go and pay extra money to go fishing.

As we have different dynamics in our fishery—people are getting older, some people don't want to fish, some people want to fish harder—those people are able to lease out their licences. In some years, it's kind of a.... I'm going to use the word “blackmail”, but it's a gun to the head for the guy who needs the quota. If the fishing's good, and he's used up his quota, now he needs more quota to fish. The other guy who's holding the quota says, “Well, I think maybe the price should be this.” So some years it's gone very high and then the market changes. After the guy has paid the extra money that's higher than he wanted, then the market changes. We've had that in prawns, for example; after the individual has put out the money for the quota, the market shifts. So then the fishermen get hurt. They lose money. Three years ago or so, a lot of the fishermen did not make expenses and they lost money. If the fish plants put the money out, the fish plants are out money, but so are the fishermen. There's a debt.

So, I don't really agree with the IVQs so much in a lot of the fisheries. Take halibut. It's been one of the worst-case scenarios. In 2017, guys were paying $8 a pound for the quota. Halfway or three-quarters of the way through the season, the price was down to $8 a pound for the fish. You're looking at a couple of dollars a pound loss.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Yes.

[Roger Paquette]

Those kinds of things are just a gun to the head.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I want to ask another question here, and not for any particular presenter.

On January 30, 2019, Fisheries and Oceans officials indicated to the committee that the department's management regime was designed to achieve five objectives: conservation of stocks, compliance with legal obligations, stability and economic viability of the fishing enterprises, equitable distribution of benefits, and data collection for enforcement and planning.

In your view, have these objectives been achieved in B.C.? What changes to the current fisheries management regime would be required to fulfill all of these objectives?

Christina, maybe you could start.

[Christina Burridge]

I think they've been achieved in part. I think we've been enormously successful on the conservation front. We have taken the hard decisions; we've ratcheted down catches. What we've not taken into account was social and economic factors, and now is the time that we need to do this. Various fisheries have embarked on that process. I have no doubt those discussions will continue.

I'd just like to make a slightly broader point and say that we are looking at things like really significant closures from marine planning initiatives that are going to further impact people's ability to fish. We're not looking at the socio-economic implications of that. DFO's capacity to do social and economic...is woeful.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Could I ask Mr. Young to chip in on this conversation as well?

[Phil Young]

I tend to agree with a lot of those things. The DFO has looked at the conservation. With the economics, they're just leaving it up to the industry. In some cases, does it favour a company like ours? Yes, it probably does, because we have lots of backing and we're looking at it from a much longer perspective than somebody who might be looking at it and saying, “Well, can I get a payback in five years?” By leaving it to industry—yes, there are consequences of leaving it to industry.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Mr. Sporer.

[Chris Sporer]

Just building on what Christina said, I think we've done a very good job on conservation, particularly in the groundfish fisheries, but we had explicit conservation objectives. We haven't had those explicit economic and social objectives to meet, so they've been passed over.

I guess my recommendations would be, one, that this committee recommend to the DFO that they start collecting economic data and doing analysis so we actually have it; two, that future fisheries management initiatives like marine-protected areas should have explicit social and economic objectives. We have conservation and ecological targets. We don't have anything for the economics, for the people in the industry.

The third thing I'd say is that we've heard today that we've done well on conservation, but on the social side of it, there needs to be some work on that. I think when fleets or fisheries decide that they're going to have an industry process to develop a made-in-B.C. solution, that the committee should recommend the DFO work with those fisheries and assist them in their process.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

We will now go to the Conservative side for five minutes or less.

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There are many directions I'd like to go in here, but time won't allow doing so.

Mr. Young, you mentioned something a few minutes ago about a lack of fish. I think this is something most people would agree has been the case for some time. There's no doubt there has been a human presence in that problem—call it mismanagement or whatever.

Here is what I want to say on this. Norway had a big problem a few years ago with seals. Everybody knows that the amount, in pounds, of fish that seals eat is tremendous. While Norway didn't call it a seal cull, the seals disappeared.

My question to all of you—and because of time, it needs a yes-or-no answer—is whether you think it's time that Canada should look at whatever it was that Norway did.

[Phil Young]

As somebody who has to sell into markets around the world, I'd say no. It affects the recreational sector, though, more than us.

[Roger Paquette]

If you talk to all the fishermen on the coast, they'll tell you how many fish were around back in the seventies and how many are around now.

No one talks about the number of females that are eaten. They go right for the eggs.

As I said earlier, in the sockeye fishery, in the last eight years we've gone from 30 million down to 10 million. I don't think that's overfishing.

There are, then, problems there.

[Larry Miller]

Is your answer yes, then?

[Roger Paquette]

Yes.

[Martin Paish]

From a recreational fishery perspective we would like to differentiate between whatever might have happened in Norway and predator control.

The answer would be that specific, targeted predator control on problem animals that are proven to be limiting the production, particularly of chinook stocks, gets a definite yes from us.

[Larry Miller]

Okay.

I'll just point out that in the province of Ontario—I live on Georgian Bay, one of the best freshwater fisheries anywhere—cormorants are a huge problem. The Ontario government is now looking at that problem, and it looks likely that something is going to happen.

Mr. Nishidate.

[John Nishidate]

Is it yes or no? I say maybe.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Larry Miller]

You should get into politics.

[Christina Burridge]

I agree with Mr. Paish.

[Chief Chris Cook]

I've seen the problems with the sea lions. I'm on a herring advisory committee also, and I asked the scientific guy how much the seals eat in the Gulf of Georgia. It's 5,000 tonnes a year. However, the sea lions are a problem.

[Larry Miller]

It could, then, go beyond seals.

[Chief Chris Cook]

They want to close herring because the fish, when they're crapping and flushing their toilets...but there are 1,000 sea lions crapping all over the shellfish.

So yes.