Fisheries Committee on June 9th, 2022

[Martin Paish]

Thank you very much for that question, Ms. Barron. It's very current.

The Cowichan River could be used as an example and a template for salmon recovery in British Columbia, in that it's an area in which several levels of government—municipal, provincial and federal—along with first nations brought the community together in response to a stock that had literally collapsed. In that time period, through a variety of different initiatives—tweaking the hatchery system, dealing with habitat and, most importantly, dealing with water flows, which, I would remind this committee, are among the most significant habitat components that salmon need—we were able to take a stock that in 2009 was at around 500 animals and bring it up to three times the escapement goal, over 18,000 for the last four years.

It is a great example. Thank you for asking the question. I would suggest that it could be considered a template for the PSSI as a means to effectively bring communities and governments together to recover a threatened salmon population.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Paish.

I know others have also pointed to the success that has occurred along the Cowichan, including Greg Taylor from Watershed Watch. I just want to acknowledge that this is something that is coming up and being brought to my attention over and over.

I have another question. Mr. Arnold asked about this, but I want to see if you could expand a little bit around how the lack of opportunity for Chinook in southern B.C. is impacting the fishery, citizen science and socio-economic benefits to small coastal communities.

[Owen Bird]

Thanks, Ms. Barron. I will respond to that.

Yes, absolutely, it has profound trickle-down affects on the activity itself and on displacing effort. The season is compressed in these particular areas in a large chunk of the southern coast of British Columbia, so the season is compressed. That has an effect on the stocks that are captured. It has an affect on the avid angler programs. That's the citizen science providing samples. It displaces that effort, in some cases perhaps permanently, to other parts of the coast. In this time when there is certainly an opportunity to come back from some of the impacts of COVID and restricted access, displacing that effort to other parts of the coast is quite damaging.

It needs to be said that opportunity is limited at best and further reduced, so where there is science that indicates that fisheries can take place on stocks not of concern and that those can be avoided, those need to be taken advantage of. There are examples Martin referred to in his opening statement, as did Dave Brown and Chris Bos, all being familiar with the southern B.C. coast fisheries, showing that science indicates that a fishery can take place, yet we are in a position in which it is not being permitted to take place. The opportunities and those impacts are considerable.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much. That's helpful.

I'm going to continue down the table here and maybe I'll get to some who are virtual in the next round.

I have one minute. I'm going to talk quickly.

Mr. Mallet from the Maritime Fishermen's Union, I appreciate your emphasis on collaborative science and how trust is being built while that's happening. One major concern of ours around stock assessments is the lack of completed stock assessments. Groups like Oceana have identified that close to one-third of stock assessments aren't being completed at the moment.

I'm wondering if you could talk a bit more about how this lack of data collection impacts your work. If you run out of time, could you follow up with something written?

[Martin Mallet]

Thank you for the question.

I'll use the example of the spring herring fishery, where we knew from what we had in terms of science that the stock was in a difficult situation for a few years. Our fishermen were seeing some of the negative signs on the water. In the last two, three or four years, our fishermen were starting to see some positive signs at the very micro and sometimes regional level. This knowledge was not and is not taken into consideration with the current science.

On top of that, by going to a straight moratorium of the fishery, now we've lost that fisherman platform that we had on the water. They are no longer there. We've lost a good chunk of the actual fisheries-dependent science. We're even worse than we were in terms of the science that we had. We've been struggling in the past few weeks now to put some kind of scrap protocol together with DFO to get something going.

That's an example of where we've really hit a wall in terms of the science. Hopefully, we can turn that around.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

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

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of our witnesses. It's really a good group today. You're providing us information on DFO's disregarding of science and how bad it's gotten.

My first question is for Phil Morlock.

DFO once had a good relationship with the angling community, where data was collected and science-based decisions were made and shared for the benefit of all. We heard from you in your statement how bad it is. With your 35 years of experience, can you speak to how well it used to work?

[Phil Morlock]

Yes, it was an excellent relationship. There was literally a recreational fisheries division at DFO. There was a chief appointed in that area. Bill Otway was an ombudsman between Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the recreational fishing community. He was extremely competent in that role. We worked co-operatively with scientific initiatives on both coasts and inland waters.

I would say that, in my career, the one individual who stood out the most and was respected on the North American continent in multiple roles in DFO was Tom Bird.

The relationship was always cordial. It was always professional, but it was also very cognizant of things like the importance of economy. The recreational fishing industry, according to Stats Canada is an $8.6-billion economy annually. If you asked Canadians if they fish, over eight million would answer “yes”. That was confirmed the last time in 2012 by the federal survey of the importance of nature to Canadians.

