Fisheries Committee on Nov. 15th, 2022

[Scott Hubley]

Do you mean mackerel?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes.

[Scott Hubley]

Well, you just see them on the sounders. They've been here all summer, and they're still here. You're not allowed to fish them, so we don't know. You can set the hooks down to get some for supper every night, no problem.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Are you really seeing them on the acoustic sounders? We've been told by some officials in DFO over other studies that you can't actually see mackerel on a sounder.

[Scott Hubley]

In the late evenings or early mornings, if they're there, you'll see them.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

What are your members who are fishing lobsters or getting ready for the season doing for bait, since mackerel and herring are their primary species? I think herring has been cut as well.

[Scott Hubley]

I don't know about the herring being cut. I bought some herring earlier this summer.

I bought mackerel from Ireland. That's where my last stock of mackerel came from.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I have a question for Mr. Cheverie.

Mr. Cheverie, can you describe this? I think you also said that your fishermen are seeing mackerel on the waters.

[Nathan Cheverie]

Yes, we've seen them on the waters. It's hard to know the size, because we're not fishing.

As far as being able to see mackerel on a sounder goes, that's how I made my living for the last seven years. Quite frankly, mine will even tell you the length if you want to dial it in and turn that feature on. I find that idea that they can't be seen on a sounder just staggering.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm running short on time.

Ms. Giffin, I have a quick question. In your opinion, what does the stock have to rebound to for it to allow the catch to begin again?

[Melanie Giffin]

I would have to defer to the DFO standards that are set up for that. They have “critical”, “cautious” and “healthy” zones. I think we would just go along with those zones, but ultimately, if the U.S. is fishing, then the mackerel are coming out of the water anyway. As long as there's a fishery going on in the U.S., I see no reason why there can't be one in Canada as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

I'm going to ask our witnesses to be a bit patient with us as we recess for a couple of minutes to do a vote in the House of Commons.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're back.

We'll find out what the tally of the vote is later. There may be a recount if it's that close.

We'll now proceed with Mr. Kelloway for five minutes or less, please.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Hello to the witnesses. I've seen many of you before, and I'm grateful that you're here for this study today.

The first couple of questions will be for Ms. Giffin, and then we're going to transition, if I have time, to Martin Mallet, on a particular question I have for him.

Ms. Giffin, I wonder if you could speak briefly—I think it's important—about the overall health of mackerel over the past couple of years. The second question is on testimony we heard in our last meeting that cited clear evidence of the stock.... We talked about that today. Would you agree with this trend?

[Melanie Giffin]

Thank you for the questions.

From a science perspective, all the science is pointing to obviously the decrease and the decline in the stock. I don't think there's any disputing that. I think there's more data that we can collect to get a more thorough picture and integrate that into the model. That would be, as I referred to earlier, the prerecruits that we're missing completely, and we do that with a number of other species. The trend has clearly been dipping downward over the past few years that I have been involved with the science of the stock.

I hope that covers it.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I appreciate that.

I have a question for you on the role that mackerel plays in the overall food chain. If it were to disappear, what impact would that have on other stocks?

[Melanie Giffin]

That is a loaded question.

Small pelagics are definitely on the bottom end of that food chain, so everything larger is basically reliant upon them. We could definitely anticipate some negative effects to our ecosystem, but I would not be able to pinpoint exactly what those would be. It would be too much of a guessing game, and I really don't have a crystal ball to predict that. Sorry.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

That's no problem at all, nor do I.

My last question is for you, and then I'll transition to Martin.

We've heard a lot about the age structure of mackerel, that the older they are, the better for the species and its long-term health. Can you explain why?

[Melanie Giffin]

I don't know whether I have enough time to explain it all. Right now we're really only seeing up to five-year-olds, if that, and there are very few of them in our population. The requirement is that the larger, healthier fish are producing larger and healthier eggs. We're missing those from the population as well.

As we've seen with other species, we try to pump more eggs into the system to increase stocks. We don't have the capability to do that with the mackerel stock, because the age structure is geared towards the smaller, younger fish that in some cases have not had an opportunity to reproduce yet.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you for those answers, Ms. Giffin. I appreciate it.

I want to transition to Martin Mallet. I'm looking at my notes here.

Martin, you mentioned a model—I hope I have this right—of the ALSM, the lobster model you talked about. I wonder if you can unpack in greater detail that model and how it worked for the lobster industry.

[Martin Mallet]

Sure. In a nutshell, I guess there were three prongs to it.

One is that back in the day in the lobster industry in the southern gulf, there were too many participants in the lobster fishery for the amount of lobster available, so there was a need to reduce the number of active participants. In our case, in New Brunswick, for instance, about 20% of our fishermen were bought out and retired. That also had a role to play in the effort on the actual lobster stock; it helped it repopulate.

At the same time, part of the program looked at what else we can do in terms of conservation measures to increase the reproduction of lobsters and in that way increase the numbers of adult lobsters that could then be available for the fishery. For instance, we looked at the minimum size for lobster, which back in the day was around 72 millimetres—68 millimetres, actually, before 2000—so you only had about 15% of lobsters that could reproduce at least once before being fished. Now we're up to about 85%, which is a huge increase in reproduction.

On the last thing, there was some extra money put in to work on different types of research projects to try to get a better understanding of the lobster fishery, but also as a species and the interactions with other ecosystem participants, other species.

All in all, it was a successful program. As the data today shows, our lobster industry in the southern gulf is a success. This has been the case for the past five or six years, in large part because of this program.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mallet, you talked about the program that worked very well for the lobster industry. Are you thinking of a similar program for pelagic fish?

[Martin Mallet]

Definitely, to the extent that it is possible to rationalize part of the fleet and the fishing effort. In my opinion, it is the seiners that should be rationalized. As Ms. Giffin said a few minutes ago, in my view, the fact that part of the fish stock is very small fish indicates the direct impact of seine fishing on it. It means that the small fish are caught before reaching spawning age.

Further, investments should be made through that kind of program to increase scientific knowledge related to what DFO is already doing. That would increase our general knowledge of the species and its place in the ecosystem. It would also help us better understand the impact of ongoing changes in the ecosystem on this resources, and other important resources.