Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 5 - Evidence, December 5, 2006
OTTAWA, Tuesday, December 5, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 7:03 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: Honourable senators, I will call the meeting to order. I will begin by introducing the members of the committee. I am Bill Rompkey, the chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. We have with us this evening Senator Elizabeth Hubley from P.E.I., which has a lot of ocean, Senator Willie Adams from Nunavut, which has a lot of ocean, and Senator Baker from Gander, which does not have any ocean, but Bonavista, which he knows very well, does have a lot of ocean.
We are rather diminished because some of our members are on other committees, but the quality is here so we will proceed. We want to welcome Mr. Patrick McGuinness from the Fisheries Council of Canada, whom we encountered in Labrador on our visit there, and Mr. Mark Butler from the Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia. Thank you for coming.
We are particularly interested in the issue of bottom trawling. We have not learned as much as we want to about that.
Patrick McGuinness, President, Fisheries Council of Canada: It was certainly a pleasure to meet you and your colleagues last month in L'Anse au Loup, Labrador. I want to pass on thanks from Gilbert Linstead, the general manager of the Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company Limited, for taking time out of your busy schedule to spend the evening with that delegation.
I have a few comments to make and I certainly would want to entertain your questions.
The first thing I would like to say is that the United Nations, which went through its negotiations last month, has decided to reject the across-the-board ban on the so-called unregulated areas of the high seas for bottom trawling. We think that is a fantastic direction because it refocuses the debate on conserving sensitive areas and away from demonizing a long-standing and important fishing gear. It came to the realization that the government's job is really to regulate.
I will go through the four-point program and resolutions that the UN has agreed to. Hopefully, you will agree with me that they are responsible and progressive. First, countries and regional fisheries management organizations such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, NAFO, will now have to assess where bottom trawling has significant adverse impacts and, where it does, manage the fisheries to prevent those impacts. If a country does not have that capability, simply do not authorize the fishing in that area.
Second, everyone now has to identify sensitive areas and determine where bottom trawling would cause a significant adverse impact.
The UN also wants to improve the research. Importantly, it drew attention to including new and exploratory fisheries for the collection of data. That is significant because it is a recognition that governments — Canada, United States, whatever — will not be sending research vessels out into the high seas to locate sensitive areas of corals and so forth. The only people doing that will be the fishing industry; and that is only with the aspiration that at some point in time there may be some return to that endeavour in terms of fishing opportunities.
Countries now will be instructed to have significant precautionary protocols with respect to this new exploratory fishing to ensure that the exploratory activity is well regulated. It also calls for closed areas where there are known sensitive areas, unless measures have been established to prevent significant adverse impacts.
That is really replicating what NAFO agreed to this September. They knew there were two or three sensitive areas with seamounts and deepwater corals and they decided to close those areas. Between now and the next NAFO meeting in September 2007, the fisheries managers and scientists will be developing scientific protocols. Say, for example, in 2007, if a fishing vessel wants to fish in that area, there will be certain protocols in terms of collection of data, observers on board and things of that nature. Then in 2010, everyone will get together, look at what has been discovered regarding these closed areas — what has the exploratory data achieved — and then they will make a decision as to whether the area should be closed permanently, whether the closure should be modified or whether there is no real need to continue the closure.
Those are the four steps. Countries and regional fisheries management organizations are required to adopt those four measures. If they do not or cannot, the fishing will simply not be allowed. In effect, that is a ban on fishing in unregulated areas if the country, the flag state, has not developed those protocols for its vessels.
This approach certainly is not in harmony with the calls for an across-the-board ban, but it is consistent with the recommendations from Canada, the European Union, the United States — as included in the memorandum from the White House to the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce on October 2 — Iceland, Japan and other major fishing nations.
This position is also consistent with the position paper tabled in the UN on October 2006 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, which said that a number of actions can and should be taken immediately. However, it said that such actions should refer to specific situations and areas rather than constituting a blanket across-the-board moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. That position is also consistent with the UN Secretariat's report. In 2004, a resolution was passed calling for investigation of the issue of bottom trawling and its impact on sensitive areas. The UN's Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea conducted significant research and submitted to the United Nations in July 2006 a report that concluded, among other things, that
beyond the ``first level'' of visual, short-term impacts on biodiversity, there is uncertainty on the long-term detrimental impacts of trawling on vulnerable marine ecosystems, and further research is urgently needed.
Honourable senators, this approach is consistent with the views of Canadians. A February 2006 Decima Research telephone survey of 2,000 Canadians reported that nine out of 10 Canadians prefer protection of sensitive areas to banning bottom contact fishing gear.
All harvest of food has an impact on the environment. Approximately 40 per cent of the worldwide fisheries employ bottom impact gear. Most bottom trawling takes place on flat or underlying sea bottoms that are covered by muddy sediments or gravel and are generally unsuitable as habitat for vulnerable fauna such as deepwater corals. Trawling in these areas disturbs the bottom sediment but the ecosystem impact is minimal. Most trawling is not exploratory but, rather, is fishing and refishing of existing trawling paths. A ban on trawling to conserve ocean biodiversity, which some people are calling for, is not justified. The FAO statistics show that the activity is in areas with gravel and muddy sediments. The gear technology is increasing and expanding to limit the footprint of trawling.
In Canada, the bottom trawling impact gear sector represents 40 per cent of the landings in terms of quantity and 24 per cent of the value of Canada's fishing. That converts into $1 billion worth of fish produced in Canada, employing 14,500 fishermen and processing workers. For some fisheries in Labrador, such as shrimp, scallops and clams, bottom trawling is the only way to harvest. The provinces most dependent on trawling are Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, along with Canada's northern fisheries: Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut. It is a new territory.
In conclusion, the United Nations approach is a responsible approach that respects the environment as well as the people who work in the industry.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mark Butler, Managing Director and Coordinator, Marine Issues, Ecology Action Centre: Thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate it and I also appreciate the opportunity to be here with Patrick McGuinness and to have a dialogue with him and with you.
The Ecology Action Centre is a Nova Scotia environmental organization that has been in existence for 35 years. I have spent 15 years working on this issue and on the impacts of fishing and other human activities on the ocean. In part, I got my start in this field from listening to and working with fishermen. What compelled me to go forward were their stories about impacts of mobile gear on the ocean floor. I still try to spend some time on the water. In fact, I was looking for lobster last week. I do that because I care about ocean biodiversity and the corals and the sponges, but I also care about the people involved in the industry and I want to see a fishery providing jobs and opportunities in Atlantic Canada.
