Fisheries Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

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

Your seventh suggestion is to implement a program similar to the one established for the lobster fishery. That involves investments. Those investments were made by the lobster fishers themselves in the lobster industry. They invested a great deal since they are the ones most interested in preserving that resource. That must not be overlooked.

How do you see the funding for the approach you suggested?

[Martin Mallet]

At the time, under the Atlantic lobster sustainability measures program, the federal government provided a third of the funding and the industry provided the remaining two thirds, thanks to loans from the provinces involved, in some cases, depending on the regions where the program was in place. In New Brunswick, for instance, approximately 160 lobster fishing licences were removed at the time. The program cost about $20 million.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you again to the witnesses.

Mr. Mallet, I want to continue on with some of the points you were making in my last line of questions around bait. I'm so curious to hear a bit more around options that you feel might be an effective way to move forward. I'm thinking about, for example, green crab, seal or artificial substitutes. Do you think these are appropriate alternatives to mackerel, and do you think this a direction that should be looked at?

[Martin Mallet]

I think we can get back to a small-scale bait fishery for mackerel or herring. The amount of effort is very limited compared to some of the effort that's being put in place by the seiners, so some of that needs to come back online.

It's also having more access to different alternatives. In some cases, it's processed fish. Eventually, the offal from the redfish industry, when it starts rolling, will be a significant source of bait for lobster, for instance.

Now there are better alternatives. You mentioned green crab. That's another invasive species. Some fishermen have had success using that a bit, but also there's a huge problem in some areas across Canada. You asked about some invasive species within the rivers and lake systems, and I mentioned the Asian carp as an example. There's a huge amount of that fish out there. Right now I guess there are some regulatory hurdles for us here in Canada with the CFIA being involved and making it difficult for us to try using it at least as an experiment, and if it works, moving ahead and using it full scale. It would, at the end of the day, reduce the problem that we have with inflation right now in our bait access.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. There are only 15 seconds left, so there's hardly time for a question or even part of an answer.

We'll now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'd like to start out with all three fishermen's associations.

In the past year, Mr. Perkins and I have written to the fisheries minister asking for transition supports for Canadians whose jobs have been cancelled by decisions of the department or the Minister of Fisheries. The minister's response was that the Government of Canada offers a suite of supports for workers and communities.

I'm concerned that the ministry may be directing fishermen out of their traditional lives and occupations. What do the harvesters you represent prefer? Would they want to work for their living or prefer to see government support programs?

Perhaps we could start with Mr. Mallet.

[Martin Mallet]

Fishermen prefer to work. Fishermen are fishermen. They fish. That's what they do. I think that in some cases we do need support programs to get us through a rough patch, but I think in this case, we need a little bit of both.

We need to let fishermen with low-impact fishing practices go out there and continue fishing. We talked about getting that bait fishery back online. If the Americans are, for instance, at 4,000 tonnes of quota, we should be at least at the same level. They wouldn't expect less from us in the North Atlantic right whales file.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Giffin, if I may, I'd like to hear from each of you.

[Melanie Giffin]

I'd actually prefer to hand this to Mr. Cheverie, if that's okay, as he's a fisherman from our association.

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

Mr. Hubley, would you comment?

[Nathan Cheverie]

Melanie ceded her time to me.

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

Yes. Would your harvesters prefer to be fishing or on government support?

[Nathan Cheverie]

Absolutely, we'd prefer to be fishing every day of the week.

It's been a major strain on me, my family and my circle of peers to not have a job to go to every day. That's how we have spent our summers and our falls since I bought in seven seasons ago, and now I have nowhere to turn to; there's nothing left in the industry for me to turn to, and it's very disheartening.

My grandfather spent his summers mackerel fishing out of a dory. I've done a bit bigger version, but it's still nothing compared to what others are doing in the industry. To lose that financially, there's no way to describe it, and emotionally there's no way to describe it.

I'd prefer to be able to go fishing even if there isn't enough to make it commercially viable. Just to be able to get out on the water for my personal bait fish would be good, as it would for everybody else in the community as well.

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

Thank you.

It's an interesting response that most would rather be working.

Ms. Giffin, how do they know the age structure of the stock when they sample only eggs and larvae for the stock assessments?

[Melanie Giffin]

They don't sample only eggs and larvae. That is one section of the stock assessment. The other major section is that they do take landing data. I've done a sampling for them in the past.

We'll do a sample of approximately 200 fish. We measure all 200 fish, and then from those 200 we do a subsample, in which we keep two fish from each half-centimetre size class, and those fish are shipped off to DFO so that DFO can evaluate the age structure from that subsample of fish.

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

But if there's no catch, then there's no data for that portion of it. Is that correct?

[Melanie Giffin]

That's 100% correct.

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

Okay.

What percentage of Atlantic waters are surveyed or sampled for the stock assessments?

[Melanie Giffin]

When there is a commercial fishery going on, there is a wide array within area 4T, which is all of the gulf, involving numerous provinces, so they all pitch in.

I know that last year with no commercial fishery—I believe it might have been from the MFU, but they can correct me here—there were only a few samples submitted by the MFU to DFO. P.E.I. did not take part in sampling last year because the cost was too high to send fishers out on the water for such a small amount of fish and no reward.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold. You were almost dead-on on the time. Good for you.

We'll now go to Mr. Morrissey to finish off our first panel. You have five minutes or less, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll go to both Mr. Mallet and Ms. Giffin.

Ms. Giffin, do you, as a biologist I respect, recommend to this committee that we recommend a structured bait fishery opening for the 2023 season?

[Melanie Giffin]

I would, yes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Good.

Martin, would you?