Fisheries Committee on May 11th, 2017

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank all of the witnesses for being here. Your testimony has been very interesting already.

Mr. McIsaac, I was really pleased to hear your presentation and your description of conservation versus preservation and the values in that so we continue to see the benefits of sustainable harvest and conserving areas for future use rather than setting them aside and not touching them with no real immediate gain.

You stated that it's important to engage stakeholders from the very start of the MPA process. I received a DFO announcement just yesterday about how DFO is looking at an area of interest off the B.C. coast, approximately 140,000 square kilometres. In that statement it says, “This year in advance of the MPA designation, DFO intends to implement Fisheries Act closures prohibiting the use of bottom contact fishing gear within portions of the Offshore Pacific AOI.”

Would you consider that to be involving stakeholders from the start?

[Jim McIsaac]

There are a couple of different issues with that.

One of the impacts we will have is that when that MPA goes to get designated, you ask for an impact analysis. In that impact analysis, because that's closed now, there is no impact to what's just been closed by that announcement, right? So we missed that. We're not involved in the discussion about whether it should be closed to all bottom fisheries or not, and that's a mistake as well. So okay, you can identify it as an area of interest; then open the conversation.

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

That's rather than close the fishery first and then start the conversation.

[Jim McIsaac]

Yes.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Burridge, one of your comments was that you are dismayed by the misunderstanding of fisheries management and the stories of overharvest. I've seen some of the issues around waste from bycatch being exaggerated. Would you like to elaborate a little further on that?

[Christina Burridge]

When I look back at some of the earlier witnesses' testimony, it's clear that there's a kind of convergence between what perhaps is happening globally and an assumption that it happens locally. I really don't think that's true.

Maybe as a way of illustrating that, I could ask Bruce Turris to respond to Mr. Hardie's point, because I think it will illustrate precisely the question you asked.

[Bruce Turris, Executive Manager, Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society, BC Seafood Alliance]

Thank you.

In 2012 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, on the advice of the Canadian groundfish industry on the west coast, with the environmental community, closed enormous amounts of area to bottom trawling. In fact we took 50% of all habitat types in every depth strata, from zero to 200 metres and every 200-metre depth strata all the way out to 1,500 metres, and we closed 50% of the bottom to bottom trawl contact. We also closed off all known areas of coral and sponge. Even though there are still some areas within the fishable area, they put in place a coral and sponge bycatch limit, which for most boats is less than 100 pounds a year, so they avoid those areas.

As Christina said, the actual measures being taken that aren't accounted for under the MPA accounting are quite significant in terms of protection and sustainability measures. If you look at our TACs for groundfish, we under-harvest them by up to 50% annually for most of them. That's not because the fish aren't there. It's because all of the management measures that restrict access to those areas because of protection of habitat or monitoring the integrated management, our weak stock that we have to avoid, means that we can't catch some of the directed harvestable resources there.

Those are all sustainability measures that are very effective to the point that they actually reduce our ability to harvest fish. These aren't accounted for in any of these MPA discussions. They've had significant impacts on the industry. The MPAs are just going to have greater impacts. The part that concerns us is that we're not involved in the measures that, as Jim said, we've already taken but aren't being appreciated or accounted for in the process.

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

If I were to summarize that, you're saying that better-managed sustainable fisheries could be more effective in maintaining that biodiversity.

[Bruce Turris]

Yes. In Ms. Ban's earlier examples, she made assumptions that either there's perfect monitoring or enforcement or there's none. In our case we have 100% at-sea observer coverage on every trip for every tow. We have 100% dockside monitoring. Every fish or shellfish that's caught is accounted for. The government has that information. We stay within TACs, not only on landed catch but on any release catch at sea.

The fisheries management that we have on the west coast in groundfish, as Christina mentioned, is world class and is very effective as one of the tools. It is not that MPAs aren't part of that process, but the management measures we have are very effective.

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

We may not have time for a full answer here, but Ms. Burridge, you were saying that science-based decisions seem to be put aside for political decisions and from pressure from push-button NGO responses. Can you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean by push-button NGO responses?

[Christina Burridge]

Yes. It's the point that both Jim and I made in relation to the Hecate process and to Scott Islands. You have an advisory committee, which is made up of all stakeholders, including environmental groups. They studied the science.

I think six years...you spent doing it this year? That's clearly too long, but we'll set that aside.

They make consensus recommendations that go to the Canada Gazette, part I, and then there are thousands of responses from someone hitting a website, a website prepared by those same environmental groups that were part of the process, and the response appears to be, well, we have 10,000 responses that say we have to do more.

