Fisheries Committee on Nov. 25th, 2025

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

The questions are for Ms. Graham.

Has the department done a study of the economic and social impacts of the marine area closures or underwater parks on fishermen and their families?

[Kathy Graham]

Mr. Chair, we've done socio-economic assessment as areas are established.

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

You're trying to meet a 30 by 30 arbitrary decision put out by the United Nations.

Has the department done an economic study of how many jobs will be lost from these marine area closures that have to be created to meet that number?

[Kathy Graham]

As part of our site establishment process, once we understand what conservation measures will be put in place, we will do that socio-economic analysis to generally understand—

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

You are putting forward a policy that has the potential to cripple an entire industry before doing a socio-economic assessment of how many jobs will be lost? Is that correct?

[Kathy Graham]

We're bound to follow the regulatory development process, which requires that at the drafting stage we develop a regulatory impact assessment, which is meant to understand what the potential socio-economic impacts will be.

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

You don't know how many jobs will be lost.

Has the department done a study of the social impacts on families and coastal communities of jobs that will definitely be lost as a result of marine area closures and underwater parks?

[Kathy Graham]

We have not but we do work very closely with industry—

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

That's fine.

Has the department done a study on the impacts to Canada's food security as a result of these jobs being lost as a result of these marine area closures?

[Kathy Graham]

The work that we do in terms of understanding those potential economic impacts is to work very closely with the fishing industry to try to minimize—

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

My time is limited, sorry.

Earlier you said that you thought you had a strong relationship with the stakeholders in the fishing industry. With all due respect, I have many fishermen in my riding, and again, with all due respect, there is nothing but deep resentment for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They feel like they were not consulted. You're sitting here and telling me that for this large plan that has the potential to close 30% of Canada's fishing grounds, 40% in the Northern Shelf bioregion, you don't even know how many jobs are going to be lost. You don't even know what's going to happen to the coastal communities like Port Hardy, Prince Rupert and Campbell River that rely on these industries. You don't even have a plan.

What would you say to the fishermen and their families whose ability to put food on their table to feed their families and whose ability to earn a livelihood has been put at risk by some arbitrary international ideological policy that this government's blindly pursuing without even looking at the economic consequences? What would you say to them if you were sitting down at a meeting in one of these coastal towns? They're mad and they're frustrated.

[Kathy Graham]

We work with the fishing industry. We really do strive to ensure that the impacts are as minimal as possible. We have, as a result, adjusted boundaries in a manner to actually minimize those socio-economic impacts.

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

You say that, but in B.C. there's a group, which I'm sure you're familiar with, supported by fishermen and industry. That's the marine planning team. They came together, basically out of desperation, with a counter-proposal to meet your same closure requirements, but to reduce economic impacts by 77% and projected job losses by 80%. They actually did the work on what the job losses were going to be. That was back in 2020. They never heard back. A couple of years later, you came back with another proposal that ignored everything they suggested and was actually even worse.

You say that you're listening to stakeholders, but it doesn't seem like you're listening to stakeholders if you're ignoring all the advice they put together. Why did you ignore everything the marine planning team put together?

[Kathy Graham]

In terms of what we have shared with the fishing industry with respect to the work the fishing industry has done on the west coast, we have reassured them that the work they have done will be really critical in understanding the socio-economic analysis that will be undertaken as we advance to specific sites.

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Okay. That's.... I mean, you guys obviously haven't done your work.

I want to switch now to Mr. Millar with Parks Canada.

You talked about working hand in hand with indigenous partners, but probably the two most active fishing first nations, two of the most successful, are the We Wai Kai and the Lax Kw'alaams. They think MPAs are a terrible idea. One of them is suing the federal government in court. Chief Ronnie Chickite of the We Wai Kai First Nation is probably the most successful commercial first nations fisherman on the entire coast. He thinks MPAs are unscientific, misguided, economically damaging and won't work.

How are you working hand in hand with first nations that oppose marine planning areas?

