Fisheries Committee on Oct. 28th, 2022

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I mean right whales, based on the time of year they've been sighted.

[Glen Best]

I can say with confidence that it's a 0% chance.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

We'll now go to Mr. Cormier for six minutes or less, please.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Thériault, I congratulate you for your 50 years of involvement in the fishing industry. You look too young to have 50 years of experience. All joking side, I also want to commend you for the work you're doing with McGraw Seafood, a plant located in the riding I represent. I just want my colleagues to know that this plant is owned exclusively by the Elsipogtog First Nation. I also want to give a shout-out to Jake Augustine, the plant manager.

In my opinion, the efforts that fishers and fishing industry stakeholders have been making for the past five years are nothing short of miraculous. We both know there's room for improvement as regards the flexibility of the measures and getting the fishery more back to normal in the coming years.

Mr. Thériault, do you think it would be possible to offer a bit more flexibility in terms of the measures and the temporary and seasonal closures? Last year, the gulf fishery was almost completely closed, although most of the quotas had been caught.

Is it possible to offer flexibility while ensuring that our markets, which are very significant in the United States and around the world, are not affected?

[Gilles Thériault]

That's a very important question, but it's also very tricky.

We always try to design management plans that will enable us to fish efficiently and capture the quotas for this type of fishery while also protecting the whales.

The current management plan doesn't prevent entanglements. There are no guarantees in that regard. I don't think it's even possible to guarantee that whales will be fully protected, short of closing down the fishery entirely, as the Monterey Bay aquarium recommends. I think that's a preposterous idea, by the way.

On the one hand, I understand where the fishers are coming from. They're always trying to find ways to make their job easier while protecting the whales. On the other hand, I also see where the Government of Canada is coming from. It's resistant to the idea of making the measures more flexible, because a whale could accidentally get entangled in ropes and die.

In other words, I understand the government's reluctance and I also understand the fishers' concerns. The fishers are very familiar with the situation, and they don't have a selfish attitude.

I don't have a ready-made answer for you, but maybe there isn't one. The fishers' argument is reasonable, and it takes the sensitive nature of the issue into account, but I understand that we need to proceed with caution.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

In my region, there's a lot of talk about ropeless traps, and it seems to be working well. Experiments have been going on for three years. In other regions, like Nova Scotia and the Bay of Fundy, they could be a bit harder to use because of the currents.

The technology that's supposed to be in place for 2023 is weak ropes, meaning low-density ropes. Unfortunately, the tests haven't been conclusive.

If we want to keep whales safe and have less rope in the water, should we wait for more conclusive test results before going ahead with a technology that could be more harmful, both to whales and to the crab and lobster markets?

[Gilles Thériault]

Mr. Cormier, like a good politician, you may be trying to make me say what you want to hear.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Not at all. I want your opinion.

[Gilles Thériault]

I fully agree with you in this case, because the effectiveness of these measures hasn't been proven and there's a safety issue for fishers. I don't think low-breaking-strength rope is the solution. I strongly believe that there should be no rope in the water. I'm a firm believer in on‑demand buoy technology. The buoy sits on the sea bottom, there's no rope, and when it's time to harvest the catch, you raise the buoy to the surface, empty the trap and lower it back down.

As I was telling you, this year, 18 of our fishers tried out this technology, and I spent a lot of time talking to the captains to get their opinion. The ones who weren't believers initially and said this method was silly became fervent converts. This is a revolutionary approach that gets ropes out of the water. I think it deserves to be promoted more. We're not quite experts at using this method, but it seems obvious to me that this is the way of the future, especially in comparison with low-breaking-strength rope.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

All right.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

Your six minutes are up.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Poirier, the Magdalen Islands area is very special, as is its economy. The socio-economic balance of the islands is directly related to the fishery, based on what you've told us. Having been there several times myself, I can confirm that. All the islanders talk about fishing. Their lives are built around lobster fishing.

I would like you to comment on what would happen if DFO decided to maintain its 2023 deadline for the implementation of gear that hasn't been tested properly or that has given inconclusive results.

In the short term, for the next fishing year, what repercussions would this have on fishers and the entire economy of the Magdalen Islands?

[Charles Poirier]

Let me give you some idea of how things stand. There are 325 fishers in the Magdalen Islands area. That means a lot of traffic. Because there are so many fishers, the traps are practically sitting on top of each other. Between two traps on the same line, the depth can vary by about 20 feet.

Furthermore, the sea bottom in these waters is very rocky, which makes it hard to fish. If the planned requirements are maintained and we have to use the low-breaking-strength rope that's currently being tested, our traps will stay in the water. Whales won't get entangled, but our traps will stay in the water. That will be far from acceptable from an environmental standpoint.

We have 273 traps each worth $100 to $150, so it wouldn't be a great solution from an economic standpoint either.

I myself took part in a test involving fishing gear using rope designed to break when exposed to more than 1,700 pounds of tension. Unfortunately, I don't have a very high opinion of the result. The rope broke on its own, due to the low breaking strength. It wasn't a whale that broke it, it was the weight of my boat and the sea bottom.

We would be creating an ecological problem that makes no sense. The traps left on the sea bottom will break down after a year, but until then, they'll keep catching lobster on their own. That won't be very cost-effective for Magdalen Islands fishers. It's not every day that we replace a dozen traps.

That's why we are requesting that the deadline be postponed to 2025 to give us more time. It's not because we're against the principle. Quite the contrary.

I was listening to Mr. Thériault's comments earlier about ropeless buoys. I would love for him to come see what's going on in the Magdalen Islands sector. I don't know if you know this, but speaking for myself, even if I see another fisher's buoys next to mine, our traps end up on top of each other from time to time. If we don't see where our neighbour is, we're bound to do each other harm.

