Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 10 - Evidence, November 24, 2005
[Editor’s Note]
CORRECTIONS
At page 10:35 of the printed Issue, eighth paragraph, the text reads:
Unless some balance is brought to these two policies, the same scenario is likely to replay itself until we are all bankrupt and are forced to sell in the reverse auction which is now taking place. This is the bank’s commercial licence to sell future treaties.
The text should read:
Unless some balance is brought to these two policies, the same scenario is likely to replay itself until we are all bankrupt and are forced to sell in the reverse auction now taking place which is banking commercial licences to settle future treaties.
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At page 10:36 of the printed Issue, sixth paragraph, the text reads:
Our fishery is one that takes the fish one at a time and can process them as they come on board.
The text should read:
Ours is an artisanal fishery. We take the fish one at a time and can process them as they come aboard.
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At page 10:37 of the printed Issue, sixth paragraph, the text reads:
The industry is one of the most phenomenal breed industries in Canada.
The text should read:
The industry is one of the most phenomenal green industries in Canada.
The html and pdf versions appearing on this site have been amended to reflect the corrected wording.
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 24, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 10:52 a.m. to examine and report on issues relating to the federal government's new and evolving policy framework for managing Canada's fisheries and oceans.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: I call the meeting to order and welcome senators, witnesses and visitors from CBC who are preparing a documentary on one of our members.
Mr. Rick Nordstrom will lead the opening session. I invite Mr. Nordstrom to introduce his colleagues and then proceed to his comments.
Rick Nordstrom, President, Gulf Trollers Association: Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. With me today are Mr. Jim Nightingale, Treasurer; Mr. John Hughes, Director; and Mr. Mike Griswold, Vice-President. Each of them will give a brief statement after my comments and then we will go to questions.
We are here before the committee today because we have a crisis in the salmon fishery on the West Coast that is a direct result, in our view, of policies put in place by the government — the wild salmon policy — and the way it relates to priority access.
When you have a wild salmon policy that allows you an exploitation rate of only 10 per cent to 12 per cent and priority access for certain people only, the fish that are allowed to be caught under this policy eat up all the available catch. Thus, there are no salmon available for the commercial fishermen to catch. I will explain in more detail.
Cultus Lake is our problem. This year the government decided that we would have a 10 per cent to 12 per cent exploitation rate, so 350 fish came back. They had forecasted lower than that, around 200, which meant that only 24 were allowed to be caught in the fishery. We had over 8 million sockeye come back to the Fraser River and a priority access fishery such that these fish have to be guaranteed, and we do not have a problem with that. We understand Canada's obligations. However, when someone takes those 24 fish before we are allowed to go fishing, obviously we cannot fish. That is what happened this year. The whole commercial fleet ended up catching 127,000 out of a run of 8 million. Obviously, we cannot make a living at that rate. The income for the Gulf Trollers Association was less than $5,000 per vessel.
The other problem we have is that an unlimited sports fishery impacts us dramatically. This is another government policy. This year, the sport industry took 80,000 spring salmon in the north alone. Again, this is a priority access to fish that the commercial fleet used to catch. This catch has been transferred over with no compensation at all.
Three government policies have been put in place that impact the commercial fleet out here, making us unviable. We need some recognition of the problem. We have solutions to recommend. We tried to one through earlier this year when the industry got together. Mr. Griswold will speak to that because he was intimately involved.
In brief, we have three policies that affect us for which there is no compensation, and without compensation our industry will be bankrupt, which we are, basically.
Mike Griswold, Vice-President, Gulf Trollers Association: Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present our situation. I have been involved with the management of the Fraser River sockeye salmon since 1985. I set up a Fraser River panel, and throughout this time of twenty years, I have experienced good times and bad times.
The unfortunate thing now is that we are in a valley of despair in respect of Fraser River sockeye management because the opportunities for the commercial fleet are at an all-time low. Mr. Nordstrom touched on the reasons. We can sit there and moan and say that we have problems, that the sky is falling, or we go about trying to find a way to climb out of this situation.
Other groups involved include the following: members of the Commercial Salmon Advisory Board; the marine Aboriginal community, which is highly dependent on the catch of the Fraser River sockeye for their livelihood; the recreational fishery; and the producers of British Columbia who have supported an initiative that would see us try to ameliorate the problems that have restricted our fishery.
Mr. Nordstrom touched on the fact that we had a 10 per cent to 12 per cent harvest rate of the Cultus Lake stocks, which co-migrate with abundant summer run stocks. Because of the restrictions, only the Aboriginal community was able to fill their needs through their FSC — food, social and ceremonial — entitlement. We hardly got anything. We basically got the crumbs off the table.
Once again, we will submit an initiative that would help to overcome those problems. Briefly, we will look at providing funding for reducing degradation in Cultus Lake. We will look at providing funding for reducing the Eurasian water-milfoil, an invasive species of plant life that is beginning to clog up the lake. We will help to provide funding for a captive “broodstock” program that will accelerate the rate of rebuilding the stocks.
