Fisheries Committee on May 12th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 23 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on February 1, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of science at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021.

I won't go through all of the rules about COVID and wearing a mask.

For those participating by video conference, when you are ready to speak, click on the icon to activate your mike. Please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, please make sure that your mike is on mute. For interpretation, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of English, floor or French. I’ll remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I’d now like to welcome our witnesses here for today, albeit by Zoom. As individuals, we have Michael Dadswell, retired professor of biology at Acadia University, and Alexandra Morton, an independent scientist. From Ecotrust Canada, we have Tasha Sutcliffe, senior policy adviser. From Watershed Watch Salmon Society, we have Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist. From First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance, we have Mr. Robert Chamberlin, chairman.

I am informed that Mr. Chamberlin will need to sign off a little earlier today—only about 20 minutes or so—to attend another meeting. If members could direct questions to him first, if they have questions for him, it would certainly help out. Of course, witnesses can provide written submissions to the committee via the clerk.

Mr. Cormier, you have your hand up.

[Serge Cormier, Acadie—Bathurst, Lib.]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

If I can, for a brief moment.... I don't want to take too much time.

Regarding what we talked about with the science study, I think the members will agree with me that we need to hear from witnesses throughout Canada. There are a couple of pressing issues. I've talked a bit with Mr. Perkins, Mr. Small, Mr. Morrissey and Mr. Kelloway regarding some decisions that were taken about shrimp, for example, and mackerel and herring.

I want to have some clarification from the clerk. Maybe we can make sure that at the next meeting, on June 2, we can hear from some of those witnesses. I think it will be good, especially regarding the situation with shrimp—there was a big quota drop this year—to at least have their view on it. For example, we could hear from the Fédération régionale acadienne des pêcheurs professionnels here in my riding, FFAW, some other associations and also maybe MFU.

I'm wondering if all the members of the committee would accept hearing from those groups at the next meeting. Don't get me wrong, witnesses on the screen. We love having witnesses from the west coast, but there are also some issues here and I would certainly like to have the opportunity to ask some questions to those groups.

I'm sure my colleagues around the table—Ms. Desbiens, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Small and my other colleagues—will want that to be moved up. I'm not sure when the clerk can fit those witnesses in, but if it is possible to have them on June 2, I hope my colleagues around the table will agree with me on that.

I'm done. If there are some comments, Mr. Chair, I'll leave it to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

I noticed the clerk was nodding her head in a yes motion, so I believe the intent is to have those people at that meeting. If that suits your request, we don't have to check into it any further than that.

Go ahead, Mr. Small.

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

Mr. Chair, Mr. Cormier mentioned FFAW. Would that be Keith Sullivan from our submitted witnesses?

[Serge Cormier]

I'm not sure who will attend, but if we can have a panel of the groups that were impacted by some of those decisions.... For example, for shrimp, it would be the Fédération régionale acadienne des pêcheurs professionnels, for example. FFAW will be one from your region.

Madame Desbiens, there are also a couple of groups from your area in Quebec.

I'm not going to decide who is going to attend, but some of those associations should be there. They were impacted by some of the decisions—like the MFU for herring and mackerel, and PEIFA, for example.

Have a panel with those groups that were impacted on east coast with some of the decisions is what I'm saying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I believe they're lining up those witnesses for, as you said, June 2. A number of groups that represent individual harvesters in different sectors either had their names put forward or have asked to appear.

We're hoping to get that done sooner rather than later. June 2 should work out okay.

[Serge Cormier]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

We'll start with our opening statements from witnesses.

Mr. Chamberlin, you have five minutes or less, please.

[Robert Chamberlin, Chairman, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance]

[Witness spoke in Kwak'wala]

[English]

I've acknowledged you all as knowledgeable and respectful people. I'll give you my traditional name, which is Galagame’. I'm from what you may know as the Broughton Archipelago. The words I am going to share today are from my heart and on behalf of many, many first nations of British Columbia. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present to you today.

I open my testimony to you by stating that the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance completely supports previous FOPO meeting presenters Andrew Bateman and Brian Riddell of the Pacific Salmon Foundation and Gideon Mordecai of the University of British Columbia. Their combined testimony outlines extremely well the absolute disaster that is the Canadian science advisory secretariat in relationship to the open-net pen fish farm industry.

