Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries
Issue 2 - Evidence - December 11 meeting
OTTAWA, Thursday, December 11, 1997
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries met this day at 9:15 a.m. to consider the questions of privatization and quota licensing in Canada's fisheries.
Senator Gérald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, before we begin I would just note that there was a news release yesterday regarding Minister Anderson's comments on the FRCC report of two years ago. Perhaps we could take that as a proactive comment on our meeting this morning; in any event, the response from the minister is timely. Occasionally, we question whether this committee is effective or not; for that reason I should like to hope we prompted the minister's comments, but of course I will not suggest that.
The witnesses this morning are from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and will be dealing with the department's response to the FRCC report. Mr. Jacques Robichaud will make the opening statement, and no doubt he will introduce his colleagues.
[Translation]
Mr. Jacques Robichaud, Director General, Resource Management Directorate, Department of Fisheries and Oceans: We will first of all be discussing Atlantic lobster and the FRCC report, as you indicated.
[English]
Mr. Chairman, I should now like to introduce my colleagues. Howard Powles is a senior advisor with the department here in Ottawa; Max Stanfield is the chief of resource utilization in resource management with my branch in Ottawa; Julia Barrow is the officer responsible for the shellfish management plan. I am sure that, together, we will be able to inform you, clarify matters for you, and provide answers to your questions.
In your opening, Mr. Chairman, you commented on yesterday's press release of the Honourable David Anderson, whereby the minister announced a more stringent approach to lobster conservation overall. We have copies of the press release, English and French, that we can make available. If I may, I should like to comment on a few points relating to the release.
The minister indicated that he asked lobster fishermen in Atlantic Canada and Quebec to make a renewed commitment to conserving lobster stock. He indicated that he was aware of a growing concern expressed by scientists and fishers over the state of lobster stock, that it is becoming more and more evident that recruits are subject to high fishing mortality, leaving too few females to reproduce in most areas of Atlantic Canada and Quebec. He also indicated that lobster is the most important species in Atlantic fisheries and is the mainstay of many coastal communities. Thus we cannot afford to run the risk of its collapse.
He indicated that landings in Atlantic Canada and Quebec have continued to decline since 1991-92, which were record highs, but he pointed out that he was pleased with the results in certain lobster fishing areas where lobster fishers have taken steps to improve conservation. I will comment a little more on that later.
The minister indicates, first, that additional, more important conservation measures must be put in place, second, that scientists have put us on the alert that fishing mortality is too high, and that, third, greater reproduction potential must be left in the water. The rest of the release is made up essentially of points to fishers, requiring them to work towards a target of doubling lobster egg production in their area over the next two to three years.
Starting with the 1998 fishing season, before the season opens, the fishers must produce acceptable conservation harvesting plans, referred to as CHPs, outlining the measures they will take to reach their targets. We initiated CHPs successfully some years ago in the groundfish fishery. If fishers cannot agree on appropriate measures, the department will take steps, including imposing measures to ensure the conservation of this very important resource.
The lobster fishery, as you will see in a table that has been circulated to you, has been in existence for nearly 150 years. Canadians in Atlantic Canada and Quebec have been fishing lobster since the mid-1850s. Lobster is the single most important fishery in the region, providing 34 per cent of the total value of landings in 1996, worth $377 million.
There are about 12,000 licensed lobster fishers, and over 30,000 Atlantic Canadians are dependent on lobster for seasonal employment. Lobster landings have grown three-fold since the mid-1970s, when they reached 17,000 metric tonnes. They peaked in 1991 at 49,000 metric tonnes and have since fallen to around 39,000 metric tonnes. The chart you have shows well the information that I have just provided.
Favourable environmental conditions have largely been responsible for this increase. Also noteworthy over this period has been the dramatic increase of fishing effort as lobster fishers have bought bigger and better boats with more sophisticated electronics. The downturn in groundfish has added to this increase, as fishers are relying more heavily on other fisheries, such as lobster. We are talking exploitation ranges that go from about 60 per cent of the biomass to 90 per cent of the biomass, which means there are not many lobsters escaping the traps.
At their current level, landings remain at historic high levels despite all the scientific evidence, which indicates that lobster stock are heavily over-exploited. Landings are still at historic highs. As fish managers, we must live with this bizarre situation of some 20 years of increasing landings when seeing a high exploitation rate. This situation makes the management of lobster both complex and sensitive; complex because there are still considerable uncertainties of our understanding of lobster biology.
At the end of my brief presentation, my colleague, Mr. Powles, will provide you with a summary of the actions that we have been pursuing for some time, either on our own or in cooperation with, or in a co-management approach with, fishers to further our scientific knowledge of the fisheries.
The management is sensitive because of the different ecologies of lobster fishing areas and their different approaches to managing their fisheries. Over the past number of years, concern has been increasing about the long-term stability of the lobster fishery. In 1994 the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans asked the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, FRCC, to look at lobster conservation issues. The FRCC carried out extensive consultations in Atlantic Canadian and Quebec communities and gathered the available scientific and fisheries management information. When the report was released in November 1995 it concluded that although there did not appear to be any cause for panic there was reason for concern about the lobster resource; it concluded that "we are taking too much and leaving too little."
The report recommended taking measures to move towards a more reasonable conservation regime; specifically, it stressed the importance of increasing egg production and reducing fishing effort and exploitation rates. A "tool box" approach was recommended whereby fishers would choose a combination of measures that would best suit their fishery. Various types of tools, which Mr. Powles can expand on, were suggested, and you could pick and choose from those, and collectively they would lead to an increase in the production of eggs.
The FRCC also recommended the creation of new lobster production areas to enable fishers to combine production management on the basis of similar ecologies. Fishing in one area frequently affects the lobster population in a neighbouring area. Nowhere is that more relevant than in the Southern Gulf, where lobster larvae produced in one area, like up the Coast of New Brunswick, for example, can drift into other areas as we move towards the Southern Gulf, thereby enhancing the potential of fishing in those areas. That is why we talk about a larger production area.
Finally, the report emphasized that fishers should continue to play a central role in conservation of the resource. It emphasized that a new conservation regime should allow fishers to buy in and take responsibility for necessary changes. Over the last two years the department has been acting on the report's recommendation. In-depth discussions have been held with the lobster industry in each region to discuss the recommendations of the report and seek consensus on conservation measures. In general, the industry agreed with the report's findings and the need for greater conservation. However, when it came to taking action there was some reluctance to agree on new measures since these would reduce income for fishers in the short term.
Over the last two fishing seasons there have been mixed results in terms of movement towards a better conservation regime. Some areas have made real progress, such as increasing carapace size and developing plans over a few years. Other areas have made some progress but need to go further to see tangible results. A few areas, especially those where landings have not declined, have resisted making changes. As well, some fishers are working in a co-management approach by increasing support for science and enforcement along with the department. The DFO has put additional focus on science, and my colleague, Dr. Powles, will comment on that.
If you were to look at the priority of enforcement, in most areas throughout the Atlantic and Quebec, the enforcement, which has become the number one priority for them, has been in lobster. Minimum carapace is probably the most contentious issue in the lobster fishery, especially in the Southern Gulf. Scientists consider that increasing the minimum size is one of the strongest conservation measures available in the lobster fishery.
An illustration of the difficulty in making progress in conservation is the problem the department had in 1996 of introducing an improved escape mechanism to allow undersized lobsters to escape from traps. That was called a "rectangular escape mechanism", and there was strong opposition in certain quarters to introducing it. It is now two seasons later and it is working very well and fishers are acknowledging that.
Mr. Chairman, with your agreement, Mr. Powles will make a brief presentation on science action regarding lobster research, and then my colleagues and I will be available to answer questions.
