Fisheries Committee on May 2nd, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 108 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

This meeting is taking place, of course, in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Before we proceed, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. There is interpretation for those on Zoom. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, of course, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

Please address all comments through the chair.

To avoid audio feedback, before we begin, I would like to remind all members and other meeting participants in the room about following important preventative measures. To prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents that can cause injuries, all in-person participants are reminded to keep their earpieces away from all microphones at all times.

As indicated in the communiqué from the Speaker to all members on Monday, April 29, the following measures have been taken to help prevent audio feedback incidents. All earpieces have been replaced by a model that greatly reduces the probability of audio feedback. The new earpieces are black, whereas the former earpieces were grey. Please only use a black approved earpiece. By default, all unused earpieces will be unplugged at the start of the meeting. When you are not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the middle of the sticker for this purpose, which you will find on the table as indicated. Please consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.

The room layout has been adjusted to increase the distance between microphones and to reduce the chance of feedback from an ambient earpiece. These measures are in place so that we can conduct our business without interruption and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters. Thank you all for your co-operation.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on June 16, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of the population sustainability of Yukon salmon stocks.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

From the Watershed Watch Society, we have Aaron Hill.

From the SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, we have Greg Knox.

There is another witness who hasn't yet signed in to join us, Mr. Taylor. If he joins, we'll announce his presence.

Thank you for taking the time to appear today. You will each have five minutes for your opening statement.

Mr. Hill, you have the floor. Go ahead, please.

[Aaron Hill, Executive Director, Watershed Watch Salmon Society]

Thank you very much for having me here today.

I'm the executive director at Watershed Watch Salmon Society. We're a charity that's been advocating for the conservation of B.C.'s wild salmon for over 25 years. I've been with the society since 2008. Much of my work here is focused on improving the sustainability of Pacific salmon fisheries.

I have sat on many multi-stakeholder fishery management committees. I have a master’s degree in biology and I spent years working as a fisheries observer with experience in all modes of commercial and recreational salmon fishing. I also grew up in northwest B.C. where my father worked as a fishing guide, so I have an intimate understanding of how important salmon are for maintaining livelihoods in our communities.

Wild Pacific salmon and steelhead populations in B.C. have progressively declined over the past several decades. In many cases, overfishing has been a factor, both inside and outside our borders.

After the young salmon and steelhead hatch in our rivers, they migrate out to the Pacific Ocean where they feed and grow for at least one year. Many of these fish follow a clockwise arc around the Gulf of Alaska before they head south along the Alaska panhandle, where they are then intercepted in large numbers by Alaskan commercial fisheries.

There is still some overfishing happening in B.C., but many of our fisheries have been severely curtailed to help conserve our stocks in recent years. Our average annual harvest from 1924 to 1994 was 24 million fish. The average in recent years is around two and a half million.

That order of magnitude decline was a major impetus for the Pacific salmon strategy initiative, which is providing a surge of $647 million of federal funding over five years to address these declines.

However, just as we've shut down our fisheries and spent all of this public money on recovery, Alaskan fleets just across the border have not scaled back. We partnered with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust a couple of years ago to commission a comprehensive technical report on the impacts of Alaskan fisheries on B.C. salmon. The report confirmed that the Alaskan share of the catch has grown substantially in the past decade and that Alaska is now the biggest killer of many B.C. salmon populations.

In recent years, Alaskans have taken half of the entire returning adult run, in some salmon and steelhead populations, from northern B.C. rivers like the Skeena and the Nass.

Last year, two Alaskan fishing districts along the B.C. border harvested more salmon than all of the fisheries in B.C., Washington, Oregon and California combined. They are also taking 30% to 75% of the catch of salmon populations from as far south as Vancouver Island and from throughout the Fraser watershed. Over 90% of chinook salmon caught in the southeast Alaska troll fishery originate in rivers in B.C., Washington or Oregon.

A U.S. federal court recently ruled that this fishery in particular is preventing the recovery of endangered southern resident killer whales, which rely on the chinook salmon as their primary food source. Those whales move between Canada and the U.S. and we've scaled back our chinook fisheries to help them recover.

We'd like to see Alaska move its fleet out of the areas on the outer coast where most of the B.C.-bound salmon are migrating.

We'd like to see them implement basic management measures that are standard practice in B.C. and other jurisdictions. Those include collecting and sharing genetic information on their catch to determine the rivers of origin; requiring the live release of non-target species; reporting their discard numbers; and using cameras or observers on vessels to verify their catch numbers. These are all things we do in B.C. that they're not doing in Alaska.

The Pacific Salmon Treaty is supposed to address these matters, but it's not. We need the Alaskans to work with Canada to fix those shortcomings.

We need Canada to put more pressure on the Alaskans, both inside and outside the treaty process. Canada could also offer up compensation to shut down these fisheries, similar to how the U.S. compensated Canada for shutting down the west coast Vancouver Island troll fishery in 2008 to reduce impacts on fish that are migrating back to rivers in Washington and Oregon.

