Fisheries Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Chair. Thanks to everyone in attendance today.

I have a couple of questions. I'll start off with the $24.7 million to continue efforts to protect species at risk. I wonder if officials can go into detail as to how that money's going to be used. That's question one.

Question two is on the $133 million allocated for reconciliation. I wonder if we can unpack that too, in terms of how the money will be used with respect to that.

[Annette Gibbons]

I'm sorry, Mr. Kelloway, but you were referring to the funding in the fall economic statement?

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Supplementary estimates (B) contain about $24.7 million to protect species at risk. I was looking to see how that money's going to be used.

Then you referenced in your opening statement, I believe, $133 million for reconciliation. I'm looking to unpack that as well.

[Annette Gibbons]

I'm sorry. Yes, the money for species at risk is the money that was in the fall economic statement of 2022.

Go ahead, Adam.

[Adam Burns, Assistant Deputy Minister, Programs Sector, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

That money will support the department in taking on the development of recovery plans and assessing the very species identified by COSEWIC in order to provide advice to the minister to inform decisions around listing. In the case where a decision is made to not list a species, that money would also support the department in developing alternative-measure plans under the Fisheries Act. Those are things like rebuilding plans under our precautionary approach framework, and so on.

This funding really does support the overall administration of both the Species at Risk Act and the alternative measures that flow in cases in which decisions are made to not list a species under the act.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you for that.

Can you go to reconciliation next, if it's possible?

[Annette Gibbons]

Sure. The reconciliation funding is for a variety of different agreements that we have in place across the country. In particular, we signed four new reconciliation agreements on the Atlantic this year. A lot of that money will be flowing under those agreements.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Supplementary estimates (B) contains close to $5 million—maybe $4.7 million—to renew and advance clean technology measures. I'm curious as to what sort of clean technology is captured by this particular funding allotment.

[Annette Gibbons]

That funding is for aquaculture clean technologies. There are a variety of different activities and different types of aquaculture. You may have an aquaculture site that is running on diesel, for example, so moving that to a cleaner source of energy would be the kind of project we would work on. That's one of the examples.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Does anybody else want to elaborate on that last one?

[Annette Gibbons]

No, I think that covers it, Mr. Chair.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. I'm going to stick to the aquatic side of things.

I'm curious as to how many projects under the nature fund for aquatic species at risk have been funded to date as a result of some pretty historic and multi-year investments.

[Annette Gibbons]

I don't have the exact number. It would be a very significant number at this point. We're doing projects all across the country under that fund. I'm certainly happy to give the committee a more detailed response.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. Thank you very much. If that could be brought back in written format, that would be fantastic.

I appreciate the time. That's all I have for now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway. We're on the mark of 12 o'clock, anyway, so I'm glad you ended it when you did. I think you had 45 seconds left, and it's very gracious of you to give that up.

We'll now thank, of course, our first panel here this morning: Annette Gibbons, deputy minister; Richard Goodyear, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer; Adam Burns, assistant deputy minister, programs sector; and Chris Henderson, deputy commissioner of operations for the Canadian Coast Guard.

You've always been quite receptive when we invite you to come before committee. Again, thank you for your time today.

We'll suspend for a moment while we switch out the panels.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Welcome back.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on January 18, 2022, the committee is resuming its study on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the new witnesses.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For interpretation on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French audio. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

All comments should be addressed through the chair.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses. Representing the B.C. Commercial Fishing Caucus, we have Jim McIsaac, coordinator, via Zoom. From the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance, we have Colin Sproul, president.

We'll start off now, for five minutes or less, with Mr. McIsaac.

[Jim McIsaac, Coordinator, BC Commercial Fishing Caucus]

Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon.

I'd really like to thank the committee for the invitation to speak today on IUU fishing. I'm here as a coordinator for the BC Commercial Fishing Caucus, a group formed 13 years ago by 14 commercial fishing organizations to support the common interests of small-scale fisheries along the B.C. coast.

I've been involved in commercial fisheries since I was a kid, about 40 years ago. Fishing paid my way through university, and when I graduated, I stayed fishing because I love the lifestyle: I love the coast; I love fishing; I love studying fishing, and I love providing good, healthy food to my family, my friends and my community. I was in Japan a few weeks at a seafood summit, learning about their fishery. It really is a different world there.

For me, IUU fishing is poaching.

