Fisheries Committee on Nov. 21st, 2023

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for Mr. Wentzell as the regional director general for my region. I just want to make sure everyone understands the situation. People on the ground have a number of concerns, especially when it comes to the lobster fishery.

Let's look at my region, where lobster fishing area 23 is located. During the fishing season, which is from May 1 to June 30, if fishers other than commercial and indigenous fishers placed their pots in that area without the proper licence or if they didn't tag their pots, what would happen? Would fishery officers seize those pots? Would those people be arrested? Would you please comment on that?

[Doug Wentzell]

Thank you for the question.

I want to speak directly to members of the committee in terms of the role of conservation and protection. There are a range of tools that fishery officers employ to follow up on any unauthorized fishing. That includes a spectrum ranging from education up to and including seizure and arrest and charges.

Similar to the example I offered for southwest Nova Scotia, those tools are used in any given season to address unauthorized fishing. In addition to that, we do work with our enforcement partners, as the committee noted, to deal with aspects of unauthorized fishing that do fall outside of our jurisdiction from time to time. We have a range of tools, and those are employed at any time there's unauthorized activity.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Okay.

Say there's a first nations group other than those who already have community fishing licences or proper licences, and they decide to put 2,000 pots in the water in area 23 during the fishing season. What law enforcement measures would you take? Would those pots be seized? Would the people be arrested? What interventions would happen?

[Doug Wentzell]

In response to the question, obviously it would be case specific, because officers do take a number of factors into account. Any number of those tools that the member noted could be used, and would be used as required. Obviously, officers want to make sure that we foster compliance in any fishery. The use of those tools would work to facilitate that level of compliance. There could be a mix, and different tools could be used depending on the situation.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

We hear many fishery officers in the area saying that they tend to close their eyes sometimes on certain rules. Is that something that you've heard, or is it something that you think is happening? Are they closing their eyes in some incidents?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

I will have to ask the witness to probably submit something in writing as the time has expired for your allotted question time.

We will now go to Madame Desbiens, for six minutes or less please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here with us.

This question is probably for Mr. Burns.

There are fishers in Quebec whose fishing activities have been suspended—mackerel and herring fishers, specifically. These people have told us that only mackerel fishers in Quebec are required to report their catches. Obviously, the closure of that fishery caused major inconveniences and distress in many Quebec communities that depend on fishing. Apparently, mackerel is still being fished elsewhere, such as in the United States.

I'd like to know why Quebec fishers are the only ones who have to report their catch.

Then I'd like you to tell me what your department can do to change what's happening in the United States, which is hurting mackerel fishers in Quebec.

[Adam Burns]

I'll start with the question about the United States, and then I'll hand it over to my colleague, Doug Wentzell, who can answer the question about catch reporting in other regions.

We're working closely with the United States to manage the mackerel fishery. We are well aware that some of the mackerel fished by Americans comes from Canada. We're glad the Americans have considerably reduced their mackerel quotas. It is down a lot from previous years. We will keep working with the Americans to ensure the measures we've put in place to protect mackerel in Canada are not in vain because the Americans can still catch them.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Obviously, all species can be fished illegally. Is there a way to impose more penalties? We know that money has a lot to do with it and that the people who engage in illegal fishing typically have a lot of money. To get the point across, couldn't we impose really high penalties and then use that money to support fishers who have been impacted by the closure of certain fisheries?

We're looking for some kind of financial assistance that doesn't necessarily come from the government. For example, we could increase penalties on fishers who break the rules and use that money to help fishers impacted by the closure of certain fisheries because of illegal overfishing. Do you understand what I mean?

[Adam Burns]

Yes, I understand the question.

That's not how the Fisheries Act is set up right now. Money from fines goes into the consolidated revenue fund. That is government revenue that's used to implement existing government policies. The money isn't earmarked for anything in particular.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Is the government open to that idea? Even a law that has been around for a long time can be reconsidered. This seems like a sensible idea to me. Does the government sometimes consider sensible options?

[Adam Burns]

All I can tell you is that using revenue from fines to support fishers is not something that's in the Fisheries Act right now.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

That's how it works in other situations. For example, in Quebec, when drugs are seized, any money collected is used to help people trying to escape addiction.

I think something similar could be done for fishers negatively impacted by overfishing, such as mackerel fishers. This is more of a proposal than a question.

How widespread is illegal fishing, anyway? How big is it compared to regular fishing in Quebec and Canada?

[Adam Burns]

I don't have a specific response to that question. I can tell you that our conservation and protection officers work very closely together to enforce the laws and minimize unauthorized fishing in Canada as much as possible.

