Evidence of meeting #83 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mpas.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
That's just within the lobster. Are there any other changes you may have observed?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Mr. Morrissey, I'm going to have to cut you off there. I apologize.
Mr. Miller, for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witness for being here.
Mr. Lambert, I understand you're going to be here for the next hour, so my questions will go to Mr. Feltham while he's here.
It's really refreshing to have a witness like you, with a distinct knowledge of the area in question, so thanks for being here. That's quite a feat. I come from a family with a long line of people in agriculture, but we haven't been in it for 200 years. That's pretty significant.
You have talked about the consultation or lack thereof. What was your experience, Mr. Feltham, when it came to that consultation? I ask because we've had a lot of fishermen who have come to us and said that basically they are information sessions. They are not really consultations.
Can you elaborate on what your experience was?
Fisherman, Eastport Region, As an Individual
Yes. We face the same thing you're going to face. You face it as a politician when you go out there. You go to a community, and you have a meeting, and you get seven or eight fishers or eight or 10 fishers to show up to that meeting for a consultation process, and you have eight or 10 who are home, who don't bother to go. They are the eight or 10 who are the problem, because you can't satisfy them. You consult with the ones who show up, and you do what you can.
We moved our boundaries two or three times and overlapped areas to bring people onside. We gave a little, they gave a little, and eventually we got the boundaries down on the outside. Once we established our own area for fishing, the inside boundary was easy, because all we had to work with was our own communities and our own fishers. Our biggest problem was the surrounding areas.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
In general terms, an article was just released by Boone and Crockett. You may have heard of this organization, started by Theodore Roosevelt, close to 200 or 150 years ago. They just issued an article on conservation and preservation. It was very interesting. It's a long read, but I would suggest to anybody here to read it, when we're dealing with MPAs.
In a nutshell, conservation is not about a blanket thrown over something, saying there's no use in there. We had a witness here on Tuesday, and you could tell, it doesn't matter what MPA and where it is, she wants no use in it. But conservation is like timbering. You don't slaughter a bush, you farm it, the same as you would a crop of alfalfa or whatever. You guys are doing the same thing in the fisheries.
There will be exceptions, but do you think in general that most protected areas, if you have some restrictions on them, should still allow commercial and recreational fishing? Do you have any comment on that?
Fisherman, Eastport Region, As an Individual
I think there should be both. Our no-take zones have to be negotiated with your primary user groups. I think we have to come to some sort of a consensus—you'll never get a consensus on anything—but certainly come to a workable agreement on no-take zones. In your other areas, you have to examine every fishery individually, see what does damage, what doesn't, and what we can allow versus in a restricted area.
I don't like the term “conservation” to a degree when it's used in the manner that you were referring to here, because once you—
Fisherman, Eastport Region, As an Individual
I think responsible use of the resource is a more—
Conservative
Fisherman, Eastport Region, As an Individual
It depends on the interpretation. I remember the first forum I ever attended in Halifax, and that's a good many years ago, I had an individual say they'd rather run a trawl than go through a bed of tulips. I'm taking it literally now, which she didn't, but I mean responsible fishing.
One of the first awards I won was the Romeo LeBlanc Medal for Responsible Fishing. I think responsible fishing will address a lot of our questions. Not only that, it is conservation.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
You are leading to exactly my point, responsibility. I don't think enough credit is given to responsible fishermen like you, when it comes to this. Too many environmentalists and so-called experts, both in and out of DFO, and environmentalists in general want this blanket on with really no science. They say we just have to stop it. But responsible use, in my opinion, can go a long way, and I think you've just reinforced that.
Fisherman, Eastport Region, As an Individual
If you're a responsible person, and you're putting something in place that is going to benefit everyone, then the responsibility is to be able to analyze and come to some sort of agreement among the environmentalists and DFO and the fishers out there. That's where the responsibility comes as well.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, gentlemen. That was good.
I want to thank our guests, Mr. Lambert and Ms. Chute.
Mr. Feltham, thank you very much, sir, for your years of experience on the ocean and the wisdom you brought here.
We're going to break for a few minutes before our next round of witnesses, so please don't go far.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Okay, folks, welcome back. This is the second hour of our study on the marine protected areas.
Mr. Lambert, we welcome you back once again, joining us from fisheries and oceans, oceans management, Newfoundland and Labrador.
