Fisheries Committee on Dec. 9th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 134 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. For those in the room, you 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 by the committee on Thursday, February 8, 2024, the committee is resuming its study of the Fisheries Act review.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses on the first panel. On Zoom we have Nikki Skuce, the director of Northern Confluence, and Claire Canet, project manager for the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie.

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

Ms. Skuce, you have the floor for the first five minutes.

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

Mr. Chair, I have a question of privilege.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes, Mr. Perkins

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

I would like to move a question of privilege.

I apologize to the witnesses, but the House of Commons Standing Orders require that a question of privilege be moved at the earliest opportunity.

I'm raising a question of privilege related to the Minister of Fisheries' testimony on estimates last week. The minister misled this committee in response to my questions on enforcement in the Bay of Fundy. The minister said on December 4 that, effectively, this work started with fisheries associations. That was in relation to consultations.

I have letters and have had conversations over the weekend with most of the groups attached to me. They were shocked to learn that the minister made such a claim, because none of them had been consulted by the minister.

Given that, I would like to move the following privilege motion, Mr. Chair:

Given that,

(a) Minister Lebouthillier told the committee, on December 4, 2024, “Effectively, this work started with fisheries associations” in reference to the department's work on fisheries enforcement in the Bay of Fundy; and

(b) various fisheries associations have advised committee members that no such consultations or discussions were held with any interested stakeholders, including the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association, Brazil Rock 33/34 Lobster Association, Coldwater Lobster Association, Scotia Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association, Cape Breton Fish Harvesters Association, Eastern Shore Fishermen's Protective Association, Fundy North Fishermen’s Association, Gulf Nova Scotia Bonafide Fishermen’s Association, Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association and Richmond County Inshore Fishermen’s Association;

the committee instruct the analysts to prepare a report to the House forthwith, outlining Minister Diane Lebouthillier’s potential breach of privilege.

That motion, I believe, has been circulated. The clerk can circulate it to members when available.

It is an important issue when a member's privilege is breached. When the minister comes before a committee on estimates, she's expected to tell the truth.

I asked, as I do, a forthright question that was very clear and unambiguous in either language. I asked how much consultation and discussion she did in enforcement. In fact, I held up the DFO response to my Order Paper question, which showed that absolutely no enforcement is going on.

This isn't the first time the minister, both before this committee and publicly with the media, has claimed that there was a lot of enforcement going on. Not only that, she claimed she was talking to fishing associations.

I'll read what some of these associations have written to me as a result of the minister's statement.

Heather Mulock from the Coldwater Lobster Association wrote that she was watching the committee testimony, and I would like to point out that there has been no consultation between the Coldwater Lobster Association and the federal minister on enforcement in the Bay of Fundy since the minister, Lebouthillier, has been appointed, not just since summer. She says any indication otherwise is untrue.

This is from Dan Fleck, with the Brazil Rock Lobster Association. Dan is a former DFO employee. He wrote that in regard to the minister's statement in FOPO, she has not been working with associations. He has never met with her. He had one 15-minute phone call over a year ago. He said she and her DMs have not attended a southwest Nova Scotia, SWNS, association meeting. He said in September 2024, a weekly call commenced with local C and P, a 20-minute call, during which he was told, “Can't talk about ongoing operations, and we see some traps from unknown persons. We made an arrest, which may or may not have been in southwest Nova Scotia.”

There has been no consultation going on with these groups.

Colin Sproul, who represents Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, the largest fishing organization in the Maritimes, representing almost 5,000 harvesters, wrote to me. He said the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance is not being consulted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Perkins, we have a point of order from Mr. Morrissey.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

I just put my hand up to speak when he's done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I thought it was a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

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

Colin Sproul, who speaks for the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, which represents about a dozen fishing organizations and almost 5,000 harvesters in the Maritimes, wrote that the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance is not being consulted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in any meaningful way in any hopes of improving fishery enforcement on the Bay of Fundy. He said they continue to be ignored while their fisheries and communities descend into chaos and that any statements otherwise are misleading and dismissive of the crisis that continues to widen across the Maritimes. He said they are ready and willing to sit down at any table to collaborate on fishing conservation.

These are important statements by the most important fishing associations in the Maritimes, which totally contradict the minister's assertion before this committee that she was consulting with these associations and talked to these associations this summer. Most of these associations—all of them, in fact—have said they have never talked to her on any issue, let alone on conservation.

For the minister to sit here and tell members of Parliament in a parliamentary committee that she started on the enforcement issue and consulted with associations is a fabrication. It's unconscionable and it's a breach of the privilege of members of Parliament.

