Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 8 - Evidence - May 8, 2012
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 5:12 p.m. to study the lobster fishery in Atlantic Canada and Quebec.
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I call the meeting to order. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I am Fabian Manning, a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador, and I am the chair of this committee.
Before asking the witnesses to introduce themselves, I would like to invite the members of the committee to introduce themselves to our witnesses.
Senator MacDonald: I am Senator Michael MacDonald from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Senator Hubley: Senator Elizabeth Hubley from Prince Edward Island.
Senator Oliver: Senator Don Oliver from South Shore, Nova Scotia.
Senator Poirier: Senator Rose-May Poirier from New Brunswick.
Senator Greene: Senator Nancy Greene Raine from British Columbia.
Senator Harb: Mac Harb from Ontario.
The Chair: The committee is continuing its study in the lobster fishery in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and we are very pleased today to hear from senior officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. On behalf of the members of the committee I welcome you here and I want to ask you to introduce yourselves before we begin, please.
David Balfour, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am David Balfour. I am the Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Ecosystems and Fisheries Management. I have with me this afternoon on my right Siddika Mithani, the Assistant Deputy Minister of Ecosystems and Oceans Science Sector; Mr. David Gillis, the Director General of Ecosystem Science, Ecosystems and Oceans Science; and Mr. Morley Knight, Director General of Resource Management.
We have a presentation that we have circulated in hard copy.
The Chair: Go ahead and do that first, and then we can ask questions after.
Mr. Balfour: We thought we would offer this material as a bit of background context to support the discussion this evening. I will start with a little bit of a snapshot overview of the lobster fishery, and then I will turn to my science colleagues to talk about the science and biology around lobster. Then I will come back and speak a bit about the management measures that are associated with the lobster fishery and also provide a little bit of an overview with respect to the lobster sustainability program and the short-term assistance program that we have been involved in, because I understood that was a point of some interest to the committee members.
I will move to page 2 of the deck and give a bit of an overview. Landings in the fishery, Atlantic-wide and Quebec, have been on an average of 57,000 tonnes annually over the last five years, with 2010 being a bit exceptional at landings of 67,000 tonnes. I think the main message here — and I think it will be picked up elsewhere in our presentation — is that the landings in the fishery have remained fairly steady over the last decade or two.
Lobster is Canada's most valuable seafood export. It is also the most valuable Atlantic seafood export. In 2010, annual exports as is noted here were $947 million. Lobster landings are used as a primary indicator of the abundance and health of the lobster resource, and are used to determine whether management measures are needed in order to secure sustainability of the resource. We have generally seen an upward trend in landings in recent decades.
On the next page, there is a map that lays out all of the lobster fishing areas. The Atlantic and Quebec are subdivided into management areas for lobsters and, in some cases, into sub-management areas. In total, including the sub-areas, we have 45 distinct management units for lobster. One of the management units at the bottom, on Browns Bank LFA 40, is closed for conservation reasons. LFA 41 is associated with an offshore lobster fishery. The remaining areas are fished by what we would describe as inshore vessels, primarily vessels under 45 feet in length.
I will turn to page 4. As I was mentioning, lobster is of critical importance to the economy of Atlantic Canada, in particular rural coastal economies. It is the most valuable fishery fished in Atlantic Canada. There are approximately 10,000 licences issued annually for lobster. It involves 30,000 individuals in harvesting operations; that would be captain and crew of lobster fishing vessels.
It is also an important source of fishery for Aboriginal food, social and ceremonial fisheries. As well, we have seen the advent of Aboriginal participation in commercial fisheries since the Marshall decision in 1999, and currently there are approximately 248 lobster enterprises that are being fished by Aboriginal organizations.
I will turn the presentation to Science.
Siddika Mithani, Assistant Deputy Minister, Ecosystems and Oceans Science, Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Thank you. First, I would like to mention several points about the distribution and movement of American lobster and then run you through the life cycle shown on this slide. American lobster is native to the northwest Atlantic Ocean and occurs from southern Labrador to North Carolina. There is a closely related species, the European lobster, in the northeast Atlantic and around Northern and Western Europe.
Mature American lobsters generally make seasonal movements to shallow waters in the spring and summer to moult, reproduce and hatch eggs, and return to deeper waters in the fall and the winter. These movements typically amount to a few kilometres. However, long seasonal movements amounting to tens or hundreds of kilometres occur in the Gulf of Maine, the Bay of Fundy and the offshore regions of the Scotian Shelf.
Movement patterns are affected by bottom topography, depth, water temperature and possibly homing characteristics. If you look at the lobster life cycle diagram, you can see that there are two phases. The phase above is the planktonic phase, or living in the water column phase, at the upper part of diagram. The bottom part of the diagram is really the benthic or bottom dwelling on the lower section.
