Fisheries Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'll just go back to a question I was trying to ask the minister while she was here, regarding herring size threshold.

Do you think the dumping of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of herring because it's just below the size threshold is a good conservation policy in Newfoundland and Labrador, or should we be following the policy that's in place in Nova Scotia?

[Timothy Sargent]

There are a number of factors that go into the policies in the different regions. The policies are different, but they have the same conservation objective. The reality is that, when we manage a fishery, things like net size or whatever, there are going to need to be thresholds, and sometimes things will fall on one side and then on the other side.

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

Okay. Let me interrupt. Why do we have a different policy for Nova Scotia than we have for Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Timothy Sargent]

We have different regions at DFO to reflect the diversity of the fishing industry across our country. It's often the case that we have the same objective, ultimately, which is to preserve stocks, but we go at it in a different way. It depends on the gear. It depends on the boats. It depends on the structure of the industry and on populations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

That concludes our session for today. I want to thank the officials for their time here with us today and the information they've provided. I know that they've committed to responding in writing to a number of questions, so we look forward to seeing that information as well.

I wish everybody a good day.

The meeting is adjourned.