International Trade Committee on May 21st, 2024

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you both for being here.

I'm going to start with Dr. Brown, just to get an idea of the difference, if any, between the Canadian and American situations with right whales in terms of their distribution and behaviour, when they are there and how many are there. I assume they have their calves further south and move up into the northern New England waters and the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the summer.

Are most of them in Canadian waters in the summer?

[Dr. Moira Brown]

You have the distribution down pat. The only known calving grounds are down off the coasts of Florida and Georgia. The animals migrate up toward New England and Cape Cod Bay in the spring. They have just departed that region and are now, as usual, heading across the Gulf of Maine and just starting to show up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Again, because we can identify these whales as individuals, we have a good sense of who is actually in the Gulf of St. Lawrence or elsewhere. It's slightly less than half the population annually. About 140 or so individuals have been returning to the Gulf of St. Lawrence on a pretty regular basis since 2017. That is a direct result of very thorough surveillance efforts by DFO science and NGO research groups like the Canadian Whale Institute. Also, NOAA in the U.S. has a survey plane that comes up for a few weeks each year to help with the count.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I'm wondering if American fishers face the same restrictions or the same mitigating measures that Canadian fishers have taken with regard to gear to reduce entanglements.

Do American shipping interests have to reduce their speed the same way that Canadians do? Is it an equal thing, or is most of this happening in Canada, and is that part of the problem?

[Dr. Moira Brown]

There are definitely measures in both countries that are different. Some are narrowly tailored to the particular area or the particular habitat where the whale is.

In Canada, we have static measures to reduce vessel strikes that are in place from the end of April until the middle of November. They are mandatory and are monitored and enforced by Transport Canada. The speed limit in the seasonally restricted area is actually 10 knots or less in the other areas. I think the key thing is that these measures are monitored and enforced.

In the U.S., vessel strike measures can be mandatory, but the measures are not enforced the same way. They are not monitored and enforced on a near real-time basis.

With respect to fisheries, when a right whale is encountered on the east coast of Canada, approximately 670 square nautical miles are closed to fishing around that one sighting of one right whale for a minimum of 15 days. If the whales persist, that fishery is closed for the season. That's far stricter than anything that's going on in the U.S., and the U.S. doesn't have a similar dynamic system. It has some static closures, without a doubt, in high-use areas where there's fishing and whale overlap, but it doesn't have a similar dynamic system.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

If I'm correct, we heard from the previous witnesses that the Americans are assessing Canadian conservation measures to see if they're equivalent to the American ones. I don't know, but it seems to me—listening to what you're saying, and you're the real expert—that we, if anything, are ahead of the Americans, and it's fairly obvious. It's not some subtle thing.

I'm wondering if that's how you see the situation.

[Dr. Moira Brown]

Yes, it is. In addition, our measures are adapted each year. There are a number of Fisheries and Oceans and Transport Canada-led advisory groups and technical working groups that look at the data each year, and they assess the protective measures that are in place. They have evolved quite a bit over the last six or seven years.

In the U.S., some of the measures were put in place in excess of 10 or 12 years ago and are just now being considered for adaptation in response to the shifting habitat of the whales.

I'm actually really proud of what Canada has done and the protective measures that have been put in place. As I said earlier, we're not there yet. We haven't eliminated the human-caused mortality and serious injury for this species, but the measures that are in place are widespread, monitored and enforced.

I will also add that it is the fish harvesters who are out there, complying with these measures—the captains of the ships as well—and working really hard to recover this species.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I want to quickly go to Mr. Sproul.

If this is the case, is there some pressure from American fishers, or is it the American government? What's causing this difference, and how do you feel about that?

[Colin Sproul]

I think it's best to understand where the pressure on the American government is coming from. The pressure on the American government is coming from ENGOs like IFAW and the Pew trust. They're also engaging in punitive lawsuits against fishermen and state regulators in America. They're certainly under political pressure, and they're also under political pressure from American fishermen themselves, who are rebelling against some of the measures we've co-operated on here in Canada.

Yes, it is concerning to us. I think it comes back to the fact that it's incumbent on the Minister of Fisheries to be advocating for Canadian fishermen and Canadian conservationists in America with their counterparts and to make sure that the good news story that Dr. Brown has related to you gets told in America to conservationists, to governments and regulators and, most importantly, to consumers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We go now to Mr. Seeback for five minutes, please.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Sproul, I'm trying to go back to what you were talking about. What are the ENGOs in the United States trying to push for that can cause or are causing the challenges for Canadian fishers?

