Evidence of meeting #23 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fishery.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Let's start with our presentations.
Mr. Doyle, you have up to 10 minutes, sir. Go ahead.
September 26th, 2016 / 1:10 p.m.
Tony Doyle As an Individual
Thank you.
First off, I'd like to say good afternoon to the committee and thank you for the opportunity to come and speak before you today.
As Mr. Simms said, my name is Tony Doyle. I am an inshore fish harvester from the 3L region. I currently serve as the inshore vice-president for the FFAW. It's a position I've held since 2014.
I was born and raised in the small fishing community of Bay de Verde, which is located at the northern tip of the Avalon Peninsula. Right now, we have approximately 400 people in the community living here. My community is a fishing community, and most working-age people in the community are either fish harvesters or were employees at the Quinlan Brothers processing plant, which burned down this spring, on April 11, and is now in the process of being rebuilt. There's a new steel building going up, 640 feet long by 85 feet wide, so it looks good for the future of our community, that rebuilding of the plant. Without this valuable fishery, this inshore fishery, our community has no real future. It's why people came to Bay de Verde in the 1600s and why we've been clinging to cliffs ever since.
I started fishing in 1970 on summer breaks while I was still in school, at the tender young age of 12 years, and at the time I fished in a 28-foot trap boat, which most people did. In 1975, when I got out of school, I got into the fishery full time with my father and uncle. I fished that boat, that 28-foot trap skiff, right up until the late 1990s, due to the fact that I had it fibre-glassed the year of the moratorium in 1992. Now I'm fishing in a 34'11'' boat, which is used primarily to catch crab. I also fish cod with that boat, and I fish lobster and cod with a 20-foot speedboat.
I don't profess to know everything about the cod fishery, but I do know a fair bit. I've been around the water all my life, and I have a fair bit of understanding of some of the changes that occurred and that have been occurring. Back in the late 1980s, in 1988-90, we had three of the best years that we've had in cod fishing, with cod traps and gillnets. Those were the highest earnings that I had received up to that point.
There were plenty of fish on the grounds, of good size and good quality, and the capelin fishery was what we've called “normal” for a hundred years, I suppose. It landed in our area on the beaches around the middle of June. Some time before the June 20, between June 10 and June 20, was the normal regular time for capelin to land. The cod traps would go in the water a few days before, when we would see the signs, and then we had a six-week cod fishery, right up to the last of July. Then the traps came in. Then we went gillnetting for a few weeks, and then into the handline fishery into September and October.
In 1991 things started to change. We had ice in our community, in our harbour, right up until late June, I think. I took a picture. I have it at home somewhere. I couldn't find it to bring it in, but there was ice in our bay on June 9 of that year, and lo and behold, the cod didn't show up, and the capelin didn't show up until well into August. Whatever happened with the environment, with the water temperatures, everything went out of whack for a number of years, right?
In the winter of 1992 we got ready, but there were rumours that the fishery might close and there were no cod. We still had to get ready and go fishing. We had two cod traps in the water that we put out around June 10. When the announcement came on July 2, I hadn't caught one cod up till that time. We took in the gear within the time frame that was allowed, within four or five days. That year, the capelin showed up around the last week in August, almost two months late. They were small and only there for a little while, and then they were gone again.
It was a very difficult year for everybody, being out of work and trying to deal with family and financial issues and everything. Some people had a difficult time, and some of us did okay and pulled through.
In the years following the moratorium, I fished lobster, squid, and lumpfish, low-value fisheries and therefore low-income, but I did supplement the income that I was getting from NCARP for the closure of the cod.
At that time, in the early 1990s, there were virtually no cod out on the fishing grounds. Out where we normally went to get codfish, out on the shoals, there were no cod. Any cod that was around was tight to the shoreline, right in the land marshes almost, and of small size. For three or four years, I don't know if I saw a fish here that was over 20 inches.
