Fisheries Committee on April 13th, 2017

[Alan Martin]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

I would concur with that.

Ms. Jordan, please, for seven minutes.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.

My first question is for you, Mr. Martin, because you made what I thought was quite a broad statement. I'd like to have you expand on it a bit. You said that DFO unilaterally announced an MPA, and I believe you said that it was the Hecate Strait. “Unilaterally” and “announced” were the actual words you used. Are you saying there was absolutely no consultation with anybody on this before they made that announcement?

[Alan Martin]

Are you talking about the glass sponge reefs?

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes.

[Alan Martin]

They are in the PNCIMA area.

The day before that, they announced the adherence to the PNCIMA process and marine protected areas. On the following day, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced the sponge reef marine protected areas. Given that it was in the northern shelf and that there are a wide range of interests there, I think there could have been broader consultation in advance of that announcement, and that consultation, to my knowledge, did not occur.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay. You said “broader consultation”, so was there any consultation with any of the groups involved in that area?

[Alan Martin]

Yes, certainly there would be with the BC Seafood Alliance, and Christina Burridge was part of the announcement. First nations were part of the announcement. It was not done collaboratively as part of the PNCIMA process. It was done unilaterally as a DFO initiative.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Maybe both of you could address this, because one of the things we've heard about time and time again is the lack of trust between industry and groups like yours, Mr. Martin, and DFO. Can you comment on that? Do you trust the process that DFO goes through?

[Alan Martin]

I'm part of a number of processes with DFO, including the Sport Fishing Advisory Board, and certainly I'm part of the planning process that DFO is involved in with PNCIMA.

I think the issue with DFO is the capacity to provide support for consultation, along with the timely sharing of information that is required by stakeholders, industry, and others in order to form constructive and positive advice, and to also have those sectors understand what resources are at play and what trade-offs are being made. In many cases, those trade-offs are not explicit and are hidden or implicit. That information is certainly required by all groups to maintain the social support for what I think are potentially very valuable measures to protect environmental resources.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Richard.

[Michel Richard]

Maybe it's because of the translation, but I was looking at my document and I was thinking, I don't think I used a scathing word such as “trust”.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

No, you didn't. Others have. I'll qualify that.

[Michel Richard]

What we need to build on is to focus more on where we're at now, what needs to be done, how they communicate this clearly without raising a panic within the membership and the coastal communities, and to say, “Okay, if we're doing this, we're doing this for the benefit directly of the habitat, the resource, and it's targeted at reducing certain fishing practices”.

What was done in regard to the sponges, for example, even though it was presented in a very blitzed way, seems to have been a targeted benefit. As I stated earlier, when we address questions of marine habitat and resource protection in communities, we always have very overarching concerns about— and I'll say it again—oil and gas exploration, for example. Our members, for example, when they read in a general assembly, well, if they want a marine protected area, why don't we put everything close to oil and gas exploration? That's how the members in their houses understand what should be done.

So if our government wants to be very clear, you have to meet the leadership of these communities and tell them exactly what the targets are, because the fishermen, with incomprehension, with all due respect, feel targeted.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It was interesting in that we have you, and we had the environmental perspective previously. I would like you to comment on one of the comments made by Dr. Pauly, I believe it was. He said that the use of the environment is only possible if we protect the environment.

[Michel Richard]

Yes.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I think that's a very true statement. I'm not saying that your group is not doing so. I think that fishermen are some of our greatest protectors of the fishery. Can you maybe comment on that a little bit?

[Michel Richard]

With any fishery we develop, for example, there is always the concern.... It hasn't happened in the recent past, but let's say, for example, an experimental fishery were developed.... Let's go back to 1984 and rock crab. We had special committees of biologists and fisherman formed to work out if the practice or exploitation of that fishery would it have a deleterious impact on habitat. No, it would not, because the traps in the water would be conical ones. Would it have a negative impact on other fisheries? As I explained earlier with the lobster fishery, there would be escape vents.

We're looking, once again, at the following issue. I'll go back to the fourth paragraph in my presentation, that the focus of this current government is on conservation and protection, but what about the constituents and the conservation and protection of the coastal communities so they can live and thrive with the resource?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Thank you.

Your time is up. We actually went over time.

It was most interesting testimony. I just hate to cut people off.

Mr. Arnold, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess I would be interested in hearing from both of you if there need to be different levels of marine protection that could still be considered MPAs. Can we permit certain uses within so-called MPAs to continue if the impact is low or negligible on the conservation targets, or do we need complete preservation within an MPA for it to be considered an MPA? Should we have those different levels?

[Michel Richard]

Once again I'll give you the perspective of our membership when we talked about this a year and a half ago, because, at the MFU, part of our work as the representatives is to see smoke coming and then warn our members.

We're going to have to work on these issues, and a lot of fishermen were saying, “Okay, if a marine protected area means that I could still set my lobster trap, we must be certain that it can be classified as such”. I would refer to the marine protected area of Basin Head where a fisherman from P.E.I. told me—although I was not their representative—that that area evolved in a certain way with added protections, but not to the communities in question. I'll leave you with that.

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

Mr. Martin, do you have a response on that, on different levels of classifications that could still be called MPAs?

[Alan Martin]

Yes, and certainly the IUCN has different levels of classification with different levels of protection. The fundamental point is that the levels of protection should be appropriate to the outcome you are trying to achieve, both from a biological perspective and, as Mr. Richard said, from a community and economic perspective as well.

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

We're hearing a lot about the consultation process. To go into a little bit of the specifics around that, can each of you elaborate on what you see as the value of having all of the stakeholders in the same room at the same time versus the individual lobbying that takes place? What are your experiences that way, and what do you usually see as the best outcome?

[Michel Richard]

In the last few years, I haven't seen many government managers or workers who want to meet large groups of fishermen. That has not been happening, whereas we're saying that we're giving you an opportunity to work with the processes and the leadership within the organizations. We can organize smaller-scale meetings where less potentially chaotic discussions can happen. The thing is that there has to be more of a feeling of intendancy or stewardship on the part of community members.