Evidence of meeting #8 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 fishers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Do you think it is legitimate or should be permitted for environmental or other political activist groups to launch fundraising campaigns in the United States to shut down industries here in Canada?
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
I think, yes. We're a global world. These are global fisheries, global oceans, global environments, so I think there are people who are looking at these issues. As far as Oceana is concerned, we have a Canadian board. We work in Canada. As I said, 90% of our funding comes from Canada. We don't campaign to shut down fisheries.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
You're not concerned at all about the influence of American money on environmental and other political activist groups here in Canada and the impact that American money could have on Canadian industry and Canadian jobs?
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
Specifically to Oceana, what we're calling for is more fish and more fishing and to expand the fisheries. A fishery's collapse is a failure—
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
You're not calling for closures at all anywhere.
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
If a stock is in the critical zone, we call for a rebuilding plan—
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
How about marine planning areas or underwater parks? Do you support those?
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
Well, use whatever language you want, but those are effectively closures—are they not? They could affect fisheries that aren't in the critical zone.
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
They're not closed to all fishing. It's to bottom contact, so there is—
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
They're not clear. They haven't specified what they're going to be closed to. In my province of British Columbia, they're closing massive swaths of marine areas to different fisheries, including prawns, including trawl, and the fisheries that aren't deemed critical in any way whatsoever are being closed to reach an arbitrary 30-by-30 target, even though more than 30% of British Columbia's coast is already closed to fisheries.
To get back to my main point, you mentioned it's a global issue, so you don't think there's an issue with environmental groups here in Canada accepting money from the United States. Would you say the same thing for accepting money from China?
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
I haven't seen groups that have accepted money from China.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
As a general principle, speaking for myself, we should all be in this together.
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
There are groups in Canada that give money to organizations in China. There is an exchange when people see problems in different parts of the world that they want to identify. It's up to the organization where they accept their money from and to publicly report it.
When we accept our money, we publicly report everything. We're completely transparent about where our funds come from. The important thing to me is the transparency about where the money comes from.
October 23rd, 2025 / 10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
You mentioned some foundations that you received money from. Some of those foundations—I think you mentioned Donner—also have foundational arms in the United States. Can you confirm that the Canadian foundation arms don't receive money transferred from their U.S. counterparts before then giving it out to groups here in Canada?
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
Ours comes from the Donner Canadian Foundation. I don't know the inner workings of Donner.
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
You can't confirm that Donner Canada doesn't get money from—
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
You would have to confirm with Donner how their—
Conservative
Aaron Gunn Conservative North Island—Powell River, BC
This is what happened when they tried to shut down the energy industry. Tides in the United States transferred huge amounts of American money to Tides Canada, and they then disbursed it to a whole bunch of environmental groups that launched a well-funded campaign to shut down Canada's oil industry and keep Canada's fossil fuels and hydrocarbons in the ground.
Do you view that as concerning at all?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Ms. Elmslie, we're over time. Give a very brief response, and then we're going to our last questioner.
Senior Campaign Director, Oceana Canada
I would like to focus on Oceana and what we work on, which is rebuilding fisheries. As we've seen, using the model that we're talking about, the United States has rebuilt 50 of their fisheries, and they are getting 50% more income. I would like to see that in Canada, and that is what we use our funding for.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Patrick Weiler
Thank you very much, Mr. Gunn.
We're going to finish with Mr. Connors for four minutes.
Liberal
Paul Connors Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you.
Mr. McLinton, a lot of times we hear that the core science doesn't agree among fishermen or harvesters, the Government of Canada and organizations like Oceana. Do you think that's the reality? If it is, how do we fix that?
President, Fisheries Council of Canada
Thank you, Mr. Connors.
What I have seen in my brief time with the Fisheries Council of Canada is that some of the most effective fisheries management decisions have been taken when the ministry has partnered with industry and taken industry science into account. I've seen a couple of examples of that. I believe one recently was with the Bay of Fundy herring. Our members do a lot of science. I don't know that a lot of Canadians know this, though I'm sure many of the people around this table know this: Industry funds a lot of the science that is undertaken by the department. Why is that? It's because it's the right thing to do, but also their livelihoods depend upon good, sound science. They contribute in many instances to doing independent science.
The way I see it working best is when there's a partnership between industry and government and when government takes industry science into account.
Liberal
Paul Connors Liberal Avalon, NL
Thank you.
Ms. Elmslie, sometimes organizations like yours are not seen as friends to the fishing industry.
Can you give me some examples of how you have been friendly or how you've helped the industry?