I know that the study was initiated around Yukon stocks, but these transboundary management issues are very severe for British Columbia as well. That's why I'm focusing on that today.

These are solvable problems and the solutions could put millions more fish back into B.C. rivers annually.

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now suspend for a quick moment. Our third witness has signed on, so we'll do a quick sound check.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're back.

Mr. Knox, you have up to five minutes for your opening statement.

[Greg Knox, Executive Director, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust]

Thank you, everyone.

My name is Greg Knox. I'm the executive director of SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, and I've been in that position since 2007. Our focus is on salmon conservation in northern British Columbia. I have a background in science and environmental management. I'm also a certified fisheries technician. I've been on the northern panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission for 14 years, so I have quite a bit of experience there.

I'm here because the B.C. salmon are in crisis, as Aaron outlined. Alaska is now the biggest impact on many of our salmon populations, and we can't rebuild our salmon without their help. I'll start with some information around some of the impacts.

In Alaska, the information is hard to get, and Watershed Watch and SkeenaWild commissioned an independent report to bring together all the best information from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans a few years ago, and that's the basis of some of this information I'm going to provide.

I'll zoom back out a bit to add to Aaron's comments. In southeast Alaska they're harvesting between 50 million and 70 million salmon a year just north of the British Columbia border, and most of these salmon are harvested from unselective seine fisheries.

I'll talk about some of the impacts now. I'll start with sockeye salmon.

Southeast Alaska catches about a million sockeye per year. About 80% of the Alaskan sockeye catch is from B.C. rivers. Up to about 30% of the Skeena sockeye run is taken in southeast Alaska each year. There are growing conservation concerns for Skeena sockeye. For example, the wild populations have declined by about 90% from their historical abundance. Often we've shut down fisheries here in northern British Columbia to protect these fish, and yet Alaska has fished status quo and there are no mechanisms under the Pacific Salmon Treaty to stop that.

The impacts are even higher for some individual populations. A good example is Lake Babine wild sockeye. They were once the largest population in the Skeena at about a million fish, one of the largest populations of salmon in Canada. They've declined by about 93%, and Alaska is taking between 20% and 50% of that population every year in their fisheries.

For chum salmon, north and central coast chum have suffered significant declines. Central coast chum have declined by about 90% since 1960. Other north coast populations have had similar declines. Alaska catches 10 million or more chum salmon just north of the B.C. border every year. We have no idea how many of those chum are bound for British Columbia rivers, but it could be significant. They're not doing the basic testing to figure that out.

For steelhead, Skeena steelhead have declined rapidly over the last five years. The sport fishery brings in tens of millions of dollars each year to the local economy, and Alaska kills between 10% and 50% of the Skeena steelhead run each year.

For chinook salmon, as Aaron mentioned, most of these that are caught in Alaska are not from Alaska, and we have severely depressed populations here in British Columbia.

There are concerns over coho salmon as well. They take about 25% to 35% of the coho return each year.

As I mentioned, I've been involved in the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The intention, the principle, set out was to prevent overfishing and for each party to receive the benefits of the number of fish originating from their rivers. The PST is no longer meeting the main principles set out in the treaty. It was never designed to deal with climate change impacts and the salmon crisis we face today. Recent attempts by Canada at the treaty table have failed to get Alaska to take action, and the Pacific Salmon Treaty in its current form is impeding our ability to stop declines and enable rebuilding.

Basically, the bottom line is that Canada has significantly scaled back fisheries and invested heavily in rebuilding salmon. Alaska is now the biggest impact on many populations, and it's impossible to rebuild these salmon populations without their help.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now suspend for a moment to do a sound test.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I will go to Mr. Taylor now for five minutes or less, please.

[Greg Taylor, President, Fish First Consulting, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. I apologize for getting on late.

I'll talk about how this fishery developed over time, and my age is showing on the screen. It took me a while to coordinate with the people at the House of Commons to get the technology right, so I do apologize for being late.

As I said and as my biography points out, I started working in the fishery in 1980 and continued working through my career, ending up as vice-president of a major fishing company in British Columbia and responsible for buying all their salmon and other products from both British Columbia and Alaska.

As such, I spent a good deal of my career in Alaska purchasing fish in the areas we're speaking of. Many of you may have seen the TV show Deadliest Catch. I used to hire those tenders to go out there and catch fish and buy fish from the same boats that are operating in that area and pack that fish back to Prince Rupert, where we unloaded it and processed it.

Besides doing that, I spent a lot of time in an airplane out in those fisheries. I've seen those fisheries in operation. I've seen the fish being delivered, and I've seen them go through our plant. I understand that fishery intimately.

What Aaron and Greg are telling you and the data they are giving you, I can back up from personal experience. This fishery is not sustainable, and it certainly does not match what Canada put in place.