Mr. Howard Powles, Advisor, Invertebrates and Pacific Marine Fish, Fisheries Research Branch, Department of Fisheries and Oceans: I will not go into great detail on how we assess lobster stocks or how that differs from our assessments of groundfish; I can answer questions on that if senators are interested, but I would like to mention some of the things that have been done within DFO Science following the FRCC report.
The report had several major implications for Science. The main one had to do with the shift from what one might call a traditional management system, where measures are kept constant for years at a time, into what the FRCC recommended, which was more of an objectives-based system. That shift would require Science to develop more quantitative approaches to resource assessment and to provide advice to fishers and fishery managers on the impact of specific conservation measures. In particular, Science would be required under this new approach to advise on the relative contributions of the various tools that Mr. Robichaud mentioned, such as carapace size, reduced fishing efforts and so on, and moving towards egg production targets; Science might also be required to advise on the actual extent of the lobster production areas that were proposed by the FRCC. The FRCC report also identified several areas where more information was needed and they provided specific recommendations for future Science programs, which we looked at.
What have we done since then? In April 1996, scientists from all our Atlantic regions began a research project aimed at improving the biological basis for conservation of the lobster resource. Of the various projects within DFO Science, that one was identified as a high priority and was funded from funds reallocated from other areas. The new funding from DFO for the lobster project was $300,000 in fiscal 1996-97 and $275,000 in 1997-98. In addition to that seed money, the project has been supported by a base fund from the department; it has also been done in good partnership with a fishing organization, DMFU, with one provincial government and with another federal department. All of those groups have brought contributions to the project. The total resources committed to the project over the last couple of years have been about $1 million in each of the last two fiscal years.
The project is called Canadian Lobster Atlantic-Wide Studies, or CLAWS, and it has four main parts. I will not go into all the details, but I can tell you that one part is on better assessing stock status and looking at conservation objectives such as the egg-per-recruit objective that the FRCC proposed. Another part is on catchability, to see whether we are missing parts of the lobster populations by sampling them with traps. The fishermen sometimes tell us that there are lots of lobsters out there that we never see in traps, and, if that is true, that is one source of uncertainty in our stock models. So we are looking at that question.
We are looking at what determines the abundance of pre-recruit lobsters, the young ones, before they get into the fishery, and we are looking at drift of larvae. As you know, the larvae are planktonic and can move from place to place, and we are trying to get better information on how winds and currents might affect their movements.
That is what we are doing; it has only been going on now for two field seasons, and we are into our second analytical season. We will be looking at the results comprehensively next spring, but we have some interesting results and I think this is really helping to improve the basis of our understanding and to reduce the uncertainties in our assessment of lobster stocks.
As to other things we have done, we have begun providing more quantitative advice on lobster stocks. We never made routine stock assessments on lobster, because the management system did not change from year to year; we simply did our studies and tried to advise people on what we thought was right or wrong, but we did not do routine assessments. Since the FRCC report, we have begun doing stock assessments routinely on lobster stocks.
I have here copies of some of the stock status reports, if you are interested. I did not bring enough for everyone, but there are some copies here. We now do stock status reports for most of our exploited stocks in Canada; these reports on lobster are new in the last couple of years.
We are, routinely, estimating the exploitation rates for many of the stocks, and we will be using the egg-per-recruit model in future to help fishermen and managers understand how egg production is being improved by the new conservation measures.
Finally, DFO scientists have always provided advisory services to industry and managers and in fact have worked in quite close collaboration with fishermen, but that has been enhanced and increased since the FRCC report was tabled. We have been providing advice more frequently, meeting with fishermen more frequently and giving more detailed advice on egg production and management measures.
Those are the three principal things that Science has done since the report. I would be happy to answer any questions.
Senator Stewart: Do you have with you a map or a chart showing the various areas or districts in the Gulf?
Mr. Robichaud: Yes, we do.
Senator Stewart: Thank you. I wanted to ask you a question that has puzzled me over many years. I used to be the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Antigonish-Guysborough. Antigonish is in the Southern Gulf, whereas Guysborough is over on the Atlantic side. When I first started visiting along the Atlantic Coast in Guysborough County there were a fair number of lobster fishermen. I will take Queensport in Guysborough County as an example. There would be 16, 18, 20 boats in that little harbour. Now I think there are only one or two. I asked locally what had happened. Part of the local wisdom is that the industry in that area has been devastated as a long-term result of the Canso Causeway.
You talked earlier about the drift of larvae. The story that I heard 25 years ago was that the larvae were produced in the relatively warm water in the summer in the Gulf and then carried through the Strait of Canso into the colder water of the Atlantic, where of course the lobsters grew up at a fairly slow rate; there was a good lobster stock there, but the construction of the Canso Causeway disrupted the natural pattern.
To me, that is an attractive hypothesis, and my question to you is whether you find that hypothesis at least credible, or do you have an alternative hypothesis?
Mr. Powles: Yes, it is a question that has been raised many times by the fishermen in that area, and in fact some scientific work was done on it and a workshop was held. That work, which took place some years ago, maybe in the 1970s or 1980s, was on the possible effects of the Canso Causeway on fisheries, lobster among them. As I recall, the conclusion was that there was probably some larval seeding going on from the Southern Gulf into that eastern shore area, but it would not be enough to explain the ups and downs of the lobster stocks on the Atlantic shore by itself; there are other factors operating there. I do not know over what time scale the decrease in the number of boats has been, but in the 1970s there was a big program to limit the take-effort, and there have been stock increases and declines due to local factors there as well. There probably was some effect but not enough to explain the fluctuations.
Senator Stewart: You are not telling us what the other factors that had a greater impact were.
Mr. Powles: When you say the number of boats has decreased, that would be over what period of time?
Senator Stewart: Let us say a quarter of a century.
Mr. Powles: About 25 years or so. In the mid-1970s, if I recall rightly, there was a big program to remove licences from the fishery -- an effort-reduction program; that could have accounted for some of the decrease in the effort. As we mentioned in the presentation, the total landings have increased tremendously from about the mid-1970s until the early 1990s in all areas, including that area, and they have since then declined.
In the eastern shore area of Nova Scotia the decline has been much steeper, the increase was much steeper and the decline has been much steeper than in other areas. That area seems to be maybe not as good a habitat as the Southern Gulf; so there has been a much steeper fluctuation.
Mr. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, to support what Mr. Powles is saying, our yearly data for the specific lobster areas, Area 31 and Area 32, show, for example, that in the ten years from 1965 to 1975 the mean average was around 225 metric tonnes; between 1976 and 1985 the average was about 90 tonnes, then the amount increased dramatically in 1991, going to 400 tonnes as a matter of fact. That somewhat supports what was said.
Senator Stewart: I want to ask a question concerning the relationship between the lobster population and the population of groundfish in the areas, but before I do that I have a question on your chart which shows historic landings of Canadian lobster from 1983 to 1995, but does not do so by area. Is there a significant variation in the historic landings between areas? Let us stay in the Southern Gulf. Let us take, for example, 26a and compare that with 25 and 23, going farther north. Is there a consistency or is there a differentiation? You can see my next question: If there is a differentiation, how do you explain it?
Mr. Robichaud: Let us take Area 25 as an example and look at the data from a breakdown of the charts for the 30-year period from 1965 through 1996; in 1965 it was around 2,000 metric tonnes for Area 25; ten years later, it was 2,235; another ten years later, it was 6,200, and, finally, in 1996 it was 4,150.
Now, we see not as much of a decline there as with the previous areas, 31 and 32, where smaller amounts are involved; but here we see a gradual increase and a decline.
Senator Stewart: What about 26a?
Mr. Robichaud: For 26a, in 1965 the amount was 2,400 tonnes; ten years later, 1975, it was 2,100; another ten years later, 1985, it was 3,900, and in 1996 it was 3,700.
