Fisheries Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I now call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, October 19, 2020, the committee is resuming its study of the implementation of Mi'kmaq treaty fishing rights to support a moderate livelihood.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of September 23, 2020. The public portion of the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking, rather than the entirety of the committee.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to once again outline a few rules to follow.

Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either “Floor”, “English” or “French”.

For members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in the committee room. Keep in mind the directives of the Board of Internal Economy regarding masking and health protocols.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. The microphones of those in the room will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. I don't think we have anyone in the room today.

As a reminder, all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

Before I go to our witnesses, I'd now like to call upon Nancy to update us on some issues we may be facing this evening.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The chair asked me to update you on the situation following Monday's meeting. I'll also provide details on the tests, on what has been done and on what will be done today.

The witnesses who joined us on Monday and who were there when the technical and interpretation difficulties arose have all been invited back. They're the same witnesses. I want to confirm that the tests were conducted with the team today. I received an email saying that the tests were very successful and that the team made sure to check the sound, the connection and the equipment with the witnesses. I'm told that the witnesses who are appearing also understand Zoom and the various features of the system, and that everything was working during the test today.

That said, this doesn't stop the technology from being what it is. While you were voting, we had sound difficulties with some of the witnesses.

The tests have all been successfully completed. If any difficulties arise during the meeting, it will be due to circumstances beyond our control.

Regarding the in camera meeting scheduled for later, I'll be sending you an email with the password and the link. The password is different for the in camera meeting. There will be a note attached to the email for you as well.

Mr. Chair, I think that I've covered everything.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

No problem, Nancy. Thanks for that.

I'd like to welcome back the witnesses, of course. Welcome back, Michael Dadswell, retired professor of biology. Mr. Hutchins, retired detachment supervisor for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is back with us again. Of course, Melanie Sonnenberg is back with us again as president of the Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters Federation.

We've heard their testimony already, so they won't be giving more testimony or repeating it again this evening.

We have one new witness this afternoon. We couldn't get the right connection the other day to get him on. We have Mr. Sterling Belliveau, retired fisherman and former minister of fisheries for Nova Scotia.

Mr. Belliveau, we'll start off with you, giving you five minutes or less for opening remarks, please.

[Sterling Belliveau, Retired Fisherman, Former Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture of Nova Scotia, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the fisheries standing committee.

I would like to present my perspective on the lobster dispute that is ongoing within our province and soon to be Atlantic Canada-wide. My involvement has been since the initial Marshall decision in 1999, when, with my colleagues, we arrived at the first interim agreement between non-aboriginals and aboriginals. Both parties agreed upon this agreement for the first few years—same seasons, same rules and training.

After the first few years, the commercial industry was not invited to the discussion table. This is where the breakdown started. If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. The gap has increased from then to the present day.

Fast-forward to 2020, with the commercial lobster industry not at the table. We have witnessed the evolution of DFO in allowing the leasing of commercial lobster licences by aboriginal chiefs. The chiefs in turn have control of the distribution of them to aboriginal fishermen, but instead are leasing them to non-aboriginals. These licences have been paid for by Canadian taxpayers. This is why I have called for an audit of licences issued to native bands from 1999 to 2020 to determine who is receiving the benefits from these licences. The licences are being leased out, not in the spirit of the Supreme Court Marshall decision or the present-day owner-operator policies that are being enforced by DFO on the commercial inshore lobster industry.

Our current DFO minister, the Honourable Bernadette Jordan, created this mess. She is responsible for creating this policy of segregation in a two-tier system of managing our Atlantic inshore lobster fisheries. We heard her announce that there would be no—I repeat, no—commercial season outside of the existing lobster seasons. After two years of investigation, she actually prosecuted the illegal sale of lobsters in St. Marys Bay with the use of microchips hidden in the lobsters. In addition to the CBC story posted October 5, 2018, the province revoked the company's buying and processing licence.

These past few weeks, she has allowed Chief Mike Sack to establish a moderate livelihood in St. Marys Bay, which is clearly in violation of the Supreme Court of Canada's Marshall 2—also, with clarification, from the fisheries standing committee, dated 1999, which states that conservation comes first. The minister has the authority to regulate and the aboriginals have access to the fishery, but they must comply with adjacency to their band's territory.

Mr. Sack has jumped over two bands and is fishing illegally in St. Marys Bay. He has taken over a small craft harbours wharf and has a Nova Scotia Supreme Court injunction protecting him to participate in an illegal fishery. Small craft harbours membership has taken a leave of absence. To further confuse the situation, the Honourable Jordan, this month, is enforcing and seizing illegal lobster traps in Cape Breton and again in St. Marys Bay—a double standard, with segregation for southwest Nova.

