Fisheries Committee on March 22nd, 2018

[Jason Sullivan]

I'll speak to that really quickly.

I run the biggest social media group in Newfoundland with regard to the fishery, so I tend to get a lot of information before everyone else gets it. As we speak now, they're having the cod technical briefings back home in Newfoundland.

I'm not sure how this all started. Why was DFO downloading the responsibilities of fishery management onto a union, or whatever? It's totally wrong. We have scientists and everything else there in place to develop that stuff.

The GIDC is a new group; they formed a union. I think there's someone from the provincial government sitting on it. In 2016, the GIDC processors and the WWF formulated this plan, a cod-harvesting plan, that went against the science that the provincial government had a charter to do.

In 2016 they predicted the stock was going to increase by 23%, I think it was, and it only increased by 7%. So, what did the GIDC do then? They increased the harvest capacity for 2017, with a predicted growth of 30%. I found out on Monday, and I guess everyone will find out on Friday, that the stock apparently now has declined overall by 14%.

It went directly against what the recommendations were from the scientists who conducted the initial study that found an increase in the biomass. It's not good enough. This is our livelihood, and we have a group of.... I don't know who they are. What gives them the right to decide...who's a former RDG... and all this stuff? They went against the science and they gambled and they lost.

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

All of your testimony is really interesting. A lot of it is echoing what we've heard previously, and I just want to reconfirm.

Is it your testimony today that in some instances, and maybe all, the speed and efficiency of approvals can be determined by who you are and who you know, and that the allotment of quotas and the ability to go out can be determined by who you are and who you know? Is that all of your assertions today?

[Jason Sullivan]

Yes. Once you read my brief and some of the appendices, as I said, they pulled three applications, mine and John's and one other guy's, and that's when Kim Penney and Duke Tobin and the guy from the FFAW decided they were going to change the definition of length overall.

I can guarantee you, if that had to be three FFAW strongholds, that wouldn't have happened. They wouldn't have thrown them under the bus, would they?

[John Will Brazil]

As Jason was saying, it's there in proof. Looking through their emails back and forth, you see there was this harvester—I won't mention his name—who did the modifications to his boat, and they were all by the standards. Then he had three or four DFO officials saying that okay, everything looked good; and then you have one guy who chimes back and says, “Okay, hold on a second now. Such and such told me about this boat”, without mentioning the fisher's name. What does the fisher's name have to do with it if his boat is to the right regulation?

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

In one instance, on the northern cod and the Atlantic salmon—I believe it was when we were on Fogo Island—one of the fishermen told us that when they had an issue and they wanted to speak to DFO, DFO pointed them to FFAW or WWF.

[Ryan Cleary]

This gets back to your original question and how this relationship between DFO and the FFAW is warped. There's no short answer to that.

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

Who's the boss?

[Ryan Cleary]

That's the problem. You just hit the nail on the head right there. Too often, harvesters can't tell who the boss is. Is it the union? Is it the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans? That whole line has been blurred. That's the problem.

[Mervin Wiseman]

With regard to the relationship of DFO with the union, it probably started out with good intentions that the union would, per se, represent the wishes and the needs of the fish harvesters. But for some reason, there's this serious disconnect between what happens at the grassroots level through the union up to DFO. The intentions have gone to hell in a basket for some reason, and that has created serious problems.

I worked for the Canadian Marine Advisory Council for 10 years. In my capacity working on the fishing vessel safety file, I went there, on the standing committee for fishing vessel safety, which was co-chaired, by the way, by the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board, which is connected with the union. They used to always say to me, over a meal, not at the meetings, “Now, Merv, don't be trying to change the vessel size because this is our ability to keep that fleet separation. If we go to larger vessels, the fish plants and so on would only be able to afford it, and therefore the fishermen would be beholden to them.”

You have to drill down fairly deeply, and there's more to it than what's been said here today and at other meetings, and so on. There's a serious dynamic happening here that has caused a lot of this problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Very briefly, I'd like to clarify the acronyms that are always being thrown around. FFAW means Fish, Food & Allied Workers. There are people outside of this room listening to us. The WWF is the World Wildlife Fund. It is an ENGO.

Mr. Donnelly, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you to our witnesses, you gentlemen, for providing your testimony on this. Hopefully, the common sense that you bring to this will be listened to, at least by the committee to make its recommendations.

I want to pick up from Mr. Wiseman's comments. I think he made a good assessment that there were probably good intentions initially. Things have definitely, in all four of your testimonies, slid off into something that is just definitely not working for fishermen. So maybe start there.

