Fisheries Committee on March 19th, 2024

[Dominic Mallette]

I'll answer the first question.

In my experience, yes, in some situations increasing fines helps correct bad behaviour. We've seen that in the past.

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

They're rich people, right?

So, you think it would have an impact.

[Dominic Mallette]

Yes, but I don't know if it would have the same impact there. It might, but I can't really give you a guarantee.

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

You'd have to try it. That could be a recommendation.

[Dominic Mallette]

I really can't comment on the second question.

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

That's another issue, yes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm just trying to remember if the question was already asked and I missed it. Chief Superintendent Black, did somebody already ask how many people were arrested in 2023 in relation to complaints that may have been called in relating to the elver fishery? Do we have any numbers or a sense of how many arrests have been made?

[C/Supt Sue Black]

There was a question asked about assertions made around the RCMP response to trespassing complaints. There wasn't a question about the number of arrests.

However, I can say, as I mentioned earlier, that we researched our database. We've had six complaints of trespassing related to the elver fishery since January 2023. We followed up on all the cases and physically attended in four of those six cases. As I was explaining in my last answer, “Trespassing at night” is section 177 of the Criminal Code. It's at night. It's a summary conviction offence. In order for us to enforce it, we have to physically see the person in the act of trespassing. In four of the six cases, we located persons at the site of the trespassing. It also usually has to go with another criminal intent. There was a conversation where the persons were asked to leave, and those who were approached did leave.

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

Just to clarify, you said that you followed up. What do you mean by “followed up”? Is there a time frame in which a follow-up...?

[C/Supt Sue Black]

“Follow up” could mean anything from taking the call, getting all the information possible from the person who is making the complaint and determining.... For instance, in the case of trespassing—I'm just going to give an example—if the persons are gone, then we're not going to attend, because they're gone. That would be the end of our follow-up. We would do the paperwork, fill out the report, etc. and close the file. If the complainant makes another call, then we would deal with it again, appropriately, depending on what the case is.

It's all about what the information is that we have on hand and how we appropriately approach it, because everything—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Okay, your time is up, Ms. Barron.

Thank you for that.

We have three or four minutes left, so I'll go to Mr. Arnold for three minutes, to get in a couple of questions if he can.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of those attending today as witnesses for their services through public safety, food safety, border safety and criminal activity. Your service is greatly appreciated.

First of all, Superintendent Black, are officers provided training on how to decide whom to arrest and, more so, whom not to arrest?

[C/Supt Sue Black]

We get extensive training on the enforcement of Criminal Code offences and other statutes that we have mandate over. I'll try to go fairly quickly, with the committee's indulgence. It starts in depot, in our training academy. We get six months initially, followed by six months of field training, and then followed by in-service training throughout our careers. Depending on the area of our work and expertise, we will take job-related training that supports our ability to enforce various legislation.

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

I take it that officers are trained in whom to arrest, or when to make an arrest and when not to make an arrest. I'll take a yes-or-no answer: yes, they're trained, or no, they're not.

[C/Supt Sue Black]

Yes, they are.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Mallette, you stated today that we need a proper regulatory regime in place in order for your department to act properly. I made a note of that when you stated it. If that regime was in place, how would you differentiate between elvers imported into Canada versus elvers harvested in Canada? That seemed to be the situation last year from the anecdotal information we have—they were being mixed together, and there was no way of knowing what was being exported from Canada.

[Dominic Mallette]

The proposed regulations from our partners at DFO would specifically address the co-mingling of legally fished elvers in Canada and those that are imported. It would ensure they remain separate. It would provide us with a great deal of clarity about which one is which and how we can enforce accordingly.

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

Is this regulatory regime really what is needed to solve this ongoing problem? From everything we're seeing, it's been happening since at least 2017, because you quoted—I believe it was you or CBSA—that there have been no shipments to some countries since 2017, or no permits issued to some countries since 2017.

This is a seven-year-old problem that has yet to be solved, so what are the solutions?

[Dominic Mallette]

I'm not sure how to answer your question, because it went to different places. You mentioned 2017. I didn't reference 2017 myself. Perhaps we're talking about shipments to China versus Hong Kong. I don't know.

Can you rephrase the question, and I'll attempt to answer it?

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

What is needed for a safe, legal harvest, shipment, and export of elvers, aside from people abiding by the laws already in place?

[Dominic Mallette]

I would suggest that if we had enhanced regulations, they would tremendously assist with the interdiction, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

I want to thank our witnesses for our first hour's panel on this study today. Thank you for sharing your time and your knowledge with us to help us write a report on this very important matter.

I'll let the people on Zoom sign off. We'll change our witnesses here in the room and move on to the next group.

We'll suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Welcome back.

On our second panel today, from the Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc., we have Genna Carey, president; and Stanley King, spokesperson. From the Shelburne Elver co-operative, we have Zachary Townsend, fisherman.

Thank you for taking the time to appear today.

I now invite Genna Carey to make her opening statement for five minutes or less, please.

[Genna Carey, President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to inform this committee on the status of the Canadian elver industry and the management—or mismanagement, I should say—that has caused it to spiral into the troubled industry you see today.

I'm here representing the Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery, which represents the majority of the commercial industry. With me today is Stanley King, CCSEF spokesperson, and Zachary Townsend, an elver fisherman with the Shelburne Elver co-operative.

Mr. Chair, as you know, this past week, the minister pre-emptively cancelled the 2024 elver fishery, putting more than 1,100 legal elver fishers out of work. This marks the third shutdown in five years, which only serves to highlight the incompetence of the department and the bad advice they continue to give successive ministers—six in eight years, if we're counting.

I want to be clear that the fishery today is identical to what it was 12 months ago. Nothing has changed. In fact, the problems that the minister cites have existed since 2020 without any meaningful action by DFO to improve the fishery, despite repeated pleas from stakeholders. DFO's solution to these problems has always been the same: Shut down the legal fishery, turn a blind eye to the poaching and hope the problem magically goes away.

The blatant mismanagement of this fishery is obvious to everyone, including the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and even the minister's own Atlantic caucus colleagues. They've all voiced opposition to cancelling the fishery and requested that the minister meet with stakeholders before making any final decision, something she ultimately refused to do, despite the gravity of her choice.

Perhaps this is because the department, the deputy and the minister's office in general have made a concerted effort to paint the elver industry as greedy eel barons rather than 1,100 hard-working women and men, mostly indigenous, who make up this industry under commercial or communal licences. This disrespectful characterization forms part of a disinformation campaign of DFO talking points that are demonstrably false and designed to cover up mismanagement. The species is not at risk. Traceability projects don't take years to implement, and enforcement isn't impossible. These are just convenient excuses.

Cancelling the elver fishery has cost our rural economies more than $100 million since 2020. Not opening the fishery in 2024 to await long-overdue regulations that will ultimately be ignored by unlicensed fishers is nothing short of dereliction of duty by the minister. We have no confidence that the government will adequately address the industry's problems before next season, and history supports our skepticism.

I'd like to give Zach the opportunity to speak to the committee so that the members can learn how DFO's mismanagement is directly impacting their constituents.