Fisheries Committee on Nov. 21st, 2023

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

Mr. Wentzell, with all due respect, I did not ask for your listing of statistics, which have all been in the media. It's a very mediocre level of enforcement.

There was violence and there were guns just two minutes from my house, all the way down. I was out most weekends at midnight when the elver fishery happened, and there was nobody on the rivers, especially the most important river, the East River—which is in Chester, which is one on which science is done—to the point that DFO didn't do any science this year.

I'm asking you again how you enforce, deal with and estimate the illegal fishery if you can't even enforce a fishery that is along the rivers, let alone out in the ocean?

[Doug Wentzell]

This elver fishery, while it is along the rivers, presents a number of unique challenges given how lucrative it is and how the elvers are shipped out of the country.

We are doing a management review of the elver fishery right now to figure out if there are additional tools we need to manage, given how unique this fishery is.

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

Mr. Wentzell, the same official said in July they had adequate C and P resources to enforce the lobster fishery this summer. Yet, the lobster fishery in southwest Nova Scotia was overrun with poachers. You've seen the pictures of thousands of pounds of dead lobsters being dumped on the side because they were illegal and undersized.

You've seen all of that and yet you listed a small number of traps out of the tens of thousands of illegal traps in southwest Nova Scotia that were put....

Most docks never saw a C and P enforcement officer. Why?

[Doug Wentzell]

I can confirm that we've dedicated significant capacity to the lobster fishery in southwest Nova Scotia. We're going to continue to do that.

We have a number of cases that are working their way through the courts now to hopefully get those outcomes that we need for prosecutions.

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

Videos and licence plates of those involved in the elver fishery and illegal lobster fishery this summer were sent to the office of the minister, and there was lots of reporting from licensed fishers about the illegal fishery. Yet C and P failed to show up at any of those complaints. Why?

[Doug Wentzell]

I can't speak to the individual complaints, but I do know, given the hours and time that officers have put into this around the social work in Nova Scotia—

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

Did the C and P team tell the officers on the rivers and on the docks to observe and not arrest, as they were told—because I have the emails of this—in 2020 with the illegal lobster fishery then?

[Doug Wentzell]

Again, officers will make their decisions on how to enforce the act, but there was certainly no directive to not enforce and uphold the Fisheries Act.

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

All the emails within the department—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

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

I'm just getting to the tabling of the documents.

Can you table all of those emails, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins. Your time is up. You've gone over the time, actually.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today, everybody from the department. You're always quite available when we request it. We certainly appreciate that and the information you provide to the committee.

I want to remind everybody that on Thursday we will be resuming the study on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The Canada Border Services Agency will appear in the first hour. However, the minister of the Department of National Defence is not available for the second hour. We are waiting....

I'm being told now that Canada Border Services won't be appearing. They're not available.

I guess instead of having the second hour as committee business, we will have committee business for two hours.

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

We'll have committee business for two hours? That's a lot.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes, it will be two hours. We will get a lot done, won't we?

The clerk will keep an eye on whether there will be any witnesses available for Thursday. Hopefully there will be and we'll split the time up as we see fit.

Again, thank you to everyone for their participation today.

The meeting is adjourned.