Fisheries Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

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

Thank you, Mr. Anson.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to turn my remaining time over to Mr. Arnold.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have 40 seconds.

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

Thank you. I'll try to be quick.

Mr. Anson or Ms. Toxopeus, are there gaps in communication between the CBSA and other jurisdictional organizations or countries, in terms of sharing information about the organized crime we sometimes hear is impacting IUU fisheries around the world? If there are gaps, how can they be filled?

[Daniel Anson]

Thank you for the question.

Thank you to the member. I'm not sure, but my colleague may have something to offer on the World Customs Organization. If anything, it would be my intent in my response to give you great confidence that we have a tremendous relationship with our international partners. We have a variety of different Five Eyes, G7 and European partnerships, a variety of different trade-based partnerships, through which we share information intelligence, but we also do that through the lens of ensuring that there is integrity in our supply chains. Supply chain security is a very important feature for us, so it is about how we share information intelligence and how we continually evolve against threats, given that international or illegal shipping is by virtue and by nature a transnational event. We must share information intelligence readily, and we do so quite a bit with our key trade partners as well as with our traditional security intelligence partners, not the least of which would be our Five Eyes group.

We have various layers, and we could add to the layer a variety of different international law enforcement-specific groups, with which we share information intelligence that allows us to quickly and readily respond to any kind of evolutions of the threat or different types of trade circumvention measures, etc.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for five minutes or less.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here. Does the name Queenie ring a bell with you guys? This is a character out on the west coast who actually paid a $200,000 fine that had to do with illicit trade in crab. Obviously you may not have the minutiae of this, but here is an individual who was caught and convicted and who paid the fine and basically wrote that off as just a cost of doing business and who may still in fact be doing business.

This is an example of somebody who was nabbed, but I'm wondering what mechanisms are in place to find out where she got the crab from.

[Daniel Anson]

I would definitely defer to the police of jurisdiction on that. In a circumstance like that, in which there was a previous enforcement action, that would help inform our targeting rules so that we would try to ensure whether Queenie or whatever company—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

This product was clearly for export. That would have been, I presume, in the domain of the CBSA somewhere along the way as it was trying to get out of the country. Now, if Queenie had an export licence, is there anything or any mechanism to verify where the actual product came from when your guys have a look at it?

[Daniel Anson]

I can't speak to where the product may have come from. However, there would certainly be an enhanced approach to any exports by a person who had been noted as previously contravening or subject to a previous enforcement action, so that would be an instance or a circumstance in which we would flag something that was destined for export and likely verify or examine the goods to ensure full compliance.

Where the individual was fishing or where they might have obtained or harvested the product would be very much a local thing, so we would not have officers verifying that. I would defer to partner departments and agencies. They have a vested—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

You must understand, of course, that these are pretty crafty people. Queenie's name—or whatever her real name is, because Queenie is a nickname—probably wouldn't appear on an export licence now until you-know-what freezes over, simply because she has been nabbed.

What about dark vessels? We heard a little bit about those last night in the context of Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy. They're out there. There are no transponders; there's nothing. Do we have a mechanism to identify these vessels, and if they put into port, is there anything we can do about that?

[Daniel Anson]

Specific to dark vessels and the mechanisms in place, I don't want to get into too much detail. I'm happy to expand a bit more after the committee or in camera. However, the marine security operation centres do also monitor vessel traffic and fishing traffic, and there are certain types of indicators that, when you are surveilling vessels, might be indicators of potential dark vessels that are being used as support vessels for potential transloading or cross-loading that would support and facilitate under-reporting of fishing.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In that situation, would you then work with the Coast Guard, for instance, to deal with that?

[Daniel Anson]

In a circumstance like that, we would certainly work with the Coast Guard, but the Coast Guard would also be in the MSOCs—the marine security operations centres—and likely through the enforcement of their own mandate would be looking for the exact same type of activity. In fact, it likely would have been Coast Guard staff who taught us these types of lessons, but we would work together to identify and then share the information to ensure this is the appropriate enforcement action.

For the dark vessels that come to port, as you were saying, if these are local and only regional examples of illegal or unreported fishing, then the Border Services Agency is not necessarily going to have a role. We would not see or have any kinds of filters to apply. That would be more along, again, our partner departments and agencies that have a specific mandate to enforce compliance in the fisheries industry. Until it goes across an international border or it's deemed for export, lawfully or otherwise, the CBSA would not necessarily have a role. If it were an international vessel coming to a Canadian port, then it might be subject to examinations and verifications. Again, their crew, the vessel and the goods would also be risk-assessed through our national targeting centre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

That closes out our first hour of testimony from witnesses. We'll take a short pause now.

I want to thank Mr. Anson and Ms. Toxopeus for their participation here today with their valued information.

Again, we'll take a short recess to do the change-out. Then we'll get on with our second hour of business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're back for our second hour.

Joining us today, from the B.C. Wildlife Federation, we have Jesse Zeman, the executive director.

Mr. Zeman, you have up to five minutes for your opening statement. You're on.

