Evidence of meeting #11 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was enforcement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I'm sorry. Could you repeat that comment that you said? What groups are they working through?
Fisherman, As an Individual
I'm not sure of the actual groups, but there are native groups that they're working through. I know this. I've seen the log books.
In turn, that means.... Whenever a company owns quota, the fishermen fish for less. They fish for lease rates, blah, blah, blah, whatever. It's affecting us every way we turn. The control needs to stop.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
In your words, how does a company control the quota?
I have a perspective, but I want to hear from you.
Fisherman, As an Individual
They own it. They buy it, and they stick it with an existing boat that may have room for another—
Liberal
Fisherman, As an Individual
No, they're not allowed.
It's illegal for companies to own quota, but they have all kinds of ways around it. The big shots in the DFO, in government, know this. They know this is happening. There's yet to be a charge laid. What is the point?
Liberal
Fisherman, As an Individual
Well, I mean the DFO laying a charge on a harvester for overestimating a fish log, something so simple as that. All these merchants are screwing with people's lives and owning quota and everything else. There's never been a charge—no charges—through controlling agreements, and there are many of them.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Would you say this would be one of the greatest threats to the viability of the inshore fishery?
Fisherman, As an Individual
It's the greatest threat to the small boat fishery, in my opinion. It's an easy way to create a huge monopoly.
In my opinion, there's already a huge monopoly created. A lot of times now, when an enterprise goes up for sale, the common man doesn't even get access to it. The company buys it up before it even goes to market. They'll split up the enterprise and stick so much quota on this boat and so much quota on that boat.
All you gotta do is follow the money.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you very much, Mr. Morrissey.
Before we go to Mr. Deschênes, I'll say that we would need a clear motion to do that, and the clerk would be happy to work with Mr. Morrissey or any other member who would like to move that kind of a motion on this.
Mr. Deschênes, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for you, Mr. Nelson. You just said something quite important. You testified to the fact that fishery officers often can't go in the field and do their job. I'd like to hear your opinion. For weeks now, we have been wondering whether fishery officers are free to fight illegal fishing. From what we hear, that doesn't always seem to be the case.
Your testimony is very enlightening because you provide a lot of solutions. However, before talking about solutions, I need to understand the problem better. From what I understand, you have 35 years of experience, and you were a director and an officer.
Here is my first question: Is there any pressure from the superiors of fishery officers preventing them from taking action against illegal fishing?
As an Individual
It's a combination.
Budgets are really an issue. There's not enough money. If you read the one document I had, you'll see that it shows a very clear example of a cycle: an inquiry happens, the department comes up with some additional funding to.... Enforcement is always a shortfall. Money is put into enforcement, and then over the course of six or eight years, it's pared back until the next inquiry. This has happened four times in the Pacific region.
It's a serious problem in that.... It's a structural issue, for one. People in the DFO are going to shake in their boots because I changed it at an area level, but I think it has to be looked at at a higher level. Enforcement officers should not be reporting to people with non-enforcement experience. You don't put a biologist in charge of the RCMP. Why do we—
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Concerning that, I noted that you were proposing that fishery officers report to people who already have experience in enforcing the law.
What is the current problem? What's going on? You talked about the budget, but how does having a fishery officer report to someone who has no enforcement experience prevent them from doing their job?
As an Individual
Somebody with a biology and science background can do a good job, but they're more inclined to support their own thoughts and ideas of making science better and making biology better, and they don't understand the complexities of what enforcement entails. If they take the time they can understand, but in my 35 years of experience, it only happened once or twice where a senior person truly took the time to understand enforcement and deal with it.
The structure does not allow.... The enforcement decisions have to be made by enforcement people, and they have to work closely with science and biology. They have to work together. As it is right now, though, decisions are made so often where some politics does get involved sometimes, but it's often the misunderstood managers who make a decision that sounds good biologically, but it's not enforceable. This isn't just a Canadian thing. It happens everywhere.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
I don't have much time left.
Mr. Nelson, you said that politics sometimes plays a role in deciding whether or not to continue an investigation.
What do you mean by that?
As an Individual
Politics does get involved sometimes. That happens in police enforcement, too. You have sensitive issues. The elver fishery is the most recent example. Statements were made about fishery officers by the minister that were not informed. That created a very dangerous situation for those officers in the field and for the first nations and the public. It's those uninformed decisions made by people in the system, whether they be politicians or managers, that make it dangerous.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
To fully understand, I need to visualize what happened, and perhaps you can give us some information. When you say that politics gets involved, I understand that, when something is reported or an investigation is launched by a fishery officer, a superior of that officer closest to the political decision-makers may intervene to prevent the officer from taking action.
Is that what's happening?
As an Individual
That is what happens sometimes. Sometimes it's the political direction given to prosecution, too. The Department of Justice has.... Right now on the Fraser River, for example, with the illegal fishing going on, officers don't even want to go out on patrol sometimes because they know the charges won't be approved, and that comes from politics, in my view.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
What are the political reasons for not enforcing the Fisheries Act?
As an Individual
I guess I'd have to ask the politicians. It's very complex. It's not cut and dried. There are a lot of things in the air. First nations have rights, and it's trying to define those rights. We're trying to rely on the courts too much to define them. We have to do a better job of working with first nations and finding a resolution rather than pushing everything into the court, too.
I don't want to go down that road of saying we just need more enforcement. It's has to be working together. It's a complicated situation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you very much, Mr. Deschênes.
We've completed the first round of questions.
We're going to start the second round of five minutes, starting with Mr. Arnold.
November 6th, 2025 / 8:55 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all four witnesses. It's great to have you here and to hear your testimony.
All of you have stated that the current act seems sufficient in language to protect fish and fisheries if it were enforced.
I'll start with Mr. Nelson.
Why, in your experience as an enforcement officer, is it not being enforced the way it should be?
As an Individual
I think the biggest reason is the structure. I really do. When you have managers who don't know what enforcement entails making decisions for the enforcement staff, that's the biggest structural problem.
Budgets are another problem. They continually get pared down. As I explained, I am serious when I say the number of officers doing enforcement on the Fraser River is lower than it was 50 years ago. When I left the department 12 years ago, after the Cohen commission, there were adequate resources to do the job and things were working well, but that was 12 years ago, and it's been pared down to being non-existent. Some of it is with C and P making the wrong decisions too.
People are frustrated. They don't have the resources and they're trying to do the best they can. It's like playing whack-a-mole. We have orca whales we're trying to deal with. We have midshore patrol vessels we're trying to deal with. You take from one and give to the other, because there are no new resources.