Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 3 - Evidence, October 17, 2006
OTTAWA, Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 7:07 p.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 Bill Rompkey (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: I would like to call the meeting to order. We are studying the ongoing program of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. At the moment, we are involved in a discussion of management outside of the 200-mile economic zone.
Today we will hear from two groups: the Living Oceans Society and the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation. We welcome you.
Jennifer Lash, Executive Director, Living Oceans Society: Thank you for providing us the time to talk with you about issues of conservation and oceans management, which are near and dear to our hearts. The timing is perfect. We did not plan this. We scheduled this trip some time ago.
As you know, there have been real issues about bottom trawling in the media and I imagine on the Hill as of late, and that was in reference to Canada failing to support a moratorium on the high seas on bottom trawling. That was disappointing to us, which is a bit of an understatement.
We are looking for a temporary moratorium that would allow different governments and countries from around the world to establish a management system to ensure that we can manage those fisheries properly. Unfortunately, that was not understood by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He perceived it as being a permanent ban, and he felt it might have repercussions for the trawl fishing industry in Canada.
In order to manage our fisheries, we must have the right management regime in place. On the high seas we do not have that regime in place, and drastic measures are required.
Here in Canada, we have the opportunity to put the right management regimes in place. Some of them already exist through Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and some can be improved upon. Today I would like to discuss specifically the marine planning initiatives that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been working on under the Oceans Act.
Before I get into details, I want to touch on why oceans are important for all Canadians. I live on an island off the coast of British Columbia, so the ocean is part of my everyday life. Oceans are also important for people in Winnipeg and Toronto, for various reasons. One reason is that Canadians consume about 10 kilograms of seafood per person per year, and about 6.5 kilograms of that are from our domestic fisheries; the rest is imported. No matter where you live in Canada, at some point you are eating food from one of our oceans. That is important from a health and a quality-of- life perspective.
Second, the Canadian catch of fisheries is just over 1 million tons of seafood with a landed value of about $2 billion. Once that is processed, the value goes up dramatically. It is a major economic force within the country, particularly in the regions.
Third, I would like to talk about ecology. Ocean produce one third to one half of the oxygen on this planet through phytoplankton, which are microscopic plants that grow in the oceans, particularly in near-shore waters around our coastlines. Basically, by keeping these plants living and thriving, we are able to prevent runaway global warming and climate change issues. Thus oceans play an integral role in trying to control our climate, which, as we know, is a growing concern.
Oceans management is not just for the people who live on the coast. It is for all Canadians, and it is important that something be done.
As you are probably aware, Fisheries and Oceans Canada passed the Oceans Act in 1997, which gave them the lead responsibility in looking after the oceans. The specific priorities were integrated management, marine protected areas and marine environmental quality. Those priorities were turned into a policy framework called Canada's Oceans Strategy, which was turned into the Oceans Action Plan as a vehicle for getting deliverables around the oceans strategy.
The Ocean Action Plan came into place in 2005. Some money was allocated under the budget for two years. That funding is finished at the end of this fiscal year.
Those funds were used for Fisheries and Oceans Canada to do the pre-planning stage, to get Fisheries and Oceans Canada's house in order and to get the tools ready to embark on planning, which they have been doing.
I would like to speak about the planning on the West Coast of B.C. Planning is also happening in other parts of the country, but I have more expertise on what is happening in B.C.
The part of British Columbia identified as the priority area under the Oceans Action Plan is the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area, or what we fondly call PNCIMA, which includes the central coast, the north coast and the Queen Charlotte Islands. It is approximately 88,000 square kilometres, about the size of one New Brunswick and two Prince Edward Islands, so it is a very significant area.
Many of you may remember the Great Bear Rainforest announcement made earlier this year, where huge parts of the forest were protected and a new ecosystem-based management regime was brought in to protect the temperate rainforest in British Columbia. The PNCIMA region is the oceans portion of that. It would be the first time in the world where we would look at land and sea planning on such a grand scale. Canada would become a global leader in terms of environmental protection and comprehensive management of both the terrestrial and the marine environments.
The PNCIMA region is also important in its own right. There are many important features there. It is where the northern resident killer whales live. There are herring, rockfish and seabirds. It is a spectacular and beautiful place. Seventy-two thousand people live in that region and depend on it for their livelihood, recreation and employment.
The opportunity to plan in this region is profound. Marine planning means getting everyone who lives and works and has a stake in that area together to plan a vision that provides direction on how we manage our activities. It is a way of looking at the ocean and asking what activities can happen in what places. Do we need protected areas or marine parks? Do we need to allocate some industries to only certain places on the coast? Can we find management directives and regulations that restrict or advance certain industries to ensure that the ocean is protected?
Marine planning is happening around the world and we feel it needs to happen in B.C. It is not an easy process, but requires time, partnership and resources.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada has successfully developed partnerships with our provincial government and with many of the First Nations in the region. They are working on a framework agreement on how to management this planning process at a government-to-government-to-government level. That is profound. In British Columbia, there has historically been a rift between the provincial government and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. To have them working together, in particular at a government-to-government level with First Nations, is quite remarkable. It is an opportunity we need to really take advantage of and continue fostering.
To have those three governments working together and from there to design a planning process that includes all the stakeholders, to be able to work together to plan for that region, is important.
One thing we are looking for now and one thing that has brought us to Ottawa on this trip is that we would like to see the government continue to support the implementation of the Oceans Action Plan, to show new leadership on oceans management in Canada and to put the resources and the political commitment behind managing our oceans and getting marine planning processes up and going.
We are hopeful that in the next budget there will be an allocation of resources that will ensure certain criteria are met. We hope that there will be enough money to ensure that the planning processes are open and transparent so that people who work and live in the area will know what is happening.
We also hope there will be resources to allow people to participate in the process — fishermen, large companies that have activities there, municipal governments. People need to have the resources to participate.