We have it on good authority that Cultus Lake needs something rather aggressive to bring these stocks back to health, or we will not fish. We will continuously be watching fish swim past our boats without gaining access to them if these stocks do not get healthy.
Once again, we will forward this initiative to the government. We hope that they will be a little more responsive than they were last year when we were turned down and lost the opportunity to harvest somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3 million to 4 million fish.
This year, in 2006, the stakes are much greater. This is a big year for us. It happens to be the year of the Adams River run. Although the predictions are not formalized yet, we expect a run of between 12 million to 16 million fish. Under normal circumstances, between Canada and the United States and all users, we could possibly harvest around 8 million fish. The stakes are great, and we are going bankrupt. We believe we have a plan to help us access these fish.
Jim Nightingale, Treasurer, Gulf Trollers Association: I have fished salmon by trolling for about 30 years. For various reasons, we have had another disastrous season in the gulf. The average gulf troller grossed about $4,000, which means he went in the hole.
From a Fraser sockeye run this year in excess of 8 million fish, the combined commercial harvest was about 130,000 pieces. Some problems stem from government policies which have the combined effect of preventing us from fishing. One policy is SARA, the Species at Risk Act, the Wild Salmon Policy, and the other is the priority access given to the Aboriginal food, social and ceremonial fishery, or FSC fishery.
We were allowed a 12 per cent harvest rate on Cultus Lake fish because of SARA and the Wild Salmon Policy, which meant that about 30 fish of this stock were allowed to be killed. The FSC fishery took in excess of 1 million fish and in the process used up the 12 per cent allowable catch.
Unless some balance is brought to these two policies, the same scenario is likely to replay itself until we are all bankrupt and are forced to sell in the reverse auction now taking place which is banking commercial licences to settle future treaties. This year, many of the people will be selling at low prices to this buy-back.
Most of us agree that the FSC fish should have priority after conservation. Perhaps more balance might leave room for a commercial fishery as well. About 30 per cent of commercial fishermen are Aboriginal. In a sense, the out-of- control food, social and ceremonial fishery is redistributing fish from one Aboriginal group to another.
SARA was meant to take into account socio-economic consequences when it was to be applied. I do not think that has occurred.
We have a brief that outlines industry plans to mitigate a higher harvest rate to rebuild the Cultus Lake stock faster than what would occur just using the 12 per cent harvest rate. There will be other SARA listings in the coming years. If there is any hope for the commercial fishery, Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, in the world's greatest salmon river, we need a better balance of interests here.
I have touched on allocation in speaking about the food, social and ceremonial fishery. If we, the commercial salmon fleet, are to survive we need certainty. One element of that means that we need some idea of what our share of the allocation pie will be in the future.
The representatives of the sport fishery who appeared before you went to great length to tell you there was no commercial sports sector, just an all-citizens recreational fishery. I fished for many years on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands. When I began fishing 20 years ago, there were no sport lodges. When I last fished salmon there about 10 years ago, Parry Passage between Langara and North Islands — and perhaps some of you have visited there and taken a charter — looked like a full-blown city at night. Now there are lodges in every inlet on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Those businesses joined a fishery that was already fully subscribed. They now have an allocation of spring salmon about equal to that of the commercial fisheries in that area. If the salmon caught by the sport fishing industry is so much more valuable than that caught by the commercial industry, they can afford to buy licences and retire them, or by quota, as they are required to do by the allocation arrangement arrived at in the halibut fishery.
I mentioned the word “quota.” As a person trying to make a living fishing on the West Coast, the idea of an ITQ system for salmon has great appeal to me. Most prosperous fisheries on this coast are quota fisheries. The salmon fishery is more complicated than others, but I think it can work for us, too, especially in the troll sector.
Ours is an artisanal fishery. We take the fish one at a time and can process them as they come aboard. Consequently, we receive the highest value per pound of the three commercial sectors, the other two being the gill net and seine fisheries.
If we change our focus from the race for the fish to adding value and producing better quality, we can build on this advantage. Mr. Hughes just told me he had learned there was a troll coho fishery up in the Dixon Entrance this year and a container load of fish was sent back because of poor quality. On the first day of coho fishing they got 700 fish, which was too much for them to handle with the proper care required to ensure good quality.
Further, an ITQ system could give managers more flexibility as they would have more assurances that catch targets would not be exceeded, which could lead to fishing opportunities that we might otherwise would have to forego. As in the allocation issue with the sport sector, the quota concept can bring clarity and lead to settling such issues more fairly.
I should add that my remarks on the ITQ system represent my own opinion and not representative of the views of everyone in our organization.
John Hughes, Director, Gulf Trollers Association: Thank you for your time and interest, senators, in listening to our plight.
Commercial fishing is a business, one that I have been in for approximately 20 years as well. It is a business that has had its ups and downs. It has had a lot of good times. Unfortunately, these times are the worst I have ever seen.
