Fisheries Committee on May 2nd, 2017

[Dr. Stephen Woodley]

I do. I'll at least start.

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

Here we go.

[Dr. Stephen Woodley]

I'm from Moncton, so I know that area really well.

The Northumberland Strait was once one of the most productive marine systems on the planet. It's a shallow water system with a lot of benthic production and, at least in my lifetime, we've seen dramatic changes in the kinds of fisheries that have occurred in the Northumberland Strait. There used to be a massive herring fishery. We exported herring all over the world from there. We don't now. At best, there's an artisanal fishery in herring.

We've flipped the system. It's very productive for lobsters now, but it's not that productive for much else. We've changed the system, and we're taking advantage of that highly changed system, but it's a long way from where it was in terms of being highly productive.

I think your question is, how could an MPA fix that system? That's a good question. I don't think there's a really simple answer, but I think that fisheries management, as has been pointed out, is an imperfect science, and it has to be somewhat experimental. We could set up an MPA in that area to see what would happen in that system, and you would have to carefully consider how to do it. I know a bunch of fishermen from there, and there's a lot of interest amongst the fishermen in doing that, in setting up an MPA to see what would happen.

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

Would anybody else care to comment on that?

[Prof. Sean Cox]

I think that if you were to do something like that, you would always want to consider an alternative of reducing the fishing mortality. As I've mentioned, we have a lot of stocks that are pretty heavily exploited, and a lot of times I don't see the benefit of a spacial closure versus reducing fishing mortality, especially for stocks that move. These are big, non-replicated experiments, so there's a lot of work that has to go into looking at not just one alternative but a couple of them and putting a lot of resources into seeing whether it would be worth doing the experiment.

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

Thank you.

We had Ms. Susanna Fuller of the Ecology Action Centre here. She said that first nations and small fishing communities “may not have the capacity to meaningfully engage” in consulting when DFO or the government consults. In addition, we had Mr. Nickerson from the island here, from the commercial fisheries, who said that it can be very hard for fishers to take part, because they're certainly busy people.

In your view, how should meaningful consultation be measured or defined? How can we make sure that everybody, including first nations and commercial fisheries, is part of the dialogue?

Mr. Morlock, you've alluded to that, I know, so maybe I can start with you.

[Phil Morlock]

I guess it's poignant to mention that in my 30 years in this job, this is only the second time we've been invited by this committee to come forward. We've never been invited by the committee on environment and sustainable development. If you look at their recent report, you see that everybody who is trying to run us off the water and out of the woods was testifying, but nobody asked us. I think there is definitely an important aspect to including industry in these discussions, because it's part of the big picture.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

We're out of time.

What we're going to do now is this. We normally have three-minute rounds, but our time is quite good so I'm going to allow five-minute rounds for each of the next questioners. We'll go in the appropriate order. We just had a notice that the bells will go at 10:40 for a vote at 11:10. I think we should just stay until our allotted time, a quarter to, and we'll still have time to get there, if the committee is fine with that. It's only five minutes.

Now the next questioner is Mr. Donnelly for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Nowlan, you referenced the environment committee and their recent report where they produced a number of recommendations on MPAs. I'm wondering if you could talk about those and what you think about those recommendations.

[Linda Nowlan]

Yes. I think that committee did a very thorough study. It's 120 pages long. They heard from a number of witnesses. They took a site visit out to B.C., and maybe the Arctic, too, I'm not sure, and they made a number of recommendations. The part that interested me was the part about law reform, not surprisingly, and recommendations 24 to 30, I believe, are the ones that I found particularly interesting. I think your committee could look at those recommendations and repeat them, if you so chose. I think that would have a big impact on the government.

Recommendation 24 is to explore more effective and innovative mechanisms to expedite protection. Recommendation 25 is to designate multiple protected areas concurrently. Right now, it's one by one, an ad hoc approach. For example in the U.K., they designated 26 marine conservation zones at once in 2016 and they're set to do their third round or their third tranche this year. Doing a whole bunch at once can actually make sense, especially in a defined geographical area where you have the scientific basis. I won't go through recommendations 27, 28, and 29.

In recommendation 30, the committee recommends that the Government of Canada amend and strengthen the National Marine Conservation Areas Act and the Oceans Act in order to enable interim protection before the areas are legally established, and I believe DFO is working on that.

Another one that I think would be great is to put right in the law a shortened timeline for the development and implementation of MPAs. There are timelines used in other acts, like the Species at Risk Act. In all sorts of acts we use timelines to get action, and people pay attention. A representative from the provincial Government of Nova Scotia testified to the environment committee and said that Nova Scotia's provincial act was actually very helpful for them to increase their number of protected areas. Then the last one under recommendation 30 is to enshrine the restoration and maintenance of ecological integrity as the overriding priority for Canada's marine conservation areas.

I think that would be an excellent way to get at the main purpose of marine protected areas, which is to conserve biodiversity and to maintain ecological integrity.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Morlock, you mentioned that you thought fisheries were pretty healthy. Last Parliament, we had a commission, a judicial inquiry on the decline of the Fraser River sockeye salmon. I am very familiar with a report that came out by leading marine scientists around the world in 2012 talking about large predators in serious decline, including sharks, which were estimated at 30 to 70 million a year. Those are just a couple of things that come to mind, and they are definitely not healthy fisheries. Certainly, there are questions about fluctuations in levels and you have to look at the entire context in a historical global context, and you have to get, I think Dr. Cox mentioned, enough scientific evidence that is in agreement, because you can come up with differences.