[Jesse Zeman, Executive Director, B.C. Wildlife Federation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the committee for the opportunity to be a witness today.

The B.C. Wildlife Federation is British Columbia's largest and oldest conservation organization, with over 41,000 members and 100 member clubs across the province. Our clubs and members spend hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours and dollars conducting wetland and fish habitat restoration across the province, as well as advocating for legislative, regulatory and policy changes to support a future that includes healthy watersheds and vibrant fish populations.

In the world of illegal, unregulated and unreported fisheries there are hundreds, if not thousands, of incidents here in British Columbia, which cover everything from illegal harvests by foreign vessels in the high seas to harvests of endangered early Fraser chinook as well as endangered interior Fraser steelhead.

Two indicator stocks with the interior Fraser steelhead include the Thompson and the Chilcotin. This year the spawning forecast for both of those fish were 228 and 108 fish respectively, putting them both well inside the extreme conservation concern zone.

In 2021, two steelhead were seized in the mid-Fraser in August, which were most likely Chilcotin fish. The estimated spawner statement for those fish was 19 that year, at that point. In one incident 10% of the entire run was killed by one incident that was found by fisheries officers. ATIPs and reports to the BCWF conservation app demonstrate that these issues are common.

Within compliance and protection there has been a shift recently. The agency seems to be rapidly moving from on-the-ground people who are passionate about fish and resource conservation to an agency that is being filled with managers from other ministries and other agencies, most notably Canada Border Services Agency. As it relates to culture, this has not gone over well. Combined with poor wages and a shifting culture, you will likely find a number of officers on leave, high turnover and, most importantly, reduced performance as it relates to conserving and protecting our fish resources. Former officers with decades of experience report that morale within the agency is the worst it's ever been.

This year I'm aware that nighttime patrols and boat and helicopter patrols were significantly reduced on the lower and mid-Fraser. The outcome of this lack of a presence on the river will be increased illegal activity. Typically, in past years officers would remove or seize 300 to 400 nets. This year, given the lack of presence on the river, I would expect the number of nets seized and removed to be way down.

The narrative out of compliance and enforcement will likely be that compliance has improved, but I believe what you will find is that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If there is no enforcement presence on the water, there is no one to discover, manage and track issues.

Improved outcomes, as they relate to illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, come down to funding, capacity and culture. Compliance and enforcement, or compliance and protection, need allies on the water. We will never have enough officers to cover every square kilometre of water, but there are hundreds of thousands—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Just wait one second, Mr. Zeman.

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

Mr. Chair, the interpreters tell me that they are having difficulty understanding Mr. Zeman because of the poor sound quality.

Could we do a quick test?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Okay. We'll suspend for a moment to see if we can correct that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We are back.

We'll try it again.

I will ask Mr. Zeman to speak slowly to give the interpreters an opportunity to keep up and to translate it for everyone in the room who wants to hear it in the language of their choice.

Again, you can start from where you ended off, and we'll see how it works out.

[Jesse Zeman]

I'm sorry, Chair. I will speak more slowly.

We were talking about the hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears from first nations to commercial to Canadian anglers, who believe they can help identify and report infractions.

I'll just give you one example as it relates to these challenges around capacity. In the world of reporting fisheries' infractions, DFO off-loaded its observe, record, report line to a third party years ago.

BCWF members found it nearly impossible to get in touch with DFO officers or even the operators at the observe, record, report line to report infractions, and they were often only able to leave voice mail hoping someone would return their call. In our conversations with DFO biologists, it turns out they had the same result. They could not get through the observe, report, record line to report infractions.

As a result, the BCWF created a conservation app, which allows reporting of infractions via your smart phone. When we went to implement the app, we experienced significant adversity from DFO, the issue being that compliance and protection knew they could not meet public expectations.

Well, times have changed, and so has our relationship with compliance and protection. Adoption has been approved. I will leave you with the thought that Canada's compliance and protection agency did not want the public to have the ability to report infractions on their smart phones, because it did not have the capacity to deal with those reports.

I believe the committee has a number of questions to ask DFO compliance and protection around historical data related to officers on leave, turnover and the number and dates of night patrols and helicopter and boat patrols, on both the lower and middle Fraser River. This would give the committee a better temperature check on the changing effectiveness and culture within compliance and protection as it relates to illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Zeman.

Before we move on to questions, I just want to remind the committee that, before we finish today, we have to do one item of committee business. We'll have to go in camera. We'll have to leave time to do that at the end.

We'll now go to Mr. Small for questions, for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Zeman, for being a part of this very important study. I know it's as important to you as it is to us.

Is it a widely held belief that there's a significant IUU fishery for salmon on the Fraser River and in other areas or rivers in British Columbia?

[Jesse Zeman]

The answer to that is yes. We definitely have experienced a number of reports through the conservation app and through ATIP as it relates to IUU fisheries.

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

Mr. Zeman, have you been in touch with any U.S. counterparts? Do you have an idea of how the enforcement of the C and P in the United States is working? Do you have some idea of how you'd rate Canada's efforts compared with similar efforts for similar infractions in the United States?