Fisheries Committee on May 11th, 2017

[Bruce Turris]

I wanted to respond to your earlier question about bottom trawling. You do have to protect certain habitats from all gear types, including bottom trawling, and that has been done. We talked earlier about the extensive protection that has gone on.

You also have to realize that bottom trawling is also the best way to catch some fish. Some species you can't catch by hook and line or by trawl. The greatest volume of catch comes from bottom trawling or mid-water trawling. This is necessary if you want to have the productivity to feed nations the largest volume of fish. But you have to do it carefully and protect habitat and have selective fishing activities, which includes mesh size and grates and things that will allow for selective fishing, much as Jim said.

You're right, perception is out there. It's certainly not well informed, especially in modern-day fisheries in Canada. We have to do a better job of educating people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Van Kesteren and Mr. Turris, you seemed anxious to get several questions put. Are you done?

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay.

Mr. Van Kesteren, just as a point of interest—bear with me, folks—what's the name of that port? Pardon my ignorance.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

That's Wheatley, the largest freshwater fishing harbour in the world. That's in my riding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Very nice.

Before we go to Mr. Morrissey, I want to say welcome to Ms. Lockhart from the riding of Fundy Royal. Thanks for joining us.

Mr. Morrissey, you have five minutes, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

Dr. Ban, in your opening comments you mentioned that MPAs should be strongly protected, well enforced, large, and bold in design. Could you elaborate on bold in design?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

In that comment I was referring to a study that showed the five criteria that have been shown to create the most effective MPAs. The last one was that they should protect whole ecosystems or be, as the study says, isolated by deep water or sand. In other words, it means if you protect a whole rocky reef or a whole ecosystem, that's going to be more effective than only protecting a tiny proportion of it.

If you're thinking about a whole ecosystem, then making sure you don't just slice the ecosystem into small pieces and protect a tiny portion of it is what leads to more effective biodiversity conservation.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay.

As a follow-up question, you referenced that if there's fishing activity in an MPA, the MPA is less effective. Two areas that are under future consideration on the east coast have very large, successful commercial fisheries in the species of lobster and crab, which are bottom crawlers. These two fisheries have been very well managed and highly successful. Lobster is MSC certified. Those fisheries do not have much impact on the diversity of the other resources in the area. Do you see where fisheries like that, which are highly managed, can operate in a successful MPA?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

It depends on the MPA and the specific objectives. Science shows that those no-take areas are most effective, but I was talking about the fact that in MPAs that allow some fishing but still provide more protections than areas that are not within MPAs, they still provide additional benefits over and above conventional fisheries management. So it's not like MPAs that allow fishing are not effective at all; they're just not as effective as no-take areas. Partially that's a trade-off that needs to be discussed in specific MPAs and specific places.

All fishing does impact the ecosystem. Science shows that. That may be a trade-off that in that place is appropriate to make so that those sustainable fisheries can continue.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

So from a scientific perspective, designating an area as an MPA but allowing for a commercial fishing activity under a controlled environment that is sustainably certified—it's still an effective MPA versus no MPA?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

It can be. If you're looking at the IUCN criteria, there are different categories of MPAs. Those are the ones Mr. McIsaac was referring to as the category IV, or sometimes category IV if the fishing is quite limited.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

Mr. Turris, you stated that for a fisher in the west coast, the TAC is under-fished annually by roughly 50%. Why is the TAC consistently being set year after year at a certain amount when it is known historically that it cannot be achieved? What impact is that under-fishing by 50% having on the stock? If you set a TAC at a certain amount and you consistently only achieve half of it, then there should be some implication. I'm curious to see what that implication is. The stocks should be expanding.

[Bruce Turris]

The TACs are based on the best available science, not on the exploitation levels. The assessments are done periodically, in either five-year or longer intervals. In some cases, yes, these are long-lived species. Most groundfish, as Natalie referred to with yelloweye rockfish, live over 100 years. Many of the species live to 40 or 50 years of age, and some of them don't become reproductive until their teens. So it takes 20 or 30 years to see the impacts. In fact, with rockfish, the science believes that you might get a strong year class once every 25 years.

It takes extended periods of time to see those increases in productivity, but in some cases we have. We have been managing these systems in a similar way for approximately the last 20 years, and in many of the cases we are seeing increases in abundance. In part, we don't know if it's strictly because of under-harvesting or if it's because of good environmental conditions for reproductivity and strong year classes, but there have been some signs of increases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey. I appreciate that.