We need to ensure that the science and research is in place and that the government has the capacity to do that research so that we can make informed decisions in the planning process.
Finally, we need to make sure that eventually the resources are in place for implementation. You can put a great plan together but unless the government is committed and willing to implement that plan, it has all been for naught.
That is an important thing to think about. We do not want to embark on this for only one year. We are looking at a five-year commitment for the planning process and then implementation after that, but I think if we can get the resources behind it, the people there are willing to work on it; and Canada would become a global leader in our resource management, as opposed to what we have seen recently where we have failed to live up to some progressive decisions.
James McIsaac, Clean Water Director, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation: I want to give you a bit of background on myself and the organization that I am here representing, and then I will talk about some policies that are fisheries-related and go into the detail of one particular fishery and how planning would help in the long term for the fishing community.
I got involved in the fishing industry on the West Coast when I was about 14 years old. I fished for about 20 years on the coast. I fished out of four major ports — Vancouver or Steveston, Alert Bay, Sointula and Prince Rupert — so I have a bit of history up and down the coast. My experience is in salmon seining and gillnetting, herring seining and gillnetting, prawn fishing by trap, and octopus.
The T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation was founded 25 years ago. The namesake, Buck Suzuki, was an environmentalist commercial fisherman from the 1920s to the 1970s. He was instrumental in protecting habitat and worked hard to prevent pollution on the coast. The organization was set up by the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union and has been backed by that organization since then.
We receive support from a commercial fisheries conservation stamp, from about 4,000 commercial fishermen per year; so we have support from the commercial fishing industry on the conservation end.
The main objectives of the organization are habitat protection, pollution prevention and sustainability in fisheries. We talk about sustainability in fisheries, and the big plan of oceans management falls into that. That is the context in which I am here.
We are not able to put up a Power Point presentation here, but I have handed out some slides to give you a bit of colour and flavour for my presentation.
There is a comment on the first slide: If there is any magic on this planet, it is contained in water. That is a profound philosophical comment on water. From a fishermen's point of view, we like to think we catch it and deliver it to you and you enjoy it.
My involvement in fishing industry policy started back in the 1980s, when the father of a good friend handed me the report of the royal commission into fisheries and said, ``This is the future of fisheries on this coast.''
I have since done a bit of background reading. One background paper for the royal commission looked at the economics and found that the fishermen were not making much money on the coast and not paying much tax to the country; they were not benefiting the country in any real, tangible way. Policies were derived from that kind of thought and drove the commission. The commission came out with recommendations to move forward with quota and to downsize the fishery. That has played its course over the last 20 years or so.
The fishing community, the fishermen, were not happy with the recommendations at the time. A key thing happening in the fishing industry was the quasi-leasing of licences, specifically licences for herring. You were not allowed to lease a licence, so on the West Coast licences were put into trust agreements by legalese; the licence was transferred to somebody for a year and then the trust agreement came back to the person. The fishing industry was concerned that that practice would continue and would be stamped into law with the move to quotas. You will see in the slides I brought that there is some evidence that that has come true.
On people trends, the industry has been downsized over the last twenty years. These numbers are directly from Fisheries and Oceans Canada's database this last week. It is the same with vessels, and you can see that the smaller vessels have been downsized considerably so that the smaller operators have been affected greatly on the coast.
The slide on quotas is a snapshot, an instant picture, of the landed value in quotas. This slide from Ecotrust's Catch- 22 document shows $178 million in quota fisheries and $171 million in non-quotas, but not contained on the quota side is herring. Herring is a quasi-quota fishery worth about $35 million. In reality, in 2003, there was about $200 million dollars in quota fisheries.
Moving on to landed value, you can see the decrease over the 20-year span. In the bottom, it has been squeezed up by the cost of quota. The difference is what is shared between the boat, the vessel owner, the gear, and the captain and crew. The costs of operating and fuel and all that stuff are squeezed in there as well, so you can see that the actual value to the fleet has been decreasing.
Back on the people trends, looking at the Pacific, the graph shown on the bottom corner shows the age of the people working in the fleet. Actually, that one shows the skippers on the West Coast, and the average age is around 56 years. On the graph, not much is coming up from the bottom, from the youth coming into the industry. On the West Coast that issue will be coming to a head fairly soon. There have been some strong recommendations about directions to go. Catch-22 put out a few recommendations. There have to be some changes, because the industry is not creating the people to work in it in the long term.
Here is a snapshot into the West Coast groundfish trawl fishery. I have a history in the commercial industry, but I am not an expert in groundfish trawl. I am not here to defend them, but I will tell you my observations of that fleet.
The fleet has worked hard over the last 12 years to identify issues and to monitor itself. It is the most monitored fleet in Canada and possibly the most monitored fleet in the whole world. There is an observer on board every vessel out there. Approximately 70 vessels trawl on the West Coast, and every one of them has an independent observer on it 24/ 7. There is trouble now with bycatch in a few areas. They have added cameras to the vessels and they are on 24/7. They spend approximately $2.3 million a year for that monitoring, and it comes out of the landed value, the graph that you saw earlier, for that fleet.
They have been doing that kind of monitoring for over 10 years, which is incredible. No other business in this country was asked to have somebody there watching them. Most of these operations are three- or four-man operations, and they have one more person there observing all of their actions all the time. No other business in this country would stand for that. From an environmental point of view, there are many businesses, including some very big organizations, that I would like to see observed, but, as far as I know, it does not happen to that extent. That kind of thing is incredible.
The value of the groundfish trawl fishery is about half of the landed value that you see on the breakout sheet — somewhere in the range of about $70 million a year.
Going back to why we need marine planning, you talk about a moratorium for a groundfish trawl. The issue is that shutting down an industry that is worth $70 million to the coastal communities is a very big hit. Therefore, it makes sense for the industry to talk about conservation values.
