Fisheries Committee on Oct. 5th, 2016

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Monday we had a submission containing recommendations as well. I think if this committee has recommendations in writing as submitted testimony, we can certainly work with that when we're looking at producing a report and talking about those recommendations, so that would be helpful.

You talked about increasing the seafood value chain. Could you talk a little bit more about how you would do that in the northern cod instance?

[Susanna Fuller]

There's a good example of that with the Fogo Island fishers. They are working on fishing a small amount of fish in a quite sustainable gear-type of cod trap and working on marketing that. I think they're doing a good job. There's a huge demand for it, mostly because most retailers across North America have signed up to sustainable seafood commitments, and it's actually hard to meet their demands and supply. I think there's a good opportunity for more of that to happen. It's very place-based marketing, and Fogo is the queen of that in Newfoundland, I'd say.

It's complicated from our perspective because it's still an endangered species, so that's what we kind of feel has to be untangled. We need to refer this back to COSEWIC so that the small-scale marketing is not of endangered species. It's just very confusing to the public when you look at something and a sign says “endangered”, but these nice people over here are doing the right thing and are trying to sell it for a higher price. That's where the process within DFO really needs to be sorted out so that we can work towards that.

One of the challenges is that cod is not a very valuable species right now, and shrimp is more valuable, so we need to really work to increase the value of that fishery to the communities and through the value chain.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

You referenced COSEWIC and reassessment. I believe the next planned reassessment, I think the committee heard, was 2018.

[Susanna Fuller]

Yes, and it is coming. I think it needs to be a bit urgent. As we are doing a rebuilding plan, we need to get a reassessment done.

An example is tuna and the recommendation to not list bluefin tuna in Atlantic Canada. Well, sending it back to COSEWIC for reassessment kind of undermines existing government processes, which I think is unfortunate. I think that the more we can see COSEWIC as an important part of this process, the more we can untangle the difficulties between the Fisheries Act, SARA, and rebuilding fish stocks.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay, thanks.

You referenced the environment commissioner's report. Would you recommend that this committee take a look at her report, her recommendations, and her findings?

[Susanna Fuller]

The Auditor General, yes, absolutely.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

The environment commissioner.

[Susanna Fuller]

Yes, absolutely.

It's very interesting that there are things in that report that we know have been happening, and it's very good to get them confirmed. DFO agrees with every recommendation, so I think it's quite important that DFO get the resources to act on fulfilling those recommendations. It will greatly benefit northern cod, among other species.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm just saying that this committee hasn't seen or discussed those recommendations. We just had those released yesterday. I was wondering if you think it would be a good idea for the committee to look at those findings.

[Susanna Fuller]

Yes, and if you get a presentation by the environment commissioner to this committee on that report, it would be very valuable.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay, thank you.

For the final one minute, you referenced the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in the United States. Could you explain how that might help Canada inform the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on a rebuilding plan?

[Susanna Fuller]

I'm not saying the whole act is perfect, and we don't have nearly as litigious a society, thankfully, in Canada, but there's some specific wording that I submitted on the consultations to the Fisheries Act pre-committee, and I can submit them again.

Very simply, when a stock is overfished or in the critical zone, it requires a rebuilding plan within two years. Then on annual basis the NOAA has to report to Congress on where they are on stopping overfishing and what stocks have been rebuilt. It's very simple, easily publicly accessible, and they do an excellent job of it.

The wording is quite simple. I think it would be very helpful to have that in the act.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I have just a small comment before Mr. Chair cuts me off.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You're at the end of the round right now, Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Could you submit that to the committee in writing?

[Susanna Fuller]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, great.

We have just a quick clarification.

Mr. Arnold, I'm going to have to ask you to be very quick. We're running behind. Go ahead, very quickly.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the leeway.

I think it's really pertinent because of some of the testimony we heard last week from individuals who were claiming that the cod have now recovered and they're impacting other stocks.

Ms. Fuller, what would your response be to those who are claiming that the cod have recovered and are negatively impacting other fish stocks, such as shrimp and crab?

[Susanna Fuller]

You know, we did not have a shrimp or crab fishery in Newfoundland before the cod collapsed. I think it would be interesting to look at what's going on in the NAFO area 3M where cod has recovered and there are no shrimp anymore.

