Fisheries Committee on Nov. 18th, 2025

[Terry Teegee]

I think the problem is that we have a lot of first nations here. We have 204 first nations, many jurisdictions and over 150 first nations fisheries organizations. I think the reason that there are many of these jurisdictions is to assert our rights and to have an interest, especially with court cases like Sparrow, Guerin and Ahousaht. There are many court cases that set precedents.

I think the problem is that there isn't enough room for co-management and co-jurisdiction to address some of these issues. Implementing first nations law is really important in addressing some of these issues in regard to what is known as “illegal fishing”. Perhaps there's a different way to address those issues. This comes back to the United Nations declaration act. If there are no treaty agreements or constructive arrangements, then we need to fully address this issue. This has been an ongoing issue for, literally, decades. Many first nations out here and, perhaps, elsewhere in this country, are seeking co-management jurisdiction where we can come to some sort of agreement.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Chief Teegee, you touched on a lot of things. The bottom line is that it is important to protect the resource. It would be a matter of ensuring that there is no overfishing. The rules should also be enforced as to which species can be fished and when they can be fished.

In your view, is there an opportunity for collaboration among first nations, the department and fishery officers to ensure that what is being fished does indeed meet the requirements set out?

I think so, but I'll let you answer this question.

[Terry Teegee]

I think it really comes down to many of our first nations—just as examples, the Fraser, Skeena or many of these areas that have many nations along these rivers. We have asserted it ourselves too. We have southern first nations that don't fish early or late in the Stewart because, quite simply, they know how imperilled the salmon are—literally, it's into the hundreds of fish. If we could do that and if we kept the declarations and treaties amongst ourselves, I think there is a real ability.... That clearly demonstrates that first nations in the south know the issues for some of our salmon species that are in peril and at risk.

This year was an anomaly. Just for example, we expected about 100,000 going back into the upper reaches of the Stewart; 700,000 came back. We haven't seen these numbers in, literally, 30 years—into the millions of pink and sockeye this year. I think this year is an anomaly, and much of it has to be better understood about why increased numbers came back, whether it's habitat, as stated by colleagues and witnesses.

There are things that happened five, six years ago: the Big Bar and Chilcotin slides, mass slides, atmospheric rivers and the many fires that we experienced over the last 20 years, siltation.... My background is forestry. I used to be an RPF. Certainly, those issues have an effect on many of the fish species—in particular, salmon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you so much.

I'm afraid we're going to have to cut it off there. That completes our first round.

We're going to the second round here. I want to welcome Ms. Kronis to the committee.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. McIsaac, you talked about the importance of harvester knowledge. I'm actually just going back to when I was knocking on doors during the last election. One thing I was being told, over and over again, was they felt as though the government was this entity that was very far away, that it wasn't listening to them, that people found out about things after they were done and that, if it only listened to the people who are having the actual experiences, they would hope for different outcomes.

As we do this review of the Fisheries Act, do you have any suggestions as to how we can make it so that harvester knowledge is something that DFO is required to not just listen to but also to weight in their decision-making?

[Jim McIsaac]

Embedded in the act is a requirement, “Thou shall engage with harvesters and collaboratively make decisions.” Right now the department is making decisions by itself, for the most part. It's taking in and listening to everybody, but not doing it collaboratively, and that's what needs to change. The department is averse to collaborative decision-making. It uses absolute discretion, which the minister is granted, to make the decisions about the allocation and protection of the resource.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

What does this committee need to know about what harvesters know about the current status of B.C. shrimp stocks?

[Jim McIsaac]

That's a good question.

What the committee should know is that in our fishery last year, we harvested less than 400,000 pounds of shrimp on this coast. Our neighbours to the south harvested 75 million pounds of shrimp. We have way more shrimp fish habitat on our coast than they do, so we should be harvesting that much or more on our coast.

What is the issue? We're managing our shrimp by weak stock management, which is what we're doing with salmon, which we're doing with a bunch of other stocks, and it's an absolute disaster. The United States is managing theirs by portfolio management, which means taking a swath across all of the stocks rather than focusing on harvesting only when the weak stocks are up at a high level.

We're waiting and waiting and waiting. It's like managing your portfolio of investments and taking your profits only when all of them are up. That's the kind of approach that we are taking to fisheries management on this coast.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

You talked about the viability of our fishing communities on the B.C. west coast. Obviously, as a member of Parliament for some of those communities, this concern alarms me greatly.