T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation says that the industry cares about what happens in the environment, cares about conservation and cares about the long-term future of the resource. We very much support marine planning and want to be and need to be at the table. The Pacific, the PNCIMA area, is the most valuable area for commercial fisheries on the West Coast. It needs to have stakeholders from the fishing industry there, no doubt.
This slide talks about the policy for the fishermen's union regarding marine planning areas. One thing that would come out of a marine planning process is marine protected areas, which is also the objective under the Oceans Act. The fishermen's union policies align closely with the Oceans Act. The union has certain principles that they would like to see around that process, and they are written down there.
In closing, the oceans on this planet are what make this planet special. They balance our temperatures across the day and across the year. They are what make life on this planet exist. We need to do what we can to protect those oceans. What we put into it that work is what we will get back out of it. It is valuable for the long term.
Senator Comeau: My first question is addressed to Ms. Lash. Let me make an argument that might be presented by a dragger or a bottom-trawler. It would probably go something like this: If Canada were to agree to a moratorium on trawling on the high seas, would it not be hypocritical for Canada to continue trawling within domestic waters?
Right now, there are certain species of fish that can be caught by no other technology but dragging. I am referring here to scallops and a few other species. What would be your response to that, Ms. Lash?
Ms. Lash: It is an excellent question. It has been a point of confusion in the high seas versus domestic waters debate.
I want to be very clear: Living Oceans Society does a great deal of work trying to address some of the issues associated with the domestic trawl fleet on the West Coast. We are not asking for a moratorium in domestic waters. There is a fisheries management plan in place that, along with marine planning, allows us to track information and put the data collected into a scientific process to figure out if the fishery is sustainable. We ask whether new information coming along is showing us that the fishery is not sustainable and how can we adjust the fishery to address those issues. That management regime exists in Canada. Let us use it to address any concerns we have with the trawl fishery. Any fishery needs to go through that level of rigour. Under the Fisheries Act, the government has a mandate to do that.
The difference is that over 60 per cent of the high seas of Canada's oceans do not have any management regime. It is a free-for-all. There is no one there saying, ``You have now completely decimated a sea mount.''
Senator Comeau: I understand that.
Ms. Lash: We met with the minister in May and stated clearly that the ban is a temporary moratorium until those management regimes can be put in place, at which point, hopefully, we would be able to manage the fishery effectively.
Senator Comeau: My second question relates to the way you allocate the fish to fishing industries. There are two ways of approaching that subject. One way would be to divide the fish and say, ``Here is your sockeye, your coho and your ling cod. We have X number of ling cod that we think we can catch in the course of the year. We will divide that by the number of people who want to fish it. We will hand you your percentage of the quota.'' You have just divided X number of sockeye by X number of fisherman. We then say, ``Here is your quota. Go out there and catch it.''
You do that for a while and once you are approaching 60 years of age and you want to retire, you sell off that quota you have been given by the government. Your last few years might have been quite good. Therefore you are able to command a good price for your quota. The next person who comes along has to pay off the capital on purchasing the quota. By that time, the quotas may have gone down. That person then has to buy quota from someone else. Suddenly, the fish becomes a commodity. It is no longer something you go out and catch, if it is there, or not catch, if it is not there. It becomes a commodity that is tradable, just like you would trade any stocks on the market.
We are facing that more and more in most of our fisheries in Canada. However, one of the problems is that it is not an ecosystem-based method of allocating fish. For example, someone who has a ling cod quota is not all that interested in what happens to sockeye or coho.
Have you looked at this issue? If so, does it become a part of your integrated management plan for your area?
Ms. Lash: We have looked into it. Those are what we call individual transferable quotas, or ITQs. From our perspective, one of the biggest problems associated with ITQs is the question of who owns the licences. There was a time when the people who lived in the communities, who worked on the boats and who were out there watching the ocean owned the licences. They knew how the ocean worked. They had a strong sense of what was going on out there. They saw things change over time. They were a resource of knowledge. When it came time to develop fisheries management plans or say what was happening, they were in tune with what was happening.
Senator Comeau: A dentist in Toronto who owns the quota now and who is expecting a high rate of return may not be very happy.
Ms. Lash: Exactly. Some of the most important fisheries closures in B.C. have been asked for by fishermen who have noticed that there are problems. Some of them have been battled against.
Once people living in Toronto, Winnipeg or Vancouver own the licences, they no longer try to advocate for closures or changes in the quotas or in the total allowable catch for that year because of conservation. They want to maintain the TAC at a certain height because of the revenue, especially if they have capital expenses associated with quota.
You lose the connection between the people taking the fish and the people making money from the ocean. In the small fishing community I live in, we value that connection a great deal. As that connection is eroded and people not living in the region have a stronger influence on the development of the fisheries management plan, conservation is at risk.
Senator Comeau: Should we recommend to the minister that communities be a part of the decision-making process? That has been talked about in the past. When the minister sends his officials out for consultation, should the people who are also beholden to the future long-term interests of the fishery, such as hairdressers, taxi drivers, restaurateurs and teachers, be part of the consultation process?
Ms. Lash: Yes. Communities have a huge role in the consultation process around fisheries, just as the people who fish have a huge role to play.
I have two small children in school. Our school used to have over 120 kids; it now has 34 kids. I want to continue living there. I want my kids to have a school to attend. That can happen only if we have viable fisheries and people in our community working in the industry on the ocean. It is important that their needs and concerns are addressed in the development of any fisheries management plan or changes in the licensing scheme.
Senator Comeau: I made a point earlier about someone having been given a quota for just one species. If that species goes down in number for any reason, and if we were to have non-quotas, should we not be looking at the concept of a mixed fishery? If the quotas for a certain species of fish in that immediate region start decreasing, should we have a kind of a mixed fishery so that we can move our fishing fleet on to something else? Mr. McIsaac will probably say that that is not practical.
