Fisheries Committee on March 30th, 2023

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

Mr. Jones, you fish a lot of mackerel. There is a DFO slide that I think came from the Atlantic mackerel advisory committee meeting in Halifax a few weeks ago. It shows that DFO found from the grey seals' stomach contents that more than 47% of the diet they had eaten in the winter was mackerel. I thought mackerel aren't supposed to be around in the winter.

What's happening that they would be eating mackerel?

[Trevor Jones]

Obviously, there's a shift in the biomass of mackerel. Our waters stay warmer for longer throughout the winter. You can see that in our ice floes, which disappear much faster than in previous years with the weather conditions and whatnot. The mackerel seem to be staying in our waters more throughout the year and for longer periods of time. I guess that's why.

If they're there more, then the grey seals are going to be eating a lot more throughout, so it's going to be affecting that stock even more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

We're a little bit over, but we'll try to make up for that as we go.

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

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question would be for Ms. Boudreau and possibly Mr. Jones.

In fairness, Ms. Boudreau, I've heard the current minister articulate exactly what you said about promoting the value of the Canadian seal as products and how it's harvested in a humane way. In fact, in fairness, most ministers over the past 20 years have been saying the same, from both the former government and this government.

They've also been making the comment that we have to expand markets as a solution. Those markets have never come. For the seal herd, everybody recognizes that there is a current allowable hunt of somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 animals. I understand 600,000 would be optimal to bring the seal herd back in balance on the east coast. This discussion has occurred for some time with no resolution.

To have a market, you need a customer. Who is the customer we are missing? Without a customer, I fail to see what the solution would be. Who is the customer we should be identifying for the products that would come from a sustainable harvest?

That's for Ms. Boudreau, and then I'd be curious to have Mr. Jones's comment.

[Ginny Boudreau]

Thank you.

First and foremost, I am your customer. I buy seal oil tablets currently. I buy mittens and I buy boots for my grandchildren. I make them wear them to school, by the way, and they do get very interesting responses. I am your customer. My neighbours are your customer. Canadians are our customer. Then we expand.

Whom do we currently market our marine products to? It's the United States, China and the U.K. Over the whole world, there are people starved for protein. Protein is becoming one of the most difficult and expensive items to access that we require in our diet. It's—

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Then where's the disconnect? As you identify, you're a customer, but we're harvesting 18,000 seals or somewhere around that. We need more customers than you and whoever else you identified to sustain a harvest that's estimated to have to be about 600,000 animals to stabilize the seal population and reduce it to a manageable level that would not have that impact on other fisheries. While that's okay to say, you need a substantive customer base.

This is where I'm about to go to Mr. Jones—and I believe you may have commented on it as well, Ms. Boudreau. Do we have the adequate infrastructure to harvest that capacity of animals at sea and get them back to land in a state that an entrepreneur can process as sellable products? I'm referring to the fishing fleet. I'm not familiar with it in Newfoundland, but you're dealing with a very bulky, large animal and you have to get it back to a processor in a state that the processor can do something with. Do we have the adequate infrastructure to harvest effectively at sea?

I ask because if we don't solve that problem, you're not going to build that customer base or market base. You have to be able to target and get enough animals back to shore on a sustained basis, on a long-term basis, that would give the confidence to the processor to process.

Would you comment, Ms. Boudreau, and then Mr. Jones? And then I'll be in overtime.

[Ginny Boudreau]

Thank you.

I cannot currently access all of the products when I want them and as readily as I would like to have them. As a customer, that's an issue for me. We're already not producing enough.

Regarding the issue of whether we have the capability or capacity on our vessels, we handle bluefin tuna right now. It's a massive species. If there was an investment by the government and a market, harvesters would invest in their vessels so that they can respond to this fishery.

I'll let Trevor respond.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Actually, I'll ask Mr. Jones if he can send a response in writing to the committee, please, because Mr. Morrissey has gone a little bit over time and we're trying to keep it as close as we can to the suggested time frame.

I will now go to Madame Michaud for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to continue along the same lines with you, Ms. Boudreau.

Earlier, my NDP colleague asked you about an international marketing plan. What about local marketing? You talked a bit about marketing the product, meaning not just the meat, but also the oil, the pelts and skins, and all the by-products. Last week, Sandra Gauthier of Exploramer told us that just over 200 restaurants in Quebec and several supermarkets want these products, but there's not quite enough supply to meet demand.

What kind of vision should be in place at the local level before we start thinking about marketing these products internationally?

[Ginny Boudreau]

I think Mr. Woodford would probably have a better response to that because that is definitely his area of expertise, if you wouldn't mind my passing the question on to him.

