Fisheries Committee on April 26th, 2022

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

No, but the department has it, and you should be able to get that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey. Hopefully, we'll get that provided in writing to the committee.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just have so many questions here, I don't know which questions or who to ask them to, really. There's just so much—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

It's up to you, not me.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Yes.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming. I guess I'll start with Mr. Hardy, because I have quite a few friends who are fishers in the gulf region.

What's the status of the gulf shrimp stocks right now? Is it growing or declining?

[Matthew Hardy]

Thank you for the question.

Gulf shrimp have been declining over the last number of years, unfortunately.

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

How have you determined that?

[Matthew Hardy]

There are a number of studies and surveys to assess stocks, including our DFO surveys looking at size class, age composition and everything else, and looking at commercial catches and whatnot. All this is integrated into an assessment model and into the various zones throughout the gulf to produce an assessment for each of the zones.

For the most part, we have seen declines, although we are still in the healthy zone in some of the zones. There are indications, as was mentioned previously, of predation and a downward trend.

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

I've been talking to some industry folks, and they've told me that 4R shrimp stock is actually growing. Maybe that's one of the healthy ones you're referring to—I'm not sure—but is it possible that you're cutting back that shrimp quota to feed the redfish?

[Matthew Hardy]

Thank you for your question, first of all, but in terms of cutting back the quota, those are decisions that are made with respect to ensuring the sustainability of the fishery. Certainly, predation and a number of other factors—environmental change—are all factors that speak to how well the stock is doing. With respect to the fisheries decisions, they're aimed at ensuring the sustainability of the stock in the long term.

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

Why did you go beyond the preliminary approach and cut it by 20% when the protocol would be a maximum of 15%?

[Matthew Hardy]

If I understand the member's question, Mr. Chair, that's with respect to the harvest decision rules that are in place in the shrimp fishery. I think that's a management decision, and from a science point of view, our focus is on putting together the best available information from an assessment point of view, ensuring the rules that have been developed are compliant with the ever-changing environmental conditions that are representative of what's going on in the environment.

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

Okay.

Talking about assessments, do you know how many fish species in Canada have their biomass determined with the aid of acoustic surveys?

[Matthew Hardy]

Thank you for the question. Offhand, I do not know that information.

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

The acoustic surveys for mackerel...?

[Matthew Hardy]

Offhand, I do not know the number of acoustic surveys that are conducted for mackerel.

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

I have a little example from other northern Atlantic countries—Iceland and Norway—where they put their capelin on a moratorium in 2019-20 for some reason. I guess they couldn't find them acoustically, and then they went out and found them somewhere where they weren't expecting to see them at all. Now, they have this gigantic capelin fishery of almost 900,000 tonnes coming this year. I know you're well aware of that.

Do you have any ideas on how Iceland can have these wide variations and why their conservation measures seem to work and our conservation measures don't, given that we prosecute between 1% and 10% of most of our biomass? These guys are doing 30% to 40% of their biomass, but their oceans are much more productive than ours. Do you have anything to give to the committee, any thoughts of yours, about why this could be happening?

[Matthew Hardy]

Thank you for the question. That's a really broad question. It speaks to the changes we're seeing in the environment.

Generally speaking, across all our pelagic fish in Atlantic Canada and specifically in the gulf region and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we are seeing changes in environmental conditions happening quicker. That affects productivity, recruitment and the overall biomass.

Certainly it's to be expected that across the range for various pelagic species, from a north to south distribution and across the Atlantic, there can be localized differences. As to how that relates to specific management measures that are applied between Canada or Iceland, I'm not familiar enough that I could speculate on whether those are impacting the overall trends.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

We'll now go to Mr. Kelloway to finish up this part of our session today.

You have five minutes or less.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello to my colleagues and the witnesses. Thank you so much. The work you do has an impact on all of our communities, all of our rural communities and the people that work within them. I appreciate the efforts and the work that goes into it.

We talked a lot today about technical peer review processes. I think that's important. We've also talked to a certain degree about industry consultation. I have three questions, if we can get through them. My first question focuses on how to ensure that knowledge from industry stakeholders and indigenous fishers and fish harvesters are part of the advice that goes to the minister.

I'll start with Mr. Vigneault on that.

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, we ensure that at different steps of the process. I mentioned earlier the collaboration with the industry stakeholders. There's also lots of ongoing collaboration with the indigenous organizations right from the start, in designing research activities or collaborating with us on the surveying and data gathering. We invite them to participate in the peer review process, so that they can provide their expertise to the discussion and inform the analysis of the data. That's all being input into the science-advised decision.

Above and beyond that, the minister has other considerations when making a decision. That includes the direct input from the indigenous communities, including the traditional knowledge as well as industry input, as we mentioned earlier.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay, thanks very much.

I wonder if we could do a little deeper dive on the last part in terms of what it looks like.

Mr. Vigneault, I'm wondering if you can provide the committee with information on the formal arrangements that the department has taken to include the voices of our hard-working fish harvesters. Basically, can you give us a short example of what this looks like?

[Dr. Bernard Vigneault]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Member.

There are a range of collaborations including direct collaboration. The harvesters are actually providing support for the science endeavours with compensation by collecting the actual samples that are required for the assessment.

They are also involved in the science advice and in the other steps of the process where we're involved. We work more and more in a management process where a scenario is tested against conservation objectives. Industry is part of setting those objectives and setting the conditions around the modelling that we do, so they're part of that science.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Vigneault, I think I probably have time for one more question.

In your introductory remarks, you spoke about open science. I'm wondering if you could provide the committee with some concrete examples—I'm big on concrete examples—of how our government can leverage open data and science to increase a couple of things, like transparency and building trust in government while also creating an environment of innovation that includes trust and collaboration with industry and first nations.