CSAS as a peer review secretariat has zero credibility with the first nation members of the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance. When one examines the CSAS process, this is of course no surprise at all. A so-called science peer review process that allows a proponent, which is a fish farm company; industry [Technical difficulty—Editor]; and stakeholders, which are industry associations; to participate from the beginning to the end of this process is utterly and completely lacking any measure of objectivity or credibility. Canada's environment, wild fish and citizens deserve far more from government.

CSAS is a shining example of the environment within DFO that needs to be meticulously analyzed and restored back to its original mandate—namely, the mandate of actually working to protect the environment and wild fish for Canadians. You would be hard pressed to find a single first nation in B.C. that would state that DFO is doing a good job in managing wild salmon in British Columbia. This is well earned, given that I cannot think of a single wild salmon run in B.C. that could be characterized as healthy or abundant.

Oft spoken about are the aboriginal rights that first nations have, recognized in section 35(1) of Canada's Constitution, the Sparrow decision of Canada's Supreme Court and the government's commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These three legal realities speak to food security. It has been said to me that 90% of B.C. first nations rely upon wild salmon. Again, that's 90% of 203 first nations. This means that wild salmon is far more than a simple menu choice. It is the foundation for culture and traditions, and of course a staple traditional food that is now becoming near impossible to attain for these purposes.

The decision that DFO minister Joyce Murray will be making soon needs to be deeply guided by the legal realities of the Supreme Court of Canada and Canada's constitutional protection of aboriginal rights. Simply stated, this is a case of rights versus the privilege of a licence.

DFO has accomplished measures of agreement in B.C. with some first nations. I suggest that these will suffer in credibility and function if transitioning open-net cage fish farms, as committed to by this government and supported by all parties, does not occur. A recent poll of British Columbians demonstrates vast support for this transition.

I attended a recent DFO ministers round table for this transition. The framework questions to guide discussions were entirely predictable and offensive. Frankly, they represented a buffalo jump of a predetermined outcome. This opinion was expressed very clearly by all the first nation chiefs who attended, demonstrating further the need for substantive change within the DFO to remove science from management so that the minister can enjoy clear information and recommendations that are unbiased and not continue to have government direction consistently undermined by DFO staff.

This was abundantly clear in the recent Mowi court decision on DFO Minister Jordan's decision for the Discovery Islands, where the director of aquaculture stated, which I will paraphrase, that she had no idea that not issuing the fish farm licences was being considered. This is preposterous, as I know for a fact that Ms. Allison Webb attended many of the first nation consultation sessions with Discovery Islands first nations, which I was part of. Not issuing these fish farm licences was spoken of at every consultation session.

Previous FOPO reports, and both federal and provincial government commitments to UNDRIP, call for greater involvement of first nations in the management of wild salmon in British Columbia. This is also found within the previous DFO parliamentary secretary MP Terry Beech's “what we heard” report pertaining to developing and implementing the transition of open-net cage fish farms from B.C. waters. This needs to occur.

For today's topic of CSAS and science, first nations can play a clear and objective role in this effort. One outcome of the Broughton fish farm LOU, which I helped negotiate—and of course it is the first time Canada witnessed the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—was the building of a genome lab housed at the Okanagan Nation Alliance hatchery.

This prepares first nations to accomplish science that is leading edge with an outcome that is focused solely on identifying disease and pathogen threats to constitutionally protected food security. True arm's-length resourcing for this lab could be invaluable to safeguard severely depleted wild salmon and escape the environment of DFO as a captured regulator of the fish farm industry. The environment, wild salmon, first nations and the citizens of Canada deserve far better than what we are experiencing today.

When I was part of the consultation process for the Discovery Islands, the first question that I asked Jay Parsons was about the CSAS process itself. I asked him about the proponents of science and about industry and about stakeholders. This elicited about a four-minute speech non-answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Chamberlain, I'm going to have to end it there. We've gone way over the allotted five minutes.

[Robert Chamberlin]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Hopefully anything else you need to say will come out in the line of questioning.

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

[Stan Proboszcz, Senior Scientist, Watershed Watch Salmon Society]

I've worked on salmon farming issues for almost 16 years for Watershed Watch. I believe this case study illustrates an unreported suppression of science by DFO to protect the salmon farming industry at the risk of wild salmon. My written submission includes evidence, e-links and context. It can be found on watershedwatch.ca.