Mr. McIsaac: The question of integrated fisheries has come up with regard to groundfish. I am not an expert on the process that has unfolded over the last couple of years. The process was really started with a conservation crisis around rockfish. All of the groundfish fishermen who had any bycatch of rockfish, essentially everyone, had to sit at the same table to discuss the issue. They had to come up with a resolution as to how to avoid that and how to still produce the most amount you could, without destroying the rockfish on the coast. I think that process has gone on for the last five years. Implementation of that began this year. From what I hear, the small boat fleet is very happy with where it has gone.
Some small vessels that fish for dogfish had a bycatch of halibut and other species that they had not been allowed to keep. Presently they are allowed to keep them. They have been allocated a small quota that allows them to keep on the water, and it has benefited the small vessels quite a bit. We will see how that develops.
Senator Johnson: It is great to see you here, and I commend you on your work. I will start with questions about the living lakes society on behalf of my lake, Lake Winnipeg, which is challenged at the moment. We are working very hard to fix it up. You have given me a great idea, and maybe we can stay in touch with regard to that.
I am very interested in the report of the Auditor General of September 2005. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development reported that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had not succeeded in using the Oceans Act to protect and develop Canada's oceans in a sustainable way. You are probably already aware that the audit also said that no ocean management plans have been finalized, and they found little progress had been made in establishing marine protected areas.
The Sierra Club of Canada's annual RIO report card found that two of the Oceans Action Plans were ``showing no visible progress.'' Sierra suggested that publicly revealing the identity and degree of achievement of OAP Phase 1 deliverables would be a step forward for DFO.
I would like to hear your comments on this. Has progress been slow in developing a seamless planning process?
Ms. Lash: If you start a living lakes society, I would love to help you out. That is a great idea. I offer my help.
I agree with the Auditor General's report. I think our record on using the Oceans Act is bad. The act was passed in 1997, and here we are in 2006. That is what gave DFO the power to set up marine protected areas.
In British Columbia we have one protected marine area set up under that legislation. It took this many years to make that happen, and there was no conflict around that site. The issue dealt with the hydrothermal vents where nobody was fishing. There were no First Nations issues there because the area was so far offshore.
If it takes that long to set something up where there is no conflict, imagine what it would be like in areas where there is potential conflict. I think DFO deserves a reprimand on that issue.
Having said that, I think we are just starting to see some of the products emerge. We need to look at what has been accomplished in the last couple of years. I said this earlier and I will reiterate: to have federal, provincial and First Nations governments working at a government-to-government level is profound. I have never seen it happen before in British Columbia. Usually they fight a lot. There is much work to complete.
Senator Johnson: Does that come out of the memoranda of understanding?
Ms. Lash: No. This came out of the implementation of Oceans Action Plan, Phase 1. The MOUs were an agreement between the federal and provincial governments on how to implement the Oceans Act. They signed an MOU that had five sub-MOUs, one on marine planning and one on marine protected areas, or MPAs. Those have not been signed off because they are dealing with B.C.'s new relationship document regarding the provincial government's relationship with First Nations. They are talking with First Nations leaders on how to address some of those issues so the feds and the provinces can sign off. It is a work in progress, but they are operating as if the sub-MOUs have been signed. That is another sign that the governments have really started to work together. It is very good.
Under Phase 1 of the Oceans Action Plan, the government was to start completing some of the required science and analysis. They have worked on an ecosystem overview assessment, which has not yet been released. We have seen the format of it, but we have not seen the whole document in released form. It will provide an assessment of the current state of our ecosystem. It is a consistent assessment between the West Coast, the East Coast and the Arctic so there is consistency at the national level. We are able to look at the national scene.
The government is also working on something called EBSAs, which stands for ecologically and biologically significant areas. Based on the expertise and experience of the scientists and academics on the coast, they are trying to figure out where the ecologically sensitive and important areas of the coast are. It is a very important tool for spatial planning and is required in order to move ahead.
They are also looking at what species are ecologically and biologically important so that we can begin to target some of them. There is so much marine life out there that we really must choose the key ones to protect along with their ecosystem in order to provide overall protection for the ocean. Thus, there is progress on some fronts.
However, progress has moved more slowly than we all wanted it to. It is not easy. They also did not get the funds they requested under Oceans Action Plan, Phase 1. They had requested about $60 million nationally for two years, and they received $28.4 million. The only money that went to the Pacific region was $2.5 million to be used over 18 months. That is not much for resources. There are very few staff at the Fisheries and Oceans office in Vancouver who are working on this full time.
There are times I feel the conservation community has more staff working on PNCIMA than the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does. I think we cannot judge DFO on failure to deliver if we have not given them the tools with which to deliver.
For Oceans Action Plan, Phase 2, it is critical to fund it with adequate resources in order to give people committed to this mission the capacity to deliver. Right now, I would say people in B.C. are committed. We are here with someone who is talking from the commercial fishermen's perspective. Governments are working together, and communities are beginning to talk about this. That is a profound thing, and we do not want to lose that momentum.
Senator Johnson: Has it been gaining momentum recently?
Ms. Lash: In the last six months, things have really started to push. In November, Living Oceans Society will travel to coastal communities to perform outreach functions for community residents in non-native communities.
The First Nations communities, of which there are many in this region, are starting to develop their own marine plans to bring to the table. They are organizing within their own communities. As a result of cultural differences in how they make those decisions, it could take longer and require a different approach to planning than is required with stakeholders. They are investing that time up front now. They have also increased their capacity; we have planners in different communities and there is also technical support available to them.
Finally, seven years ago Living Oceans Society started a project called the Conservation Utility Analysis. We used the latest science and data to develop a methodology for selecting areas of high conservation utility that can contribute to identifying a network of protected areas. This is a very interesting project that has moved forward.
