Fisheries Committee on Sept. 27th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.

We'll go on now to Madam Desbiens for two and half minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have before me the website of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals, or GREMM. This non-profit organization, which studies whales in the St. Lawrence River, does really advanced and forward-looking research. It studies the behaviour of marine mammals.

Mr. Gilchrist, does DFO work with a number of such organizations in the Gulf of St. Lawrence?

[Brett Gilchrist]

Thank you. That is a good question.

GREMM is an organization, along with several others, such as Campobello Whale Rescue Team, Tangly Whales in Newfoundland, the Marine Animal Response Society in the Atlantic as well as the Pacific, with which we have partnerships under the marine mammal response program, the national response program in Canada to deal with marine mammal incidents. We have a very close working relationship with GREMM and work with them on response on an annual basis, and we have a budget to work with those organizations to make sure they have the resources to do that safely.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

I want to come back to the tracking methods, which will perhaps finally allow us, from a predictability perspective, to reduce the areas and frequency of fisheries closures. It is not a question of telling anyone what to do, but GREMM has experience in predicting the passage of the blue whale, in particular, which is an important whale.

As you know, there are what are called whale cruises in the St. Lawrence. We want to reduce the consequences that these cruises could have on the arrival of the blue whale, its feeding, and so on.

Couldn't this kind of exercise be done more, or at least more seriously and assiduously, so as to reduce the zones and improve predictability?

I know this is more of a question for the scientists, but I'd like to get your thoughts on it.

[Adam Burns]

I will say this in English, because some of the words I don't know in French.

One of the things that DFO science is engaged in is studying predictive factors for the distribution of calanus, the food source for the North Atlantic right whale. The whales are huge animals, but they eat really small organisms in the water. One of the reasons our scientists are doing that work is to see if there are ways we might better predict where the aggregations of North Atlantic right whales will develop. That work is not at a point where we can align management measures with that, but it is certainly one of the many pieces of work we're looking at doing over the mid-term to long term that might result in greater predictability, greater certainty and fewer impacts on the fishing industry. That work will obviously, hopefully, continue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to hold a little bit on some of the questions that were asked by my colleague Mr. Perkins.

Specifically for some context, we know that many of our fisheries practices, both present and past, but hopefully not future, are based on very colonial practices. We know that the right to fish for food and for social and ceremonial purposes is protected under section 35 of the Constitution. This is information we all know.

We also know it's important that through a process of reconciliation with first nations, we purposely are not pitting first nation fishers against non-indigenous fishers and vice versa. I want to ensure that we have an opportunity to hear from you a little more around the work being done to ensure that these processes are being done effectively, alongside first nations, ensuring that we're not reinforcing a narrative that can create more division at a time when we need to come together.

[Adam Burns]

Thanks for the question.

Indigenous communal, commercial and moderate livelihood fishing activities in our Maritimes region are subject to the same closure protocols as other commercial activities. In terms of FSC fishing, our regional colleagues are currently working with first nations to better understand their needs and ultimately to further integrate the FSC harvesting with the department's overall approach to protecting North Atlantic right whales and other marine mammals. That meaningful consultation needs to be undertaken in advance of applying the same closure protocols to those FSC fisheries.

The nations certainly were informed when these whale sightings occurred so that they could respond appropriately, based on their determinations. That meaningful consultation is under way so that we can better understand their particular circumstances and work with them to find a path forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. You have about 10 seconds left, so we 'll move on now to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll go back to my earlier question for both of you when I asked about other Canadian fisheries operations you are aware of that have been targeted by foreign ENGOs.

You mentioned the seal hunt. What other fisheries operations have been affected by messaging activities by foreign ENGOs?

[Adam Burns]

Well, I don't have a list in front of me to speak to that, so I wouldn't want to mislead the committee, but certainly the seal harvest is a good example of that. I'm sure that there have been other transboundary fisheries in Canada that the U.S..... Perhaps Pacific salmon and perhaps the mackerel fishery on the east coast are two that come to mind that may have been subject to that as well. It's not something that we would have a specific listing on, so again, I don't want to mislead you on it.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

How long have you been in this role with the department?

[Adam Burns]

I've been at DFO for a fair amount of time. I've given you the examples that come to mind today.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

Further examples on the west coast are recreational fisheries and our salmon aquaculture. They certainly come to my mind as well.

How can Canada better combat those attacks, if you want to call them that, on the sustainable fisheries here in Canada, when we see local fish harvesters—commercial, indigenous and recreational—all being impacted by media spins that are put out there?

[Adam Burns]

We're working very diligently to try to ensure that Canada's world-class management regime is understood by these organizations. Unfortunately, sometimes their approaches might not be fully informed by fact, so we can't always prevent all of those sorts of assertions from being made.

Our strategy is to work with Canadian representatives in the U.S., such as the consulate in Boston, which is actively engaged with political leadership, as well as with other groups to ensure those facts are well understood by all involved and they can have a fair understanding of the great work that Canada is doing and the Canadian industry is doing to have sustainable fisheries that are aiming to coexist with, among other things, marine mammals.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Are there activities from other countries that are impacting Canadian fisheries operations that you're aware of?

[Adam Burns]

I'm not sure I quite follow that.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

With regard to the ENGOs, you mentioned the U.S. and that you're working closely with U.S. counterparts. Are there any other countries that you're working with on similar issues?

[Adam Burns]

Oh, for sure. For example, in the European Union and in Scandinavia a few years back, there were concerns around the humane treatment of lobsters in cooking practices. We undertook significant advocacy work there to make sure those realities were understood by those groups, and that appears to have largely worked. That's not a a communications line that we tend to hear of more recently.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

In the fall 2018 report from the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development on the protection of marine mammals, recommendations were made to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Have the recommendations made in the audit been implemented, and has the increased funding been spent?

[Adam Burns]

In short, I don't have the full list of recommendations in front of me to give you the accurate details, but absolutely that's an audit that we're acutely aware of. We have a management action plan associated with it and are in the process of implementing measures, or have implemented them, to respond to all of those recommendations.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Has the increased funding that was provided been spent?

[Adam Burns]

If it hasn't...?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Has it been spent, that increased funding that was provided?

[Adam Burns]

That would be linked back to the whales initiative, for example, and the $167 million there. All of those investments are under way. We've spoken of things like the whalesafe gear adoption fund and the ghost gear fund, both of which are in use now, with funding going to various groups, absolutely.