Then the fish started to pick up. They started to increase. We saw some increases in size and in abundance. Certainly, we lobbied to get a fishery open. We were eager to get back even though we had crab, but we only had small amounts of crab, small quotas. We were eager to get back fishing and get at it. Now, in hindsight, I think we all realize that was a mistake. The stock hadn't recovered enough. We started fishing cod too early, and within a couple of years we were back into a downturn and closed it off again.
It's also important to understand that during this time the capelin still didn't land. The capelin weren't coming in when they normally did. I remember that about six or seven years ago we fished capelin with capelin traps, a friend of mine and I, with our crews, and July 21 was the first day that we landed capelin, which was still at that time four or five weeks late.
Since then, the capelin have started to move back into a normal mode. For the last four years, not counting this year, they landed in that mid-June time frame, but this year they were a month late again. I can't understand what happened this year, because water temperatures have been good, and actually quite a bit higher than what they were normally were. Through the 1980s surface temperatures were in the five-, six-, and seven-degree range through the summer. I took part in some tagging through the FFAW in the last few years, and water temperatures are up to a 15-degree surface temperature in late June, right through to now. We're in a warming trend, which is not good for shellfish but is more favourable for codfish.
In the past 10 years, like I said, the timing has started to improve. The capelin are arriving earlier, and therefore so do the cod. Cod has been quite plentiful over the last 10 years in our area. We had a guy doing sentinel fishing in Bay de Verde. Through the 1980s, when we fished with gillnets, the average catch was anywhere from 50 pounds to 100 pounds for catch on a 24-hour soak. Pull the nets today, set them back in the water, and pull them again tomorrow, and you're doing real well if you get 100 pound of net. The sentinel fishermen in Bay de Verde in the last number of years were getting anywhere from 500 to 1,000 pounds of net on a 24-hour soak.
We now have fishermen setting nets in the late evening, five or six o'clock, for a 12-hour soak. I talked to one guy last week, and from a 12-hour soak he had 1,600 pounds out of two cod nets. That was unheard of in the eighties, or rare, just every now and then.
The other thing that's happened is that through the eighties we couldn't catch fish in gillnets during the day. This year I set nets, the first year since we've been fishing with this quota. I've always fished with handlines, but this year I tried with the nets. The reason I did it was that I was fishing with handlines and getting 100% grade A, and I wanted to see if I could get 100% grade A, or what I could get, out of gillnets. I set in the morning and pulled back three hours later. Out of three nets, I got 600 to 900 pounds in three hours' fishing during the day. That was unheard of in my time, and even in my father's time fishing. Gillnets came to Newfoundland in the sixties. The first couple of years there were big catches, but then after that it went back to 100 pounds in the net.
I just wanted to let you know that things have improved with the fish in the last number of years. There's a lot of large cod and plentiful and healthy fish. When I was handlining, there was no trouble catching them. Another guy—my crew member—and I would be able to catch 1,500 pounds in three hours with one baited hook each.
1:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Mr. Doyle, sorry, but before you go any further, I'll have to ask you to wrap up soon. We're already over time.
1:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I just want to mention a couple of important things about the fishery we have today.
I've had a lot of discussion with the fishermen in my region and across the province, being chair of the Inshore Council. At the council table there has been a fair amount of discussion about how we would do this new fishery. We have to fish for a sustainable fishery. We have to land the best product we can and get it into the plants so that the workers can get work and the plants can get markets.
This year that's been happening. Last year we had a three-week fishery. This year it's an extended fishery. A lot of the fishermen are taking part and are quite happy to do so. They're landing good product, 80% to 90% grade A.
1:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Mr. Doyle, you'll soon have to pull it to an end. You have time for just a couple of comments.
1:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
I would love to let you, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, the rules say I can't.
1:25 p.m.
As an Individual
There's one thing I want to mention, though, and that's the trust agreements, the controlling agreements, the owner-operator principle. The owner-operator principle is really, really important to my life and to the life of my community, because I have control. I'm an owner-operator and I have an enterprise. I have control of what I can do and what I can catch and where I can catch it, through DFO regulations.