Science completed by one conservation group does not necessarily advance things as quickly as collaborative science does. Just in the past two weeks, the federal government, the provincial government, First Nations, academia, and the entire conservation community working on this issue have all agreed to redoing the analysis in a collaborative way. This is unprecedented collaborative science, and it is a profound step forward. If we had not had the commitment under the Oceans Action Plan, I do not think we would have seen that happen.
Senator Johnson: Do you think Canada's Oceans Strategy and the Oceans Action Plan have been effective?
Ms. Lash: They delivered with the resources they had, yes.
Senator Johnson: Is that in terms of both fisheries and habitat protection?
Ms. Lash: It has not happened on the ground yet because they are still in the pre-planning stage. We will start seeing something happen on the ground during this next stage. We will see people sitting around a table talking about where protected areas need to be, what the levels of protection are in those areas, and how we ensure that industry is managed on an ecosystem basis outside of the protected areas.
Senator Johnson: I have one last question about your organization. How many communities and people are involved with Living Oceans Society?
Ms. Lash: Living Oceans Society is in the process of hiring. We will be at about 15 staff. Most of them are based in our Sointula office headquarters. We have a satellite office in Vancouver, because the coastal communities are where it is at.
Senator Johnson: We all agree.
Ms. Lash: We have extended our reach through many different campaigns and activities. We do a lot of work in different communities and have built up networks of contacts. When we work in Queen Charlotte City or Prince Rupert, we have people there whom we call. They help us integrate into and work within that community respecting the way they do things.
Senator Johnson: Mr. McIsaac, how is your foundation doing?
Mr. McIsaac: We are very small. We have three employees. We have an office in Prince Rupert, one in Vancouver and one in Victoria.
Senator Johnson: What do you think of the action plan that Ms. Lash just talked about?
Mr. McIsaac: Overall, it would be great if you could move forward faster with the planning process. The issue of sustainability and the issue of agreement to move forward on the coast need serious planning, which has been lacking for a long time.
DFO must have the resources to do that. Obviously, if they do not have the resources they cannot move forward with any speed. Also, there are information gaps. They have to fill those as well.
Much of the kind of marine planning being done today is possible only because of technologies that have been developed in the last 10 years, such as tools for analyzing and layering data. We are talking about a huge amount of data. The conservation utility analysis used 93 different layers of data over a large area. Ten years ago the tools needed for that did not exist. Now we have them, and that is definitely helping.
The Chairman: How are you funded, Ms. Lash?
Ms. Lash: Was I supposed to pay my employees?
The Chairman: I do not know. Maybe they work for free, but if they get paid, where do you get the funds to pay them?
Ms. Lash: Our funding comes mostly from foundations, and from individuals who support us.
The Chairman: Are they West Coast foundations?
Ms. Lash: They are Canadian and U.S. foundations.
The Chairman: Is your organization funded by a union?
Mr. McIsaac: The fishermen's union supports us with a herring fundraiser, where they fish the fish and help us sell it. The proceeds are split with another not-for-profit organization, the orphan fund. The fishermen's union has held that fundraiser for the last 50 years. For the last 25 years it has been designating a portion of the money raised to T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation. The other avenue of funding is the fishermen's conservation stamp, which is designated when you buy a personal commercial fishing licence. A portion of our income comes from that source. We also get funding from Canadian and American foundations.
The Chairman: Ms. Lash, do you have a counterpart on the Atlantic coast?
Ms. Lash: We do not have staff there, but we work with the Ecology Action Centre on numerous campaigns. They have been a great partner. We have come to Ottawa with them and have done some work at the national level, and it has been fantastic.
Senator Hubley: I like the line of questioning. There is a lot to be brought forward on the sound science and clear conservation goals mentioned by Mr. McIsaac.
In May 2005, a monitoring implementation team was formed to assess the current level of aquatic monitoring efforts in Canada to identify what specific monitoring would be needed to support the overall science program and to identify areas needing improvement in addressing the various priorities. Could you comment on that monitoring implementation team? Has the situation improved since its implementation in 2005? Is there sufficient scientific knowledge to permit an ecosystem approach to management?
Ms. Lash: I do not know specifically the team to which you refer, but I can talk about monitoring in the fisheries. Mr. McIsaac may be able to add more.
As Mr. McIsaac pointed out, there is a lot of monitoring in the groundfish trawl fishery, which is admirable; they should be acknowledged for that. Also, through changes in technology, there have been increases in monitoring in other fisheries such as the halibut fishery, where cameras now track everything they bring up in their long lines, so that they cannot not report what they are catching. That had been a problem. There was a fear that some fishermen could be catching and dumping fish they cannot sell, and we would not know the impact on the fishery. At least if we know what is being caught, we can determine the impact. That monitoring has been good.
In the crab fishery, there is now a tag system. Every time a crab trap is brought up, it crosses over a scanner that records what is there. There has been an increase in that sort of monitoring.
It is important to note that the fishermen have to pay for the equipment themselves. The cameras can cost up to $10,000. It is a big expense for a small boat owner. There was a plan to allow them to pay it off over time. That must be addressed. I would say that monitoring has increased there.
However, are we really monitoring the ocean properly? We have a long way to go. The more we study the ocean, the more we realize we do not know how it works. It is a dynamic and complex ecosystem. Unless Fisheries and Oceans Canada is given the resources to do the research and develop a strong research agenda, we will not be able to monitor the ocean and figure out what is happening out there. Some steps have been taken and the people who have gone down that road should be congratulated, but there is much more to be done.
Mr. McIsaac: My comment would be around data collection. We must be careful that we do not cover ourselves with so much data that we cannot analyze it. We are getting to the point where we are able to do that. Much data is being collected: water temperatures, salinity, oxygen, all the different things that are being monitored. We are getting better at analyzing more and more variables, but we live on a planet that has more variables than we can handle. We live on one planet and everything is linked and tied together. We have to be careful. We do not know how everything works. We are scratching the surface. We have more scientists today than at any other time during the history of this planet studying more things, because we do not know. We like as much data as possible, but make sure it is directed and useful for what we can do with it now.