I was first introduced to the term about 10 or 12 years ago in the international context, when Google announced support to create the Global Fishing Watch. They offered to provide their big data management to map international fishing efforts and to shine a light on IUU fishing intrusions into EEZs. In the very earliest stages, they asked the commercial fishing sector to help identify different types of fishing tracks, and we did that. Some states—Indonesia—have gone to extreme measures to protect their EEZs, sending navy vessels to sink foreign fishing vessels. As an aside, Indonesia has protected 80% of the TAC in its EEZ for local, small-scale fishers.

I'd say that Global Fishing Watch has been very successful in raising the profile of IUU fishing and in helping to keep foreign fleets out of EEZs.

What does IUU mean in the Canadian context?

Two months ago, there was a media article on illegal tuna fishing off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Through the chair, I've circulated links to that article. DFO calls this illegal fishing. I would not. From the news article, you'd think that DFO is doing a fantastic job of catching illegal fisheries inside our EEZs. They were patrolling our ocean estate off the west coast of Vancouver Island, found a vessel with illegal catch, confiscated 32,000 pounds of tuna worth $130,000, dragged the fisherman to court and fined him a further $6,000.

Some very important facts were left out of that media article. The fisherman had legally fished tuna for over a decade, had purchased a $1,500 tuna logbook just before going out and hailed out to DFO prior to leaving for tuna fishing. He had been fishing for almost a month and was heading in to deliver when DFO approached the vessel. In the rush to go fishing, the fisherman forgot to buy a $32 annual tuna licence tab.

You'd think the regulator would bear some responsibility for providing a hail-out number, or maybe they should have called him back when he ordered a $1,500 logbook, but no. Here, DFO gets praised for capturing the vessel that told them they were going tuna fishing, bought and filled out a tuna logbook, used legal hooks and gear, fished in an open fishing area and spent a month on the water with their vessel identification system on, so that anyone could track the vessel, including DFO. They were not hiding anything.

The whole incident cost the fisherman over $200,000. In court, the judge asked DFO why they sought only a $6,000 fine; he thought $60,000 would be more appropriate. DFO responded that the whole incident was based on a mistake. The judge laughed and upheld the $130,000 confiscation and $6,000 fine as submitted. This is not funny.

In 2022, sockeye salmon was available for sale all along the Fraser River. You could get it off Facebook. You could get it out of the back of pickup trucks all along the lower Fraser. Thought most fishermen, how could this be when both the commercial and FSC fisheries were closed? To me, this is IUU fishing. DFO's response was to open a commercial fishery for six hours to blur the illegal sales.

We have a couple of recommendations.

DFO enforcement needs civilian oversight. Left on their own, they appear to cherry-pick the easy—typically, licensed fishermen who report out with logbooks, VMS and electronic monitoring—and leave the real poachers alone.

If the committee is to use the term “IUU”, it should define it. Does it mean the same in local settings as it does in international ones? If you are licensed to fish, report your catch and are found to have caught a fish too small or of the wrong species, is this poaching?

Canada needs to define small-scale, artisanal and subsistence fishing and define industrial fishing, so that a 3,000-horsepower trawler catching 100,000 pounds in one tow is not treated the same as a 40-foot lingcod fisherman catching one fish at a time.

Thanks again for the invitation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. McIsaac.

We'll now go to Mr. Sproul for five minutes or less, please.

[Colin Sproul, President, Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance]

Good afternoon, Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today.

I speak on behalf of the Unified Fisheries Conservation Alliance. We represent more than 3,000 multispecies harvesters in the maritime provinces. Members of the UFCA, along with its partners in the fisheries sector, are responsible for supporting 25,000 jobs and contributing $4 billion in economic activity in the Maritimes each year.

The UFCA was formed to bring together many participants in the Atlantic fishery in one reasonable and co-operative voice. The UFCA recognizes the importance of co-operation with indigenous communities and that indigenous peoples have a right to fish for food, social, ceremonial and commercial purposes.

Today, I call the committee's attention to the presence of a massive illegal fishery taking place in the coastal bays of the Maritimes under the guise of a lawful food, social, and ceremonial fishery, particularly in St. Marys Bay. After years of drawing attention to this problem, fishermen in southwest Nova Scotia are left outraged at the perceived complicity of DFO and saddened beyond measure for the destruction of a resource that has sustained all of our families for generations.

