Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee for allowing us the opportunity to come here today to present on this important study.
My name is Martin Mallet, and I'm the executive director of the Maritime Fishermen's Union. I am accompanied today by my colleague, Louis Ferguson, an assistant director for our R and D branch, Homarus.
I will be speaking in French for my opening statement.
The Maritime Fishermen’s Union, MFU, represents over 1,300 inshore owner-operator fish harvesters in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Since the MFU was established in 1977, its mission has been to represent, promote and defend the interests of Maritime inshore fish harvesters and their communities.
In 2022, the MFU appeared before this committee and spoke out against an unjustified fishery closure. Four years later, we are forced to conclude that, over time, we have been proven right on several critical points. Mackerel and herring are very important forage species in the food chain, but they are also integral parts of the economic engine of inshore fisheries. Currently, our members are forced to import these fish from other countries that often have less stringent management standards. The bait and commercial fisheries are also tightly woven into our culture, and having to import bait fish currently swimming around our docks in large numbers is inconceivable.
Given these observations, it is natural for us to question the assessment of Atlantic mackerel and spring herring. Since 2022, the increase in biomass should also have been observed in the science documents. According to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientists, without a fishery, there was a very high likelihood that stocks would improve. However, assessment after assessment, the situation is still no better according to the department's scientists.
Fish harvesters are facing dramatic increases in their operating costs, particularly for bait. In 2022, the talk was about the price of mackerel, which had increased from $1.25 a pound to $1.65 a pound. Now, in 2026, the price has increased to nearly $3 a pound. Protecting stocks is essential, but must not be done at the expense of the economic survival of the fish harvesters in our coastal communities. Our fish harvesters cannot wait any longer.
We have a few recommendations for this committee.
First, needless to say, we ask this committee to recommend to the Minister to implement a plan to reopen the fishery for these two species as soon as possible.
Second, for mackerel, as recommended in 2022, a co-management agreement with the United States is critical. The significant increase in their 2026 quota is one indicator of this. In Canada, the assessment update, expected next month, in May, will include this figure and potentially keep us tied up at the dock. The opening of the bait fishery last year was greatly appreciated, but the resource can actually withstand a greater fishing effort using more selective fishing gear. This has also been mentioned by other witnesses.
The level of abundance noted all along the coast of Atlantic Canada in fall is also a key indicator of the species’ abundance. What fishers see has to be taken into consideration. I attest to that, fishers attest to it and other associations say the same thing, all along the Atlantic coast.
Third, in reopening the commercial mackerel fishery, sustainable capture methods that improve size selectivity must be prioritized to better protect the juvenile age classes.
Fourth, regarding spring herring, our organization and the nine other associations concerned in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence are all in agreement on a sound management approach. Although we were all surprised by science’s most recent assessment, we agree that all forage species in the critical zone of the precautionary approach must have an integrated sentinel fisheries plan or even a scientific one, which is not currently the case. For example, the removal of 5% of the spawning biomass, which would provide us with additional scientific data, would be a minimal effort. That would be equivalent to the typical statistical error in science. The sentinel fishery could be spread over four weeks. Therefore, we propose that a fishery reopen next May to allow sampling for the stock assessment. However, there isn't much time left for that to happen.
Here is the fifth recommendation. We request that the rigidity of the precautionary approach framework be re-evaluated in order to integrate an adaptive ecosystem approach. We propose that an adaptive proportional allocation system be adopted, giving the fisheries a fixed, ecologically reasonable percentage of ecosystem productivity, independent of short-term fluctuations in stock biomass. Such a system, by integrating catches with current ecosystem production, rather than with biomass thresholds linked to sometimes distant historical data, could reduce socio-economic disturbances while maintaining conservation performance.
Thank you.