Good morning, Mr. Chair.
The 146 skipper/owners, three local indigenous nations and I all thank you for your time.
I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in marine biology from Laval University. My professional career started in Gaspésie while working for a pioneering sea farming company in Quebec. I later joined a university team as a research assistant. Then I spent 16 years as a scientific director for a sea farming company. Since 2010, I have worked for the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Sud de la Gaspésie, or RPPSG, as a scientific director.
The RPPSG and I are also members of the Lobster Group, better known as the Lobster Node, a group of fishers’ associations from the five Atlantic provinces. Government researchers from DFO, a provincial ministry, as well as university researchers also take part in this group. Through collaborative research, it conducts studies and fills the gaps in our knowledge about the productivity, structure and connectivity of lobster stocks in their distribution area.
Our association is known for designing and implementing measures that conserve lobster stocks and reduce fishing effort, in order to preserve the resource for all lobster fishers in the Gaspé, both indigenous and non-indigenous, all of whom depend on this resource for their livelihoods and the livelihood of their communities.
In this context, for over 10 years, I have conducted surveys and analyses of lobster stocks in the Gaspé. Data collection during the commercial fishing season takes place in lobster fishing areas 19, 20A and 20B, but not yet in area 21. Fishers who participate in data collection use modified fishing traps to obtain a complete sampling of the stock structure in the fishing areas under study. The data is then provided to scientists at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute here at DFO in Quebec City.
After the fishing season, following a rigorous protocol in place since 2011, I collect similar data to analyze the remaining stocks in Lobster Fishing Area 20. This data is compiled and then forwarded to DFO. I do a summary analysis myself and present it to my fishers. The RPPSG fully funds this monitoring. We applied for funding from the Fonds des pêches du Québec, but it was denied on the grounds that this was a follow-up, not a project.
Since 2021, in partnership with the Centre de développement et de recherche en intelligence numérique, CDRIN, we designed a novel artificial intelligence model. We used post-season data collected over the last 10 years to predict the evolution of stocks and catches.
Furthermore, as part of the MSC certification of the spring commercial fishery, and to better answer certification assessors’ questions, I conduct an annual analysis of fishing bait and bycatch data in Lobster Fishing Areas 19, 20 and 21. With the agreement of our fishers, we use the data from JOBEL, an electronic logbook developed by the RPPSG and used since 2015.
Unfortunately, over the past 10 years, I have not had the opportunity to move towards further collaboration with DFO on data analysis and scientific work done by the RPPSG. Certainly, as an expert, I attend the regional peer review of the Quebec inshore lobster assessment, which normally takes place every three years. The last meeting was in March 2019. The next one, which was supposed to take place in February 2022, was postponed. However, lobster is a key species from a socio-economic point of view for Quebec and the Gaspé. Its distribution is changing, as is the stock. For this reason, it seems essential to me to conduct a review of the biological basis for assessing the lobster stock’s healthy zone. This would provide a more realistic vision of the state of the stocks and fishing pressure.
This is especially important for Lobster Fishing Area 21, on which very little data exists. The last stock assessment in 2018 was based on partial data for the area. DFO advice, dated February 11, 2020, was presented at the lobster workshop. It indicated that in the context of environmental change, inducing a new source of variability is undesirable. DFO’s changes to management measures in 2019 are inconsistent with conservation objectives intended to avoid increased fishing pressure.
In September 2021, despite this advice, the lack of data for fishing area 21 and RPPSG's concerns about the impact on a fishery's fall stocks, DFO modified the lobster fisheries management plan for fishing area 21 by introducing a second commercial fishing season, ostensibly to collect data. Despite repeated requests from RPPSG, we haven't received any information regarding the protocol planned by DFO nor have we obtained the results of the study. Therefore, we're wondering if this data is considered confidential under the Fisheries Act because it would have been collected with the help of an indigenous band. We think there is a lack of information sharing between the department and the associations, which are very involved in the research, particularly the lobster research, in our case.
Thank you.