Despite many assertions by the government since 2016 that DFO would enforce existing law, they have done anything but. We have been witnesses to a full-scale commercial fishery on one of the most important lobster spawning grounds in the world.

Let me be clear: It is not now and never will be appropriate to fish on spawning grounds during the moulting and breeding seasons. This misconduct is not supported by the Sparrow or Marshall decisions or by any sense of justice or sustainability.

Throughout the recent assault on the resource, DFO has focused on communications and spin while hindering law enforcement objectives. Amidst these conflicting claims, let's concentrate on facts.

On July 11, the director of conservation and protection for the maritime region told CBC News that “[Conservation and protection] is very well equipped to enforce the lobster fishery upcoming,” in reference to the FSC fishery. He went on, “In terms of our capability to adequately monitor compliance of [FSC licences] this summer, I can assure you that [C and P] does have resources to do that effectively in areas such as St. Marys Bay.”

Yet, despite all of these assurances, on August 30, at the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border, authorities seized more than 8,000 lobsters from St. Marys Bay. Revealingly, this was not due to investigative efforts by DFO, but because the truck carrying the lobsters broke down at the provincial border scale and suspicious officials there reported it. Also, this fall, the UFCA conducted overflights of Saulnierville harbour. On October 5, we observed approximately 25,000 pounds of lobster crated for sale and floating in the harbour and, on October 13, another 12,000 pounds.

Given these huge volumes of lobster landed illegally, how can the director's statements be accurate? Fishing communities are left with only two possible conclusions: Either the department is incredibly incompetent or it is deceiving Canadians, fishing families and the members of this committee.

It's also important to note that of the charges that have been filed across the Maritimes for out-of-season fishing by frontline C and P officers, very few have been moved forward by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. This has left harvesters understandably suspicious that the justice process in fisheries is suffering from political interference.

If the government were serious about stopping this illegal fishery, DFO could take the simple steps of conducting enforcement patrols and surveillance at the select few harbours where a majority of the illegal fishing is taking place. They could follow the catch to market and end this fishery in a matter of weeks. Instead, they avoid reasonable law enforcement tactics and take actions designed to obscure reality and generate the appearance of enforcement. I can think of no better example of this than the department tasking an icebreaker to St. Marys Bay this summer after public outrage about the illegal fishery—a ship with no ability to enforce a lobster fishery, and surely a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

Most importantly, we should all recognize what stands to be lost. Although DFO has made attempts to obscure its own data, it shows a sharp decline in lobster landings in St. Marys Bay after the failed policy objectives of this government. This is the first week of southwest Nova Scotia's lobster fishery, the most valuable in the world. Alarmingly, reports are flooding in from across the region of extremely low landings, when fishers should expect their best catches.

Much of the prosperity of our coastal economy is predicated on a healthy lobster resource, and that prosperity now faces an existential threat. The loss of this fishery would devastate our communities, indigenous and non-indigenous alike. The continued acceptance of this activity by the government does not serve the objectives of conservation or reconciliation. If DFO does not act soon, there may be no fishery left for the UFCA's members or for rights holders. The fishing families of the Maritimes demand action now, before all is lost.

Chair and committee members, thank you. I invite your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, sir, for that.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out and taking part in our study today.

My first question is for Mr. Sproul, Mr. Chair.

You indicated in your opening remarks that fishery stakeholders believe the government allowed IUU lobster fishing to take place this past summer.

Why do you think they allowed that activity to take place?

[Colin Sproul]

I think it's one of the most important questions we should recognize here.

Since 2016, there has been a ton of effort by fishing organizations in the Maritimes to deal with this issue. Throughout, what we've gathered as an answer to this is that the government stopped enforcing the law and hopes to improve the situation at the rights reconciliation table and for the Crown-indigenous negotiators. We think it's obviously been a failed tactic and has not led to the successes that were hoped for.

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

Is it just in St. Marys Bay that this illegal fishing activity is taking place, or have you heard talk of other areas throughout the Maritimes where it's been happening?

[Colin Sproul]

Certainly, it's happening all across the maritime provinces, but particularly in St. Marys Bay.

The other area of chief concern is St. Peter's Bay in Cape Breton. We've seen a huge amount of out-of-season fishing taking place there and the diversion of lobster from its rightful use for food, social and ceremonial purposes by first nations into the commercial market. In a very small area like St. Peter's Bay, it's certainly starting to be a very important conservation concern.

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

Have these concerns been brought forward to DFO?