Fisheries Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2024

[Dr. Lyne Morissette]

The short answer is yes. More and more technologies and management approaches are being tested, and they are proving effective. All kinds of solutions have been tested in the past six years. It is possible to enhance the coexistence of fishers and the first nations, while also protecting at-risk species.

It will not be easy, but it is feasible. Concrete solutions are currently being tested in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and we have proof that it is possible.

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

It's hard to cover every aspect of the topic. We could talk about it for a week.

Ms. Morissette, what does the Fisheries Act lack to ensure that everyone gets involved and that all stakeholders' concerns come across clearly?

As you said earlier, fishers must be invited to the discussion table. You recently took part in a fishery forum held in my constituency. According to some fishers, the shrimp population remains satisfactory. Unfortunately, the population of certain species, such as mackerel, is declining.

My father worked as a fisher his entire life. If I asked him what he thought, he would say that there have always been and will always be fish. How can we obtain a fair and accurate picture of the situation? How can we encourage all stakeholders to work together?

What should the government do to find a win‑win solution and truly improve the Fisheries Act?

[Dr. Lyne Morissette]

You must set up a framework that fosters a relationship of trust. People need to feel that their views are taken into account.

I have participated in a number of your meetings. I have often spoken about environmental mediation. This approach is rarely used in the environmental sector. Yet it's a formal process with standards and a proven track record. I think that it's a highly useful tool for fisheries management.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

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

Thank you, Ms. Morissette.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll now go to Madam Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us.

Ms. Morissette, I know that you're busy. I want you to know that we're pleased to have you here.

You talked a great deal about environmental mediation. You also spoke at length about it at the last Bloc Québécois symposium.

Can you briefly explain how it can be incorporated into the Fisheries Act?

How can this concept be more clearly defined? Environmental mediation could resolve a number of issues and help restore trust between people working in the field and people in the department.

[Dr. Lyne Morissette]

Mediation is a formula. It's a multi‑step approach to finding solutions or compromises when a conflict divides people at the discussion table. This method has proved its worth in all sorts of fields. Family mediation and workplace mediation come to mind.

The fisheries sector is facing a number of major challenges. Some species are endangered and some stocks are disappearing. We don't have the luxury of bypassing the knowledge of people, whoever they may be.

To make the most of their knowledge, people must be able to talk to each other. This means building trust. We need to rebuild that trust these days. People work in isolation and trust is somewhat undermined. The first step is to restore it.

On a positive note, environmental mediation is a highly structured formula that can easily be incorporated into legislation. A number of pieces of legislation in various fields already stipulate the need to use mediation in the event of disputes, when topics give rise to conflict or when work fails to progress quickly enough.

New Zealand is an innovator in this field. It has incorporated mediation into environmental issues. I think that we could do the same here.

Canada is bordered by three oceans. It can benefit from rich and wide‑ranging knowledge. We must be able to integrate as much of this knowledge as possible into the processes to ensure the most effective solutions available.

It's also a race against time. We must address a number of challenges. We can't wait 15 years to find solutions. We need to act quickly. The more we work together, the more effective and swiftly applicable the solutions will be.

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

If we had mediation, would it win out over the political propensity for hasty decisions just to make certain people happy?

Can we provide industry people who have lost confidence with the reassurance that mediation will transcend politics and encourage an interdisciplinary approach, such as including sociologists in consultations?

There's a cultural element to the fishing industry. In the Magdalen Islands, everything—life, tourism, family—revolves around fishing.

In your opinion, how can we ensure that everyone will be satisfied with the act?

How can we prioritize mediation and avoid inappropriate political meddling?

[Dr. Lyne Morissette]

The first step in mediation is to make sure all the parties, no matter how many there are, understand that they are all on equal footing even if their reality, their priorities and their objectives are different. Everyone is equal. For mediation to work, people really have to work collaboratively and horizontally, not hierarchically.

It's a big challenge. This isn't how governments work. Normally, the department take precedence over everyone else and takes whatever it wants from coastal communities. When it's the government versus a small fisher standing on the end of their wharf, some people are obviously going to have a hard time grasping the concepts of unilateralism and hierarchy.

We need to start by rethinking our relationship to the evolution and preservation of our ecosystems. That means breaking down the silos and the hierarchical structure to put all stakeholders on a level playing field. During mediation, an independent third party facilitates discussions and mediation. The stakeholders are on a level playing field; none of them are subordinate to the others.

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

This is all very interesting.

Lastly, what are your thoughts on having experts, such as sociologists, participate in the process? There are measures in place, but there has to be a way to consult experts on implementing laws in a specific social context, people who can explain the possible repercussions on an entire coastal economy, say.

Have you considered this approach? Do you think there's a way to incorporate that into this kind of mediation?

[Dr. Lyne Morissette]

Yes, it can be done. We do have to break down silos.

That said, fisheries issues are complex. The right whale situation is a good example of that. The right whale is a species at risk, and the problem is currently being managed via provisions relating to crab and lobster fishing, which have nothing to do with species preservation. It also poses many social and economic challenges.

Academics have started working in an interdisciplinary way. It's much faster and more efficient, because you can look at a problem through a number of different lenses. It works. There are even oceanographers who work with artists.

These people offer interesting perspectives, and it is important to integrate them into these processes. We need to break down the silos and work together as much as possible.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to the witnesses today.

Through the chair, my first questions are going to be for you, Mr. Williams.