I've seen it decline dramatically in that period, to the point where there was literally no relationship any longer with the fishing industry. I represent the industry and have for its entirety, since CSIA was created. In the past decade or more I cannot think of one single example where DFO has done something positive for the eight million Canadian recreational fishers.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Morlock.

Quickly, how does the American NOAA process compare with the process at DFO?

[Phil Morlock]

It's dramatically different. The eight coastal committees that deal with ocean coastal management of fisheries include stakeholder input and meet frequently. It's a combination of government, NGOs, scientists and so on. Nothing like that exists in Canada.

For instance, in the 30-by-30 initiative to set aside 30% of areas as “protected”, the Biden administration is very engaged, with over 40 fishing and hunting conservation organizations in the U.S. In Canada, it's all behind closed doors. We have no idea what's going on.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Morlock.

I'll go now to Dave Brown. The Public Fishery Alliance was formed out of a need to get basically the attention of the DFO minister. The minister promised to work with the angling community and this committee. In Parliament, you might have watched the debate last week. I asked if she was going to work with groups like the PFA to have an opening on Howe Sound and she assured me that she was going to look into it, yet at the same time, I understand from your notes that DFO senior staff in the Pacific region wouldn't even look at it.

Has the minister worked with you, as she promised she would? Please explain.

[Dave Brown]

What I'd like to say is that the minister's staff at the lower level have been very engaging. They have provided us with a lot of opportunity for input, looking at data and coming up with the Howe Sound sport fishing advisory proposal that there was a 99% plus chance you would not encounter a stock of concern and there would be a great opportunity, but in our area, the Vancouver area is closed right now for chinook salmon, the most important salmon, from April 1 until August 31, essentially.

Even some of the minister's own staff met with us and said the proposals were sound and data driven and supported. They have continually rejected them now, despite numerous revisions, and have come back to us with reasons for some of the closures, where we're not given an opportunity to input. It's to the point this year where the opportunity, with the proposal we had, would have been for April and May. They wouldn't even look at it. We worked hard to try to get it, but it's not happening. We're getting shut down.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thanks.

This is my last question, Dave. What does DFO need to do to regain the trust of the angling community?

[Dave Brown]

I think they need to create opportunities, specifically for chinook salmon, where there are data-driven proposals. They need to look at the sport fish advisory board's proposals and look at them on a level where they're taken seriously and not dismissed for what appear to be either senior Pacific region staff biases or else political decisions at the ministerial level.

I think confidence right now in the senior department decision-makers and the minister to do this is severely lacking. Looking at some of these proposals and adopting them in the upcoming IFMP would go a long way toward doing this.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

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

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Through you, my questions will all be to Mr. Mallet. Five minutes is short.

We've heard pretty extensive testimony given about the disconnect between DFO science and the fisher in terms of the input of the information coming from the fisher, whether it's commercial fishers or indigenous fishers. We heard evidence from the PEIFA last week about one area that I want to focus on. Is the modelling used by DFO not a transparent process? There's a question around the modelling being used. In fact, it was that same modelling that was pointed to as one of the reasons for the disconnect between the department and the cod fishery of Newfoundland that led to its collapse.

Could you comment on the modelling? How does DFO use the modelling of the science and the information they get? How could it be improved?

[Martin Mallet]

As I think I mentioned in my introduction, there was a successful committee put together a good time ago now, the FRCC, where after the cod collapse—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Could you expand on the FRCC? I didn't know that you commented on it.

[Martin Mallet]

I will a little bit. The fisheries resource conservation council, after the cod moratorium, had a mandate to bring together DFO science but also outside of DFO science—so academia and international experts on fisheries science—and also representatives from the industry. It became a transparent process, or at least the process strived to be 100% transparent. The recommendations that came out from these committee meetings and reports were out for everyone to look at.

Right now we have the CSAS process, which is every year looking at the science that's being done on all of these species. They are supposed to be improving the science as we go forward, but we're seeing some examples where for many years we've said—our organization and some of the others that presented here—that there needs to be some of the science adapted to the climate change things that we're seeing on the water. For instance, with mackerel and herring we're seeing some changes in the distribution and the timing of the fish when they're around the coast.

Every year DFO science, in some instances, they rent their boats and go out and do the science every week, the same week every year. If you miss the timing of the fish by a few days or a few weeks, that's going to impact the quality of your science.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

When did the FRCC cease to function?

[Martin Mallet]

I think it was in the early 2010s if I remember correctly, so 2012 or maybe before that.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

It was disbanded in 2010 or 2012? Was it a model that worked very well?

[Martin Mallet]

Like I mentioned, in our case for the MFU, we've used the report on lobster and the report on herring as well, to push some of the changes that were suggested to our own fishermen.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Since that period there has been no formal structure that was similar to the FRCC?