Evidence of meeting #61 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mpa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
Can I get a quick yes or no from any of the others?
10 a.m.
Managing Director, BC Commercial Fishing Caucus
From a fishing point of view, it would be great if the entire west coast were put into an IUCN category VI MPA, where sustainable fishing is...and no other activities, that aren't sustainable, are allowed. Right? We're not that narrow-minded that all other activities be restricted. We could live with something like that, but this idea of being fully closed is troubling.
10 a.m.
Conservative
10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
You have about 30 seconds.
Mr. McColeman, if you want to ask a question, go right ahead.
That's no reflection on the answer. You can take your time with the answer. We're a little more strict about questions here.
Go ahead, Mr. McColeman.
10 a.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Dr. Ban, there have been some conversations here about “push-button” politics, I'll call it, happening in the background. You haven't weighed in on that issue or given your view on how appropriate that is or how meaningful or weighty it should be in making future decisions on this issue. I'd be interested to hear your view.
10:05 a.m.
Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
As I mentioned in my statement, I think it's really important to have a transparent and accountable process in identifying MPAs. As I think my colleagues from the commercial fishing sector have said, it is really important, if indeed.... I haven't been part of either the Scott Islands or the sponge reefs specifically, so I can't speak to the specifics, but in general, if there is a consensus decision by the people at the table and it's also supported by science, that should be what goes forward.
That said, I suppose any of the interests will try to fight for their own interest, whether it be ENGOs or commercial or recreational fishing. I suppose it's part of politics that there will always be multiple pressures by multiple groups. Ultimately the decision has to get made in the best interest of Canada.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, Dr. Ban.
Thank you, Mr. McColeman.
Mr. Finnigan, you have five minutes, please.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the panel for appearing.
Being from the east coast—this could apply to both coasts, I suppose—I have an area that's of interest right now. It has been commercially fished, I guess, by first nations and by local commercial fishers for probably at least 100 years.
Maybe I'll start with you, Dr. Ban. Would you say that an adjusted ecosystem has installed itself there over the years? If we were to put an MPA in that area, would we try to recreate what was there or would it be better to try to manage and make sure that whatever ecosystem is there now there is protected? Perhaps you could elaborate on that.
10:05 a.m.
Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, As an Individual
I don't know the specifics of the place you're talking about, but it's always a good question to ask what the goals are of having either an individual MPA or an MPA network. Often it is thought to be what the place was like before fishing happened, but in many cases that's not reasonable. Fishing by first nations has been taking place in some of these places for thousands of years, so there is no fishing precedent specifically. It may be appropriate to manage some of the fisheries more strictly within such a place. We also don't necessarily know all of the impacts by some of those fishing activities, or how the ecosystem has changed, as was mentioned, with climate change.
One of the things that MPAs have been shown to do is that by having less fishing effort and less impact from extractive activities, they tend to have less variability. They tend to be more consistent in terms of the fish that are there, which can be a benefit and can show us just how much change is happening in the places that are fished more severely or more intensely.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Thank you.
Mr. McIsaac, you referred to studies in the Arctic, which we know is contaminated with mercury and all kinds of other pollutants, whether it be the air, the water, or the soil, that have nothing to do with what's going on there. Would you say it's useless to have protection there, and we could just go ahead and exploit or drill or fish? Could you elaborate on that?
10:05 a.m.
Managing Director, BC Commercial Fishing Caucus
No, I wouldn't say there is no reason to have any kind of protections there. The point I was trying to make there is that drawing lines around something doesn't protect it the way you might think.
10:05 a.m.
Managing Director, BC Commercial Fishing Caucus
There are other ways to protect that. In the regulatory framework we live with, one of the big issues there is PCBs and where the PCBs are coming from, why they are arriving, and how they are arriving there in the Arctic. You need the regulatory framework so that they're not being openly put into the ecosystem and then picked up in the atmospheric movements and dropped there. You need that larger regulatory framework.