How would you describe the current economic state of the B.C. shrimp trawl fleet?

[Jim McIsaac]

It's a disaster.

When I got involved with the shrimp association seven years ago, the members wanted to call for absolute closure of the shrimp fishery until the fisheries management was rectified, and it continues.

Six years ago, we put forward to them the need to figure out the shrimp management areas. They have 36 different shrimp management areas. They have been managing them as independent biomasses. We thought that was insane for this coast.

It's taken five years for a CSAS advisory to come back and say that yes, we have actually one biomass across the coast, but they're going to continue to try to manage it as 36 shrimp management areas. It's going to take another 10 years to get to a point where we're going to have decent management of the shrimp fishery, and all of our harvesters are going to be gone.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I presume you've communicated this to the minister, and the minister has exercised her discretion. Do you see any of the evidence that you've submitted reflected in the decisions that are made, or do you feel that those decisions are motivated more by political considerations than by the data that's been provided?

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I'm afraid we are over time.

It's a very important question. If you could submit the answer in writing for the committee's consideration, it would be much appreciated.

With that, I'm going to go into the next round. I'm going to start this round of questioning and then pass it to my colleague, Mr. Klassen.

Mr. Elgie, I want to thank you for submitting a brief in advance. In your opening remarks, you spoke to the idea of net gain. I want to ask about a couple of the recommendations you made, including fees in lieu of offset and third party banking of habitat.

One of the things that I hear about frequently in my riding is the amount of time that the different proponents are waiting to get a Fisheries Act authorization and have their habitat compensation approved. I was hoping you might be able to speak to the advantages of the ideas that you put forward for delivering better habitat restoration outcomes, as well as for efficiency in the application and administration of the act.

[Stewart Elgie]

I'd be happy to say a bit about that. With the net gain idea, it's important to talk about how we divide up and manage fishing rights, but it's even more important to make sure that we sustain and grow fisheries, and that comes down to habitat. When we grow the pie, everybody wins.

We've talked about third party habitat banking and fees in lieu, and those are both tools that allow us to get to habitat conservation restoration with less cost and less delay, which is exactly what you're getting at, particularly at a time when we want to move major economic projects forward with more speed, less delay and less red tape. Fees in lieu are pretty simple.

Right now, if you have to get an authorization, the proponent himself has to do the offset. They have to arrange it, they have to find it, they have to manage it and they have to make sure it lasts. That's not their business. Their business is being a project developer. A fee in lieu allows that to go into a fund that's then spent on habitat restoration, habitat conservation and specialist organizations. The proponent doesn't have to go through consultation, it doesn't have to go through regulatory red tape, it doesn't have to manage a whole offset project that it doesn't know how to do. That's done by someone who knows how to do it, and the proponent gets on with the business of building their project.

Better habitat outcomes, better economic outcomes and quicker projects make it a win-win. The U.S. has been doing it for decades. Other countries do it. Several Canadian provinces do it for wetlands. We know it works when it's done right.

Third party banking is the same thing. The last round of the act allowed proponent-led banking, which is a start, but it's not that practical. You're telling a development company you can get into the business of fish habitat banking. It's not what it does. It has been used very little. What's worked in other countries, in the U.S. is, just like that fee in lieu model, having businesses that are in the business of fish habitat restoration set up these large banks. They're better habitat because they're large, connected areas that deliberately select the habitat priorities that we need, not a last-minute, site-by-site offset based on when your project's going forward.

It's one-stop shopping in terms of consultation and regulation, not a number of different individual one-off regulatory consultations. Again, it's way easier for the proponent. They simply go to this bank, which is already established, and say, I'd like to buy 100 credits of fish habitat. I can go forward with my project now, and they don't spend all their time and energy and money worrying about building a fish offset bank. The person who knows how to do it does it. These work, and there are decades of experience in the U.S. and other countries. We just need to implement them here, they're good for the environment and good for the economy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much.

I will pass the remainder of my time to Mr. Klassen.

[Ernie Klassen, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

I'll just follow up on that same explanation. One of the projects that the government is looking at is expanding the Port of Montreal. There was an article that I read today about the copper redhorse fish being on the endangered species list. Is there a place for offsets to work when you've got a fish that is in the critical zone?

[Stewart Elgie]

It's a good question.

