Fisheries Committee on Nov. 4th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 126 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

Before we proceed, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. Please address all comments through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Monday, September 16, the committee is resuming its study of the impact of the reopening of the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec.

Welcome to our witnesses on our panel today. We have, in the room, Mr. Glen Best, owner-operator and fish harvester. On Zoom, we have Ms. Sherrylynn Rowe, research scientist at the fisheries and marine institute of Memorial University. Of course, we also have Mr. Todd Russell, president of the NunatuKavut Community Council.

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

Mr. Best, you have the floor.

[Glen Best, Owner-Operator and Fish Harvester, As an Individual]

Good morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for allowing me the opportunity to present before the committee.

I'm an owner-operator harvester and, I believe, the only one who has appeared before this committee thus far. Our operation is a family operation and contributes to the rural economy of Fogo Island and surrounding areas. Over the years, we have invested millions into adapting and growing our business as the industry changed. Today, we have 17 employees on the water.

The moratorium on northern cod was called on July 2, 1992. I was a young harvester at that time, just barely 22 years old. My father, brother and I had invested every dollar we had and borrowed heavily from the bank to build a 55-foot longliner that cost $700,000 at the time. That vessel was built with the expectation that we'd be fishing groundfish, mainly cod.

History shows us that ecosystems are susceptible to environmental conditions, food supply, predator-prey relationships, and the list goes on. Humans have very little control over most of those variables, but the one thing we can control is the amount of fish we catch, who catches it and the method we use to catch it. To some extent, maybe we can exert some control over the politics of the fishery. Most times, the fish are on the losing end of the political side of the debate, I believe.

Some may think that the reopening of the northern cod is a time to celebrate and be proud of the hard work and sacrifices that have been made over the last 32 years. A lot of harvesters have gone through their careers in that time, and many more, like myself, are nearing the end of their careers. Since 1992, we have lost generations of harvesters and knowledge. Communities have declined and withered, and some have disappeared altogether. Kids like mine did not have the opportunity to experience the nearshore cod fishery first-hand, as we had transitioned to fishing offshore for days at a time. That opportunity disappeared with the moratorium.

I realize that cod could not and cannot sustain rural communities across Newfoundland and Labrador, as it was expected to do in the past. Fishing operations require large capital investments and incur significant expenses associated with the running of day-to-day operations. The crew expect and deserve to make a good, meaningful living.

Should we celebrate the re-establishment of the commercial cod fishery? Of course, and we can take comfort that the stock is on a path to recovery. However, I have to ask a question: Have we learned any lessons from 32 years of moratorium? To be quite blunt, I don't think we have.

This fishery has been reopened with an 18,000 metric ton quota. This quota is minuscule in terms of the TAC at the time of commercial closure, which was approximately 225,000 tonnes. I can stand to be corrected on that. Although our quota pales in comparison to historical values, the minister made the decision to establish this fishery as a commercial harvest. This eliminated the management scheme under a stewardship fishery. In doing so, the minister has opened the doors to a variety of pressures on a stock that science says is still not rebuilt.

With the end of the moratorium, Canada is now obligated to give NAFO 5% of the TAC, which it can fish in 3L, I've been told. Foreign fleets can now fish in Canadian waters. With the current shortage in observer coverage, monitoring of foreign vessels will be challenging. How can DFO be sure that foreign vessels will not take advantage of the lack of observer coverage? Past enforcement does not give me great confidence in the ability of DFO to ensure adherence to TACs.

The department has given access to domestic offshore trawler fleets, as well as to new entrants that will likely be fished by bottom trawling. Fair access is paramount in a public resource, but it must not be at the risk of the resource itself. The northern cod is still at the very early stages of growth. Trawling in the areas of pre-spawning and spawning biomass has the potential to disrupt fish behaviour and impede recovery. Additionally, bottom trawling is a non-selective technology that can have the potential for large amounts of bycatch, not to mention the disruption of the benthic habitat. Environmentally speaking, trawling is a carbon-intensive fishery. This is not management under the framework of the precautionary approach.

In conclusion, after three decades, we seem to be on a path to repeat the mistakes of the past. Politics still heavily influences the management of the northern cod. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador have, historically, felt that cod was used as a political pawn to be bartered for, for other interests of Canada—most recently, when the Prime Minister reneged on a commitment to allocate the first 115,000 metric ton to inshore and indigenous harvesters.

Bringing back this stock to commercial status at this time was hasty, when it could have continued as a stewardship fishery until such time that the cod stocks could withstand higher harvest levels.