The thing that concerns me the most is in looking to the future, it will not improve unless changes are made. To recap what has been said thus far, the key points are these: We need access to healthy stocks that are in abundance; we need security; and we need known shares of the resources assigned to the various user groups. For example, the total allowable catch, or TAC, could be assigned in percentages to the user groups. The sports or commercial sports operation would have a share so that they could carry out their business. The Aboriginals would have a known share so they could carry out their business and do whatever they cared to do with those fish. The commercial sector would have a known share. If you wanted to give the mammals their share, the seals and sea lions, you could do that as well and keep the environmentalists happy. If we all have known shares and want to expand those shares, we could buy out the shares from the other user groups. That is the nature of a business, folks, and that is the business we are in. That is the business you need to protect. It is a valuable resource. The industry is one of the most phenomenal green industries in Canada.
In order to survive, we need both short-term and long-term compensation. The short-term compensation needs to come to us in the form of looking seriously at the EI program and how it can help us survive to next season. I say that because the deck hands and skippers in this business did not make much money this year. Some do not even qualify for EI. We need EI to carry those people through to next season, which we hope will be a good one.
Long-term compensation: We need compensation for the fish that have been transferred to the commercial sport operation, fish that have been transferred to the native land claims and, indeed, fish that have been transferred to the mammals in British Columbia. When I first started fishing, there were very few seals and sea lions; now I can see sea lions 365 days a year from my window.
Those are warm-blooded animals living in the ocean. They have to eat a lot of fish to survive. Those fish have been taken away from us and given to predators. We do not have a problem with that. If that is what Canada wants to do with this resource, that is fine; but we should be compensated because, basically, our living has been taken away from us.
With respect to ITQs, I have two licences — a gulf troll licence and a northern net licence up in the Queen Charlotte Islands. This year, we tried a pilot project up there with ITQs on our chinook fishery and I was very pleased with the results. ITQs allow for small-bite fishing at times, where you can fish a resource that you might have a bit of concern with, so it is good for conservation.
Increased safety in storms: I was able to anchor up. My boat is one of the smallest freezer boats in the fleet. In a storm, I can anchor up without fear that my fellow fisherman who might have a bigger boat is out there fishing in the storm and basically harvesting all the fish.
Improved quality: When you have the initial opening, you get a lot of fish. Under the ITQ process, I stop once I get to the point where I am affecting the quality of my fish. I anchor up and process those fish. I go out the next day and start fishing again. Under a derby fishery, if I do that, I am punished because the other people out there are continuing to fish and maybe not turning out such a great product.
When I do that, I get an increased return for my catch. I get more money in the process because my fish are of higher quality. I can look my customer in the face and know I am selling a top-notch product.
I know that senators are concerned with coastal communities. Up north, I broke down a couple of times, which is a major concern in a derby fishery. When I went into Masset and Queen Charlotte City to get parts and to do repairs, I had never seen so many boats tied up at the dock, spending their money in those two small towns. They were doing that because they knew that they would still be allowed to catch their fish, that the guy still out there fishing was not catching their fish. It helps the small communities, as far as I am concerned.
Also, I had known earnings in the process. I knew how many fish I was going to catch. I could talk to my customers and plan my market and have time to deliver those fish to the market and get back out.
The last thing I want to talk about today is the issue of poaching. Poaching is ongoing on the British Columbia coast. It started in a couple of the in-river fisheries, and because DFO did not jump on it right away and handle it properly, it has spread out into the ocean. Poaching is basically out of control.
DFO said they have increased their patrols and their attention to poaching this year, and they have. However, what they have done is a drop in the bucket with respect to poaching. Unless poaching is addressed — and I am not just speaking of natives here, but all poaching — everything else we do is irrelevant.
When I talked about these shares of the resource, if they are split up into the user groups and every catch is recorded, then we are all on equal ground and this resource can survive into the future.
The Chairman: I wonder if you would mind explaining the issue of the Cultus Lake salmon. Some people are not familiar with it.
Mr. Griswold: Cultus Lake is very close to greater Vancouver. It is the number one recreational lake on the Lower Mainland. I do not know how big it is, but at some time in its life it had populations in the neighbourhood of 200,000 fish. That was before any development along the shores of that lake.
What has happened in the past four years that has generated concern is that the populations have dropped dramatically. Over the last 10 years, populations were in the mid-thousands, 1,000 to 10,000. Salmon basically run on four-year cycles, and in two out of the four years the Cultus Lake salmon populations have been below 500. One of the reasons is there have been migratory problems for lake runs in general. However, the main problem is that when you get down to those low levels, given the predation in the lake and the inter-relationship between the milfoil and predation, absolutely nothing can be done to bring those stocks back to a threshold level of 1,000 fish. That is the arbitrary level set by the Department of Fisheries to say that we are on track to rebuild.
That is what has brought the industry forward with its initiative to provide funding for the rebuilding, because the predation will continuously keep those fish down unless something is done aggressively to augment and enhance those runs.
