Fisheries Committee on March 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 60 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. This meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022.

Before we proceed, I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. There is interpretation for those on Zoom. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, French or English. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. Please address all comments through the chair.

Screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

Finally, I'll remind you all that the use of a House-approved headset is mandatory for remote participation in parliamentary proceedings. If a virtual participant is not wearing an appropriate headset, interpretation cannot be provided and therefore that person will not be able to participate in the debate.

In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning connection tests for witnesses, I am informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on January 18, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of the ecosystem impacts and the management of pinniped populations.

I would now like to welcome our first panel of witnesses.

Appearing as individuals, we have fish harvesters Trevor Jones and Eldred Woodford. Representing the Guysborough Country Inshore Fishermen's Association, we have executive director Ginny Boudreau.

I hope I pronounced those names correctly. I could easily slaughter them, being from Newfoundland.

Thank you for taking the time to appear today. You will each have up to five minutes for an opening statement.

I'll invite Mr. Jones to go first, please.

[Trevor Jones, Fish Harvester, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and fellow presenters.

Thank you for the invitation to speak today and to be a witness on the pinniped, its impacts on fish stocks, and how it affects fish harvesters and the communities in which we live.

I have been a professional fish harvester and sealer for over 30 years. In that time, I have seen the commercial salmon fishery close and just the recreational fishery remain, and yet this stock has continued to decline, with less and less fish every year returning to our rivers. I have seen a cod moratorium. It was put in place in 1992. Thirty years later, this stock has not rebounded to anywhere near its historic levels, according to science. Just last year, we watched our federal fisheries minister put a moratorium on mackerel. Now there are rumours of a potential closure on capelin and other species that we harvesters depend on for our livelihood.

Leadership within DFO, in its wisdom, seems to think that closing a commercial fishery to harvesters will save and help rebuild fish stocks, but the truth is that it does not. We now have the history to prove that.

In my lifetime, the only species that I have seen increase after a reduction in harvesting—through the loss of markets, that is—is the pinniped population. That's because it is at or near the top of the food chain. We are the ones, harvesters and government, who must be responsible for harvesting at the correct level in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem. It is our duty to manage our resources properly, because when we don't, the impacts will be felt for generations to come.

I have seen first-hand how much fish is being destroyed by pinnipeds. I have harvested thousands of them and have checked many of their stomachs. I've found a variety of fish species: Greenland halibut—or turbot, as we call it—capelin, northern cod, Arctic cod, herring, mackerel, shrimp, lumpfish, young wolffish, and yes, even snow crab.

I want to put into perspective just how huge an impact this species is having on our resources. Five out of the 10 provinces in Canada are affected by an overpopulation of pinnipeds, and two of the three territories. The population of Canada is near 39 million. We have somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of that number in pinnipeds in our waters off our coastlines. Can you imagine the volume of food that is required to feed these populations? I took out of the stomach of one old harp up to five turbot and two codfish, certainly a lot more than I could eat in one day—or any other person could, for that matter.

Our ecosystem is feeding these animals, but not without damage being done to it. We are seeing more and more fish stocks being depleted and fisheries closed. All of this is happening under the watch of the current leadership. I have to ask this question: Is this how we want our generation to be remembered, with fish stocks depleted because no action was taken to control the population of pinnipeds? If this population of pinnipeds were placed upon the land and everybody could see it, then we would more than likely deal with the issue and make efforts to reduce the populations. Because it's found in the ocean, and only those of us who are on the water can actually see it, it's easy for leadership to ignore.

The impact that this overpopulation of pinnipeds is having on harvesters and communities is devastating, to say the least. I have had to watch our fishery enter a time of consolidation, where harvesters like me have had to keep reinvesting in this industry to make it viable. In order to make a reasonable living for ourselves and our crews who fish with us, we have had to buy up other fishing enterprises. Now we have one-third of the harvesting sector that we previously had. By doing so, we thought that we should end up with maybe three times the fish to catch, but that is not the case. We have less and less fish to catch each year, and yet we spend more and more trying to survive.

In closing, I would like to say that we—harvesters and our elected government—need to address the largest problem our fisheries have ever faced. An overpopulation of pinnipeds is decimating our fish stocks. Without industry and our elected officials together going to other countries and trying to open up markets for what is and what can be a very valuable resource, our future as an industry looks very bleak. We have a justifiable cause to reduce the pinniped population. It will protect our fish resources and those who make a living from them.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

We'll now go to Ms. Boudreau for five minutes or less.

Ms. Boudreau, I notice that your camera is still cutting in and out. If it continues to do that, just shut your camera off. We'll know it's you who's talking to us. That might allow your voice to come through much clearer.

