Foreign Affairs Committee on March 21st, 2013

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

I thank the guests for coming here.

I'd like to follow up on where Mr. Dechert was going on the whole fisheries management.

My riding is on the east coast, in Cape Breton, and we've noticed in the last few years that mackerel have moved away from us just because of a couple degrees' difference. Whether it's because of predators, the temperature or currents, who knows, but it tells you how fast the habitat moves.

Recently I read an article that said fish are going to be moving, and the mammals will be following. The problem we have is that our water is so deep that many of our species might be veering to the right a bit towards Greenland, Norway, and the Arctic areas. I think it was a very historic agreement we had with the 200-mile limit way back. That was about 30-some years ago. It really did a lot for our fishery, especially in Canada.

When you look at all the problems we're having with fisheries around the world, whether it's tuna or whale, with these species moving around, it seems to me that we have to have more international agreements for an area. I think you're alluding to that. We've talked about the acidification and what has been done with the agreements, but shouldn't we be sitting down with countries? Right now we have the 200-mile limit, so we know what we fish in our region, and we have quotas. If we, as northern countries, Arctic countries, had an agreement on quotas.... You have to base how much you're going to fish on quota and science. The Russians might say it's looking better for them in the next 20 or 30 years, but overall do we see that as something we could look at: sitting down and having a quota system among the Arctic countries for how much we catch?

[Renée Sauvé]

It's certainly a bit of conjecture given where we are in terms of our lack of scientific knowledge. You mentioned that. You need that basis. That's really where we are at that stage of leveraging to try to get an understanding of what we're actually dealing with here.

It's very early days, but in a general sense, I think, as you indicated, these organizations generally help with predictability, and they have been acting more as good cooperative tools. But, as I said, we're many steps before that right now in terms of trying to understand the resource we're dealing with here.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Right now with DFO, a lot of the research is done within our borders, within a 200-mile limit within the Arctic, right? We do our own research, so maybe the first big step is for us to have an agreement for international research, where we can share resources. We could have ships off Greenland and Norway that collect data for everyone to get a sense.... Would you say that would be a first big step?

[Renée Sauvé]

Yes, and I'll turn it over to my colleague here, but as mentioned, it's a very expensive region to operate in, and leveraging is the key word in doing work, including scientific research in the Arctic. I totally agree that we have to be creative and look at partnering for some of these major knowledge gaps.

[David Burden]

To add to what Renée said, I don't want to leave the impression with the committee that we're not doing joint international research. We're actually doing an awful lot of it.

In the eastern Arctic we do multi-species surveys on a cyclical basis. We do that with Greenland. We share the stocks with them, so under the NAFO arrangements for shrimp, turbot, and everything else that's up there, we share the costs and we share the platform. That's been going on for quite some time. I don't see any reason to change that.

In the western Arctic, in the Beaufort and that kind of area, there's collaboration with the Alaskans and with NOAA and others to use common assets, share the data, and share the costs. We are doing that. The issue is, what do you do with someone who parks on mile one outside the boundary? That's where you really have to establish a coalition of the willing.

At this point, as Renée said, there's not really seen to be a viable market. We're looking at small and not quickly reproducing fish, so up to this point in time it has not been a big concern, but we continue to do the analysis and to do the research to see what's out there. Obviously, if oil and gas are going to come before fisheries, we want to know what the potential impacts on that would be.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

You mentioned how you're working well with the United States and Greenland, but how much work are you doing with Norway and Russia and those countries?

[David Burden]

We belong to various organizations, to forums at the international level that we work with. There's work going on in which our scientists work with the Russians, the Norwegians, and all of the Icelandic nations. It depends on what the work is. There's a lot of work being done jointly on marine mammals. We know that they're travelling back and forth doing beluga, narwhal, walrus, and that kind of stuff, so a lot of that work is shared on a multinational basis.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Do I have much more time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have a minute.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

If you people were, and I imagine you are, giving some advice as we go into these Arctic Council meetings, on the DFO side, let's assume that you were getting enough research money—because we're talking about big industry, a $104-million industry—what would be your wish list, dealing with the fisheries alone, for the key minister who was going in there? Would it be for more research? Would it be for more agreements? I'm sure there are going to be a lot of things on the table, but from your side, what would be your priority?

[David Burden]

I don't think it matters related directly to the Arctic Council chair or not. I think our number one priority is to develop these fisheries for the benefit of northerners, particularly—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Within our own country.

[David Burden]

—within our own country. Clearly, we want to work with our international partners to make sure that we're doing this in a cooperative and responsible fashion. Let's face it: we have an emerging fishery in the north.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Just on that, because I probably only have a few seconds, would you—there's a budget coming down today, of course—like to see more research, scientific or whatever, done right here in Canada, with data collected, so that we can protect and take care of the industries we have right here in Canada?

[David Burden]

I don't think anybody would ever come before a committee and ask for less money to do research.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

That's fine, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to start our second round, which is five minutes for questions and answers.

We'll start with Ms. Brown, please.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Van Kesteren.

I know there's always room for more research, but it sounds like the space is getting a little crowded up there. Do we have a sufficient number of scientists? I'm pleased to hear that you're sharing data with other countries. It's really important that we build those alliances. Are we finding that there are private sector actors in the research area as well?

I would presume that a number of them are doing research for resources. Are they sharing any of that data with us? Is this something we can incorporate into the amount of data that we're putting together?

[David Burden]

There obviously are a lot of untapped resources in the north. We're going to continue to be inundated by folks who want to go in there.

The good news in this is that we do in fact have Canadian resources being put into this, not just government resources. You mentioned private resources. There is a consortium of philanthropic groups under the name of the Arctic Research Foundation. You may have seen the work they did over the past year or two in cooperation with government partners, but with private sector money in it as well, to find the lost Franklin vessels. Their mandate is they want to look at that as part of the history of the nation, but there is a much broader interest in ocean acidification, the whole issue around the impacts of climate change, and the changes of the ocean and the land in the Arctic.

This is a group that has a keen interest, and fortunately for us, they also have some financial resources that they can put into it. It's making a made-in-Canada private sector research capacity. That's coupled with what we have. Our co-management partners are also putting their resources into this, as well as our territorial government. We bridge all of that funding together. Where it's possible, we use one platform and we may have a multitude....

The season is short, but the days are long when we're there. When you're on board one of those vessels, it's a 24-hour operation. I remember the first time I was on one of them, I just didn't sleep. It's amazing how much work you can get done in a 24-hour period if you sort of park the sleeping for a while.

It is something we're getting a lot of progress on.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Van Kesteren, go ahead.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

You have three minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Welcome to the witnesses.

Mr. Burden, we know each other, of course. Not only are you the director for the Arctic area which encompasses the north, but you're also responsible for the most southern and largest freshwater fishing port in the world. That is in the riding of Chatham-Kent—Essex, in case any of you didn't know that.

It's good to see you, and it's good to see that you have a good handle on what's happening here.

My question can go to either one of you, I guess, but it's possibly more for Ms. Sauvé.

This issue of ocean acidification, I've got to tell you, is a new one to me. Could you explain to the committee what that is and where it's coming from?

[David Burden]

While my colleague thinks about it, I'll give you the real layman's non-scientific approach to it.

If you have increased ocean acidification, what it does to shellfish, say, is that it deteriorates the quality and the structure of the shell. The higher the acidification, the harder it is on the ecosystem and marine life, and clearly things like shrimp, crab, or whatever would be impacted. It impacts the fishery.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Where is it coming from and how do we monitor it? How do we know this is happening and that it's intensifying?