I'll quote a friend about the cod. I think it's quite fitting: “The lowly cod asks so little but gives so much.” Maybe we should keep that in mind when we consider how we manage the stock.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Best.

We'll now go to Ms. Rowe for five minutes or less, please.

[Dr. Sherrylynn Rowe, Research Scientist, Fisheries and Marine Institute, Memorial University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for your invitation to participate in this study. I'm appearing today as an individual, but for context, I've been a faculty member in the centre for fisheries ecosystems research at the marine institute of Memorial University since 2011, having worked previously as a research scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

I've been studying cod in one capacity or another for more than two decades now, and it has been the focus of my university research program, where I've been looking at abundance, behaviour and life history to better understand and predict recovery dynamics in a changing ecosystem.

Today, I'd like to share my perspective on the announcement in June by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard to end the northern cod moratorium and re-establish a commercial fishery, which in 2024 would include a 46% increase in allowable catch to about 19,000 tonnes, as well as expanding access. Based on my experience, this would appear to be a risky strategy that potentially stands to jeopardize the current status of this iconic stock.

The reasoning for this is as follows.

First, although the stock has shown improvement and is now deemed to be in the cautious zone since 2016, it's not by any definition fully rebuilt or recovered and remains well below historical norms. To put it in perspective, in 1968, more than than 800,000 tonnes of northern cod was landed. That's more than double the 2024 spawning stock biomass estimate of about 342,000 tonnes.

Second, stock growth has also largely stalled since 2016, with short-term prospects appearing limited. Even in the absence of fishing, in 2027 the probability of stock decline from 2023 levels is 62%, with the probability of being in the critical zone at 42%. Increased levels of fishing stand to increase risk to the stock, leaving little to no scope for growth.

Third, in addition to increased total allowable catch, the 2024 management plan provided an allocation for domestic and foreign offshore fleets. Northern cod is a migratory species that disperses throughout inshore regions in pursuit of capelin, their preferred prey, in summer, and becomes highly aggregated in offshore regions in winter as they prepare to spawn.

Some of the highest catch rates ever achieved in this fishery were accomplished by offshore draggers fishing on these dense overwintering and spawning aggregations. Some of my early research on cod described complex reproductive behaviour, with fishing on spawning aggregations demonstrated to disrupt shoals, potentially leading to reduced spawning success.

To safeguard cod during the spawning season, the 2024 plan reportedly includes a fishing closure spanning April 15 to June 30, but because of uncertainties regarding where and when cod spawn, it's really unclear whether or not this offers adequate protection.

Moving forward, what I'd like to see is priority research to address some key science gaps, including around the timing and location of spawning. I'd be especially keen to see updated data for the region off Labrador. We know that cod have returned here in recent years, and this area may be especially important to stock production.

I'd also call for further evaluation of the northern cod assessment model, including the accuracy of the catch bounds that are being used. NCAM, as it's known, is an impressive model that uses data from many sources. It was updated in October 2023, but questions remain about how it partitions mortality between fishing and other natural causes. This might not sound like a big deal, but it's really key to our understanding of cod population dynamics and our ability to make accurate projections as well as sound management decisions.

I'd also like to see increased engagement for resource conservation. Following the cod collapse, there was a recognized need for a more comprehensive approach to fisheries science and management, which, among other things, led to the formation of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, or FRCC.

The FRCC brought together stakeholders to provide a forum for transparent communication and participation in decisions about resource conservation and scientific priorities, but unfortunately was disbanded in 2011. Given ongoing issues in the industry and new challenges presented by climate change, the need for an all-hands-on-deck approach has never been greater, and measures should be taken to foster improved engagement and communication.

Some questions that merit discussion, for instance, might include these. What should a reopened commercial northern cod fishery look like in 2024? Who should have access? What types of gear should be used? How do we balance potentially conflicting objectives? During the pandemic, there was a lot of talk about building back better. Given that we've waited 32 years for a renewed cod fishery, shouldn't the same logic apply here?

Finally, I'd like to call for increased government transparency and evidence-based decision-making. Northern cod stock growth has been stalled since 2016, and the assessment model suggests biomass declines may be anticipated even in the absence of a fishery. Management actions in this situation should promote stock growth.

What, then, was the basis for an expanded fishery in 2024, given that it potentially stands to compromise cod stock status? The fishery in Canada is a common property resource to be managed for the benefit of all Canadians. In the case of northern cod, it would appear we deserve some answers.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Rowe.

We'll now go to Mr. Russell for five minutes or less.

[Todd Russell, President, NunatuKavut Community Council]

Ulaakut, Chair and honourable members.