In 2012, the independent Cohen commission made strong recommendations and reversed the burden of proof onto DFO to show that salmon farms are a minimal risk. To paraphrase recommendations 18 and 19, they concluded that salmon farms in the Discovery Islands may be a risk to wild sockeye salmon. Unless DFO can show they are of minimal risk, they should be removed by September 30, 2020, or sooner, if evidence arises. I was on the steering committee of the first five CSAS risk assessments.

Did DFO change the risk assessment plan midway to avoid inconvenient science? There are at least two DFO website references that state that more than nine risk assessments were planned. When DFO, including Jay Parsons, held a press conference on September 28, 2020, to reveal their evidence of minimal risk, we learned there were only nine risk assessments. Assessments on sea lice and cumulative effects weren't done. Did DFO change the plan?

In July 2015, DFO's Dr. Jones and Dr. Garver began lab studies on the effects of salmon lice on sockeye and the cumulative interactions with IHN virus. This research was published in science journals in 2019. The two studies made conclusions pertinent to Cohen's recommendations 18 and 19. They found that “infection with L. salmonis caused a profound physiological impact to Sockeye Salmon”. They also concluded “that the reduced survival in co-infected sockeye salmon resulted from the osmoregulatory consequences of the sea lice infections which were amplified due to infection with IHNV”.

DFO appears to obfuscate and cherry-pick science and misdirect Canadians and news media away from inconvenient science and precautionary action. When you go to the DFO media release of September 28, 2020, then to the link entitled “Work to support recommendation 19” and then to “Scientific research on sea lice”, logically this would be the place to objectively and transparently list all the research to conclude that sea lice are of minimal risk.

Let's look at that link closely. Look at the “Sea lice on wild salmon” section. This appears to link to DFO research projects, but no external studies are listed. One paragraph in the “Sea lice on wild salmon” section generally encompasses a sockeye and sea lice research project. However, it talks about it as if it is still in progress. No findings are included in the paragraph. When you click on the research abstract link under this sockeye project that appears to be still in progress, it goes to the wrong project. The correct DFO link describes a completed 2010 project and findings of significant negative impacts on pink, chum and sockeye from sea lice.

An ATIP includes a January 2017 statement from DFO's Dr. Ian Keith to Adrienne Paylor. How can DFO science not share with their health management counterparts that they have data including that sockeye are the most susceptible species of Pacific salmon?

Another ATIP from October 1, 2020 includes questions from a Canadian news reporter to DFO and includes Timothy Sargent. They ask to see the information DFO relied on to conclude that sea lice are of minimal risk. DFO responds to this question with two e-links, and neither direct the reporter to the Jones and Garver sea lice, IHN virus and sockeye research.

Is this not obfuscation, cherry-picking and misdirection by some in DFO at the expense of precautionary action to conserve wild salmon?

Thank you very much, committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to Ms. Sutcliffe for five minutes or less, please.

[Tasha Sutcliffe, Senior Policy Advisor, Ecotrust Canada]

Thank you very much for having me here today.

For those who don't know me, I am currently an independent contractor, and I am here in one of my roles as a senior policy adviser for fisheries with Ecotrust Canada.

I have spent 25 years looking at ways to realize fair, sustainable and prosperous fisheries, and I believe that fisheries, as a renewable resource, can be well managed for environmental, economic, cultural and social objectives.

Since we are here on the subject of science I want to start by saying that, though I have engaged in many scientific pursuits throughout my career, I am not a scientist by trade and I have a deep respect for those who are. Today I am an outlier in that I am focusing on the role of social science in fisheries management and the issue with the lack of focus and capacity on this. My area of work is on the west coast.

Many challenges face Pacific region fisheries—climate change, competition for space and species, species at risk, market shifts—you name it. Science is instrumental for identifying, monitoring and resolving issues that arise from this complexity, but how do we prioritize scientific activities, build investment in these priorities and leverage our findings? We first must have a policy framework that includes clear objectives across the full spectrum of societal priorities, and we must have a framework for science that supports these.

The natural sciences are, of course, a critical and huge part of this, but practised in isolation it is not enough to get us where we want to go, just like focusing our economists solely on big-E economic metrics like GDP will not get us where we want to go.

Where do we want to go? What are we measuring success against?

For the most part, existing language is around economic prosperity and conservation, but for whom, at what geographic scale and at what timescale? Do we have consistent objectives around social and cultural outcomes and community well-being and health? I would argue that we could do much better at defining this, especially in the Pacific region where we are lacking in a comprehensive policy framework that identifies clear objectives with little to no direction given on social, locally economically relevant and cultural outcomes.

