Fisheries Committee on Oct. 21st, 2025

[Carey Bonnell]

The fish aren't growing for a couple of reasons.

What we understand from science is fish aren't growing. Environmental factors are driving that—warming water temperatures and a lack of food, basically, because the area is dominated by redfish. We had 4.2 million tonnes at its peak, so food availability has been an issue there. That's been the primary challenge and why the fish haven't grown and are not expected to grow any larger, which is your major market implication and challenge with respect to redfish.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC]

Were there larger fish present five years ago, before the population grew to the size it is?

[Carey Bonnell]

The biomass five years ago was about 4.2 million tonnes, but what you need to understand is this stock is driven by three year classes; I think it was 2011, 2012 and 2013. Everybody was excited about this resource and this stock at the time because we expected the fish to grow about a centimetre and a half to two centimetres a year at the time.

It happened in the early years, but then it stalled. There was a great expectation, for good reason, for unit 1 redfish, but we now have a fishery whose size has stalled and will not grow, and we have a fishery whose biomass is declining with or without fishing. It will go back to about 10% of its original biomass in the next eight years. That's the reality of unit 1 redfish that people maybe are not following or don't want to talk about, but that is the reality, unfortunately, of this resource and this stock.

It's not a resource allocation issue. I respect Jean so much, but he's just way off base with that observation.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC]

It's a food-source issue for the redfish. There's not enough food for them to grow.

[Carey Bonnell]

That is one of the major factors that science has highlighted, along with other environmental conditions, like warming water temperatures, that are driving that circumstance, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much.

Next, we're going to go to Mr. Connors for five minutes.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

Welcome, Mr. Bonnell. I'm going to have a few questions for you. I'm glad to see you here representing Newfoundland and Labrador and OCI, which is very important to our fishery in Newfoundland. The fishery is very important to the economy in Newfoundland, so I wanted to welcome you here.

You're the people who are on the water. What does your data show about the redfish? Is that comparable to exactly what science is saying?

[Carey Bonnell]

Based on communication from fishing activity, certainly what's been seen and what's come out of unit 1 and unit 2—we're very active participants in unit 2 redfish fisheries as well; we caught about three million pounds from that fishery last year—is that, in fact, there's actually what we believe to be a movement of some of the unit 1 redfish into unit 2, and the size of unit 2 has actually become a lot smaller over the past couple of years. There is a region in the gulf and off the south coast of Newfoundland of redfish that are very small in size compared to redfish in other jurisdictions like Iceland and Norway, where, as I mentioned in my opening comments, the average size is about 40 centimetres.

People ask about the market for redfish. There is a very significant market globally for good-sized redfish. The challenge we face—and it's a huge challenge—is how to deal with the smaller sizes that we're encountering here. It's a reality whether you're in the inshore or the offshore, whether you're indigenous or otherwise. These are some natural challenging realities that we have to deal with.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Size is the challenge. The processing of those would be the challenge. Is that correct?

[Carey Bonnell]

Size is a major challenge.

When we fillet redfish in our processing operation in Fortune, off the south coast on the Burin Peninsula, we start filleting at about 270 grams; that's usually the size that we start filleting. That's a small two- to four-ounce fillet, probably.

A large portion of the fish in unit 1 is under 200 grams. Redfish are very bony fish, so it's really difficult to produce a fillet from that product when it's so small. That's an inherent challenge.

There are markets for whole round redfish. There are markets for headed and gutted redfish. We're exploring those. We're doing everything we can with our sales and marketing capacity. Other companies in the Atlantic region are doing the same, but there are some very inherent challenges around that.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

You fish shrimp, as well. What is the relationship between redfish and the shrimp? What's happening with the shrimp as a result of redfish or vice versa?

[Carey Bonnell]

It's not an easy question to answer, to be very honest. There's no doubt of a predator-prey relationship between redfish and shrimp. We see it in the gulf. We see it off the south coast. We fish redfish off the northeast coast as well. We see it there, where there are interactions.