Can we have a Minister of Fisheries come here and acknowledge the fact that they have not done their job? The fact is that the minister has never come to southwest Nova Scotia and met with any fishing groups. She has never even picked up the phone and called any southwestern Nova Scotia fishing groups on the issue of enforcement or any other issue. However, when pressed here, she said she started by consulting with the fishing associations. That's clearly not true.

In fact, on a number of occasions, these groups, in particular the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, asked this summer for meetings with the minister and the minister's office. Guess how many meetings happened. There were none. The minister has the gall to sit here in committee in the middle of a fishing crisis that's built up over six Liberal fisheries ministers, particularly numbers four, five and six, who ignored everything and all the poaching that is and has been going on in the lobster fishery.

Lobster fishery reports in the first two weeks of the season in southwest Nova Scotia show that catches are down over 30% over last year's December catch, which was a terrible year. After seven to eight years of illegal poaching in the birthplace of lobster, St. Marys Bay, where lobsters from New England and all over Nova Scotia go to breed and are fished in the summer with 10,000 traps, there is zero enforcement. By the minister's own numbers, out of 10,000 traps, they seized 239 this past summer. That is not enforcement; that's a joke, and they're destroying livelihoods.

Could there be some connection? Do you know? I don't know if members on this committee realize that it takes seven years for lobster to grow to the minimum size to catch them.

Is it shocking to members that the minister doesn't seem to care? This minister knows, after seven or eight years of poaching, that we're finding year after year in southwest Nova Scotia that the catch is down, and it's down because we've gone back to pre-1977.

Do you know what happened in 1977? I will give credit to a former minister of fisheries, Roméo LeBlanc, who said this had to stop. We were down to 23,000 metric tons of lobster catching, so they created the lobster fishing areas and said no longer was anyone going to fish year-round because fishing year-round and when lobsters were breeding would destroy the stock. We're not even sure now that dropping from 100,000 metric tons down to 23,000 metric tons is actually going to—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I don't think you can raise points of order, Mr. Hardie.

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

I don't think you can raise points order in a privilege discussion, but I'll leave it to the chair.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Who knows? You could even challenge that this is a point of order.

I think the honourable member is litigating the issue. Until we've heard both sides.... He's raised the issue. It would be useful if he went right to what he sees now as the resolution. What would he like to have happen now?

We have witnesses here, at their time and expense, and we would obviously like to get to them. This is not to diminish what the honourable member has brought up, but can we put a bow on this one and get on with the business of the Fisheries Act?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Is that for me to rule on?

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

Was that a point of order or a point of debate?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

A question of privilege takes precedence, as the member said.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor.

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

Thank you.

The whole point of creating these areas was so that the fishery was not fished when lobsters were breeding. The result is that we've gone up to about 130,000 metric tons, which is a decline in the last couple of years. To that point, it's why enforcement is so critical but is not happening.

The minister has had lots of opportunity since she became minister to ask her department what is really going on. She's had lots of opportunity to talk to the actual groups, which she has chosen not to do. She has had lots of opportunity to come to Nova Scotia and meet with the groups. If she doesn't have that courage, then at least she should have picked up the phone when these groups were asking for meetings with her on enforcement.

It got so bad this summer that the local head of C and P admitted to the Scotia Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association after their protest in New Brunswick that they had had zero enforcement in the Bay of Fundy. It's because that group threatened to go on the water within three days and enforce the law that DFO sent in some boats—and as the police say, showed them the doors—for four or five days to try to calm everything down. Those were the only four or five days when there was any enforcement whatsoever on the Bay of Fundy this summer.

For the minister to come here after all of that.... If she didn't hear it directly from the groups, she might have read it in the paper and in the newspaper clips she would have been given by her team, at least to see. It was all over the news. If she wasn't willing to read the newspaper clips, she could have seen the TV clips on it. If she didn't know which channel to look at or which website to look at, she could have looked at her favourite one, CBC, which has been covering this all summer, both on TV and in person. For some reason, the minister was still oblivious to that and came here and claimed that she had started on enforcement consultation with fishing groups.

The evidence is clear. I can table and will table all of these notes from the associations. The process, as I understand it, Mr. Chair, is that the clerk prepares a report on this for you to present to the House and the Speaker, if it is felt that the minister has breached privilege. That requires not only the words of the minister here, which are self-evident, but also the response from the fishing groups, which I can provide to this committee so they and the clerk can take a look at them and even double-check and call those folks. They'd be more than willing, I'm sure, to talk to the research analysts and the clerks as to whether or not they agree with me that the minister misled this committee.