Senator Stewart: There was an increase there, consistent with the general pattern.
What about the relationship between the lobster population and the population of groundfish? You know the question I am asking. There is wharf wisdom that the depletion of the groundfish stock has had a favourable impact upon the lobster population, because the groundfish eat the larvae and the tiny lobsters and so on. Some fishermen have even been known to say, jokingly of course, "Send us more seals so that they will eat the groundfish and then the groundfish will not eat the lobsters." Is there any validity in that analysis?
Mr. Powles: That is an hypothesis that we often hear from fishermen. The answer, essentially, is that we do not think that the evidence points to a link. There are two main reasons: one is that the groundfish tend to be further offshore than the lobsters, which, as you know, are more of a coastal animal in most areas; so their habitats really do not overlap.
Senator Stewart: When you say "offshore", how many nautical miles are you talking about?
Mr. Powles: Cod, which are the main groundfish, tend to be in 100-metre-deep water and more; the other groundfish are there as well, but the lobsters tend to stay inside 50 or 60 metres. They are coastal in nature. That is one reason; the other is that the timing is just not right, because, as you recall, the lobster population started to increase in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, when the groundfish were quite abundant, and then the groundfish actually began to decline in the late 1980s, early 1990s, when lobster population was still going up. So the timing just is not right.
Senator Stewart: What about food supply? Obviously lobsters are hungry. They are prepared to make the effort to get into traps to get bait. Is there a variation in the food supply, the things that they eat aside from bait?
Mr. Powles: That is their main source of food. The Americans say they are doing aquaculture, because they have so many traps out there they are just feeding the lobsters. Lobsters' main food, their preferred food, is rock crab and then mussels. As far as we know there would not have been a variation in food supply, but we just have not studied it so we could not really say. Studying the food supplies is something that is difficult to do in the long term and on a large scale.
I meant to say, on the groundfish issue, that one of the components of our CLAWS project is to look at predation on small lobsters by coastal fish, the very coastal fish that we find, sculpin and so on. We hope to come up with something more on that.
Senator Stewart: I know fishermen who fish in St. Georges Bay, just above the Canso Causeway, and I also know fishermen who fish north or west of the point of Cape George, places like Arisaig, Lismore and so on, and they tell me that the fishery north of Cape George is a more consistent fishery, a better fishery than the Bay. One of the explanations given is that as a result of the Canso Causeway there is not as much tidal motion in the Bay as there once was; the water is more stagnant in the Bay, whereas immediately you go northwest of the point of Cape George you do get a much stronger tidal current and therefore more vibrant water. The landings bear out that there is a difference. What is speculative is what is the explanation of the difference in the landing. If this is not the explanation do you have a better one?
Mr. Powles: I do not know that area well and I could not say what the differences are. There are biologists there who might have more information on that.
Senator Stewart: It is factual that there is a difference, but what the explanation is is the question. It is an interesting one, because it may be that it is something over which we have no control; on the other hand it may be something that is happening in the Bay area which could be changed.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: I am very encouraged to hear you say that you will again be trying to implement conservation measures to increase egg production. I feel that if no action is taken, the situation could become serious.
According to the chart you showed us, should lobster continue to decline as it did in 1994, in my area in a large part of the province as well as in Prince Edward Island, we could have a disaster not unlike the one experienced by the groundfish fishers. We would no longer be able to operate with these landings. Boats are bigger, gear is better, and this costs more money.
You said that you want to take steps to increase egg production. You also said that one of the most effective ways to achieve this would be to increase lobster carapace size. I won't make myself any friends in certain places by saying this, but this has already been done. The fishers from my region have been asking for an increase in minimum carapace for a long time, and that is a fact. You will recall that, a few years ago, we had agreed that lobster in the Northumberland straight, region 23, should be allowed to reach a size from 2 1/2" to 2 3/4". We finally settled on 2 5/8", although on one side of Prince Edward Island side, they are still catching lobster that are 2 1/2".
This issue is a hot topic every winter, just like the escape mechanism, which the minister was so adamant about last year. It wasn't easy. Fishers everywhere had accepted this reasonable method which enabled them to control their landings and leave the small lobsters on the ground, rather than hoist them to the surface and then throw them back overboard.
Do you plan to increase minimum carapace size in this zone? The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council Report recommended that the same fishing effort standards be applied to all lobster production areas. This year, will there be an increase in minimum carapace size to at least encourage people to get close to the current measurement of 2 5/8"?
Mr. Robichaud: First of all, the press release talks about the importance and urgency of developing harvesting conservation plans. These harvesting conservation plans must be reviewed and approved before fishing can begin. They must include various measures designed to double egg production over a certain period of time.
Increasing minimum carapace size is one of the tools presented by the FRCC which will contribute significantly to greater egg production. Moreover, I am pleased to mention the effort made in this area in sectors 19 to 22 around the Gaspé. In 1997, these sectors, as well as the Gaspé and Magdalen Islands, increased minimal carapace size to 3 1/16" and 3 1/32".
In addition, along one of the coasts of the Northumberland straight, minimum carapace size was increased, varying from 2 3/4" to 3 5/8". Sizes vary between 3 3/16" to 2 1/2". You have a full range of sizes. It is not up to us to define the appropriate size. Each sector, basing itself on various ecological and geographic reasons, must decide what the size is and work to achieve it.
For instance, let's consider the situation where a sector has been hit by a significant decrease. When fishers from the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands began this exercise, last year, they invited scientific representatives from the department as well as managers to help them develop a plan. Various groups worked together to do this task.
Further to an 18 per cent decline in 1996-97, there was a very steep decrease. Fishers, who are aware of this fact, decided to take various steps: no fishing on Sunday, V-notching, et cetera. In the South Gulf sector, we have seen a general decrease of from one to five per cent every year since 1992. Certain sectors east of New Brunswick have been stable in 1996 and 1997. Prince Edward Island has experienced an increase of from five to ten per cent whereas the Nova Scotia Gulf has remained stable. Obviously, these fishers do not always have all the facts when it is time to develop a conservation plan. They don't realize the impact of this decrease.
It should also be noted that prices have risen because of a decline throughout the Atlantic and in most sectors. Regardless of whether these people are aware of the decline, they have to develop a harvesting strategy before the fishing season opens. This plan has to be reviewed and approved. Today, I cannot tell you whether or not we will be increasing minimum carapace size in a given region. I can't do this because this work must be done in a spirit of co-management with partners who, in this case, are the fishers. They have to present a fishing harvest plan for each of the zones which will be reviewed. As a committee, we pointed out that if the required conservation measures were not adopted, they would become mandatory. Today I would hope, and I am sure that my colleagues and the minister support me, that this will not be necessary. If you still have abundant stock, why wait until there is a decline before taking measures? If you see that things are declining around you, I would hope that you get the message and see this as an opportunity to take action to promote increased egg production in each of the zone's seabeds. This is what the minister is hoping for, but he did not hesitate to indicate, at the end, that otherwise measures would be taken.
Senator Robichaud: The people at Fisheries and Oceans have made every effort to implement conservation programs. Often in continuing times of plenty, we don't realize that, a few years down the line, we could find ourselves in a bad situation.
In my region, in the Straight, we have gone from using small lobster cases 30 inches long, 16 or 18 inches wide and 16 inches wide to cages that are 40 inches by 48 inches by 24 inches. This has doubled catchability. We are now doubling the big traps, which are now 4 by 4 by 2. The small trap probably increases catchability by a factor of ten. What is more serious is the fact that these big cages now have 7 1/2-inch hoops that make it possible to catch the big lobsters. This has a particular impact on egg production, because egg-bearing females enter the cages, get caught and stop producing. Plant workers have told us that these lobsters should remain on the ocean floor.
