Fisheries Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

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

I appreciate that.

You mentioned in your testimony that you felt it was contradictory to look at protecting the ocean when you have allowed things like oil and gas activities. Could you elaborate a little more on that?

[Ian MacPherson]

I guess there are a couple of things. I mentioned earlier the conference over at the Magdalen Islands.

Even just testing for oil and gas has some significant impacts from a seismic standpoint if they’re using the sound cannons. Until there’s something drilled, they’ll never know the exact size of the field, but it’s anticipated that it’s a pretty significant oil and gas find. You start with one well, but we know that the area will expand and that the whole seismic testing area will continually expand. We’re pretty confident that there are negative impacts in a lot of those areas. There are concerns around possible blow-outs or other problems. We have ice conditions they didn’t have to deal with in the Gulf of Mexico. There are a lot of big picture questions that make the gulf unique.

If there was a problem, it would affect all of Atlantic Canada because of the cycle of the currents in the gulf. So there are numerous areas of concern. We just don't see the net gain in trading off our multi-billion-dollar fishing and tourism industries.

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

You talked about additional or potential additional species of concern. Do you have any species you're monitoring right now that you're concerned with?

[Ian MacPherson]

A few months back I attended a meeting in Halifax. It was around MSC certification. The certifying body out of Ireland was looking at making some changes.

One of the things that did come up surrounded bycatch. It was interesting, because are there going to be MSC-related conditions that start to affect bycatch, and will that mean that certain areas or species that aren't our problem now could start being pulled into the mix in terms of how they're assessed?

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

Finally, could you talk about the consultation process? What would you like to see? You mentioned stakeholders at a table. What do you see as an effective consultation process, when you're talking about protection of the ocean?

[Ian MacPherson]

One thing we need to point out is that generally we have two regions of DFO, one is the gulf region and the other is the Maritimes region. One of the things that Melanie pointed out is that at one meeting we heard there will be limited fishing in the MPAs, and then at another meeting we heard there would be no-fish zones in MPAs. That's between two regions that are right next door to each other, so we need to get a consistent message out there.

I'm not a big fan of having meetings for the sake of meetings, but we have stakeholders and first nations. These are collective problems, and I guess what I find is that when you put people in a room where their livelihood depends on solving a problem, that's how you come up with some effective solutions, or things that will work properly versus getting top-down decisions that don't work for anyone.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Arsenault, could you tell us a little bit about what shellfish your members harvest, and any changing ocean conditions you've noticed over the past, let's say, 10 years?

Do you think your members have been adequately consulted when talking about proposed marine protected areas?

[Kenneth Arsenault]

I represent the oyster fishery, soft shell clam fishery, and the quahog fishery. We did see changes in the tides in P.E.I. over the last 10 to 20 years. It's hard to say how much.

You asked if we were consulted on the MPAs. I would have to say no. I've only been the president for a couple of months, and Friday was the first I heard about it, about MPAs or this new Bill C-55.. I've had limited time to do any research, or make a presentation to the committee today, so I apologize for that.

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

What do you harvest? Can you tell us a little more about what you harvest?

[Kenneth Arsenault]

The biggest shellfish fishery in P.E.I. is oysters. We had two seasons that ran from May 1 to July 15, and from September 15 to November 30, so we have a fishery going on at the moment. It's worth somewhere around $18 million a year to the economy of P.E.I.

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

Have you noticed any changes to the shells, the size or number of oysters that you referenced in the last, say, 10 or 20 years?

[Kenneth Arsenault]

We noticed a big change in the quality of the product. Anybody who eats oysters, especially in a restaurant, likes to have the nice, top-choice oyster, and that quality has deteriorated in the past years. The shell has also changed probably in the last 10 to 15 years. The shell has deteriorated. As fishers, we call it a worm in the shell. It doesn't actually get into the meat of the oyster, but it affects the shell. In the end, the market does not want that product, so the processors are unable to ship that product to market.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Arsenault. We appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

For seven minutes, we now go to Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's nice to speak with somebody from the other coast. I'm from British Columbia.

We too have been looking at marine protected areas and the impact, on the north coast especially, because some have been put in place up there.