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

Sure.

[Eldred Woodford]

The international market was there. The doors were shut. We had products. The Newfoundland seal industry, and the Canadian seal industry people in general, was a success story. We built this industry from a few thousand in the eighties up to years when we harvested 350,000 to 360,000 and could have harvested more. The demand was there. The customers were there. The markets were being addressed.

We had four processing companies on the island that produced seals, competed for the seals and put a great value onto the seals. When we lost our access to the market, those companies generally shut down, one after the other, and right now we only have one. As someone stated earlier, when asked what we need, we need access to markets because the customers are there. The customers are the general population out there who could walk into the store, look at a product and make a personal decision on whether or not they want to buy that product. That has never been the problem. The problem has always been the access.

Our success in Newfoundland from building a seal industry after the whitecoat ban of the 1980s was wonderful. The communities were ecstatic about the money that was being generated, the extra money and the plant workers working all the time. It was providing the international marketplace with the products. These products weren't being sold here in Canada. For the last few years, the government has invested greatly in the Canadian market, and for some reason, I guess, it has not taken a foothold. The only thing that's keeping our industry alive today is a small Canadian market. Our main market has been international; it always has been and probably always would be.

The industry needs assistance in the ability to access the marketplace. That is what it is. We talk about DFO and its studies and all the reports that have been written. I was at the seal forum in November when Minister Murray made a statement that it was the first official seal forum. That's not true. I was at the much larger seal forum in 2002, when the industry made recommendations that were going to be required to have attention and to be addressed in order that we wouldn't be in the state we are in today, because industry predicted all of this.

For everyone's information, we, the Canadian seal industry, were the first industry in Canada to adopt the precautionary approach framework for dealing with the seal population. At the time, in 2002, it was somewhere in the vicinity of 4.8 million to 5.2 million animals. It was providing us, at the time, with a total allowable catch of somewhere in the vicinity of 320,000 animals per year. That did somewhat control the population, but it still increased.

Now we're at a point where our population of seals is up around the tens of millions. One gentleman earlier said that we'd need a harvest of 600,000 to control it. That would be only to control it. We need a number much larger than that now for the protection that our ecosystem and our fish stocks need. It's only a matter of time.

I sat here this evening as a favour to a person to come here and do this, because I've seen so much of this in the last 30 years that I'm full to the chin, pretty much. We need action. The action right now is a cull to control the population on an ecosystem basis.

If you had an aquarium and you had fish growing in it and you tossed in a seal, you know what he'd do. If you need to do studies on what seals eat.... Seals are the most opportunistic feeders in the ocean. They will eat whatever is there in that vicinity. All of the studies previously, going back some 30 years, may have been taken from seals in the bays when there were no capelin or no cod and the seals were living off the fat reserves that are in their fat—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Woodford. I have to end it there. We have gone way over. I want to get Ms. Barron in before we end this first hour of testimony.

We'll go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Jones again.

Mr. Jones, help me understand the information here. Just to be clear, I'm very much in support of a region-specific, sustainable seal harvest. I feel like we've received ample information to support a move for region-specific, sustainable seal harvesting already to date. What I am trying to understand, though, is that we are hearing that there is pressure for this to happen immediately and that this needs to be timely.

I'm also hearing that we don't have the infrastructure in place, that we don't have the market in place and that we need to have an international market for this to be successful. If we truly want to move forward with a sustainable seal harvest—not a cull, which, as I'm being told over and over, is not what we're pushing for—what do we need to know as a committee?

I'm hoping to get, at the end of this, sound recommendations to provide to the government on the best next steps in a timely, clear manner. Any information that you can provide today will help us to be able to have those clear recommendations and be able support a move in the right direction.

Can you share your thoughts around that?

[Trevor Jones]

Let's put some boots on the ground and get running with it if we want to do it in a timely manner. Let's open up the markets.

We harvested 400,000 seals in a matter of two or three weeks at one time. That was not a problem, but we've lost some of that infrastructure along the way. If we could have access to markets, I think the rest of it will begin to fall in place. You would get the investments. I guarantee there will be other countries wanting to invest in it.

The problem is that we need to open up that access. Before that European ban on seals, we were moving seal product at three times the price we're getting today and we were moving all of the 400,000 that were being harvested year over year. Then that ban came in place and it was just like turning a valve and it closed off.

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

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

I know it's a big question that I just asked you, and I appreciate that. I'm running out of time, so perhaps you could provide this in writing.

Would you be able to provide us with some tangible ask through FFAW for what fishers would be needing in order to move forward with a sustainable seal harvest if this were to move forward in a timely manner? I'm trying to understand what's currently in place and what we need.