Toddiuvunga. My name is Todd Russell. I'm a proud Inuk and the president of the NunatuKavut Community Council, or NCC, representing approximately 7,000 Inuit from south and central Labrador.

NunatuKavut means “our ancient land” and refers to our ancestral territory. Our ancestors have had a close and intimate relationship with the land, ice and waters of NunatuKavut since time immemorial, certainly long before European contact. NunatuKavut Inuit are the beneficiaries of the British-Inuit Peace Treaty of 1765. This treaty is well documented. As a people, we uphold and celebrate it today.

My people in NunatuKavut have relied on marine resources tracing back to antiquity, with northern cod subsistence and commercial harvesting deeply embedded in our history and culture. It is also well documented that our ancestors stopped to fish cod on the way to the treaty event itself. The survival of NCC's fishery and our future prosperity hinge on access to and allocation of northern cod and other marine resources adjacent to NunatuKavut.

Communities like Black Tickle, Mary's Harbour, the historic site of Battle Harbour and the many fishing places along our coast—Chateau Bay, Seal Islands, Indian Tickle, Grady, Cartwright and on to Fish Cove Point—contain irrefutable evidence of our Inuit forebears and the places where they pursued and we today continue to pursue our livelihoods. Our attachment with, dependence on and adjacency to the northern cod resource are indisputable.

The NunatuKavut Community Council has never accepted the contemporary history of the allocation approach for northern cod. That approach, in our opinion, ensured the decline of our communities, marginalization and lost opportunities. It was an embarrassment that defies what is expected under the norms of equitable fisheries management. The minister's decision of June 26, 2024, was an important step in recognizing and redressing very long-standing issues for NunatuKavut, Inuit and other peoples residing on the Labrador coast.

I would like to take a brief minute to provide some historical context.

The post-1900 era in the Atlantic Canadian fisheries, particularly off NunatuKavut, was marked by the arrival of rapacious industrialized fishing that interrupted hundreds of years of fisheries in NunatuKavut. Foreign factory fleets descended on the Hamilton Bank after World War II, through to the late 1960s, pillaging the great cod resource off our shores. Canada's offshore fleet followed in the late 1970s. This later effort was coincident with a confluence of public policy and other decisions that resulted in the repeated financial collapse of the offshore sector, underperforming inshore fisheries, attendant fishery restructuring and the declaration of the 200-mile limit, to name a few.

However, none of this restructuring or allocation of vast quantities of fish in NAFO division 2J was to lift up the historically disadvantaged communities in NunatuKavut.

The state or health of the northern cod stock has always been under debate, and so it is today. There is never absolute certainty, but the NCC is comfortable with the minister's conservative TAC level for 2024, and in the science and management process we engaged in this past year. Over the past five years, the catch has gone up annually while the snow crab and shrimp fisheries have declined. Bringing back the cod fishery has already been extremely meaningful for our communities. Hundreds of our people are engaged in the fishery again along the coast of Labrador—in harvesting and processing, and in managing and administrating the fishery. This has brought hope and optimism back to our communities. The fishery itself has even given rise to housing starts in our little fishing communities. It really is a historical time.

When it comes to codfish, let's look at history again and today. The historical catch and scientific records confirm one thing: The preponderance of the northern cod resource has an affinity with the NunatuKavut coast. From the seventies to the eighties, it has averaged over 40% of the northern cod biomass observed in NAFO division 2J. Almost 35 years later, it is back to 50% of the biomass and 60% of the abundance observed off NunatuKavut.

The mere fact that the resource occurs predominantly off NunatuKavut—we are adjacent—is a sufficient premise within accepted resource management practices to allocate a substantial percentage of the resource to the NunatuKavut Community Council and our fishers.

The resource base currently available to the NCC and to our fleet, which is composed predominantly of NCC member harvesters, is now limited to small quantities of snow crab, northern shrimp and northern cod, with the latter becoming of greater significance over the past five years as shellfish quotas have been severely reduced. Other pelagic species and lobster are not found in much abundance off the coast of Labrador. It is cod and other groundfish adjacent to NunatuKavut that will matter to NCC harvesters and processors for the foreseeable future.

The NCC does not take away the rightful access of other interests to northern cod, but as you can appreciate from this retrospective, we are unwilling to concede our position on adjacency, priority access and allocations of this resource.

Despite much resistance, litigation and persistence, indigenous groups, including ours, are now being included in these allocation decisions—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Russell. You've gone over the five-minute time.

We'll go to our rounds of questioning.

[Todd Russell]

Nakurmiik. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Hopefully, anything you didn't get to say will come out in the rounds of questioning.

