Fisheries Committee on June 17th, 2019

[Alexandra Morton]

I think it has to be in the order of millions, frankly. It has to be a deterrent that they would weigh against the profitability of each grow-out and decide whether or not they want to take the risk.

The problem is that they cannot stop the herring from going into the pens, they can't stop the lice from breeding on their fish, and they can't stop the virus from leaking out.

What we have is an agonizing, long process of difficulty and conflict and loss of wild salmon and impacts to the industry, all of which would be resolved if the industry were legislated into tanks with the support of the government. There would be enormous support from British Columbians for such an action. Then we could really get down to what we know about preserving the wild salmon, because we are drastically running out of time.

I know the fish have been in collapse for a long time and people have gotten used to the thought that they are declining, but when you have runs that are down into the tens rather than tens of thousands, you know you are very close to the end. That's where we are right now.

I think we should just get it over with and get them into tanks and support the companies in doing that.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

We talked about sea lice. You definitely know that in my riding there are record amounts of sea lice, historic amounts.

Can you speak about the gap between the regulations, with Health Canada approving an insecticide that can be used on smolts? Those smolts are allowed to be in open-net pens, but they cannot be harvested for 365 days. Is there maybe some rationale around it, or is there any?

[Alexandra Morton]

The chemical you're referring to is lufenuron, which has not been approved in Norway. In fact, the company withdrew its application to have it approved in Norway, so we are experimenting with it here. The fish are dangerous for human consumption for 350 days. That suggests that the chemical is being purged from the fish over that period of time. Therefore, you'd have to test the mucus, the urine and the feces coming out of these fish to know what it's doing to the waters outside.

This industry is in a constantly escalating drug war with sea lice, which turn out to be pretty remarkable little creatures. They are resistant to every drug that is applied to them, so we're just going to keep going with more and more drugs. We can only assume that they will become resistant to this drug as well because IntraFish, the global media outlet for the industy, calls sea lice a $1-billion problem for the salmon farming industry right now. Nobody is saying they have solved it.

Lufenuron is not going to solve it. We're experimenting with it in a UNESCO biosphere reserve, Clayoquot Sound, in first nations territory, in a place where wilderness tourism is a booming industry that relies on salmon.

I think that regulating salmon farms in the open ocean is mission impossible. Nobody has done it successfully worldwide.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns. Your time is well past. We'll now go back to the government side.

Mr. Morrissey, go ahead for seven minutes or less, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

There could be some confusion on DFO. We on the government side have put forward witnesses. We were expecting to have officials from DFO as well as from the Department of Justice for today's meeting—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

If I may respond, they were invited, but they're at a conference. They were unavailable today.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay. It's not—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

It's not that they refused to come. They are actually at a conference and couldn't attend.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay. It would have been valuable to have them here.

Mr. Berry, I want to compliment you on your opening statement. Everything you identified is accurate. I hear about similar issues related to the lack of adequate enforcement in the fishery in my part of Prince Edward Island and the lack of a deterrent exceeding the reward that comes to those participating in illegal activity.

My question is to Mr. MacPherson. You referred to the July 31, 2018, submission to DFO. Has there been a response from the department on that submission?

[Ian MacPherson]

We have annual round tables with DFO where these types of issues are discussed, as well as more localized issues. I would have to go back in our files to see if we received a formal response.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Has the PEIFA ever forwarded to Fisheries and Oceans Canada specific requests or specific fine levels that would be, in the fishers' opinion, adequate to deter illegal activity?

[Ian MacPherson]

To date, we haven't done that. We haven't named specific amounts. I did want to mention that we are seeing some of the judicial fines increase quite a bit on the island. We're viewing that as a positive trend.

Fines used to be probably a few hundred dollars. A high fine would maybe be $2,500 for a certain infraction. We're now seeing in the neighbourhood of $10,000 fines, plus three or four days of suspension in the next season, which can be some of the high-revenue days of a fishery. We're encouraged by that development, but we haven't made specific financial recommendations to DFO.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Again to Mr. MacPherson, it's unlikely that there would ever be enough personnel to deter every illegal activity. There are simply not enough eyes or resources to do that. In this age of technology, has your association put forward to DFO any other supports that could assist the department in deterring illegal fishing?

I'll give a couple of examples. Recently fishers in LFA 25, both in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, voted to restrict the time that boats could engage in fishing on the water. I don't believe the other LFAs have done that.