Perhaps you are not that interested in my culinary habits or my likes or dislikes, but I do enjoy eating seafood and I want to continue to do so. I like sustainably caught seafood. I want to make it clear what my unhidden agenda is.
On to the high seas. The high seas are part of the ocean beyond the country's 200-mile limit or exclusive economic zone. The fundamental question is how to protect and conserve the wealth, diversity and life found on the high seas. It requires strong management, but that is not easy when no country or body has jurisdiction over the waters the way countries do within exclusive economic zones. When it comes to fishing on the high seas, the response of the world has been to establish regional fisheries management organizations composed of the active fishing nations in that area. That is the right approach, but there are big challenges. I think we all agree in this room that we need to set up management bodies on the high seas to manage fisheries.
What are the challenges? First, regional fisheries management organizations such as NAFO have largely failed to date, but they can work. We might have seen the first signs of this in some of the measures that NAFO adopted in September 2006 or the sustainable fisheries resolution that was negotiated in New York, which the UN General Assembly will likely endorse on Thursday of this week.
The second problem, and specific to the discussion of the high seas moratorium, is that on 75 per cent of the high seas there currently exists no regional fisheries management organization with the competency to regulate effectively the impacts of dragging. It is not a question of whether or not our regional fisheries management organizations are effective. They do not yet exist or are under construction on much of the high seas. It is essentially the Wild West out there. There are no quotas, no research vessels, no fish cops, and so on. This is starting to get to the crux of our differences.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans' response to this big gap is to build more regional fisheries management organizations. We would not necessarily disagree with that, but what will happen in the interim? Unfortunately, the most likely scenario, based on past experiences — and we have seen other fisheries go — is that seamounts in other areas will be fished and fished hard. Easily overfished deep-sea species such as orange roughy will be targeted and their habitat, be it coral sponges or other bottom features, will be damaged and obliterated. These systems, if too heavily damaged, will not recover over generations — perhaps into the lives of your grandchildren or great grandchildren.
In New York, the majority of the world's nations, such as Germany, Australia, Norway and India, were proposing to put a temporary halt to dragging where there are no regional fisheries management organizations in place until such time as regional fisheries management organizations with the competency to manage dragging are in place. To allow dragging to continue while these bodies are established would be a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has left the barn.
It is exasperating that Canada does not have any vessels fishing in areas where there are no regional fisheries management organizations or where such organizations are under construction. We would have not taken an economic hit if we had supported a moratorium. In addition, the high seas dragger fleet, which is the fleet under the microscope here, lands only about 0.5 per cent of the world marine catch. In this discussion, because there were some confusing statements made earlier, we need to be clear that no plants in Atlantic Canada would have been affected had the moratorium come into effect immediately.
The Fisheries Council of Canada, and perhaps others, and the minister have tried to present this situation as fishing nations against nations without interest in investment in high seas fishing. I do not think this is true. The EU, Norway, Australia and New Zealand, all high seas fishing nations, supported the moratorium.
Let us focus on Norway for a moment, which is not a nation that views the ocean in an overly romantic light. Norway has consistently stated that it will not allow its vessels to fish on the high seas where there is no management. That was all that was being asked of Canada and the rest of the world: no management, no fishing.
The minister has criticized the moratorium for not being enforceable. That is a charge easily levelled at any international arrangement, including and probably more so regional fisheries management organizations. In many people's minds, NAFO — considered one of the most advanced regional fisheries management organizations — is a synonym for ``ineffective.'' In 2005, you may remember, a panel of prominent Atlantic Canadians appointed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, to study NAFO concluded that the organization was beyond reform and needed to be replaced.
At the same time, there are examples of international moratoria working, including in the fisheries. I am certainly old enough to remember the pictures in National Geographic of birds, mammals and sharks tangled up in driftnets and the world coming together to place an effective and lasting ban on high seas driftnets. It was needed, it worked and it is still working. In fact, Canada is part of a group of nations enforcing that ban.
I have saved what I think is the silliest and most abused reason for not supporting the moratorium for last. Supporters of the minister's position have said that if Canada were to support the moratorium in international waters, it would have to do the same at home. If we accepted this argument, then we would not act on any environmental or human health concern. For example, people might say we cannot forbid smoking in restaurants because legislators, such as yourselves, will want to permit smoking in private residences. Measures should be assessed on their own merits, not on the basis of what subsequent measures might be enacted.
Further, no major Canadian environmental organization that I know of is calling for a moratorium on dragging in Canadian waters. We do support a suite of measures to address the impacts of dragging in domestic waters, but they do not include a moratorium. I would be happy to provide you with more information on that point.
Finally, the reason countries like Australia are supporting a moratorium is because there is no management structure in place. However, there is management in domestic waters.
Mr. McGuinness talked about the consensus that was reached in New York, and I would be happy to get into that more. In some respects progress was made, and in other respects obviously we see it as a failure.
Within regional fisheries management organizations, some measures have been put in place, which we welcome, but there are also limitations around those measures. For example, it will take two years before those measures come into effect. Most of those measures are still at the mercy of the common failings of regional fisheries management organizations, and much of the definition of what is sensitive and whether or not fishing should continue is still at the discretion of regional fisheries management organizations and the member states. We all know the problems associated with that.
Of course, outside of regional fisheries management organizations there was no support. In the end, the moratorium was not supported, as we understand it, because one nation — Iceland — opposed it. Instead, it remains up to the discretion of flag states, which is essentially what we had previously.
I note that there has been a lot of discussion about whether the U.S. or Australia or the EU does or does not support the moratorium. In her evaluation of the result of the meeting in New York, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Claudia McMurray, said, ``There were several countries that really did not want any controls at all. Unfortunately, the resolution comes up short. We are very disappointed that this is the result we ended up with.'' That is a representative of the U.S. describing the consensus reached in New York a week and half ago.
In closing, I found this debate over the last several months to be very instructive and revealing, both domestically and internationally. It has shown who supports action on dragging and who does not. It has shown that regardless of the science, of Canadian public opinion, of the support of many Canadian fishermen and fishing organizations — and there are fishing organizations on record as supporting the moratorium — of the endorsement of editorial boards across this country, of the position of the majority of the world's nations, including Canada's traditional allies such as the United States, the Canadian government listens to only one sector of the fishing industry on this issue. I believe that must change.