We'll start off with Mr. Small for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for taking part today. My first question is for Mr. Best, through the chair.

If the promise had not been made to the inshore fleet and the FFAW that they'd have full access to the first 115,000 metric tons, do you think we would even be here today?

[Glen Best]

That might be a complicated question, but to sum it up, I'd probably say no.

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

Mr. Best, based on your experience on the water, how are you finding the catch rates of northern cod? Do you think there's been a significant recovery based on catch rates and your knowledge on the water?

[Glen Best]

Yes. I can speak.... We do most of our fishing.... I'm from Fogo Island, the community of Fogo. We fish most of our cod about 40 miles north-northeast of Fogo, and there's a lot of effort contained there from vessels from all up and down the coast, fishing from 2J to 3L and 3K. We are seeing really good catch rates.

We use a technology called longline, which is a Mustad system, and we use hooks. In that industry, getting three-quarters of a pound to one pound per hook is considered good fishing. On our last trip, we averaged two pounds per hook. In two days, we had 40,000 pounds of cod, so we're seeing really good catch rates.

Now, I can't speak for the 3L area, but from what I hear from other harvesters, from Labrador right up to 3L, the fish are distributed all along the coast and there seems to be an abundance of cod. That's from my personal observation.

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

Thank you.

My next question has to do with Mr. Adam Burns, who's the assistant deputy minister. In his testimony several weeks ago, he said the minister had decided to re-establish the commercial fishery for northern cod with the increase in quota because it would provide year-round employment in the northern cod fishery.

How is that playing out?

[Glen Best]

I don't see how it's going to provide year-round employment. The cod fishery for the inshore started in July and the TAC was taken by the end of September, and it was reopened a bit more for October. Now that we see there are offshore interest groups that are going.... The department just made the announcement that it opened on November 3 and the fishery will be open until April 25. It gives them the opportunity to fish all through the winter, but they don't have enough quota to fish all through the winter at this stage, so I don't see how it's going to provide year-round employment.

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

My next question is for Ms. Rowe.

You have a lot of experience in studying northern cod. With the absence of trawl surveys in 2020, 2021 and 2022, and the 2023 survey being, on average, about three weeks early, how accurate can the current stock assessment be?

[Dr. Sherrylynn Rowe]

The stock assessment and the assessment model use data from a variety of sources. It's not just the research vessel survey, although that does feature prominently, no doubt. They also use information from commercial catch rates, sentinel surveys, inshore juvenile surveys and so on. There's a lot of data that feed into this evaluation.

During the last few years, survey coverage hasn't been where anyone would like it to be. Of course, there are new vessels involved. That was part of the challenge. I guess it came down to a case of short-term pain for long-term gain, because with the change in vessel, efforts had to be taken to make sure that these vessels were fishing in a similar way and we could continue on the time series. That work's been undertaken and was looked at extensively as part of the last assessment.

What I would say is that, given some of the issues that you raise, there are some uncertainties around how that may have impacted the assessment. However, generally speaking, I think we can have a high degree of confidence in the information that's there.

Is it maybe a perfect estimate of stock status? No, but there's no reason to think that there are significant issues with it at the present time.

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

Thank you.

In his testimony as well, Mr. Burns didn't spell it out, but he indicated that the decision to change the stewardship fishery to a commercial fishery was partially because we were going to have to re-establish NAFO's access.

Are you aware of any undue pressure from NAFO to re-establish their access to northern cod?

[Dr. Sherrylynn Rowe]

I have had no direct interaction with the NAFO process whatsoever. I really can't comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

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

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Through you, Chair, to Mr. Russell, did I understand you correctly when you stated that you were comfortable with the ministerial decision on northern cod for this year?

[Todd Russell]

Yes, Mr. Morrissey, that's right. I did say that we were comfortable with that particular decision. That particular decision really aligned with submissions that we had made to the minister some months prior to that particular decision being made.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Are you aware that a number of presenters before the committee have expressed concern and indicated that they had questions about the minister's decision? Do you not support that particular narrative?

[Todd Russell]

Absolutely. We actually went to court within the last few weeks. The FFAW, for instance, went to the court to seek an injunction to basically stay the fishery as it currently exists. They have also applied for a judicial review of the minister's decision. We opposed that particular application by the FFAW, and we were successful on that particular application.

The court agreed that, on the application for an injunction, there would be no irreparable harm to the resource or to the FFAW for this plan to go forward. In fact, the court said that there would be more harm done to groups like ours if the fishery did not proceed, because of the attendant benefits that would accrue from that particular fishery.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Russell.

Could you briefly outline the communities you represent or the individuals who are benefiting from northern cod?