There may be a little clarity needed with respect to Bill C-55. I'm just going to read this. “Clause 5 of the bill amends the Oceans Act to empower the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard to prohibit certain activities within a marine area of interest...identified for conservation...”.

This is, if you like, an emergency measure to deal with what the department and the people on the ground see as a troubling issue. We could perhaps think back to 1992 when the cod moratorium was instituted in Newfoundland and along the coast. We saw that coming. A provision like this perhaps could have prevented such a drastic collapse of that fishery, when everybody knew that things were under stress and something needed to be done.

The main element of Bill C-55 is to give the minister powers to basically freeze the activities in a certain area, using the precautionary principle, while they look at the elements that may be necessary for a marine protected area sometime in the future. What we heard generally here was an interest in preventing certain things, especially oil and gas exploration and seismic testing, but not so much to change the fishing activities that were going on.

If this provision comes in, although some fishing closures might take place, for the most part, the focus—which at least I heard anyway—is on the extraction industries. If we look now at your areas of interest and your commercial activities, have you noticed any particular changes with respect to what you fish and where you fish, or has it been, if you like, fairly constant over the years?

[Melanie Giffin]

There have been some different changes, some small changes.

Ultimately, as an industry, the stakeholders are very aware of the changes. They are the first ones to step up and say that maybe we should create a working group and have discussions about how we can maintain, sustain, and possibly improve this, rather than leaving it until the last minute, as you mentioned with the cod, where it was a full-on fishery until it was depleted.

There were questions this year, specifically with the mackerel fishery. Because in the gulf region we deal with four different provinces, and different provinces have a different outlook on what they're seeing. The result of that has been a working group that was created. The first meeting of the Atlantic mackerel rebuilding plan working group is going to be on December 5, to have a better look at that fishery, what's being done, how we can improve that stock rather than depleting it.

I think that we've learned, since the cod industry, how to improve on those things. I understand that when you look at marine protected areas in terms of a specific species, that's to try to save them.

I guess my question, when it comes down to that, is if you're going to put a freeze on a species, or on an area because of a species, what are the rules and regulations around that freeze? Is it just long enough to confirm whether or not the species is doing okay and can be continued to be fished?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

If I could, I'd like to interject here.

The freeze, as I understand it, is the freeze to the current activities. Whatever is going on now would be for the most part allowed to continue. The minister would put about a five-year span to review the situation. It may be a step toward a marine protected area or simply to allow the stocks to recover. What's going on now, for the most part, would continue.

With regard to your comments about the process you're using right now where you see some problems, could it then be integrated with the minister's decision-making ability under Bill C-55 to put in, if you like, an interim freeze on activities in an area, i.e., maintain what's going on but protect it against other activities that might want to come into the area?

Can you see a crossmatch between what you're doing and what the minister could be doing?

[Melanie Giffin]

I think the crossmatch in terms of the consultation is that the industry is already taking part in these kinds of things. They have collected information that could be shared to make sure that everybody who is making decisions has all the information available.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Go ahead.

[Ian MacPherson]

I want to interject and support what Melanie just said. A lot of it certainly centres around communication and more communication. One of the things that we as an industry may have to look at is having more multispecies working groups.

I get it, and I'm not saying the current system is flawed, but we solve issues in snow crab, and solve issues in lobster, and solve issues in mackerel, but as we're seeing with the right whale situation, I think there is going to be a real necessity for multispecies to work together to find collective solutions to deal with this issue. It may be something that would work well around marine protected areas also. I think the problem we get into sometimes is that we don't hear a consistent message or get consistent information from one area to another.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In my last few seconds, I want to emphasize the fact that if the minister does make this decision, it could freeze activities in the area at what is going on right now.

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

It doesn't necessarily, though.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

That's a critical part for you to understand.

Thank you.

[Ian MacPherson]

Understood. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Mr. Arnold, go ahead for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I thank our guests today. I really appreciate having all three of you here.

Mr. MacPherson, you referred to hearing about different versions of no-take zones from region to region. Can you take a few seconds to describe a little further what you've heard there? There seems to be a lack of coordination.