Evidence of meeting #28 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was seals.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
You have six seconds left. I don't think you'd have time for a question or an answer.
We'll move on to Mr. Morrissey for five minutes or less, please.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Chair.
Through you, my question is for Mr. Hardy.
Mr. Hardy, there's been a lot of discussion on the seal population on both the east and west coasts—primarily the east coast. When I look at the numbers, the harvest quota has been several million animals over the last number of years. There wouldn't be 10% of it caught. What has to be done to entice fishers to fully exploit the quota that's there now?
Could you comment briefly?
What did we miss? The fishers are not harvesting the allowable quota. Why?
12:15 p.m.
Fisheries Consultant, As an Individual
I think the number is far less than several million. It's in the tens of thousands in the last couple of years, in terms of the harp seals.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
12:15 p.m.
Fisheries Consultant, As an Individual
To increase the harvest and make it economical for fishers to fish in dangerous conditions, which is usually in the spring of the year when there's a lot of ice around, our governments have to open up market access.
People I talk to in the industry say it's not a problem of people wanting to buy the various products. It's a problem of gaining access, whether that be in Europe or Asia. I guess our friends at Global Affairs and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have to work together to ensure that we do everything possible to allow these products to reach customers who want to buy them.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I understand that, Mr. Hardy, but still, the fishers for years have not exploited the resource they had access to, so until we actually solve that problem, I don't think it's a market. To develop a fishery, we have to first of all establish what the cost is and then be prepared to subsidize that in some form until the market is developed, because, as I've pointed out, there are several million there that are not being utilized.
I want to move on to Mr. Chris Jones. In testimony from various witnesses, testimony that has come in has been referencing the modelling DFO uses in the science. This was raised by a number of fisher organizations that were not sure.... They were questioning the modelling used. You, in your testimony, referenced that the stock assessment models were updated and you referenced Canadian versus Scandinavian stock models.
Could you comment? Do you know if there's a significant difference between the modelling used by Canadian fishery science versus the Scandinavian? From all accounts, Scandinavia has managed their fisheries well.
12:20 p.m.
Senior Fisheries Manager, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Retired), As an Individual
I can't go into the direct comparison. It would take a long time to go into the direct comparison between Scandinavian modelling and Canadian modelling, but I can give you the general view.
We understand the Scandinavian modelling has a lot of direct input from science, from at sea, and they have a very good grasp, an excellent grasp, on the statistics, going back to comments made earlier, and they have a grasp on the data far more than I think we do now. This was once the case with Fisheries perhaps 25 years ago, and I think it has changed significantly, in that scientists are operating largely from labs and on site and in situ situations, versus being at sea. I think that's the difference between the Scandinavian approach and the Canadian approach in general.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Mr. Jones.
I have one final question. How would you recommend to this committee or what would you recommend to this committee on how DFO could incorporate the fisher-based knowledge? There's a disconnect between the two. How would you suggest that for this committee and, because I'm going to run out of time, could you follow it up in maybe a written presentation?
That appears to be the issue that must be resolved: the methodology for incorporating fisher-based knowledge and science with DFO science on the management of the stock. Could you comment briefly?
12:20 p.m.
Senior Fisheries Manager, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Retired), As an Individual
Yes. I think the incorporation of fisher-based science is not just with science, but with fisheries management. It needs to be done across the board, and science I think needs to incorporate fishers' knowledge directly into their CSAS process. It may be more lengthy and it may be more complicated, but that information is used in other jurisdictions, such as Scandinavia.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.
We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes or less, please.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Rangeley. You talked about transparency of information, and I want to follow up on that.
We have a major problem in the Gaspé region, among other places. Herring and mackerel fishers were told that the fishery would be shut down only a few days before it was to open. These individuals are now out of work and have no money coming in. We have no plan, no financial compensation to support them. There's been a complete lack of foresight.
In your opinion, does being transparent with information have an impact on the mental and socio-economic state of our fishers?