It's tricky, because the shellfish fisheries are worth a lot more than cod. Quite frankly, it's a value discussion. Do we want to bring back the cod because they've collapsed—and we didn't have those invertebrate fisheries before—or do we want to keep our invertebrate fisheries?

That's a challenging question from a biodiversity perspective and an ecosystem management perspective. It's hard to answer, but I know we can't have a rebuilding plan for shrimp and a rebuilding plan for cod at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Fuller. Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

We're going to have to close it there folks. We have our next guest coming up.

I want to thank Mr. Bouzan. Thank you very much for joining us today, and Ms. Fuller as well. We appreciate your testimony. Thank you very much.

Let's break for just a few minutes and we'll get back to the salmon study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, folks, welcome back.

We're 15 minutes behind, but we have just one guest with us this time.

By way of background, I want to explain something. Our next guest regarding the salmon study, Mr. Parsons, is from the Environment Resource Management Association, or as we call it, ERMA. He is a general manager there regarding salmon fisheries on the river, primarily the Exploits River.

The reason we did this now is that during our trip, our field study, we had testimony from members of the Miramichi and other rivers there, Restigouche River as well. They talked about how Newfoundland and Labrador rivers were managed differently. On our way back, we thought it would be a good idea to have a submission by Mr. Parsons from Newfoundland and Labrador to talk about management in Newfoundland and Labrador on the salmon rivers. I apologize to him and others for not doing this earlier.

Mr. Parsons, we're going to get you to do 10 minutes or fewer, just briefly outline where you're from and any comments you'd like to throw in. Then we're going to open up the questions. We're going to have one question from the government side, one from the opposition side, and Mr. Donnelly from the NDP, so three questions of seven minutes each.

Whenever you're ready, Mr. Parsons, go ahead.

[Fred Parsons, General Manager, Environment Resources Management Association]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to address such a privileged bunch of gentlemen. I'm not sure if there is a lady present, but thanks again.

You have been going around and you've been hearing a lot of things about salmon management, how things are working, and how it would work in Newfoundland and Labrador as opposed to other regions. I guess one of those big things is that in Newfoundland and Labrador we tend to have probably 50% of all the North American Atlantic salmon. I know you've been hearing about the effects it's having on our stocks. I'm sure you've heard our concerns about aquaculture and how that's interfacing with some of the wild fish. I'm sure you've heard environment enforcement concerns. Over the last number of years there has been what we would refer to as a lack of science that's going on with the species. Of course we do have some issues dealing with foreign fishing, overfishing, and the big one that's on the block these days and that does particularly concern me, climate change.

To give you a bit of a background, Mr. Simms did say that we do most of our work on the Exploits River. As a bit of a background to that, we used to be a bit of a one-horse town. We were a pulp and paper town for about 100 years. Back in the early 1980s someone said, “You know, there's been a cutback at the mill. What would ever happen to our towns here if this mill should, God forbid, ever close?” Well, the mill is closed.

Back in those days there was a bunch of volunteer gentlemen in town who said, “We're sitting on the largest river in Newfoundland. It's the largest watershed, and the salmon only have access to about the first 15 miles. What can we do with this river? We could make this into a world-class Atlantic salmon river and bring some economic benefit to the whole region and all along the way.” You're looking at a river that's about 150 miles long. These gentlemen weren't pushed off their task easily. Just to summarize that, if you go back into the late 1970s, this river then contained about 1,700 adult Atlantic salmon. I'm glad to say that a couple of years ago we just about hit 50,000 Atlantic salmon coming back to the river. This wasn't easy and it wasn't cheap. In partnership with DFO and our association, we set upon a plan to put in fishways over natural obstructions like the Grand Falls and the Bishop's Falls, and to build more fishways around the power dams.

There are six different hydro production stations on our system here. We did a massive stocking program with over 50 million little fish fry that were incubated and then taken and spread all over the watershed. All these fish came from a river that basically was used for hydro production and for making paper. A lot of people would tell you that you can't have fish and have hydro. We were probably a little stubborn on that, and we've created this resource that's sitting here throughout the Exploits Valley.