Clearwater Seafoods has a monopoly on the offshore lobster licences and are in the final stages of an agreement to sell two of these licences to the aboriginal bands. This sale needs to be put on hold until the inshore commercial lobster industry is at the negotiating table. This is all interconnected, because the band chief is going to lease these licences back to Clearwater. I am suggesting a one-year pause to any activity outside the commercial set seasons for the inshore lobster fishing so that both sides can come together to the table to find a peaceful path forward. Our forefathers created these seasons for reasons.

I'd like to caution both sides: Segregation, setting fishing interests apart, and building a two-tier system will be chaotic, and 150 years of regulations and conservation will now be put in jeopardy.

Mr. Chair, I want to conclude my opening remarks by saying that I met with Mr. Allister Surette last week and requested, through him, that the commercial lobster industry must have a panel or a mechanism to have their voices heard, for we are part of this nation called Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Belliveau.

You're just a little bit over your time, but I wanted to make sure you finished your statement when you were so close to the end.

Now we'll go to questions from committee members. I will say that we actually started the committee meeting a couple of nights ago and ran into problems, of course. I did reach out to the vice-chairs, and it was an agreement among us that we would start off where we ended on Monday night with regard to the order of questioning.

I'll go now to Madame Gill for six minutes or less, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses who are joining us today.

My question is for Mr. Dadswell.

What factors significantly affect the reproduction of lobster? Can a lack of clear, consistent and coherent regulations affect the sustainability of the stocks?

[Dr. Michael Dadswell, Professor of Biology (Retired), As an Individual]

Ms. Gill, the reproduction of lobster is pretty much dependent on what happens to the females. The females are quite sensitive to factors in the environment and are also slower growing and reproduce less often than most other species.

Female lobsters only reproduce every second year, and the other problem is that when they reproduce, they have to attach the eggs to the abdomen, and that means the size of the abdomen is important in how many eggs they produce.

Here we have a female organism that is in a population that can only reproduce every second year, and for most of the lobsters in the fishery—the first 10 years or so that they're there—they can only produce between 8,000 and 32,000 eggs. You can compare that to something like a cod. A mature female cod can put out a million eggs, or a sea scallop can produce up to 10 million eggs, and they both do it annually, rather than every second year.

Females are fragile in terms of their recruitment potential, and they should be carefully protected.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Dadswell.

My question had two parts. You gave a very good answer to the first part, which concerned the fragility of the species.

Can a lack of clear regulations affect the sustainability of the lobster stocks?

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

Yes, that's the whole reason that seasons were created in the first place.

Oceanographic situations in, say, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence are different from what they are in southwest Nova Scotia in St. Marys Bay. The differences drive the life history of the lobster in each of those places.

In the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where you have a very warm summer, the lobsters go into soft-shell stage earlier, and that's when they can join with the males to collect sperm. They then carry the sperm for a couple of months or so. That happens in the gulf by early August.

By contrast, in the area of St. Marys Bay, they don't go into the soft-shell stage until sometime in late July or early August, because of the colder temperatures. They then do not extrude their eggs until October or November, meaning that during that period when you take a female that will potentially extrude her eggs, it's the same thing as taking a buried female that's protected, and you really can't tell whether they're carrying sperm or whether they're going to extrude eggs.

It's critical that the seasons are adhered to in order to conserve the lobster stocks.

Is that enough? Did I answer your...?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

It's up to you. You're the one giving the answer.

Thank you, Mr. Dadswell.

I also have a question for Mr. Belliveau.

Mr. Belliveau, you spoke earlier about “chaos”. That's a very strong word. I would have liked to hear you talk a bit more about solutions.

Of course, a number of people want the fishers to also have their voices heard in a location that suits all parties. This may not be the framework for the nation-to-nation relationship, but it isn't for me to judge.

How could non-indigenous fishers have their say so that they feel that their voices are being heard?

[Sterling Belliveau]

I appreciate the question.

The chaos is what I'm referring to. If you look over the last two months, you'll see the chaos I'm referring to is that the commercial sector is feeling that it has been abandoned by the present system. I can go into great lengths here, but I'll refer to my opening remarks and say that there needs to be a mechanism, a panel or some form of whatever you want to call it, by which the inshore fishers, the commercial sector, can have a voice and be heard by the minister.

Apparently, right now there's a very strong theme throughout the commercial sector that its members' voices are not being heard. We need to have this mechanism so they have an opportunity to bring their concerns forward.

