Evidence of meeting #41 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 fishery.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Director, Homarus, Maritime Fishermen's Union
I can take it.
Yes, 2019 was the last season that they did the egg survey. In 2020, due to COVID, they were not able to go and do the survey. As far as the logbooks go, I know some of them are completed. Some of them are missing key parts of information that could not cannot be inputted fully in the scientific assessment, but I do believe that the logbooks from the previous years were used. To what extent, I don't know.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Small.
We'll now go to Mr. Morrissey for six minutes or less, please.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Mr. Mallet.
You said that reopening will need to take into account the conservation risk, and also, in answering a previous question, you referenced the shifts in patterns. As well, you said that fishers need to restructure and rationalize.
Martin, could you expand briefly on what that would look like?
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
Well, I think I've used the comparison to the ALSM program, which was a success in our lobster industry a few years back. I think there is potential to maybe look into some parts of our fleet that may need some rationalization, so maybe making less effort and leaving more fish to the others who are remaining in the industry.
In our case, with the MFU, we have a small percentage of our fleet, of our membership, that is dependent on pelagics, so moving ahead, we're trying to focus on having our members be multi-species fishermen so that they have a larger spectrum of licences that they can survive on.
The second thing is that all in all, I think there's a need, as was mentioned earlier, to look into what has brought us to where we are today, and reference was made to the seiner fleets that have had a huge impact over the last 20 years on our stocks. There is very little selectivity designed into the seine technology. I mean, it's a very harmful method of fishing, and if we are to keep them in our fishery as a whole, if we need to keep a place for them, then we need to take into account that they fish very small fish that don't have any chance of survival and reproduction.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I have a question again to Martin and Ms. Giffin.
It would be fair to assess that the biomass has tumbled over the past decade. Would you agree with that, Martin?
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
There's some dispute on where we're at, but the biomass has tumbled.
November 15th, 2022 / 3:55 p.m.
Marine Biologist and Industry Program Planner, Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association
Yes.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Then the biomass is tumbling, and everybody agrees on that, but they continue the fishery.
Ms. Giffin, could you comment? Often we'll get the comment, and Martin alluded to it briefly, from fishers whose sightings are contrary to what's said to be the state of the biomass. They're saying that there are ample fish out there. Could you briefly comment, as a scientist and from a science perspective? How do you rationalize the difference between what fishers are seeing...? The biomass, everybody agrees, has tumbled, so the stock in not there, and the science is saying that if specific action is not taken, this is a fishery that could be close to being wiped out.
Marine Biologist and Industry Program Planner, Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association
I think the key there is they do an egg survey. Science does egg surveys so that we have a better understanding of what's happening with the eggs. The next round of sampling they do is from the landings.
There's never any data collection or research done on prerecruits. Those prerecruits leave the gulf and head to the U.S., and there's no minimum size there. We're definitely missing data from that perspective on those prerecruits, and I believe it's normally, anecdotally, what fishers are reporting when they say they're seeing schools of fish in some cases. Again, that's anecdotal, and we do have a fisher here from P.E.I. if you want to direct the question towards him for the actual sightings.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I'll get back to that in a moment, but I want you in the time remaining.
A lot of the focus in this study has been leading in the direction of how best do we recommend the reopening of a fishery, or what should that fishery look like? If the Americans do not reduce their effort, what does Canada do in that position? Do we simply ignore the health of the stock and take a risk, or do we continue attempting to rebuild a stock in Canada?
Could you comment briefly?
Marine Biologist and Industry Program Planner, Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association
Yes, on the second part of the question, thank you.
Basically, my understanding of the way the U.S. works is they set an overall TAC based on the stock assessment from Canada and the U.S. Once that overall TAC is set, then they subtract the Canadian TAC. If there are 4,000 tonnes that Canada will fish, then that's 4,000 tonnes that the U.S. will not fish. Then if we don't fish it, the U.S. will.
From my perspective, unless both sides are doing something to protect the stock, there's no reason we can't open the fishery again in Canada for a small portion that will be taken out anyway by the U.S. if Canada is not fishing it.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
That's the first time that the interrelation between the U.S. and Canadian fisheries has been clarified,.
I would like to go to the fisher in my time left.