What I want to touch on more today is the importance of this fishery and of the Atlantic salmon recreational fishery to all of Atlantic Canada. I want to also zoom in on the Exploits River. It's been a few years since we've had a full economic impact study done, but my estimate right now is that it's worth anywhere from $8 million to $10 million a year strictly on the Exploits River, and this revenue is shared throughout four or five different towns.

Atlantic salmon usually don't hang around big cities; it's usually found in rural areas all over Atlantic Canada. In Newfoundland, we have well over 200 lakes and rivers. This is an economic driver in some cases, for the outfitters, the hotels, the campgrounds, and pretty well all of the service industry. That's a very large impact, when you consider it's all rural dollars that are being spent. Some of this is out of province, out of country, but even within our province itself, you have people that will take their two-week or three-week vacation and visit a lot of these different rivers.

If you look at Newfoundland, we don't have many operas, there aren't many major sporting events, although some people did have to stay up a little late last night to take in the Toronto activities. What we're getting into now is quality of life and what will keep people here. To come for a job is one thing, but to keep these people here with things they can do is certainly a concern of ours.

One big thing that the resource does have, when we're looking at the Atlantic salmon, is that it has more friends than probably any other species that's out there. There are that many conservation groups located in Newfoundland and Labrador, and right throughout Atlantic Canada, that are not only lobbying to do something for the resource but are willing to help. There have been many partnerships over the years between not-for-profits, conservation groups, and DFO, to increase the numbers, so it's not the point of telling government that we want you to do this. Basically, what we're saying is that there are concerns, we have certain issues, but we're all in this together and we're willing to help out just as much as we're asking government to.

I'll take a little break here to see if there are any questions on that. I do have some issues I'd like to talk about around habitat, but I'll just give it a little break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Parsons, we'll go to the questions. If something comes to mind you can work that in.

Again, we'll go to the government side. Mr. Finnigan, the MP for Miramichi, has some questions for you.

He has seven minutes, so I'll give him the floor.

Go ahead, Mr. Finnigan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Parsons, for taking the time to come and talk to us this afternoon.

I live right next to the Miramichi River. I know it's not the only river with salmon, but it is an important economic driver in our area. You were mentioning $10 million. I think the figure on our river is somewhere closer to $20 million, so it's absolutely very important.

You mentioned that on some of your rivers, or at least one river, there was a mill. I'm not sure if it's still there or not. Interestingly enough, we had quite a few mills on the river that are no longer there, pulp and other mills.

We met with the Miramichi Watershed Management Committee last week in Miramichi. They have been monitoring the river for a long time and looking into the chemicals, everything that would affect the water quality. It has been over 10 years since those mills have been closed, and they were quite surprised that instead of the population... At the time, a lot of people were blaming the activity of those industries on the diminishing population. Since then, the population has decreased substantially.

I'd like your comments on that, whether you think there are other factors, and how much industrial or people's actions on the river has an effect on the population in your area.

[Fred Parsons]

It's been about six years now since the mill closed there, and as we speak, it's in the background. It's gradually being knocked down and totally disposed of.

If we go back 30 years, a lot of the effluent from the mill was going directly into the river. Since it was a pulp and paper mill, a lot of it was loose fibre that found its way to the bottom of the river and choked off spawning areas and things like that. With the hydro, there wasn't really much concern back in those days for exclusion, to keep the fish from going into the generators and the like. Years ago, the easiest and the most common way to get your fibre, your logs, to the mill was to throw them in the river and let them float down.

Back 15 or 20 years ago, we saw a lot of these things change. With no production anymore, we're not seeing any going in, but even back in those days, once the fish were in the water, then there was a bit of an onus, a bit of a community spirit, I guess, for the companies that were here to do their part in cleaning up. Some very massive effluent treatment plants were installed. Some of the systems there are unique in the world. We just finished entertaining 15 scientists, biologists, from Sweden, because we have some unique systems here that keep the young fish from entering into the generators. It's a diversion system, I'll say.

All of these things here with industry have certainly helped. What we're finding now is that the river is becoming a lot cleaner. The fibres that would settle on the bottom choking off the spawning areas and all that are not there.

Our numbers have steadily increased. The mill has been closed for six years. We are not seeing any great numbers, so I don't think in recent history that there was much damage being done by the power plants, by the paper mill itself. Right now certainly, it would be very difficult to blame what's happening now on what happened years and years ago.