Fisheries Committee on Feb. 6th, 2024

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Okay. Thank you for your candidness.

I'll concede, Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Good, thank you.

We are almost at 5:30, but because we started at 3:44 p.m., the clerk has advised that we can go to 5:44 p.m., which would permit another round of five minutes, five minutes, two and a half, and two and a half, if the committee so chooses.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Then we go over to the Conservative Party for five minutes.

Mr. Perkins, is it?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As a quick follow-up question to Mr. Williams, on the question you were just asked, in the under-65-foot fleet in area 6, how many observers were on the boats this year?

[Todd Williams]

I think what I'll have to do is provide something in writing to answer that question for the member.

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

Obviously it's not 100%. That was only in the over-65-foot boats, the longliners.

[Todd Williams]

That's correct.

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

Right, so on the under-65-foot fleet, you don't know. My understanding is that it's been—

[Todd Williams]

There are different requirements.

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

—declining every year the last few years, and it was zero this year. If you have zero observers on the under-65-foot fleet, you can't have confidence in the shrimp numbers.

I'd like to go back to the commissioner to ask about a couple of the charts. I'm specifically interested in the charts in exhibits 9.4 and 9.3. Can you explain 9.3 first and then 9.4?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I think I'll turn it to Monsieur Normand to do it more succinctly than I could.

Go ahead, Monsieur Normand.

[David Normand]

These charts are all built the same way. The chart in exhibit 9.4 looks at coverage for dockside monitoring, and the chart for 9.3 looks at at-sea observation for coverage we have. In our report, we present similar charts for both at-sea and dockside monitoring for aspects of both coverage and timeliness.

I need to apologize. As I said earlier, these charts are a bit complicated to follow because we had to do more work to get to the answer we were looking for—

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

Because I have limited time, I understand that the department made claims about what they had coverage on and data on, and if I'm reading these two charts right, when you went in, they didn't have any. They couldn't produce data on any of the fish stock reports that they said they had data on. I believe the department provides bonuses; it's one of their metrics, so are they fudging the data?

[David Normand]

What we asked the department for in the first place were the cases in which they knew the coverage and timeliness requirements were either not established in the first place or not met, and they reported to us the places where, based on their records, they believed that the requirements were met. When we heard that, we further investigated, based on sampling, and in that context, we actually found more cases of non-compliance and more cases where they could not tell.

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

That's a long way of saying that they claimed to have catch data in the numbers they report up through the system, but when you went in to audit it, they couldn't produce it.

[David Normand]

Exactly, yes.

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

How do we believe any of the reports we get from the department in any of these metrics they give at the end of the year about their performance and meeting their performance targets when they're self-regulating, and it looks to me like they're fudging the data? They don't have the data. They have no integrated fisheries management plan. They have virtually no data on the catch data, and what they have is self-reported. They think that they have observers in the offshore, but they have few in the inshore. Mr. Williams just said they don't know. Well, we know that there were zero observers in Newfoundland in area 6 last year.

Mr. Williams, I'd like to know about the observer status for snow crab in Newfoundland this year. How many observers did you have in the snow crab fleet this year?

[Todd Williams]

I would have to report back to the committee. Sometimes there is a difference between what is required or what is stated on a licence condition versus what the availability of an observer or dockside monitor is.

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

You knew—or you thought—that in northern shrimp, you had 100%, but that turned out not to be correct, because from what I understand, you had nobody in the under-65-foot fleet, so you didn't have 100% coverage on shrimp. Now you don't know how much you had on snow crab; you knew how much you had on the longliners on shrimp, but you don't know it for snow crab.

[Todd Williams]

Thank you very much for that.

I should specify that it was for the offshore northern shrimp fishery that I know we had 100%. For the snow crab, we would have to report back to you in writing.

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

As the commissioner has pointed out a number of times—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Mr. Perkins, that's your time. It's a bit over, actually.

We'll now go to the Liberal members. Up now is Mr. Cormier, who is online, apparently.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but, throughout this meeting, you have clearly been saying that the department did not have enough data to properly assess stocks, among other things.

Am I wrong?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

No. There is not enough data, and the data that does exist is not reliable enough.