With this cod fishery we started this year, 2,000 pounds a week, and 3,000 from September onwards, a lot of people don't like it, but a lot of people do. What it does is it puts fish into the plants—
1:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
I appreciate it. Here's my suggestion, though. During the next 20 minutes or so, have a look at your notes, keep in mind what you've forgotten, and during the question and comments you can bring it up then. How's that?
1:25 p.m.
Anthony Cobb Board Member and President of Fogo Island Fish, Shorefast Foundation
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to join you this afternoon and share some of our experience with your group.
As you mentioned earlier, I am a chair on the board of the Shorefast Foundation. We're a federally registered charity. Our work is done pretty much exclusively on Fogo Island for Fogo Islanders. We're been doing that work now for about 15 years. Two years ago, we started this new organization called Fogo Island Fish. It is a social enterprise, so it's very much a part of our charity's work. All the proceeds and benefits of Fogo Island Fish return to Fogo Island 100%.
Fogo Island Fish is a very small organization. It consists of me and my wife. We operate it on a volunteer basis. Along with all of my comments this afternoon, I want you to bear that in mind. To describe our community a little, Fogo Island has 10 fishing communities. We have 2,700 people or thereabouts. We have approximately 100 fishers on the island. It's interesting to us to hear Tony's previous comments. We've been fishing on Fogo Island for about 400 years. I'm an eighth-generation Fogo Islander. I'm the first generation not to fish.
Fogo Island Fish was designed to essentially reinvent the fish business to serve the community. Let me talk about that very quickly. I've issued the deck that's in front of me, and you're welcome to follow along. I know that some of you might want to read ahead, but if we could go through it together, I think that might help. It's about sustaining communities.
We have 10 communities on the island. We have been fishing on Fogo Island for some 300 years. I think that the lessons we have learned, we have learned well. We have to bear in mind that when you do something for 300 years, you learn a thing or two, and that should carry a lot.
With regard to a bit of history, 1968 was the time that the fishery was changing on our islands from a salt fish product to a frozen product or fresh product. The fish merchants back then did not make the transition in the change to the fishery.
Fogo Island had the good fortune to have the National Film Board come and make some films, and those films became collectively known as the Fogo Process. Out of those films, we formed the Fogo Island co-op, and we still have the Fogo Island co-op with us today. It is our processor. It's community owned. It's a co-operative. It's owned by the fishers and our plant workers. It will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.
We have to remind ourselves about economics. For us, it's about economics as if communities mattered. As I said, we've fished sustainably in a small part of the ocean. From within sight of land, you could see your house from where we fish. Where we fish cod today is in the very same waters, so the waters that are populated with fish around our island are still within sight of land. We have fished it in small boats. Usually a trip is three or four hours in length, and we land our fish right away.
There's a tremendous amount of talk in the world about sustainable fish. There are many different definitions of “sustainable fish”. I would like to propose to this panel and to others that we start to talk about who or what is sustained by fish, and who or what needs to become part of the discussion and dialogue about what makes for a sustainable fish. Of course, we have to respect science. Of course, we have to be caretakers of the stocks, and we have to consider who, whether it's coastal communities or corporations, is going to be the beneficiary of fishing.
By the way, all the photos of Fogo Island that you see in front of you today were taken on my iPhone.
Let's talk about the fish itself. Industrial fish are premium fish. For us, it's a very simple matter. In 300 years of fishing, we've learned a few things. It turns out that it's a matter of when you fish and how you fish. Let me talk about that a little more.
That picture on your left in the deck is a very important picture. It may be the most important picture in the deck. The fish on the left was caught using a gillnet by our fishers on the same day from the same waters as the fish on the right, which is a handline fish. This particular handline fish was caught one a time, in a traditional way, bled at sea—
1:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Mr. Cobb, I'm sorry. Could I just stop for you one second? I hate to do this because you're on a roll, but as you can see, the hearing is in competition with a far bigger crowd, with perhaps far greater enthusiasm. I'm not so sure. I enjoyed the song, but unfortunately the timing is not that great.