So you're not looking at the science, but worse, you're taking a process that can work, engagement of all stakeholders on consensus recommendations based on science, then encouraging people to do an end run around it.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

I've noticed, by the way, colleagues, that we've been very good at identifying who the question is directed to. That's always a good thing, of course, when you have someone in by video conference. Thank you for that. Just as a reminder, please, that goes a long way in putting the question, especially in Dr. Ban's case.

We're going to Mr. Stetski, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you.

Can I confirm that it's two rounds of seven minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

It's two rounds of what we accepted, which will be four questions of seven minutes, four questions of five, and then a question of three.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

If you would like to get more time after that, let me know.

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

Thank you. I have a lot of questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You should have time.

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

This is an interesting sort of microcosm, I guess, of a lot of the issues, with the exception of the indigenous view not being here today.

I'd like to start with you, Dr. Ban, if I may, on the importance of no-take zones. You mentioned both from a benchmark perspective, so that we understand what a natural system looks like and what changes we're bringing about through our activities. What does science suggest about the importance of no-take zones for restocking areas outside of the no-take zones?

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

There's some evidence that no-take areas, or areas where no extraction is allowed, can help restock places outside these, through what's called “spillover”. The evidence of that is somewhat mixed, though. If we have more fish in a place that's protected and if the fish don't move a lot—we have some that don't, like a lot of the rockfish, which are fairly sedentary—then they're going to release their young and they're going to go into the fished areas. That's one of the mechanisms: that no-take areas can exist to help fisheries. However, whether that's sufficient to offset the loss of fishing grounds within that—it happens by having an MPA closed—that's what's not clear in terms of some of the science.

The other point is that MPAs have a short-term impact, an initial impact, on fishing, because if those no-take areas are closed, those fisheries cannot fish those areas. Their benefit, however, is likely to be much longer-term into the future. It depends on the species. In many cases, it's going to take about five years. In others, such as the yelloweye rockfish I was talking about, you're talking more like 20 years for those individuals inside the boundaries to build up and provide a benefit to the outside.

There is often in the discussions a bit of a mismatch between the potential short-term impacts and the longer-term benefits that we might see from MPAs.

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

I have a bit of a follow-up question. In terms of the areas that you've looked at, I'm curious as to how many of the important areas that should be designated or are designated to protect conservation are related to commercially fished species versus other aspects of the incredible biodiversity that we have in the ocean.

[Dr. Natalie Ban]

I think it's a bit of a combination. In terms of the marine protected area design I was talking about, the idea is to protect all examples of both habitat types and species. That would include commercially fished species, as well as those that are not. However, the information we have about distributions of species is often focused on those that are of commercial or cultural importance, because they get studied a lot more. We tend to use habitats, the kinds of ecosystems, and different depths and so on as proxies for different kinds of ecosystems in the marine environment as a whole.

I should add, too, that one of the things we can do in MPA design and in some of the science that's been developing is to ensure that biodiversity is represented while reducing the impact or creating benefits for the fishing industry.

I did one study back in 2009 that was looking at fishing areas. We were trying to see if we kept 95% of the areas that are currently fished commercially, for which we had data.... In keeping that 95% of commercial fisheries catches—catch per unit effort—about 30% of B.C. could be outside of that footprint. That's similar to what the commercial sector has done for closing their groundfish trawl footprint. I have to give them huge kudos for the work that the groundfish industry has done in increasing their sustainability.

In MPA design, a lot can be done to ensure those biodiversity objectives are met, while at the same time reducing the potential impact on sectors such as commercial and recreational fishing.

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

Thank you.

Mr. McIsaac, I want to go to a couple of things that were part of your presentation. On the page with regard to Seeking Convergence, point four states: “MPA reserves can sustain fisheries in an overharvested system. Impacts depend on fisheries management outside the reserve. Benefits will be greatest where the fishery is not managed.” Could you explain that a little bit?

[Jim McIsaac]

If you have no fisheries management in your marine space, then an MPA will benefit your fisheries in the sense that it will protect the core of biodiversity in there. Because you have no fisheries management, no effort control, no input control, no output control on your fisheries, it's a wide open fishery, so there's no stock assessment, there are no TACs being set, and there are no limits on your fisheries. That MPA will help protect your biodiversity in your marine space. That's what that means.

That's the discussion, as opposed to areas where you do have fisheries management. Canada is identified as one of the top five fisheries managed countries on the planet. We have extensive fisheries management. Most of our fisheries have either input or output controls on them. We have spatial and temporal closures on every fishery, so we have fisheries management. You're not going to get the benefits to the fishery by an MPA, a reserve, a closed MPA, as you would in an area where there is no fisheries management. That's the point that's being made there.