Fisheries Committee on Oct. 26th, 2020

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

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

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

Thank you.

Thank you, all of you, for your testimony, especially on such short notice.

First, Mr. Barron and Mr. Jenkins, I want to thank you for joining everyone in condemning the violence that's taken place against Mi'kmaq fishers. Can you speak about the measures that both of your organizations have adopted to hold fishers within your organizations accountable when they practice violence or attempt to take conservation into their own hands? Can you maybe cite what would happen within your organizations if a fisher or harvester were known to be violating DFO's conservation regulations and trying to take that into their own hands?

[Bobby Jenkins]

Thank you for the very important question.

I just recently signed impact statements for the courts on P.E.I. for violators who were charged with fishery offences on P.E.I. Our board of directors some time ago passed a motion at a board of directors meeting that we would sign a victim impact statement, that whoever was the president of the association on Prince Edward Island at the time would sign a victim impact statement regardless of the event. We have been doing that for the past 10 years. We will continue to do that.

I personally have volunteered to read victim impact statements in court, if need be. I haven't been asked to do that as of yet, but I have agreed to do that if they want me to. What we practice for conservation on P.E.I., in terms of our board of directors and our advisory committees, is that it doesn't matter who gets caught and it doesn't matter what the offence is; everybody is treated the same. A victim impact statement will go out on behalf of the PEIFA.

In regard to our aboriginal chiefs on P.E.I., the PEIFA took the initiative on October 2 to meet with our chiefs, Chief Darlene Bernard from Lennox Island and Chief Junior Gould from Abegweit. We had a pretty productive meeting on October 2 regarding the situation in Atlantic Canada. We are looking forward to more dialogue with chiefs there.

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

Maybe just to give you an example, if you had a fish harvester in your organization who was caught burning down a lobster pound, cutting traps in the name of conservation and destroying lobster, what would you do?

[Bobby Jenkins]

We're not going to condone anything like that—

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

But are there any consequences in your organization?

[Bobby Jenkins]

It would be up to the law to charge that individual.

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

Okay, then your organizations don't have any sort of—

[Bobby Jenkins]

Also, at whatever port it happened, I would expect that under the harbour authority, representatives on the board of that respective harbour authority could do something along those lines. We would allow law enforcement to.... We can't personally charge anybody.

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

Mr. Barron, do you have any additional comments?

[Michael Barron]

Our association doesn't have any bylaws in place to enforce anything like that, nor have we come across anything like that. It may be something that would come up for discussion, but to ask an association if they are going to enforce some type of law that's been broken on the water.... That's DFO's enforcement position. That onus shouldn't—

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

Let's say DFO convicts somebody. How would your organization respond to a member who was convicted?

[Michael Barron]

That would have to be something that would go to a discussion among the board.

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

I really appreciate your talking about how fisheries can be managed jointly. We believe that it should be nation-to-nation dialogue in how fisheries should move forward. Where I live in the Nuu-chah-nulth territories, the commercial fishers and the recreational fishers understand that it is the minister representing commercial at the negotiating table, negotiating nation-to-nation dialogue on quota and on establishing fishing rights.

However, they also have a management table in our region called “West Coast Aquatic Management”. It's a really great model. Everybody is sitting at the table talking about their management plans, including the nations with their management plans. Everyone's excited about it. They say it was working tremendously, but the department basically stepped away from the table. They've been almost invisible. They stopped resourcing the table over the last decade.

Can you cite any examples in your region where there were things that were working and the department stepped back and stopped supporting those discussions?

Go ahead, Mr. Barron. Maybe I'll start with you again.

[Michael Barron]

There's nothing I can think of right off the top of my head, but just in the little bit of dealings I've had up until this situation, DFO here in our local area has been fairly good in working with the industry. Since this stuff happened in October and up until now, they've kind of ceased all communication federally and locally, so....

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

Do you see systemic racism in the department? Can you think of examples of it?

[Michael Barron]

Not that I can say.

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

What about you, Mr. MacPherson and Mr. Jenkins? Can you comment on that?

[Ian MacPherson]

I think the frustration from our side has been that we've been dialoguing with some senior people in Ottawa on our concerns about the situation. Because it was in Southwest Nova Scotia, it was of great concern to everyone else.

One of the things we were seeking was dialogue, and we asked DFO to facilitate that. Our local manager did help in our most recent meeting. I'm glad we had it when we did, but that dialogue needs to happen in a lot of places, and that's a role that DFO can fulfill. For some reason, there seems to be a reluctance.

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

What about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns. Your time has gone well past.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, but my time is actually moving over to Mr. Mazier.