This year, the return is expected to be 19,000 fish. Next year, not quite 19,000 are expected, but still a very good run — much better than 1,000. Our concern this year is if the number is 19,000, why would the government think about maintaining a 10 per cent to 12 per cent exploitation rate cap on those fish? It seems overly conservative and somewhat repressive to us in the commercial industry because it will restrict our access to a very abundant co-migrating summer run and late run stocks.
Over time, we have found that in order to prosecute a fishery that allows us better access, we need somewhere in the neighbourhood of a minimum of 30 per cent exploitation rate of the Cultus stocks. If we can mitigate the impacts by providing the funding for this aggressive re-enhancement, we will more than overcome those impacts that the commercial harvest will have on those stocks.
As I say, it is not just the commercial harvest that will be affected because there is also a recreational harvest that has been restricted. We are also seeing that there will be more commercial Aboriginal harvests developed through treaty claims that will be affected as well. Everyone will suffer if we do not do something right away.
The Chairman: To ensure that I understand correctly, the big problem with the Cultus Lake stock is that it swims with other salmon, so there has to be a reduction in the total catches in order to accommodate the Cultus Lake stocks. Am I right?
Mr. Griswold: Yes, you are.
Senator Mahovlich: In 1996, the federal Pacific Salmon Revitalization Strategy, known as the Mifflin plan, brought in various major licensing policy reforms to restructure and rationalize the sector. By 1997, some 6,500 jobs had been lost; by 2000, the fleet had been cut by 54 per cent. Several witnesses who appeared before our committee stressed that instead of increasing the economic viability of coastal communities, the plan had an opposite effect — whether intended or not — of further marginalizing them.
I would like to know why harvests have been, on average, 25 per cent of the levels before the Mifflin plan? Was marine productivity lower than expected? What percentage of “Area H” troll licence-holders belong to the GTA? Finally, how many Aboriginal fisheries — that is, commercial licence-holders — are there in the fleet you represent?
Mr. Nordstrom: The Gulf Trollers Association represents 136 paid up members out of the 142 licences in our area. Mr. Griswold has been on the Fraser panel for a while and knows more about productivity. I want to say, however, that we did get a 50 per cent cut in the licences in the buyback and the transfer and we are still not making any money. It should have been, maybe, a little more.
Mr. Griswold: Senator Mahovlich, I think you put your finger on some of our problems in regard to identifying the goals of the Mifflin plan and its net results. We did not get the benefits that were sold to those of us who had subscribed and actually supported the Mifflin plan in its entirety. You can sense our frustration in that regard.
There is no doubt whatsoever that there has been some regime shifts in the productivity in the Pacific. Back in the old days we looked at the Fraser River and gauged our returns by what happened in the fresh water. There has been some kind of change. It is undeniable in my own mind.
There have been some reductions in the returns to the Fraser, but the response by the department has placed a disproportionate burden on the commercial fisheries. In this climate of risk-averse management, I think we have gone overboard. The pendulum has swung too far, the consequence being that we have been overly restricted. We have seen our harvests degraded from, on average, 55 per cent of the total allowable catch down to less than 20 per cent.
We could hold on for a year or two out of 10, but we cannot do it for eight years out of 10. The net consequence is that we will all go bankrupt. The last year pushed a lot of people over the edge.
Senator Mahovlich: We visited a little village and we met with a number of Indian chiefs. Some of these families have been in the fishing business for a thousand years. There were at least 30 elders who in the past 30 years had all fished and, now, out of those 30, none are fishing any more. Do you think that these families will be able to fish in the future?
Mr. Nordstrom: I can only hope that they can fish in the future. If we can fish that would be nice, but I do not think there is any guarantee for that area of the ocean; there is no guarantee of anything. If the fish do come back, the Aboriginals will have priority access. If they come back, there will be fishing in the future.
Mr. Hughes: I am a third generation fisherman and the last that will be fishing in my family because with these onerous policies I do not think it is possible to make a living. Things have to be changed. There is still a viable fishery here if these policies are changed or at least applied differently. Without that I do not think there is a hope for any fisherman, no matter what race they are.
Senator Hubley: Senator Mahovlich has said that the committee did have an opportunity to visit the West Coast. Our trip was certainly interesting, informative and educational.
You have a resource that has been extremely viable and you would like to see that viability sustained. Have you ever considered the priority level of who should and should not have access to that resource?
Mr. Nordstrom: Priority as applied to the FSC fishery is constitutional, which we understand, but there must be some qualification of what exactly it represents. There is an open end on that and you cannot have open-end fisheries on a finite number.
I sat on the Bryan Williams inquiry last year and we heard testimony from people up the river who said, “We are fishing seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and we are selling our catch, and that is just the way it is. What are you going to do about it?” Well, if we do not have any limits on these priorities — or at least tell us what they are — no one can survive. The fish certainly cannot survive.