The planktonic phase follows the hatching of eggs from late May to September depending where in Atlantic Canada. The larvae go through a swimming period that lasts from three to 10 weeks, depending on environmental conditions, principally water temperature. The planktonic phase ends when post-larvae lobsters — and that is the stage 4 on the left-hand side — are about one centimetre and settle on to the bottom to begin the benthic phase. As plankton, larvae lobsters do not resemble their parents much, but as they settle to the bottom they take on the familiar form of the lobster. Natural mortality at this stage is very high during the plankton phase due to predation and currents that may carry the larvae to unfavourable locations. That is the plankton phase.
If we go to the benthic phase, which is the bottom, the newly settled lobsters progress through several juvenile stages and an adolescent phase before reaching adulthood, which is four to 10 years depending where in Atlantic Canada.
During the first few years of benthic life, until they reach about 40 millimetres lobsters live in habitat that provides many shelters, so they are always looking for shelter. Again, natural mortality is high due to predation, mostly when they first develop into the benthic phase and when they emerge as juveniles from their first shelters. After they mature, the lobster carries fertilized eggs under their tail, generally for much of a year, and then hatch to become planktonic larvae and the cycle starts again to complete the cycle.
Natural mortality on adult-sized lobsters is quite low. If they are not caught in the fishery, they can live for more than 50 years and produce many larvae in their lifetime.
That gives you a quick upshot of what the lobster life cycle looks like. If we turn to slide 6, it provides several points that are relevant to the assessment and monitoring of lobster populations and the provision of science advice. Biomass of a lobster population is really difficult to estimate directly because, as you saw in the last slide, they seek shelter where it is available and are not easily sampled in ways that can generate a biomass estimate, as it is often done for other species.
The current management approach for most lobster fisheries uses input controls and generally not a total allowable catch and so it does not require determination of a biomass value. The exception, of course, is LFA — the Lobster Fishing Area 41 — which is off the coast of southern Nova Scotia. Routine monitoring of the commercial fishery is used to develop self relative indicators of abundance that are shown here in the fourth bullet. Those include landings, catch rate from mandatory or voluntary fishing logs, indicators on reproducers and sub legal size lobster.
In some cases — and this is from scientific trial survey and commercial catch, either dockside or at sea, depending on the LFA — generally indicators are updated annually with full assessments that are done every three to seven years, depending on the area. Science advice is provided so that fisheries management can periodically adjust the effort control system, for example, number of traps, seasons, et cetera, if or when necessary.
Mr. Balfour: Turning to page 7, this is not a fishery where the department sets total allowable catches. It is a fishery that is managed in terms of its effort. The main science determination is on the basis of catch per unit effort and whether or not the landings are increasing or decreasing. That would suggest whether we should be stepping up or not on particular measures. It is a competitive fishery, which means there are not individual quotas and all participants can go out and fish to maximize their individual returns.
It is controlled and managed on the basis of limited number of licences permitted in each of the lobster fishing areas. Along with the limitation on licences, there is a limitation on the number of traps that can be set per each licence in the fishery.
There is also limitation in staggering of fishing seasons — for example, in the summer period — to be able to protect moulting lobster for both conservation purposes and to maximize quality of lobsters for returns into the marketplace.
There is also efforts about protecting egg bearing females where these are to be returned unharmed to the water when caught in gear. There are also efforts to V-notch female lobsters so they are readily identifiable if captured again in order to be returned.
There are minimum and maximum sizes of carapace for legal size of lobsters that can be harvested and brought into port. There is also an effort on trap designs to ensure that undersized lobsters and other bycatch can escape from the gear, and that there be biodegradable panels. If the fishing gear is lost, some aspects of the gear would degrade and the gear would cease fishing so we would not have a ghost fishing issue in the fishery. As well, there is an ongoing monitoring and enforcement to the fishery regulations and licence conditions to ensure there is an effective compliance with the conservation stipulations for the fisheries by participants.
The offshore fishery that I mentioned earlier in LFA 41 operates with a total allowable catch. My science colleagues can speak to this later, but it is as much as a result of there being only eight participants and very limited variability in the fisheries that allows for the determination of overall TAC. This is a fishery that is monitored and managed through dockside monitoring, monetary fishing logbooks and at sea observer coverage, and in the last year it has received Marine Stewardship Council certification.
Page 9 lays out four lobster fishing areas. The current minimum carapace size required for each of the lobster fishing areas and — as it was referred to by my science colleagues — that varies by area because the size of lobster at the onset of sexual maturity varies from LFA, or area to area. For your information, we have included in this table the determination of what size of lobster in each of the areas would result in 50 per cent of the lobsters being taken being above the size where we have sexual maturity. This is all in aid of trying to contribute to maximizing egg production, which is a critical strategy for securing the sustainability of the fishery. On this table, we have also, for your information, noted the number of licence holders in each of those LFAs.