Ms. Lash: I am a mother, and I can monitor my children and their behaviour and write down every day what they do, but if I do not change that behaviour when it is wrong or compliment it when it is good, I am a failure as a mother. We can monitor all we want, but unless we have a process into which to feed that information, it has all been done in vain. That is where this planning process can help. Take this monitoring data, share it with the people who work and live on the coast and empower them to make decisions about how to manage the region. That closes the circle and ensures that we are looking after things properly.
Senator Hubley: Are you aware of an area within the fishery habitat that is in desperate need of being monitored? Is there some development within the fishery that is so new that the information to support it, pro and con, is just not there?
Ms. Lash: Some of the fisheries are not new, but monitoring needs to be done. I do not have the numbers at my fingertips, but I could get them to you. Some stocks are being caught without those stocks being assessed and without our knowing; we are catching fish without knowing what is out there. Some of them do not have total allowable catch limits set on them. Doing the right stock assessments and monitoring how those stocks are doing is key. You cannot manage a resource if you do not know how much of it you have in the first place. There are some critical species out there that we need to identify and get the government to do the stock assessments on them. DFO knows how to do a stock assessment. They need to get in there and do it and not turn a blind eye.
Some fisheries need increased monitoring, one being the shrimp trawl fishery, which we would love to get a better handle on. It is not the same as the groundfish trawl. It is a smaller fishery in a completely different habitat. The West Coast shrimp fishery is different from the East Coast shrimp fishery in terms of habitat. It could be a sustainable fishery, but we need to get a handle on their bycatch issues and what is happening so that we can talk about it.
Another consideration is corals and sponges, a critical issue of growing interest. We are just starting to understand what corals and sponges exist in temperate waters. In British Columbia, the most progressive analysis showing the locations particularly of corals was done by Living Oceans Society. While I am proud of my organization for doing that, I also think it does not reflect well on our government because they should have known that. The data came from DFO, but they were not using the information to find those things. There is more work we can do to look for things like corals and sponges, because they do play an important role in our ecosystem.
Senator Watt: Would the integrated management you talk about deal only with the fish, or would it also deal with other site factors such as forestry, mining, oil drilling and things of that nature? How will there be coordination what is happening in fishing activities versus oil companies' bottom line, since the bottom line is usually the concern?
Ms. Lash: The planning process is comprehensive, so it would include everyone active out there. It would include fish farming industries. Right now, there is a moratorium on offshore oil and gas on the entire coast of B.C., but in other regions the oil companies would be a much more significant partner. Tourism is a huge, growing industry, and it can either be done well or done in a way that is harmful. Any industry is a stakeholder, whether cruise ships passing through or shipping, and they need to be part of the process and part of figuring out how to use the resource. We are advocating for a comprehensive process.
Senator Watt: What would be the relationship of the fishing activities, including the other activities that take place affecting the ocean and the fish? What would be the relationship of those groups to the Government of Canada, which has management responsibility for the ocean and the fish?
Ms. Lash: I am not sure I understand the question.
Senator Watt: Will they be looked at? Will they be empowered to be able to make decisions? Will they be controlled and monitored by the Government of Canada?
Ms. Lash: As a result of the planning process? Yes, most definitely. This does not take the decision making and management responsibilities away from government, but it creates a management regime monitored and managed by government but with buy-in from the communities and from the stakeholders. Everyone will be involved in developing the plan, but the government is still ultimately responsible for making sure the plan gets implemented and is lived up to.
Mr. McIsaac: I think I know where you are headed around fisheries management. One of the directions over the past five or seven years has been to download the management onto the industry. As a result, the industry ends up with the data on what is happening when you talk about monitoring its data. The data really drives what is allowed and what is not allowed. If you do not have that data, you cannot make an informed decision. There are issues there as to who owns that data, who has access to it and what can be done with it. The more the government goes down that path to divest the management, the less they will have control of that. That has to be discussed.
Senator Watt: Who will have less control of that?
Mr. McIsaac: The people of Canada, or the Government of Canada.
Senator Watt: They will have less control of that. In other words, privatization is what you are promoting?
Mr. McIsaac: No. That is a different issue.
Senator Watt: That is why I am trying to get to the bottom to see where you are heading. I can understand that you would like to be able to have five years to do the planning and then implement the plans after five years. I like to see both sides of the coin as much as possible.
Ms. Lash: We are definitely not advocating privatization of the fisheries, because that is what puts the industry in the hands of the few and gives them more control over the resources. We would like to see more people there.
Mr. McIsaac: We would like a more open and shared process here.
Senator Watt: Would you say that Fisheries and Oceans Canada will have a more meaningful management role if the plan has been laid out approaching it from the ecosystem?
Mr. McIsaac: Yes.
Ms. Lash: Yes.
Mr. McIsaac: The community would be much more involved in it, and it would be the overall coastal community, not just the fishing community.
Senator Watt: You are trying to empower the regions and, at the same time, you are trying to empower the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Ms. Lash: Fisheries and Oceans Canada is already fully empowered, but they do not have a good plan to implement. We are trying to ensure that they have a good plan to implement so that they are using their authority to ensure that the ocean is looked after properly. Right now, they are managing it fishery by fishery and industry by industry, and we end up with conflict between the individual pieces. The idea is to get away from that conflict.
Senator Watt: How do you know you will be able to convince them to come around and support your concept? I am talking about the oil industry, the forestry industries and fishery industries.
Ms. Lash: I can be very persuasive.
Senator Watt: I hope you are.
Ms. Lash: We need to let the science be one of the key tools in helping us make a decision. If the science says that something is not sustainable and puts at risk the health of the ocean, we need to acknowledge that and not turn a blind eye. An open and transparent process lets you do that because everyone is seeing the science. Everyone is basing their decisions on good science. A key part is having the right information.
