Evidence of meeting #7 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 shrimp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Okay.
In your presentation, I think you were referring to pelagic fishers. You said that they were consulted individually. What did you mean by that?
General Manager, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie
Actually, I wasn’t referring to pelagic fishers in that passage. I was talking about fishers who were not initially included in the department’s criteria. They live in the Rimouski area and fish mainly for snow crab. Following individual discussions with DFO, they came up with the idea of creating a new group to obtain exploratory lobster fishing licences.
What I was trying to say was that people in the field were listening, regardless of their status. People could participate in the process even if they were part of an association, whether recognized or not, or even if they were eligible fishers or not. We noticed this too. We made suggestions to DFO that we believed would improve the process, and they were accepted. People in the field were listening. I am thinking in particular of those in the Gaspé area office, who were in listening mode, regardless of whether they were a recognized association or not, or a targeted fisher or not. They tried to get as much information as possible to do things better.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
I understand your point.
I don’t have much time left to speak, and I also want to ask Mr. Bernatchez a question.
Before that, however, I would like to give you 30 seconds to explain further the idea you suggested, or at least mentioned, in relation to the transferability of exploratory licences. I believe you also mentioned commercial licences.
General Manager, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie
If all goes well, if the resource is there and if the data continues to be good, these licences will not remain exploratory forever. The goal is to eventually have a commercial fishery.
I raised a question about licences, and I think Mr. Bernatchez raised it as well. Could the Department of Fisheries and Oceans prevent the transferability of exploratory or commercial licences and retain them when a fisher retires, then redistribute them to fishers in struggling fleets, fishers in difficulty or new fishers? Wouldn’t this be a way to counter the surge in fishing licence prices?
We see this as a good opportunity for the department to do things differently with regard to these licences.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
The idea would be to make the licence commercial, but not transferable. It would therefore have no attached value. DFO would reallocate the licence to someone else.
General Manager, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie
That could indeed be an option.
Bloc
Alexis Deschênes Bloc Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC
Mr. Bernatchez, what do you think of this suggestion?
Director General, Coopérative des Capitaines Propriétaires de la Gaspésie
If I understand the Fisheries Act correctly, any licence issued to a fisher remains the property of DFO and should be returned to DFO when the fisher ceases operations. Over time, a slight variation in the rules governing licences has emerged, allowing a fisher to transfer his licence to another fisher, subject to DFO approval.
In this case, regardless of how the licence is defined, whether it is exploratory, permanent or otherwise, the important thing is to at least ask the following question: If this licence is linked to a resource that is supposed to belong to all Canadians, as the act states, is it being managed in the best possible way?
I understand that there is a kind of acquired right for those who already have licences. However, in the future, we should be able to ensure that assistance measures can be transferred from one struggling fleet to another. You never know when a fleet that is doing well will start to struggle. We are very concerned about snow crab stocks in area 12. Sometimes we are told that things are not going well, and then we are told that things are going well. We don’t know what might happen.
When a crisis occurs, it will have repercussions on several communities around the gulf. If we had already begun discussions on the implementation of a mechanism, it might help us better overcome the crises we will face in the future, because there will be others.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you very much, Mr. Deschênes.
That completes our first round of questioning.
Moving next to the five-minute round, we have Mr. Arnold.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses.
I'm going to carry further on with Mr. Small's line of questioning around the influence of the ENGOs and the decision-making process at DFO.
I'll start with Mr. Gallant.
Are you aware of influencing in your area? Has this always been the case, and if so, when did you feel it started?
Fish Harvester, As an Individual
It was never at eyesight during the majority of my career. Really, here in the gulf, since the red fishery, it's gotten to the level it is today where it has garnered interest from these ENGOs. I guess it's just a part of their mandate to be seen and heard.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
Mr. Bernatchez, has this influence been there for a length of time?
Director General, Coopérative des Capitaines Propriétaires de la Gaspésie
I've been in the industry for four or five years, so I don't have a lot of experience with NGOs or ENGOs.
I'll repeat what I said before. There's enough intelligent people around the table. We have the advisory committee, or other meetings with DFO, to be able to make the best possible decisions for the resource as well as for the coastal communities.
Conservative
General Manager, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie
It is clear that we have seen their presence in various advisory committees for several years now. At this point, it is difficult to say how much influence these organizations actually have on the decisions that are made. I agree with Mr. Bernatchez that the people sitting around the table in these committees should be able to make their decisions without outside influence.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
How long have you been involved, and have you seen a change in the influence over time?
General Manager, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie
This autumn, it will be 10 years since I entered the fishing industry. From memory, I would say that they have been around for about five years. It is difficult to say how much influence these organizations really have, but we do see them on various committees.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
Thank you.
I'll start with Mr. Bernatchez, but I'm not sure who might be able to answer.
Are there other factors that are impacting the food availability for redfish? Are there other predators competing for the same redfish food? For example, our pinnipeds prey on shrimp, reducing the shrimp numbers. Are other stocks doing the same thing?
Director General, Coopérative des Capitaines Propriétaires de la Gaspésie
You'll often find three species in the same place. Let's say you have redfish, Greenland halibut and Nordic shrimp, so these are integrated together. The two species of fish will prey on the Nordic shrimp. I can't talk about the relation between Greenland halibut and redfish; I don't know what it is.
However, I'll say one thing: There's a plate with sandwiches, behind here, for about 10 people. We're 30 in the room. If we all had to eat from the same plate, there wouldn't be enough for everybody. It's the same thing in the water. There is probably not enough food for all the redfish that are there because it's the most important biomass in the St. Lawrence for now. A witness before was talking about the effect on the otter.... In 2021, DFO data was saying that, the year before, redfish had eaten 213,000 tonnes of shrimp that season, when the quota was, roughly, 15,000 tonnes of shrimp.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
From what you've heard from your members, were the decisions about licence and quota allocations based on science and data, or were they politically based?
Director General, Coopérative des Capitaines Propriétaires de la Gaspésie
Are you talking about the redfish?
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies, BC
The redfish, if that's all your response is, but also the lobster exploratory licences....
Director General, Coopérative des Capitaines Propriétaires de la Gaspésie
Well, when we had the advisory committee about the redfish, it was presented to us that the quota could be, for the next year, anywhere between 88,000 and 318,000 tonnes. The end result was 60,000 tonnes.
At the same time, we're saying—all the witnesses—that the most that was caught last year was roughly 3,200 tonnes. There are more fish and quota than can be fished, not because we cannot fish but because there is no one to buy it.
Liberal
Liberal
Paul Connors Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you.
Mr. Gallant, I'm glad to see another Newfoundland perspective here from the inshore fishery. I'm glad you're here at committee to give your input on this study that we're doing. We had someone from the offshore, so I'm glad to hear the inshore perspective.
I want to talk about the quota. We've heard testimony that it was only around 3,200 tonnes of the 60,000-tonne TAC that was caught last year, and probably around 3,400 tonnes this year. Is there any reason that you wouldn't say that the quota, the full amount of TAC, is not being caught?