Page 10 lays out some of the other conservation measures that we see in the lobster fishery. I think I have mentioned some of these in terms of biodegradable elements. Also, there are efforts, particularly in the Bay of Fundy area, to have quick-release mechanisms in any entanglement protocols to avoid entanglements or aid in the release, unharmed, of right whales that may encounter fishing gear. In that area as well, they endeavour to ensure that the fishery opens at times such that there will not be a high presence of right whales in the Bay of Fundy. There is also effort to see that there be monitoring of lost fishing gear and also recording of by-catch and species at risk that are taken in lobster gear.
Page 11 briefly outlines licence fees. They range from LFA to LFA, from $30 in some instances to over $2,000 for the offshore fishery.
Page 12 is a bit about enforcement in lobster. It is highly regulated. Fisheries throughout the Atlantic area and Quebec dedicate a significant percentage of their enforcement effort in the fishery. It is the main area of focus for fishery officers in Quebec, our Maritime and gulf regions. The Maritime region represents approximately 35 per cent of the enforcement effort in the region.
We have a fairly good rate of compliance with the roles in these fisheries. We do not have situations where we believe we are seeing lobster being put at risk from a conservation standpoint. What we do see in a contemporary way is that progressively more and more of our fishery officers are focusing their areas of effort based on intelligence in order to be able to focus on where key risks might be, such as from poaching, or where there is intelligence that there may be instances of small lobster landings and the like.
That is repeated a bit on page 13, so I will not go through that again.
Page 14 lays out a bit of the statistics around the enforcement and compliance for lobster, which represents 68,000 hours annually in terms of fishery officers dedicated to lobster. It involves detection of approximately 1,200 violations annually, most of which are minor in nature, such as in proper marking of gear that is being inspected and things of that sort. On an annualized basis, there are about 100 instances where we would see violations that would be prosecuted through the courts, and through there we would see penalties established.
On lobster value, in 2010, lobster landings had a value of approximately $573 million. That with value-added represented export value of $947 million. We saw that as quite a favourable increase over the situation we had seen in 2008-09 when we were challenged by the global economic downturn.
Last year, prices peaked in July at approximately $6.95 per pound. The prices vary by area and they vary by time, both in terms of size and quality of lobster as well as marketplace, and they reflect the interactions between buyers and sellers in the port markets.
The next page gives a bit of a profile of lobster values and volumes by province, for your benefit.
On page 17, in 2009 we launched the Lobster Sustainability Program, which involved a short-term set of initiatives and a longer term sustainability program. There was a $50 million program established to respond to concerns that came forward from participants in the industry that, with the decline in prices in 2009 compared to 2008, they would see significant declines in incomes. The government responded with this program.
There were approximately 1,000 individuals who came forward and were assisted through this program, and a total of $8.2 million was dispensed on the program. The low take-up rate was the result of an increase in volumes of landings in 2009 as compared to 2008, as well as more favourable prices that were realized compared to projections from the industry.
Page 18 is on the Atlantic Lobster Sustainability Measures Program. This was an initiative involving $50 million and it expires in March of 2014. The objective of the program is to support the implementation of sustainability plans by the lobster industry in order to improve the sustainability of their lobster fishing areas, as well as to support initiatives by industry to restructure and rationalize their fishing sectors in order that they would be able to enhance their prosperity and also be able to contribute to their sustainability. We are forecasting that there will be a full financial take-up on the program, and through the program, approximately 590 lobster licences will be retired in Atlantic Canada, as well as approximately 200,000 traps. We have provided a bit of a profile of the projected spending by province.
We have in place 17 sustainability plans. These were established on an LFA-wide basis by industry, where they wanted to take on an effort to improve the productivity and sustainability of their lobster fishing area in areas such as measures to improve the prospects of egg production. In many of these LFAs, the industry had committed to further increases in the minimum carapace sizes, some of which are reflected in the data I showed for 2012. For some LFAs, they are also committed to further increases in carapace size in 2013 and 2014.
There are efforts to improve reporting, such as in the area of by-catches and lost fishing gear, and ways to reduce ecosystem impacts, such as biodegradable materials so that lost gear will not be ghost fishing.
In terms of restructuring initiatives, there are 22 projects throughout Atlantic Canada that are being supported through the program. These are all in process now, with the expectation that we will have a full expenditure when the program concludes, as I said, in March of 2014.
On page 19, I thought we would provide a little background on the Lobster Council of Canada, which is an industry initiative. Coming out of the challenges of the economic downturn of 2008-09, the industry realized that they needed to make efforts to come together — harvesters, processors and marketers — to be able to improve on product and market access for Canadian lobster and to broaden the market. This council is an initiative that has been assisted by the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans through subventions through its formative stage, but it is migrating to a place where it would be industry self-sustaining into the future. I have just laid out what are some of their major achievements and areas of focus currently.