[Colin Sproul]

Namely, it's parity with the Marine Mammal Protection Act, or the appearance of it, but, as Dr. Brown has said, there's a lot of feeling that we're on parity with it now. Essentially what they're pushing for is, in a sense, to transfer the blame entirely to Canadian fishermen for the sorry state of right whales. Canadian fishermen accept that entanglements are certainly a chief contributing factor to the demise of the whales, but we also recognize that they don't all take place in Canadian waters, and we recognize the extreme impact of ship strikes on the whales, too.

We're not looking for the government to paint a picture that isn't true, but we would just like to see credit given where credit is due and blame given where blame is due.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Am I correct in saying that this is...I'm going to call it the “enforcement” of the Marine Mammal Protection Act? I don't know if that's the right word. This seems to be a new development in the United States. Am I correct about that? This is sort of an older statute that has suddenly been revived and seems to again be putting pressure on Canadian fishers.

[Colin Sproul]

Yes, I would say that's correct. Under the Biden administration, I think there's been more focus on the conservation of whales. It's also due to the fact that there have been a significant number of ship strikes and entanglements as well. The emergence of it as an issue is also due to the fragile nature of the right whale population.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

What you seem to be saying, though, because it seems like I'm hearing from both witnesses that we are doing enough here to protect the right whales, is that the issue seems to be making sure that the message is heard in Washington. What would your advice be if either the Prime Minister or the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans were here today for you to ask, “We would like you to do X, Y and Z with the United States, because we're doing the right thing”?

[Colin Sproul]

I think first I would pose a question: Why is the Government of Canada working collaboratively with groups in the U.S. to fund what we feel are misinformation campaigns that entirely level the blame on entanglements and on Canadian fishermen?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

How exactly are they doing that?

[Colin Sproul]

They do it through documentaries that we don't feel are very accurate. They seem to be proud to put the DFO byline in the funding announcements with groups like IFAW, the Pew trust and Oceans North here in Canada, who fishermen don't feel have the best interests of the fishing industry at heart.

I think what I would tell the Prime Minister or the Minister of Fisheries is this: Why would Canadian regulators and Canadian governments disparage Canadians in another country? Why aren't they singing the praises of the efforts that have been made by groups like the Canadian Wildlife Federation, the Canadian Whale Institute and all the fishermen's groups that have worked collaboratively with them instead of continuing to push what we see sometimes as a radical agenda in Canada and the U.S.?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

We see increasingly radical agendas pushed by this Prime Minister on a number of issues.

Thanks very much. Those are my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We have Mr. Sidhu, please, for five minutes.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for taking the time to join us here today.

Dr. Brown, I understand that a big part of the work that your organization does involves education and stewardship. Could you share more information with our committee about each of these programs, their objectives and why they are so important?

[Dr. Moira Brown]

We focus our stewardship activities with the two industries that have had the biggest impact on the North Atlantic right whale—the shipping industry and the fishing industry. We do that right from almost backyard, dockside chats with fishermen, not only where we live and operate, but also where we go to respond to entangled whales.

We go to trade shows, and we've also expanded recently to recreational boating shows. Part of that is to try to encourage reporting of entangled whales, because the sooner we can get to them and try to disentangle them, the better chance for survival those whales have. We're really focused on the two industries where the accidental harm to right whales occurs—and these are accidents.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

You also mentioned some of the research, which goes hand in hand with education.

Could you share with our committee the latest research initiatives that your organization has conducted, and perhaps the findings?

[Dr. Moira Brown]

Yes. We launch teams into the Gulf of St. Lawrence now and have done so every summer since the whales relocated there. We are not doing research as much in the Bay of Fundy as we used to, and not at all south of Nova Scotia, simply because we're going to where we expect to find the whales. We contribute to the photo identification programs that are maintained through the catalogue of individual whales at the New England Aquarium. All organizations that work on right whales contribute to that catalogue so that we can track the population, track scarring, track health assessments, and track reproduction, births, deaths, and all of the different life history parameters for this species.

We also have an extensive genetics program right here in Canada at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, which is tackling the inbreeding problem. I will say very quickly that right whales have a small gene pool. There are only 360 whales, but they are essentially taking care of business themselves through what's called genetic purging, in that inbred calves do not survive, whereas the calves that do survive have fairly high genetic diversity, and it bodes well for the population. We won't have as many calves, but the calves that we do have will have, let's say, the good genes.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Perfect.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We have Mr. Savard-Tremblay for two and a half minutes, please.