Fisheries Committee on March 30th, 2023

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Can you describe what the impacts would be?

[Ryan Cleary]

The impacts would be exactly what you have now.

We have three cod stocks adjacent to Newfoundland. All three cod stocks are in the critical zone around Newfoundland. We have a moratorium on northern cod, year 31. We have a moratorium in 4R in the gulf, year two. We have a 1,500-tonne quota on the south coast 3Ps cod. All three groundfish stocks are in ridiculous shape. The capelin, which is one of the foundational species for our ecosystem, is in ridiculous shape.

It's not improving. Why is that?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Rose, you spoke briefly about the evidence of the impact on capelin as being quite weak. Could you elaborate on that a little further?

[Dr. George Rose]

These conclusions are based on studies that were done by DFO scientists well over a decade ago. The evidence is weak. It's all correlative, and the problem with that is that it doesn't prove anything. Scientifically, it proves no cause and effect at all. It's just very weak. The data are weak to start with, and so on.

I think the main mechanism that's going on here in these ecosystems with the pinnipeds is removing the prey of other species. It's been mentioned about capelin. It's so important in the north Atlantic. The effects of this.... There are studies that have been done in Norway that show very clearly that what happens with capelin is going to affect what happens with seals and what happens with cod. That's probably the main mechanism at work here, but the evidence that DFO is basing this on is very weak.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

I'll turn my time over to Mr. Small now.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I heard Mr. Cleary say that the seals were studied to death, but it hasn't really brought down the population, so there wasn't much death to it.

Would we have to be here today, doing this study, if Bill C-251 had passed? What do you think, Mr. Cleary?

[Ryan Cleary]

No.

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

I guess we'll keep on going here.

Mr. Wiseman, we heard a couple of witnesses earlier today talk about markets. Do you agree with these folks that the markets are the main thing that's holding back the harvesting of our current seal quotas?

[Mervin Wiseman, Ex-Officio Board Member, Seaward Enterprises Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Inc.]

Yes, I absolutely do.

Look, we can talk about the leverage that we have available to us to bring the seal population under control, and you can talk about culls, but I think before proceeding on that path of culling, we have to give a fair chance to developing the marketplace.

I'm involved in fur farming. I operate the largest silver fox farm in the world in North Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador. I've been involved at the organizational level. I've been a director on the marketing board with the North American Fur Auctions out of New York and Toronto, and so on. We have had, for a long time—for years, for decades—a framework of marketing and promotion for furs, for mink, for fox, in particular, domestic farming, and so on.

In the international marketplace, I've watched the performance of the various companies involved in marketing and promoting all of these furs, and I know that it was taboo on the runways of Milan, Hong Kong, Frankfurt and New York. It was taboo to talk about and to bring seals into that particular domain. So why did this happen?

I know, likewise, that it's been almost taboo to discuss the issue of fur in trade negotiations, such the North American Free Trade Agreement, CETA, and others. There are so many others to choose from—the WTO, the EU, and some of the things that have been done. It seems like it's absolutely taboo to discuss the idea of opening the gateway for seals and allowing them to get in. Until we've gone there and done that, then we really can't say we've done a good job at the marketing of seals.

[Ryan Cleary]

Mr. Small, can I elaborate a bit on that first question you asked?

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

Yes, go ahead.

[Ryan Cleary]

In terms of your bill to legislate the management of seal populations, that was doomed. You didn't have a chance, because the Government of Canada doesn't manage seals. They don't want the management of seals incorporated into population assessments for other stocks.

Again, the stand of the parties in Ottawa, from my time here—and I mean, I live and breathe this stuff—is that they may have a public stand to support the seal hunt, but it's a public stand. The private stand is the opposite.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small. The time is up.

We'll move on now to Mr. Morrissey for six minutes or less, please.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

What's been interesting for this committee is that we hear a lot of lecturing. We hear a lot of bravado statements, but I'm more interested in substantive answers on what steps have to be taken, first of all, to encourage fishers to actually utilize the resource that's allowed to be taken, but that hasn't been taken for some time, which is several hundred thousand animals. I believe you can harvest between 400,000 and 500,000 animals.

We hear a lot of generalized statements, but those haven't worked because this problem has occurred over the past 20 years or so. We have to get to the root of the problem of what has to be done to encourage fishers to go out and harvest the seal population they're allowed to, and then begin working from there.

What action would government have to take that would actually get the harvesters on the sea harvesting those seals they're allowed to?

I'll go to you, Mr. Wiseman, on this.

[Mervin Wiseman]

Look, if you want to go back to.... I go back too far, I think, as I'm 70 years old as of this year. I grew up in a family of 14 people who depended on the seal and sealing, and the kind that came from that. It was common throughout the 1960s even, and the 1970s and 1980s, to harvest half a million seals, so it's not rocket science to harvest it and to bring it ashore.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

But why are we not doing it now?

[Mervin Wiseman]

Well, we're not doing it now because we have no marketplace.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Right. You need a customer before you can have a market.

[Mervin Wiseman]

Yes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

So how did we...? Where did the disconnect come between the customer and...? I ask because that harvest you were referring to was primarily dealing with taking the pelt off and marketing just that part. Am I correct?

[Mervin Wiseman]

Yes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Now we're talking about a seal hunt that must utilize the full animal, so the dynamics of the harvest will be different. Am I correct?

[Mervin Wiseman]

Yes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Would we need a much different vessel capacity to sustainably harvest that animal?

[Mervin Wiseman]

Not necessarily. We still use the same vehicles. For the vehicles we use now—if you want to use “vehicle”—or the vessel that we use, it's customary, in fact, for lots of them now to have the kinds of facilities on board that can sustain sensitive products, as they do, whether it's crustaceans, pelagics—no matter what it is. We actually end up in a much better position now to do this in an expedient manner and to get it ashore very quickly.

The question becomes this: Can it be facilitated onshore? Yes, there will have to be some modernization programming, for sure, but the facilities are there.

Then, it's the gateways to the marketplace.

It's a balanced approach. Yes, it's science, absolutely.