In terms of annexes, to turn to that quickly, we have provided a little bit in terms of the historic lobster landings going back quite a ways, just to sort of see what the trends have been, as well as the landings since 1990, which kind of shows you the point about the relative stability that I was mentioning earlier.
Finally, we have a picture in terms of the value of the lobster fishery. You can see in terms of this chart where things were at in 2009 and they have increased beyond that if we have 2010 as a bar above the 2009 point.
Mr. Chair, I think we will end there.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Balfour. It was a great overview. I will ask Senator Hubley to begin our questions.
Senator Hubley: Welcome again. It is always a pleasure to have you, and it is always enlightening to get the information.
I have a question that concerns aquaculture as it sometimes relates to the lobster industry. Specifically, in the southwestern New Brunswick area, we have aquaculture and lobster living together. The problem that the lobster people were having was that a pesticide, AlphaMax, was being used to control the sea lice in the aquaculture industry, but that was also proving deadly to crustaceans. They feel they have two viable industries and they want to have them both sustainable, and they had some concerns. In a situation like this, the biggest concern with the proposed regulations is that Environment Canada does not have a seat at the table and is not part of the decision-making team when it comes to approving new pesticides under those proposed regulations. Could you comment on that for us, please? We may see more of that in different areas as different species are being fished and cohabiting in the environment.
Mr. Balfour: Maybe I could start and, if others want to join in, they can.
The department is obviously aware that there had been some instances in southwestern New Brunswick concerning the improper use of treatments for sea lice. In consequence to that, there is work under way with respect to a proposed release of aquaculture substance regulations, which is an initiative of the department and is being developed in collaboration with provinces and other federal agencies, including Environment Canada and Health Canada. It is intended to support the responsible treatment and control of fish pathogen and pests in aquaculture facilities, to manage release of biologic oxygen demand matter and settling solids and provide for fish and fish habitat protection. This regulatory initiative is intended to be able to establish the basis to ensure that there is a responsible approach taken to the operation of aquaculture facilities, and it is mindful of ensuring that it is done in a way that does not harm other fish, such as lobster.
Senator Hubley: On the role of the Department of the Environment, do you work with it on these issues?
Mr. Balfour: Yes, absolutely we do. The Department of Environment is responsible for section 36 under the Fisheries Act, which involves the authorization of the deposit of deleterious substances, so it requires their authorization. We are working with the Department of Environment with respect to the new regulations that are under development currently.
Ms. Mithani: There is also a lot of work that is under way with the Pest Management Regulatory Agency that has the responsibility for approving those pesticides, working with Environment Canada. Some of the funding that we have for science, for example, for the program for aquaculture regulatory research, really looks at the effects of those pesticides and their toxicity. There is a lot of work under way looking at this particular issue. You are probably aware that AlphaMax is not used anymore and that Salmosan and hydrogen peroxide are being used. Clearly, yes, there is a lot of work being done.
Senator Poirier: I have a few questions, and then I will go on a second round, if you do not mind. My questions are on some of the presentation that you have presented. Do you have a simple explanation for what happened in 2010 so that we had 10,000 tonnes more lobster catch than was normal? Was there something that was prepared for that? What is the answer? Do you know?
Mr. Balfour: There can be variability year to year. I think it is a bit of an art to be able to forecast and predict with absolute precision what will be a landing from one year to the next. Sometimes it can reflect the conditions and "catchability'' of lobster, their location in terms of their ranges and so on. It also can reflect in some instances whether harvesters are fishing their gear harder in one year compared to another.
Just to go back to my remarks about 2009 for the short-term lobster assistance program compared to 2008, the volumes of landings increased in those two years, and it was certainly a view of ours that it was reflecting the fact that fishermen were cycling their gear more frequently so they were more productive in terms of their landing.
Senator Poirier: There was nothing done in terms of reducing the total amount allowed to fish or anything in order for the lobster quantity to go up?
Mr. Balfour: Do you have anything you want to add to that, Mr. Gillis?
David Gillis, Director General, Ecosystem Science, Ecosystems and Oceans Science, Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Mr. Balfour has provided the basis for the answer. Lobster landings in any one year can vary. You see that in some of the visuals we have provided. There has been quite a bit of change.
I will mention several things. One is that, generally speaking, lobster fisheries exploit a high percentage of the lobster available to be caught. This means that they are dependent on the incoming year classes to make up a large part of the fishery in one year. This recruitment, as we call it, can vary from year to year, and it could have been in 2010 there was a general increase.
Senator Poirier: They said the average was 57 tonnes over five years, and all of a sudden there was a big leap. I was wondering if something had been done to cause that.
To help increase the quantity of lobster out there, has there ever been a restriction put on the amount of female lobsters they are allowed to catch?
