Evidence of meeting #22 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 mpas.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ernie Klassen Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Are you aware of or were you part of any consultations as part of the hatcheries group? There are many all over B.C. run by a lot of volunteers. Was there any input provided from hatcheries on the effects that this would have on MPAs?
President, Little Campbell Hatchery Society
I'm not aware of any.
We work closely with the Pacific Salmon Foundation, so often our voice is heard through such organizations such as that.
I will say that DFO is a really important source for us. I know that there have been various talks of cutbacks in personnel and in financing and funding. I would like to emphasize to the committee the important work your DFO officers as well as our community advisers do on the ground in helping and supporting organizations like ours for the last 40 years.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you very much, Mr. Klassen.
Mr. Deschênes, you may go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McIsaac, you talked about the differences in how your members, fishers and first nations are treated.
Can you clarify what you mean?
Bloc
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
Do you mean between organizations and fishers?
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
I'm talking about examples in relation to the rules for marine protected areas.
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
I'll use the example that I gave for rockfish conservation areas. In Haida Gwaii, there's a national marine conservation area, NMCA, in the southern part of Haida Gwaii. About 40% of the area is closed to all fisheries, but indigenous people are exempt from that.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Is it related to the food, social and ceremonial fishery, or are first nations allowed to engage in commercial fishing?
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
That's a good question. In the language that's in the NSB, the network action plan that I read out, it's questionable whether it means just FSC, because it's prefaced with, and I quote exactly from it, “indigenous harvest and traditional use”, so including FSC. So that, to me, goes well beyond FSC. The way that that language is actually written is well beyond FSC.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Mr. Barron, can you give me examples of accommodation measures that you, as fish harvesters, requested but that you were not granted?
President, Cape Breton Fish Harvesters Association
As previously mentioned, when we asked for the zones that we were able to fish in, we asked them to be a certain size, and those sizes weren't met by the department. They actually still ended up protecting over 3,300 square kilometres, and we only ended up getting, through the three zones, a little over 600 square kilometres worth of take. I know it sounds like a lot, but to put it in perspective, the no-take zone is two-thirds the size of Mr. Morrissey's province.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you, Mr. Deschênes.
The last two speakers will have four minutes and four minutes.
I'll pass the floor over to Mr. Gunn.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. McIsaac, do you believe DFO has adequately consulted fishermen and coastal communities with regard to their current proposals to close 30%, even maybe more than 40%, of B.C.'s coast to various forms of fishing as part of these underwater parks or marine protected areas?
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
I definitely think that they haven't done enough and they haven't listened when they have consulted.
They did a survey after draft two of the NSB, the network action plan, in the coastal communities. Their comments on that survey were that they've been left out of the discussion. They see the NSB as creating instability, threatening their way of life. It's a distrusted process. Community impacts have not been considered.
Those are their comments from the survey that DFO did.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
And just to clarify, how long has this process, the NSB process, with regard to these marine closures been going on for? This is six or seven years now.
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
It started in earnest, engaging, in 2018, I guess but it dates back before that. They were doing consultation on the MPA networks going back to 2010—
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
But you still don't really know what's going on, like what's coming next. What I'm trying to get at is—
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
If you look at the network action plan and you read the drafts that they put out before, you have a good idea of what's coming and it's pretty hurtful for commercial fishing.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
It's interesting that you bring up these drafts because when we've had DFO officials here—and I feel like this has been confusing to some of my Liberal colleagues as it has been for all of us—they have downplayed or downright denied the fact that these marine protected areas would include what's known as no-take areas or significant closures to fishing, but we have since heard other testimony that has showed us these draft scenarios and we have heard about other pre-existing MPAs that have been put in in recent years in British Columbia that are no-take areas or are essentially no-take areas.
Has that been your experience? What kind of light can you bring to this?
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
There are two areas I'll talk about that don't give me any faith in what they're doing. One is the glass sponge reefs. The fishing industry was involved in the glass sponge reefs in first identifying them in the 1980s and then protecting them voluntarily in the early 2000s and then pushing them into the IFMP process in 2005 and then supporting the whole process of going to MPA. We did seven years of consultation on that. We drafted a core protection area, an adaptive management zone around it and a vertical management zone, and it was put into Canada Gazette I that way.
When it came to Canada Gazette II, all of the fisheries opportunities in there were denied. After all of the consultation that we did, all of the work that we did, it was all thrown out.
It was the same thing on sablefish and tuna on Bowie Seamount, which is 187 kilometres off our coast. We went through a process of protecting the fishery there, and now 2018, 10 years after it was established, there is no fishery there.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Really quickly, how devastating would the impacts be on your industry and your fishery if these changes went in as they're laid out in the draft proposals?
Executive Director, BC Shrimp Trawlers’ Association
Are you talking about the NSB one?