Canada, back in the 1990s, under the leadership of both a Conservative and a Liberal, John Fraser, who sadly just passed, and Mr. Anderson, reduced interception fisheries in British Columbia because they saw the decline in our populations on the north and central coast. Many of the fisheries that were in place when the fishery was signed were eliminated under their mandates.

Canada does not catch Alaskan fish anymore. In fact, it's massively reduced its own interception fisheries on its own populations. Meanwhile, Alaska has maintained their fisheries and refuses to take the same kinds of steps. We have to make clear that no one's asking Alaska not to catch their fish. We're just asking them not to operate in areas that have high interception rates.

The area that we mostly talk about is on the outside of the panhandle in district 104. That area doesn't have any Alaskan pink or chum salmon runs or any other type of salmon runs out there. This is a pure interception fishery. The boats that operate out there have permits to fish anywhere else in southeast Alaska. This is a dramatic choice by Alaska to fish in that area.

If these were Alaskan populations, it would literally be unconstitutional for Alaska to maintain those fisheries. They are required to ensure that escapement targets are met for their stocks. They're choosing to ignore what's mandated in their own constitution in the management and operation of their fisheries intercepting Canadian fish.

As Greg pointed out, in 1985, when the treaty was signed and we were balancing harvest benefits, maybe it made sense, but it does not make sense in a time of climate change. We're seeing rapid declines in our own populations, and we have interception fisheries, fisheries that Canada eliminated, continue in the U.S., and it's not sustainable. It has to be changed.

One of the more interesting things that happened this week was that Brian Riddell, eminent scientist and once commissioner on the Pacific Salmon Treaty, said in writing that the treaty is broken. The treaty will not lead us to any answers. We have to look at other alternatives, whether that be having other negotiations with Alaska, buying out those few boats—remember, only a small number of boats fish out in the offending area—getting them to move or some other approach to encourage Alaska to do what's right. We have to look at moving those interception fisheries and changing the fishery to match what Canada does in terms of building sustainable salmon fisheries so that we can protect our populations going forward.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to our rounds of questioning.

Before I do, I want to welcome the hon. Rob Moore here today, who's subbing in for Mr. Small maybe?

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

Welcome to the committee.

Mr. McLean is obviously subbing in for our buddy from New Brunswick.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

That's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Bachrach is joining us as the NDP representative. I understand that Ms. Barron is going to do the voting online, but you're going to do any questions here in the room.

We'll now go to our first round of questions.

Mr. Arnold, you have six minutes or less. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for their testimonies today.

I would like to go straight to questions to hear from you, but there's another issue that I have to interject here at this time.

The opening statements today draw more attention to this. We really need to hear from the minister on questions in addition to the many questions we have previously and unanimously agreed to invite the minister to answer, but she has declined five of the six invitations this year. Because the minister has repeatedly declined to appear at this committee, we have not been able to ask her questions that many Canadians have on a number of topics on the minister's portfolio.

Therefore, I move:

That the committee express its deep disappointment that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard has declined five requests to appear before the committee to answer questions on important matters related to her portfolio, and that this be reported back to the House.

This motion was put on notice on April 26, 2024.

Before my honourable colleagues speak to the motion and possibly move amendments, I suggest that if the parliamentary secretary can commit to consulting with the minister and providing to the committee by the end of the day Monday, May 6 a firm date for the minister to appear at the committee for no fewer than two hours in May, I will accept that debate on this motion be adjourned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Cormier, go ahead.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Chair, maybe my colleague Mr. Arnold didn't hear at the last committee, but I think the clerk received some confirmation from the minister's office that she was coming to committee in a couple of days or weeks from now. Is that right?

Can you just repeat that for the committee?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Geneviève Dubois-Richard]

The minister is available June 6 for one hour and September 26 for one hour.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Is there any more discussion on the motion?

Mr. Kelloway, go ahead.

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

Yes. I'd like to move an amendment.

I move the following amendment to the motion, to add the following after the last sentence in the motion, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 109, the government provide a comprehensive response to the committee's report”.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We've heard the amendment.

Is there any discussion on the amendment?

Mr. Perkins, go ahead.

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

I have a question for the clerk, if I may.

What date are the estimates tabled in the House?

[The Clerk]

They have to be reported by May 31.

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

Right. So that's the problem with the June 6 date. The number one rule in Parliament in terms of committee business is that estimates trump everything, including government legislation, in terms of appearances. To me, the minister coming after estimates is a disservice to this committee's job of scrutinizing the estimates before they're reported to Parliament. The horse is out of the barn by the time she would be coming on June 6 to talk about estimates. That would be too late. We couldn't do anything.

I would suggest that's why we need to stick with MP Arnold's motion, in order to ensure that the minister would be here before the estimates report.

She's had some notice of that for a while. We've been asking for her to come before the estimates are reported back to the House. I see no reason why she couldn't.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Kelloway, go ahead.

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

Just on that point, we can certainly try to get her for next week, but at this point I can't make any promises on that, not seeing her schedule.