You talk about priority access for the sport fishermen. We have to realize that we had a fully subscribed fishery, and the reason we were viable was because we could catch them all. Now, when you have a priority access and you allow a newcomer to a fully subscribed fishery without any compensation, it decimates our fleet. This is what is happening with these policies that are coming down. There are no numbers. There is a finite number with an infinite number of fish being caught by a couple of sectors and it is decimating us.
Senator Hubley: Who do you think should be setting those priorities and setting the levels? Who should be establishing the TAC and how should it be divided? Who do you feel has the responsibility?
Mr. Nordstrom: I have been involved in a couple of allocation meetings with the sport fishery, and we are going to allocation meetings with the commercial fleet. We cannot get into meetings with our natives because the discussions are nation to nation. Therefore, it is the responsibility of government to set this. I know in our commercial sport allocation meetings that the sport industry came in with the blue book on allocation policy, threw it on the table, and said, “If we are going to discuss any changes in this policy, we are walking.” No one will give and take. The government must say, “Here it is — 30 per cent for you, 30 per cent for them and 30 per cent for them.” Whatever the numbers, they have to be set, and there is only one place they can be set — at the government level.
Senator Hubley: I sense that that perhaps is the case.
Some witnesses have made sustainability their first priority, which I think is certainly wise with any resource. The second priority was the native fishery for food, ceremonial and social purposes — not the commercial aspect, just the food, ceremonial and social. The third was the sport fishery, both recreational and commercial, and then the fourth was the commercial fishery, which would include this native commercial fishery. Would you like to comment on that list of priorities for the fishery in British Columbia?
Mr. Nordstrom: You have just spelled the recipe for disaster for us. If you do that, what are those numbers? What will the priority be? What is the number for the FSC fishery? I know from sitting on the Williams inquiry that the past chief of the Cheam band says that “social” meant “economic.” If their fishery is for food, social and economic purposes, we are in trouble. You have to set the limit. Will you set the limit at 100 per cent for that priority and then 100 per cent for the sport priority? What are the limits and how will they be applied? If you want us to be viable, you cannot have that kind of a priority access for this fishery. It is too dynamic.
Mr. Nightingale: As to the food, social and ceremonial fishery, we do not object to people having fish to eat. No one objects to that; it should not be otherwise. However, more than a million fish were taken in that fishery this year. Actually, on the Fraser River that is about the only fishing that the Aboriginal peoples have. There was maybe a very small commercial fishery. However, 1 million fish is a rough and probably low estimate. That is approximately five million pounds of fish. Basically, that was not a food, social and ceremonial fishery. The fish were sold.
I come from Ladner, a small community on the south arm of the Fraser River. My non-Aboriginal neighbours have freezers full of fish, bought at a very reasonable price. It was a food fishery for them, but it was a commercial fishery, in other words. I am sure some was used in the proper manner, but for others it was a commercial opportunity.
Senator Merchant: I come from Saskatchewan. We love to eat fish out there, but I do not know as much about the fishing industry as some of my colleagues who actually live on the East Coast or the West Coast. However, Canadians are always concerned about what our policies do to the life of communities. We have the same problems in Saskatchewan that coastal areas have, and my question is around that theme.
Commercial fishing has been the economic and social foundation of hundreds of mostly small and often-isolated communities. In the case of small-scale fisheries, fishing is not only an economic activity but also the base of local societies. With regard to the social dimension, the committee heard that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had never conducted studies on the social or economic impacts of individual quotas, ITQs, or on rural communities. The department had abandoned its previous policy of taking into account the socio-economic impacts of its decisions, and coastal communities were losing their historical connection to the adjacent fishery resources. In your opinion, does DFO take into account the socio-economic impacts of its decisions, and should the federal department take into account this impact?
Mr. Griswold: Senator, I honestly do believe that the department does take it into account, but the issue we are trying to put forward here has much more impact than how we manage the resource. My colleagues may have a different opinion as to how quotas would work in a commercial salmon fishery, but the problem for coastal communities is access. Vancouver is a very large coastal community, not that I live there. I live on a small island on the coast. We have seen our ability to access abundant salmon stocks severely constrained over time, and that is what has impacted my fellow fishermen in my community. I live on Quadra Island. At one time we had a fleet of 15 trollers, 12 gill netters and about 10 seine boats. Those numbers have been reduced to four trollers, about half a dozen gill netters, and I believe two locally owned seine boats.
I will put aside the socio-economic concerns about fishery quotas because there are some benefits. My colleagues spoke about them, too. There are some management difficulties with it, which is my concern. The problem is that we have not been able to access the amount of fish that we were promised under the Mifflin plan because of a hypersensitivity to risk and a derision in the department that has precluded our opportunity to harvest. That is the problem. That is it in a nutshell. We can sustain communities there with more fish. We are just not getting any fish. It is not the management system; it is the access.
