Evidence of meeting #36 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 year.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Mr. Morrissey.
I think we have bells starting. It's a 30-minute bell.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming and giving us testimony.
Go ahead, Mr. Arnold.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
Madam Chair, we quite often provided unanimous consent to go another 15 minutes, and that still gives us very good time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Do I have unanimous consent to go another 15 minutes? We have one small thing to deal with as well.
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Okay. We have only one speaker for that round, and that's Mr. Gunn.
Does anybody else want to put their hand up to speak? Is there anybody else?
Mr. Deschênes, Mr. Champoux has left. Would you like to be the next speaker? All right.
We have Mr. Gunn and Mr. Deschênes, and I think that will be it, because we do want to tidy up the little bit of outstanding stuff we need to deal with here.
We're going to start with Mr. Gunn for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you, Chair.
The question again is for whoever is best suited to answer, but I'll direct it to you to start, Mr. Williams. It's about the recent decision taken after the International Pacific Halibut Commission reached a conclusion and I believe the Canadian government agreed with this. It was that, for conservation purposes, the total allowable catch of halibut on the Pacific coast should be reduced.
Why was the entirety of that reduction borne by Canada and none by the United States?
Senior Director, Resource Management - Operations, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Thank you.
Chair, I will defer the question to Mr. Davis in Vancouver.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Thank you.
This is part of a much longer-standing issue between Canada and the U.S. in terms of allocations or how we share the resource. We did agree that there was some need to be cautious in setting TACs this year, but we could not agree on how to share or allocate between Canada and the U.S.
We agreed to take a small reduction in Canada's allocation this year, but also that we would have follow-up discussions to ideally reach a longer-term understanding around allocations.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Is it the position of the department that if we can't agree on how the reduction of the allowable catch should be split between us and the United States, we should just bear the entire economic cost while the United States is allowed to continue fishing?
Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That has definitely not been our practice. However, in the course of our negotiations there were consequences proposed by the United States if we were unable to reach some kind of understanding around allocation. Canada weighed that against the consequences of accepting a reduction in our share and came to the conclusion that—
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Were those consequences a form of economic coercion that would have prevented our seafood products from entering the United States?
Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
That's correct.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Okay.
The question that I have is how.... What has possibly changed going forward that will prevent that situation from just happening again? The Americans have clearly set the standard that if they use economic coercion on Canada and Canadian seafood producers, we'll just cave.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We have a treaty relationship with the United States. We propose to take a rational, structured approach to how we arrive at understandings or agreements around allocations, which would look at the science and the history of how we've accessed the resource. It's a long-standing relationship that we would be looking to maintain to preserve a collaborative way of managing this shared resource and promoting those things as what should be the basis of arriving at allocations or a way of sharing halibut.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you. I want to go back to my previous line of questioning around the various co-management agreements that have been announced with first nations as they pertain to fisheries. I think one of the things that are genuinely confusing citizens—including some people on this committee—is that these agreements are.... Presumably, where there are no co-management agreements, you still take into account the opinions and desires of first nations as you would harvesters, as you would recreational fishermen.
Are these co-management agreements essentially creating more bureaucracy with no real power, or are you devolving power from the department and from the government to these shared working groups? I can't see how it's not one or the other.
Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We're formalizing relationships with first nations in a way that defines how we will collaborate and how we will attempt to reach agreement, and also engage with others. We're putting those down in written agreements often as a component of an agreement that speaks to other topics as well. It also sets out a formal structure, committees that will convene at a certain period every year and then the things that we will collaborate on. It's assigning formality to that and is an attempt to reflect the seriousness with which we take our relationship with first nations.
Ultimately, if we can reach agreement on matters, great. If we can't, then we still have to make decisions, but they all result in advice to the minister on the matters that are under her regulatory authority.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Is there a concern that, as we saw with the Fraser River sockeye fishery, the creation of this new bureaucratic step will slow decision-making at DFO from being rapid? What is the commitment to the department around transparency around some of these decisions?
Liberal
Regional Director, Fisheries Management Branch, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We have to fit decision timelines within the biological timelines associated with the resource. For whatever commitments we make, we have to complete consultations in time to make decisions for when the fish return.
