Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With my family tree having Canadian Mi’kmaq and Métis, I would like to recognize today as being National Indigenous Peoples Day.
Mr. Chairman, it's a pleasure to appear before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, as I have done previously on different occasions. My name is, as you mentioned, Leonard LeBlanc. I was a harvester for 36 years, and president of our association for over 40 years. This past March, I stepped down as president of the Gulf Nova Scotia Fishermen's Coalition, but remain as an adviser.
During all these years, I've lived through different life cycles of science. Harvesters used to view science as a tool to control their participation in the fishery and their livelihood. There was little trust in science. If we go back in history, there was a time when fishermen were not permitted to attend meetings with DFO; only buyers were allowed. These things change, doors open and here we are now. I am here to state before you that history has evolved and changed for the best interests of all.
In my early years as president of our association, I took it upon myself to study the management of the fisheries, and quickly realized that science could be a valuable asset to advance positive changes in all fisheries and ensure sustainability.
I'll give you a brief description of my thought process. When I was fishing lobster in the eighties, we could barely make enough revenue to qualify for EI. After the cod moratorium, we quickly realized that we needed to have a greater say in the management of our fisheries. We spent over a year looking at changes that we could implement to increase our lobster landings and revenue.
A committee was brought together, which included Pictou Landing First Nation, the provincial government and DFO management and science. We built our own management plan, entirely based on science, which allowed the harvesters to be more involved in science and to build a better relationship with it. The result was increasing the minimum carapace size and reducing our fishing effort to increase egg production. We expanded the carapace size by a total of 15 millimetres over time, which was a significant increase. However, because harvesters were involved in the science process, they knew that this was what was needed. Harvesters are now having their EI clawed back, which is not a bad thing, and our fishery is far more sustainable than ever it was before.
DFO science has improved over time. Some of us have been selected as external experts in scientific peer reviews. The Gulf Nova Scotia Fleet Planning Board, of which I am the managing director, is working collaboratively with DFO on a five-year scientific exercise to study a scallop buffer zone marine refuge area. It's figure one. This area was used in the calculation of the marine protected area.
This project aims to increase the monitoring capacity within Canada's marine refuges to fill in critical knowledge gaps, so that effective conservation measures can be implemented to protect our marine environment. This is an example of a mutually agreed-to process by industry and DFO, which would not have happened in the past.
In addition to this massive project, the Gulf Nova Scotia Fleet Planning Board collaborates with DFO on many other science ventures, including a salinity and water temperature study, lobster recruitment research, a lobster moult cycle project and much more. DFO must take into consideration the capacity that the fishing industry can add to its data collection. Science is now our strongest ally. Without it, this fishery and industry would only be a small fraction of what it is today.
In conclusion, DFO must have sufficient financial resources to conduct its work. Previous governments have devastated DFO's science budget. This cannot happen again, because the fish, the fishermen, the economy and the environment will lose. DFO's decision to close the herring and mackerel fisheries this spring without a science-based rebuilding program bewildered many in the industry. This fishing community must be further integrated into the process.
Thank you for the invitation.