Fisheries Committee on Oct. 28th, 2022

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

Thank you very much.

My last question is for Mr. Best.

First of all, I want to highlight that I'm also originally from Newfoundland. It's always nice to see fellow Newfoundlanders here, although I'm on the west coast now and that's home.

I'm wondering if you can speak to the whalesafe gear adoption fund. What are your thoughts on how we can best move forward with this funding, in order to ensure we're moving in the right direction and have the gear in place to help protect the North Atlantic right whale, while also ensuring we're not losing gear out at sea, like you spoke about?

[Glen Best]

I don't really know how to answer that question, because there hasn't been that much information passed on about the whalesafe fund.

Going forward, the conditions we fish under.... If we're going to continue to operate under the fact that we have to have a 1,700-pound breaking strength.... We fish in depths of 650 fathoms, which is about 1,100 or 1,200 metres for some fisheries. I can't get past the idea of how it's going to be practical to use these whalesafe ropes in the conditions and depths we fish in.

What we fish on our coast is probably totally different from what you fish in the gulf. I'm not familiar with the depths and that kind of thing in the gulf, but I don't know how we can move forward under the criteria currently in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. You've gone a bit over now.

We'll now give five minutes to Mr. Bragdon.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by congratulating Mr. Thériault for his 50 years in the fishing industry. That's amazing.

That's excellent.

It's good to be here with you all today. Thank you to the witnesses who've shared.

I have some questions and I'll try to move through them as quickly as possible. I'll open it up. Maybe I'll address this first one to the 50-year gentleman, Mr. Thériault.

How important is exporting your catch to the U.S., at this particular time? How would your industry be impacted if you weren't able to sell to that market?

[Gilles Thériault]

It would be devastating; 90% of our production goes to the U.S.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Ninety per cent.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Absolutely.

[Gilles Thériault]

Yes. Many rural communities would just disappear. It's that serious.

The snow crab fishery has saved the fishery in Newfoundland, by the way, after the disaster with cod, and now it also is so important everywhere, including the Magdalen Islands and including all of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is essential, and we have to take seriously what we're hearing from groups like the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We just can't say, “Aw, this is fluff.” These groups have a lot of influence in a lot of places, among some big retailers and some wholesalers, so we need to make sure that our story is told because we are doing much more than anybody in the world that I've seen. I study these things in terms of trying to establish a method of cohabitation, ensuring that we can earn our livelihoods while protecting the right whale.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you. I agree so much on that.

As it relates to what you just said, it's so important that our story gets told because we have some of the best practices in the world for fish harvesting and the harvesting of lobster and snow crab. We take great care of our waters. There are no better protectors of our oceans than those who depend upon the oceans for their livelihoods. I think it's a great story, and that story needs to be told. The industry needs to be defended in this regard.

How much consultation has taken place with the lobster and snow crab fishers and other fixed-gear fishers as it relates to this?

I'll start with Mr. Best first and then Mr. Poirier. Just give as quick an answer as possible because I have a couple of other questions I want to get in here.

[Glen Best]

Are you talking strictly about consultation on the whalesafe rope?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Yes, exactly. How much input or opportunity for input did they provide you on this?

[Glen Best]

Like I said earlier, there were three Zoom meetings this winter—virtual meetings—and that was pretty much the consultation process. Here in Newfoundland and on the northeast coast, there hasn't been much consultation with harvesters. I know there has been some push-back from harvesters.

I mean, there is some work being done now—to what extent, I'm not quite sure—but we're still not at a place where there's work done so that we can safely say that we can move forward and have whalesafe rope or ropeless gear. There are a lot of questions that have to be answered in terms of ropeless gear. If you're in 200 fathoms or 600 fathoms of water, are you going to be able to use ropeless gear? There are so many unanswered questions, and these things are not proven.

There hasn't been a lot of consultation.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

You'd say that, basically, the response from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and its decision-making process to your organization's input and others' has been less than satisfactory, I would take it, at this point.

[Glen Best]

That would be a correct statement, yes. It's less than satisfactory.