We must address this issue objectively on the basis of science and on the basis of good economics. We have not done so to date domestically, and now we have seen the result within the last year when it comes to setting foreign policy. I hope that meetings like this one will affect some of that change.
Senator Baker: I welcome Mr. McGuinness and Mr. Butler.
Mr. McGuinness, as all Canadians know, has represented the fishing industry well over the years. He does represent, as he will admit, the fishing fleets that drag the bottom of the ocean. However, he has done an excellent job over the years in representing those fisheries.
Of course, everyone in Canada knows Mr. Butler, both in and out of the courts, because he sued the federal government and DFO more times than anyone on record concerning their mismanagement of the fisheries.
Having said that, my first question is directed to both witnesses. Ordinary Canadians are looking at the issue of bottom dragging. I know you call it trawling. In coastal areas, a trawl is usually identified as a line with hooks on it. Each individual hook is the best and healthiest way of catching fish. However, somehow the name ``trawl'' has been implanted on draggers.
Aside from that, ordinary Canadians look at this issue of Canada's supporting bottom dragging on the high seas where Canadian fishermen do not venture. There is no Canadian industry to protect. I am sure any thinking person would say, ``What in goodness' name are you doing protecting the foreign fleets that drag on the high seas when Canadians do not drag on the high seas? Why in goodness' name would you ever do that?'' That is my first question.
Mr. McGuinness: First, at the Fisheries Council of Canada we primarily represent the processing industry. Senator Baker is right: three of the major deep sea dragging fleets are also members. We represent the large processors, but we also represent small processors. Cumberland Sound in Nunavut is a member of ours.
Our members either fish or buy from the full range of gear sectors. Therefore, when we see a particular gear sector being attacked, if you will — whether it is dragging, longlining or gillnetting — our job at the Fisheries Council of Canada is to get that fleet sector together with government, identify the issue and bring forward regulation that address it. I wanted to clarify that.
With respect to our position on the UN issue, the question is whether or not one has principles. It is not a matter of going along with the moratorium just because it will not have any economic impact on Canada. That is not the issue. We suggest that that is not what the Fisheries Council of Canada is all about. We are about leadership and principles. We looked at the issue. Even though Mr. Butler says it is temporary moratorium, there is no question that in certain parts of the world it would in fact be a permanent ban.
For example, the seas off Argentina, where there is a 200-mile fishery, are being fished by Spanish, Japanese, South Korean and Falkland vessels. That is happening in ``unregulated areas.'' However, as a result of geopolitical considerations — that is, as a result of difficulties between Argentina and the United Kingdom — there will never be a regional fisheries management organization in that area. Therefore, your interim temporary ban in such situations is in effect a permanent ban.
With respect to the issue of unregulated fishing in that area, the Japanese, the Falklands and even the Spanish vessels are regulated by their flag state. The 20 Spanish vessels there get licences from the European commission. They have logbooks that they have to report on a daily basis. A scientific vessel accompanies the fleet, and that vessel has determined that the area outside of Argentina where those fleets are fishing has no sensitive areas. Those fleets are fishing for hake, and the market for that is Spain. Hake is a significant food item in the Spanish diet. It is a low-cost protein. Those fleets supply a significant amount of hake to the Spanish market, particularly for low-income people.
That fishery is regulated by the nation states in an area that has been documented by scientific vessels as not having any sensitive areas and where there will not be a reasonable fisheries management organization in our lifetime.
Senator Baker: What is your point?
Mr. McGuinness: Why would we ban that fishery? My point is that the UN has listened to that argument. Why would we stop it? Why would Canada, if we have any principles, be party to such a blunt instrument? Blunt instruments do not work. They often have perverse outcomes. Either we have principles or we do not. We looked at that situation, and we said that that situation replicates itself in many parts of the world. Let us be governments. Let us regulate, let us put protocols in place and let us get flag states to make sure that they are governing their fisheries.
If you put a ban in place, those vessels would stop. One thing is certain: capital is mobile. We have a major problem of illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing. Those vessels would replace it.
Senator Baker: Sir, I do not understand your argument. You say it is on principle. Most of us who know a bit about dragging know that you are dragging the bottom of the ocean with something. Whether it is a 30-ton weight in between two shrimp drags on a vessel from Iceland dragging the Flemish Cap or whether it is any other type of dragging, you are dragging the bottom of the ocean. All these scientists have clearly shown that dragging the bottom of the ocean through spawning grounds and everything else does damage to the fishery.
You are saying that on the basis of principle we should allow this to go ahead now on the high seas. We are not out there, but we will let foreign nations go full tilt, as Mr. Butler says, in the Wild West out there, on the basis of some sort of principle. The principle of what, of being fair to people who destroy an environment? That is not a principle. Fish swim. If fish are allowed to live in the high seas, they come inshore for our fishermen.
I do not see where you get principle. Are you saying that people who are opposed to high seas dragging do not have principles?
Mr. McGuinness: It is only a Wild West out there for illegal, unreported and unregulated vessels from Barbados or wherever — flag of convenience vessels. That particular area off Argentina is not a Wild West.
Senator Baker: Let us talk about the Canadian coast. There are the high seas out beyond our continental shelf. Is there another rationale apart from principle that the Canadian government and our representatives used in the United Nations? Is there anything that makes sense to an ordinary Canadian concerned about the environment and the fishery? Scientists are predicting an end to the commercial fishery in 50 years. Many reputable scientists are saying that we will not be able to eat fish.
Is there another reason, apart from principle on the high seas, which you have explained, why Canada has taken this unusual stand at the United Nations?
Mr. McGuinness: First of all, it is not an unusual stand for governments to bring forward regulations as opposed to bans.
If the regulations that are proposed address the issue and bring the debate back to protecting sensitive areas and corals and expand information about where those areas are, I cannot see how you can say that that is not in keeping with Canada's traditional approach in international affairs. I would say that jumping to an indiscriminate ban that is a blunt instrument that could have the perverse impact I described is less in keeping with the Canadian approach.
Senator Baker: What is the impact on Canada? There is none. If we went along with the environmentalists, what impact would it have on ordinary Canadians? On unemployed fishermen down off our coasts today?
Mr. McGuinness: What is the impact on Canadians of what the UN has done?
Senator Baker: What is the impact on Canadians?
Mr. McGuinness: The impact is that Canada will be obligated to develop within Canada the types of regulations that have been proposed. Canada was not going to ban trawling in Canadian waters, but now it has responsibility. It has to implement that four-point plan inside Canadian waters.