At the end of your opening statement, you talked about the DFO Pacific region going through another engagement process. I'm wondering if you can share at a high level what's going on there.

I know that we had an engagement process that happened since my time in this position and that there were many problems that occurred. The questions were problematic. They went to people that perhaps they shouldn't have gone to and didn't go to people that they should have gone to.

I'm hearing that it's going through another engagement process around whether it needs to be fixed. This is highly concerning to me. Can you share a little bit around what's happening? Could you share more information?

[Richard Williams]

It launched in the summer. It's an engagement process. It's called their modernization process. It has five, I think, agenda items on it, including transparency around ownership data and foreign ownership. Number five on the list is licensing policy without any specific or concrete mention of what the issue to be addressed in relation to licensing policy is.

I would say that the people conducting the engagement process seem to be making a very concerted and genuine effort to reach people who are often not involved in these kinds of processes. They're not just going to the standard advisory committees and to the major stakeholders; they're making a real effort at the community level and in the various industry sectors. I think that part is positive.

The part that is a bit disturbing to those of us who have been involved in this for some time is that, again, they kind of seem to be starting from square one. They seem to not really have any kind of foundation in terms of the work that's already done, particularly the extremely important work done by this committee but also by the provincial government.

The provincial government has come out very strongly endorsing development of an owner-operator licensing regime. That's built into the new coastal marine strategy that the B.C. government has announced. The Premier of B.C. has written to the Prime Minister saying that it's time to transition to an owner-operator licensing model. The major alliance of coastal first nations in British Columbia has endorsed the transition to an owner-operator licensing model.

It's very discouraging that this modernization engagement exercise doesn't seem to start from that place. It seems to go back to even before the first FOPO report and ask basic questions about what's going on in the fishery.

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

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

I was just looking through the list of recommendations that we put forward as a committee in 2023 and trying to find the exact recommendation here or where in the report it speaks to it, but this seems to be in direct contradiction to what it is that we talked about as a committee and the recommendations that we put forward. I appreciate your bringing this to our attention. I think it is important for us to be reviewing this and finding out how to best move forward.

There's another piece, Mr. Williams, and I need to be fairly quick on this. You talked about 800 fishing jobs being lost since 2019.

Do you have any quick insights as to why you think there is such a difference of treatment between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts here in Canada?

[Richard Williams]

The major factor is that the majority of enterprises on the west coast rely heavily on the leasing of access rights in order to be able to continue their businesses. On the east coast, the majority of small boat inshore enterprises have a lobster licence or a snow crab licence as the foundation for their enterprise. That's almost a career for a captain and crew once they have that. They're not so reliant from year to year on getting into different....

In B.C., there isn't that sort of foundational fish stock that you can build a business around. The industry there depends on access. Because of the ownership of licences by non-fishing interests, that comes at a high price. Seventy per cent to 80% of landed value goes to pay leasing fees.

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

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

Ms. Fuller, I have been in correspondence with you around deep seabed mining. I think this is applicable to what we're talking about today. We have a lack of clear information around the actual ecosystem that we have in our deep seabeds. We know that the seabed acts as a form of carbon sequestration, basically capturing and storing carbon compounds from the environment.

I'm wondering if you could speak about why you feel it's essential that we see leadership being taken by Canada to protect our deep seabeds at a time when we're seeing the climate changing so rapidly as a result of the climate crisis.

[Susanna Fuller]

I think it's one of the few opportunities we have to make sure we understand the impacts of an industry before it starts. I think we're increasingly understanding the role of the deep ocean in carbon sequestration. I also think we don't understand the impacts on our fisheries. We know that the plumes from test mining can go up to 1,000 kilometres away from that test mine.

There are now 32 countries around the world that have said they don't want deep seabed mining until and unless we fully understand the impacts. Norway, just yesterday or the day before, actually decided not to go ahead with leasing. It's an industry that we don't need right now. I think that we have lots of other technological solutions.

We're fairly pleased that Canada has said that we're not establishing regulations or a path forward on deep seabed mining. I think the other thing in Canada is that the resources that have been identified on the west coast are now in a protected area. We don't allow mining in our protected areas. I think we need to solidify that position, particularly given what we're talking about here and the importance of the fishery to first nations and coastal communities. We really can't do anything to jeopardize that renewable resource for what is a non-renewable resource and is just not needed at this time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Williams, I'll start out you.

You talked quite a bit about the owner-operator issue and what's in place on the Atlantic coast, not necessarily on the Pacific coast. Are the legislative pieces and regulations to manage owner-operator issues in place on the east coast?

[Richard Williams]

They are, yes.

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

Are they being adequately enforced on the east coast?

[Richard Williams]

People in the industry, I think, would say no. They feel that there are still companies and other investors that are getting away with various kinds of under-the-table ways of controlling licences and so on. In particular, in Newfoundland and Labrador, there are challenges. I think the emerging kind of reality is that, with some of the demographic challenges and so on, a lot of harvesters are at retirement age, and licences are changing hands. It's not only companies that are finding ways to control. You're also seeing rich fishermen kind of buying out and building up enterprises where multiple licences are stacked within an enterprise. There are ways of disguising that and putting the licence in somebody's name, etc.

There certainly are enforcement issues. Overall, the industry leaders in the harvesting sector that I'm in touch with strongly appreciate what has been done since the new Fisheries Act and the regulations but are pushing for better enforcement.