Fisheries Committee on Aug. 13th, 2020

[Brad Mirau]

Generally speaking, from the quality of the fish, the size, the look, they are healthy. There's no doubt about that. The trend of the amount of fish stocks is, obviously, low in some areas, but there are many different runs of salmon on many different parts of the coast, and there are always good runs in some areas and bad runs in some areas, and the fact that we may not catch much fish sometimes doesn't mean they are not there. Sometimes it means there's an allocation issue. Sometimes it means the commercial fishery is open after the fish has swum past the area.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Chair, I apologize again, but there is no more interpretation. The interpreter says that the sound quality is bad. However, I can hear it very well. Could we check what the technical difficulty is between Mr. Mirau and the interpretation?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Nancy Vohl]

Would you like to suspend for a few seconds, Mr. Chair?

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

I can hear Mr. Mirau quite well, although your sound quality isn't good, sir, and that is a problem for the interpreter.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, could you suspend for a few seconds?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes. We will suspend for a few seconds to see if we can correct the issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We will resume. What I will say to the witnesses is that part of this is due possibly to the Internet connection, not necessarily the mike or anything causing a problem. I would say, if we're asking questions and we can't hear the answer, perhaps the witness could answer in writing and send it in to the committee.

I would ask people who are asking questions to please do it slowly so the witnesses may get a chance to even jot down the question in case we have to interrupt again because of quality. We can at least get it done, and the committee will be able to see the answer in writing versus trying to hear it, whether it's translated in English or in French.

We will move forward. I did stop the timer.

We will go back again to Mr. Hardie and Mr. Mirau.

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

Ms. Scarfo, you talked about science. Is the science being done and ignored, or is the science not being done?

[Kathy Scarfo]

With regard to this year as an example, the science is not being done. We used to have the science. We have a wealth of information within the department. We don't need to create our own science branch within fisheries.

If we have access to that information, we can justify fisheries in certain ways at certain times. Without access to that information, we can't do anything. This year as an example, when we asked for the science, the background of what the impacts of those fisheries would be so that we could maybe model the fisheries differently, we found out that the science had not been done. The staff have been instructed over the last two years not to do the work.

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

There seems to be a conflict between what we're told is the state of the stocks and what we hear from you. We hear that there's fish out there that you're not allowed to catch. We hear on the other hand that the stocks are all in decline, or many of them are, and they are simply not the fish that should be caught because of the health of the stocks.

Is that a conflict?

[Kathy Scarfo]

No. Don't misinterpret it. There is a massive decline in salmon and it is a disaster.

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

Okay.

[Kathy Scarfo]

There are small pockets of opportunity for the remaining commercial sector, but I'm going to say this. We had 1,800 trollers originally fishing the west coast of Vancouver Island. This week, I have 25 to 35 trollers. When I say there's opportunity for the commercial sector, I'm talking about a very minute fishery compared to—

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

Thank you for that. I'm going to have to move on in the time I have left.

Mr. Bryan, we've heard a lot about the Whooshh technology, particularly in the context of Big Bar .

I want to ask what you know about flood mitigation technology perhaps being used on the Columbia River. We've heard that old technology is also a problem for some of the salmon stocks along the Fraser.

[Vince Bryan]

I probably don't have too much to add, other than that the Columbia River has many dams on it, of course, which help to control the flood events. In those kinds of situations, there is more opportunity to control the water. Here on the Fraser River, there is usually 24 hours or less notice, and you might have a variation of water levels of 10 to 20 feet.

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

All right, thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll now go to Madam Gill, for six minutes or less, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I would like to thank the interpreters, because I know very well that their work is difficult and that they have to adapt to all sorts of conditions during COVID-19. Earlier, I may have misspoken, but I was concerned about what we ourselves are providing to the interpreters, who have to do their work. I wasn't listening passively, but I understand that it was difficult.

Having said that, I would like to ask Mr. Edwards a few questions. I was interested in the subject of his daughter's doctoral thesis.

Of course, I understand the difficulties facing the fishing industry in western Canada. I'm in eastern Quebec and I hear similar comments.

I would like to know whether he would be willing to talk about his daughter's thesis to shed some light on the matter in terms of salmon. I would be very grateful.

[Dan Edwards]

The thesis was done through UBC. It's finished. She now has a doctor of philosophy from UBC. That thesis is available. It specifically relates to the management issues that arise around creating situations with individual transferable quota fisheries that have led to fishermen having to rent fishing quotas at very high lease rates. It gives solutions, both management and biological, social and economic, which are very much in line with the FOPO recommendations that were done by this committee over the last couple of years.

There are solutions available in the conclusions of that thesis. I would suggest linking into the UBC school of fisheries and getting that thesis. There's a summary of it as well that I could send.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

I would now like to turn to Ms. Scarfo. She said that six minutes is very short. I would like her to elaborate on what she earlier called missed opportunities in the department.

[Kathy Scarfo]

I will follow up with that question, actually, because it does follow up on Ken Hardie's question, are there a lot of fish out there? There are not a lot of fish out there, but there are also very few commercial fishermen. The forgone opportunities are for the remaining small number of commercial fisheries. We're basically at that tipping point where we are losing the infrastructure that is absolutely critical, not just to maintaining the commercial fishery, the first nations fisheries, but also, in many times, in many of these remote communities...such as fuel, docks and floats.

The lack of management to encourage when there is a small fishery that's available, like this year, which would make such a big difference to sustaining the remaining fishermen, needs to be a priority for management, not putting it aside to the last minute and ignoring it. I think, maybe, that's answering your question a little bit.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Yes, thank you.

You talked about missed opportunities, the catastrophic situation and the help that had to be requested. You may not have time to go into all the help that would be needed, but can you tell us in general terms how we could support the fishers, in terms of salmon or what you were talking about?

[Kathy Scarfo]

I think the first thing is to declare what it is, which is a disaster. That follows up on how there is not enough salmon to go around for all of the increased participants that the federal government has added over the last number of years, the increased charter business, the increased participation by first nations. You can't continue to add participants on a declining resource that was already fully allocated. Therefore, you run into a problem there.

The help that we need is a vision of what the future is going to look like. Are we going to have commercial fisheries in the future? If so, what are they going to look like? There's no sense in saying we support commercial fishing. We know we're not going back to the fisheries of 1,800 boats, but can we not sustain a fishery of 35 commercial boats on the west coast of Vancouver Island, a small, independent owner-operator fleet, in conjunction with the other fleets that then maintain the infrastructure?

The Canada-U.S. agreement provided $30 million to mitigate the 50% catch reduction on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The government has sat on that money for 12 years now. We still haven't allocated that to the fishermen. Basically, more of that money has gone to people in different regions than to the people who are actually affected, who are the first nations and the commercial troll fleet on the west coast.

We need help. We need to tell you what we need rather than having it imposed upon us, which is the normal process. The reverse-bid buyback is basically driving everyone into bankruptcy and then telling them, “Take as little as you can.” Then we end up with this massive derelict boat problem, which costs us all.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Scarfo.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Gill.

We'll now go to Mr. Johns for six minutes or less, please.