We do have a number of resources that identify key considerations for fisheries in Canada and many of them do touch on the socio-economic and cultural importance of them. In this committee's 2019 study on the subject of west coast fisheries, it was pointed out that key priorities of a sustainable fishery include the environmental, economic and social aspects of sustainable development and that there is a need for explicit socio-economic objectives and policies. Further, this study recommended that DFO collect socio-economic data to inform regulation.

Most recently in the report titled “Engaging on Canada’s Blue Economy Strategy—What we heard”, social equity, cultural and local economic considerations were raised many times as a priority, including in fisheries.

The latest Fisheries Act itself states that the minister may consider, among other things, social, economic and cultural factors in the management of fisheries, but how is the minister to consider socio-economic impacts and outcomes if we have no science to base those considerations on? There needs to be a way to provide both natural and social science and intersect these findings, not compartmentalize them.

It just so happens that we do have a start to this, as the Canadian Fisheries Research Network developed one. This 50-person team's six years' of research was published in two major peer-reviewed publications. The network recognized four pillars of sustainability—ecological, economic, socio-cultural and institutional or governance—and developed a full framework that articulates the scope and candidate objectives and values of these four pillars. This sounds like a great start.

Let me be clear. This is not an argument meant to alter scientific priorities to diminish necessary outcomes around conservation—quite the contrary. It is to ensure that where decision-making has the potential to achieve conservation outcomes and maximize societal benefits, this is enabled. The absence of this focus results in unnecessarily harmful policy, which can take decades to unravel.

Take the example of licensing policy outcomes in the sea cucumber fishery. In this lucrative fishery the lion's share of landed value is not going to the harvesters, but is being lost to, in many cases, non-local licence owners and fish companies leasing a licence, who land and sell their product and then pay the fish harvester a fraction of the fair landed price. Further, this species has the ability to provide high value in processing jobs and wholesale margins, yet this also is being exported.

Science can investigate issues such as this, compare scenarios around solutions for decision-making that achieve environmental goals and maximize societal benefits. We are in precarious times. We require new ways of doing business and innovation in our economic system that ensures we are contributing to a better quality of life for current and future generations, and promoting resilience in the natural and social systems we rely on.

This is ever-challenging in the face of disastrous events, such as pandemics and climate change impacts, which can bring our current system to its knees. We must be able to respond quickly and adapt in times of crisis. It is more crucial than ever to manage our renewable resources to this end. This requires a comprehensive multipillared approach to science and informed decision-making, but will result in a much stronger foundation on which to move forward in sustainable development.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share my thoughts and experience with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Morton for five minutes or less, please.

[Alexandra Morton, Independent Scientist, As an Individual]

Thank you.

The questions you pose are critical to Canadians because DFO management of wild salmon has failed to maintain the fish or the fisheries. Wild salmon must reach the open ocean, and salmon farms are a barrier to them. The problem is that, as salmon farms release unnatural levels of types of pathogens, wild salmon exposed to the farms breathe them in, and these pathogens come into direct contact with their bloodstream. Most wild salmon from the southern half of B.C. are currently inoculated with industrial aquaculture pathogens from Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg, and they become carriers.

Here are three examples of DFO actively avoiding appropriate response to this risk.

In 1990, DFO Pacific Region Director General Pat Chamut wrote the director of trade policy that, “Continued large-scale introductions of [Atlantic salmon eggs] would eventually result in the introduction of exotic disease agents of which the potential impact would be...biologically damaging...and economically devastating”. He was right. The Norwegian PRV was in some of those 30 million eggs.

In 2013, Mowi told the Federal Court that they would be “severely impacted” if they were prohibited from transferring PRV-infected fish into their farms because their hatcheries were infected. While PRV is considered a disease agent everywhere in the world except British Columbia, DFO hid the science showing that PRV causes organ failure in chinook salmon, thus allowing this Norwegian blood virus to escape DFO regulations and spread into the Skeena, the Fraser and everywhere in between, and 95% of farmed salmon for sale in B.C. supermarkets is infected.

During the 2020 consultations between the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and seven first nations of the Discovery Islands on the renewal of 19 salmon farm licences, Dr. Miller-Saunders briefed DFO's director of science that young Fraser sockeye were being infected with the bacteria Tenacibaculum as they passed the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands, and these fish appeared to die. The director of science went and briefed the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association with this information but not the minister, even though the primary concern of the nations she was consulting with was the impact of the farms on Fraser sockeye.