First of all, they are difficult to sell because they are too big. The plant workers have to cook them, cut them up and can them. They are worth considerably less than "market" lobster. A fisher who was formally president of an association came to see me and said, "You have to do something. It just doesn't make any damn sense". I replied, "We are quite prepared to do so". He told me, "We are going to ruin the fishery with that. My neighbour is making big traps and if I don't do the same, he is going to take what I could have caught. So I am making big traps as well."
However, he did agree that people would eventually have to deal with the problem. I realize that the role of Fisheries and Oceans is not an easy one. Fishers do not always agree with each other. I would encourage you, using every means available to you, to settle this issue because, right now, in my region, we do not have many of these big traps. If we could limit the size of the traps more, we could possibly prevent this increase in fishing effort.
Mr. Robichaud: In my introductory remarks, I talked about the harvesting plans that have to be submitted. These plans are based to some extent on the style used in the harvesting plans for groundfish. No doubt you know that the groundfish harvesting plans call upon us to, among other things, monitor the fishing effort. This is an excellent discussion point because you can be working on ways to increase egg production and, at the same time, you may have an increased fishing effort that is not being monitored. It will be interesting to see how all of this is dealt with in the conservation plan. We don't have any model as of yet, this is all quite new.
[English]
Senator Perrault: Mr. Chairman, I stand in awe of the lobster expertise around this table. I come from a province where we have made several abortive attempts to establish a lobster industry. It is our favourite food, but we cannot catch it. One of the attempts involved seeding a certain area with lobsters, but someone neglected to undo the legs. That actually happened. I think the chairman is aware of that. It is a bit of a reflection on West Coast expertise and the fact that we think we can grow anything there.
On the scientific side of this matter, a few years ago several members of this committee met with scientists from the Woods Hole Institute in Massachusetts, who, sounding an alarm, said that there had been a significant decrease in the food species in the oceans of the world, not only in the North Atlantic but throughout. They said that one of the causes was overfishing, but that other factors were also operative, such as the effect on plankton of emissions from outer space.
Is there a way to increase the size and quality of lobsters through genetic manipulation or by using the new techniques that seem to be working extremely well in the cattle industry?
We took a group of Czechoslovakians to see the cattle experiments in the Province of Alberta. It was absolutely amazing to see the use of host cows for the cloning of high-productivity cattle; using the new techniques they have vastly increased the potential of cattle to produce more milk and beef.
What are we doing in the lobster industry, if anything, to try to increase the size, quality, and the earlier maturing of lobster species that could be put on the markets? I would appreciate any information you have on that.
Mr. Powles: The short answer is that we are not doing that kind of work on lobsters yet, although there have been some attempts to do aquaculture of lobster, because of the high value of the species. Technically, we could do it; it could be done in the laboratory; but the economics of it are not competitive with the fishery. Although the fishery is of course under stress, it is still much cheaper to produce from a fishery than from a culture, so until the economics change I would not expect we would be doing a lot of aquaculture, and until that happens I suppose we may not get into the genetics of it.
Some work has been done in England, and I know people in the Magdalen Islands and other areas of Eastern Canada who are interested in rearing larvae in labs and then seeding them onto areas that have been heavily fished. That is technically feasible; in England they are able to do that, and they are starting to pick up animals that have been raised in the lab and seeded. Again, it might not be cost-effective in our areas but that is a technology that is there and could be further developed.
Senator Perrault: Why do lobsters not grow on the West Coast when they do so well on the East Coast? Is it a world conspiracy against British Columbia?
Mr. Powles: It is just that that is the way the world was made; moreover, we are more and more concerned now with introducing foreign species into new areas, so it is probably just as well it did not take.
Senator Perrault: It is one of the favourite foods of the West Coast; lobsters are flown in and the restaurants advertise them as "genuine East Coast lobster".
Senator Petten: Mr. Robichaud, you stated that because of the downturn in the groundfish industry more people have gone into the lobster industry. I am not too concerned with the actual figures, but how has the lobster catch increased with the downturn in the cod fishery?
Mr. Robichaud: Essentially, inshore fishermen hold more than a single licence, and that is a good thing, because, if it is down in one sector, they can sustain the livelihood of their team by working their boat over on the next fishery. Some fishermen in Newfoundland, for example, fish for capelin, and they fish for long fish early in the spring, and also do some seal harvesting, especially in the last few years, as well as fishing for cod; but because of the timing maybe they would focus more on those than they would if there was no cod fishery. Since there is no cod, they go lobster fishing.
In other words, their licence is always there; there is no such provision as "Use it or lose it." There are many people who suggest that approach, but it is not necessarily a good approach because then you force people to use it; however, if you have a downturn in groundfish, obviously people will go towards lobster.
I have data from Newfoundland for 1996-97 showing that there has been a decline in landings of about eight per cent in the lobster fishery in Newfoundland, and it has declined since 1991 by 29 per cent from a high then of about 3,075. We know that everybody was pretty well high at that time, and it was also at about that time that cod got in difficulty. At any rate, there has been about a 30 per cent decline in Newfoundland since 1991.
Of course, in the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands there has also been a 30 per cent decline since 1992. As a matter of fact, there is a dependency on cod in the Gaspé more than there is in the Magdalen Islands, but it is not as heavy a dependency as it is in Newfoundland. In any event, we still see a 30 per cent decline.
Is the decline caused by increased effort or by the environment? I cannot tell. Obviously, there has been an increase in participation, based simply on the number of licences and the value of the harvest, but to say that the decline is due more to effort on this one than to environment, I cannot say.
Senator Robertson: I have a comment to make following up Senator Robichaud's comments, and then I want to ask a general question before I get into the details.
May I say that, if we collected all of the information, all of the reports and all of the warnings that we had when the cod stock was declining and applied them to the lobster situation, it would be almost like finding ourselves in the same nightmare starting over again. Allowing the lobster fishers to double their trap sizes is wrong; you might just as well double the number of lobster licences. It amounts to about the same thing. I get a little concerned about that. I do not think that is good conservation. It should not be allowed.
If I may turn to a more general question, and putting the lobster fishery in proper perspective, you gave us a chart on the lobster catches from 1893 to 1995. If you were going to do the same thing for the northeast lobster catch in the States, how would it look?
Mr. Powles: Generally similar. I do not think the increase was perhaps quite as remarkable as here, but generally the increase in abundance occurred throughout the whole range of lobster in the Northwest Atlantic.
Senator Robertson: Does it decrease starting there as well?
Mr. Powles: I think so, but I am not sure. They are certainly very concerned about their stock status in the States.
Senator Robertson: They should be. They do not have much control. They have less control than we have, and we do not have very much.
Let me refer the witnesses to the report of the Conservation Council. There are a couple of things in it that almost jump off the page. On page 47, the report states:
We are taking too much and leaving too little.
Where have we heard that before? Quite some time ago, we heard that the groundfish fleets were cooperating and would help to conserve the stocks. Well, we know where we are with that.
We need a healthy fishery. According to the report, one of the key elements in achieving a healthy fishery is to have good egg production. However, if we continue pulling in female lobsters, how long will good egg production last? This is what the report says, again on page 47:
Considering the available data, the current fishery is designed towards high exploitation rates (estimated to be as high as 85 per cent in many areas), harvests primarily immature animals, and results in very low levels of egg production (estimated to be as low as one per cent to two per cent of what might be expected in an unfished population).
It goes on to say:
In these circumstances, although lobster stocks have traditionally been quite resilient, the risk of recruitment failure is unacceptably high.
I really think we must do something about it before it is too late. I wish we could get the cooperation of all the fishers, but do you really think we can? How many of the fishers are using these double-sized traps, for instance? How many are using the rectangular escape mechanism?
