Fisheries Committee on Nov. 25th, 2022

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

The big impact on the wild fishery, then, was directly on the pocketbook of the fishers, because your infrastructure is, as you pointed out, your arms and hands, basically. This is unique in Atlantic Canada, because—correct me if I'm wrong, Bob—wild oyster harvesting only exists in the bays of P.E.I.

[Robert Macleod]

Yes, the only way to harvest wild oysters on P.E.I. is with tongs or hand rakes. It's the same with quahogs. You can only use your hands. For soft-shell clams, you can only use your hands. It's not a lot of equipment, other than your hands and body.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

What would you recommend to this committee as the principal hurt to your fishery? Was it in the loss of income?

[Robert Macleod]

Loss of income was the big thing, yes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

What about the wharf infrastructure you have at Bideford, Bob?

[Robert Macleod]

We were pretty lucky in that. There were three mussel boats tied to it. The wharf went right under the water. I was scared that we were going to have some damage when the tide went down.

The wharf itself stayed good, but we had water come into a couple of our buildings. There were two oysters buyers in particular in the area, whose buildings went under the water right to the doorknobs. Their offices and everything were underwater, but we were pretty lucky as far as that goes. I know the growers suffered loss of cages and stuff—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Yes, they'll be appearing. That's something else.

Thanks, Bob. Those are my only questions. You were clear on what it is.

Mr. Chair, that concludes my questions to Mr. MacLeod and Mr. Mallet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You did it with five seconds left.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for their comments, which are always very useful and offer us information on a host of variables.

Mr. Mallet and Mr. LeBlanc, you said earlier that the department should invest in repairing certain harbours and that the harbours that had already been renovated had suffered only minor damage from Fiona.

Have you identified the places where repairs are most urgent? In principle, they should be the places where the storms hit hardest. Have you made a list ranking them by priority for the various actions that are needed to raise the wharves that are the most affected?

[Martin Mallet]

I would like to mention that we have been relatively lucky, because the storm mainly struck eastern New Brunswick.

As Mr. LeBlanc said a little earlier, what causes the most damage is the storm surge. In some cases, for Fiona, the tide was so high that it almost pushed the fishing boats onto the wharves, which meant the owners, the masters, had to park their trucks on the wharf to stop the boats from landing on top of the wharves. In the future, there are certainly going to be problems associated with the height of the wharves. As Mr. LeBlanc said, adding a second seawall would make it possible to reduce the effects of the storm surge. This needs to be examined.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada, its small craft harbours program, and harbour authorities are in constant discussions to establish a list of priorities in terms of the wharves that are the most affected.

With that said, there is a shortage of workers and contractors to repair the wharves most damaged by the storm, whether in the Maritimes or Quebec, as Mr. Morrissey spoke about earlier. We are going to have to address this major problem in the coming months, because the fishing season is going to start next spring in most regions.

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

Is it important to use new materials that are more resistant, more robust or more strategic? What is the state of the science and research in this area?

[Martin Mallet]

That isn't really part of our area of expertise and I think the engineers could give you more information about that.

I know there are new technologies relating to materials, and composites in particular. Obviously, in the case of the breakwaters, the preferred option is metamorphic rock, the big rocks you see on most wharves.

I think it would be appropriate to have a conversation with some experts.

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

Thank you, Mr. Mallet.

Mr. Macleod, you spoke earlier about road access and silting. How do you see things happening? Do you think there is an imminent need for financial support? What needs are urgent in the short term?

[Robert Macleod]

On their part, I'd say that the emergency on the shore part would probably be to get some of the beds de-silted. Drag a harrow type of thing—not really a harrow—over the beds. It takes the silt and stuff off. With the erosion of the banks and stuff like that, it goes out in the water and covers the beds. It hurts spat catch for the following year and stuff like that.

We don't really know the extent of the damage to our spring beds yet, because we have to wait until the spring before we can check them out, but with the amount that's washed away from some of the banks, I'd say we have a considerable amount of silt. We should have it done. There should be something in place for the spring, probably, to give some of these beds a little help to come alive again.

