Fisheries Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[Dr. Minda Suchan]

That is correct.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Has MDA weighed in on or been involved with the government to...? I assume that it's under the port state measures act that you're involved in this detection. Would that be accurate? There is a review of the port state measures act. Are you in conversation with government over that review?

[Dr. Minda Suchan]

Not that I know of specifically, or not at this time. Certainly we support questions that come to us through our customers, sometimes relating back to certain policies and procedures, but I haven't heard this specifically.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Mr. Collin, you referred to a brief of the Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie that I think was submitted in 2020.

Would you please tell me briefly about the document and the recommendations it contains?

[Ghislain Collin]

The document contains a lot of information, including a dozen or so recommendations. The main one is that requirements should be imposed regarding logbooks, hail-ins and mandatory reporting for all fishers in Canada.

I mainly condemn the lack of action by the Halifax and Moncton task force, which was unwilling to impose easy and no‑cost mandatory catch reporting. It's the reporting that makes it possible to collect accurate data and then forward it to the scientists.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Exactly what do you want the minister and department to do to put an end to that lack of action?

[Ghislain Collin]

They need to impose the rules now governing Quebec fishers on all fishers in Canada. We are Canadians, we harvest the same resource, we do so in the same waters; the same rules should therefore be imposed on everyone. In addition, the department would thus obtain data on the resource enabling it to monitor that resource much more closely.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

Mr. King, I think I'll end with you.

I really want to thank you for being clear about describing the problem.

I'm really concerned also about the threats that were made, which Mr. Perkins described—to him and his family, and presumably to others—for those who are attempting to document illegal sales. That should not happen. That certainly speaks to the seriousness of this issue and to our need to ensure that we have strong recommendations to put in place the documentation and enforcement measures that are needed.

This is a bit of an “out there” question, probably. Are there market opportunities for adult eels in Canada? Is that something that's being explored? I'm just wondering if there's any interest or opportunity, given that everything goes to China.

[Stanley King]

Traditionally, before the elver industry started about 30 years ago, all of our eels were captured as adults and sold as adults. Now, the price for that today has made the fishery not worth the time.

However, a collection of elver licence-holders have been trying to get our own aquaculture facilities off the ground in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to grow these fish here, create jobs and create more revenue. We believe we can do that, and it would be beneficial.

We've invested millions of dollars in this already, and we are getting close; however, the idea is stalled, because nobody is willing to invest. Nobody wants to be a part of an industry with such turmoil and uncertainty. How does anybody know if there's going to be an industry next year, with these kinds of things?

These problems have spun out into the side projects of value-adds that we could do but are stalled on.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you, Mr. Hanley. That completes the round.

As we have a couple of motions that apparently need to be dealt with, we will suspend for a few minutes to release our witnesses.

I wish to thank the witnesses for their appearances today. It's valuable testimony for the committee. If you have anything further that you would like to submit, the committee can also receive written briefs as well.

We will suspend for a few minutes.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

We're back in session.

If we're ready to go, I'm looking for raised hands.

Mr. Hardie.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one of two motions on basically the same topic that you're going to hear about.

You will have received my notice of motion a couple of days ago. There's a preamble included with the motion that doesn't get included officially with the motion. I'll read it. It says, “Given the urgent need for steps to protect Canada's wild fish stocks while supporting the potential for aquaculture to contribute to local economies and to the world's demand for high quality protein, and in the spirit of fair process....”

Those were the motivations behind the motion. There will be some amendments suggested by my colleague to clarify a couple of things—most particularly that there'll be a focus on the west coast, because we don't want to have unforeseen spillover effects of this on the east coast; and, secondly, to ensure that the wording is correct in terms of what we do as a committee and how we transmit that for follow-up and action.

I'll read the motion as you have it, and then it will be open to amendments.

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

Can it be sent out again?

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

I have extra copies.

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

That's wonderful. I'm an old-fashioned paper guy.

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

Okay. There you go.

[A voice]

We can also send it electronically, but we'll...

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

No, no. It's “IBM”—“it's better manually”. There you are.

I will read it as it was submitted in the notice of motion, and then it will be open to amendments. Is that okay?

That the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard dedicate two meetings to hear from the aquaculture industry the steps they will take to eliminate all harms to wild fish stocks of their operations, and

that the committee present the findings of these hearings to the Minister to inform her decisions on the nature and scope of the transitions the industry will make to achieve this goal, and

that the government issue a response to these findings.

That's the motion as transmitted in the notice of motion, and to your pleasure, Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Kelloway has some amendments to suggest.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

I saw Mr. Kelloway, but I also saw Ms. Barron.

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

On a point of order, I'm just clarifying. We have a motion on notice from MP Barron, but just so I'm clear, this is a different motion, not amending her motion.

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

This is a different motion.

I don't want to pre-empt where anybody is coming from, but I believe there may be an opportunity to do some merging here. We'll leave that open to possible comment, though.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Mr. Kelloway, go ahead.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I do have some amendments to make here, so I will provide them very slowly.

In the second paragraph, after “That the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard” would be added “on the west coast”. In the second paragraph, “to eliminate” would be changed to “to minimize”.

To the third paragraph, which starts with “that the committee present”, we would add, “its findings to the House and, pursuant to Standing Order 109, request that the government issue a response”. That would replace “the findings of these hearings to the Minister to inform her decisions” and the remainder of that sentence.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Everyone has heard the amendment.

Ms. Barron, I saw your hand up first. Go ahead.

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

Thank you. First I'll speak to the amendment to the motion; however, I do want to point out that I also have an amendment, just to make things complicated.

Just to be clear, Chair, am I able to speak only to specific amendments that were brought forward to the committee, or can I speak to the motion as is, with the amendments included?