Mr. Robichaud: First, as to how many are using the double-sized trap, I do not have a precise number. I know that in the Magdalen Islands, for instance, they have taken measures to ensure that there is effort control, and the majority have tended to stop that practice. One must remember that a limit on the size one can achieve has been in the regulations for some time. The traps traditionally were built rather smaller than now, but people are trying to build within the size limit.
Senator Robertson: You can control the size of the trap by changing all the regulations. All the regulations and all the legislation can be changed without consultation.
Mr. Robichaud: Indeed. As I mentioned earlier, the report was clear in indicating that you must work in cooperation with the involved stakeholder. I would like to focus on that for a moment.
As I mentioned, there have been many workshops in the Southern Gulf. Last year action was taken in various areas there. Although we are still in the very high range, way above the mean average, I believe the fishers have come to realize that there are steps they can take. For example, in Newfoundland new measures were agreed to in 1996-97, including the v-notching of the female. That means, Mr. Chairman, that, if you recognize a female because of the egg, you put a notch in the top of her carapace and put her back in the water. If you see that lobster again, you will know from the notch that it is a female, even if it does not bear the egg, and you can then put it back in the water.
Another measure is to reduce the fishing season in most LFAs. The season is reduced on average by about one week of fishing. There are now bans on Sunday fishing in some LFAs. They have reduced the trap limit from 300 to 200 in Notre Dame Bay, for example. The maximum carapace size has been increased to 27 millimetres in several LFAs, and they have got involved in additional enforcement presence and so on.
In Quebec, for example, they have established an eight-year program for gradually increasing the carapace size; they have introduced v-notching, no fishing on Sunday, various carapace size increases from Gaspé to the Magdalen Islands, and, as I mentioned, a trap size limit in the Magdalen Islands.
I have talked about progress in the Strait. There has also been progress in Cape Breton, but only narrowly. They had targeted 55 per cent as the vote required within the fishers, after an exercise of giving out information and so on, to move on the carapace size; they only got 53 per cent. I am sure they will work at this again.
There is a set of measures that people have been involved in over the years, which I believe was agreed to with good cooperation and a good exchange of information. As I said in the presentation, generally speaking, people agreed to the elements that were read from the report as well as to others. It comes back to what I was saying: If your area is doing well and you still have good landings; if there is no decrease, but a gradual and continued increase; and if you account for a large percentage of the value of the whole general area, the price keeps going up.
In discussion, I would say, one is not so apt to focus immediately on the measures that could be taken, but I believe the signal that has been sent by the minister will enhance progress in other areas as well, and maybe in a year from now, if I am asked, I will be able to list another series of accomplishments in those other areas.
Senator Robertson: Let me come back to these conservation efforts that you have identified. Is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans policing the policies? In other words, once these decisions have been made in a voluntary manner, in a cooperative manner, regarding carapace size, notching, and trap size -- I would hope trap size, because otherwise it is self-defeating -- then who polices the policy?
Mr. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, in the presentation I touched a little bit on the enforcement aspect, but not very much. Perhaps I could provide some examples of where lobster fits in, in terms of its priority in enforcement, conservation and protection.
Senator Robertson: I understand that it is very important, yes.
Mr. Robichaud: In each of the areas and sub-areas, priorities are set for the various fisheries in respect of where enforcement hours should be spent, and where patrol aircraft time should go, and so on. In Western Newfoundland, for example, lobster is ranked as the first priority, with 26 per cent of the time being spent on lobster. In Western Nova Scotia, for example, lobster is first, and accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the time of enforcement. In southwest Nova Scotia it is even more, 48 per cent. Needless to say, it is first. In P.E.I. lobster is 33 per cent and is first again; and it goes on like that. One area where it is less is Eastern New Brunswick; there lobster is second, while salmon is first.
Senator Robichaud: When you say it is second, that is not the priority of the fishermen though, is it? Where you put more effort in protecting the salmon, the lobster fishermen would rather see you on the shores than inland chasing the poachers on the lakes.
Mr. Robichaud: When the priority is established, you develop an integrated management plan. We have gone to a new approach now, with a development management plan that includes every possible component -- whether it is science, allocation, management, habitat, or conservation. As we go along, we consult with the stakeholders on finalizing the management plan and we lay that on the table. I can understand all stakeholders wanting their fishery to be first, but at the end we must balance that. I am sure you are aware of what goes on in the salmon fishery. We have for many years tried to reduce commercial fishing on the East Coast and we were expecting great returns, but it is not as good as we expected. So there is great concern in the salmon fishery there, and the effort must be put there because the stock is not as good as it used to be, even with all the investment that has been made in salmon.
Understanding the Miramichi and some of these great salmon areas -- that is where the balance of our effort must go, and, as I mentioned, the decline is a bit smaller. We understand where the priority of each fisher group comes, but at the end we must somehow balance the amount of resources.
Senator Robertson: When you have a cooperative agreement with a group of lobster fishers, does the agreement have the strength of regulation? They have agreed to an increase in carapace size, they have agreed to notching, they may even have agreed to a reduced trap size; at least, those are the things we hear on the East Coast, where we live all the time; that is what the fishers, who are truly interested in conservation, are talking about. When you have such agreements, is there a penalty for violation? If so, what is it?
In other words, do you convert to regulation the things that you have placed into your local agreement so that you can properly administer them, including fines for violators, and so on, or what happens?
Mr. Robichaud: It varies. Over the years in most areas lobster has been our first priority, but of course the best enforcement is self-enforcement. That is why we have been taking an integrated approach to management, using the views of the stakeholders and of the department to develop a solid management plan. I believe that makes the stakeholders feel more comfortable, and that makes it easier for them to abide by the decisions, which have made by the large majority. While some aspects of enforcement are voluntary, others are put on as a condition of the licence. Because changing the regulations is a long process, we do a lot of things by means of the condition of licence.
Incidentally, the proposed changes to the Fisheries Act will make that even easier, because you will not need to resort to a big book of regulations; you will have other powers that will make things a lot easier. That is what the majority of people want. In any case, whether enforcement is voluntary or is done through other measures, if something is covered within the regulation framework and people do not abide by it, then you proceed with the laying of charges. Charges can be, and have been increasingly, meted out as fines, and the amounts of the fines have been increasing. For instance, poachers are fined for fishing without a licence, but so many of them used to consider fines a part of doing business that the fines have been made a lot steeper.
As to enforcement for those who hold a licence, it is a proven fact that the most efficient method is a sanction against the licence. In adopting that practice, we move from the approach of going to court and laying criminal charges to one where the director general of a region can review cases and, administratively, impose a sanction. As a matter of fact, I know personally, from the responsibility of acting in the Laurentian region and in the western region, that removing a fisherman's right to fish for the first four days of fishing has a big impact, because it is his location, it is his place where he has always gone, and at the very beginning of the season the catch rates are normally good. So there is a big impact.
At the end of the day, if the stakeholders follow the rules, that assists greatly. Unfortunately, they do not always do so, and the Federal Court system has not proved to be as efficient as one might hope in that regard. I realize that some people will say I am preaching for the new Fisheries Act; well, in a way I am, because I was in favour of the bill that died on the Order Paper in that it proposed a sanction system which the licence holder would go through, and the sanction could be a fine -- in other words, money -- or it could be in the form of an impact on their fishing privileges.
Mr. Chairman, those are measures, particularly on three fronts, that can ensure greater compliance.
Senator Robertson: At some point, Mr. Chairman, it would be interesting to learn the number of sanctions issued against licences, how many have been carried out, how many ignored, and what violations against the regulations have been acted on; but that is for another time.
