Fisheries Committee on May 12th, 2022

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

I'd say it basically depends on the landings, as far as I can see. There are area scientific studies going on. I know when I was in DFO we had a fairly big project going in southwest Nova Scotia. I don't know whether that one is still going through, but it might be. We had another one in Prince Edward Island.

Really, what DFO does is that they look at landings and make most of their decisions, a posteriori, on what's going on. Other than that and some basic lobster biology that they do science on, those are the things that they're really working out.

My hypothesis back in 1979 was that the egg drift, the larval drift of lobsters, through the Canso causeway and down the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, was cut off when the causeway was built. When they cut that off, the lobster stock collapsed from normal fishing. There just was no recruitment, so it was down in the stocks.

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

If I could, and I have limited time, I want to ask you a couple more questions.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

Okay.

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

It sounds as if there isn't actually any real understanding of the size of the biomass of the lobster stocks. It's basically based on landings, and landings have been growing every year relative to effort, and that's in the inshore.

Are you aware in the offshore, LFA 41, which is the largest and only area of the lobster fishery that actually has a TAC, a total allowable catch, if there was ever any science done to determine whether that is a reasonable size of a TAC? I think it's 77,000 metric tons. Is there any science to support that?

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

Yes. That research was done during the 1980s. I'm trying to remember the name of the fellow who was involved in it, but he did do three or four years of work out on Browns Bank, and so on and so forth, to develop the TAC for that fishery.

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

There hasn't been any science done on the state of the lobster stock in LFA 41 since the late 1980s that you're aware of.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

Not that I know of—

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

Wow.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

—but I may be wrong. I'm not right up to date on who's doing what research where, but I haven't seen anything.

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

Perhaps I could ask one more question related to Atlantic salmon.

Relative to the size of the declining returns that we're seeing every year in Atlantic Canada on Atlantic salmon, what is the scale of what you believe is being done? I presume it's outside our 200-mile limit on the IUU fishing that's happening. Is DFO monitoring that at all?

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

No, I don't think anybody, including DFO, is actually monitoring it.

Basically what happened is that, through negotiations, they were able to close down the west Greenland inland fishery, to a large degree, and give it a quota. Unfortunately, the same salmon that go up the coast of west Greenland and then come down through the Labrador Straits and out into the area off Newfoundland, between Newfoundland and Greenland, were outside the EEZ zone, the economic limits, and there's absolutely no surveillance by NASCO.

NASCO, really, the North Atlantic salmon commission, is a joke. They haven't done one lick of surveillance since they took over in 1984.

Basically the problem that was happening in Greenland, where all the scientists agreed.... The Greenland fishery was going to collapse the salmon stock. Just move down the way, a little farther south, and everybody went right back to fishing salmon without any big problem. Between 1985 and 1990, the salmon stocks in the Atlantic Ocean dropped by 55%. Since then, it's just been a continual tail off. I think what's happening is.... If they miss any salmon in that area, then they go and try to get some more off east Greenland, which is in the middle of nowhere, as everybody knows. Nobody lives up there. Anybody can do pretty much what they want. The IUU fisheries are just hammering the place.

The only big river left with a really good salmon run, up until 2020, was the Tana River in northern Norway and Finland. It just got closed for fishing this year because of the collapse of the wild stock. It won't be long before there's no Atlantic salmon stock left in good shape, period.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins. Your time has gone a bit over.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses. We could keep you here all day, I am sure.

Mr. Dadswell, in your description of what's going on in the east coast, it sounds like science is under stress everywhere.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

I agree.

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

I want to ask a few questions of Alex Morton.

First, I'll give a comment on how much we miss the big voice of Rafe Mair on the west coast, because he kept the issues right in front of everybody on a continual basis.

You had done an awful lot of work on sea lice. This is even before the Discovery Islands so-called studies. I believe you carried those studies past the point at which many of the operations were either reduced or shut down.

Can you report on what you observed on the sea lice infestation in wild salmon?