There seem to be two main areas. One is the standardizing of fishing vessel length and allocation connections, and one is consultation.

Perhaps, Mr. Sullivan, I will start with you. As Mr. Cleary mentioned, consultation is the key. How do you feel that DFO could improve the consultation process? Could you give the committee some recommendations or suggestions?

[Jason Sullivan]

Yes. They could just invite people to their meetings.

I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago, and there were 40 empty chairs there. Why not invite people? We're not orangutans. You go in, you sit down, and you listen, and if you have an opportunity to speak, you can get up and speak. There are not thousands of people in these areas.

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

Why do you think they don't do that?

[Jason Sullivan]

Because it's easy to go to the FFAW and ask, “What do you want to do?” Then someone from there can sign off.

You'll see the changes in my last appendix. From what I could find out, they're the annual changes that they try to make. It shows who is asking for these changes. Most times it's the FFAW.

They made monumental changes to the structure of our groundfishery last year, and nobody knew about it—nobody. They say in their briefing notes in the beginning that if we don't deem it to be important, we don't consult.

But these are major changes, separating areas and separating fleets, and nobody knew about them. They should be reversed until people know what's going on and have an opportunity to chime in on it. They're trying to keep us down rather than trying to....

It's the same thing with these rules. I'm glad you're looking at.... When every other province in Atlantic Canada can do something, we should be able to do it too. I don't know why we're treated differently. We have all these short-term leases. All this stuff is great stuff.

I can speak for the guys from the gulf in Newfoundland. If a boat decides it doesn't want to fish in the fall of the year because it's smaller, a guy in Newfoundland can't do a lease on that boat but he can go across the gulf 15 miles and get a boat from Quebec. And here's a guy in Newfoundland sitting down twiddling his thumbs, and he's probably not making any money but a guy from Quebec can come over and do it. I have nothing against the guy in Quebec, but how is that a level playing field?

In the spring of the year, in Fermeuse, where John Will and I fish, we see a flotilla of boats coming down from Nova Scotia to go fishing crab in Newfoundland. That's fine and dandy, however they do this, but we can't do that same thing, because DFO in Newfoundland doesn't allow us to go up there. How come there are these different segregations? It seems as if every other province can do it. The baseline is forty-four eleven in every other province. Why are we behind on that? It's just not right. There should be general policy for everyone, like Transport Canada does.

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

That's what I was going to pick up on. If you could give one recommendation to the committee on making change, what would that be?

[Jason Sullivan]

There should be general policies in terms of short-term leases, vessel lengths, and all those policies that aren't specific to a certain fishery. They should be uniform for everyone.

The way you measure a boat.... Why should we be measuring a boat 10 different ways? Measure a boat—that's it.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Cleary, I'll move to something that's another key—and you talked about it—which is standardizing. What is preventing DFO from making that standard length policy? You touched on it in your testimony, but maybe you could elaborate a little bit more about why they won't do this.

[Ryan Cleary]

I don't know. I don't know the answer.

As I said before, what's missing is common sense. If you can have a rule.... Jason just pointed this out very well. If you can have one rule for vessel licensing in the Maritimes and Quebec but then a totally different rule in Newfoundland and Labrador, that gives a competitive advantage, an economic advantage, to vessel owners outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. It makes no sense.

I don't know why.

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

I think we're going to have a chance to bring the officials back. I think we need to ask them very specifically about that issue on vessel length, and why you can't do that in consultation. You probably have an email on every file, on every licence. Why can't a note be sent about a meeting and having a consultation?

[Ryan Cleary]

From my perspective, Mr. Donnelly, what's happened is over the years things got too comfortable between DFO and the union, and things need to be shaken up. There needs to be challenge.

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

Okay.

Any final words, Mr. Wiseman or Mr. Brazil?

[Mervin Wiseman]

The whole thing is bizarre. That's the only way I can describe this issue. The issue of proper consultations notwithstanding, something in the DFO DNA does not allow them to listen, even when they get the consultations. The Transportation Safety Board cannot be more explicit in their investigations and recommendations to DFO, yet DFO refuses to accept them and will not move the line on safety. Why are they so intransigent?

This would be my key recommendation. There has to be an arbitrator somewhere who can rise above the level of DFO and Transport Canada and say this is absolutely necessary, DFO was infringing on areas of jurisdiction.

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

Yes.

We have about 30 seconds for John Will.

[John Will Brazil]

I'm good, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Jordan, you have seven minutes, please.