The frustrating point, if I can get into it, is that Mr. Sack is basically not in his jurisdiction, and I can't point this out clearly enough. If you have access to a map, you will see it. If we get back to the Marshall decision, it talked about adjacency to the band's territory. If you look at the Nova Scotia map, you will see that Mr. Sack has jumped over two territories: Bear River and Acadia. That's a two-and-a-half-hour drive by car, if not three hours. It's two days' journey by vessel, by lobster boat, to get to that particular area.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Belliveau. We've gone way over time. Hopefully you'll get your point across in some other questioning.

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

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you first to the witnesses for coming back, and also to you, Mr. Chair, for suspending the meeting to ensure that everybody's languages were in place and translation was there for all members in this committee.

Mr. Dadswell, we heard Robert Steneck from the University of Maine. He told this committee that there is no concern for overfishing or damages from fishing outside the season in regard to what's taking place with the Sipekne'katik. In Maine they fish year-round, he cited, and have a much higher fishing rate, but stocks remain stable.

What data is this committee missing if DFO, Professor Steneck and Maine say that the stocks are healthy? Maybe you can help us better understand the differences there.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

You have to realize that Maine is a little bit of a special case. What happens in lobster biology is there are what are called “recruitment cells”. The recruitment cells are the current systems that run along the coastline. In the Maine area, the recruitment cell is what I call a western Bay of Fundy cell, and it runs from up at the head of the Bay of Fundy all the way down to Maine.

What happens is that Maine lobsters—and you might not believe this—migrate all the way from Massachusetts and Maine up into the inner Bay of Fundy to release their eggs. Then those larvae drift downstream.

What happens is that Maine more or less gets the advantage of all the Canadian lobsters as well releasing their eggs in that area, and they get huge numbers of larvae arriving in Maine. That's one of the things that has allowed their fishery to remain stable and highly productive.

The other thing is that the Mainers have been at it a longer time, with fishermen involved in the management of the fishery. What they do in Maine is they notch every female they catch that is buried and that is carrying eggs.

This started back in the 1970s. Now we've had 50 years of notching, and a huge number of females in the Maine population are now protected by that notching characteristic. We can do that in Canada, but it's going to take some time.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I really appreciate your feedback and I would have loved to ask you more questions, because I'm sure we could have a whole panel just on that.

Ms. Sonnenberg, we've heard during this committee several times that there are obviously existing barriers for first nations fishers to enter the existing labour market in the Atlantic market. Can you speak about what you believe some of those barriers are and what efforts you think the federal government can make to help with these barriers to existing commercial harvesters?

[Melanie Sonnenberg, President, Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters Federation]

I think it would be inappropriate for me to speculate on what those barriers are. We certainly have many member organizations in the federation that work locally with different first nations communities, and they would be more in a position in their own backyards to talk about that. I don't feel comfortable trying to speculate on what that might be.

I do know that there is interest from our membership to continue some of the good work that's been done on the ground to help. Over the last 21 years, for example, on the east coast, many of our members have talked with the groups, and we have helped to integrate some of the Marshall access, but at this point in time, as I said, I wouldn't care to speculate on what some of those barriers are. I think it would be for those communities to do that.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Okay.

We've heard in this committee, actually, that many harvest leaders are dealing with the pressures from their members to respond to rumours, and obviously an aggressive posturing has been happening, especially on social media, at the docks. It's apparent that much of the problem is one of communication from the federal government. We've heard that today from several of the witnesses from first nations and from fisheries organizations.

Can you talk about the efforts you think DFO and the federal government should take to improve communication channels on the ground, and also the responsibilities organizations like yours have in improving the communications and supports that you need from us?

I think about West Coast Aquatic on the west coast, which I'm sure you're very well aware of. They have that management board with all fishers at the table and they were talking about management issues, working collectively, and then the government slowly started pulling money out of the board, which would have been a great model from coast to coast to coast. What do you see, moving forward, that would help everybody?

[Melanie Sonnenberg]

I think Mr. Belliveau alluded to—he didn't allude to it; he said it. We need a table. We need to come to that table collectively and work through this instead of doing it through the press, where we have a light shining.

You talked about aggressive behaviour. I think that aggressive behaviour is from a very concentrated reaction to a situation, but overall the reactions have been very low-key. I think that people are to be commended on all sides of this discussion for maintaining cool heads generally. I think the aggression is a small pocket, but I think coming to a table and having DFO facilitate that.... Maybe we step outside of DFO and do it ourselves, but certainly coming to a table where all parties can talk respectfully and put concerns on the table and try to work through them is a good start. There would be very few things on the agenda to be worked through, and then we'd see how we do.

