Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I am thrilled to be here today. As commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, I report directly to the environment and sustainable development committee of Parliament, yet sustainable development is much broader than just the environment. I don't know if you're aware that Canada signed on to the UN's sustainable development goals, the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
If you have a look at the agenda goals, there are 17 different targets. You'll see that sustainable development is much more than just the environment. I'm really thrilled, really happy to be here today to present in front of this committee the audit we did on fisheries, which was tabled in October of 2016. I am accompanied by Sharon Clark, who was the principal responsible for the audit. There are some other members of our team behind me in case I can't answer all your questions.
As commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, I wanted to perform this audit for one real reason. That was to make sure that Canada was not heading towards the collapse of another fish stock. Some of you, if you're of my vintage, will recall the effects of the closure of the northern cod fishery in the early 1990s. Some of us remember how devastating that actually was.
I wanted to make sure that Fisheries and Oceans Canada was managing our 154 major fish stocks in a sustainable way and that we weren't going to be faced with the potential collapse of yet another stock. That was my rationale.
As you know, being the committee on fisheries, fisheries are an important economic driver for Canada. Some 600 Canadian communities, often small, rural, and hard to access in some cases, depend on fishing and fishing-related industries for their livelihoods. The rest of us want fish to eat. At least I would like that.
The economic value of the Canadian fish and seafood exports was tabulated at $6 billion in 2015, and when I met with Mr. Sopuck here on the committee, he reminded us that the recreational fisheries also have an important value of approximately $8 billion.
What did we find in our audit?
The most distressing finding from my perspective was regarding fish stocks that were considered to be in critical condition. Of the 15 major fish stocks that were in critical condition at the time of our audit and that were still being fished, 12 did not have the required rebuilding plans in place. Think about it. We have 12 stocks, they're considered to be in critical condition, we're still fishing them, and we're supposed to have a rebuilding plan and we don't. These included certain stocks of cod, mackerel, herring, and scallop.
From my perspective, continuing to fish stocks that are in critical condition, without having a rebuilding plan in place, increases the risk of the stock's potential collapse. The officials at Fisheries and Oceans Canada also told us that they needed something called integrated fisheries management plans, with detailed information on each stock in order to manage each fishery sustainably. We went in and looked at these, what are called IFMPs, integrated fisheries management plans. We found that these management plans were in place for 110 of the 154 major fish stocks, including those with the greatest economic value. That's actually pretty good. That's 70% of the fish stocks with the greatest economic value having these integrated fisheries management plans.
However, for the remaining 44 of our major stocks, which is about 30%, plans were either missing or outdated at the time of our audit.
We also found issues with gathering, analyzing, and managing information on fish stocks. In particular, we found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada was unable to complete all of the scientific surveys of fish stocks that it had planned. This was partly due to the unavailability of ships, including Coast Guard ships. Specifically, during our audit period, of the 51 evaluations of high-risk stocks planned, 19 were not conducted during the year they were supposed to be.
Also, we found the department had systemic problems with their third-party observer programs, which calls into question the data's reliability and usefulness. We found issues related to conflict of interest and to the timely provision of data. For example, data from third-party observers in at least one case was only made available two years after it was gathered.
These deficiencies in surveys and observer programs contributed to the department's information gaps regarding the health status of Canada's major fish stocks. The department reported that 80 of the 154 stocks did not have all of the reference points required by the precautionary approach framework. These reference points are used to delineate the healthy, cautious, and critical zones for each major fish stock. This meant that the department was less certain about the health of these stocks. For 24 of the stocks, the department classified the health of the stock as “unknown”.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada had no consistent way to manage data on fisheries across the department. For example, in one case, fisheries observers in two neighbouring fishing regions used different codes for the same species. This inconsistency put the department at risk of not having access to sufficient information to make effective and timely decisions.
Our audit concluded that Fisheries and Oceans Canada had identified the following five key elements it needed for fisheries management, and those are the integrated fisheries management plans, scientific surveys, third-party fisheries observer programs, stock assessments, and reference points for establishing stock health.
However, the department had not put all of these elements in place for all major stocks. Without a clear sense of how many fish there are and how many are being caught, Fisheries and Oceans Canada cannot ensure that fisheries are sustainably managed for the benefit of current and future generations.
The department agreed with our eight recommendations, and its responses appear in our published audit report. I'm very encouraged by these responses and hope that Mr. Stringer can give us an update on where the department is regarding those recommendations.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening statement. We'd be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.
Again, thank you very much for inviting me to appear. I'm very excited to be here.