Fisheries Committee on Sept. 26th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have about two minutes.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay, good.

We've seen this in wildlife species, in other fish species. They get to that threshold where they simply can't recover on their own. What can be done in terms of predator management or competition for feed management to assist them when they get so low that they really can't recover on their own?

[Dr. Pierre Pepin]

That's a very good question. There isn't a really good answer, because in every exercise where humans have tried to manage an ecosystem rather than manage human activities, we've basically failed.

The biggest problem is we think we manage ecosystems, but the reality is we manage the human activities around them. There is a balance you can take by looking at predator-prey relationships, but you have to understand those very well before you actually do something. The cases where people have done this kind of predator management have often virtually eliminated the predator, and there's not necessarily been the response that they were expecting from the other species, because we're at the mercy of the environment. Whether the environment is productive or not is probably the biggest unknown that we have to deal with.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

I'm familiar with that. We did predator management in B.C. on wolves. They thought they could reduce the wolf population by having hunters reduce the moose population. It didn't work.

[A voice]

It didn't work.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

No. The wolves simply switched prey species and fed on more caribou or cattle.

For the WWF representatives here, can you tell us a little more about what you do on the ground with your fisheries improvement projects?

[Bettina Saier]

Yes, sure.

As I mentioned before, we completed a fisheries improvement project for the southern cod fishery and we just initiated one with the FFAW on the northern cod fishery.

It's a multi-year project. The northern cod fisheries improvement project is scheduled to take five years. We use an independent assessment, basically, to test the performance of the fishery using three criteria. It looks at the stock health, it looks at the ecosystem impacts on the fishery, and it looks at the governance structure of a particular fishery.

We identify where the issues are by comparing the fishery against those indicators, and then, as a second step, we develop strategies to address those issues. Finally, that would result in an action plan with very clear direction on do this, do that, what it costs, who is responsible, etc. Then there's implementation of the action plan, and the implementation phase, of course, is the most important one, because that's where on-the-ground improvement measures take place, and that's certainly a collaborative effort between harvesters, DFO, the provincial government, and many more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Saier and Mr. Arnold.

Go ahead, Mr. Johns, for seven minutes, please.

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

I have a second question for Ms. Saier as well.

Could you talk a bit about the hopes you have for the current efforts around the Fisheries Act and the aim to incorporate modern safeguards, such as an ecosystem-based approach? Do you want to talk a little more in depth about that?

[Bettina Saier]

Yes, sure.

DFO has a number of modern policies that were developed fairly recently. However, in order to solidify an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, we are thinking that changes in the review of the current Fisheries Act would be a valuable tool to strengthen the ecosystem approach. We will be submitting our specific comments on that. We don't really have them developed yet, but there will be a series of five to 10 recommendations specifically on the Fisheries Act. Basically, it's embracing and making the application of the precautionary approach stronger in the Fisheries Act.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Pepin, we didn't talk a lot about climate change and the impact that climate change is having. Looking down the road, maybe you could share some insight on that aspect.

[Dr. Pierre Pepin]

Certainly.

We did an assessment of the impact of climate change across the Atlantic several years ago. The expectation is that overall, the productivity of the system should in all likelihood increase. There should be more production during the course of the summer and in the spring. We're also going to have a slightly longer growing period during the year. You have to remember that this is Newfoundland, so it can be actually be shorter or longer, depending on which way you go.

The expectations are that most of the species we have in this region are going to be in an appropriate thermal environment. That means that basically they're not going to be outside of the range that they like to live in. However, that can't be said for the invertebrates, the shrimp and the crab, which are cold-water species for the most part. They may be replaced by other invertebrates, but we don't have good knowledge for that.

We can expect to see, and we have seen, some species that we don't normally see showing up in certain areas. You heard from Mr. Doyle this morning that they're seeing more sharks. That may be partly because there are slightly warmer waters on the bottom. We have seen things like silver hake showing up on the southern Grand Banks as well, in fairly large numbers. This is an aggressive predator that may be competing with cod.

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

Right. Thank you.