In my dream world I have a vision of what the ocean and the management of the ocean should look like. I would rather be sitting around a table with an industry that I may not think is particularly sustainable and talk about how to make things work, rather than spend the next 30 years fighting. I would rather have that discussion structured in such a way that it is a good discussion. That is critical.
Environmentalists get told quite often that all we want to do is fight it out in the media. We do not. We often feel pushed to go to the media to raise attention for issues that are of real concern, but if we can have the forum for a good dialogue, that would be a better option.
Senator Watt: The only thing I can say is that I hope in five years there will be some fish left for you to manage.
Ms. Lash: If we have our way, there will be.
Senator Watt: The ocean and the fish are in trouble — we all know that. Congratulations for moving in that direction. Hopefully, you will have success.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I have a general but simple question to ask you: Is this type of management satisfactorily exercised in other countries? Is Canada able to meet these requirements or is it only wishful thinking that a system could be implemented to bring about such management? In other words, does the management exist elsewhere, does it work and can Canada draw from such experience to apply it here?
[English]
Ms. Lash: It exists to some degree in other parts of the world. Marine planning processes have been done, for example, in the Channel Islands. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in Australia is probably the most famous example of it. About 35 per cent of that region is completely closed to all fishing in order to set up areas for protection and conservation. However, there continues to be shrimp trawling in other parts of it. They have been able to join together both the conservation objectives and the needs of industry in that region. It goes through ongoing updates of its management plans to ensure that it is meeting its mandate.
Work has been done in the Florida Keys and on the Eastern Scotian Shelf in Canada. They are a little bit further advanced from where we are on the West Coast.
These examples give us an opportunity to learn from their successes and their failures. One of our first projects was a research project in partnership with World Wildlife Fund to look at five examples from around the world where they had done planning. The goal was to figure out the criteria for a successful process. That report is available on our web page. It looks at what we can learn.
Yes, we can do it. We have the skills and the commitment at certain levels to make that happen.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: When you speak of fishermen, are you referring only to Canadian fishermen? I know the East Coast better than the West Coast and do not know whether fishermen from other countries come to the West Coast. At the end of the day, this management can only work by agreement with the industry; what happens if some people handicap the plan because they do not recognize this type of planning?
[English]
Ms. Lash: In British Columbia, we do not have the issue of foreign fishermen that exists on the East Coast, where foreign fishing on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks affects what happens in the internal waters. I do not think that will be an British Columbia.
Certain fisheries are managed through international agreements — for example, our halibut fishery and the Pacific salmon agreement.
Senator Hubley: Where does climate change fit into your work? Do we know enough now about climate change to introduce it into our policies and our plans? Can we make predictions? Can you give me a quick update on global warming and climate change?
Ms. Lash: You are not asking much, are you?
Senator Hubley: It was not mentioned. Oceans especially balance daily according to annual temperatures. Things will change. I feel they are anyway. We have evidence that it will change. Where does that stand in ongoing monitoring and scientific information?
Ms. Lash: There are two ways of looking at it. First, how will climate change affect the ocean? Second, how are the activities on the ocean affecting climate change?
In terms of industries on the ocean that are affecting climate change, we do not have offshore oil and gas. Hopefully, we will continue not to have it. Thus, that is not an issue.
Work can be done around transportation of boats, exhaust and things like that. There is not an industry that is the generator of the CO2 that you see in other parts of Canada.
Yes, we can do work in this area. I do not think it is as much of a priority as some other issues.
More important is how climate change is affecting the ocean. How can we develop management plans to adapt to the changes as a result of climate change? I do not think we know yet. We know it will be a problem.
When we see changes right now, we ask: Is that a result of climate change or is it just a regime shift within the ocean? The California and Alaska currents curve up and down the coast. If that is off by 100 kilometres because of the way the ocean is working that year, it can make changes, and fish that do not normally show up will start showing up. It is hard for us to tell if that is climate change or if the ocean is functioning differently that year.
For the long term, we need to put the pieces in place to be watching and to be incorporating that information into our management plans, in particular around issues of salmon.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: Does the Pacific's El Nino not always bring about changes in temperatures and currents that affect the whole Pacific Ocean? I believe we should all worry about climate change but there have always been changes in deep-sea currents in that region of the globe and I do not believe they are due solely to climate change. I just want to know if we are on the same page in this regard.
I understand that schools of fish do not follow precise routes and have no signposts to tell them where to go but it seems to me that we have not monitored this issue for some time. I do not think that we know every move they have made over 50 years or more. We can observe but, in my opinion, that is only good to maintain stocks; however, between that and knowing where they pass and on what day of the year, I believe that is an impossible task.
How will you be doing your monitoring? Based on what?
[English]
Mr. McIsaac: Climate change is recognized as already affecting fisheries around the world. The issue of fish stocks moving in the northern hemisphere further north and into deeper water is being tracked. There are studies showing the movement into habitats that are agreeable to the fish stocks. There is no doubt that climate change will affect fisheries management. It will affect where the fish are. A conference last fall, Climate Change and Fisheries on the West Coast, had international participation and papers presented showing the impacts that already can be seen of climate change on fisheries, so there is no doubt.
I mentioned that the oceans balance temperature. The oceans are vast. They are what dampens the speed of that change. Consider the volume of water on this planet. The average depth of the ocean is four kilometres, so 4,000 metres of water. The average temperature is 3.5 degrees. That is very cool. The surface skin of the water, the first 300 metres of the water, is where we do most of the fishing, and that is where the currents move greatly and the fish stocks are. Those temperatures are moving. Inside that surface skin, the stocks are moving to avoid the warmer water and the warmer conditions.
Ms. Lash: No matter how much we understand about tides and currents and climate change, and no matter how much we understand about the ocean, we will never really know where the fish will go. They have minds of their own.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I agree.