Senator Baker: What do you mean by ``inside Canadian waters''?
Mr. McGuinness: Sensitive areas that are known will be closed. Canada will have to make sure that where bottom trawling is moving into new, exploratory fisheries, scientific protocols are in place.
As you said, a ban would have had no impact in Canada because Canada would not ban inside. However, what they have agreed to in the UN will have an impact, and to a large extent the fishing industry agrees with it, because it will put more regulations in place. It will address the issue of sensitive areas. The fishing industry is concerned about sustainable fisheries. We want to catch fish. We do not want to ruin our trawls on corals.
Senator Baker: The minister came before this committee. The minister put forward an argument that if we agree to a ban on the high seas, we may be forced inside 200 miles to ban our dragging. That is what he said. We called some legal experts before this committee, for example, the dean of law at Dalhousie University, whom you know well, and other legal experts who said that that is utter nonsense. There is nothing in law that says that that is correct.
I thought about it because in 1992 a ban was placed on drift nets, which are gillnets used to catch herring, salmon or mackerel on the top of the ocean. That was banned on the high seas. We did not have to ban it inside 200 miles. The argument that has been forwarded is utter nonsense. There really is no argument left to justify what has taken place as far as the international fisheries are concerned.
Mr. McGuinness: I believe I gave you many arguments as to why it went forth and was a responsible move. The Canadian fishing industry and Canadians will benefit from that because there will be more regulations on trawling with respect to sensitive areas. Those four points will have to be applied in Canada.
Mr. Butler: One of the principles we have talked about is science. Likely, we would all agree that fisheries should be managed on the basis of good science. Yet, Mr. McGuinness's interpretation of dragging does not necessarily accord with my interpretation. I have with me a couple of pages from the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations, ICFA, and their position on bottom trawling. Mr. McGuinness, you are the Chairman of the ICFA representing Spanish and Russian trawling associations. Is that correct?
Mr. McGuinness: We have a coalition of major fishing nations in the world.
Mr. Butler: Some of the statements note that trawling is acknowledged to be a sustainable fishing method contributing to global food supply and security and reject assertions that trawling is a destructive fishing practice. I do not think those statements accord with the scientific consensus. The National Academy of Sciences of the United States produced a study in 2001 that acknowledged the impacts and recommended action to minimize them; and the ICFA did the same. Finally, in 2006, six years after the United States, Canada did a similar study that reached much the same conclusions.
The scientists are quick to say that there are bottoms and areas where you can drag where the impacts might be minimal or acceptable, given what you are catching, but these statements before me now do not accord with the science, and that needs to be addressed. Approximately 1,500 scientists came out in support of a high seas moratorium on dragging.
I do not think you will find any scientists anywhere who would not agree with the moratorium. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the moratorium was a justified, precautionary approach. It is not appropriate to develop a management plan while continuing to drag and cause damage to the areas that you intend to protect later on. We do not do it in Canadian waters. We do not let people fish without a management plan. Why would we not do the same thing on the high seas?
You mentioned that these boats are regulated in unregulated areas because they are flying the Spanish flag and therefore are following certain conventions or rules of their flag state. I ask you: Would we be comfortable off the nose and tail of the Grand Banks or on the Flemish Cap if there were no regional fisheries management organization and NAFO and Spanish trawlers were out there fishing and telling us not to worry about it and that we can trust them because they are following their flag state Spanish rules? We are not happy even with one of the most advanced regional fisheries management organizations out there. Look at the kind of management that has occurred under their jurisdiction.
I do not know enough about the area off the Falkland Islands but I cannot imagine how it is possible to say that there are not sensitive areas there. Unless you do the study, how do you know?
The Chairman: I will put you down for a second round. I will go to Senator Adams.
Senator Adams: Mr. McGuinness, in your brief you talk about the 200-mile limit and that Canada has no control over the scientists. Are other countries dragging? Do they have scientists doing studies on how they can come back every year and catch so many thousands of tonnes? That is the way they work with other countries.
Mr. McGuinness: The vessels in the waters off the Falkland Islands along the coast of Argentina are not governed by Spain. They are governed by the European Union. These are long-distance fishing nations. These nations are requiring that significant fleets in an unregulated area have licences. This includes the European Union and Japan. As well, they have reporting requirements. They send a research vessel out to look at the area to determine that these vessels are not fishing inside another country's 200-mile zone. They take samples of the fish harvested and the bycatches, and they look at the terrain.
That is what responsible fishing nations are doing. However, there is no question that there are many irresponsible fishing nations out there. The challenge for all of us, including the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations, is to have more responsible fishing nations doing that kind of thing.
We are into sustainable fisheries. We are concerned about the image of the fishing industry and countries are concerned about the image. We are trying to coalesce a group of nations that take these issues seriously and are prepared to introduce rules and regulations so that fishing can continue and an important food supply can continue. The industry has to be well regulated. Some countries are approaching with that in mind, in part because they are responding to the criticisms launched by environmental groups. At the end of the day, the fishing industry is fighting for a share of the market and if that market decides it does not want to eat fish because it does not like the fishing industry, then the industry loses.
Senator Adams: This committee heard from DFO about a month ago. They have a radar device to monitor the fish stocks in the 200-mile limit. There has been a ban on Newfoundland cod for the past 15 years. Those cod are going further and maybe spawning outside the 200-mile limit. Is that true? Do you study inside the 200-mile limit? Does DFO do the study?
More fish are growing every year and they go outside the 200-mile limit and foreigners are catching them. If the machine that monitors the catch on one of those foreign vessels breaks down, that vessel does not go into a Canadian harbour. Instead, they go straight back to Europe. They do not care how much they catch because their machine is not working. The machine tells the crew how much they catch each day. You understand that. Right now, there is no law to cover such a situation.
Mr. McGuinness: I have two comments. The only place where they are finding a rebounding of cod is the inshore coast of Newfoundland. The cod stocks are pretty well barren as you go to Canada's deep sea and outside the 200-mile zone.
There is no question that part of the future must also include improvement of international law to address those issues. You met with Dr. May in St. John's. He pointed out that improvement is needed in international fisheries law. That is difficult to bring forward.
Senator Adams: Between Greenland and Nunavut, we are not quite in the 200-mile limit. We had a border. I do not know how many years Greenland has been commercial fishing between our border and Greenland. In the last five or six years, we have had a quota in Nunavut.