Mr. Balfour: There are conditions in place that it is an offence to land buried, egg-bearing females. That is done in order that those females can contribute to the fishery. There are, on a voluntary basis, efforts in a number of fisheries where harvesters will do what is called V-notching of female lobsters so they can be identified, and it is illegal to land V-notched lobsters.
Also, the efforts that we have around a minimum carapace size and in some cases a maximum carapace size are so that we would see that more females are contributing to spawning and recruitment into the fishery. Larger lobsters, I believe — and maybe I will ask Science to comment — will actually produce significantly more eggs compared to smaller ones. It is not a direct calculation on length, because it goes up geometrically.
There is an avoidance of taking large lobsters for that purpose. We also try to ensure that at least 50 per cent of female lobsters being taken have an opportunity to contribute in spawning to the fishery.
Senator Poirier: My last question for this round concerns some of the items you talked about on page 18, where approximately 590 licences will be retired as well as the 2,000 traps removed through the licence retirement and trap reduction. Are there any plans to retire them completely, or are there any opportunities there so that other people — the next generation — can apply for licences?
Mr. Balfour: This is a limited-entry fishery and these licences are being retired through the efforts of fish harvesters and their organizations, where we as a department are contributing only a part of the cost of the licence or trap retirements, and where the industry is contributing financially to these measures, either directly or through arrangements that they have made for loans through third parties and provinces.
It is being done in order that the remaining fish harvesters will see that their fishing gear will be more productive. It is generally understood that in the lobster fishery, if you had, for example, 100 or 90 lobster traps, the amount of lobster that will be taken out of that area will be the same. However, if they have 90 traps, it means that the fish harvesters have less investment in gear and less intensity of effort, and they can be more productive per trap.
To answer your question, those licences that are retired are being permanently retired.
Senator Poirier: There is no opportunity, then. I know there was some a while back in New Brunswick. I do not know about the other provinces but in New Brunswick, fishermen were opting to retire and let the licences go. However, the government was transferring them or selling them — I am not sure which — to the First Nation people.
Mr. Balfour: That is for entirely different reasons, after the Marshall decision in 1999. The department was involved in what was called the Marshall Response Initiative, where there was the need to take action in order to be responding to the historic treaty right that the Supreme Court found that the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people held to be able to participate in the commercial fishery.
In order to be able to respond to that right, while at the same time being respectful in recognizing the interests of communities and fish harvesters that depend on the fishery as a resource for their livelihood, the government undertook a program for the voluntary retirement of licences. That created a situation where there would be a willing buyer and willing seller. Many individuals were intending to retire and then those licences were transferred to the First Nations. However, there was no added capacity put into the fishery and no additional pressure on the resource that would have caused any conservation issues.
That was a program that was really oriented at responding to this historic treaty right rather than assisting individuals to retire from the fishery.
Senator Poirier: I assume that program is completed and that commitment has been fulfilled, has it?
Mr. Balfour: The program has been completed. Not to necessarily go too far down that road, but that was an undertaking that the department took on, without prejudice, to a determination of whether the right was being met. That would be a matter for a process to establish a modern treaty. This was in order that we could see that there was a response that allowed First Nations to begin to participate in the commercial fishery, while recognizing the interests of others — the commercial fishermen and their communities.
Also, we have had a more current program called the Atlantic Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative, which has been focused on working with First Nations so that they can maximize the value potential of the access that has been provided and that they can participate effectively in a common governance decision-making process with the rest of the commercial fishery and participate in that fishery within a common governance and common rules.
Senator Poirier: If time allows, I would like a couple more questions at the end.
Senator MacDonald: Welcome back, everybody. I have so many questions about this fishery. It is so important. I want to start with the price of lobster. There does not seem to be a particularly large difference between the prices of a lobster at the wharf today and 20 years ago. However, if you go to certain parts of the world, particularly in Asia, the retail purchase price of lobster is significantly more than it was 20 years ago. Why is not this price trickling down to the people who are catching the lobster? What is the issue?
If I could add to that: Has DFO considered a supply-based pricing and management system for the fishery, and if so, can you give us the pros and cons of that?
Mr. Balfour: In terms of a general context, the responsibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is focused on the proper management of the fishery and securing its conservation and sustainability. It does not have a mandate in terms of markets, market promotion, market development, product development or anything of that sort. That is a role that is generally taken on by the provinces to assist the industry.
However, I do believe that with the declines that we saw in 2008-09 period, there was a general recognition on the part of fish harvesters, processors and marketers that there had to be an integrated and coherent Atlantic-wide and Quebec effort around accessing market and maximizing value potential from the market.