In the third case, DFO staff know that sea lice in salmon are dangerous to young wild salmon, and they set a limit on the number of lice per farmed salmon in the aquaculture conditions of licence, but Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg farms are unable to meet this threshold.

On January 24, 2022, Mowi wrote to Rebecca Reid, director general, DFO, Pacific region, stating that the proposed changes to the conditions of licence “could have significant impact on...the...financial performance of Mowi's operations”. Specifically mentioning sea lice, they say that the pace of “regulatory change is outpacing our company's capacity.” Two weeks later, the draft conditions of licence contained the weakened requirement to produce a plan to reduce sea lice, with no requirement that the plan was actually successful. Mowi's letter is a statement that the salmon farming industry cannot survive regulations that protect wild salmon, and it's clear that wild salmon are not surviving without these regulations.

Here are my recommendations to your questions.

Issue conditions of licence that provide immediate and significant relief to wild salmon and clarity to the salmon farming industry. See my written submission for specifics.

Form a non-government board of scientists to monitor DFO's response to science.

Create a regional director of wild salmon, as per Cohen commission recommendation number four, and populate this division with the scientists who are developing the powerful genomic tools that pinpoint the choke points that are killing wild salmon to allow highly strategic response to reverse extinction curves.

Collaborate closely with first nations. Make this data open access, allowing the mathematical modelers who charted our path through COVID to inform the minister—if we do this, we expect these outcomes.

In closing, I just want to make sure you know that 36 salmon farms have been or will be removed by the 'Namgis, Kwikwasut'inuxw, Mamalilikulla, Gwawaenuk, Kwiakah, Klahoose and Homalco first nations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to Dr. Dadswell for five minutes or less, please.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell, Retired Professor of Biology, Acadia University, As an Individual]

I seem to be the odd person out here, being the scientist who used to be involved in DFO and who went to CSAS meetings all the time.

I'm a retired professor of biology from Acadia University in Wolfville, so I'm also the only person here from the east coast, rather than the west. For 55 years or so, I've been working on Atlantic salmon, sturgeons, lobsters, scallop aquaculture, the impact of tidal turbines on fishes, and freshwater ecology. I've worked for the Canadian wildlife service, the Huntsman marine laboratory, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans for nine years, and then I was at Acadia University for about 30 years. Through that, I've published about 255 papers, technical briefs and so forth.

I'm hoping I might be able to add a little bit to the context that's coming out of this meeting in terms of sea lice and salmon. That would be Atlantic salmon in the Atlantic Ocean, not the Pacific.

First, I'd just like to talk a little bit about my CSAS experience, seeing as how I was in DFO for nine years and they have approached me on other things. I have quite a background with CSAS.

Basically, my opinion is that the handling of different interpretations of scientific evidence and uncertainty in CSAS was a process that was one of my sore points while I was an employee of DFO, later a research scientist at a university and finally a retired fisheries scientist. I have found that differing opinions on data and conclusions that are contradictory to DFO policy and unsanctioned by CSAS are most often totally unwelcome and usually ignored. I can say that on the power of being in on at least 20 CSAS meetings, maybe, for different species and so forth.

My first one was in 1979 when I was a freshman working at DFO, basically. I participated in a number of meetings on the Canso causeway and what it might have done to the fisheries on the east coast of Nova Scotia—which was clearly a total disaster at the time because a lot of the lobster fishery had collapsed. I came up with some interesting scientific observations—which I thought as a scientist I was supposed to do—but when I brought them before the committee, I was essentially put down. They said, “Oh no, we don't agree with that.” It was stuff that came from other lobster fisheries in other parts of the world on how they recruit and so on.

We had to write the papers to go into the CSAS report and the technical report publication. My paper was directly opposed by the lobster biologists and managers at DFO. I was in a different unit, actually. I wasn't in the management unit. Literally, when I published a paper in a technical report, they put a page at the end of it saying they disavowed having anything to do with it. Anyway, that's my start with CSAS.

The funny thing is that, as time goes by, scientific opinions change. The present DFO lobster group now accepts my original hypothesis as to why the Canso strait and eastern coast lobster fishery collapsed, and they are using it in their management decisions. How about that?