When you're ready, you have five minutes or less, please.

[Ginny Boudreau, Executive Director, Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen's Association]

Thank you very much.

Good day and thank you so much for the invitation to speak. I'm very pleased that this committee wants to discuss the management of pinnipeds.

The committee has been presented sufficient documentation and discussion to emphatically state that the pinniped populations are at an extreme level, never before recorded. Who could argue there are no negative effects on an ecosystem that's out of balance to such an excessive degree?

One stock already showing consequences of not managing the pinniped biomass is Atlantic mackerel, and in Canada it was placed under moratorium in 2022. To date, the rebuilding plan model has been developed with recovery based on the absence of fishing effort only.

In March 2023, DFO science finally identified grey seal predation as having an effect, and it is listed as number two in the predator pyramid, under the northern gannet, due to the absence of seal diet data. I am of the opinion that the northern gannet would not hold this position if we had more accurate data on the grey seal diet, both spatially and temporally.

On management, DFO should be assigned new resources for seal diet studies. The director general for ecosystems science did not answer “yes” when asked by this committee if there was any new money for seal science. We do have excellent science on population dynamics, so why have we not taken these 50-year biomass datasets, fed them into a DFO peer-reviewed assessment model, and developed an aggressive conservation harvesting plan to begin harvesting one of the richest untapped resources in Canadian waters?

On management, we need to create a conservation harvesting plan that reflects the fishable biomass. I've heard many reasons why we can't do this. The MMPA is supposedly stopping us from harvesting seals.

Seal harvesting is a legitimate fishery in Canada, regulated by DFO for over 50 years. It is proven to be a humane, sustainable, viable fishery carried out by certified professional harvesters, as well as a cultural food and ceremonial fishery for many of our indigenous and coastal communities. Instead of being embarrassed, we should be celebrating and defending it within the MMPA regulations. Pinnipeds in Canada are not species of concern, endangered, threatened or at risk. Why should the MMPA scare us from this rich resource?

Many countries, including the U.S., have marine mammal takes for species that are in one or more of these risk categories. Pinnipeds are not. I see the MMPA as a tax on Canadian fisheries where we jump through hoops at all costs. I wonder what we'd be doing if this were beef, pork or even blueberries.

On management, we need to defend this fishery within the MMPA as a legitimate fishery.

Another reason given is that we have no markets. Why? The Canadian governments have not invested in national or international markets, nor are they educating Canadians as to the benefits to our dietary health and economic well-being. We are embarrassed to promote an extremely iron-rich meat, the highest omega-3 oil in the world, pelts and skins that are durable, warm and yes, very fashionable. It's a resource that would add economic growth to harvesting, processing and marketing within our communities and alleviate economic loss from our recently reduced TACs and moratorium species.

Negative social opinions exist because we have allowed the media and extreme environmental groups to educate Canadians on social conscience based on sensationalized inaccuracies with respect to pinniped harvesting.

On management, we need to invest resources into a major education and promotion plan for pinniped harvesting and marketing, and be proud of it.

DFO stated to this committee that pinniped harvesting would fall under the new emerging fisheries policy. This policy will surely set us back 10 to 15 years. Pinniped fisheries have been developed for many decades with professional certified harvesters in community hunts, cultural rights and a DFO-regulated commercial sealing industry. How is this now all of a sudden an emerging fishery? What will happen to the predator species in 10 to 15 years?

On management, DFO should certify professional apprentices once they have completed their humane and animal husbandry courses. DFO should not be permitted to place the pinniped fishery as an emerging fishery and set back the seal industry.

On infrastructure, the federal government should commit real resources to the territories and, with the territories and provinces, invest in the harvesting and processing, as well as a national and international marketing plan for pinnipeds.

Doing nothing is no longer an option. In 10 to 15 years, what will we be feeding these pinnipeds? They won't be eating mackerel.

I thank you so very much for the opportunity to speak today. I look forward to the question period.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

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

[Eldred Woodford, Fish Harvester, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and fellow committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you here today.

I don't have a formal presentation done. I'm going to speak off the cuff.

Generally, I would be reiterating exactly what the previous two speakers have said. Trevor and I are the same age. We started fishing in the late 1980s. We witnessed some drastic changes in our fishery in general.

I speak to you today on dealing with pinnipeds. I am not only a professional commercial fish harvester; I'm also a professional commercial seal harvester—a sealer. I'm also the president of the Canadian Sealers Association. I've had the opportunity to speak to you previously in committees like this.

The time has come. We don't need any more studies on seals. We don't need any more science on seals. We need actions on seals.