Could you comment on why fishers see a different perspective from what the science is telling us?
Nathan Cheverie Fisher and Co-chair of the Mackerel Advisory Committee, Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association
I don't know if we see a perspective different from the science. We do see fish everywhere in the ocean. I know I was just out tuna fishing this year, and there was nowhere that I went where there were no mackerel available. Size is definitely an issue sometimes. Usually it's very location-dependent. If you go to the right structure, you're going to find the right fish.
Is it commercially viable? I think on a large scale with seiners involved, no, I do not believe it is, but as far as a bait fishery is concerned, there's definitely room for a bait fishery there.
You're always going to have somebody seeing fish, and they'll look at it differently from the next person as being viable or not viable. The mackerel in the southern gulf waters in the summertime have been fished since before any of us were around.
I have a dime here from the Canadian mint from 1967. It has a mackerel on it, so it's pretty important to our communities and it's pretty important to the inshore fishing sector that this government promised to protect. To have a closure when there could have been a reduction in the fishery is just hard to believe.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you.
We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you also to all the witnesses who always provide valuable input.
Mr. Mallet, the biomass is moving. That is what we have been hearing. You said fish are being seen where they didn't use to be.
Since no data has been collected this year, what will be missing from the decisions that are to be made for the coming months or for next year? What is planned to make up for the lack of data?
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
When fishers are on the water, they can observe when the fish are close to our shores, throughout the year. That is one of the greatest benefits. This can also indicate the abundance of fish, and also gives us an idea when the fish will be leaving the shores.
Right now, we have no idea what is happening on the water, except for what we hear from fishers who are on the water fishing for other species. For instance, we heard that a fisher who went tuna fishing saw fish in his fishing territory. We observed the same thing during other fishing excursions. That is the case for herring in the fall and lobster fishing throughout the year.
We no longer have that source of information. If bait fishing for mackerel had at least been left open, that could have helped us, with minimal impact on the resource. That would have enabled us to have biologists on the water. As I said, having boats on the water gives the biologists a free platform.
The moratorium has deprived us of much of our ability to collect data.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
So that is a major loss of information for short-term decisions.
To your knowledge, has DFO taken any steps to establish joint management with the United States?
Executive Director, Maritime Fishermen's Union
That is an excellent question. I will ask my colleagues to answer that as well.
From what I know, there were some meetings after the fact, after the moratorium was announced, in March. There were discussions between senior officials from Ottawa and their counterparts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, in the United States.
Yet it should not take the closure of a fishery to get to that stage. Before any radical decision is made, as was the case this spring, the two countries need to work together and reach agreements on catch and fish preservation methods.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Do the other witnesses have anything to add?
Mr. Cheverie or Ms. Giffin, do you have anything to add?
Fisher and Co-chair of the Mackerel Advisory Committee, Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association
The main thing I would like to state here is that at the AMAC meetings there's a large representation of the seiner fleet. At the AMAC meetings, many of the people representing the seiner fleet are also wearing the hat of an international company that can import the bait or the fish from other places, such as Europe, that are having stellar years in their fishery. They actually quite possibly could have gained from this closure. These groups are the only groups that supported a closure unless they could have an extremely large fishery in Newfoundland with double the tonnage for themselves over what we had.
I have a feeling that there was consultation done. It just wasn't done in the right places. The inshore fishery has not been protected.
In the hook-and-line fishery, it is impossible to clean out a species. With a gillnet fishery, it is impossible to clean out a species. For the hook-and-line fishery, the fish has to bite the hook. With a gillnet, you'll only catch a certain size of fish. When you take a seine and you go around the school of fish, that school is gone: There are no fish from that school left to replace themselves. That is what we're up against. Also, they use methods like mid-water trawling in the wintertime off the U.S., and that basically has the same level of destruction towards a species.
There's no respect for the species in these higher levels of catch rates.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
I'm hearing that the U.S. is very happy to know that there is no fishing in Canada and in the gulf because that increases their market. Is that correct?
Fisher and Co-chair of the Mackerel Advisory Committee, Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association
This is what I'm hearing, as well as that many of the large companies based in Newfoundland and some of the larger companies in the Maritimes that are doing the importing of fish from the U.S. or from Europe to replace our local supply are now profiting from the loss of our fishery.