For everyone who is watching, if you cannot hear the testimony, we have devices in the back with headsets like you see Mr. Doherty and Mr. Arnold wearing. It's much easier to hear.
For French select Channel 2.
Just as I say that, the music stops, of course, but I'm sure we'll get another rendition soon. This is Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mr. Cobb, my apologies. Could you pick up where you left off, sir?
1:30 p.m.
Board Member and President of Fogo Island Fish, Shorefast Foundation
Thank you.
We are talking about the slide, and just in case you want to jump to this slide, I want to show you this picture. It is a critical picture in the deck because it shows the difference. It is a visual difference. These fish are caught on the same day by different catch methods. One fish is gillnet fish. That fish suffocated in the net and is very discoloured. The other fish was handlined, pulled up right away, bled immediately, gutted and washed at sea, put on ice, and brought back to our processing plant within four hours. The difference is obvious.
The other half of this, on the next slide, is a question of who we are fishing for. I think there was reference this morning to who our markets are and who our customers are. If we are fishing for fish sticks, gillnet fish is fine, but if what we want is premium fish for premium markets for premium pricing, we have to take care of that fish at sea.
As you can see in another picture—I actually took this picture with my iPhone—this is the one picture that wasn't taken on Fogo Island. It was taken at a restaurant in Toronto. That is Fogo Island fish served at a restaurant called Luma. It is in the TIFF Lightbox, for those of you who know Toronto.
We have to go back a little here. I want to draw your attention to the next slide. When our current Prime Ministertook office, he wrote an open memo to each of his ministers. In his address to the then-Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, I want to draw your attention to the part of the letter where he says, “Use scientific evidence and the precautionary principle, and take into account climate change, when making decisions affecting fish stocks and ecosystem management.” He also happened to say, “Work with the provinces, territories, Indigenous Peoples, and other stakeholders to better co-manage our three oceans.”
On that count, thank you for coming today. You are doing that part of the work.
Let's talk about the science part of this equation. I talked earlier about when to fish and whether when you fish matters. A copy of the science report is here, in the back of my deck, so a complete copy of this part is available. I would like to read this out loud so that everyone in the audience can hear it:
Historically, cod fisheries have been prosecuted during all seasons, but simulations of 1997-1999 fisheries indicate that a fall fishery (period of peak physiological condition) resulted in a 8-17% decrease in the number of cod removed from the stock while maintaining the same weight-based quotas, and profiting from maximum yield and better product quality. Spring and summer fisheries resulted in lower yield (6%) and quality (5-26%) of fish products by weight. Seasonal biological cycles could be used as templates for management strategies that promote fisheries conservation and economic benefits by harvesting fish during periods when biological impacts are minimal and economic returns maximal.
That is a scientific statement. I will put it in different terms for you. This might be the first time in the history of mankind when the right thing to do for the cod stocks is the right thing to do for your bottom line.
Science, it turns out, has proven what our forefathers have always known. The gentleman on my left referred to it earlier as well. A cod in the fall is heavier, denser, and firmer. It is better fish. When we fish in the fall, we take fewer individuals from the stock to make the same quotas, and that fish is a higher quality and fetches us higher prices. We now have the science to back it up.
Let's talk about how we fish. I am talking about Fogo Island, of course. We are using primarily two key methods to fish. Fogo Island Fish has focused exclusively on handline cod. We've handlined for cod for some 300 years. It is a terrific method, it turns out, and the market wants it. That is the other key thing about it. We do have this other method with cod pots, and I will talk about that as well.
With handlining, we are finding new ways with old things. There is a picture of it here for the members. I don't know if you are able to follow along here. These are two of our fishers, Boyce Reid and Austin Reid, to call them out by name. There was a small film made by the National Film Board this year that premiered at TIFF, Hand.Line.Cod., and it features Austin and Boyce fishing by handlining.