Before the crisis, I think one could generally say that fish harvesters probably saw the marketplace as being the wharf where they landed their lobster and probably did not look beyond the wharf in terms of where the lobster went from that point. However, they have come to the realization that they are part of a value chain and there is a need to work collectively together to try to improve where we can sell lobster, the prices that can be paid for lobster and look at things to be able to change the pace of how lobster is supplied to the market or how you could open up other opportunities for live lobster by being able to have technologies to be able to ship live lobster over longer durations of time to more distant markets and things of that sort.
It is also where the department can act, albeit in a limited way, in terms of the support that we have given to the Lobster Council of Canada that has come together by the efforts of industry, with the assistance of the provinces. We play more of a technical role in terms of how we can play a role in terms of what happens on the water and so on.
However, that is the kind of area of focus where the industry themselves have to take the lead in trying to improve on the situation in terms of market and prices.
Senator MacDonald: I will ask you this next question, and I want to preface it by saying I know DFO takes a lot of heat and grief from the country sometimes for the management of different stock, but I think it is fair to say that, for the most part, the management of the lobster stock has obviously been fairly well handled; there is still a substantial amount of lobster out there and there are still people making a living with this product.
However, if you could reflect on the last 20 or 25 years, I would like you to answer two things. First, what was the most egregious mistake made in terms of the management of the lobster stock in the past 20 or 25 years? Second, which measure did we put in place that perhaps had the most positive impact?
Mr. Balfour: That is a tough one. It is usually the scientists that like to do the regressive analysis, so they may have something.
Senator MacDonald: They are not here; you are here.
Mr. Balfour: I have read some reports. I would think that the whole idea of being able to see that lobsters have the opportunity to spawn at least once before being harvested is probably the most critical challenge or issue that we are working on together with industry about securing, in terms of the sustainability of the resource into the future. We have seen some significant progress achieved in establishing increases in minimum carapace sizes, all in aid of seeing that we are achieving those objectives. Frankly, the increases in carapace size also result in a larger frequency of lobster that would be of a size amenable to the live lobster market, which normally offers a premium in price compared to lobsters that go into processing.
Senator MacDonald: That is the good choice. What bad choice was made in the past 25 years? Is there any you want to refer to?
Mr. Balfour: I was of a view that we combine the yin and the yang, in terms of where we have come from to where we are headed to. I think it is indicative of how the industry and the department have come together and realized that this is an area that has required focus and we have been acting on that.
Senator MacDonald: On Area 41, the offshore, I remember in the 1980s when we started discussing granting offshore licences. There was much controversy over it. Many people in the industry, certainly the inshore fishery, did not like it. A couple things: I am curious why that was considered such a bad idea at the time and how it has played out. Second, why does the offshore have a TAC as opposed to being managed the way the rest of the fishery is?
Mr. Balfour: I am not aware of there being any conflicts with respect to an inshore/offshore fishery and how the harvesting is operating. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the nature of that fishery — because it has a very limited number of licences and limited variability — is more amenable to being able to do a projection, in terms of what an estimate of the overall biomass would be that permits the establishment of a TAC.
Mr. Gillis: The offshore fishery is a little distinct from most of the others, as Mr. Balfour explained. It has a TAC. The way that TAC works, if I may say, is not driven by biomass directly; it is driven by monitoring a number of relative indicators of abundance rather than a direct measurement of abundance. Science would report on those and managers would have the opportunity, from time to time, to consider whether the total allowable catch remains at the appropriate level. It has been very stable over time. The exploitation rate in this fishery is quite conservative compared to some others, and that has enabled all of the indicators to be quite stable or improve over time.
Senator MacDonald: If the biomass went up substantially would you grant more licences in area 41?
Mr. Gillis: I would let Mr. Balfour answer that question, but we would see if the biomass went up, then the indicators that we monitor should indicate such. Then it would be a question for the management table.
Senator MacDonald: Thank you.
Senator Harb: Thank you for your presentation.
I have a couple of questions about export; over 900 million tonnes — that is fairly substantial — and 10,000 licences with over 30,000 people working in the industry. If we were to look at the per employee income, if I am to take straight math, it comes down to about $30,000 per person who works in the area. What is your information? How much, for example, does a licence bring in take-home for a fisherman in the industry?
Mr. Balfour: The latest data I have is from a report that was published by the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council in July of 2007, which reports on financial performance indicators for the lobster industry. I would have to say that the financial results — and this was for 2004 — vary by lobster fishing area. For example, you have a range in terms of total fishing revenue that would be produced in LFA 34 or the southwest of Nova Scotia in 2004, of a gross landed value or gross revenue of $245,000. However, for argument's sake, that could compare to $45,000 in LFA 25 in the Northumberland Strait.
In terms of income, the example that I gave you of 34 of $245,000 would produce an income of $79,000 in terms of return to lobster harvester, and would have provided $7,600 in 25. The report I am citing has that analysis for all LFAs and it is the most contemporary projection of that which I am familiar with.
