Fisheries committee  Just to be clear, it's 60% of the total recreational harvest of halibut. Basically, it's an estimate that DFO does based on a number of sources. As I said, in the commercial sector, there's quite a bit of concern about whether those numbers are accurate. That's because, if they're not accurate, if you have one sector that is overharvesting, it affects everyone who's using that resource.

Fisheries committee  Well, like I say, now we fish to 85% of the allowable harvest. In the past few years, the total harvest for Canada has been between, say, 6.5 million and 7 million pounds, in that range. The commercial fishery is fishing to 85% of that and the recreational fishery is fishing to 15% of that.

Fisheries committee  DFO in 2011 estimated it to be about 60% of the total recreational halibut harvest.

Fisheries committee  I'm sorry, you broke up there, Mr. MacAulay. I couldn't hear you.

Fisheries committee  First of all, I think there are lessons from the commercial fishery and that you would need two components, catch monitoring and catch reporting. There needs to be mandatory catch reporting. It needs to be done in a way that is efficient and not costly for government. For example, with all kinds of technology out there now, information can be entered directly into the computer over the Internet.

Fisheries committee  Just to clarify, when the commercial sector leased the recreation allocation, that was in 2004 and 2005. So that was earlier on. With respect to my comment about how this could be done, there's a mechanism in place right now with the recreational experimental program that allows recreational stakeholders to access and acquire commercial halibut quota via the market.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Yes. There are mechanisms in place. We've done it. We leased recreational allocation in 2004 and 2005. The recreational sector has been leasing quota from the commercial sector since, I believe, 2008 or 2009.

Fisheries committee  On the first one, when I say that recreational fishing, at least on the Pacific coast, cannot be considered in isolation and cannot be considered without looking at the broader context that includes commercial fishing, virtually all of the fisheries resources on Canada's Pacific coast are fully subscribed.

Fisheries committee  The first thing is that there is no licensing of that sector, so DFO really has no understanding of how many charter vessel operations there are or how many fishing lodge operations there are. They have an idea. If you license those operations, for example, and make it a no-fee licence—that way you avoid any complications with the User Fees Act—once you have a licence, you can place licence conditions on them.

Fisheries committee  That one's a little more complicated, but at the same time, right now the only way to get a tidal water recreational licence is through the Internet, through the DFO licensing system, so right there you have one point where you can access everybody. Again, it's similar to what you do in the commercial fishery, and we've heard from the recreational sector that they're willing to pay more in licence fees or in fees to improve the monitoring of their fishery, but they're having trouble getting around the User Fees Act.

Fisheries committee  The program started in 2011. In 2011, 68 licences were issued. In 2012, there were 61. In 2013, there were 103. In 2014, there were 107. There's a significant amount of quota being transferred there. You can compare the numbers. For instance, Alaska started a similar program in 2014, and our numbers are comparable with what you see in Alaska, but in terms of participation in southeast Alaska, for example, there were 92 licences issued, while in central Alaska, there were 19 licences issued.

Fisheries committee  They would have if the allocation had remained the same and had not been changed in 2012, but now commercial fishermen, because they now have a smaller share, are bearing a larger burden of conservation. They're paying a greater cost for conservation.

Fisheries committee  The only information I have there is that in 2011 DFO published a short report on their web page and it said that 60% of the total recreational halibut harvest could be attributed to the fishing lodges and charter vessels sector.

Fisheries committee  I think there are people from the recreational sector who would say that it is their right to go out to fish for halibut, or any species for that matter. I don't think anyone in the commercial fishery would dispute that. Many commercial fishermen fish recreationally. It's just that this resource needs to be managed in a way that makes sense and that is sustainable.