Mr. Wiseman, on adjacency, what kind of recommendations for a framework and pathway can we get to embody and embrace a kind of policy around it?

[Mervin Wiseman]

I think the thrust of the declaration of adjacency is to recognize the principle and put that at the front end of how you proceed with who gets the proper sharing arrangement. The principle was the main focus. The details of how you do that is not something that I deal with specifically, but I think there is a common sense approach.

If we look at some of the examples, I think it wasn't too long after the adjacency principle passed unanimously that we saw a decision on LIFO. I think we'd have to look at some precedent-type arrangements like that to say that this is where we can achieve this issue of adjacency.

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

Right.

Ms. Saier, you talked about an action plan and said that you haven't fully developed it. Are there any pieces that you're ready to share with us?

[Bettina Saier]

Absolutely. We would be happy to share two documents.

One is the pre-assessment that identified the issues of the northern cod stewardship fishery. That's roughly a hundred-page document that your former regional director general, Jim Baird, did for us.

Second, we have a scoping document that we can share—this is also public—in which we develop strategies in consultation with harvesters to address those issues.

I'd very happy, once it's done, to share the action plan as well. We're planning to have that ready by maybe October or November.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Just for clarification, the word “LIFO” came out. Are we aware of what LIFO—“Last In, First Out”—is? It's a policy that if there is a cut in quota, then the people who came into the industry most recently would be cut first, as opposed to the people first in.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I have a point of clarification for Mr. Wiseman. Were you saying that LIFO is something that is working or worked?

[Mervin Wiseman]

Yes, exactly. To illustrate the point further, the principle of adjacency is entrenched in the allocation of quota. I think that has some direct relevance to how we proceed in terms of allocating northern cod. We see examples in Newfoundland and Labrador and on the west coast and the gulf where the allocation of halibut has been reduced for the people along the coast. I think it used to be something like 38% of quotas, and it's down today to something like 22% to 23%. There's a direct bearing on adjacency there, but the correlation is working in reverse from where it should be.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Finnigan, for seven minutes, please.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the panel for appearing here today.

My first question I'll address to Ms. Saier.

We now hear that there's big marketing from the big chain stores, and a lot of them are only selling what they call a sustainable brand name type of seafood. We also hear some of the processors are rating their products as being fished in a sustainable way. Do you feel that definition would meet the standard of your organization as a sustainable product that's being sold to the consumers?

[Bettina Saier]

Just to clarify, we're not a standard-setter and we don't have our own sustainability standards, but we promote the sustainability standards of the Marine Stewardship Council in particular. That's a globally recognized organization that adheres also to a code of conduct by the FAO and other organizations. We don't set those standards; the Marine Stewardship Council.

There's a lot of fraud in seafood. You've probably heard the news that especially in sushi restaurants, there's about 90% mislabelling. There's a chain of custody associated with the Marine Stewardship Council. There's a guarantee that once the fishery is certified—and there is a chain of custody certification at every step between when the product has landed to the supermarket—it's surveyed and observed. There is a high degree of compliance within the Marine Stewardship Program.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Do you think they go far enough, or do you think we're there? Do we need to be—

[Bettina Saier]

It's never far enough. Fisheries are complicated, and it's the important role of our Department of Fisheries and Oceans to manage the fishery. Eco-certification can help and can kick-start, and it has the advantage that it's market driven. A lot of the retailers that we supply—for example, Marks and Spencer in the U.K. or Edeka in Germany, you name it—all have commitments to procure only sustainable seafood until a certain time. That was what drove the collaboration with Icewater on the 3Ps southern cod fishery. It was the pressure from retailers in the U.K. who said, “If you don't have a product that's sustainably managed until 2015, then we're not going to use you as a source anymore.”

I think those are the important market drivers that can complement the efforts of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to manage the fishery well.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Okay.

If anybody else wants to comment on that, you can.

Following up with that, given the practices that the big commercial fishing operations use in competing with the international market like China, which has maybe not the same labour or environmental standards, are we chasing something that is not sustainable when we try to compete with that and when we talk about fishing with gillnets and using the more traditional methods? I ask that of everyone on the panel. What would your comments be?