Fisheries Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

In other words, you're allocating licences on a mystical TAC that you're going to increase sometime in the future, but you don't know what it takes when you reallocate the quota. You have no idea what it takes for somebody to earn a living and how much they need to get.

At $25,000, I believe that absolutely no one who is a licence-holder can make a living.

[Adam Burns]

Mr. Chair, first, to make a point, the minister hasn't issued any new licences. The quota would be harvested by existing gulf groundfish licence-holders.

What I can say is that we are working with the industry. Some of the discussions will occur next week at the consultations on various management measures that would help the industry adjust and transfer quotas, in order to find the most efficiency within their operations. We'll also be consulting on suballocations, which is another way of saying the allocation of individual fleet shares to specific licence-holders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

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

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

The role of MP Morrissey will be played by Mike Kelloway.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You can't pull that one off, buddy.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

There's no way can you pull that off.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I know. I'll try.

I want to stay on somewhat the line of questioning of MP Perkins regarding the economic viability of redfish replacing shrimp entirely as a means of income for shrimpers. That is to say, is there any amount of redfish that would compensate shrimpers for the losses due to the dwindling numbers of shrimp in the gulf?

[Adam Burns]

Again, it's actually very difficult to do that calculation. That's because of the variables that are outside the department's control in terms of market value and individual enterprise costs to operate, as examples. It's actually very difficult for us to do a calculation that would specifically identify the amount that would be needed to offset the gulf shrimp declines.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That's obviously because of the size of the fish at this time. What are the reasons we can't, though? I want to unpack why we can't.

[Adam Burns]

First of all, the redfish market is underdeveloped. In order to find markets that will have a demand for this quantity of redfish...or this potential quantity. While I can't give you a specific number, certainly the quantity would be significant. These would be new markets that Canadian industry would need to develop and identify. Given the size of the redfish, the specific markets would not be at the higher end of the value range for redfish. It makes it very, very difficult to predict what that would look like in the mid-term.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Let's unpack another thing. Phase one is what we're talking about here. It's the 2,500 tonnes, to my understanding. What's phase two? Talk to us and the people who are watching. We hear about phase one and phase two. What is phase two?

[Adam Burns]

To date, the minister has indicated that the TAC for 2024 will be a minimum of 25,000 tonnes. However, she's been clear that she's open to a TAC that is higher than that. We'll be consulting on that next week.

Over the next two years, industry allocations will have occurred and market development will have started. Harvesters will have gone out and fished. Based on that, the minister has indicated that she would take decisions related to a longer term for the fishery in terms of a more mature fishery relating to management measures and relating to the overall value of the fishery and what a longer-term TAC might be able to be.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

This question is for anyone on the panel. During the last couple of years, I've met with a lot of different groups—inshore fishers, offshore fishers and first nation fishers. Some of those groups mentioned that they were working on marketing in anticipation of redfish being open and looking at investing in markets. What do you know of that? I'm hearing that, no, nobody's done any work on marketing anything. Everyone was just waiting around, sitting around, waiting for a decision to be made.

Clearly there was work by DFO on this, because it appears that there was work by fishers, offshore in particular. Can you speak to that?

[Todd Williams]

Yes. In fact, while our primary role is to act as regulator, we do indeed support industry when and where we can. Over the course of last year, we worked very closely with a major stakeholder to provide them with the information they needed, whether it was science information or fisheries management information, so that they could take that to European markets to explore the development of those markets for this product that they anticipated.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have 50 seconds.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you.

Clearly, we have a lot of challenges. We have some good stories. Redfish is a good story. Then it's the allocation of where that redfish goes. Is it to replace potentially other fisheries? Maybe not. Who knows? Time will tell on that.

You highlighted this to some degree, but I want to get some clarity. When it comes to resources like shrimp, what is the impact of climate change on shrimp? We know that there are other things that play a role in the decimation of shrimp, but what about the role of climate change? We seldom talk about climate change around the table here in terms of its impact on the species.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Give a brief answer, please.

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

Mr. Chair, it's important because, in fact, the decline of the shrimp started in the mid 2000s before we started to see the strong cohort for redfish. It actually limits the suitable habitat for shrimp across the gulf. Because of the warming of the temperature, the acidification of the water and the deoxygenation, they're all factors that have greatly reduced the area of the gulf that is suitable for shrimp. We have documented that through the years, and that's one of the major factors for the decline, along with other factors such as predation from redfish and other predators.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Vézina, I’m turning to you since you’re more focused on Quebec.

Have you ensured that the voice of shrimpers is heard within the Department? Have you managed to ensure that Quebec shrimpers are heard and that their point of view is taken into account in departmental decisions?

[Sylvain Vézina]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for her question.

Yes, we certainly have.

Within the department, there are various advisory committees to oversee the management of the different fish species for which we are responsible. As soon as we became aware of the problems, we held several meetings with industry representatives, precisely to exchange information.

We could inform people in the industry of the effects we were seeing, and they could provide us with information. As soon as we received that information, we passed it on to our colleagues at headquarters.

At the last liaison committee meeting, the major committee in Quebec that brings together all the industry representatives, the minister was present and she was accompanied by our colleagues from headquarters. She wanted to meet face-to-face with people from the industry.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Did you feel that the minister and headquarters, as you call it, considered your comments regarding the allocation of quotas?