There was a commission back in the 1980s, with Justice Malouf at the time, with recommendations. There have been Senate standing committee recommendations to harvest seals. There have been recommendations and report after report that have been done and packed on the shelf. The time has come. We need action.

Here in Newfoundland, in those rural communities we have here, you have to drive it to see the devastation. There are communities that are no longer filled with fish harvesters and fishing families. It's mostly tourists now. Mainlanders come to buy up the properties because our locals have left. It's because of our doomed fishery.

Trevor and I were fortunate. We survived the cod moratorium of the 1990s because of crab. That is a fact. One resource survived this. The devastation we've seen in the last decade to all the other species is because of the predation of seals.

There were years when I was definitely against a cull of seals, because I was concerned and wanted to be responsible as a sealer to maintain the population that was providing me with my second-largest source of income for my enterprise, which was seals.

I can remember when I was a boy growing up hearing that the sealers in the community would go out. They would hunt and harvest tens of thousands of seals in the 1980s to rebuild markets and to rebuild an industry that we did see prosper from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s—2005 or 2006. We were harvesting from a quarter of a million to 350,000 or 400,000 animals. The market was demanding products. We had products to sell.

What happened? The politicians did not do their jobs. The Government of Canada did not do its job. We had products getting banned in country after country. We don't need work to develop new products. We don't need more science. If you have a mind to look at all the science on all the fisheries, the seal industry has been studied more than any other fishery.

I don't need to reiterate what Trevor said earlier or what Ginny was saying. I support them 100%. I'm here. I'll just tell you that I'm a fish harvester. I'm a sealer. I have grave concerns about the future of our industry and our rural coastal communities.

I welcome any questions in your question period.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Woodford.

We'll start now with our first round of questioning, for six minutes or less. We'll go to Mr. Small.

I will say to all the participants, please try to identify who you want to answer the question, instead of leaving them hanging and wondering who should answer it. You'll make better use of your time.

When you're ready, Mr. Small, you have six minutes or less.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try my best.

My first question is for Mr. Woodford, president of the Canadian Sealers Association.

Mr. Woodford, you mentioned markets. Would you say that markets or a lack thereof is the main stumbling block to the harvesting of the current quota of seals?

[Eldred Woodford]

Yes, most definitely the markets have all to do with it. You have to watch this industry and grow in this industry to see what happened. We had markets where the doors were open, full access. We had four processing companies in Newfoundland. They were fully tasked with the 350,000 animals that we were providing them. A lot of people were getting work. Products were not left on the shelves; they were going through the system.

Bans were put in place in the European Union and in Russia, and doors did not open to Chinese markets. We had one of the former ministers of fisheries here in St. John's at the Delta Hotel rejoice that we had the biggest market in the world, the Chinese market that opened up. Yet, for all that, nothing ever materialized.

Something behind the scenes has to be done. We as participants, harvesters or processors, our hands are tied.

With regard to the bans and the access to markets, it's not the markets, Mr. Small; it's the access to the markets that is the problem. We have products that are banned. Transshipment companies don't want to touch the products because of the controversy, because we have not dealt with it and educated the world as to the facts.

Thank you.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Do you think the government should be more committed to gaining market access with a marketing campaign or some kind of investment to ensure that there's a steady access and a growth versus what you saw around 2009?

[Eldred Woodford]

Exactly. We knew that those bans were coming into place. We tried a few defence ways to try to offset them, but it didn't work. It didn't materialize. It had too much of a foundation built at the time to stop it.

It was only a few years later, and we were into dealings and negotiations with the European Union with the CETA deal. Neither our provincial government nor our federal government had the foresight to use that opportunity to regain our market access for our legitimate, natural, renewable products. That's what they are. Nothing could be any greener to the economy or to the environment than our seal products, yet, for all that, they were discarded as if they didn't mean anything, because, generally speaking, they only pertained to a small population of Canadians. I guess that's why they stepped away from it, but it was not logical.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I have a question for Mr. Jones.

Minister Murray recently accused Conservatives of wanting a cull. That's certainly not the case on our side.

I think you're the representative for the FFAW for your area as well. Would you be looking for a full utilization harvest, or would you prefer to see a cull? What would be the best thing, in your opinion?

[Trevor Jones]

Absolutely, full utilization would be the answer from anybody at our table. Any fish harvester wants to see whatever you're harvesting used to the best ability for mankind as a whole. A lot of nutrients and beneficial products can come from seal harvesting.

I believe, as Eldred already said, that access to markets so we can utilize the product.... In a world this size, with a population such as we have, certainly 400,000 or 500,000 animals harvested should not be hard to move. It's just that we need to get into the governments. The governments have to go there and have discussions with other governments.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Again I'll go to Mr. Jones.