We have Mr. Stetski for three minutes, please.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question about 8% of B.C.'s coastline being protected and concern that we may get to 13.8% protected. From a science perspective, does it not make sense that if 15% or 20% of Canada's most valuable ecosystems or marine ecosystems are on the west coast, you might want to get to 15% or 20%, if you're actually using science to make your decisions, rather than limiting it to 8%?

Ms. Burridge.

[Christina Burridge]

We're at 3.2% at the moment. As I said, I think we'll get to 13.2% by 2020.

We really haven't done that work. I think we're pretty comfortable with the general direction here, but we think the trade-off between increased protection when you haven't decided what it is that you're going to protect, and you're going to lock off areas that are important for food production, simply doesn't make much sense.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Okay. But if science suggests it should be higher levels, then you're fine with that....

I have a question for Dr. Ban, and I'm running out of time.

When you look at the history of fishing along the west coast, the perspective is that it's a boom and bust cycle: species decline, closures are put in place, and then there's hopefully recovery to bring it back up again. Do you think having a good system of marine protected areas could provide some long-term stability for commercial fishing opportunities, when you look into the future?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

I do believe that's one of the benefits that MPAs will provide into the future. It wouldn't be an immediate effect, because, as Mr. Turris was saying, some species do take a long time to build up that level of biomass in the number of fish.

In terms of the history of fishing, what we see now, as my colleagues are saying, is that the management of the current fisheries is quite good in British Columbia. However, that doesn't consider some of the fisheries that are no longer commercially viable, and that we, hence, don't talk about; some of the species that are considered as concerns by COSEWIC; and some of the ones we don't know anything about. It does mean that there is still some concern about some of the stocks, such as eulachon. The reduction fishery in the forties and fifties caught a lot of the small pelagic fish, including some that haven't recovered since. It even goes back to whaling. We used to have a lot more species of whales and fur seals and so on. Some are recovering, and some have not recovered. The ecosystem now is quite different from what it used to be.

MPAs can provide potential recovery for some of those species, and they do provide some added certainty and less variability into the future, including, potentially, under climate change. It has been shown that MPAs tend to be more resilient to additional stressors, such as changing temperatures. They don't prevent climate change, of course, but they can be another safety mechanism, like putting your money into a bank where you get a bit of the interest every year. This is the kind of spillover you might get from MPAs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Stetski.

Thank you, Dr. Ban.

Just to return to COSEWIC, it's the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, which determines threatened and endangered species.

We have time left. We have about 15 minutes in total. Instead of doing a structured round, why don't we just do short questions, if you have any. Have a question and a quick supplemental. I'm asking committee members to be very focused. I'm more or less looking for questions, not opinions—no offence, but it tends to be an occupational hazard with us. Nevertheless, I'll venture to say that we'll proceed.

Does anybody have a question?

I'm going to go to Mr. Arnold, then Mr. Stetski, and then Mr. Hardie.

Mr. Arnold.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to be brief.

Earlier I asked about Canada's west coast fishery and whether it's shouldering more than its fair share. I'd like to get a bit of feedback on the U.S., on the south coast—Washington, Oregon, California—versus Alaska. Do you feel the U.S. is doing enough in those two areas or have they done too much? Have they gone through the right process in their systems?

[Jim McIsaac]

I'm somewhat aware of what's gone on in California. The process there for MPAs is inside the state's jurisdiction. It took them quite some time to arrive at where they're at. Again, their approach was what I would call “stovepipe separating”, going along with focusing on MPAs and the interaction with fisheries rather than a larger integration across their whole marine space.

There were a lot of resources put to that, both for engagement and for science to try to get it right. They've come out of that on the other end. Where it's impacted their fisheries, it's certainly changed their fisheries, and changed the winners and losers there.

Again, the approach we have, the thought of the Oceans Act, that kind of integrated approach, ecosystem-based management approach, is not the approach they've taken there. They're starting to do that, or they started under the Obama administration on that, and they're still a long ways away.

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

Does anybody else have input on what's happening in the Alaska area?

[Bruce Turris]

Yes.

They haven't done a lot. They have what they call a large “donut hole” area that's protected, but it's relatively small compared with the area that's fished.

Alaska as well as, I would argue, Washington, Oregon, and California rely heavily on fisheries management and staying within sustainable harvest levels, especially on doing increased science and research activities to ensure that they know about the changes. They do assessments every year on most of their stocks. We might do them every five years on most of ours.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay.

Mr. Stetski.