Fisheries Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Just in my final time, Mr. Burns, how important is the way the decision is made for year-round supply to generating the maximum employment in Newfoundland?

[Adam Burns]

Currently, for example, for the plant in Arnold's Cove to operate year-round, there is a requirement to have foreign fish, frozen fish, brought in, in order to enable year-round activity. The result of having a year-round supply of Canadian-caught fish will result in higher quality, lower costs and increased access to product, and thus, it will result in employment.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

We'll now go on to Madam Desbiens for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I only have two and a half minutes, but I'd like to broach a broader subject.

People on the ground are worried. Scientists both at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and elsewhere are worried. To varying degrees, everyone has sounded the alarm. Some are even talking about a historical error.

In Quebec, pelagic fisheries are being closed, the shrimp fishery is being closed, the redfish fishery is being opened too late, and suddenly this decision is being made, based on a deep desire to be ecological and protect ecosystems. Even though the word “ecological” contains the word “logical”, there seems to be an inconsistency with regard to the opening of fisheries. At least, that's what we gather from a number of comments we've received.

How do you explain the fact that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans sometimes changes its core values? Does it still work on the basis of applied science? Is it possible that the minister sometimes insists that decisions be made in favour of one thing rather than another? Are your decisions always based on the same principles?

[Adam Burns]

Yes.

About 15 years ago, we established sustainability policies to guide stock management decisions.

In terms of the pelagic fisheries, we obviously have to make decisions very early on to make sure those stocks are protected.

With respect to northern cod, the decision is the result of a review of the model that was accepted in the fall of last year. We're now able to include data since the 1950s. Now that the model has more data and has been revised, we're able to know that the stock is in the cautious zone, or the orange zone, as it is called.

It was on this basis that the minister made the decision to reopen the commercial northern cod fishery, accompanied by a very small increase in the total allowable catch from 13,000 to 18,000 tonnes for Canada. The difference in risk to the stock compared to stewardship fishery is very slight.

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

Do the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Desbiens.

I know two and a half minutes is not very long.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Burns, I want to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on the question that you were just responding to Madame Desbiens about. I don't understand; I know there was a change in the model for the northern cod stock that led to this determination that northern cod has been in the cautious zone since 2016 instead of the critical zone. I heard you reference the fact that the data being used now goes back to 1954 instead of 1983, which is the number I have here. How does adding almost 30 years of data from 1954 to 1983 help us to understand the stock today and the decisions required on how to best move forward to protect the stock and ensure economic viability for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians?

[Adam Burns]

Mr. Chair, I'll ask my colleague, Bernard, to answer that question.

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

We now have, with the research that was done and the monitoring that was done over the year, a very robust new model not only to make projections for the next few years in terms of the biomass of the stock, but also, each time there's new data in a year, to re-estimate the historical biomass along the entire period. Previously, we were just using limited data from our survey. With the additional science that was done, we have access to much larger datasets, up to the fifties—

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

Thank you, Mr. Vigneault.

If I can just clarify, because I don't have a lot of time, how does adding data from 1954 help us today? This is what I'm not understanding. We're in very different circumstances with the climate crisis, with dwindling stocks. We have the overfishing that has occurred, that we're still recovering from. How does that data help us to make sound decisions today?

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

The added data helps us better understand the potential for the cod to reproduce, and we now know that they can recover. They can reproduce at a lower level than historically estimated.

The new model also takes account of environmental factors, including one of the main ones, the availability of capelin for the stock. That's another benefit of the new model that was adopted last fall.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Small for five minutes, please.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Burns, based on the statement he made that the stewardship fishery provided valuable data. His colleague Monsieur Vigneault has just said that he only had data from surveys.

Something's not adding up with this, Mr. Chair. Also, then, they're using data that goes back to 1954.

When did you analyze the logbook data from the stewardship fishery from 2020, 2021 and 2022?

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

Yes, I simplified too many things. There are large sets of data that go in addition to the survey, including—

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

You said that you only had the survey data.

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

That was the main basis of the model, but I—

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

When was the logbook data from 2020, 2021 and 2022—

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

They were assessed in the last stock assessment in March 2024.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

It was valuable data that you've collected since 2006, but on my order paper question last fall, which I received an answer to in December, those three years of logbook data that were provided from the stewardship fishery had not been looked at. If it's so valuable, why was it sitting there, not analyzed, for three years, when it could have led to economic opportunity for fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

I'm not aware of the details. I know that there were issues with COVID and the transition, but as I mentioned, in the last stock assessment they were analyzed, along with the data that comes from the—

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

If that data was valuable and the stewardship fishery was so important for providing valuable data, as Mr. Burns has stated, why did it take four years to analyze 2020 logbook data?

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

Again—

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Why would it take so long to analyze valuable data?