Fisheries Committee on March 27th, 2023

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

What you're saying is that people who are concerned about the current amount of funding that's been allocated can have confidence that we're going to see that funding being allocated accordingly and appropriately in a timely manner. As you can see, it's a very small amount that has actually been allocated. I just want to know that we can have confidence that it's going to happen.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

The listeners and your constituents can have confidence that I and the department will do everything possible to make sure this funding is not just spent but spent in a way that is as effective as possible in meeting the targets and goals that have to do with the restoration and abundance of wild Pacific salmon stocks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

We'll now go to Mr. Perkins for five minutes or less.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for coming.

My first question, Minister, is with regard to “willing buyer, willing seller”.

When you attended committee of the whole last year, on a number of occasions you reiterated that this was the policy of the department. Again, I believe you were in the Senate for question period last week, and Senator Francis asked you a question in the context of first nations. In response, you said that willing buyer, willing seller is the basis on which you approach the decisions.

Is that the policy of the department and yours personally as well?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Yes, absolutely, it is. It creates predictability in the fishery. It allows all harvesters to adequately plan and prepare for their fishing seasons. It is a basis for conservation that we do not increase access when we accommodate indigenous interests in having quota, because if we were to add when access was already fully subscribed, that would constitute a conservation challenge.

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

Thank you.

Last week, in response to Senator Dagenais, who asked you questions with regard to willing buyer, willing seller and the elver fishery, you said that the temporary 14% cut—it's temporary two years in a row—to the elver quota actually came from elver fishers themselves.

The lawyer for five of the eight commercial non-indigenous elver fishermen contacted me and said, “That's blatantly false” and that five of the eight did not. In fact, they oppose it. The only elver fishers that support that cut were the elver fishers who don't fish their entire quota. The ones who do fish their entire quota—the five—opposed it. Help me understand why you would tell the Senate that elver fishers proposed this when in fact the majority of them didn't.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thanks for that.

My understanding is that we reached out to all of the elver fishers and asked them to participate in a consultation as to how we might move forward with accommodating the first nations interest in the elver fishery. We did that through the association leadership.

What came back to me was a way forward that the elver fishers were all consulted on. My understanding is that it actually did consider those who were not fishing their full allocation, and that those were the ones who provided more of this available allocation for the indigenous peoples than those who were already fishing their full allocation—

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

Well, I—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I can go back and check into that—

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

I would appreciate it.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

—but that was my understanding about how we did that last year.

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

I would appreciate it, because my understanding from the elver fishers is it's that a flat 14% across, so those who are fishing their full quota are being penalized the 14%. I'm sure they will be pleased to know that their cut is actually a lot less, given those—

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

That was my understanding, as I said, and we are doing a review of the allocation to first nations for this coming year.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Minister, I think you've issued two more elver licenses, so that's 11 in total, three of which are first nations, so I think 11% of the licenses are made up of first nations, while Mi'kmaq are only 2.7% of the population. What's the level at which you say, okay, that's enough licences relative to the overall TAC?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Our reconciliation fisheries are not specifically about population quotas. They are about our mandate to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and accommodate an affirmed treaty right to fish.

What I can say for this year is that there will not be a larger percentage of the total quota going to first nations, though they will have a larger amount to fish because of how we'll be managing the sustainability of the fishery this year.

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

Thank you, Minister.

On a different subject, the U.S. has set a TAC for Atlantic mackerel of almost 4,000 tonnes. I don't think you have announced a decision yet. This committee has done a report on Atlantic mackerel. Will you allow a bait fishery in Atlantic Canada this year?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Well, my goal is to grow the fish and seafood sector, and that means being precautionary when a fishery is in a critical zone, which the mackerel fishery is. It's in the critical zone. It also is very important for the whole ecosystem, because other important fish are depending on mackerel for their health and the health of their stocks.

I have been working to ensure that the United States leadership understands that the precautionary approach is incredibly important in managing the stock and have had several opportunities to talk to the leadership—in other words, Dr. Spinrad, who is the key administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA— to discuss how we can rebuild the stock. My understanding is that the United States has reduced their quota twice in recent years in reflection of the state of the stock, with its age structure collapsing and the egg survey showing that the recovery at this point is weak.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

We'll go to Mr. Hanley for five minutes or less.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Minister Murray, thank you for being here, and thanks to the deputy minister and officials as well.

Minister Murray, I'm also going to focus on Pacific salmon, and specifically on the situation in the Yukon territory. Last summer, you took time to visit the Yukon, which was much appreciated, and engage directly with the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee and various Yukon first nations on the critical state of Yukon salmon. As you know, we're anticipating a study in this committee specifically devoted to Yukon salmon, but a sense of urgency to address this issue remains after another dismal season last summer.

I wonder if you can describe any progress made in advancing the PSSI in general—a bit of an update—and the Yukon component in particular. If you can shed any light on recent progress with the integrated planning for salmon ecosystems in particular, I'm interested, because I note that there's one of these programs for the Yukon River system in particular.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I did go up to the Yukon, spent a number of days there and went into communities like Little Salmon Carmacks, where I heard from elders about the impact on the community of not being able to fish salmon, not being able to have summer fishing camps and not being able to teach the cultural practices to the next generation. I very much take that to heart.

I have had a chance to have two meetings with the Under Secretary of Commerce, Dr. Spinrad, of NOAA, whom I mentioned previously, specifically about concerns about overfishing of salmon on the Yukon River by the U.S. fishery at the mouth of the Yukon River.

With respect to the Pacific salmon strategy initiative, that does include Yukon, and funds will be made available for necessary work in the Yukon to help to protect and restore the Yukon salmon fishery.

Also, I work very closely with our lead official in the Yukon, who accompanied me for the days I was there and for all the meetings and who also takes to heart the need for us to do more. We're working with the province on the hydroelectric facility that is creating challenges for the migrating salmon in the south of the Yukon River ecosystem. He's very aware of the needs for support for first nations' monitoring efforts on the river and other work to help recover the species.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I noticed that Mr. Goodyear and Madam Gibbons have been looking.... In particular, is there any information that you can provide on the IPSE, the integrated planning for salmon ecosystems, with regard to the Yukon? Has engagement with the Yukon government, Yukon officials and other leaders already taken place?

I know this is a work in progress, a kind of setting up, but if you can shed any light on that, I would be very interested.

[Annette Gibbons]

We're in the process now of consulting on the salmon strategies, the planning strategies for the year, and that will go on over the next few months. Then the ministry will make the decisions that need to be made for this year.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Perhaps we could get back to you on the state of the integrated planning for salmon ecosystems program itself.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

I would really appreciate that. Thank you.

You mentioned meeting with American officials, including Dr. Spinrad, and I think these types of conversations are really crucial.

A number of my constituents are expressing an urgent need to engage with the Americans in a really meaningful way to try to highlight some of the key issues across the border, including quotas and this problem of relative overfishing compared to the numbers we now see. I wonder if you might be open to what I'm hearing: suggestions for a kind of a summit or a meeting to bring people together to really try to flesh this out and try to see if we can get some commitments on the American side.