Do you still feel that there are no fisheries that are unhealthy?

[Phil Morlock]

No, and if I gave that impression, I didn't intend that. I think the answer is that it depends where you look. The former Speaker of the House in Congress, Tip O'Neill, once said all politics is local. I think that analogy applies to fisheries management, as well, and wildlife for that matter, and the two gentlemen next to me both commented about essentially trying to manage a moving target, and that nature is never static. When you pull on one string, the others are attached. But I think it's important to take a look at what the causal factors and what the potential solutions are, and whether, in this conversation, MPAs are that solution in a given scenario.

For example, on the west coast, I've had the opportunity to tour some of the streams where salmon spawn on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Due to human encroachment, subdivisions and so on, many of those areas are the length of this room and you could jump across the stream at certain times of the year. It's a minimum of what's left of what once existed. It's not as the result of recreational fishing in that case. It's a result of habitat issues where the fish spawn. I think looking at the overall picture, but on a local basis, is really where the answers are found, realizing that on the global stage a lot of these things are spoken about in a very general fashion but the specific is more important in fisheries management.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Morrissey, for five minutes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the interesting aspects of this particular topic—MPAs—has been the almost, at times, totally contradictory evidence given by witnesses, from one that government is moving too fast on MPAs, to the other that MPAs are the salvation of all that ails the worldwide oceans. Somehow, we have to walk the middle.

I have two questions, one of which I want to begin with briefly, and which a couple of my colleagues picked up on. The comment was made that setting up MPAs benefits local communities. One of the issues of concern has been heard from communities directly aligned with fishing activities, where MPAs may curtail those activities. I'm curious.... I believe it was you, Dr. Woodley, who made the comment that MPAs have been identified as improving local economies. Could you just briefly explain it a bit more?

[Dr. Stephen Woodley]

Yes. I think it's important that we separate commercial and recreational fisheries, first of all.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

I'm referring to commercial.

[Dr. Stephen Woodley]

Lots of things can affect commercial fisheries, and as we've already seen across Canada, if you have major fluctuations in fish stocks—declines in fish stocks—coastal communities are devastated by that. Setting up marine protected areas that attract people for tourism, for viewing whales, for diving, or for whatever, can have enormous benefits. That's one economic benefit of it.

There are recreational fisheries in so-called “no-take” marine protected areas in many cases in the world. That applies in many areas of the United States that are no-take, and there's a huge economic benefit there.

The third is that communities.... There is something called a “spillover effect”, which we could debate scientifically for a long, long time. If you look at something like the haddock box, which is a big marine protected area on Georges.... You guys talked about the haddock box? You must have. The fisheries benefit of that closure—which is, in effect, a marine protected area—is enormous. That's where all the haddock is being caught.

Those are three examples of economic benefits to local communities.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

My other question relates to the issue that moving to increase the area of marine protected areas in itself will not protect much. Somebody elaborated on the fact that the people benefiting from one marine protected area were those who were not licensed to fish there. They didn't have black boxes, so they couldn't be detected going in. This issue was raised by commercial fishers as well, who commented that increasing the size of marine protected areas without the ability to enforce them really does not accomplish a lot.

I believe it was you, Dr. Cox, who made the comment that protection could be more important in protecting a stock than the symbolism of appointing a marine protected area. Could you elaborate a bit? I agree with that point, and fishers have raised the concern that DFO no longer has the capacity to protect or enforce normal fisheries adequately, let alone an enhanced marine protected area.

[Prof. Sean Cox]

You can very easily enforce marine protected areas for commercial fisheries. As I mentioned, on the west coast they're all tracked. I'm not sure what it is on the east coast. I think they're working on VMS systems on the east coast, but you can always detect when a commercial vessel is fishing.

If you want to create MPAs, and you want to consult and include people like the commercial fishing industry—which is a huge economic component—they're looking at this with a very skeptical eye, and they're not going to be onside when they see these kinds of things going on. Reports of people fishing in RCAs are rampant. It's not just people fishing in RCAs. When they hear that first nations are fishing in RCAs, then it becomes a political issue.

It's just this barrier that keeps building all this negative energy towards marine protected areas. That creates a real enforcement, political, and management nightmare to try to get it to work, so I don't know.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Robert Sopuck]

I'm afraid that's it. Thank you.

Mr. Doherty, you have five minutes.

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

Ms. Nowlan, in your testimony earlier with Mr. Donnelly's line of questioning you referred to the environmental committee's recommendations 24 through 28, I believe, or 27. One of them that you mentioned was your hope that this committee would have looked at those recommendations and adopted one of them that called on the government to speed up the process of the MPAs. Is that correct?

[Linda Nowlan]

Yes.

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

When evaluating MPAs and the communities that they will potentially negatively impact, do you not believe that the government should actually take its time? We've heard testimony from Mr. Cox, Mr. Woodley, Mr. Morlock, and others who have stated that MPAs could indeed have a negative impact on those local economies. Some may have a positive impact. Don't you think we should take the time to actually evaluate and study this rather than rush it through?

[Linda Nowlan]

I think it's taking far too long right now.

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

Whose agenda are we working with? Are we working with the communities or are we working with outside interests' agendas? Whose timeline is it that's taking far too long?