Fisheries Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[Susanna Fuller]

I would say that one of the things I am most proud of in the last year was that during the UN ocean meeting, which was in June, I advocated very strongly and hard to ensure that Melanie Sonnenberg, from the Canadian Independent Fish Harvester's Federation, was also on the delegation.

Some of the processes I'm engaged with internationally are things that have been ongoing for a long time, such as the high seas agreement. Now the industry is starting to get engaged. I'm presenting at the world ocean conference at the end of this month in Halifax. The World Ocean Council has always been there.

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

Have they been able to participate as much?

[Susanna Fuller]

Yes. At the ground level, when it comes to where the boundaries are and what the process is, absolutely.

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

Ecology Action Centre is receiving funding from DFO for some of your programs. How can Canadians feel confident that the Ecology Action Centre's participation and presentation is unbiased, when you're actually receiving money from DFO, which is making policy that may affect your operations?

[Susanna Fuller]

There's no money from DFO that goes towards any of the work we do on MPAs. We have less than $1,000....

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

The organization is receiving funding from DFO.

[Susanna Fuller]

I think it's quite important that you understand that it's for our living shorelines and climate change adaptation work, which does not cross over with our policy on marine protected areas work.

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

But it would be some of the the same offices, some of the same people, all under one big umbrella.

[Susanna Fuller]

They are totally different staff members. I think in some ways, the mandate letter that said collaboration with Canadians and broad stakeholders ended up meaning that there has been much more funding going to a whole lot of stakeholders.

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

Okay, thank you.

[Susanna Fuller]

We're very careful that there is never any conflict. We have a small bit of funding for species at risk work, which I think is very important in terms of—

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

You are receiving funding from DFO. Thank you

[Susanna Fuller]

Yes, but it is a very small amount.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Manning, do you receive any funding from DFO?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

No, it all comes from our members.

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

Mr. Manning, do you feel there's enough flexibility in the act to address changing conditions, whether changing shipping markets or changing trends, market trends, or emergent situations? With these interim MPAs, they're basically locked in for five years.

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

At the moment I'm unsure, because there's vagueness in how the activities will be classified within the proposed legislation. I would say overall, in the Oceans Act there is not enough flexibility yet, mainly because the Oceans Act was never designed to manage commercial shipping, so it's evolving as a main coastal management tool.

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

There's reference to permitted activities, but only dating back one year prior to the implementation. Do you feel that should be amended to include a longer time frame consideration, whether it would be for shipping or for other activities?

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

If the qualifier for activities is going to be based on time, I think it should be longer. It's not so much for the large-ship commercial activity, which is fairly predictable at this point in time, but it's actually for some of the coastal traffic that I won't say is less predictable but has a larger variance because it's serving communities on the coast.

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

Thank you.

Given that the proposed designation of interim protection over MPAs is at the discretion of the minister—and I'll ask this of both of you—should the science that's considered during this decision-making process be made public, or should it be locked up within the minister's decision?

[Susanna Fuller]

I absolutely think it should be made public.

[Robert Lewis-Manning]

I think transparency is always important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Mr. Finnigan, for five minutes, please.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you both for appearing in front of us today to help us with these new laws.

On our trip to the east coast a couple of weeks ago, we were in the Gaspé area and met with a group of fishers' organizations. I'm referring to the current section 2.1 of the Oceans Act. It ensures that indigenous rights are always respected in the process of establishing MPAs: “...nothing in this Act shall be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada”.

We met with one group that was moving away from bottom harvesting, like scallop fishing and so on, because it did damage the bottom. But right next door we met with a first nation and they had just been granted a licence to harvest sea cucumbers, for instance. How do we get around these different views and different approaches, one act being protected over the other?

Can you comment on that, Dr. Fuller?

[Susanna Fuller]

I think we have a lot of work to do with indigenous fisheries and first nations. It's a very difficult and interesting topic right now. I think the balance between livelihoods and FSE fisheries and rights to earn a living for our first nations is paramount right now, and I think that's where it should be. It's going to result in some conflicts, and it is resulting in conflicts on the water.

I do think what we can do is probably have some more capacity building, both in our settler fishing communities and indigenous fishing communities, about best practices, about monitoring—you can fish sea cucumbers through diving, we don't have to drag for them—about zoning, and about sustainability of the resource. There's not going to be any fishermen, first nations, indigenous or settlers, unless we have sustainability of the resource. We're just starting to get going on it and I think it's going to get harder before it gets better. All I can say is that we need to commit to a process in listening. It's not going to be easy.

I would say in terms of the two acts, the Fisheries Act and the Oceans Act, the Fisheries Act will always trump the Oceans Act on the specifics, but I think there are ways in the amendments to the Fisheries Act that we can start really looking at the protection of fish habitat properly, protecting of ecologically sensitive areas. On the work that's been done in the Gaspé in terms of closing many areas to bottom fishing, they just closed 11 areas and that's quite amazing. They've moved very quickly, and I think there hasn't been much backlash by the fishing community, but maybe I haven't been reading the French news enough.

We're in an interesting, difficult time on the road ahead in terms of indigenous rights and the right to livelihood and food; we're just embarking on that and it's going to be not easy but very important.