How vital is access to information for them?
12:20 p.m.
Dr. Robert Rangeley
We did an analysis—and I can provide the publications—on the timeliness of science information. Those fishers should have been well aware of the science in advance. But what we found is that CSAS has a policy on the publication of documents, and it's a publication based on transparency. Yet if you go through the documents, allowing for a considerably conservative look at the timeliness, only about 10% get published on time. Increasingly, we also see some of the science information in the CSAS documents is coming out after a decision has been made. This is a real challenge especially for those who aren't at the CSAS meetings. The fishermen's representatives may be there, but many of the fishermen are not at those meetings.
One quick solution for this, too, and it's done in some fisheries, and we've seen it in northern cod, is where there's a technical briefing after the meeting and so there's then full disclosure of what the findings are, what the trends are in a publicly accessible way, while the publication process proceeds through the CSAS. I think that's a good model and it might have helped those fishermen who felt in the dark about the scientific basis of the quota decision.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Madame Desbiens. You're right on time.
We'll now go to Ms. Barron, for two and a half minutes, please.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Chair.
My question is also for Dr. Rangeley.
You had spoken about the importance of rebuilding plans and the reports being released. One area that I've heard spoken about through Oceana in the past is the rehabilitation of forage fish stocks.
I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more about the concerns that have been identified and some of the science and policy gaps specific to this example that you've seen.
12:25 p.m.
Dr. Robert Rangeley
Thank you very much for this question.
This is a fundamental one, and one that is quite disturbing, quite frankly.
As we know, forage fish are the base of the food web. They transfer energy through the ecosystem to other fish predators we rely on, as well as seabirds, whales and so on. Currently, in terms of landings, about 12% by volume and 6% by value of our forage fisheries come from healthy stocks. We're heavily depleting those stocks.
The previous questioner asked about mackerel. Mackerel and herring stocks, unfortunately, had to be closed because of the state of those fisheries. We should have been managing them well in advance of that kind of decision that causes so much disruption. In fact, when you manage forage fish, because of their importance, you need to have a higher threshold for fishing them and making sure that the population biomass is high and a cap as well. You essentially put guardrails in, a precautionary guardrail, so you don't manage those fisheries, because the populations do fluctuate.
That's how they're managed in other areas, and we're not doing that in Canada. It's something I'd really like a tremendous amount of attention paid to.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Dr. Rangeley.
My next question is for Mr. Young.
Mr. Young, could you speak a little bit more to stock assessments, specifically the lack of stock assessments we're seeing and how that's impacting our capacity to make sound science-based decisions as we move forward?
12:25 p.m.
Senior Science and Policy Analyst, David Suzuki Foundation
As I mentioned in my opening statement, DFO in general knows how to do stock assessment, and has demonstrated that capacity in the past. What has happened over the past 20 years is that much stock assessment has been reduced in many places. This includes Pacific salmon on the west coast. Not only do we lose that basic information we need to make the right decisions about fishing, but we also break the cycle and the long-term information database we have that really helps our long-term understanding.
As I suggested, for Pacific salmon at least, this government has recently announced the Pacific salmon strategy initiative, which provides the opportunity to restore some of that stock assessment—at least for the highly valued Pacific salmon. But, ultimately, stock assessment capacity remains a challenge in a number of fisheries and, as Dr. Rangeley has pointed out, we still lack it in far too many of our species. As much as we hope to take an ecosystem approach, we need to understand not just our target species, but also other species in the ecosystem and how they're being affected by our actions as well.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Ms. Barron. You're a good bit over the time.
We will go now to Mr. Small for five minutes or less, please.
June 14th, 2022 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Clifford Small Conservative Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Mr. Hardy. I have a couple of questions for him.
Mr. Hardy, what would say is the reason for the drastic difference between the seal diet estimates in Canadian science and Norwegian science? Why would there be such a drastic difference?
12:30 p.m.
