Fisheries Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

[Sylvie Lapointe]

The base budget is $75 million. It hasn't changed.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

It hasn't changed in years.

[Sylvie Lapointe]

It hasn't changed in more than a decade, I think.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay.

Have you any idea by how much the costs would have gone up over those 10 years? It's a project that 10 years ago may have cost $30,000. Is this now a $60,000 item?

[Sylvie Lapointe]

Our estimate, in terms of if we were keeping up with inflation, is for about 20% in increased costs.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

That's 20% over the 10 years. Okay.

Another question is—you referenced it in an earlier answer—on emergency dredging, and I do agree that conditions constantly change, so you never know.

One of the issues that's a bit frustrating to fishers and then to me as an MP is that it seems to be that something is actioned at the last moment when everybody knows, leading up to a particular opening of the season, that there is a dredging issue at a harbour. Can you explain a bit how you ultimately action an action?

[Sylvie Lapointe]

We work with our regions to be able to do that. We do our best in terms of meeting the requirements of fishermen, and we work with the harbour authorities to determine when is the appropriate time to undertake the dredging activities.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Be a little more specific. When there is a critical issue.... There's yearly maintenance dredging that occurs at a lot of ports, but then there are these situations that occur and create an emergency situation. Could you explain to me how a decision is made to action work there?

[Sylvie Lapointe]

If there are emergency situations, we respond as quickly as we can, given the amount of resources we have. Our first priority is safety in all cases for the fishing vessels that access the harbours.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

We've had incidents of safety because it was too late when they finally got a dredging project under way, when everybody knew it had to be done. It just seems to be unacceptable in this day and age for that kind of decision-making process to occur, whereby an incident occurs and you're still getting around to making a decision on dredging. I would just ask that the department be more conscious in how it reacts to this so that we don't have to address a safety incident down the road.

We talked about invasive species. One species appears to be becoming more of an issue and is being addressed to me more and more by fishers. Is it the striped bass?

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

It's the striped bass.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

It is the striped bass, which seems to be growing dramatically in population and stock. I know that it's an issue in New Brunswick, but now in Prince Edward Island fishers tell me that when they open these fish, they can find a lot of small lobsters in them. Why are we so slow, from a regulatory perspective, in increasing the fishing pressure on what appears to be an invasive species?

[Kevin Stringer]

I'm pretty sure I'm looking at striped bass. It's not an invasive species. It's natural to—

It was listed as—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay, sorry. Let me go back. It's not, but to some more valuable fisheries, it is invasive.

[Kevin Stringer]

It's invading the salmon.

It's not an invasive species.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

We got that.

[Kevin Stringer]

It is an issue. In fact, it's a really interesting story. It is a species at risk in the St. Lawrence.

It was a species of concern in the Miramichi many years ago, and then there was an explosion of them about five years ago. We've opened up the fishery. We've done a lot of studies, including stomach contents, how much they are eating. We're concerned about lobster, but we're really concerned about salmon, and are they eating fry. We've assessed that. There is a fishery each year. About 4,000 recreational fisheries participate in it, but it is an ongoing issue.

We have seen some reduction in the numbers in the last year or two, but it's still a much larger number than it was. In terms of valuable species, it is salmon, lobster, other species that we need to make sure are being managed effectively, and, yes, striped bass are a challenge there.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

What are you going to do about it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much, Mr. Morrissey.

I'm at risk here being the species invasive of your time, but I have no choice as the chair, so I want to thank our guests for being here. Ms. Lapointe, Mr. Matson, Mr. Stringer, Commissioner Hutchinson, and Deputy Commissioner Smith, I appreciate all of you doing this.

We now have to go to the votes, unless this is a point of order.

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

Just a quick note. We can do the votes first and do this afterwards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Very well, then.

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

I wanted to do it with our guests present.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We're going to break, and then we're going to go straight to our guests next.

Do you want to do it before we go into Bill C-55?

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

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Sorry, I don't mean to be misleading.

I want to go to the votes right now since we're following up with this.

We have three votes, pursuant to Standing Order 81(5), as mentioned, the supplementary estimates 2017-18, votes 1b, 5b and 10b under Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES AND OCEANS

Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........$15, 363,018

Vote 5b—Capital expenditures..........$29,745 ,946

Vote 10b—Grants and contributions..........$10,877,675

(Votes 1b, 5b, and 10b agreed to on division)