We often hear that if Canada harvests pinnipeds in a meaningful way, we'll be faced with trade sanctions against our seafood products. Given that Norway, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Japan currently hunt whales, how realistic are the threats of these sanctions against our seafood industry in our international markets? Do you believe that?

[Trevor Jones]

When we look at the rest of the world and then Norway and those countries, obviously they harvest a lot more fish than we do because they keep their seal population down naturally. However, no, I don't believe it. I believe that's a myth. I think that's an excuse that's used by animal rights activists, and it's certainly far from the truth.

We have a responsibility to protect fish stocks, and if harvesting seals is part of that and of giving us a balanced ecosystem, then how can anybody argue with that? We're not going to be wasteful. We're just trying to do what's right in our ecosystem.

If we don't, then we're going to go the other way and have our stock decimated, and for what, because somebody just doesn't like the fact that we're harvesting a mammal out of the ocean? It's our God-given right and ability to do this and to manage the stock in this manner.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small. Your time has gone a little bit over.

We'll now go to Mr. Kelloway, please, for six minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses who are here today.

My questions will be directed to Ginny Boudreau.

Ginny, it's great to see you.

I first want to thank the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association for all that it does—all of you and the work you do.

You previously wrote, Ginny, that any new grey seal management procedure must be financially supported by commercial industry, the ecological preservation groups and the federal fisheries department. I'm curious about your insight as to the position you envision for industry groups such as yours and for ecological preservation groups moving forward.

[Ginny Boudreau]

As harvesters, our role is to harvest the resource. We are fishermen. Well, I'm not a fisherman; I represent fishermen. I work with fishermen, and I represent the fishing industry.

It is our responsibility to harvest whatever marine resources are commercially viable in the ocean to support our communities, to support our families. It's our role to do that responsibly. We look to science for a biomass that says, “This is the level that you can harvest safely, based on scientific datasets.” We have them in tenfold. Then, it's the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' responsibility to develop the policy, to develop the IFMPs, to develop the management scheme around this biomass. Then the federal and provincial governments' responsibility is to market...and to ensure that these fisheries are completed safely and humanely—in relation to seals or any animal that you're harvesting.

The role of the environmental groups is to ensure that what we are harvesting is not putting any one species, or the food web that's attached to that species, at risk. I don't really see any risk for pinnipeds.

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

Thanks, Ginny.

I'm going to stay with you. In my interactions with you and the association, you and your group always come with ideas and strong recommendations. I'm going to ask you to put some thought into this, but I'm pretty sure you have a really good answer.

We've heard throughout the seal summit, and so far in our conversations here on this study, that one of the most important things is access to markets and the utilization of the full seal. However, I'm curious as to what steps we can take to move this ball forward in a substantial way, in the short term and the long term, in terms of the industry itself and how we market it, how we access markets. I know your organization is on the cutting edge of how best we can do that.

[Ginny Boudreau]

Thank you for the question.

For any species that we harvest, there has to be a market for it or we wouldn't be harvesting it. If we're not going to be paid for our work, and we're going to take a resource from the marine environment, then the return on that has to be greater than the effort and the cost put into that. That will dictate the level of involvement for harvesters.

If the market is not there, then how do we develop that? That's not rocket science, and we shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel for this. How do we develop markets for any species that we harvest? In fact, how do we develop markets in Canada for blueberries, for beef or for pork and all the challenges that come along with those?

We have a policy in place. We show our proven track record. We show the chain of custody to show that the food product is safe and that it's harvested sustainably. It's promotion, it's pride and it's the Canadian government standing up for the seal industry and saying that this is a sustainable harvest and this is a humane harvest. The biomass is unbelievable. The resource is there for Canadians.

It just boggles my mind how we can't get around this, because there are customers out there. There are customers who want to utilize every part of the seal. We were even talking about using the offal and the waste for bait as an alternative to some of our other forage species that have very low biomass currently.

It's putting that whole picture together. I see the role of the provincial government, as well as the federal government, in assisting the industry to get those processing plants, the facilities, up and running then into the markets. China is a huge market, and the U.K. is a huge market. The whole world is starving for the high protein, the omega-3 and the pelts. I don't know why we're challenged with this. We are not challenged with anything else that we're trying to promote and market.

I hope that answers your question.

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

It certainly does, and I really appreciate the thoughtful answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We'll now go to Madame Michaud for six minutes or less, please.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here.

To be honest with you, I'm not as knowledgeable about fisheries as the colleague I'm replacing, Caroline Desbiens. That said—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll wait for a second, as there's no translation coming through.

Could we get that checked, please?