Mr. Hughes: I also come from a small community up the coast, Powell River, where only two trollers are left from a fairly large fleet 20 years ago. These coastal communities will not be saved on the backs of the salmon fishery. There are too many other dynamics at play here. People move out of small coastal communities to find work because services are better in the larger communities. Logging has died off, mining has died off and the fishery has died off. If you want to save coastal communities, you have to look at infrastructure, and you have to look at some other forms of employment.
Senator Merchant: Are you optimistic, then, about the future of coastal communities? As I say, we have the same problem with our farm sector. New generations of young people are not staying on the land. They are moving into the larger centres, and they are getting jobs in the cities. We are losing the quality of rural life that people would like to enjoy. People would like to stay and work the land, but they are unable to do so. Are you optimistic? How do you see the future of the small coastal communities?
Mr. Nordstrom: From my point of view, it depends on access and on security. It depends on what we as a commercial fleet are able to put into that community to make it survive. As it stands now, with the policies that our government has put in place regarding the commercial fleet, we cannot put any money into these communities. If we are not making any money, then we cannot support the communities that depend on us. That is the bottom line. They have to go somewhere else. We are talking about policy and access. We need access to abundant resources. That is what we are asking for. We are not asking for the moon. We are saying, “Give us something as simple as a 30 per cent exploitation rate.” If a salmon stock cannot maintain a 30 per cent exploitation rate, then there is something wrong with the system. There is nothing wrong with the commercial fleet. The problem is somewhere else. In the case of Cultus Lake, it is somewhere else. Over 1 million people visit Cultus Lake every summer. It is Vancouver's playground. The river going in there is a canal now. A marina is built on spawning grounds. We are saying that if you give us some access, we will help with the money that flows from the fish we are allowed to catch. Our coastal communities that depend on fishing will never survive if we do not get access.
The Chairman: I have a question on the issue of the Gulf Trollers Association providing funding for Cultus Lake and a number of other initiatives. My concern is that the fish belong to all Canadians. In my view, which is shared by some of my colleagues, it is the responsibility of all Canadians to protect the stocks for current and future users. If we start depending entirely on harvesters to take care of these stocks, Canadian taxpayers will have no part in it and will only be able to hope that the harvesters will take care of the problem. Some of us do not think this is the right approach. We think that it is the responsibility of Canadian taxpayers to invest in the protection of these stocks. If you take it over, DFO will shirk its duty to seek funding from Parliament for one of its primary responsibilities, which is the protection of the stocks for all Canadians. What is your response to that?
Mr. Nordstrom: This was not an initiative of only the Gulf Trollers Association; it was an initiative of all of the gulf coast commercial fleet, including the sport fleet and the native marine fleet. We do not have time to wait for a bureaucratic fiat. These fish must be dealt with now. DFO has many challenges out here due to funding cuts. We have seen that they do not have enough money. We are only trying to help, and it is to the benefit of everyone if we do. We do not have time to wait on this.
Mr. Griswold: Mr. Chairman, you touched on another very sensitive aspect of this issue. We think it is more appropriate that the department undertake this work. However, as Mr. Nordstrom said, we cannot afford to wait. Things must be done immediately and the department has budgeting challenges. It is reprioritizing its budget and pushing some of its core responsibilities into other programs, many of which are social in nature. It is absolutely essential that the department gets more funding.
There are concerns that the industry is doing this in a collaborative way, but we are left with no alternative. We have to do something now or we will go bankrupt. If senators can make recommendations to get more funding for the department, I would be overjoyed. That would be the appropriate response, but we just cannot wait.
The Chairman: We hear what you are saying, and you are absolutely right. It is something we have said in the past. The work of the department should not be budget-driven, which is what is happening. Budgets are driving management, allocation and enforcement issues that are causing your suffering at this time.
Senator Mahovlich: Are you saying that the marinas on Cultus Lake and in the surrounding areas should be removed to make room for the spawning grounds?
Mr. Griswold: The core problem at Cultus Lake has to do with the interrelationship between the milfoil and the predators. It is the case that the marina is right in the spawning grounds. However, the fish are resilient and they will move to other areas to spawn.
What is needed is a more comprehensive plan to deal with this. As I said, the consequences to this industry and for all users are very grave. I do not believe that we have expended sufficient energies or the right energies in studying this problem. We have focused on harvest reduction to solve the problems, and that will not solve them.
Mr. Nordstrom: I was not suggesting that we remove the marina. I was simply saying that one of the core problems
is the urbanization of the streams and lakes and that the only thing that is ever done is to cut back our harvest or
exploitation rate. The government does not look at the other problems that are causing the decline in the runs. I do not
imagine there is any law providing for the removal of the marinas.
As Mr. Griswold said, the fish will move. I am just pointing out that the core problem is not our exploitation.
The Chairman: DFO refers in its documents to co-management. What is your definition of “co-management”?
Mr. Nordstrom: We have been hearing about co-management for years. Our definition is that we pay but we do not get any say. Co-management would be very useful if our input as commercial fishermen were to be taken seriously, but it is not. We have seen that repeatedly. We have put forward many plans to enable us to continue with our fishing, but they seem to get no priority at DFO.