Is this information that you have access to?

[Trevor Jones]

I think we could gather some information. For me, it gets busy this time of year, but I think I could pass it along to FFAW, and I'm sure Eldred there, with the Canadian Sealers Association, could gather whatever information you might want or need. We could see where we go from there.

It sounds positive to have someone asking those questions. Thank you for the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

That concludes our first hour of testimony. We'll suspend for a few minutes to change out to our second panel. I want to thank all of the witnesses for taking the time to appear today and share their knowledge with the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're back.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses.

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. For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. For those in the room, of course, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Finally, I remind you that the use of a House-approved headset is mandatory for all of our participants in parliamentary proceedings.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

Appearing by video conference is Dr. George Rose, professor of fisheries. Representing SEA-NL, we have executive director Ryan Cleary, who needs no introduction in any of these committee rooms, I'm sure, and Mr. Merv Wiseman, ex-officio board member.

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

We'll start with Dr. Rose, please, for five minutes or less.

[Dr. George Rose, Professor of Fisheries, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Greetings to everyone.

I would like to make a few broad ecological statements first about the situation on our east and west coasts, and then maybe get to some more specifics as time allows for your questions.

I think it's beyond dispute that the marine ecosystems on both our east and west coasts are what I call out of kilter, which is very different from the past norms that supported our fisheries on both coasts for hundreds of years. One of the chief symptoms of this “out-of-kilterness” is a huge relative increase in some cases—and in other cases not as huge—in pinnipeds relative to the things they eat, which is almost everything in the ecosystem, but especially our commercially important fishes.

In [Technical difficulty—Editor] ecosystem that will have a pyramid of what we call trophic energy, or you look at it as biomass. In simple terms, there should be a lot more small things than large things, because large things eat smaller things in generality. You should see that pyramid. That's what sustainable ecosystems look like.

If you look at, for example, our northern cod ecosystem off Newfoundland and Labrador, what you see is the exact opposite. What you see is that the biomass of seals is greater than the biomass of cod and capelin put together in that ecosystem. This is an extreme case of being out of kilter.

Another thing that's really important in the ecological sense is that most of the pinniped species are migratory. They can sustain very high populations, not based on the commercial species that we're talking about, but on other things. The potential impacts on the commercial species can be looked at as collateral damage from the standpoint of the pinnipeds. They don't need to be focusing on those species to have that big effect.

That's kind of the case. If we look at the case of harp seals in Newfoundland, which is on people's minds, some of the better studied cases are in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence with grey seals. That is clearly an example of the cod stock there, which, according to some of our better scientists—Dr. Swain and his colleagues down that way—could even face extirpation because of pinniped predation.

The west coast here, out in the Pacific, is not immune from this either. There has been new immigration of California sea lions into the coastal areas of British Columbia. They're moving north. This brings in the climate change impact, which is affecting just about everything.

Recent studies by a colleague of mine, Dr. Carl Walters at UBC, have shown fairly convincingly that pinniped predation has severely impacted Fraser River salmon stocks, and it is one of the reasons why—out here on the west coast as well—we're seeing this kind of inverted pyramid of biomass in our ecosystems. Depending on what your goal is in managing ecosystems.... If it is commercial fisheries, it's hard to look at this positively.

To get to some specific things that I'm sure you're interested in, the northern cod ecosystem off Newfoundland and Labrador is where I spent most of my career. I've been retired now for a number of years, but I spent most of my career there as a working scientist on the fish stocks.

The system there is extreme, as I mentioned earlier. I take exception with the DFO statement. If you look at their brochure on harp seals, they state that harp seal predation was not a significant factor in the lack of cod recovery, and there was no evidence that harp seals negatively impacted capelin. I know the studies this is based on. This is based on a couple of studies by colleagues over a decade ago. However, I think the evidence for this—that they have no impact, particularly on capelin—is quite weak, and in some cases there's really no substantial evidence of that at all.

That's one of the things I would like to stress from the ecological side, though. The effects that pinnipeds can have, or that any predators can have, are not necessarily direct. They can be indirect. The best example that I could use is that the effects on cod, for example, might be actually through capelin. By influencing capelin, you will influence cod.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Rose. We've gone way over the five-minute mark, almost up to another minute.

I'll go now to Mr. Cleary and Mr. Wiseman.

I don't know if you're sharing your five minutes or not.

Mr. Cleary, when you're ready, you have five minutes or less, please.

[Ryan Cleary, Executive Director, Seaward Enterprises Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Inc.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for the invitation to testify as part of this latest pinniped study. I say “latest” because, as this committee has already heard, there have been dozens of federal government studies and reports since the early 1990s on the east coast seal problem.