You are at the White Hills, are you, in St. John's?
Director, Oceans Management, Newfoundland and Labrador Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That's correct.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
We also have with us Mr. Randy Jenkins as a senior director.
My apologies, Mr. Jenkins. Where are you, British Columbia?
Randy Jenkins Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
No, I work here in Ottawa.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Brett Gilchrist, acting assistant director, is also here from Ottawa. We also have, by phone, Robert Lamirande.
I'm sorry, I didn't get your title. Do you want to tell us what your title is, sir?
Robert Lamirande Director General, Aboriginal Affairs, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Director general of indigenous affairs and reconciliation.
February 1st, 2018 / 9:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
My apologies. I had it. There's been some confusion in the past little while about who's coming, who's going, and that sort of thing, so my apologies.
We also have joining us online Mr. Andrew Thomson. Mr. Thomson is the regional director of fisheries management in British Columbia. He is joining us by phone from Vancouver.
We have 10-minute presentations, as you've just witnessed from the first hour. Now, with all of you from one big umbrella, how do you want to divide this?
Mr. Jenkins, will you be speaking on behalf of everyone? That's quite a responsibility, sir. You have up to 10 minutes.
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
You're going to be excited to learn that I really don't have a formal presentation, but I thought I'd take just a couple of minutes, to allow for more questions. I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to explain our makeup today. Brett and I are with the resource management program here at headquarters, so national policy, because we weren't exactly sure what area of the country you might want to focus on in your questions.
As you know, Mr. Lambert is from the Newfoundland region in the extreme east, and Mr. Thomson is in the west. Hopefully, if you have questions that are east and west, we can try our best to answer them for you. We have six administrative regions within DFO, so we don't have them all represented here. If there's a technical question for one of the other regions, and we don't know the answer, we'll get back to you.
Additionally, we have Mr. Lamirande with us. As he mentioned, he's responsible for the indigenous program at DFO here. Again, depending on the nature of your question—we understand the topic is commercial indigenous fishing—if it's more on a broader policy issue, Mr. Lamirande can perhaps answer. We'll be farming the questions around a bit, if you don't mind. We don't really all have individual views. We're just trying to facilitate the best way possible to respond to questions that your members may have.
That is it, sir. Thank you very much, and I should have said we are very pleased to be here.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
We had no doubt.
That works for us. We've been through a lot of witnesses on MPAs, and more time for questions and answers would be great. Essentially, this is what we like, because we are full of questions right now.
First we have Mr. Finnigan for seven minutes, please.
Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
Well, thank you all for being here this morning as we're moving on with our MPA study. It's been long, and we've questioned it. We've flipped it back and forth and up and down, and there are still questions.
At this morning's presentation, Mr. Feltham from Newfoundland talked about how they went about designing and implementing their MPAs with the community and with all the stakeholders. He said something that got my attention, “We do it for the people.” I know it includes the community, and it includes the fishers, and it includes everyone. Who, in your mind, are the people? Are we looking at just the local area? How far do we do it for the people? Are we doing it for the people of the planet? How would you define what the purpose of that MPA is? Again, I understand that we do it for the stakeholders, and industry, and local, and everything. Could everyone define who the people are?
Director, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I can start off.
There are a couple of benefits. One, as was mentioned earlier, is about conservation but also about ensuring sustainable fisheries and development as we move along. Each MPA is unique. The MPA in the Eastport area, which Mr. Feltham spoke about this morning, had a defined objective of trying to increase the spawning biomass of lobster to ensure that there's a sustainable fishery in the areas immediately adjacent to it.
Other MPAs have other conservation objectives. Some are to protect sensitive benthic areas, corals and sponges. Some have species that are being protected.
When you say “the people”, I would suggest that, yes, it's for all the people, but people have different objectives themselves. Obviously the objective of the fisherman in terms of what an MPA benefit might mean to them would be different from perhaps that of a biologist, and certainly from the animal kingdom, the species of fish. There are different benefits for both.
I'm not sure that we can categorize a particular group of people. When we do our consultations and outreach, certainly we like to get input from all peoples, regardless of what their interest in the area is: the general public, the fishing industry, indigenous groups, academia, everyone who would have a benefit.
I'll end it there. I don't know if one of the other colleagues would like to add to that.