Mr. Nightingale: Mr. Chairman, we see examples of co-management in other fisheries that is starting to work, especially in the halibut fishery. Your committee has pointed out that you are not happy with some of the quota fisheries, but halibut enforcement and research is starting to become the responsibility of the fishermen working with government, and it works well. Fishermen know what enforcement should be. The interests of the fishery and the survival of the stocks are their first priorities, and they probably know what needs to be done better than anyone. That is a possible way forward for the salmon industry in the future, and we have examples to look at.
We do have a collaborative agreement with DFO whereby we take fish other than salmon and use the profits to pay for some management. This is a start in that direction, but so far “co-management” has been mostly just a buzzword.
The Chairman: Since we are on the subject, and since you and Mr. Hughes referred to it earlier, as well as to follow up on Senator Merchant's questions, I want to delve a little bit further into the issue of ITQs. Before I go there, I do want to note that we have heard your message regarding the allocation. That message has definitely come across as being one of the core problems and issues you face. We have heard it very specifically.
I now want to turn to the management issue. Earlier on, I believe someone listed the advantages to classical arguments suggesting that we move to an ITQ system. One of the advantages was the elimination of the race for the fish, the so-called derby fishery. However, I would like your views on just how far we should go with an ITQ system.
Moving to a real ITQ system would essentially mean that anyone could buy the quotas. Anyone could concentrate the quotas. Those people with the deepest pockets could buy as many licences or as much quota, which is a percentage of the TAC, as they could possibly want. One would not even have to live close to a coastal community. Does your ITQ vision have any kind of control or limit on it?
Mr. Nordstrom: I will try and answer that question. It is a management system.
The Chairman: That is correct.
Mr. Nordstrom: You can set it up any way you want. That halibut has done it at 1 per cent of the TAC, so that is all you are allowed on your vessel, 1 per cent.
The Chairman: Our understanding — and I do not know if it is the same thing on the West Coast — on the East Coast of Canada is that DFO does not enforce the 1 per cent limit. In other words, if someone wants to write up a legal contract with someone else, one can own much more than 1 per cent. It is certainly done on the East Coast. DFO knows about it and condones it because they say that they are not in the business of policing.
Mr. Nordstrom: I wish I could answer that. I do not know. All I do know is that our boat is only allowed to fish 1 per cent. I do not know if you can own it. I have no idea. I do not have the money to buy any of that stuff. It is up over 30 dollars a pound now, so you do have to have deep pockets to buy. There is no doubt about it.
At the same time, I have a small halibut quota on my boat, and I do lease a lot of quota. It is a way for me to make a living, especially when the salmon is gone. If I did not have that quota, I would not be sitting here, that is for sure. I would definitely be broke because I could not survive on the salmon I caught this year. Last year my salmon fishing was considered fairly decent, but all I caught was just over 1,600 sockeye. It is pretty hard to support a family on that.
I honestly do not know the rules behind how much quota you can own or if there are laws allowing offshore people to own it. All I am saying is that it is a management tool to allow small, light fisheries at times.
Mr. Hughes: Mr. Chairman, I do not think quotas are the be all and end all, even though I am in favour of quotas. I do not think one size fits all. I do not think you can apply it across all the salmon fisheries in the same manner.
From the trollers' perspective, however, we are the people who catch the highest quality product. We put the most value-added into the product, and I believe it is very good for our fishery. Whether it is good for the other salmon fisheries I do not know.
There are many negatives about quotas, as there are positives and negatives with any management system. After everything is said and done, I think it is the best system for us, but there is no doubt that it comes with some concerns.
The Chairman: This is where I am coming from: I do not mean to suggest that it is not a good management system or a positive management system. Some of us are concerned with whether it is a management system that is being driven by the fact that DFO does not have the budget to deal with anything other than having a smaller number of quota owners. In other words, it is much easier for DFO to deal with an ever-decreasing number of resource users. Is this what is driving the agenda?
Another aspect we have raised is whether the communities themselves, who ultimately will either gain or lose from a corporate fishery or a privatized fishery, should have a say in whether these management systems are put into place. Is there a place for communities in here?
Mr. Griswold: Mr. Chairman, the issue concerning what is driving quotas right now, as Mr. Hughes said, is not whether one size fits all. What is driving this is that the commercial industry is trying to establish its share of what its licences represent. Most of us are involved in this process and are trying to quantify that share because there will be a massive transfer, through treaty claims, from commercial opportunity to treaty groups. At the end of the day, we still have to manage the fisheries. The Pearse-McRae report put out an option as to one way of managing the fishery. There is no doubt that there were some benefits in those recommendations. As Mr. Hughes pointed out, they are for the northern troll fishery. Other fisheries, because of their nature and their dynamics, might not lend themselves to that degree of quota management.
I do not think the department itself has any agenda. They basically want their job to be easier, and they want to see us recoup better earnings from the fish that we do catch.