We also are trying new ways with new things by way of cod pots. For the last eight years, we have done science research with the marine institute. Mr. Gordon Slade has led that effort on our behalf. He's in the room here today, and I want to thank Gordon for all his efforts. We have proven that cod-potting works. It works in the very same way that crab pots work. It's a baited pot. You put it down. It's fixed. It survives in foul weather. If you come back in three days, the cod are still swimming around and relatively happy. Well, maybe they're a little pissed off, but they're in good condition. This new technique is now ready to be industrialized, to be scaled up. It is firmly our belief, and has been proven, that we can catch as much cod as we need to using cod pots.
It is absolutely essential that we talk about capelin. Capelin is a keystone species for northern cod. We cannot have discussions about northern cod in any room at any time without talking about capelin. I will draw your attention to a second science report, which is at the back of your deck here today and is called “Northern cod comeback”. It was authored by George Rose and Sherrylynn Rowe in 2015. I will quote from that report: “Almost in parallel with the decline and increase in cod has been changes in the biomass of capelin....”.
I have never met Tony before, and I don't think we've properly met, but quite by coincidence, it seems his experience on the water has taught him the same thing.
What are we optimizing for? Are we optimizing for coastal communities or are we optimizing for corporations?
We fish in dayboats for Fogo Island fish. We catch it live. We bleed it at sea. We ice it for a short trip home. We cut it in our own plants. We trim it. We pack it and we flash-freeze it. This results in a very high-quality product. By doing so, we are preserving local Fogo Island co-op processing jobs, and I would like to note that Fogo Island fish pays our harvesters more than double the prevailing provincially negotiated rates for fish. In 2015, we paid our harvesters $1.25 a pound for head-on gutted fish. This year, with strong prices in the marketplace, we increased that. We were able to come back to our harvesters this year and pay them $1.40 for head-on gutted fish.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Mr. Cobb, I'm going to have to ask you to conclude within the next 20 seconds or so.
1:40 p.m.
Board Member and President of Fogo Island Fish, Shorefast Foundation
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There's another one of these issues that we need to work on. We talked this morning about new recruits into the industry. We have lost about 60% of our fishers in the last 10 years. In terms of the conditions around that, I'd be happy to discuss it in more detail. That's something that we really must do something about.
We are about preserving our stocks and our coastal economies. When, how, and for whom we fish matters and has profound effects on our social, ecological, and economic outcomes. Fishing keystone species undermines our entire ecosystem. Fishing during spawning seasons is the equivalent of the total destruction of our stocks, and we shouldn't do it. We have the science that proves it.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, Mr. Cobb.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to end there. Again, much like Mr. Doyle, you can work the rest of your presentation into the question and answer period, as we are also competing with the music.
1:40 p.m.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I think it's unfair to our witnesses that they're competing with the room next door to us.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
I know. The only problem is I don't have a short-term remedy, Mr. Doherty. I share your frustration, and it will be noted.
Ms. Orren, please, for 10 minutes.
1:40 p.m.
Project Manager, Fishing for Success
Good afternoon, and thank you very much for letting me speak here today. I wasn't expecting this, so this is a very happy surprise.
Fishing for Success is here to respectfully request federal policy and regulatory support for our organization to have access to fish so that we can fully develop a youth cod fishery. I'm not here to talk about counting fish, or counting boats, or unions, or any of that. I'm talking about youth, and youth matters, because it doesn't matter what else you try to fix in the fishery if the young people aren't there to take it up. That's what we're concerned about.
I had the fortune of growing up in Newfoundland and Labrador pre-cod moratorium, and it was amazing, and that stuck with me. It made an impression on me, and I wanted to recreate that for young people in Newfoundland and Labrador today. I quit teaching high school science in Florida, a beautiful place where I was happy as a bug in a rug teaching stoichiometry and electron configurations. I would take my kids outside all the time and show them the natural environment, and I noticed that the kids were becoming more and more disconnected from nature. They didn't even know the plants and the animals in their own backyards, which they should know.