I know that these measures have been talked about for a while, but it seems like now that we're at the midnight hour, the pressure is on to try to get this whalesafe rope or ropeless gear in place. It's just not realistic and practical to be able to do it at this point in time.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Excellent.

I just want to follow up on that. What is the impact of the dynamic in temporary fisheries closures on the time and fuel required to remove and set traps every time they shut this down because of a sighting or something like this? Do you have an idea of what the cost is, and does it put your harvesters at greater risk every time there is a closure as a result of a sighting because of this new gear that's being experimented with?

Can you comment on that, Mr. Best?

[Glen Best]

As I said in my opening remarks, if you look at the interactive right whale map.... I mean, for 2015 to present day, there have been four sightings of right whales on the east and northeast coasts. Those were when there was very little fixed gear and absolutely no crab or lobster fisheries in place, so we haven't had issues with right whales.

Like I said, the chances of me getting a right whale is practically zero. We don't have right whales. We haven't had closures. We don't face the same issues that they have in the gulf when they get a concentration of right whales and have closed fishing areas. We're lucky that we don't have that problem. Whether it will come someday with the changing environment, I don't know, but right now, we don't have closures. We don't have those problems, so it begs the question: Why are we trying to fix a problem on the east and northeast coasts when we don't have one?

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Best.

Do you want to comment on that, Mr. Poirier or—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Bragdon. You've gone way over.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll now go to Mr. Morrissey, please, for five minutes or less, and I stress the “less”.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

He subbed on a committee I chaired, and he told me he would settle it here. I'm teasing.

Monsieur Thériault, it's good to see you. You've been a visionary in the east coast fishing industry for years. A lot of times, your ideology was not always appreciated by the fishers themselves.

This committee has heard extensively the common themes that everybody wants to protect the whale and everybody is aware of the consequences if we go back to a year like 2017 or even close to that. Earlier you said it would be “devastating” to the marketplace. It has become clear that one size will not fit all as the approach. The other common theme is that where fishers and whales interact, then something must give, and not all of the gulf is where fishers and whales interact.

My question goes to a statement you made in your opening comments, or maybe it was in an answer, where you referenced that DFO must accompany fishers on the road as we develop this new technology. Could you expand on that a bit more, on how DFO must accompany fishers on the journey?

[Gilles Thériault]

Yes, absolutely. It was a very important point that I was trying to make in my remarks.

First of all, I want to be clear that the situation in Newfoundland is totally different. There are no whales there, so I totally agree with the preoccupations about putting in regulations that impact areas where there are no whales.

When I talk about ropeless, I'm talking about a fishery that is happening in the closed areas. I'm not recommending or suggesting that we have ropeless everywhere, but in those areas, at one point it was almost half or more of our fishing grounds. If you could continue to fish and protect the whales...and I'm convinced that this methodology or technique of having no ropes in the water in a closed area but still being allowed to put traps in there would be fantastic. It's happening right now.

My point was that 18 fishermen did it this year, and they were very successful. Some were able to capture their quota because they were allowed to fish in those closed areas. They actually fished in closed areas. What I'm saying right now is that we have to plan for this. We need regulations on how close to be to each other, on how many traps per boat and on whether all the fishermen are going to be allowed. We need to make sure that....

The fishermen are moving very fast. This is creating a lot of excitement. As I said, they didn't believe in it at all. Now it's the way of the future. We need to make sure that we have the proper regulations in place for fishing with this technology in those closed areas. My sense is that the department is lagging behind right now in this area.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

To be clear, it's the area of regulating the fishery as it would relate to using ropeless technology. Am I correct on that?

[Gilles Thériault]

Exactly.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay. Thank you.

I would appreciate your opinion on another point that was made. We've heard a wide range of opinions. Canada, and a lot of times the department, will get criticized a lot, and I can be one of the critics. But it has become clear that there's a lot of consensus that DFO acted in a reasonable way following 2017, when we were hit with the high numbers of whales, in moving to protect the whales and also to protect Canada's reputation in the international marketplace.

Is that a fair assessment, from your perspective?