For instance, I believe you can only be active from five o'clock in the morning until seven or eight o'clock in the afternoon, which is a great deterrent and of great assistance to the department to monitor.

Have the PEIFA or other groups made any overtures on that issue? Some fishers are out late at night, and some people will tell me that if they're out during those hours, they're not engaged in legal activities.

[Ian MacPherson]

As some of these situations surface—and I alluded to bait earlier—I think that we will look into those things. We've had an area where they've been using black boxes, as they're called. They are GPS units that trace the movement of the boats in some areas where we're having abuses of some of the rules and regulations because they had to sail through a closed area. To my knowledge, they've been very effective.

As an association, we're certainly onside with developing technology that will not only enhance the abilities of the DFO personnel but keep the playing field level. I think that's one of the biggest things here. Everyone wants a fair chance to make a good living, but they don't want other people having an unfair advantage. The flip side of that, of course, is damage to our fishery and our resource.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

A comment was made by one of the other presenters, I believe—and it may have been Mr. Berry—that the U.S. treats convictions much differently from the way Canada does. The deterrent is significantly greater. Would you care to comment on that? The U.S., I believe, treats convictions as criminal, so the implications are a lot more severe.

[Ian MacPherson]

Certainly we are seeing more severe fines. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not an expert on what other remedies might be out there, but I think the values are going up. Given the severity of some of the infractions, I think we want to see that. Definitely some infractions are more severe than others and can have a devastating effect on a species.

One of the things I'd like to offer to the committee is that if someone's charged and receives a very stiff penalty, you'll find that it trickles down pretty quickly in the fishing community and hopefully brings other people into line. This is what we're advocating, and we will continue to advocate it because we have a whole new generation of fishers who want to make fishing their number one career and be able to feed their families and provide an income, and we need to preserve that resource for them.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Mr. MacPherson, an issue that concerns me a lot—and I'm disappointed there's nobody from DFO here—is that I often hear from fishers that if they become aggressive in lobbying against DFO or critical of DFO on these protection activities, they will face repercussions from those very DFO enforcement personnel. DFO personnel will harass them. They're saying that if they lobby politicians or anybody else that DFO is not doing its job of protection adequately, they face repercussions.

Have you heard of that?

[Ian MacPherson]

It could be a situation that's out there. That's counterproductive, if it is. One of the things we try to do is work with everyone. Sometimes there are personalities that don't seem to connect with the fishing community the way some of the other officers do, but at the end of the day, we want to protect the fishery.

I hope that's not the scenario. One area that I've had identified to me as a source of frustration is not knowing where a charge goes once it is laid, and how long it takes. Any streamlining of that process, I think, would send out an effective message too.

Certainly there are always challenges.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

Thank you to our witnesses, both by teleconference and by video conference, for your participation here this afternoon. We greatly appreciate it.

Committee members, I know the bells are ringing. I believe it's a 30-minute bell. We probably could disconnect or suspend for a minute and disconnect the video conference that we've got hooked up now and get ready for Mr. McIsaac. We could get his testimony and then look the time we have left in relation to the vote. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

All right. We'll suspend for a moment and allow the technicians to connect the new witness.

Apparently we're having some technical difficulties in hooking up Mr. McIsaac from B.C.

I know this is our last meeting until probably well into the fall, or it may be the winter before any Fisheries and Oceans committee meets again. I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all our staff for being so supportive, including our translators.

I also want to thank the committee members for being so patient. I think as a committee we operated pretty well, and for the most part in a non-partisan way, on the studies we have done. I know at times there might have been a scattered little jab here and there, but it wouldn't be any fun if that didn't take place.

I want to thank even those who sub in the odd time, such as Vance, and of course our friend Robert Sopuck, who was a regular member of the committee prior to this time. It's always good to see you back.

Again, thank you to everyone for making this an enjoyable committee to work on and to chair and to have any involvement with whatsoever.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Chair, can I bring up a point of order?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes. I wouldn't say no to you.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thanks. Again, it's been an honour for me to be on the fisheries committee since 2010.

One thing was said earlier, though, that quite disturbed me. I wasn't part of the study here, but I don't think committee members should be the least bit reticent about demanding the presence of staff here. I hear that the staff kind of just blew the committee off and said they were in a conference. I think that is absolutely, completely unacceptable. This committee is too important for staff not to be here, and a conference is simply not an excuse.

Again, this is not a partisan comment, but colleagues, no department official has the right to refuse to appear before this committee.

Thank you for allowing me to say that, Mr. Chair.