I'm not an expert in the specifics of that particular fish and its habitat needs. I will say there are some cases, particularly for endangered species, where they need a particular kind of habitat in a particular place, and it's hard to replace it. I don't know. You don't want me speaking to that particular species and its needs, but I can tell you that in most cases, 95% or more, habitat offsets are the last stage of this mitigation hierarchy. Everyone agrees the first thing you should do is avoid damage or mitigate damage. That's universally agreed. Habitats are for the stuff you can't mitigate, and most of the time offsets work when they're done right, when they have these 2:1 ratios.

The core problem here is that all of the evidence indicates DFO is not achieving the level of offset ratios that its own policy and its own science say are needed to keep habitat intact and to sustain it, let alone improve it as we've committed to do. Requiring offsets to do what their own science and their own policy says, which is ensure no net loss and actually move to net gain, would be good not just for the copper redhorse, but for economic development projects that we want to prioritize as a nation all across the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thanks very much, Mr. Klassen.

I now give the floor to Mr. Deschênes for two and a half minutes.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to put a question to Jim McIsaac from the BC Shrimp Trawlers' Association.

Mr. McIsaac, there have been some discussions about the need to limit the minister's discretionary power. I think you touched on that, but I'd like you to expand on it.

Among other things, it is suggested that section 2.5 of the act be amended so that the factors listed therein would be taken into account on an imperative basis by the minister when making decisions.

What are your comments on that?

[Jim McIsaac]

In subsection 7(1), it refers to the minister's “absolute discretion”. We would have that replaced by “with independent harvesters' and coastal communities' support”, and, after the word “law”, add “or is not authorized to independent harvesters or coastal communities”. That's specifically to the question about how to change that.

That's the only place in the act where ministerial discretion is referenced. That's going right to the heart of it, and so we're pushing to change how decisions are made in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and changing the frame of what the department is, from being a decision-making body, by itself, to making decisions with harvesters and our coastal communities about how the resource is allocated.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

I understand. However, what do you think of the proposal to amend section 2.5? The provision reads as follows:

2.5 Except as otherwise provided in this Act, when making a decision under this Act, the Minister may consider, among other things, (a) the application of precautionary approach and an ecosystem approach; (b) the sustainability of fisheries; (c) scientific information; (d) Indigenous knowledge of the Indigenous peoples of Canada that has been provided to the Minister; (e) community knowledge; (f) cooperation with any government of a province, any Indigenous governing body and any body — including a co-management body — established under a land claims agreement; (g) social, economic and cultural factors in the management of fisheries; (h) the preservation or promotion of the independence of licence holders in commercial inshore fisheries; and….

The proposal is to change the word “may” to the word “shall” so that the minister would be required to take the listed factors into consideration. Therefore, the minister's discretionary power would be somewhat limited.

What do you think?

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

You have only enough time for a very brief answer.

[Jim McIsaac]

Yes, we agree that it should be “shall”, and that paragraph 2.5(h) should be changed to protect and promote, and “inshore” should be taken out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Deschênes.

We're going to give two minutes for the last two questioners here, starting with Mr. Doherty for two minutes.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you to our colleagues.

I am sitting in on this committee. I sat on the committee for a number of years. Previously, when we first went through the Fisheries Act review and changes to it, we had some incredible testimony. I'm glad to see that we've kept up some of the non-partisan part of this committee here today as well, with Mr. Cormier's questions.

This is a general question for all of our witnesses here. The inconsistencies in this department, from the west coast to the east coast, are absolutely killing our fisheries. We have 154 critical fishery stocks. In the last go at this, we found that over 21 of the 24 most critical stocks were at species-at-risk classifications. This department has failed to actually look after the fisheries management plans, which means engaging with our stakeholders—first nations, those who make a living and depend on the fishery stocks.

To the guests who are here today, are our fishery stocks and how our fisheries industry is struggling clear indications that DFO, in its entirety, needs to be restructured and focused on stakeholders and on managing fish so that we have fish for today and for the future? I open it up to whoever wants to jump in.

Mr. McIsaac, you go first.

[Jim McIsaac]

Yes, DFO definitely needs to be restructured. How it makes decisions is opaque, and that needs to change. We should be making collaborative decisions about our ecosystem, how we fish and our understanding there. Yes, we want to have science-based decisions, but science is too slow. It doesn't recognize what's going on in the ecosystem now. It recognizes this five years down the road, and that's too late. We have to have those eyes on and hands in the water, making that information available to make decisions, and that has to be in real time.