In Nunavut they have the quotas. They have no control over who is catching the fish. It is just like the rest of Canada. You remember the fishery council; they should understand the land claim was settled in 1993. Nunavut was formed in 1999. Right now they are just like any other Canadian fishermen. We want to be more like they are in Newfoundland. We have been fishing and hunting all our lives. We want the benefit of the tonnage up there. We are not getting it.
At that time the government recognized us and gave the people the quotas. People stayed in the community and between royalties and things like that, it went more towards the community. Now they are not doing it. Now Greenland is taking the royalties and it is sold back to Greenland.
Canadians want to buy from Newfoundland. We cannot do it because those guys from Europe are catching the fish, and they are subsidized by the European parliament. Everything, like fuel and food, is subsidized. The Canadians cannot compete. You are paying parliament to put a flag on Newfoundland and they go up to Nunavut. At the time of the land claim, we had a licence to do it. Now the foreigners are using our licence to catch the fish. People in the community cannot get a licence to fish. What kind of policy is that for Canada?
Mr. McGuinness: There is no question. In my view, the environmental community missed the target. The only thing we would fully support would be a ban on the subsidization of long-distance fishing vessels.
That is happening. I think there is agreement around the world that if you are subsidizing a long-distance fishing vessel to go off the shores of Canada or the Falkland Islands, you are taking employment away from countries that have the advantage of proximity to the fishing grounds.
You are seeing some of the results in Nunavut. We are seeing the results of it in Canada. If Spanish vessels and other vessels were not there and if we had an international call to ban subsidizations of long-distance fishing vessels, I think that would be a principled position. That is the position that could be supported. We could address some of these issues.
However, you are right. Countries subsidize. It is a funny situation on trade policy law. If we export fish to the United States and it is found that we are subsidized and our fish exports to the United States are injuring their domestic market, then there are trade policy rules that come into play. However, when a fishing vessel is subsidized to fish in the high seas outside Canada's 200-mile and bring the fish back to the home market, there is no trade policy issue. We have to address that situation.
Senator Adams: We have been doing an environmental study for a long time. We found out that in Nunavut the water temperature is different than it is around the Newfoundland coast and in the 200-mile zone. We are concerned about people living up there.
What percentage of the 8,000 metric tons of Greenland turbot are we catching up there in Nunavut? I heard from a witness a couple months ago that the water temperatures that used to be cold in the Artic are warming up, starting I think in 1970, and now the turbid swim down south. People are concerned about the temperature. Even DFO did not know the exact spawning area every year up in the Arctic. Maybe they are not telling me.
I do not know whether you are familiar with turbot. Where is the best area for the turbot spawning? We would like to know if we are getting the tonnage every year from Nunavut in the future. Right now the minister says they do not know how to determine it and how much we catch every year. Do you have an idea with some of your research?
Mr. Butler: I can only offer what I glean from some of the scientific presentations I have attended.
One thing perhaps is that climate change is having some effect on the ice cap. There is some melting so there is a lot of cold water moving down and that is lowering the water temperature. Fish are sensitive to water temperature. They seek out the water temperature they are comfortable in. That is about all I can offer.
I wish I knew more about the fisheries in the North. Occasionally somebody expresses some concern. Those are frontier areas, areas that have never before been fished in an industrial manner. If someone is dragging for turbot up there, that would worry me.
Hopefully people up there can promote or encourage more sustainable methods of fishing if they are available for bottom longline or for turbot. I read Sea of Heartbreak by a fellow from Newfoundland. It was about the bottom gillnet fishery for turbot. It was a heartbreaking book.
Senator Hubley: Thank you for your presentations.
Do dragging, trawling, bottom trawling and bottom dragging all mean the same thing?
Mr. Butler: Pretty well.
Senator Hubley: Does that mean the trawling organizations that you represent are what we call dragging? I just want to understand the definition.
The study that was done in Halifax at Dalhousie University was based on a wide variety of sources. The authors warned that, at current rates of depletion, there will be no viable populations of fish left in the seas by the middle of the century. According to the four-year study, the protection of individual fish stocks really depends on the protection of the entire ecosystem. If we can take the land experience that we have had and apply it to our oceans, we realize that you cannot abuse one part of an ecosystem without having a negative effect on other parts of that ecosystem. I would like you to comment on the study, whether or not you believe it, what if anything it means to us, and whether we should take it seriously,
Mr. McGuinness: As you say, the study tried to address ecosystems. I am not a scientist, and I have not looked at the study in depth. It looked at a number of ecosystems, and its only real conclusion is that those ecosystems that have a variety of species have a better chance of surviving. They certainly found that ecosystems where the number of species had declined are more in jeopardy. Intuitively, that seems okay. The report has received considerable discussion or commentary from other scientists who found it an interesting first step but not substantive enough to come to any particular conclusion other than the one that I have stated.
Drawing a line from time immemorial forward, they came to that prediction in 2048. More recently, there is an example of a significant rebound in fisheries in the United States. The Alaska pollack fishery is now the world's largest commercial fishery. It is an ecosystem that fluctuates.
That study was interesting and it garnered a lot of attention because of its headline prediction for 2048, but it is only a first step in a longer study that can really bring us some conclusions.
Senator Hubley: If this is the first case study that has come from the scientific community, which we hear quite often is essential to making wise decisions on how the fishery should run, what should be the response of the fishing industry? If the scientific industry has said, ``This is what we have discovered,'' how do you respond?
Mr. McGuinness: We are working toward eco-based fisheries management. Ten or 15 years ago, you would have fisheries managers looking at the biomass and determining how large the spawning contingent was and so forth and making a decision that for that fishery, we can have a quota of 100 tons or whatever. That was the science or practice of fisheries management. Now we are moving toward what we call ecosystem-based fisheries management. That is simply managing human activity, but you have to look at a wider array of issues, not only the biomass of the stock and the spawning capabilities, but also habitat issues and now also sensitive area issues and bycatch issues and the activities associated with other ocean use. That is generally now becoming the consensus approach.
We found that the old one dimensional type of approach really has failures and has not delivered to the fishing industry the sustainability and predictability that we require and that we want. The fishing industry and also fisheries managers are recognizing that they have to move to this wider spectrum of analysis to come up with a plan to manage the fisheries, and more recently the whole issues of sensitive areas, corals and so forth is included in those factors.
Senator Hubley: Mr. Butler, would you have any comment on that?
Mr. Butler: It was a very interesting study and a fascinating and sobering thing to do. I liked the quote that you read. It does define ecosystem management, and we have to pay attention to all components of a system.
