Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Adam Burns. I'm the assistant deputy minister of the Fisheries and Oceans programs sector.
Mr. Chair, I'll note that Yves Richard, director of conservation and protection for the Quebec region has also joined us virtually.
I'd like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe people.
My colleagues and I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee regarding your study of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, or IUU fishing.
I'd like to start by clarifying that the term “illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing” is the general term that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations uses to describe a wide variety of fishing activities carried out in violation of laws and national and international obligations, or in the absence of monitoring. In that context, we use the term to describe violations of international obligations on the high seas and foreign vessel incursions into the 200‑mile exclusive economic zones.
Canada has strong controls against the threat of incursion into Canadian fisheries waters by foreign vessels, including co-operative monitoring of vessel activities across federal departments through the marine security operations centres and active patrols by the department's fisheries aerial surveillance and enforcement program and by fishery officers who, every day, in our coastal communities, monitor across Canada.
The department's fishery officers are mandated to enforce the Fisheries Act and associated regulations, as well as the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act. That includes conducting inspections to verify compliance and taking appropriate enforcement action when individuals are fishing without a Fisheries and Oceans Canada-issued authorization.
Fishery officers work with other federal partners and local law enforcement as necessary to ensure safe and orderly fisheries management and when they become aware of violations outside the scope of legal conservation and protection authorities.
Our oceans, however, are connected and IUU fishing is a significant threat to the world's marine resources. It can impact Canadians in many ways, including the potential for direct interception of migratory species, such as salmon and tuna, and trade in IUU caught seafood can undermine the legitimate seafood sector. IUU fishing can also result in harmful impacts to marine ecosystems and to the economic and food security of developing countries and vulnerable coastal communities that rely on small-scale fisheries for survival.
We know that IUU fishing can be connected to global organized crime networks, and it is often associated with forced labour and the mistreatment of crews.
Canada plays an active role in the global fight against IUU fishing on three fronts: making international rules more effective, enforcing those rules, and forming partnerships to bring concrete solutions to the problem.
Canada has leadership roles in seven regional fisheries management organizations, or RFMOs, which collaboratively manage fisheries resources in specific areas of the high seas. These include the critical work of strengthening, monitoring, control and surveillance measures. Through these organizations, Canada has led the implementation of key new measures within these RFMOs, including the introduction of high seas inspection authorities, greater oversight of the transshipment of fish at sea, and the banning of shark finning and plastic pollution.
Canada works to enforce these rules by conducting compliance and enforcement activities in international waters. These include monitoring from sea, air and space. This past summer, Canada enhanced its monitoring of international waters by conducting its first high seas inspection operations in the north Pacific, patrolling over 12,000 nautical miles and detecting 58 violations of international agreements and over 3,000 illegally harvested shark fins. Given the large scale of high seas fleets operating in the north Pacific and the risk that IUU fishing poses to vulnerable stocks, including migrating Pacific salmon, Canada is working closely with its partners, including the United States, Japan and Korea, to uphold the rule of law at sea.
IUU fishing is a major threat to developing nations, which typically don't have the resources to monitor fishing activities in their national waters, let alone on the high seas, or to enforce laws.
We are actively working to strengthen the capacities of those countries.
Canada recently announced the launch of its Indo-Pacific strategy. As part of this strategy, Canada will establish a new shared ocean fund, which will invest $84 million over five years within the Indo-Pacific region by increasing maritime co-operation, supporting a healthy marine environment and promoting measures against IUU fishing. This fund will enable partnerships with world-leading non-governmental organizations that can help overcome the complex jurisdictional challenges posed by IUU fishing.
The government recently announced that Canada will become a founding partner of the joint analytical cell, a group of non-governmental organizations that will work together to deliver high-quality fisheries intelligence, data analysis and capacity support alongside authorities in developing countries.
Canada has implemented its dark vessel detection platform and state-of-the-art satellite surveillance system to support vulnerable developing states in the detection and tracking of potential IUU fishing vessels. The DVD platform is currently helping protect the Galápagos Islands in partnership with Ecuador, and is deployed to support 15 Pacific island states.
Under the Indo-Pacific strategy, the dark vessel detection platform is being expanded to support the Philippines to support their effort to detect and track vessels that may be in engaged in IUU fishing, and to strengthen their maritime security.