As I was coming home to Newfoundland to visit family, I noticed that communities weren't out around the community wharves the way they used to be. I grew up in Newfoundland. As a kid, you went down to the wharf and you helped haul out guts, and you helped cut out tongues, and you got to bring home a bag of fish to mother for supper. That wasn't happening any more. Kids weren't at the wharf because the fishery had changed. It wasn't cod anymore. The money fish was snow crab, and the boats had to be bigger to handle the bigger equipment. The wharves are concrete. There are swinging frozen blocks of bait overhead and forklifts, and that's no place for young people and families.
There are policies and regulations to protect our fish harvesters at work, as there should be, but where does that leave our young people and our families who now are disconnected from the fishing heritage? Think back to just less than about a 100 years ago, when about 100% of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were involved in a family fishery. Think about your family farming that you were discussing. Then, in 1992, about 30% of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were involved in the fishery, just before the cod moratorium. When I was growing up and could go down to the wharf and participate, there was that mentorship going on. You were at grandpa's elbow. You were at uncle's elbow. You were at nannie's elbow learning how to process the fish, and now, today, less than 2% of Newfoundlanders are involved in the commercial fishery.
Very soon, the stories of the fishing and the fish and the fishery won't even have a place in our families. There are children in St. John's who have not been in boats. There are children in St. John's who have not been fishing. Churchill once said that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were the best small boatmen in the world, and he probably wouldn't say that today.
I took it upon myself to quit teaching high school in Florida, and I moved back home to Newfoundland, but before I did that I went to graduate school at the University of Florida in aquatic sciences and fisheries. I deliberately picked that school because they have a learn-to-fish program, so I could study that program before I set one up here in Newfoundland. Then I wanted to target a place. Where was I going to teach the kids?
St. John's would be great because that is where I would find the most urbanized youth. That's what I wanted: my target audience. I also had the benefit of it being where most tourists come into Newfoundland, so then I could have a pool of some revenue. I could have some tourism programs on the side, and then that could fund my youth programming, because youth programming is difficult to get funding for, so I had a double whammy.
Now, I'm in St. John's. Where am I going to have an active fishing community in St. John's? Well, wouldn't you know it that Petty Harbour has what's called a protected fishing area where they have maintained a handline fishery since 1895? When gillnets came online as a new technology, they voted them out. In fact, in 1964, by order in council, it was put into Canada's fisheries act that gillnets would be kept out of Petty Harbour, and today they fish with a handline and a single hook for their commercial cod fishery.
I even have a copy of the book today. If I weren't such a poor non-profit, I'd have a copy for everyone here today. That was important in teaching youth. You can go to www.islandrooms.org and find a digital copy that you can download that tells the history of it. That was important in teaching young people the state of our oceans today, with the monofilament plastic waste, the sustainable fishing, and all of that. Petty Harbour was it.
Now, how do I get my hands on historic fishing property? It usually gets handed down. I'm in the CSA now and I'm coming back from Florida. All right, so I finally get some property. I spend my own money on it. Now I get some people who are behind me, and we incorporate as a non-profit.
We put together this list of programs you have here on our own. We are up and running. We have a pilot youth cod fishery that we ran this summer with a small group of young people from Thrive. These are at-risk youth who were identified. They came out once a week this summer. They're going to graduate on September 27. We have a certificate for them.
They painted dories, corked dories, and went in the dories for a ride. They rinded sticks, which is a very traditional skill that you need in building fishing stages. We took them fishing. They processed their fish, and they got to take their fish home to their families.
Now keep in mind that these are at-risk youth, so the people they live with are probably food bank dependent. They got to bring home fresh fish, which is something you don't find in a food bank. This is a level of confidence and pride that you give these kids when they can actually bring fresh fish back. This is half of our first graduating class in the youth cod fishery.
I need federal support so that I can have access to fish, because we only had three weeks to do this. The extension to the weekend for the recreational fishery was of no help for us because social workers have no access to these young people on the weekends.
That's short and sweet, I guess. I could go on forever, because I've been developing this for about 11 years now.
Thank you very much.
1:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you for that, Ms. Orren. We appreciate it.
We're now going to go to questions for seven minutes.
Mr. McDonald, you're first, sir. Go ahead for seven minutes, sir.