[David Millar]

Almost every area we're working to establish these days is done through some sort of co-operative management process with indigenous groups. We work in partnership to examine the proposals on the table, look at how they would meet shared interests and discuss co-operative governance mechanisms that can be put in place for making decisions. There are numerous examples of this across the country, such as Gwaii Haanas in B.C., which I'm sure your committee members would be familiar with, where we try to make sure we understand the interests.

As I mentioned earlier, there's always a diversity of perspectives. We don't expect that our indigenous partners will all speak with exactly the same voice, but we try to work with leadership, to consult with as many members as we can and to come up with solutions that we think meet everyone's interests. We do that really through a collaborative process. We're not deciding on behalf of first nations unilaterally.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much.

Next we will go to Mr. Cormier for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, Ms. Graham, I just want to reiterate what my colleague Paul Connors said earlier. We all know what you meant by “actors”. The industry also knows what you meant by that. If someone deserves an Academy Award for this little stunt, for best actor in the room, I think we all know who it is.

Ms. Graham, fishermen are scared. Industry is scared about those MPAs. My Conservative colleague just said that it's going to be the apocalypse, with closings of everything. Can you clarify what it actually is? When we're doing an MPA, how are we going to go ahead with that? Does it mean that, for example, all fishing will be closed in every MPA or around it?

Can you also explain the process before we get to an MPA, for example, in a certain area? As you know, and as you probably heard during your consultation with the industry, some have legitimate questions, and they're scared, but I think they're not getting the full picture that it will not be a full closure in some parts, and if there is some closure, there's good reason for it. Can you expand on that, please?

[Kathy Graham]

Once an area is identified, as I was noting earlier, it's very important for us to understand what the conservation objectives are that are being sought. Based on that site-specific understanding, all the human activities that are occurring within that geographical area are assessed to understand what activities would need to be managed and where measures would be required. In Canada, because we take a site-specific, tailored approach to each of our areas, there are many marine protected areas where fishing actually continues. The ones that have been limited are those where there is a relationship and risk associated with the conservation objectives.

When we engage with stakeholders, our objective is to try to present the areas are that we're considering for protection and then begin consultation to understand and to draw on the knowledge that the fishing industry has in order to adjust boundaries to achieve conservation objectives and limit potential economic impact. We've seen over time that this collaboration has led to really good results in terms of minimizing those impacts, thanks to the advice and insight we've gleaned from our consultations and work with the fishing industry.

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

Thank you very much for those clarifications.

Earlier, my Bloc Québécois colleague talked about political will and the fact that not enough effort had been made to achieve our targets. It is all well and good to always criticize the policy, but at the end of the day, industry stakeholders are asking to be consulted and to be part of the solution to define new marine protected areas.

Based on your observations in the report, do you feel that there was more collaboration than usual with industry to come up with new measures for marine protected areas? As I said earlier, this would not only protect the livelihoods of these fishers, but also protect our oceans so that the fishery is sustainable for the next generation. Did you feel that the department was working more closely with the industry?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

All three departments have said that they have invested time to work with stakeholders. Is it possible to have a consensus every time? No, because there are a variety of interests. Consultation is not a recipe for consensus, but it is better than nothing.

Given today's debate, a consensus would be much better. That is why, at the end of our report, we recommend improving public information on the size of no-take zones in sites, areas where all activities are prohibited and other areas where there may be sustainable fishing, for example. Better information for the public will improve the situation with stakeholders.

I am encouraged to see that all three departments have agreed with our recommendation to improve information sharing and the database on protected and conserved areas.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cormier.

That completes our second round.

We're going to start the third round with Mr. Dawson for five minutes.

[Mike Dawson, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

My first question is for Commissioner DeMarco and his colleagues at the Office of the Auditor General.

First and foremost, did your audit identify any unique challenges in the Atlantic region that may explain slower progress regarding the establishments of MPAs?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

I'm not aware of our going into that depth, region by region for unique challenges, so the answer would be no, we're not aware. It doesn't mean that they don't exist, but we did not become aware of them in the course of this audit.