Evidence of meeting #32 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 measures.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay. Thank you.
What other nations have performed surveillance flights over or around the Gulf of St. Lawrence or other Canadian waters to observe whether right whale measures are being complied with?
4:10 p.m.
Director, National Programs, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Only one, and that would be NOAA in the United States.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay, so NOAA has been doing surveillance flights.
Does the DFO have adequate resources to perform the surveillance and enforcement of right whale measures?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We do believe that we are deploying a sufficient number of assets to see a large number of the right whales, especially with the acoustic monitoring now in place as well.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay. If that is the case, then why would the Americans also have surveillance over our waters?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The U.S. undertakes surveillance for other reasons as well. It's not specifically to administer our program. They have a very active scientific program of tracking each individual animal for other purposes, other than just protecting them in this way. Indeed, the methodologies that they use when they're in our waters are meant to identify all of the animals in a particular aggregation, which isn't information that we need to administer our closure protocols. If we see one whale, we act the same as if there are 10.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay. Are you aware of anywhere else that the Americans perform overflight surveillance of Canadian waters or territory to observe whether Canadians are abiding by regulations?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Again, they're not undertaking this surveillance for that purpose. They're doing it for scientific collaboration purposes. I believe that from time to time Canadian scientists are part of that work as well.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Does the DFO or any other branch of the Canadian government perform surveillance flights over U.S. waters or territories to observe their regulatory compliance?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We do indeed perform some aerial surveillance—for example, in the north Pacific, looking for IUU activity there—so yes, we do that as well.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Is that in international waters or in U.S. waters as well?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I don't believe it would be in U.S. waters, but again, the surveillance that's being conducted in Canadian waters by the U.S. NOAA plane is not for enforcement or surveillance purposes. It's for scientific activities.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
I have a little bit of a different subject line now. What other Canadian fisheries operations are you aware of that have been targeted by foreign ENGOs like this one from Monterey Bay?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Certainly the seal harvest is another one that often gets attention from various groups in other countries.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Is the government taking any counter-communicative action against these activities that are impacting our Canadian fisheries?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, absolutely.
As I noted, we are working to make sure that various groups in the U.S., including, for example, The Pew Charitable Trusts, which last year put out something in support of Canada's measures—
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
I'm sorry. Your time is up.
We'll now go to Mr. Cormier again, for five minutes or less, please.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I want to go back to the MMPA for just a second.
Mr. Burns or Mr. Gilchrist, I think we've all known since 2017 that a couple of things we want to achieve include no more dead whales and protection of the habitat and everything like that. It's also to comply with the MMPA. Is that right?
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, that's correct.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
We're talking about the measures we put in place in 2017. I think you said you are not sure if the U.S. has stricter measures compared to us.
How are we going to comply with the MMPA? Is it a process of having a discussion with our counterparts in the U.S., saying that these are our measures, this is what we've done since 2017, and we think we should be able to continue fishing under compliance with the MMPA?
I just want to make sure everybody understands the process around complying with the MMPA.
4:10 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Part of it is indeed ensuring an appropriate and complete understanding of the measures Canada has put in place.
In specific terms, though, the U.S. MMPA legislation also requires that the level of mortality—and they attribute partial mortality to an entangled whale, even if it is subsequently successfully disentangled—needs to be below what the U.S. terms the “potential biological removal”, which is a scientific calculation based on the population. It's not a metric we use domestically for management purposes, but it is one that we have calculated because it is central to the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
In the case of this species, because the species goes from the U.S. to Canada, it's a single number that is revised each year, but it is below one. What that means—
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
In your opinion, Mr. Burns, if I'm using the right term in English, do we “comply”? Are we going to be okay under the MMPA with the measures we have in place so far?
4:15 p.m.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries and Harbour Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Yes, we're very confident that we will.
We're not taking anything for granted. We continue to undertake outreach to the U.S. administration as well as to environmental groups in the U.S., but we're confident that our measures are world class and certainly meet the comparability standard.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Serge Cormier Liberal Acadie—Bathurst, NB
I know the industry is working closely with all of you in different meetings. One thing we also hear is that the reasons—I'm not going to say “excuses”—you give most of the time for not relaxing the measures is that we will not comply with the MMPA and maybe other issues like that.
Is it true that if we're not complying with the MMPA, NOAA has to give us advice before they can shut down the fishery? It seems that we're using a lot of excuses not to relax the measure, but if we relax the measures, will NOAA in the U.S. look at us and say that maybe this is something we should not have done and give us advice to put the measures back in place? Is it true that NOAA has to give us advice before that?