I remember that the habitat management branch of DFO used to have inscribed on their caps, pens and mugs, ``No habitat, no fish.'' I do not know whether those mugs and pens are around anymore, but that sums up the situation very simply. Yet we have approached marine habitat, the ocean floor, as if it were somehow different than fresh water and as if there were no link between the fish and the bottom and the habitat. Now we are discovering that there is a link.
I find Mr. McGuinness's comments about trawling and the bottom's being mostly mud and gravel to be a pretty cavalier approach. Dragging is a high-risk technology. You have to manage it very carefully, and you have to be precautionary with it. I do not think we are in Canadian waters. Certainly fishing on seamounts without regional fisheries management organizations in place is a disaster. Seamounts are deep, stable habitats for long-lived species — 1,000 or 2,000 years or perhaps longer — as well as many shorter- lived species. Fish species like orange roughy are quite long-lived and can live up to 150 years. They are easily over-fished, so we have to be extremely careful when we fish those systems.
Boris Worm and his colleagues did a projection, not a prediction. His paper said that if we project forward based on past practice, this is probably where we will end up, but we do not have to end up there if we are smart about it. I remain involved because I think there are ways of doing it right. We can fish the ocean sustainably.
Senator Hubley: We have heard about subsidies before. Without the subsidies, do you feel that the world's bottom trawling fleets would operate at a loss, or would they perhaps come up with better methods of fishing? I have been on the Agriculture Committee, and the chances of any country's not subsidizing an industry that is obviously making a profit is a little beyond me. I do not think it will happen. I also think that we are putting the onus on the political end and trying to put in place a political solution that perhaps will not happen, and we may be using that as an excuse. This lies within the fishing communities and how the fishing is done and best practices and innovative ideas on how best to catch these fish without destroying habitat. Would you comment on that?
Mr. Butler: You are right, it is somewhat of a distraction. I was interested to hear Mr. McGuinness's comments on subsidies.
Maybe it will never happen. In some of the conversations among environmental groups internationally, the issue of subsidies was looked at. A paper came out recently on subsidies. It is an area where there might be some agreement on common cause. Certainly, the rising cost of fuel changes the economics of some fisheries. Some of the big draggers take on a lot of fuel when they go to sea and that is a huge cost. Fossil fuels will change the economics of the fishery. I do not know if that is helpful.
Senator Hubley: Yes, it is.
Mr. McGuinness: The long-distance fishing fleets have an unfair advantage in terms of fishing on the high seas if they are subsidized. In the European Union, for example, if the Spanish fleet has a bad image and at the same time taxpayers' dollars are spent having that fleet off Argentina or Canada, people are asking why that is being done. I think there are opportunities to coalesce.
There is a delicate balance. You do not necessarily want to ban subsidies in the fishing industry, because if in fact Canada wants to subsidize the development of fisheries in Nunavut or in the North, that is a legitimate domestic issue that will not have injurious impact on other countries in terms of exports. However, if Canada were then to subsidize our trawler fleet to fish in the Falkland Islands, that is wrong.
Many fleets are being subsidized to fish off of Africa, and the African countries do not have the capability to defend their 200-mile zone or even know where it is; those vessels are not only fishing on the high seas, they are fishing within the 200-mile zone of many African countries. Mr. Butler is quite right. If you pulled away the subsidies and with the increase in fuel and so forth, the number of vessels fishing the high seas could be lessened significantly.
The Chairman: Before I go to Senator Baker, I would like to ask several questions myself.
I want to draw your attention to a remark by Mr. Risley of Clearwater. I assume he is part of your organization. He is quoted in the Chronicle-Herald as saying that there is zero scientific evidence, not one shred of scientific evidence that trawl fisheries do any damage to the bottom environment whatsoever.
I find that very difficult to accept. Was he simply overstating it to make a case? How does the organization feel about that statement by him?
Mr. McGuinness: In my comments, I made reference to the 2006 report from the UN's Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, which basically said that, with respect to trawling or bottom dragging, beyond the first level of visual short-term impacts on biodiversity there is uncertainty about the long-term detrimental impacts of trawling on vulnerable marine ecosystems and further research is urgently required.
I think Mr. Risley was referring to the fact that they have a significant scallop fishery off Nova Scotia, which has been there for many years. It continues to be lucrative and to grow. To a certain extent, it is a very sustainable and level fishery. They have been fishing there for many years and that scallop fishery is still exporting $80 million to $100 million a year, which is significant.
It is the same with the Georges Bank. It is a prolific fishery and there have been trawl fisheries there from time immemorial. How would you explain to Mr. Risley that when he is fishing he is doing damage, when he has evidence that the fishery he is in is sustainable, is continuous, is very lucrative and provides employment?
The Chairman: If he is confining himself to Georges Bank, that is one thing. This does not mention Georges Bank, but it leads us to the issue of technology. We have learned that if you did away with trawls — and shrimp is one of them, as we learned in Labrador — there is no other way to pursue the fishery. The answer there is to modify technology.
The larger question is the effect of technology itself and the large vessels with advanced gear. There is no question at all that the destruction of the cod was through the application of technology. Mr. Crosbie and everyone else will admit that. There may have been some environmental factors, but after the 200-mile limit it is clear that allowing all that technology to be applied to the resource depleted it. There is no doubt about that.
We want to figure out where technology is inevitable and must be used and where it is not. It may be that Georges Bank is sustainable with technology. That does not mean that is the case everywhere. As a committee, we want to get at what is fair in the application of technology and what is not.
Mr. McGuinness: You are quite right. That is the direction ecosystem-based fisheries management is evolving. We must look at all these factors, including the bycatch, the gear employed, the habitat and so forth. The result may be a mosaic of fishing management strategies that dictate that a certain gear type is probably not the best gear type to use in a particular area although it might be the right gear type in another area.
The Chairman: Does your organization put money into research on gear type? Is there enhancement, development or modification of gear types?
Mr. McGuinness: The Fisheries Council of Canada itself has not, because we are primarily are a voice of processors, but member associations such as the Groundfish Enterprise Allocation Council, the Canadian Association of Prawn Producers and the scallop fleet have put considerable money into technology. The important technological development for the scallop fishery was multibeam mapping of the ocean floor, which enabled people to identify and plot sensitive areas and also to identify which scallops are mature enough for harvesting. As a result, dredging of the area has decreased substantially because it is much more targeted. That is not only great for the environment but is also very beneficial economically because they are using less gas.
