Fisheries Committee on June 15th, 2017

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You referenced hiring 900 new staff. Is this replacement staff or 900 additional staff to the normal allotment of the department?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

If we take before the oceans protection plan as a baseline, 900 new staff are incremental because of the oceans protection plan.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Is that simply because of the oceans protection plan?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

That's combined with the comprehensive review.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

That's a significant commitment by the government to enhance these.

Briefly, in the time I have left, this is one of our favourite subjects. In the budget passed, the government announced a significant new capital investment in small craft harbours. As the parliamentary secretary knows, this is near and dear to east coast politicians. How are you progressing on spending that allocation?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

When it comes to small craft harbours, as you know, spending the funds is not the issue. It's more a prioritization issue and making sure we're putting the money in the right place. We are prioritizing infrastructure, and small craft harbours are a big part of that. We added $5 million in the last budget to the totals we had previously.

I have a provincial breakdown, if that would be helpful, of where the money is being spent.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You can table it.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Certainly, I would be happy to table the provincial breakdown afterwards.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Do I have one minute or one second?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have one minute, and slightly less now.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

If you could, I would appreciate it.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

I will certainly.

For 2017-18 that would be $22.7 million in British Columbia, $3.1 million in Manitoba, $8.4 million in Ontario, $58.4 million in Quebec, $26.7 million in New Brunswick, $32.4 million in Nova Scotia, $11 million in Prince Edward Island, $42.5 in Newfoundland and Labrador, and $2.8 million in contingency funding that will be allocated in the year.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Briefly, is the department satisfied with the overall operating condition of small craft harbours in general?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Who would like to answer that?

Philippe.

[Philippe Morel]

I would say yes. We can always have more. With the additional funding we received through the last several budgets, we are able to address priorities and ensure that all small craft harbours are secure and that the fishermen who use them can use them with security.

The answer is yes.

[A voice]

Better is always possible.

[Philippe Morel]

Yes, better is always possible.

[A voice]

Sunny ways are too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

On that note, we go to Mr. Sopuck for five minutes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you.

Given your move to rewrite the Fisheries Act, I would like to provide just a bit of background into one of the reasons that our government changed the old Fisheries Act.

In 2009, the Auditor General wrote a report evaluating the fish habitat management program, entitled “Protecting Fish Habitat”, which asserted that DFO could not demonstrate that it adequately protected fish habitat, and by extension the fisheries. A simple reversion to the old act is certainly no guarantee that habitat will be protected.

I'd like to now go to the government's response to our Atlantic salmon study. It's a decent response, with two grave omissions, in my view. Recommendation 13 of our Atlantic salmon report talked about us wanting DFO to support a grey seal harvest program to reduce seal populations to enhance the recovery of wild salmon. Grey seals are known to be significant predators. Seals were not mentioned in the government's response.

Also, recommendation 14 was that Fisheries and Oceans Canada allow a significant increase in the harvest of striped bass by the recreational fishery by lengthening the retention season and increasing catch limits where striped bass populations warrant it, which of course is at the Miramichi.

I have documentation here that talks about the social unrest that occurred in Miramichi because the season was closed for three weeks during the spawning season when it had never been closed at that time before, according to the documents I have. People were very angry and upset. I'm curious as to why the department completely disregarded the science on striped bass and our report, which strongly recommended an increase in striped bass harvest, and through the regulations you put in place, caused great unrest in that community, so much so that it affected a major fishing tournament.

Can you explain why you ignored that recommendation?

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Burnaby North—Seymour, BC]

Thank you very much for the questions. I'll try to unpack them as best as I can.

The committee's report on Atlantic salmon was very appreciated. The entire report was very much in line with the department's goals. The government supports a humane harvest of grey seals. We are looking for opportunities to expand markets. I know that the Northwest Territories is a designated body, as is Nunavut now. We're continuing to push to try to find more markets for our whole seal products.

I will let Philippe comment on the striped bass issue on the Miramichi.

[Philippe Morel]

Stocks are historically low on the Miramichi this year. That is why we closed for nine days—

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

The striped bass stocks are low...?

[Philippe Morel]

No, not the striped bass, the salmon.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Right, but I'm talking about striped bass.