Senator Harb: It varies from one area to the next.
My second question deals with two parts: Can someone with a licence resell it? There is a value to it?
Mr. Balfour: The licence is a privilege that is issued at the discretion of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. In a technical way, it has no intrinsic value. However, when presented with a proposal to transfer the licence to another individual that qualifies under our policy, generally speaking, that transaction would be approved. Having said that, there are financial transactions where money exchanges hands for licences. Again, that varies by LFA in terms of the values. It is sort of reflective of what the gross and the net returns for fishing enterprises, depending on the area, would represent.
Senator Harb: Taxis in Ottawa, for example: You go and buy it off the street for $300,000; the city issues it for free. We do not have similar situations in the fishing industry where someone had a licence 10 years ago and now there is an intrinsic value of `X' amount of dollars?
Mr. Balfour: As I said in the presentation, it is a limited entry fishery, which is the case for virtually every fishery in Canada. There are no new licences being issued. Some individuals may have obtained these licences when these policies were put in place for very limited costs. However, they have a current value to them and there is a practice of exchanging financially, in terms of the trade of licences.
Senator Harb: I ask this following Senator MacDonald's question about the guy at the front line, the person who is doing the actual work. It is conceivable that this person is not getting a lot of money because someone who is holding the licence is selling the lobster for good revenue, a good price, so he has to cover the overhead of his licence, et cetera. The money that ends up being paid to the fishermen may not necessarily be what one would expect a fisherman should earn. Does it work that way or am I off?
Mr. Balfour: If I am following what you are describing, it does not operate that way.
Senator Harb: Good.
Mr. Balfour: The head of the enterprise is on the vessel. In terms of the figures that I laid out, the 10,000 licence holders, with crew, make up the 30,000. They participate in the fishery.
Senator Harb: Finally, how much research is taking place in the area? Who conducts that research? Does the department sponsor research in the area, or is it mainly done by the private sector? If so, what can we do in order to encourage more research in the area so we can improve the productivity of lobsters?
Mr. Gillis: All of that. As part of the department's science program, there is a portion that focuses on lobster. We spend in the order of about $1 million per year in O&M costs, and the associated salary would be additional on lobster research questions. Research would include focusing on new research related to lobster, but also the regular monitoring that we described earlier, which allows us to keep track of these populations on some level.
Of course, in addition to that, we like to work with others and encourage others to do work in lobster. There is quite a bit of that going on. We do work with the industry in partnership or collaboration with the department. That extends our ability to understand the lobster fishery and populations.
As a recent development, we have a commercial fisheries research network, which is an academic network funded by NSERC, the federal government academic funding agency. Some of their projects are focused on lobster as well. This was done in close affiliation with the lobster industry. It is an important new area of activity that is focusing as well on lobster science and research questions that are relevant both to the industry and to the department, as well as serving as part of the academic model.
We try to use all of those avenues, and we do use them all in undertaking work on these research questions.
The Chair: I have a couple of follow-up questions on Senator Harb's and Senator MacDonald's questions. First, there have been no new lobster licences issued, correct?
Mr. Balfour: No new lobster licences; that is correct.
The Chair: Can an existing lobster fisherman buy another fisherman's licence?
Mr. Balfour: Yes, on the basis that he qualifies for that licence under our policy.
The Chair: There are so many licences per area, so as long as they are within that area, one fisherman can buy another's. Is there a limit on that? I know in Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, with crab, you can buy one other licence, but you cannot go beyond that.
Mr. Balfour: You are referring to measures around the combining of licences in Newfoundland in the crab fishery?
The Chair: Yes. Is that possible in the lobster fishery as well?
Mr. Balfour: There are some pilot projects in the lobster fisheries for combining in the Nova Scotia area that would permit two lobster enterprises to come together and fish a quantity of traps, in which some number less than the added total are permitted for the separate enterprises. It operates similar to what you would be dealing with —
The Chair: It is a pilot project you said?
Mr. Balfour: Yes. They are projects that have been under way for a couple of years at the response to requests from industry.
The Chair: Is it similar to the crab fishery where the maximum is two?
Mr. Balfour: It is a maximum of two, but it is where the combined enterprises do not fish the total of the traps —
The Chair: They have a reduction in the amount of traps?
Mr. Balfour: Yes.
The Chair: On Senator Harb's question, you referred to a publication by the FRCC, the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council in 2007; is that correct?
Mr. Balfour: Yes.
The Chair: That was information on data from 2004. Is there any information that is more pertinent to today? At present, that data would be six or seven years old.
Mr. Balfour: Not that I am aware of, but this was data compiled by that council for a study they did on lobster.
The Chair: There is not anything within the department itself that is similar to that with regard to information we could obtain?