When shrimp trawling started there was a criticism of bycatch and there were joint investments by the industry and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and others to develop certain types of shrimp-trawling nets that basically exclude the groundfish catch. That type of work is extremely important.
The people at the Marine Institute in Newfoundland and Labrador will tell you that there is considerable work with companies such as Fishery Products International and others. It is not so much work trying to increase our efficiency at catching fish but more trying to address the criticisms or comments that we hear with respect to the footprint on the environment. Right now most of the money is being put not into increasing efficiency but into reducing the impact of the technology on the environment.
The Chairman: You mentioned the Decima poll. I see different answers from the two of you. What did the Decima poll say?
Mr. McGuinness: The poll indicated that respondents supported regulations for conserving sensitive areas as opposed to an outright ban.
Senator Baker: Mr. Risley's statement that draggers do not at all affect the fish was quoted everywhere. The general public knows what draggers are; they are dragging those huge things on the bottom of the ocean. There are either doors or weights in between, as in the case of shrimp trawls. Foreigners have 100-foot long shrimp drags and there is a 30-tonne weight and another drag down here. That is what they have progressed to on our continental shelf.
Hearing Mr. Risley's statement, I immediately thought about a committee I was on that investigated how codfish spawn. We learned that in Norway scientists have huge tanks in which they studied codfish. The spawning is a very delicate process. A male and a female map out a part of the ocean for three weeks. If you drop food in during that spawning period the fish will not spawn; they will hit the sides of the tank. When Mr. Risley made that statement, I wondered how he would like to have a dragger moving through his bedroom. It does not make any sense that a dragger would not have any effect on the spawning habits of fish.
If people think I am being a bit mean to Mr. McGuinness, I am not being mean to him. He is supported by the Government of Canada and by the provincial governments; they all agree with him. All the political parties, even the NDP in Newfoundland, came out in support of his statements.
The Chairman: Do you think that was a principled position?
Senator Baker: Mr. McGuinness would call that a principled position. That is about as principled as his reasoning on the dragging on the high seas.
Mr. Butler, about the Decima poll, according to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Mr. McGuinness, 70 per cent of Canadians are in favour of dragging, of having those huge vessels dragging the bottom of the ocean on the high seas. Do you believe that?
Mr. Butler: We did a couple of polls, and of course people make their comments about polls. The first one we did was in Atlantic Canada prior to the debate about the high seas moratorium. It was about the impacts of dragging and what kinds of response there should be from the government. I would be happy to provide you with the question and answer.
The polling company came back to us with revised wording. I was not particularly happy with it, but they said that if you want to have the public believe the results, then make the poll as fair and unbiased as you can.
Over 90 per cent of the people felt further action should be taken in Canadian waters to regulate the impacts of dragging. About 70 per cent felt there should be further action, closing areas, et cetera — sort of what Mr. McGuinness was talking about. Interestingly, in P.E.I. and Newfoundland one of the options was to ban the gear altogether, which is not a position of the Ecology Action Centre but was one of the choices on the poll. In P.E.I. and Newfoundland 26 per cent of the population said dragging should be banned in Canadian waters. In Newfoundland there is very strong sentiment and anger about this technology and how it has been used and misused.
Senator Baker: Were the other 84 per cent in favour of it?
Mr. Butler: No. They felt there should be a suite of actions taken along the lines of what would be supported by the Ecology Action Centre.
Senator Baker: Did you look at the question and answer to the poll referenced by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Decima?
Mr. Butler: I have a copy.
Senator Baker: The question asks whether, if 14,000 families get their living from the fisheries and if there is no damage to the environment and no damage to the fishery, you would agree with dragging.
Mr. McGuinness: If I can comment, I have sent the actual Decima poll to Mr. Heyde, and I hope that he can distribute it to the members because that is not the question.
Senator Baker: What is the question?
Mr. McGuinness: The poll said, ``Commercial fish harvesting in Atlantic Canadian waters using fishing gear that comes in contact with sand, mud or gravel sea floor, including bottom trawling, produces $1 billion worth of seafood each year and helps support the livelihood of 14,000 fishermen and shore workers. Most of this harvesting occurs each year in the same specific areas where, similar to farmland, the abundance of some species can be reduced for a period after the equipment contacts the soil. The federal government regulates this practice to ensure that the catch of fish does not exceed sustainable levels. How strongly do you agree or disagree that this harvesting activity should continue?'' Then there were the choices for answer: strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree, do not know.
Senator Baker: Who would not agree with that — with having sustainable fishing that is monitored? That is not the same as asking whether you agree with dragging.
Mr. McGuinness: What part of that statement is incorrect?
Senator Baker: No part of that statement is incorrect, but that answer is not an endorsement of dragging on the high seas by Canadians. That is not an endorsement, period, by Canadians.
Mr. McGuinness: Our comment was that nine out of 10 Canadians prefer protection of sensitive ocean areas to banning bottom-contact fishing gear. Specifically with respect to banning the activity, we agree with Mark Butler and company in saying that what should be done is identify the issues, identify the problems, have the industry and government get together and regulate so that significant adverse long-term impact does not occur.
Senator Baker: I will ask Mr. Butler a question regarding the reaction. He has been fighting for better fishing operations for years. He would define trawling as using a trawl, which I am sure he has set and I have set over the years, which is a long line with two bobbers on each end with hooks and you catch fish. It is the most environmentally sound, best way of catching fish. It is certainly not dragging on the high seas where Canadians do not even go. Does he get discouraged? He has been at this for a long time.
Mr. Butler, I can remember serving on committees before which you have appeared and you have been singing the same song. You are not making much process. The fish are still disappearing all around our coastline. We are still the only nation in the world in which 17 foreign nations set our quotas. There is not a quota area on the East Coast of Canada that is not called a NAFO zone. NAFO manages our fish up to the high-water mark. There are eight species of fish inside 200 miles.
We are not any further ahead. You are still on the same argument. You have just lost a huge argument at the United Nations. Every political party says you are wrong. What provincial government came out in support of what you are saying?
Mr. Butler: I ended my presentation on that very point, that something has to change. We came close at the UN. Only one country, Iceland, blocked the final move towards a moratorium, in the very end. There is now turmoil in Iceland among the fisheries minister, the environment minister and the foreign minister over this issue.