[Alexandra Morton]

Very briefly, sea lice are very easy to study, because they change their body shape every few days, so you know where they get on the fish. I studied them in the Broughton Archipelago since 2001.

When the previous minister, Bernadette Jordan, prohibited restocking of the Discovery Islands farms, because of where the companies were and their production schedule, last spring, all of the farms in the narrow channels of the Discovery Islands, namely Okisollo and Nodales, were empty.

When I went down there, the sea lice levels had absolutely plummeted. Instead of getting up to nine lice per fish, there were two lice, total, on 50 fish, and the condition of the fish was remarkable. These little pinks and chums were perfect. Their eyes were black. Their bellies were round. Those pink salmon will be returning this year, and I'm predicting that south of the Discovery Islands some river is going to get a lot of pink salmon back because of what Minister Bernadette Jordan did.

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

It's entirely regrettable that we've had that setback, in part due to the so-called science that was presented.

Mr. Chamberlin, it was troubling to hear that in the Federal Court of Appeal process, some of the first nations communities up and down the coast, concerned about the economic impacts of shutting down those operations, weren't as supportive of Minister Jordan's decision as they might have been prior to that.

Was that your observation?

[Robert Chamberlin]

I was part of the team for the Homalco First Nation, the Tla'amin Nation and the Klahoose First Nation, so I can speak about the input from them within the consultation processes.

There was absolutely no support for the fish farm licences to be renewed. The understanding and then the opinion of the CSAS process was foundational to that position. When you consider that the nine science papers that came out of CSAS were the DFO's response to Cohen recommendations 18 and 19, we now have verified and seen just the clear lack of objectivity in the analysis and delivery of those nine science papers.

Minister Jordan made the correct decision, because the nations that I was working with were very clear about the concerns they expressed in consultation with the first nations of the Fraser River, because we were discussing migratory salmon. Knowing that the impacts from fish farms in the Discovery Islands have a long reach well up the backbone of British Columbia, this represents an infringement of aboriginal rights.

As I understand it, all seven nations that were consulted were opposed to fish farms being in operation, but since then, a couple have changed their opinions. I'll leave that to you to surmise why that occurred.

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

Back to you, Ms. Morton, we have occasionally asked DFO officials about the Cohen commission recommendation to establish a regional director for salmon. They mumble an answer that basically says, “We haven't done it, and we're not really that involved in getting it done.”

If such a directorate were to be established, would you recommend that it be situated outside of the DFO?

[Alexandra Morton]

I honestly think that both have to happen. I think that DFO has to have a watchdog at this point, to make sure the science is getting through, but unless it's happening inside, I don't see how the minister is going to be properly briefed.

We, in British Columbia, currently have the leading scientists on studying the health of wild salmon, and these are the young scientists who are now working with Dr. Miller-Saunders. The power of that science is unparalleled. The fish can speak to us. Using the triggers in their immune system, we can find out exactly what is going on. If this data was brought to the minister, she could learn, “If we remove this, this is likely to happen”. Once you do that, you can go back and check the immune system of the fish again and see if it worked.

I don't understand why we have this big, aggressive, powerful aquaculture management division in DFO and nothing to counterbalance it with the wild salmon. I've looked for the person in charge of wild salmon in DFO and there is nobody, which is astonishing. Aquaculture is thriving. Wild salmon are collapsing. It's pretty clear that they need advocates within DFO.

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

We're out of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We will now go to Madame Desbiens.

Go ahead, Mrs. Desbiens. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today. Their testimony is very interesting, once again.

I would like to draw a parallel with the comments made by Dominique Robert, a professor at the Institut des sciences de la mer in Rimouski. His testimony was about the contribution of social science to scientists. That additional aspect should be taken into consideration.

Ms. Sutcliffe, what do you think the social science would contribute?

Can you give us a specific example of what could make a difference to the decisions of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?

[Tasha Sutcliffe]

I'm sorry. Do you mean how an outcome could have been different in an existing example, or an example of contributions to social science in terms of categories of indicators that could be employed?

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

Yes, that's right.