It's not just a matter of one trap and one buoy. For us, it's seven traps and two buoys.

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

Thank you, Mr. Poirier.

That was very informative.

You're proposing a dynamic approach where a boat could start monitoring a whale as soon as it enters the corridor of your fishing area. Then it would know exactly where the whale is, what direction it's travelling in and how fast it's going. Would that help you make the fishery safer?

Is that approach a good short-term option for protecting both whales and your fishing activities?

[Charles Poirier]

For starters, we—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Poirier, please turn on your video and camera. We're suppose to be able to see you as you're speaking.

[Charles Poirier]

It's not working.

I can go over to where Ms. Renaud is, if you like.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Okay. You go ahead as is. I don't want to lose you and try to get you signed in again. Leave it as it is.

[Charles Poirier]

Okay.

Getting back to the subject of our boat, RPPCI has acquired a scientific vessel that we use for our projects.

I should start by noting that all scientists agree that whales aren't believed to dive deeper than 20 fathoms. The Magdalen Islands is on a 20‑fathom plateau.

From time to time, a whale will come close to the islands. Whales swim at a rate of six knots, so at that speed, in 10 hours, it will be 60 miles away. It's gone. Based on the established protocol, as soon as a whale is reported, the protocol is put in place and the sector is closed after 48 hours. That gives us 48 hours to move our traps. However, after this 48‑hour period, the whale has reached another sector. That means the government is closing a sector where there aren't any whales anymore. That is why we were ready to offer our captain and our boat to escort any whale as soon as it's sighted, to make sure it doesn't get entangled in our gear and doesn't come near the islands.

If there's a whale near the islands, we're prepared to close our sector, and we'll do it gladly. But as I was explaining earlier, we're right in the middle of the gulf. All whales swim by the Magdalen Islands. If 153 have been detected, those 153 all went by the islands, because, don't forget, the islands are located in a whale transit corridor.

Whales don't stop to feed near the islands, because there is no mackerel or herring there anymore. The only species we fish now are lobster and crab. Whales aren't going to come feed on lobster in waters one fathom deep. As long as they keep going to feed in the area around the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, they will have to swim by the Magdalen Islands. But we don't want to relive the same experience we went through two years ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Poirier. We've gone way over time in Madame Desbiens' six minutes.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron, for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses here today.

First, I want to say a big congratulations to you, Monsieur Thériault, for 50 years in the fishing industry. That is quite the accomplishment. I am certain I have a lot that I can learn from you. Perhaps we can continue the conversation after.

I do have a question. You spoke about processors, fishers and federal and provincial departments coming together to set up annual fishing plans. I want to get some clarification. Maybe I missed something, but is that you coming together, as well, to talk about the whalesafe fishing gear and the North Atlantic right whale? Are there any discussions around that?

I'm trying to understand if there has been consultation conducted that you have seen around the particulars of how we move forward, cohabitating with the North Atlantic right whale.

[Gilles Thériault]

Yes, there's a fishing plan for every fishery. It's a yearly fishing plan. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, at the beginning of the season, will say, “Here are the regulations, the same as last year,” or “We are changing this or changing that.” That happens on a regular basis.

Since the arrival of the whales in 2017, the fishing plans and the regulations have changed substantially, and, I would argue, rightfully so, because of the presence of the right whales and because of the incidents where we had entanglements and mortalities.

I have witnessed a great effort in co-operation and collaboration to come up with the right plan, and that was more significant than I was used to, over my years. I have never seen the industry.... I was saying the same thing to the processors and the fishermen. Quite often, we tend to butt heads, but when it comes to the right whales, it's impressive to me how everybody is really working together. It's not that we agree on everything, as we are hearing today, but the effort that is being made by everybody to try to work it out is very impressive. It has led to some improvement of this fishing plan from year to year.

We need to continue to have that exchange. We need to hear from Mr. Poirier again, and also from Mr. Best and others. We need to continue to do that. We have made strides of progress, but we can't say, “Yes, we have the right solution; now everything is fine.” No, we need to keep on working and keep on making those changes.

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

Thank you.

Because it has come up multiple times in this study already, could you touch on some of the work you're doing alongside first nations? I'm wondering how that plays into the consultation processes and planning you're seeing, moving forward, and whether there have been any pieces you've seen, with first nations, relating to the protection of the North Atlantic right whale, while, of course, ensuring that the livelihoods of fishers are also protected.

[Gilles Thériault]

Yes, I had the honour and privilege of working for first nations. I'm a consultant. I organized a fishermen's organization called the Maritime Fishermen's Union. I left that 35 years ago and have been doing consulting ever since. Recently, I have been focusing my efforts on the integration of first nations into the commercial fishery. I'm a strong believer in the Marshall decision and truth and reconciliation. That's very important.

Therefore, I am also quite involved with the Elsipogtog First Nation community, of which, by the way, I'm so proud. This community now has the most modern snow crab plant in Canada. We just built a $25-million snow crab plant. We're making money, and the profits are going back to the community to create jobs and so on. It's a wonderful collaboration, because the plant is located in the Acadian community. It's a great collaboration between the Acadians and Mi'kmaq. When you come to visit our plant—and you are all invited—you'll see a big sign: a collaboration between the Mi'kmaq and Acadians.

Regarding the snow crab, the Elsipogtog First Nation has its own snow crab quota and we have 35 vessels fishing. That's very important to the community. It brings in millions of dollars every year and, yes, we make sure they are consulted. I would fight tooth and nail if they weren't. The process is interesting, because it's twofold. There is a separate consultation directly with the first nations, but they're also invited to partake in the broader forums of the advisory committees and so on.

To answer your question, they are quite active in this process and, of course, very preoccupied by the whale situation, as we all are.