The Chairman: If you see any cod on the West Coast, send them back.
Senator Watt: I will raise an issue different from the fish, but one that happens to eat a lot of fish. They are the biggest competitors to human society, I would say. I am talking about seals. Where do you stand on that? You have heard various international organizations from time to time, and it is starting to become regular. It is starting to have an impact and affecting our lifestyles in Canada, whether we are Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal. Seals are the biggest consumers of the fish, and there are lots of them.
Ms. Lash: I will take a weak approach on this. We do not have a seal fishery on the West Coast.
Senator Watt: But you have lots of seals.
Ms. Lash: Yes, but we do not have a seal fishery, so it is not an issue for us. I know it is an issue of great passion on the East Coast, and it is an issue of real concern. I do not feel that I know it well enough to be able to form an opinion or give feedback on that. I apologize for that.
Senator Watt: What about on the West Coast?
Ms. Lash: There are no fisheries. The seals are just there.
Senator Watt: Do you not think they are consuming a lot of fish around the coast? They do. They have to eat something.
Ms. Lash: It is not an issue. It is not discussed or talked about. No one is complaining about it or saying we need to do anything about it.
Senator Watt: I am saying that if you want to save the fish and the oceans, you have to take the seals into account. You cannot exclude them. That is my personal opinion.
Mr. McIsaac: If you want an answer from me on that regarding the West Coast, I have travelled up the north arm of the Fraser River when the sockeye are running and seen bank to bank covered in seals. They are eating five sockeye a day, on average, over that time. There are issues on the West Coast of seal populations decreasing as well. It is not just a one-sided affair on the West Coast.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: What are you doing to them?
Mr. McIsaac: It is pollution. I want to delve into the whole issue of pollution. The area around Vancouver, the Georgia Basin, is a huge inland sea. The top predator in that inland sea is our orca, the mascot on the British Columbia coast, and they are listed as endangered. One of the main reasons for their being listed as endangered is the level of pollutants in the orca. Their populations are on the decline. It is the same for one of the types of seal on the West Coast as well. The one that is listed endangered is a southern resident population. There is a transient population that feeds on seals, sea lions and on other larger prey. The southern resident population feeds mostly on salmon, and that is where they are getting their toxic load. That is of real concern. Dr. Ross from Fisheries and Oceans Canada had his scale go right off the top when he testing them for PCBs. They had the highest levels of mammals on the planet. That is a huge issue.
That is coming through the seals as well. It impacts their growth and development and their species in the long term. It impacts us because what we put into the ocean comes back to us. We have to be careful about what we put in. We get that back. On the issue of seals, if we are managing the ocean, we have to look at that as well.
The Chairman: Are you saying that the pollutants control the seal population?
Mr. McIsaac: No.
The Chairman: What does?
Mr. McIsaac: On the East Coast, is that that solution? No.
There is actually a seal population, I think it is the Steller sea lion, that is going berserk on the West Coast. They are 100,000 plus and increasing rapidly. They are not being affected the same way as the harbour seals on the West Coast.
The Chairman: Senator Watt has struck on a point that concerns many of us. The seals have no known predator, and yet man is hampered from being a predator by groups that think and that want to make others believe that seals are an endangered species. In fact, Senator Watt is right. There are 7 million or 8 million, probably more, seals, growing exponentially, and growing as a result of the disappearance of some species and emergence of others.
Senator Watt: The polar bears are not eating as many seals as they used to.
The Chairman: Polar bears are declining. We could spend all night talking about cycles. The Inuit in the North first brought to our attention the damage being done to the environment there, particularly the melting of the ice cap and the endangered environment for polar bears. As a matter of fact, if polar bears are not on the endangered species list, they are quite close to it. It is a big topic for us, and it is close to our hearts on the East Coast. I do not know that we can go into it much farther tonight.
Senator Watt: Let us make it part of the planning.
Ms. Lash: It will definitely have to be part of the planning on the East Coast.
Kate Willis, Marine Planning Specialist, Living Oceans Society: I can speak to this. My background is in wildlife and fisheries sciences. I studied seals for my master's degree. I am no expert on all seal populations on the West Coast, but certainly the ones that we have out there. We have harbour seal, Steller sea lions and northern fur seals, the latter of which essentially inhabit Canada's waters more as a transitory migration route. There are California sea lions in British Columbia, but that is starting to get into the northern part of their range. The increase in California sea lions has not affected British Columbia.
Senator Rompkey mentioned that seals do not have any natural predators. On the West Coast, they certainly do. As Mr. McIsaac said, the transient killer whales are predators. The northern fur seal population has been decreasing. The animals in Canadian waters come from the Pribilof Islands in the northern Bering Sea. That population has been decreasing significantly over the last 10 years. There is a big question mark and it follows a significant decrease in Steller sea lions that occurred in the western portion of the Bering Sea. In the eastern portion, that population has been stable and even increasing ever so slightly, not at a rate that would be a threat to any of the fish species. The thing to remember is that seals and sea lions are an integral part of the ecosystem and that a balance is maintained by their being there.
Senator Watt: You talk about integrated management, and I go along with you on the idea, but the ecosystem needs help now. It cannot manage by itself any more.
Ms. Lash: I sympathize with the issues that the East Coast has around seals. I do not have the answer or enough information to comment. I would predict that we will be facing a similar issue around sea otters as their populations are starting to come back in B.C. The fisheries were developed when there were no sea otters. Now they are eating the sea urchins and geoducks, which is their natural food. They used to be a natural part of the ecosystem. However, now that those fish stocks have an economic value, the discussion is changing. That is still limited to the west coast of Vancouver Island, but it will become a huge issue for us. If you figure out how to solve the seal problem, let us know, because then we will be able to figure out how to do something about the sea otters.
The Chairman: Thank you for coming. We have had a good discussion. We will reflect on what you have said and we will be making some comments in the near future.
The committee adjourned.