A similar process took place while I was working on the development of tidal power while I was still at DFO. This would be in about 1979, 1980 or 1981. I had a research group that was looking at the Annapolis River in Nova Scotia, which was up for having a test turbine put in. Anyway, when I went into the CSAS meetings on that.... First off, let me say that, as a scientist, I spent about six months researching what hydroelectric turbines do to fish, and it's not a very pretty picture—lots of mortality.

Here they were. They were going to put this big huge turbine in the Annapolis River, and it was going to affect all of the fish populations, as far as I was concerned. I was again completely ignored. I was probably the only one who knew how fish turbines kill fish and so forth at the time, and what happened? Jumping forward to the present, 35 years later, they finally closed the Annapolis turbine down because it was killing all the fish in the Annapolis River. Guess what. Originally I was in the meeting and said, “Don't do it”, but anyway, they don't seem to listen very much.

The final example I want to give you is Atlantic salmon in the Atlantic Ocean. I just finished writing a paper on this entitled “The Decline and Impending Collapse of the Atlantic Salmon Population in the North Atlantic”, and that is what's happening.

Virtually all the big rivers that had over 100,000 Atlantic salmon fish runs are now collapsing in the Atlantic Ocean. I brought this up in 1998 and 2000 to the Minister of Fisheries at the time, and I told him that I thought that IUU fisheries were causing the problem, that Japan, Denmark and probably other nations were out there taking Atlantic salmon in the open ocean before they could come back to the Atlantic rivers.

You don't have this problem so bad in the Pacific ocean because you have a very good organized fisheries group there that does surveillance, so they are keeping the Japanese and the other people, Chinese, in check to a degree and allowing the fish runs to remain quite good. In places like Alaska, you're having more problems than in B.C., and I understand that completely.

What is happening in the Atlantic Ocean is that rivers like the Miramichi River, the River Foyle in Ireland, which had a huge salmon run, and now the Tana River in northern Norway, which also had a 100,000 to 200,000 fish run, have collapsed, and they are all closed to fishing, not only commercial but recreational.

Here in 2000, I was telling the Canadian DFO minister about this, and it was going through a CSAS meeting. I wasn't invited, but in the end, they told me I was foolish and so forth and so on, and they didn't agree with my conclusion.

As an example, in Nova Scotia where I live, there used to be about 100 Atlantic salmon fishing streams. Now only three are open to recreational fisheries and, of course, the commercial fishery was closed in 1984.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I'm going to have to end it there, Mr. Dadswell. It's gone way over the five-minute allotment of time.

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

Okay, I'm not surprised.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you to all our witnesses for their opening statements.

We'll now, of course, move to questioning, but before I do that, I want to recognize Ms. Elizabeth May, the MP for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who has joined us on Zoom. I'll put in a little plug for her. I'm sure, if anybody has a few minutes to spare, she'd like to get in some questions. If she were here in person, she'd have her hands out asking for that, so I thought I'd throw it in.

We'll first go to Mr. Perkins for six minutes or less, please.

I'll remind members to identify who the question is for so you don't lose your time staring at the screen.

Start when you're ready, Mr. Perkins.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming to this important study. It is our fourth witness meeting on it, and we've learned a lot from the scientists who have been before the committee.

I'd like to specifically welcome Dr. Dadswell to the committee, since he is a constituent of mine as well. Perhaps I'll start with Dr. Dadswell.

You spoke quite a bit about the CSAS process and the fact that the science you were doing, even as a scientist within DFO, was being rejected by CSAS. What were they telling you over and above saying, “We don't accept this”? Was it science from outside? Was it policy or socio-economic issues that they put over? Did they have contradictory science to what you were proposing?

[Dr. Michael Dadswell]

No, they were scientific issues. Basically, as a scientist, I remember when I was a freshman in DFO, and I worked out this hypothesis about why the fishery off the eastern coast of Nova Scotia collapsed back in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I thought this was rather interesting from a scientific point of view, but when I spoke about my scientific findings in other fisheries in other parts of the world and compared them to our problem, it was more or less against policy.

They weren't going to pull the Canso causeway out, and that was what the trouble was, so my viewpoint, based on science, was completely ignored. Now the interesting thing is that the new group in lobster management on the east coast agrees with me completely, and they're using my research as the basis for their present management.

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

Thank you.

Could I ask you a bit about the lobster science that's conducted now? I know you did a lot of it over your career, particularly in helping to create the lobster fishing areas and seasons that we have now. In particular, how does DFO measure scientifically the health of the lobster stocks?