We have often said that if the communities want a say in management of the fisheries, then it is their right to buy licences and distribute them to their community members. Right now, it is the primary stakeholders who should have the primary voice in the management of the fisheries. We put up the bucks there. I do not think the communities are really supplying the infrastructure that would allow them that kind of intrusion into our affairs.
The Chairman: At the end of the day, then, if a fishery were to be “corporatized” and the owner decided to move these stocks, which is happening at the present time on the East Coast — perhaps not on the West Coast — if an owner or the board of directors decided to move their operations to another town 100 kilometres down the road, the community would have no say. They would just have to lump it. They have never invested. In other words, the position would be that this community has made no investment in the fishery and would just have to lump it.
Mr. Nordstrom: B.C. Packers was the big buyer on our coast. They used to have little buying stations up and down the coast to buy from trollers because that is where we fished. They removed them all because there is not enough access. There is not enough fish to keep them going. That is where we are right now. You have no access, so it does not make any difference.
Salmon move. Many trollers who fish the outside waters are going to freezers that are of better quality. In the north, you can only hold your fish for four or five days, so those trollers want to get the fish on ice soon after a catch. The smaller communities are benefiting from that. I am thinking, for example, of the fishery on the north coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands.
The Chairman: I want to repeat that we have received your message on the question of access and allocation of the catch. I am sorry to have addressed the management aspect, but it is an area of interest to us.
The Gulf Trollers Association indicated in a May 2005 discussion paper that Pearce-McRae is not a road map. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, roughly around the same time, indicated that it was. Are you still of the same opinion that the Pearce-McRae report is not a road map?
Mr. Nordstrom: I do not remember writing that. The beauty of being a fisherman is that we are always optimists because our memories are very short.
The Chairman: That is the beauty of nitpicking these things as we go through them.
Mr. Griswold: It would be nice to hear the passage from that document for the purposes of context.
The Chairman: The association produced a discussion paper with respect to issues and concerns regarding Pacific fisheries renewal. It stated that although it “may be a blueprint for change,” the Pearce-McRae report was “not a road map...there is no course charted between the management regime we now have in place and the vision Pearce and McRae laid out for the future.” In other words, they stated what the vision is but did not indicate how to get there. Are you still in agreement with that statement?
Mr. Nightingale: We do not remember the passage, but I think we can all agree with that sentence. It is not going to be a cookie cutter. We suspect that we will all develop our own different ideas about how a fishery should be run.
Trollers are small boats; we take the fish one at a time. I think we will have different ideas as to how we want our fishery to operate as compared to the seine fishery, which use large vessels that take a lot of fish at one time.
The Chairman: Do you have any parting comments before we wrap up, anything that you want say to reinforce your comments or that you want the committee to consider?
Mr. Nordstrom: I would be remiss if I did not raise one issue because my board always brings it up.
We talk about risk-averse management of the stock, yet our government promotes salmon farming. Lots of evidence states that salmon farming harms wild stock. There are lots of signs out there that confirm that finding, yet our government promotes salmon farming over and over again.
If we have risk-averse management for one sector, we must have it for all sectors. It is time you got salmon farming into closed containment. Get it out of the ocean, but at least get it into closed containment. Sea lice are affecting our fish out there. You must do fallowing of these at the very minimum. Risk-averse management means that if there is a doubt, you are not supposed to do it. However, there is a lot of doubt about salmon farming.
Mr. Griswold: I would appreciate it if your committee would recommend to the government that more money be allocated to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It looks like a lot of money is going to be spent in the near future. I believe the department is prioritizing its budget and core activities are being neglected or dropped, such as stock assessment.
In my mind, stock assessment is the key to providing us access. If they do not know what kind of fish are coming back, they will take a risk-averse approach in the management of the fish, and we are trying to broaden access. If the permit restricts itself, we are the ultimate losers. The department needs more money, and I would ask this committee to make a recommendation in that regard.
Mr. Hughes: Under the ITQ process, we have what we call validation. When you get to the dock, you have an independent person oversee the counting of your fish. In other words, how many fish you catch is verified. If that process were to be extrapolated to all user groups within the resource, conservation would be topped up considerably.
Mr. Nightingale: There will be huge changes in this fishery. We all know that. You have heard talk about the need for compensation for the way we had fish allocated away from us.
On behalf of myself and most of us here, we hope that when it is all done, there will still be an all-citizens' commercial fishery left in some form. It is an important part of B.C.'s heritage, and it would be such a shame if it disappeared totally.
The Chairman: Someone mentioned the question of aquaculture. Our committee produced an aquaculture study in 2001. We will send it to you so you are aware of what this committee said at that time.
You have been very patient with us this morning. You had a message to get across, and we wanted to get some of your ideas on the issues we have been addressing. You have been patient in allowing us to do that.
We appreciate your situation. We have heard the message, and we hope to be helpful to you as we make our recommendations.
The committee adjourned.