Fisheries Committee on April 13th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

If that is the case, that hour has been exhausted.

Before you exit, I want to say thank you to you and your officials. I know they're staying for the second hour. I believe this is the 17th meeting that this committee has held, and you've been at three of them, so I want to thank you for that. It surely shows your interest in the committee and what we're doing as a committee.

Again, thank you for your appearance today.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks for the commitment of all committee members, as I said before, to use a constituency week to prepare for and attend this committee meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you again.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll go now to our next round of questioning, starting with Mr. Perkins for five minutes or less.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to the minister and officials for their time.

I'd like to go back to where I left off. I assume, Mr. Chair, we'll allow Deputy Minister Sargent to be the gatekeeper as to who should answer the question so I don't have to direct it to whichever official.

Getting the science right was one of the things the minister said in response to, I think, Mr. Small's questions, and it is critical for this. I'm going to go back to the fact that we've had now, for at least a decade, an integrated fisheries management plan for capelin in the 4RST area and, I believe, for the other main area where capelin is fished, 2J3KL, off Newfoundland. However, the department seems to do science differently in that the other area, 2J3KL, in that it has a regular abundance survey done—

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

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, the interpretation isn't working. I waited a little while, but I can confirm that it's not working at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Okay. We'll get that checked on, because I'm not getting interpretation on what you just said.

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

The interpretation is working again.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

It seems to be there now, so we'll continue.

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

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I also have a bit of my COVID cough still, so I'll try not to cough into the microphone.

I won't repeat what I already said...or should I start again on that for Madame Desbiens? Should I start over on my question?

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

I would have like that, yes, but I don't want to waste your time.

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

It's never a waste of time.

I'm just going to pick up where I left off before. The minister said that getting the science right, obviously, is something we all aspire to, and I'm going to come back to the fact that one of the most vital parts of the science for capelin in NAFO 4RST doesn't seem to be done. We've had a plan for more than 10 years. The integrated fisheries management plan talks about maybe getting a plan to do a plan on the science. I'm not getting an answer particularly on when or how long that's been going on.

Meanwhile, off of Newfoundland, in 2J3KL, DFO does an abundance survey regularly and, therefore, has a better understanding of the size of the stock. I'm going to come back again with my question about why no abundance survey is being done on capelin in this area in order to be able to provide a better management plan in terms of the TAC that's set every year, as well as some other marketing initiatives that would come. We haven't changed the TAC much over the last few years—it basically stays between 8,000 to 10,000 tonnes—and perhaps if we had a better sense of the size of the biomass, we would have a different TAC for fishers and more opportunities.

Could you explain to me why, after all these years—in 10 years of a fisheries management plan—we're still not doing an abundance survey every year in this region?

[Sylvain Vézina]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for his question.

I'd like to come back to this.

I mentioned earlier that in the past we didn't have an abundance indicator. However, I mentioned efforts we've made in recent years to integrate data on 4R seiner landings and shrimper bycatch of capelin. I also mentioned the Department of Fisheries and Oceans surveys. Once we have that information, we'll be in a position to get an abundance indicator. It will be tabled at the science committee's next meeting, which is scheduled for next week.

Some improvements are being made in that area.

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

But you're not doing the sounding stuff. This is a mathematical formula based on landings and market, not on the actual science of the size of the biomass. I'm wondering when that will be done. That's my first part.

The second part is that, without it, there's an eco-certification that the product cannot get, because we don't have an idea of whether or not we're fishing this responsibly, other than algorithms based on landings and market needs, basically, rather than the actual biomass.

When we talk about science being “critical”, I don't understand why we haven't made the effort in this region to do that part of the science.

[Sylvain Vézina]

As I said, things are getting better. We use the commercial survey in the multi-species survey that's done in the various areas. We will continue to improve the indicators.

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

Okay, so there is no plan to do an eco-science....

The last question, I think, before my time runs out, is on predation as an issue with all fish species. The integrated fisheries management plan talks about the predators of capelin being cod, halibut and turbot, with of course cod and turbot not being very robust stocks and not posing much of a threat, I assume.

I'm curious as to why the predation and integration management plan doesn't mention seals as predators, since seals also consume capelin. Are you looking at seals as predators?

[Timothy Sargent]

Maybe I'll answer this.

We don't have any evidence that capelin are a really important part of the seal diet. Of course, capelin are not very big. I think the predators that we focused on are the ones the member mentioned, and I would also note redfish as a potential predator for capelin and something that we need to take into account as we look at potentially reopening part of that fishery.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My time is probably up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes, it is, right on mark.

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

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. McDonald, it's nice to see you and my colleagues this week. I hope we're all having a productive constituency week. Before I begin, I want to wish everyone a wonderful Easter long weekend, Passover or Ramadan, whichever folks may be celebrating.

I think this is my first time on the fisheries and oceans committee in my six and a half years in Parliament, but ironically, before I begin my questioning, I want to add that a number of decades ago I grew up in a fishing town, in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, so I'm very familiar with the operations of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

I worked in a cannery. My mother and many of her sisters cleaned salmon, or “filleted” salmon, which is the word I should use, because it is filleted, not cleaned. Also, I worked at J.S. McMillan Fisheries for three summers, and that was great money. I know what herring is, and herring roe, groundfish and crab, and what seiners, trollers and gillnetters are, and who all those wonderful folks are, because they were all my friends in high school and my neighbours.

I saw the industry transform itself and reduce considerably as the catches unfortunately declined, but nonetheless it provided a stable income for many thousands of families where I grew up, so it's near and dear to my heart, Ken, and it's ironic that I'm here.

Going on to capelin, for the department officials, I want to talk about the consultation process in this area and others. How important is it to have this consultative process and an open line of communication with the people fishing these stocks?

[Timothy Sargent]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair.

It's very important. Those fishers are out on the water. They see things that we don't necessarily. It's very important to get their input.

It's very important to get that input in a coordinated way, and that's why we have our advisory committee process. We can actually get everybody in the room and people can hear other people, and we can actually have a conversation about what people have seen out on the water, what their views are, how they interpret the science and how they come at the science. We can actually have that integrated discussion so that everybody can hear what's being said.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Just to follow up on that, on the stock assessment that's done and the confidence level on that, and specifically with this species of fish—I'll be frank and say that I'd never heard of capelin until today—in terms of the confidence level you have with regard to the stock assessment of this species, how confident are we? I know how important this is. You can open up a fishing season at 12 o'clock midnight—open up for 12 hours—and if you're wrong, we know the issue is there, obviously, with the number of tonnes that are allocated, but how confident are we on this species per se?

[Timothy Sargent]

Capelin are one of the more difficult species to forecast and, therefore, to manage. They have relatively short life spans. The populations often consist of a few key age groups, so you will have kind of a big population and then a couple of years with a small population. That means it's quite variable.

A lot of the fluctuations we see are more driven by environmental factors than they are by fishing activity itself. That is not to say that fishing activity doesn't play a role, but whereas fishing activity is easy to monitor, often the environmental conditions are not.

It is one that has a wider margin of error than some of the species we manage that live longer or are much more predictable.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Sargent, thank you for your answers. I have a final question.

I'm not sure how long you've been on this file, but in recent years, have you seen changes with regard to climate change and environmental factors that impact the size of the catch being taken back to port and so forth?