Fisheries Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

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

The commissioner recommended that DFO should improve controls for third-party fisheries observer programs to ensure sufficient coverage on fishing vessels, timely data, and the mitigation of potential or actual conflicts of interest on the part of the observer companies. The department has committed to, among other things, a national policy on fisheries monitoring by 2017. Can you provide us with a bit of an update on the status of that policy?

[Kevin Stringer]

That's very interesting and it is a challenge. We actually profess and try to say that we will partner with the fishermen and figure out how we're going to manage their fishery through a shared stewardship.

However, you end up with very different rules in terms of observer coverage, dockside monitoring, and other elements. What we realized—and the report was helpful, but we were getting there anyway—was that we needed to have at least some basic standards, so that all key fisheries must have these types of standards in terms of monitoring, whether it comes from observer coverage, or dockside monitoring, or some other third-party approach. That's what we've been working on. We've been working on it for a couple of years. We've been having internal sessions, but we're also talking to the industry about it as well. They know it's coming.

[Julie Gelfand]

I just wanted to make a suggestion.

The public accounts committee that the Auditor General reports to when he does his audits requests that the department provide an action plan in writing on a six-month or annual basis. It would be within your jurisdiction, and it's almost your job, to take the recommendations of the audit and to ask the department to provide you with a written update on a periodic basis so you find out whether or not the recommendations have been implemented.

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

Mr. Chair, how do we do that? Do we need a recommendation at this committee? Is that something we should discuss at another time, or can I make a recommendation that we consider that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You can formally in a motion, as we normally do, and bring it to committee if you so desire.

As long as we have the required 48-hours' notice it would be great, so that we could share with other colleagues.

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Now, we have seven minutes with Mr. Morrissey.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Gelfand, I believe this spring will mark 25 years since the collapse of the northern cod fishery. Given your position and your auditing of DFO policies, can you assure this committee that management practices are in place that would prevent a collapse of any other commercial fishery?

[Julie Gelfand]

Until those 12 rebuilding plans for the stocks that are in the critical zone have been developed, I would be uncomfortable providing you that assurance, based on the standards of audit that we use, that the Auditor General uses. It is disconcerting to me that we have 12 stocks in the critical zone, and they're supposed to have rebuilding plans in place. At the time of our audit, they did not. It is the department's job to provide them, so you should be asking the department whether or not they have those rebuilding plans in place.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Yes, but I wanted your opinion.

[Julie Gelfand]

I'm an auditor, although I don't think of myself as an auditor but in the Office of the Auditor General. I can only give you what is in our document, and what is in our document is that 12 plans are not there.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Because we've had 25 years, and the commercial fishery sustains rural small Canada....

Mr. Stringer, a lot of your preamble and your statements reference what the department is doing now. I interpret it as a go-forward. I'm curious, because 25 years have gone by. We have the commissioner saying that on commercial fisheries dependent on...there are still some questions on whether some of those species may be in danger of collapsing. What's the department been doing over those 25 years? Be brief because I have a couple of other questions.

[Kevin Stringer]

I think there are a number of things, but I would touch on a couple of them.

In those days, we did not have the precautionary approach. We did not establish a limit reference point, and that limit reference point, I think, is the key. The limit reference point says that if it goes below here, this stock is not in imminent danger of collapse but you need to pay attention to it in terms of the potential to collapse. We didn't have limit reference points for any of that. That precautionary approach came after.

I'd just add one more thing. Sometimes there is not that much you can do about it. Oceanographic change takes place. We are seeing a change from a crab- and shrimp-based fishery, a mollusc-based fishery off the Newfoundland Shelf, to a groundfish-based fishery. Not everybody is convinced that's fully there, but that seems to be what's taking place. The cod recovery, the shrimp that have been decreasing over the last number of years, some of those things are natural. The challenge is a collapse, so that precautionary approach and the ecosystem approach are the things that have come into play that we did not have 25 years ago.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You referenced a rebuilding plan as it related to halibut on the east coast. Could you explain that?

[Kevin Stringer]

Halibut has not had a formal rebuilding plan, but effectively there has been a rebuilding plan, which started by saying we're not going to take any fish smaller than 81 centimetres, I think it was, and we'll limit the total allowable catch, set harvest limits, set IQs in some fisheries, pull together an industry committee, set the observer requirements and the dockside monitoring requirements, etc. Bit by bit in the last 20 years that has fully developed and is now, I think, a $30-million or $40-million fishery off Nova Scotia mostly and southern Newfoundland in coastal areas and in the gulf.

In the last two or three times, we've also had harvest control rules that say no matter how fast it goes up, we're not going to increase the total allowable catch by more than 15%. We do that in the coastal area and in the gulf.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

In 2015, there was a halibut allocation announced just prior to the election. Last year, when the quota was announced that changed it, I inquired and met with senior officials of DFO. They could not provide me with the rationale that the minister used to make that quota allocation in 2015.

Could you tell me how it was made?

[Kevin Stringer]

I don't know about 2015—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

It seems to defy all the logic you were giving me.

[Kevin Stringer]

What I would say is that there is an objective in terms of conservation for stability of access and allocation. If everybody knows what they're going to get as the stock grows, we have a better chance of good stewardship partners. That's been a general objective.

There are eight fleets around the Gulf of St. Lawrence that have access to the Atlantic halibut stocks; you know which ones they are. Everybody feels a little bit aggrieved about some allocation in the past.

There was an exercise last year in terms of transparency. It was a very public process. All of the input that came in from all the players—it was 2016—went up on our website. The minister's rationale for his decision went up on our website.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

But in 2015...?

[Kevin Stringer]

That process did not take place in 2015.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

So there was no transparency process that took place in 2015.

[Kevin Stringer]

I don't think there was a public.... There was nothing on our website that explained what the process was. There was a decision.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you. I think you answered my question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

Mr. Doherty, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you.

I want to say thank you to our witnesses today for providing their testimony and coming forward. I'm going to direct my questions to Commissioner Gelfand.

Commissioner, in your findings, you found that the department had committed to developing integrated fisheries management plans for each of Canada's major fish stocks, first in 1995, then again confirming this commitment in 2009. Your testimony was that your audit focused on the management planning of our fisheries and you found deficiencies in delivering our management plans. Indeed, you found that 12 of our 15 major fish stocks are not in place. You found conflicts of interest.

We have also heard testimony from other witnesses with respect to a disconnect between management and our regional offices. This, to me, doesn't necessarily speak of a funding issue. It speaks more to a management issue overall.

I'd like your comments on that because we are indeed—and I appreciate your honest report—hearing a lot of excuses over the last while I think, and your report is glaring to me, more as a management issue. There were deficiencies that management knew about and simply overlooked or let go, let it slide, so to speak, and I'd like your comment on that.

[Julie Gelfand]

That's a very broad question. It's difficult for me to say. Based on the audit that we did, we found deficiencies—