Evidence of meeting #20 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 area.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ernie Klassen Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
I understand the U.S. actually is further ahead than Canada in protecting or establishing marine protected areas. Is that accurate, would you say?
Liberal
Ernie Klassen Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Okay.
Mr. Dovey, what consultation approaches have worked best with commercial harvesters?
Vice-President, BC Seafood Alliance
Through the marine planning team, we worked with the Archipelago Management Board on the Gwaii Haanas National Marine Conservation Area Reserve. One recommendation that came out of that process was to engage the commercial fishing sector early and to make that engagement meaningful. It's one thing to hold a number of meetings, but if you're not willing to have that back-and-forth and incorporate the advice, it doesn't make a difference.
The second recommendation out of that process was that you need strong socio-economic impact analysis data in order to complete your risk analysis and estimate the impacts on the commercial fishing sector and on jobs.
Really, what made that process work was that the Council of the Haida Nation was willing to share their cultural and ecological targets on a spatial basis.
We in the fishing industry know fishing data and we know spatial data and we use the same software that the planners do. We were able to get literally hundreds of fishermen in the room to make trade-offs in order to attain ecological targets like eelgrass or deep-water coral and that type of thing, while minimizing the impact to the best fishing sites. We just haven't been successful in trying to do that same process with the NSB.
Liberal
Ernie Klassen Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Have the first nations groups been involved with you in this process at all? Maybe you can explain a bit about how they interacted with your groups.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
I'm sorry to interject. Could we have just a brief answer, because we are at time?
Vice-President, BC Seafood Alliance
Briefly, we wouldn't have had success in Gwaii Haanas without the strong endorsement and participation of the Haida.
For the NSB example, it's more complicated. There are 17 first nations signatories, and we haven't been able to really connect and have that meaningful back-and-forth with the leaders in the communities.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you very much, Mr. Klassen.
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.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here.
I'd like to start the conversation with you, Mr. Hilborn. I think you asked exactly the right question. You're right, we need to ask ourselves what problem we want to solve. After that, we'll see if we can achieve our goals in the marine protected areas.
You don't seem to have a lot of faith in marine protected areas effectively protecting fish habitats. The idea is to protect biodiversity. However, you're saying that marine protected areas don't help achieve that objective. Did I understand correctly?
Prof. Ray Hilborn
The question is this: What is the goal, and what biodiversity are we trying to protect?
One classic example would be sensitive deep-water corals and other things that can be impacted by bottom-contact fishing. The solution there is to prohibit bottom-contact fishing in those areas, but you don't have to prohibit other forms of fishing that are not impacting a species of concern.
Bloc
Prof. Ray Hilborn
Yes. B.C. has a very strong program of protection of sensitive benthic habitats. I think it's a very small proportion of the B.C. coastline that's actually impacted by bottom trawling. I believe it's well under 10% of the continental shelf.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
From what I've heard and based on the discussion about marine protected areas, the protection levels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are different.
In your opinion, in the current scenario, are we succeeding in introducing effective, well-targeted protections?
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Okay.
You say that when it comes to fish, we can successfully protect our fish stocks by closing fishing areas. Is that right?
Prof. Ray Hilborn
No, closing areas to fishing is not a particularly effective way to protect the resource compared to just regulating catch, as the Canadian system now does. It's by far much more effective.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Thank you, Mr. Hilborn.
My next set of questions is going to be for the representatives of BC Seafood Alliance.
Can you explain how things work in British Columbia? Are the province and the federal government having discussions to coordinate protection efforts?
Vice-President, BC Seafood Alliance
The province has been focused on developing what's called a coastal marine strategy. We don't see anything in that strategy that advocates for continued access for sustainable fishing.
They're also using provincial designation for some smaller implementation areas. They're mostly near-shore seabird protection-based closures. Our regulator is mainly the federal government, DFO and Parks Canada, through the Oceans Act, marine refuge implementation and national marine conservation areas.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Do you have a protection goal advanced by the province, as is the case in Quebec, and another goal advanced by the federal government?
Vice-President, BC Seafood Alliance
I'm sorry; are you asking for an example of a provincial and a federal designation?
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Are both levels of government pushing to protect the areas?
Commercial Fisheries Representative, Underwater Harvesters Association, BC Seafood Alliance
No, the provincial government isn't requesting more than the federal government.
Commercial Fisheries Representative, Underwater Harvesters Association, BC Seafood Alliance
It all falls under the 30 by 30 targets.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
In your discussions with the federal government, are you making arrangements to ensure that marine protected areas allow fishing that is not harmful to the protection of biodiversity?