Mr. Robichaud: I am not sure I understand what is meant by "ignored", because there can sometimes be a warning. If an officer finds that a particular situation is on the borderline, or is a matter of due diligence, for instance, he will give the person a warning. On the other hand, for certain offences, the action taken is pretty severe and there will be a loss of privileges assessed by certain judges. However, I could, if you like, Mr. Chairman, provide you with the sanctions and the actions taken over the last few years.
The Chairman: Please do, and I will distribute that information to the committee members; then, if we have any further questions arising from that information, we will put those to you on another occasion.
Senator Butts: Mr. Robichaud, I take it from your report that Eastern Cape Breton is experiencing probably the most severe decline. Furthermore, there is a real problem with finding out the factors involved. Many of the fishers talk about the cold water, but your statistics show that in the 1980s, when the water was also cold, there was not a problem. I believe I read that in your statistics. In fact at one point in your report you say that it is not a matter of environmental factors; that would include, I presume, a few other things besides the temperature of the water.
Whatever the reason, there is a severe decline in Eastern Cape Breton and most of the fishers there tell me that they only survive because of the price increases; but there will come a point when the price will be beyond the ability of the market to pay, and that will be that. It is probably the most severe problem in the area.
I was interested in your response to Senator Robertson's question about sanctions and about the carapace size and so on. It seems strange to me that on the vote on the carapace you had to have a majority of 55 per cent, and in Cape Breton they voted 53 per cent in favour. Why was it not 50 per cent like any normal vote? We might have had a little bit of help there.
As to the matter of surveillance, it seems to me that apart from poaching, using extra traps and fishing out of season, and all those kinds of things, there is a problem with your statistics. I believe that many lobsters are sold at the wharf after they have just come in, and that you do not get to count those. That is the situation at least in my area, if I watch it.
Senator Stewart: I am sure that does not happen in Antigonish County.
Senator Butts: No, we have all the culprits, and I know for sure that if you went out on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, when the boats come in, you would change your statistics a little bit. Is there any way that you can do more surveillance along the Coast? Perhaps you go and buy some lobsters or something?
Mr. Robichaud: I will leave to my colleague the issue of the environment, but I would like to touch on a few points, Mr. Chairman.
First, on the question of the vote's needing to be 55 per cent, we felt that that was the kind of strong support we had to have. When you start working in a close relationship with the stakeholders in a co-management approach, one that can develop in the future into a partnership, you need to have strong support within the group you are working with. That entails a lot of things, including the investment of both time and money, and, as a policy of the department, we felt it should be about two-thirds. In other words, for a vote of that kind you need to be seen to have fairly strong support, and that is why the group arrived at the figure of 55 per cent.
That takes me to the next point, Mr. Chairman, that, once you agree to make the measurements, having voted to do so, there then comes the question of the time of application and enforcement. If the support behind your vote was strong, that is fine, because then you have something that folks have agreed to, and that is why you need more than 50 plus 1 per cent; but if the support was weak, then self-enforcement becomes very difficult and departmental enforcement will involve the laying of charges for infractions, and so on.
If I may put it another way, it is important to take sufficient time at the beginning for discussion, and exchanges with respect to the impact of following or not following certain procedures, that you can then come up with something that has fairly good support, because then the application is a lot smoother. Otherwise you are back into the old ways of ramming things through with a bit of support and then facing a lot of problems in applying them.
The last point I would make is in regard to a particular aspect of enforcement. As part of our management measures now we try to use buy-in, if possible, and the report acknowledges that. We try to do that through our integrated management plan approach. At present, about 45 of the 130 species in Canada are under integrated management, and we try to make sure that people have some input into that; we want them to take part and understand all the components. Moreover, we put right out on the table what we can afford to do in the way of enforcement, because there is only a finite amount of resources and we have a great many demands. Everybody wants to be first, but there is just so much that you can do. As has been said, you cannot put an enforcement team on every kilometre of coast or, every Sunday morning, on every single wharf to check the landings, but I know that when I used to be in charge of managing the fishery in the Quebec region we had various approaches to enforcement. It is not just a case of being there; sometimes you have to use a blitz approach, moving from area to area and varying the times. Certainly, if you have the proper sanction vehicle, that becomes your deterrent.
You could say that there are four steps: Buy-in is the first; the second is self-enforcement -- if you have a strong majority, they will watch over the few; the third is getting the priorities straight, and you need a good definition of "priority" and to set all your cards on the table; and the fourth step is to apply the sanctions, and for those who do not abide you use the full force of action; and I still maintain from experience that the most effective action is the one taken against the licence.
The Chairman: We talked about conservation a few minutes ago and how certain areas may be more willing to accept conservation than others. I am from area 33 in Southwestern Nova Scotia. I am quite sure you would agree with me that it is probably one of the most conservation-minded areas that you have to administer. That has not always been the case, but in the last number of years they have been very supportive of conservation measures.
There are alarm bells ringing right now, and not because of the catches. Essentially, a number of fishermen have been telling us that some people are suggesting that the aboriginal food fishery is being used as a means to catch lobsters by bending the rules. I am informed that there is now a summer fishery there, during the time of season when traditionally fishermen have not fished in that area for lobster, and that the courts have not become sensitive to the need for conservation. In my opinion, the courts are not nearly as receptive as the fishermen of the use of conservation measures, and I think all of that can over time, if it is an allowed to continue, have an impact on the conservation ethic or the commitment of fishermen to conservation.
I want to know if the department has a policy to tackle what seems to be a concern that the fishermen are expressing in that area. Is there a policy towards the aboriginal food fishery?
Mr. Robichaud: As a result of the Sparrow decision the department has taken proactive action to recognize the right of aboriginal groups to a food fishery. In various areas we have tried to establish a process whereby communal licences are given with various components, such as "time", "participant", "number of traps that can be fished", and so on. I believe there has indeed been great progress. As well, the aboriginals have been involved in some monitoring, and we see that not only in the lobster fishery but in other area species such as salmon. Of course, a few groups do not accept the communal licence in certain areas, such as on the Restigouche, for example; and that is true for the commercial side, too, because, apart from food catches, we have also undertaken to give them an economic opportunity to become commercial fishers by giving them commercial licences and trying to bring them into the commercial sector. That applies to other fisheries, too. For example, there has been some temporary allocation in the crab fishery.
The department is actively working with a group to sensitize them. As part of our integrated management plan we have a component called "Aboriginal Fishery", and the department is careful to explain that component, and, if there is one in that particular area, it will present the plan for them and some of the key elements that guide it. Our enforcement and control of these agreements is the same as for any others, but we work hand in hand in the various areas to ensure that the guidelines are abided by. If they are catching food to eat, that could be at different period, but where there has been indication that the food is being caught out of the normal season in order to sell it, then our enforcement officers have taken action, and they have been successful, admittedly with a lot of difficulty, in taking cases to court.
The Chairman: As you know, this is an extremely conservation-minded region of Canada, and yet the results on the charts indicate the catches in the area have not been going down; as a matter of fact they look very good, and they continue to look good because the fishing industry takes conservation extremely seriously.
What worries a number of us, however, is the fact that the department may not be taking the whole aboriginal food fishery for what it is. The Sparrow decision may not be a hole wide enough to drive a truck through, but it is a way to bend the rules. In fact the decision was a response to a very legitimate request, an historical response to an aboriginal need for a food fishery, and I have not heard any of our fishing-industry community people object to that. What they object to is the stretching of the rules, and that is done very ingeniously, believe me. There are various ingenious means by which the Sparrow decision can be used to stretch the opening to a point where it can actually hurt conservation measures, and that could result in our community's not being as conservation-minded as we would like it to be.