When our scientists write their reports, they take into account catches that aren't recorded in logbooks or counted as part of our processes. They take all catches into account. They want to make sure their reports contain all the information we need to manage fisheries properly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My first question, I believe, might be best for Mr. Davis. Is Mr. Davis here?

I'm just making sure.

Just over a year ago, the B.C. Wildlife Federation called to attention the illegal sale of salmon, which they said was rampant in British Columbia. The executive director Jesse Zeman said they were “seeing reports of dumping involving thousands, possibly tens of thousands of fish, which is a symptom of illegal sales on a massive scale”. He went on to say that “The fish have spoiled suggesting that there are far more fish on the black market than there are buyers.”

My question for Mr. Davis is, what is DFO doing to protect wild Pacific salmon, a keystone species, from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing?

[Neil Davis, Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

We have a variety of enforcement and compliance activities and assets in the region that all support oversight and ensure compliance. Those range in from the high seas. You may have heard about our operation north Pacific guard, which Mr. Burns spoke to earlier.

More into domestic waters, we have overflights monitoring fisheries. We have officers in midshore patrol vessels, and in smaller coastal vessels. As we move towards the coastline, we have at-sea and dockside monitoring programs that fishers themselves are expected to adhere to. All of those things give us some oversight.

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

Thank you, Mr. Davis.

How would you explain what was being reported by the B.C. Wildlife Federation, based on the information you've just provided?

[Neil Davis]

I don't think I can speak to what was reported per se, without some specifics about the incident. However, I think the assets we have in place, and the enforcement resources are the things we would use to ensure the proper oversight and compliance.

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

Thank you.

I had two separate incidents over the summer that I wanted to highlight, and perhaps this would be for Mr. Davis again.

For the safety of the people involved, I won't confirm the location, but I did have a fisher who brought me out to a wharf and very clearly pointed out to me people who were illegally fishing. His frustration was that despite many reports, and ongoing reporting, nothing was being done. Right in front of fishers, there was illegal fishing happening repeatedly with a lack of enforcement, and that just continued on.

That is versus a very different scenario in which an indigenous fisher, because of a clerical error in paperwork, had his entire $20,000 worth of catch seized, auctioned off, despite this clerical error being resolved quite quickly.

It seems like there are two different extremes here where we have an indigenous fisher being very harshly penalized for a clerical error, versus the ongoing illegal fishing that we're often seeing in front of us at wharfs.

Can you speak to that contrast we're seeing? How can we best move forward to ensure there are accountability mechanisms in place to avoid illegal fishing?

[Neil Davis]

Maybe I'll offer a couple of thoughts.

With respect to avoiding or preventing illegal fishing in the first place, one of the things I think is important, which we support across all of our fisheries, is a process through which we build management plans— which hopefully have understanding and, ideally, support within the fisheries being regulated by those plans—to prevent or mitigate the potential in the first place for what you're describing with regard to illegal fishing.

In the incidents where other harvesters, or the public, observe what they believe to be a violation, we do have an observe, record and report line by which members of the public can submit information about what they hear and see. That can support the ability of our conservation and protection officers to respond.

I can't speak to the individual cases you are describing in terms of what might have explained the response the department took, but as my colleagues have described earlier, there is a range of tools and approaches available to our enforcement officers for how they deal with any specific incidents or violations.

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

Thank you.

Just following that, I am hearing from people on the water that there is just not enough capacity to be able to respond, despite their making those phone calls. Can you perhaps speak to that?

Why would there be such a difference in responses where it appears we already have a lack of capacity to follow through on reports of illegal fishing? Yet, we have such a large response requiring many different enforcement officers around a clerical error. How do we navigate an appropriate response to an appropriate circumstance? Are there enough individuals hired to ensure that the accountability mechanisms are followed through?

[Neil Davis]

Thank you for the question.

With respect to capacity, there are various assets in the region that we think support effective enforcement. As I was describing earlier, those include both overt forms of enforcement that are visible to people who may be harvesting, and covert forms, where we are not necessarily visible, but using other means to effectively collect information and be able to pursue cases that we think warrant further action.

I think that blend and combination of assets is what we use to ensure compliance and be able to follow up where there are instances of non-compliance.

In terms of what might inform the types of response—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Davis. If we could get that response in writing, it would be appreciated. We've gone over the time. I'm trying to get everybody's questions in.

We'll now continue on to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the officials for being here.

According to information provided by the Library of Parliament on DFO's definition of “illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing”, IUU has three distinct features. The definition of these features of IUU appear to be centred on foreign vessels and international obligations. Your presentation this morning seemed to be centred on that.

Is it only foreign vessels and international obligations that are included in your IUU work? If not, what other forms of IUU are monitored and enforced by DFO?