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

Thank you, Mr. Macleod.

Mr. Mallet, you recommended that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans adopt a more flexible approach to fishing season opening and closing dates. Is it a good idea for DFO to adopt a more dynamic type of management for various fishing sectors, based on climate change?

[Martin Mallet]

Yes, absolutely. In fact, that is one of our recommendations.

There is a certain degree of flexibility in this regard now. There are advisory committees that discuss the various fisheries every year. Obviously, before the fisheries open, there are discussions between the industry and the people who manage the fisheries, mainly to set the opening dates for the fisheries.

I am going to give the floor to Mr. LeBlanc, who may want to add something on this subject.

[Luc LeBlanc]

Elsewhere in Atlantic Canada, there are mechanisms that allow the opening of a fishery to be brought forward instead of only being able to push it back. The problem when the opening date is pushed back is that we lose fishing days, since the closing date is not also pushed back.

In principle, there is a mechanism in Nova Scotia, particularly in area 34, that allows the opening of the fishery to be brought forward by a maximum of four days, which means losing fewer fishing days. That mechanism already exists and we don't need to reinvent the wheel.

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

Would a management plan...

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens. Your time is up. I'm sorry.

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

I thought I still had a minute. I misunderstood your signal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

It goes fast when you're having fun.

We now go to Ms. Zarrillo for six minutes or less. I welcome her to the committee in place of Ms. Barron today.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much to the witnesses today. I will have some questions for Mr. LeBlanc and Mr. Mallet on infrastructure, if I have time, but I'd like to start with Mr. MacLeod.

You made some interesting comments, Mr. MacLeod, about employment insurance. I'm actually thinking about workers, their families, their homes and what happened in the community. We know that EI was born over 50 years ago. It probably wasn't thinking about climate change and the impacts on workers during climate change, and we know the frequency with which these events are happening.

Could you give us some thoughts on that? These committees can make recommendations. If there are some changes that need to be made to EI to accommodate climate change, I would love to hear your thoughts on that, and also on the impacts. How did this affect workers, their families and their homes? What happened to workers over this one?

[Robert Macleod]

Thank you.

Yes, the unemployment rate went up this year. The fishermen actually needed more income to qualify. With lobsters, you can make a lot of money pretty quickly, but when you're dealing with clams, quahogs and oysters, it takes a full two seasons to get enough money. You're not making the money there.

When the climate changes and you get these storms, it affects not only those areas being closed for two weeks and the fishermen but also the buyers. When the buyers are affected, they can't ship their oysters, so there are that many more oysters left in their beds. In return, they won't buy this late in the fall. Our fall season is still on, and it's on until the end of the month, but there have been buyers who quit buying two weeks ago. With that closure, they're not moving any product, so they're not going to continue buying.

You can't sell for those two weeks, and then your buyer quits two weeks early. There's a month of your season gone, and you're required to have more EI to draw on. It's a real hardship for a lot of fishermen.

On the island, with the two zones, especially in Charlottetown, it's a really bad situation there. You have the price of gas, having to travel around when you're not making a lot, but you need that income for your EI, and then your buyer quits. There was a lot of financial hardship in the shellfish fishery over Fiona for sure.

I really don't know for sure what the answer on this would be, but there have to be exceptions when something like this happens. It's not your fault as a fisherman when you lose two weeks because your area is not open, the buyer quits two weeks early and there's a month of your income gone.

I'll put it this way: With the cost of everything and with everybody trying to raise their family, it definitely was not a good situation for a lot of people.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Mallet, I'll go to you on that, on the workers and the impact, because I think maybe this is a conversation we need to have around what EI needs to look like in the midst of climate change. Do you have any comments on how it affected your workers and how difficult or easy it is for them to be able to pay bills when these kinds of things happen?

[Martin Mallet]

I'll leave it Luc to start on that question, and then I may add to it.

Luc, do you want to go ahead?