I just draw that to your attention. I have raised that point in the past, and I do so again today just to give you a sort of amber light to look into the matter. Without any further comment on it, I will go on to our next questioner.
Senator Stewart: I want to raise quite a different matter. It is reasonably complicated, but I will not touch upon all the aspects of the complexity; I will just go into it in a simplistic way.
Whether or not the department has paid any attention to it, I am interested in the influence of the Income Tax Act on the size of boats and on the sophistication of equipment. I have been told that, if you have had a good year in the lobster fishery, let us say, instead of paying heavy taxes you arrange to get a bigger boat and you buy more equipment and thus you avoid putting money into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. It seems to me that if I were in the position of a fisherman I would do precisely that, and I am told that that is what major corporations do. I was told by a senator, who had great corporation experience, that a corporation with a good accountant did not pay any income tax; it simply repainted its factories and put in more and more equipment.
Have you looked at the impact of the income tax regime on capitalization, which in turn may well mean that the fisher, having gone out and bought all this equipment, does not want it to stand idle and wants to bring in enough fish in order to make his payments? Have you looked at that?
Mr. Robichaud: No, senator, I have not. I am aware that at the end of the season people will, for example, re-fibreglass their boats and buy equipment, and so on, or they will invest in changing to rectangular mechanisms, which is a good thing, but, no, we have not looked into that.
Mr. Chairman, on your last question, I would point out that in regard to our natives on the East Coast and their involvement in the food and commercial fishery, in many of the groups there is great concern and great knowledge about conservation. We have made good strides, for example, in the area of salmon, where gill nets have been replaced by trap nets, and so on, but I am sure that, just as we do with non-native fishermen, we must sometimes take them to court, because there will always be some who will not fully abide by the rules.
I am at present quite involved with the salmon fishery, but when you consider the whole spectrum of the various fisheries it is obvious that there has been a great effort by some of the aboriginal groups and there is, indeed, a "conscientisation de ceux-ci vers la conservation".
Senator Stewart: I am asking for data. I am interested in the areas 24 through 32 in particular. I wonder if we could be given, and perhaps it is already available, information showing the number of licences in these several districts and the number of traps permitted per licence. I was also going to ask what the limits are on the size of traps, but I guess that is an irrelevant question. However,what is the rule with regard to the escape mechanisms and whether or not it is the same in each of the areas? I would appreciate it, if we could be given that information -- not now, but through the clerk at some later point.
Mr. Robichaud: I believe that the trap limit is indicated at page 829 of the FRCC report, but we can provide a special component for that.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: We talked about the aboriginal fisheries. Initially, the fishers found it a bit difficult to accept other fishers. They quickly saw that, in the case of the commercial fishery, transferring commercial licences did not lead to increased fishing effort or harvesting. There is a serious problem when fishing privileges are used for subsistence or ceremonial purposes. The fishers' problem is that, in some instances, there is poaching. Mr. Robichaud, you said that you prosecuted some people. This is very difficult for you to do, because you have to show that lobsters were landed in a cage at a certain spot; they were then taken and sold and, at one point, a transaction took place. It's not easy. This is where the fishers have problems.
In my region, at least this is what I am told, if lobster is used in the community as food, there is no problem. Selling this lobster is not allowed. It's not easy. You need only a few rotten apples to spoil the whole barrel. I realize that this is not easy.
Earlier, you talked about the lobsters' food. You mentioned the little crab, what we call "raw crab". We have been fishing for small crab on an experimental basis for quite some time now. The number of fishers and licences is strictly controlled, and the season is controlled.
Last year, we conducted a quite unique experiment whereby one community was given a quota and several fishers participated in the fishing. It was truly a success. The entire community shared the landings. What concerns me, is that in this area the crab are abundant; however, the lobster stock has collapsed. I am referring to the region around the Cape Tormentine fixed link and Murray Corner. If such experiments are repeated, we will have to pay close attention because they could eventually have an impact on lobster, right?
Mr. Howard Powles, Advisor, Invertebrates and Pacific Marine Fish, Fisheries Research Branch, Department of Fisheries and Oceans: The Rock crab is not a very common species. We cannot make very accurate evaluations. We are trying to improve our ability to make an assessment, to assess them in comparison to lobster. Scientific opinions on crab landings bear in mind the fact that this species constitutes a preferred source of food for lobster. Accordingly, we tried to be very cautious in our assessment of Rock crab because of its importance to lobster.
Senator Robichaud: That's important for lobster and for the small communities. One plant in our part of the world employs more than 125 people for at least 30 weeks, and all it does is process small rock crab. Preserving this food source is just as important for lobster as it is for the communities that depend on it.
Could we be informed of the results of the meetings you will be having with the various fishers' groups when you set the fishing plans for the various zones? If we could make some kind of contribution that would show just how important these plans are, we would be willing to work with you and do our share.
Mr. Robichaud: I think that's a good idea. All forms of support and all efforts to raise awareness are important, and they help develop harvesting and conservation plans. As is the case with any project, raising people's awareness has to start within the community itself; then, discussions can be held with the department. I suppose that we could provide you with the harvesting plans on a regular basis. We will have to look at the process. I could look at that with our liaison officer.
Senator Robichaud: At some point could we receive information about how the in-shore fishers will be able to continue taking part in the very lucrative snow crab fishery?
M. Robichaud: The steps leading to next year's multi-year plan -- a joint management approach we intend to use more frequently with parties concerned -- will be disclosed by the minister around April.
[English]
Senator Petten: Mr. Robichaud, I would like to refer again to the matter of the trap size, and I understand that we will be receiving some information on that. It seems to me that it is of the utmost importance that we lower the size of that trap; otherwise all the other things we are doing will be for nought.
Mr. Robichaud: Understood.
Senator Robertson: I would like to have a few points clarified, if I may. How many lobster licences are there, approximately?
Mr. Robichaud: There are 12,000 licence holders in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.
Senator Robertson: Has that number fluctuated? A few years ago we were told that the number stayed pretty constant.
Mr. Robichaud: Well, no new licences are being issued; there is a process within the licensing policy that says you must go to a core fisherman, or a bona fide fisherman.
Senator Robertson: That has not changed. When the lobster licences are issued, are they issued to a single applicant or are they issued to double applicants or in a family name? How are they issued?
Mr. Robichaud: They are issued to a fisher.
Senator Robertson: A fisher?
Mr. Robichaud: Yes. For less than 65 feet the process is clear: companies do not have access, except in the offshore lobster fishery off Southwest Nova Scotia, where one company holds a few licences, but has a larger boat.
Senator Robertson: Licences are not held in the name of two fishers, though?
Mr. Robichaud: No, it is an individual fisher to my knowledge; it must be because one person is accountable. I do not know if one licence could be held by two; I could not tell you.
Senator Robertson: I just wonder about these larger traps that we have been talking about -- doubles or "largers", or whatever they are called. If somebody is refused a lobster licence, my suspicious mind leads me to think, "Well, if we double the size of the trap, we will have the same thing as two licences." I do not think that that line of reasoning is too far-fetched, judging from some of the things that fishers have discussed with me on our coast. I would like you to check on whether those licences are held singly or not. Have they, perhaps, been selling 50 per cent or transferring 50 per cent of the licence to another fisher, or is the licence in two names?
Mr. Robichaud: I think what you are getting at is the possibility that the licence is held in somebody else's name than the fisher. The department issued a licence to a fisher; that must meet the criteria of core fisherman for transfer. Now, the department does not, and cannot, know if there has been some hidden transaction whereby one person legally owns more than one licence; maybe that happens, but we merely issue one licence to one person, who comes in and pays the amount.
Senator Robertson: I asked this before, but I do not think you gave me an answer; have you tried to control these large traps? Have you ever said, "You cannot do that any more"?