I think there has been a disproportionate influence on DFO policy and DFO bureaucrats in their thinking by Mr. McGuinness and his colleagues, which is a big pat on the back for him. I do not think it served us well. We have to grow up on this issue of gear.
Five years or 10 years ago, the U.S. was behind in dealing with this issue. Now they are ahead. They are willing to recognize that bottom hook-and-line trawl gear is obviously less damaging than a dragger going after groundfish. Iceland has recognized that too, even though they had a bad stance on the high seas moratorium.
I have talked to processors in Nova Scotia who are concerned about this issue. They see markets in the U.S. for hook-and-line fish, because on the open market it fetches a higher price. It is a better-quality product.
There are places where you can drag. I would say 5 per cent or 10 per cent of Georges Bank, if you want to scallop fish there and if that will be scallop grounds, go for it. However, one thing that we must recognize, which the U.S. has recognized, is that scalloping might have an impact on juvenile cod habitat. When you scallop an area, you clean it. You can see the difference between a scalloped and an un-scalloped area. On the un-scalloped area, there are all kinds of organisms growing there. That is perhaps where juvenile cod hide. If you remove that habitat, juvenile cod are more open to predation by larger cod.
On the U.S. side, they have recognized the habitat impact of scallop dragging and they have closed certain areas to scalloping because they are juvenile cod habitat. We have not done anything like that on the Canadian side.
We are behind. The U.S. did this in 2001. The managers requested it. The environmental groups went to court. All kinds of litigation went on in the U.S. I have talked to observers, scientists and fishermen who have worked in Alaska and come back. They are so much further ahead in managing their fisheries than we are. It is really sad.
Senator Baker: You mentioned earlier the book about Nunavut, and Senator Adams was also talking about it. He mentioned the hook and line on Broughton Island, that the best fish that comes out of the ocean gets the highest price. What happens after this? It progressed to gillnets, then draggers, and now it is foreign draggers in that same area. That is the type of progress that we have made.
In Canada we have regulations. The largest boat one can have is 65 feet. If you are a fisherman and you want a quota, you can get a 65-foot shrimp boat. That is the limit. I know the companies are asking for a lifting of that. Mr. Chairman, you have delved into that quite a bit.
Mr. McGuinness talked about hake a few minutes ago. Silver hake used to be a famous fishery off the Nova Scotia coast. The foreign draggers used to be 300 feet long. Now they are 175 feet or 200 feet long, larger than our fleet ever was.
Can you understand why we in Canada would support those huge draggers that drag the ocean? Is there any reason at all that makes any sense why we would support these international fleets, especially on the high seas?
Mr. Butler: I heard your comment on Loyola Hearn's rationale. I had hope for Mr. Hearn when we met with him in May. Sylvia Earle was here, a world-famous scientist. She met with Mr. Hearn. She said that we have to support this moratorium and she gave the reasons why. This is a woman with an incredible list of achievements, who has the record for the longest deep-sea dive.
Subsequent to that, Mr. Hearn said that dragging damages stocks and habitat. That was the first time we have had a fisheries minister make an unqualified statement like that. The previous minister, Geoff Regan, said that dragging does damage, but so does every gear; it is all a big ball of wax and we really cannot figure it out; we do not want to pick on any one gear.
It looked like maybe this guy from Newfoundland, who knew the fishery, who stood on the end of the wharf, whose father was a fisherman, was going to do something. Then, at the end of September, he put out a press release saying they were not going to support the moratorium. The Fisheries Council of Canada put out a press release in support of their position and that was it.
Countries like Australia are saying that where there are regional fisheries management organizations, put measures in place. Where the regional fisheries management organizations are under construction, you have until such-and-such a time to do something; and where there are no regional fisheries management organizations, support a moratorium. New Zealand and the United States came out with the same position. In the end, at the negotiations in New York, even the EU was willing to go along. Canada is largely teaming up with Spain. Was there not a fisheries minister who went to New York and did something with Spain?
Senator Baker: A few minutes ago you blamed the situation on Mr. McGuinness. I would not blame it on Mr. McGuinness. He is doing his job representing the processing companies, and of course the governments agree with what he is doing. The unions and the political parties also agree with Mr. McGuinness's position on these matters.
You suggested that it is people of influence, people who have influence with the government and with public opinion, who are perhaps on the wrong track here.
Let me ask you a simple question. The person in charge of fisheries management in Canada, representing the Canadian government, giving advice to the minister, is the president of NAFO. He is a fine gentleman with an excellent mind. The president of an international organization such as NAFO, representing 17 foreign nations, cannot really go in direct opposition to that organization or he would have to resign. Do you think there is a conflict of interest, if not in reality then certainly a perceived possible conflict of interest, in having the person in charge of fisheries management in Canada, the person making those decisions and writing those letters for the minister, also be the president of an international organization representing 17 nations, and every single nation operates only draggers? They do not operate anything else. They drag the bottom of the ocean on our continental shelf. Is there perhaps a perceived conflict of interest there?
Mr. Butler: You are talking about David Bevan?
Senator Baker: Yes.
Mr. Butler: The short answer is yes.
Senator Baker: I have nothing against Mr. Bevan.
Mr. Butler: Maybe Mr. McGuinness is in a difficult spot as chair of the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations, too. He may not see it that way, although I might.
Unfortunately, the position that Canada took does not surprise me given Mr. Bevan's attitude toward fisheries in the last 10 or 15 years. There is a total reluctance to acknowledge that some gear types might have more damaging impacts than others, although it is obvious to everyone.
As I understand it, the NDP and the Bloc were in support of a moratorium.
Senator Baker: They are not in Newfoundland. The leader of the NDP in Newfoundland said that they are in favour of the position taken by the Canadian government and the Tory Newfoundland government. They do not want a ban on dragging. The greatest fishing takes place off of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The unions agree with Mr. McGuinness.
Mr. Butler: We go to the lowest common denominator. We do not want to offend any gear sector, so we try to please them all and in the end please no one.
Why can we not do what Norway has done? They regulate the impacts of dragging, although they still allow it. They take a much tougher approach to it. They are much more aware of its impacts. They do not try to sweep them under the table.
Senator Baker: However, they come over here and drag our continental shelf. So does Ireland.
The Chairman: This has been an interesting meeting. There has been controversy, but that is the stuff of politics.
I want to thank both of our guests for being so frank with us and taking part in this lively discussion.
There are a number of points of view. The committee will try to come to a fair position and not favour one side or the other. You have helped us to find some balance on these issues.
The committee adjourned.