To Mr. Hardie's point, I will leave it there, because I'm sure there are others who want to comment on this. I'll reserve to come back later if I need to add anything further.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I have Mr. Morrissey.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Well, the premise of Mr. Perkins's question of privilege is his reference to the minister stating that she consulted. For somebody to rule that there was a privilege violation, they would have to understand the thought process that the minister had when she made that comment.

Consulting as a minister is both plural and singular. A minister can reference that they began consulting by simply having the staff of the department that's responsible advise and go through that. Mr. Perkins is leading us to believe that ministers themselves would have to be present and engaging with everybody, knowing that this simply could not be the case.

Any minister would have access to information and be briefed on information using a plurality of the mediums they have access to. I was confident that the minister was providing accurate information. Also, it's important for this committee to note that the minister is a francophone and that in understanding the questioning and giving answers, things sometimes get lost. However, to view that a member's privilege was violated by the minister saying she consulted because a member has pointed out that the minister was not on the ground in the area to talk to people...really? A minister would, as any politician, be valid in indicating that they consulted by using various methods, including being briefed by department personnel and others on exactly what may be happening in an area.

Mr. Chair, I do not feel there was any breach of privilege, but that's not for me to decide; that's for you as a chair. I think it's important to note that it would have to be clear that the minister knowingly provided an erroneous answer and that the minister knew it was erroneous. That's a tall order.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'll now go to Ms. Barron.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I was just reading up on how questions of privilege work and the process.

There are a couple things to note. First of all, I want to thank MP Perkins for bringing forward this concern and the concerns being brought forward by associations in his riding. I think if information was not clear or was untruthful, it is important that we talk about it. I'll be honest. I don't feel the minister, quite frankly, answered my questions very well either when I was here, but that's a whole different story.

I have a few questions that I was hoping MP Perkins could answer, and then we can take it from there. Are there any other associations that aren't listed in this motion that the minister could have been referencing? That was the first question that came to mind. The other question is this: Was there a process of trying to receive clarification from the minister on what she was referencing when she said she had done consultation?

The other thing that stands out to me is that, while this is a breach of privilege motion, the motion itself says that there's a “potential breach of privilege”. The two don't coincide for me. Is it a breach of privilege or is it a potential breach of privilege, and does that change our process moving forward? I know the process, if there is a breach of privilege, is that the committee write a letter to be presented to the House, as was being described, but if we don't have actual evidence of that breach of privilege, what is our process moving forward?

It's not that I agree or disagree; I'm just asking for more information. If there isn't evidence of a true breach of privilege, would it be more appropriate for us to, for example, write a letter to the minister asking for answers to the questions and then determine whether there is a breach of privilege based on the minister's response?

I'm just trying to make sure that we're moving forward in the most effective manner to get the answers we need so we can decide as a committee how we want to move forward. However, just to clarify, I do agree with the concerns, and my goal is to have us move forward in the most effective way to bring to light the concerns that MP Perkins has brought to the table today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Bragdon.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate you allowing me to speak about this.

What Mr. Perkins brought to the floor is very important. It's a matter of him doing his job in representing the concerns of his constituents and key stakeholders in the industry. We're dealing with people's livelihoods. They have huge concerns, and a lot of frustration has built up over a number of years. All of us around this table—I just haven't spent time with you—want to do everything we can to ensure there's a future healthy stock of lobster and fish so the livelihoods and ways of life of many Canadians, coastal Canadians in particular, are protected.

Mr. Perkins raised this to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Wait one second, Mr. Bragdon.

Ms. Barron and Mr. Perkins, if you want to have a conversation, could you take it outside? I'm hearing three voices coming through.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Bragdon.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I feel it's very important that this is taken seriously and that a determination is made on it. It is about not only his parliamentary privilege but also the privilege of every one of us at this table. If we're not getting accurate, forthright and honest information when questions are asked, it's hard to make good decisions, do accurate reports and put together recommendations, especially when a minister is speaking about something. That carries weight, especially in the determination of what kind of report will come back and what recommendations will be given.

We have to ensure that the feedback being given by the minister is accurate, honest and forthright and that it does not mislead the people most affected by these decisions, nor the members of Parliament around this table. I appreciate any consideration that the clerk, the team and the chair can give to this matter.

We can certainly find out about this. To me, it's very apparent, based on the feedback we got directly from stakeholders.... You would think that any minister who is doing their job seriously and is concerned about the future of the fishery in that region would be communicating and consulting with the very groups named by Mr. Perkins. If not, there's something severely lacking, because they are the ones who represent the people whose livelihoods will be directly impacted by the action or inaction of a particular minister.

I really think the committee deserves a clear answer on this. Canadians deserve a clear answer on this.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Go ahead, Mr. Small.