Mr. Robichaud: First, the size of each trap must be within a regulatory limit; they can go up to the limit or they can stay halfway. Second, as I have already indicated, action has been taken to control trap size in the Magdalen Islands. Third, the conservation harvesting plan, or CHP, must address effort, which is one of the components we will be interested in looking at: what measure is advanced per area to control that?
Senator Robertson: Based on the most recent data, how would you characterize the state of the East Coast lobster fishery, our lobster resource? Would you characterize that as being in a state of decline or a state of confusion or a state of concern? How would you characterize it?
Mr. Robichaud: There has been an increase in the effort and in the management of the fishery we feel that there is over-exploitation. Both Science and the FRCC report have so indicated. On the other hand, the landings have kept increasing. Four of our managers have qualified the situation as bizarre. That is the best word I can use. If I may say so, we have remained above the main average over the years.
However, other than a few good areas -- and your Chairman indicated, for instance, that in his area landings are constantly going up, and Prince Edward Island is another example -- for the most part the areas are down since 1992 by about 30 per cent. It is not enough simply to work with fishermen; you continue working with them, but you must express your concern, as the minister has indicated, and establish the fact that each area must present a conservation harvesting plan.
Senator Robertson: I should like to know what your estimate of the present size of the resource is today?
Mr. Powles: It is an easy question to answer because we do not do biomass estimates for lobster; we do not have the techniques to do that; it is rather technical. With fish, however, because you can age them, you can get better estimates of biomass. A very rough estimate of the standing stock of lobster would be the catch divided by the exploitation rate. If the Atlantic catch is 40,000 tonnes, let us say, divided by an average exploitation rate of point seven, which is our estimate, that would give about 55,000 or 60,000 tonnes of biomass.
That is a very imprecise estimate. The important thing is that all our estimates show that we are taking about 60 to 90 per cent of what is out there every year, compared to fish, where you figure 30 per cent is about right. We do not know for sure, but it is something like that.
Senator Stewart: How long does it take a lobster to grow to the point where its carapace is of the size that is acceptable for landing, let us say in the Southern Gulf?
Mr. Powles: It is approximately seven or eight years from the settlement of the larva.
Senator Stewart: When you give us a "point seven", is that of the lobsters that are old enough and, therefore, big enough to be caught that year?
Mr. Powles: Exactly.
Senator Butts: In your answer about the aboriginal people, you mentioned that there could be a common quota or a common kind of licence; what is the DFO policy on that kind of licence? It is a thing we have been working for, and used to have years ago in some communities. I heard yesterday that a community in Newfoundland received a common quota licence for groundfish. I was told that the board of trade and some group in that community were able to get that. I think that that is the best way to have it policed, and I think it would be very beneficial to apply that to the small coastal communities that are not aboriginal. Is there a policy involved here, or is it done ad hoc and by trial and error?
Mr. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear that when I talk about communal licences as per the regulations, that pertains only to an aboriginal fishery. It is a licence that is given to the community for them to decide, within certain guidelines, who are the best qualified to have their names put on the licence.
Mr. Chairman, there are, of course, what are referred to as temporary allocations, and in Newfoundland the only one I can think of would be northern shrimp. An allocation for that was given to a "re-grouping" of people there. This is usually done on a temporary basis, when there is an increase in the resource and the various areas have been satisfied to the extent possible, and then you allocate that resource temporarily to a particular group. But then, as you get below a certain threshold, it may not be there for that community. There are not many of those and there is none that I know in lobster.
Senator Butts: It is just an ad hoc thing then, but we have had them in the past, in the 1970s; I know of co-op enterprises that had them.
Mr. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, I rather think that the co-op would be regrouped because it had vessels. I know, for example, that the co-op in Chéticamp had vessels, and by having vessels they were virtually integrated; thus, if you regroup that under the co-op, X number of vessels with X amount of quota, then you have an allocation. That would be owing to the fact that they have licensed vessels. But those are few and far between.
Senator Perrault: Mr. Chairman, this has been a useful education for me this morning. There is no question at all that this is a very important industry, not only for the Atlantic provinces but for all of Canada, so we had better do what we can to make sure this resource is retained and maintained.
The super trap seems to be a very negative element here. When was it introduced and why was it introduced? There must have been a rationale advanced to build these super structures. What was the rationale, because there seems to be universal agreement that it has been a bad move?
Mr. Robichaud: First of all, it is not used everywhere, and it is rather recent. I will try to describe why it happened. Let us say you had 300 traps and your boat was such a size that you were doing two trips. With the equipment, the boat, the facility, and the lightness of the new traps, people saw the limit of the regulations and then built traps to the limit, because they could carry more traps. Because they are not in wood per se with the slab, they are a lot lighter, and thus can be got at more quickly and more easily. That is what I imagine is the reason, but in any case they are operating within the regulation size.
Senator Perrault: It could be short-term gain for long-term pain if this is carried to its extreme. It is very similar to the situation on the West Coast in this sense: We had the theory that two many fishers were pursuing too few fish and so we had a buy-back program. When you buy back all the licences, what happens? The remaining boats upgraded their technology. I know you are aware of that. They can find a school of fish anywhere at any time, and the whole thing is self-defeating. All it did was aggravate the problem rather than solve it; it seems to be the same situation on the East Coast.
Senator Robertson: It must be stopped.
Senator Perrault: It seems to me that some basic decisions should be made, such as designing a program which addresses "super trap" problem.
Senator Robertson: You commissioned the council to undertake this study for you. Did the findings in their report surprise you, or did they confirm your suspicions of what was going on?
Mr. Robichaud: As I indicated, there was no difficulty in finding consensus. Mr. Powles worked on the team with the FRCC. I remember the first presentation was an assessment of the impact of the various items in the "tool box" on egg production. Some of these tools would be of great value and their adoption would be most interesting.
The Chairman: I was reading a document entitled, "The Southern Rock Lobster" which is deals with South Australia's most valuable commercial fishery. It can be found on the Internet. On the third page it indicates that the fishery is under an ITQ program, and then it states that the number of licences is slowly declining as fishers amalgamate their entitlements. That means that there is a concentration of the licences with fewer people holding them.
Is the department considering an ITQ for lobsters as an option to aid conservation? Is pressure being applied to take this approach?
Mr. Robichaud: When I last appeared before this committee I remember saying that an ITQ, individual transferable quota, is a tool that is voluntary and does not necessarily apply to all fisheries.
For close to 150 years the management regime of lobster has been based on season restrictions, limits on the number of traps and participant limitation. I have never been asked about amalgamation and I have never contemplated that in connection with the lobster fishery. I have though, in fairness, heard it discussed among fishermen, but that is hearsay. There has never been a request to the department to move towards that kind of regime.
The Chairman: Before we conclude our meeting, we cannot let this opportunity slip by without saying adieu to one of our colleagues who is probably attending his last fisheries committee meeting today. I am, of course, referring to Senator Petten who will be retiring in January.
On behalf of the committee I wish to acknowledge the tremendous contribution that Senator Petten has made over the years, not only to this committee, but to the fishing communities of the island of Newfoundland and Labrador.
As a recent member of this committee, only having served on it for seven years now, Senator Petten has been tremendously helpful to me. He has imparted his wisdom from his vast experience in this very complicated industry. I have appreciated the advice he has given me, and I know he has shared his knowledge with others as well.
On behalf of the committee, thank you, Senator Petten. We will miss you.
Senator Petten: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Whether deserved or not, your accolades are appreciated.
The Chairman: Do you have any closing remarks, Mr. Robichaud?
Mr. Robichaud: Mr. Chairman, it was a pleasure to appear before your committee today. If at any time you wish to review the status of the fishery again, we will be pleased to assist you in any way we can.
The committee is adjourned.