On the issue about ecosystems, the fish hook has been around for 40,000 years. We've been using it to catch fish for 40,000 years. It predates the plough. We modify any system we're fishing in. They're not pristine ecosystems. They're novel ecosystems. We're modifying every ecosystem on this planet by being here. We have to be cognizant of what we're doing on land and on the water, but to think that what we're doing on the land is not impacting the water is a huge mistake. If you want to take the food production and limit that food production in the ocean. then we have to produce it on land. Most of our land production is impacting our oceans way more than fishing is. That's the issue.
The dead zones that are being created by agricultural runoff are huge. That is limiting our food production on this planet in the ocean. If you want to restrict what we're catching on the ocean, then you have to increase it on land. Then we're going to pollute our ocean more and there will be more dead zones. You have to be cognizant of the larger picture in what you do.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
My apologies, but I have to cut you off there.
Mr. Van Kesteren, five minutes, please.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Thank you, Chair.
It's great to be here. I'm not a member of this committee, and I have tell you, too, that I don't know a whole lot about fishing. I bought a fishing boat this spring, for the first time. My riding is Chatham-Kent—Leamington, which has the largest freshwater fishing port in the world. I feel I have at least some right to be here, I guess, in that respect.
But I have to tell you, I'm the average Canadian, and I too am repulsed when I see these pictures. I think you have a little bit of a problem with just perception, and let's face it, the world is mostly perception.
Mr. McIsaac, I appreciate what you said about the runoff. I didn't know that—all these things we don't know—but when I see pictures of deep-bottom trawling, I do wonder why we are doing that.
Dr. Ban, you mentioned something that I had never thought about, the fact that there are different levels, with young fish, what we'd call baby fish or baby crabs or something. I would suspect that they rely on the fish that are being caught—this is just an assumption—and the bits and pieces that drop to the bottom; that's what they eat. If those big guys are gone, then the little guys can't eat.
These are all things that we start to pick up, as the Canadian public, and then we start pushing those buttons. That is our perception.
So why do we do bottom trawling at all? Why is that allowed?
10:10 a.m.
Managing Director, BC Commercial Fishing Caucus
I'll take a stab at it, and then I'll pass it over to Bruce. He's more of an expert on this.
What I would do is compare that to land and what we do in farming. In farming, we typically replace an entire ecosystem. We take out whatever is there, till the soil, and then plant whatever we want. We're putting in a new ecosystem.
On the ocean, what bottom trawling does is that, at most, it modifies the ecosystem. It doesn't replace the ecosystem. It doesn't do the kind of damage to an ecosystem that we're doing on land in food production there.
If you want to compare it with food production, what we're doing with trawling is nowhere near as bad on the ecosystem as what we're doing on land.
The worst kind of fishery out there is not bottom trawling. There are places where dynamite is being used to fish. It's not as bad as some of these other places.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
I would assume, too, that.... I don't want to pick on the Chinese, but I've dealt with them in terms of carbon usage. They flat out told me, listen, we've not been part of this for the last 100 years, you guys have the mass responsibility, and we have lots of time where we can do lots of polluting before we're caught up to you.
Where's the biggest problem, or who are the biggest problems on the open seas as far as fishing is concerned?
10:10 a.m.
Executive Director, BC Seafood Alliance
It's Asia, Africa—places where there are no management systems.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
What can we do? For instance, does the United Nations have no teeth? Is that why we're not seeing any movement in those areas?
10:10 a.m.
Executive Director, BC Seafood Alliance
We have to do more of what we've started to do, and that's better high seas management, more enforcement, and bringing countries like China into the world order so that they start to do some of these things.
Bruce has been to China to help tell them how to manage fisheries better.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON
Before he answers that question, I'm almost out of time, and one more question is burning in my mind. Is there any indication yet of nuclear contamination of fish on the west coast, from Fukushima?
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, BC Seafood Alliance
I think there has been one salmon with very low levels of one of the cesiums found in Okanagan Lake, but all the research that has been done by Alaska in particular, which has done a massive amount, and in Oregon, and to some extent by the CFIA, shows there's no contamination.