Fisheries Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, professor. My time is up.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

We'll move on again to MP Desbiens for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take a moment to make sure that I'll be able to speak when we begin to discuss committee business later on, because my notice of motion is related to what happens next.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

I will see hands raised when we go into committee business.

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

Perfect. Thank you very much.

I'm told that I have to read the motion now. So I'm taking my time to table my notice of motion, which is as follows:

That, as part of the present study on the criterias used by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to set redfish fishing quotas, the committee invite Ms. Sylvie Lapointe, President of the Atlantic Groundfish Council, to testify and answer questions from members of this committee for one hour; that, as part of this study, the committee invite the Minister of the Environment, Mr. Steven Guilbault, for one hour to answer questions from members of this committee; that this meeting be held prior to the drafting of the report on this study.

I would like us to discuss this when we talk about committee business later on.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

As I understand it, you've put your motion on notice.

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

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you.

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

Do I have any speaking time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

You have one minute.

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

I'm so lucky! Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Robert, since when have scientists like you been sounding the alarm about the scarcity of shrimp, and about the solutions that should have been found, when we were making that observation, to help shrimpers who only fish for shrimp? How long have you seen this urgency?

[Dr. Dominique Robert]

Shrimp has been in decline for several years. However, the decline was gradual. It really accelerated over the last three or four years, when shrimp became part of the redfish diet and the temperature continued to warm up. It was around this time that we became aware of the combined impact of warmer temperatures and redfish on shrimp.

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

If we had acted immediately when we saw that redfish were the biggest predator of shrimp, do you think we would have the same problem today?

[Dr. Dominique Robert]

As I mentioned earlier, shrimp is a cold-water species. Its abundance would still decline, even in the absence of a predator like redfish. Redfish accelerate the impact of the ecosystem on shrimp, but current warming means that the habitat available for shrimp is diminishing rapidly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

In 10 years' time, whether there are redfish or not—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you, Mr. Robert. I have to stop you there.

We will move now to MP Barron for two and a half minutes.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate the information that was being provided. I would like to see the remainder of that answer written and provided to us, if possible, from the previous witness.

Mr. Spingle, I have a question that's been brought to my attention that I'm hoping you might be able to shed some light on. It is specifically about the problems that may occur from an independent inshore harvester having to lease redfish quotas from the offshore.

Can you provide some insights into any problems that may result?

[Jason Spingle]

In the business world, it comes down to whoever is willing to fish it for the least amount of money. We see our counterparts in your beautiful province, MP Barron, in B.C. We've talked to colleagues at international conferences about people having to pay three-quarters of the value of the shore price just to go fishing.

You can say that people will be fair, but it's a big debate about business and morality. We know that people are in difficult situations. Besides that, when you have something like halibut, you have some flexibility to at least make some money if you had to buy that quota in the water, but when you're dealing with redfish, which we know right now is, and probably always will be, of a somewhat lower value, it's not going to put most of our members in a very good position.

I think there can be some flexibility, for sure, but they need their own allocations. All the independent owner-operators who are now going out of business because of shrimp need a significant portion of their own allocations to have an opportunity for viability.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I only have 24 seconds, and my question is too big to fit into those 24 seconds, so I'm going to let it go and thank the witnesses.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

I want to thank the witnesses for appearing today. Thank you for your testimony.

We will now move to committee business.

On the notice of meeting, we had drafting instructions as the first item of business.

I saw Mr. Perkins with his hand up.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to put forward a motion that—

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

I have a point of order. We were here to discuss the—

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

We're in committee business. You can move a motion in committee business. You guys did it two weeks ago.

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

Well....

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

If I could speak, Mr. Chair, to my motion that I'm proposing, given that the important study we're doing now on redfish actually interrupted our emergency study on elvers, I just want to make sure we get back to it, so I'm going to propose a motion that reiterates the motion that we already passed in terms of the witnesses who would appear, which include the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency and the CFIA. We asked for the minister as well with that motion, which we all unanimously passed. I would add that we've had a number of people write since then, and there are whistle-blowers on this issue who would like to appear in public.

With that, I'd like to move the following motion:

“That, given that the committee passed a motion calling for an emergency study to examine DFO's plan to prevent violence in the elver fishery, the committee agrees to (a) renew its invitation to Erin O’Gorman, President of the Canada Border Services Agency, which is responsible for preventing the illegal export of elvers at our borders; (b) renew its invitation to the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mike Duheme, as the organization responsible for contract policing in Nova Scotia; (c) renew its invitation to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to appear on this emergency study to examine departmental plans to prevent repeated violence and the illegal export of elvers;”

—hopefully, the minister will appear this time—

“(d) prioritize the future regularly scheduled meeting slots towards this study, until completion;”

—I believe that would be for the next two meetings when we sit in March, and those meetings would also include—

“(i) whistle-blowers working in the illegal elver fishery with knowledge of its operations, and organized crime elements, to be conducted in camera;”

—we've all had emails, I think, from the clerk, distributed on those witnesses—

“(ii) officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency;”

—whose testimony from the department in our first meeting showed that it was certifying exports of elvers from the Toronto airport, even though they were illegal—

“(e) and that the committee resume other scheduled business following the completion of the urgent elver study that we interrupted with the redfish study.”

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

I saw Ms. Barron with her hand up.