To this point, Ottawa's seal strategy has been to study the animals to death. I can report conclusively to this committee that, beyond a shadow of any doubt, this strategy is not working.

It was only last year that the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, in the biggest single advancement for the pro-sealing cause in decades, acknowledged on behalf of the Government of Canada, for all of the nations of the world to hear, that seals eat fish. What sweet central Canadian words those were to the ears of the small boat fishermen and women of Newfoundland and Labrador. There's an old joke back home that seals don't eat Kentucky Fried, but that joke stopped being funny years ago when the inshore fishery began fading before our eyes on every coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

As the seal population of Atlantic Canada has ballooned to 10 million-plus animals, the number of small boat enterprises in my province alone, the sector that SEA-NL represents, has dropped like a rock from more than 20,000 in 1992 to just over 3,200 today—and has been dropping every single year. That is no coincidence. The seal population is up; the fishermen population is down.

I attended a northern cod advisory this week in St. John's, and DFO mathematicians—who cannot be called scientists anymore because there has not been any solid seal science in years—said with absolute confidence that seals do not impact northern cod. I remind the committee that this is year 31 of what was supposed to be a two-year northern cod moratorium. The moratorium was supposed to end in 1994, 29 years ago.

Seals eat millions of tonnes of fish a year, including the very capelin that northern cod feed on, yet DFO managers and mathematicians, who, to be frank, have precious little credibility back home, can say with supreme confidence—the most confidence I've ever heard DFO staff speak with about any species—that seals are not having an impact on cod and are not really having an impact on any species—not snow crab, not northern shrimp, not capelin. DFO's poster boy species for successful fisheries management in eastern Canada is the seal, at the expense of the wild commercial fishery's groundfish, pelagic fish and shellfish.

In 1991, 32 years ago, the Leslie Harris report on the state of the northern cod stock recommended the following: “That every reasonable effort be made to understand the cod-capelin-seal interactions and to incorporate appropriate data into cod population assessments.” That was not done. DFO still has no handle on cod-capelin-seal interactions. I can show you all kinds of videos of seal stomachs literally bursting with capelin, herring and snow crab. In cod stomachs and livers, they're not so easy to point out.

The impact of millions of seals is not factored into fisheries management assessments. That is inexcusable. DFO is not doing its job. DFO purposely chose to ignore advice about incorporating seals into management assessments because seals take precedence over fishermen with the Government of Canada. That's what it comes down to. It is absolutely undeniable. If DFO's chief cod mathematician can brazenly tell the world that seals are not having an impact, DFO has zero credibility. I can tell you for a fact that 10 million-plus seals are having a crushing impact on 520,000 Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Does that count for anything?

I served for four and a half years here in Ottawa as an MP, and the unwritten rule was that there are two subjects MPs do not talk about: their pension plan and seals. Some parties may take a public stand in support of the seal hunt, but in private their stand is that they do not open their mouth. That is the Ottawa reality.

The membership of SEA–NL passed a motion at our February AGM to demand that DFO develop an action plan to deal with seals on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, as well as Arctic waters, within six months. That's SEA–NL's advice to this committee.

I have a final, important point about groups like Oceana Canada, which have the Liberal government's ear on fisheries management. It was only last year that Oceana Canada called for the shutdown of the commercial capelin fishery at the same time that DFO’s own mathematicians said the impact of that 15,000-tonne capelin fishery does not register on the capelin stock. It does not register. It's not comparable in any way to the millions of tonnes consumed by seals.

It is a job not to be suspicious of groups like Oceana Canada, which urgently recommend the counting of every last fish caught in Canadian waters when they don't have a policy on seals and when they don't have a policy on foreign overfishing outside of the 200-mile limit. Groups like Oceana Canada and Oceans North are seen as lackeys of the Government of Canada.

Groups like Oceana Canada don't say a public word about seals. They don't have an official stance on seals. However, if you review their social media posts, you'll read that baby harp seals are adorable, that harbour seals are the cutest and that grey seals like to play peekaboo. What does that tell the members of this committee about their motives?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cleary. You've gone way over your five minutes.

We'll now go to our round of questioning. We'll start off with six minutes or less for Mr. Arnold.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will again be splitting my time, but this time with Mr. Small.

Mr. Cleary, can you describe what the impact of managing only prey species and not managing predator species would be?

I only have three minutes, because I have to split my time.

[Ryan Cleary]

The answer is that it's not proper management. If you're not managing the entire ecosystem—all the predators and the prey—that is not proper management.