As for the scale of it, we just really don't know.... We don't have the data. I don't think DFO has the data to really quantitatively identify the impact the biomass of redfish has had on shrimp. That being said, in 2019, 2020 or 2021, when we had 4.2 million tonnes, it was the predominant biomass in the gulf region. It had an impact on everything, no doubt, including shrimp, the scale of which we just don't know.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Are there any other challenges that I'm missing or that you're having in the industry with redfish that you'd like to bring up here? Is there anything else we haven't mentioned or anything you'd like to elaborate on?

[Carey Bonnell]

The reason we only harvested as a complete industry 3,200 tonnes of a 60,000-tonne quota last year and about 2,700 or 2,800 tonnes so far this year is the size of the fish that we're dealing with. It's not an allocation issue. I can't stress that enough. It's not a resource allocation issue. I resent the notion that somehow the expropriation of quota from one sector to the other sector is going to solve this problem. It's a market challenge.

Unfortunately, in the gulf, it doesn't look like this fish is going to grow to a size that's going to be globally competitive, so you have to make do with what you have. Our energy and all of our resources are going into trying...and other companies. You had Alain d'Entremont here a couple weeks ago talking about their efforts.

We're exploring markets for whole round redfish in China. We're working on the bait market to try to expand it for redfish in Atlantic Canada. We've done some really good work as a sector on that. A significant portion of the lobster sector now is using redfish. We're hoping that's going to expand. Bait is an important area.

We're looking at food-grade opportunities in Asia and in Europe, although it's more challenging in Europe, which is a high-end market for larger redfish. We've looked at North African markets. We're exploring a whole host of options and scenarios for fillet production, for whole round production, for headed and gutted production because the solution is going to be a cumulative of the inshore, the offshore, harvesters and processors working together to try to get more value from this resource, to get more of it out of the water as well and to try to generate some additional value for the region.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Connors.

Mr. Deschênes, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Gagné, I want to make sure we understand what happened to you. As you explained in your presentation, you started out as a pelagic herring and mackerel fisher. Later, you added crab, but crab quotas have been decreasing every year. At the same time, there was a moratorium on herring and mackerel fishing. Finally, you explained this briefly, but I want to come back to it: When you participated in the process, you were disqualified in every possible way.

Please explain a little why you were unable to obtain an exploratory licence.

[Camille Gagné]

I encountered numerous reasons for disqualification. I did not have access to the pelagic fishing group’s licences because, firstly, the department decided to base its assessment on the years prior to 2020. It was therefore really basing its assessment on past years.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

You also mentioned the residency criterion.

[Camille Gagné]

Yes, secondly, the residency requirement also disqualified me. For turbot fishing licences, it’s easy, I don’t have one. I don’t have one for shrimp either. So I could be in the zone 12A fishing group.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

You were there as a crab fisher, weren’t you?

[Camille Gagné]

Indeed.

Thirdly, I was disqualified from zone 17, namely Anticosti, because I did not have the relevant licence. They were reserved partly for the Côte‑Nord, partly for New Brunswick and partly for the administrative zone of Gaspésie.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

However, you fish in zone 12A, which is connected to the Anticosti zone.

[Camille Gagné]

It is not administratively, but it is physically. I also fish in another area connected to Anticosti, namely area 16, which is my mackerel area. I was allowed to go mackerel fishing in Anticosti if I wanted to, but that was not considered. So, from the outset, I did not have access to the new fishing zone 17 in Anticosti.

In addition, I was disqualified for a fourth reason. When issuing the criteria, the department always referred to fishers, not to historical licences. In my case, in 2023, I was on board my vessel in my fishing zone, but I was flying an indigenous flag. As a result, my landings were automatically counted towards the indigenous quota because, according to the law, making a change is a longer process. So we started by filling the indigenous quota before filling mine. However, we didn’t get that far, and I was downgraded for my 2023 year.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Was it because you were flying under an indigenous flag that year?

[Camille Gagné]

Exactly, and they considered that I hadn’t fished. Automatically, I no longer qualified for the 15 points required.