Fisheries Consultant, As an Individual
There's quite a bit of variability, depending on the reporting. This 3% value, which was issued in January of this year from DFO science, is the lowest that DFO has used in the past 20 years. They also use a lower mean body weight for adult harp seals. It's been reduced from a previous 140 kilograms per animal down to 110 kilograms, so 3% of 110 kilograms is where you get the 3.3 kilograms.
In terms of other science and the report in particular that references 7 kilograms to 9 kilograms, I remember that one quite well, because it was quite easy to read. The researchers indicated that 9 kilograms per day was required for female seals—because they carry young, they need more food—and 7 kilograms for males.
That particular study also went on to include the types of prey fish that were being eaten. Fatty fish like herring, mackerel and capelin would generate 2,000 calories per kilogram, and lean fish and whitefish would generate 1,000 calories per kilogram. Depending on the type of fish and the availability, it influences the amount, but if you study the numerous reports that are out there on seal diet right across the international community, you will see variability.
To give an example of stationary seals in an aquarium, SeaWorld reports that they need 5%. If they're in the wild, you can assume that they would need more food than seals in an aquarium.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Clifford Small Conservative Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Canada collaborates internationally on all types of science. In our recent pandemic, we relied on international science.
Why can't DFO collaborate with other North Atlantic countries, which share the same ocean, to come up with better science?
12:30 p.m.
Fisheries Consultant, As an Individual
That's a very good question. Collaboration is certainly needed. We need to look at what other countries are doing.
You indicated the prolific fisheries that are in Scandinavia, particularly Norway and Iceland. Very seldom do you hear of resource crises. These countries do not have the seal population problem that we do here in Canada.
When I refer back to the Norwegian report and the graph that I showed earlier, I had an opportunity to question that particular scientist. I asked him if he can see seals from the coastline of Norway. He answered no. I asked him, if they had eight million seals for 30 years around their coastline, what would be the impact on the fishery? That particular scientist answered to me in the presence of the other Atlantic seal science task team members that they would have a very big problem.
MP Small, I don't know why we don't look harder and look more quickly at what's being said around the world.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Clifford Small Conservative Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL
Mr. Hardy, I have a question for you. Harbour seals in the gulf and on the south coast of Newfoundland and Labrador are still listed as species at risk. We don't know how many there are. The hooded seals haven't been counted since 2015. The science that's being committed to knowing how much seal predation exists is very lackluster. In the opinion of stakeholders, it's disgusting.
In your opinion, with your experience on the task team, is DFO doing all it can to know how many seals are out there and how much they are consuming? Do they really want to know?
12:35 p.m.
Fisheries Consultant, As an Individual
You know, there's no excuse that after 30 years we don't know how many seals are out there. Each different species should have been counted by now. They should have been counted multiple times by now. In order to know the impact, you need to know how many there are. You need to know the daily diet. You need to know their spatial distribution. These are all things that DFO science needs to focus on.
If you're from Newfoundland and Labrador, it's basically been a conflict between the industry, fishers and our DFO science when it comes to talking about seals and discussion on seals. You can do any type of search and you'll find the statements from our DFO science; basically, they go against what industry is saying. There needs to be more dialogue. There needs to be more openness and more transparency.
We've had regulations on our fishery throughout Atlantic Canada and very little fishing activity. If you have a moratorium for 30 years and you don't have a northern cod recovery, why is that? You have to ask yourself why. You know, 12,000 tonnes is not a fishery. I've been to Iceland many times. Most plants in Iceland process 20,000 tonnes individually. Norway has a quota of around 900,000 tonnes annually of cod. They don't have a crisis, but they don't have a seal problem. Iceland has 25,000 seals.
We need to look hard. We need to know how many seals are there. In the case of harbour seals, we need to get into the rivers. I can show you hundreds of photos of hundreds of seals living in a river year-round. I've had DFO science tell me they have no impact on salmon populations. That's not true.
We need to find the answers.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Small.
We'll now go to Mr. Hanley for five minutes or less, please.