Dividing us up among different tables is not working. That's clear to everybody, I think, from all sides. I think a start is to get a table together where we have cooler heads, where we can sit down and discuss the issues of the day and try to work through them together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

We'll now go for five minutes to Mr. Arnold, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming back today.

Through the course of this study, something has become apparent to me, and I believe all Canadians would agree. It is that the government owes a duty to the public—indigenous and non-indigenous—to explain and be transparent with the steps that have been taken, whether they were successful or not, at accommodating what was set out in the Marshall decisions, Marshall 1 and Marshall 2.

We've heard about the transfer of licences from the buy-up of the existing commercial licences transferring over to indigenous fisheries, and I don't think the public or the indigenous people are very clear on what was actually attempted or attained through that.

Mr. Belliveau, would you be able to comment on that? Also, could you keep it fairly short, as I'd like to hear from Mr. Hutchins as well?

[Sterling Belliveau]

Okay, I'll keep it short.

First of all, in the first five years of the Marshall decision, the federal government spent over $600 million acquiring licences and purchasing licences from retirees. Just this last summer they gave out to the native bands in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia an additional 322 licences.

The question I raised in my opening remarks, Mr. Arnold, was that these licences now are being leased out—or a portion of them—and are not in the hands of the Mi'kmaq people. To me, all Canadians must see this for what it's worth. It's not in the spirit of the Marshall decision and it's not in the spirit of the owner-operator policy on the Atlantic east coast.

We need this mechanism. Both witnesses here in the last few minutes referred to a table or a mechanism. These issues need to be brought out, and I want to ensure that the Mi'kmaq have access. We need to do it in the spirit of the Marshall decision. If we can create this mechanism or table and abide by the adjacency rule, we can easily solve this situation if we have level-headed people in a position of authority giving advice to the minister. We just need to make this happen.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Hutchins, would you care to comment?

[Gary Hutchins, Retired Detachment Supervisor for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, As an Individual]

I believe what Mr. Belliveau has said is correct, so I won't repeat any of that.

In my experience as a law enforcement officer for the last 32 years, I have met many obstacles when it comes to enforcing the FSC fishery in St. Marys Bay. There is a belief that this is a rights-based fishery, and it's not. There is no treaty right associated with the harvesting of lobsters. This is a policy that DFO created to give the Mi'kmaq people access to the lobster fishery. In doing so, the DFO failed miserably to provide officers with the resources to start an enforcement plan and to keep the fishery in check.

This fishery, because it was not a rights-based fishery, had quotas assigned to each band. My goal was to enforce those quotas. That never happened. We were not allowed to enforce them. That caused major issues with the indigenous fishers, because when we went to check them, they told us we had no right because their chiefs told them that they were allowed to do this. There was a lot of miscommunication there.

There was an absolute, total miscommunication between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and its own people. I experienced that for years, and it was very frustrating. It's one of the reasons I left. It was because I could not do my job effectively anymore.

I want to talk about St. Marys Bay really quickly, if I can.

At the end of the lobster season every May, a huge number of lobsters move into that shallow, warm bay. At any given time in the summer, you can get as many as 50 lobsters in a trap. Those lobsters are loaded with eggs. They're soft; they die. They smother and they cannibalize each other. Imagine 50 lobsters in a trap.

What happens is when they land those lobsters, a lot of them are dead. When they sell them to the buyers, they die shortly after that. We did an investigation in which we found thousands of pounds of discarded lobsters in the woods near Weymouth, Nova Scotia. It's either the buyers or the indigenous fishers dumping those. That is a blatant disregard for the stock, and that's unacceptable.

The problem is that we cannot sit down and have a conversation with Sipekne'katik, because they were the only band in the area that I couldn't develop a relationship with and they never wanted to talk to me. That was very unfortunate, because we did many things to open that dialogue and to start a meaningful friendship. Those were very disappointing times for me.

Right now there is a 50% decrease in the amount of lobsters that the commercial fishermen are catching from one year to the other. That's huge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hutchins.

We'll now go to Mr. Battiste for five minutes or less, please.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

My question is for Dr. Dadswell.

We've heard testimony from a Ph.D. candidate, Shelley Denny, that was consistent with what a Canada research chair, Dr. Megan Bailey, had said. They suggested that the seasons, in a reasoned argument, exist just as much for reasons of economics as for conservation.

They both have suggested that what we're really talking about is preserving the molting season rather than the health and the viability of the stocks, because there is a better market for hard-shell lobsters than for soft-shell lobsters.

How would you respond to the inconsistency within what you're telling us compared to what those learned doctors told us at committee?

I'm not hearing anything. Is he on mute?