Mr. Balfour: No. This is the most contemporary data that gives an Atlantic-wide picture that I have been able to obtain. It is fairly reflective of situations if one looks at the fact that there has not been acute variability in terms of prices or volumes landed. It sort of gives you a general picture of the gross and the net returns.
The Chair: As a follow-up to one of Senator MacDonald's question in relation to the TAC and IQ, I guess, on the offshore, there are IQs. On the inshore, there are not. Is there any thought process being given to doing that with regard to the inshore in terms of IQs?
Mr. Balfour: I think one of the major challenges that we would face if contemplating setting a TAC-based fishery for inshore lobster is just the methodology and foundation for doing that. I am wondering if Mr. Gillis could elaborate on that.
Mr. Gillis: Yes. The question of being able to establish a TAC for lobster, there would be two general ways to go about that. The traditional way would be for us to be able to directly measure the biomass in some way for lobster, like we do for cod and crab and many other species in fact.
For lobster, this is particularly difficult because, as the ADM explained, they tend to like to live in rocky habitats and shallower water. It is the physical setting that makes it very difficult to use the kind of research gear that we would normally use to get a good measurement of the overall biomass of lobster. It is technically challenging for us to do that, simply because of the ecology and the biology of the animal. It would be financially challenging as well. There would be a lot of area that we would have to cover.
We are working on some other methods that might allow us to indirectly infer the biology. These are model-based approaches that are used in some other areas, and we are just now getting into a more detailed analysis of whether they will work in Canada and what kind of information we would need to have in order to make those work. However, that is not available to us yet.
The Chair: Being a non-fisherman, I ask this question with a complete lack of knowledge of what I am about to ask, but I will ask it anyway. My understanding is that crab crawl on the bottom as well.
Mr. Gillis: Yes.
The Chair: What is the difference, then, in how you determine the biomass of crab versus the biomass of lobster, both of which crawl on the bottom?
Mr. Gillis: With crab, it depends on the area. For instance, in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, they live in the deeper parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They are cold-adapted animals, so they can live in those deeper, flatter areas. We are actually able to use a small research trawl to sample crab over a wide area and use that information to generate a biomass estimate.
That is different from lobster, which tend to be very close to the shore and on the rougher bottoms where we cannot reach them with that kind of research gear.
The Chair: Okay. That is understandable. Thank you.
Senator Raine: This is very interesting for a landlubber that does not live anywhere near the ocean but does enjoy eating lobster. I have a couple of questions.
First, I did not quite understand what you meant at the beginning when you said that lobster fishing was measured by their effort. I did not quite understand what that meant. Is it to determine the number of traps they can put down?
Mr. Balfour: For each licence, there is a limit to the number of traps that can be set. It is a determination based on logbook records of what the productivity has been in the traps; in other words, when they haul out the trap, how many lobsters would be there. The records that we would receive from the harvesters would allow us to have the basis to determine, then, the productivity as we described it.
Senator Raine: In other words, if a lobster fisherman has been pulling up a certain number of traps and getting a certain number of lobsters, that will establish the amount going forward?
Mr. Balfour: It is one of the inputs for a determination of the state of the resource in terms of being able to compare to a time series whether they are retrieving the same number of lobsters per haul compared to past years and whether there is more or less. That is one of the factors that one would take into account in terms of indicating the state of health of the resource.
Senator Raine: When I look at the chart that you show with the number of lobster landings historical, I can see that, in the last 10 years, it is 20 per cent higher than ever before. If you look from 1980 to 2010, the last 30 years, an awful lot have been taken. Why was it between 1915 and 1980 that there was so much less lobster being taken? I guess lobsters were dying of old age back then, because we are still able to catch them and still have a sustainable fishery. Is that what the science is telling us?
Mr. Gillis: There are several things. This is a very interesting curve.
Senator Raine: I would hate to see it go up and up and up. It would scare me.
Mr. Gillis: On the increase in lobsters, as you have observed, there were 50 or 60 years of relative stability through the middle of the century, and then, since the mid to late 1970s, it has been on a steady increase and at a relatively high level since. We think there are several factors at play here. There have been management changes, which have reduced the volume of effort over time, through some of these periods, but there has also been —
Senator Raine: Reduced effort? What do you mean by that?
Mr. Gillis: Fewer traps and —
Senator Raine: But we are catching a lot more lobster.
Mr. Gillis: Yes. That is the other factor. We think there truly is more lobster now than there was in the preceding period. We do not understand exactly why, but we consider that the period in last 30 years has been a very productive one generally for lobsters. Lobster productivity is heavily influenced by the environment in ways that we do not fully understand. The increase in apparent productivity has been very widespread. We see it in the Northeastern United States, where they have a very different style of management and very different kind of fishery, and we see it up into Canada. In addition to the changes in effort and control systems, there has been a big increase in the amount of lobsters that have been produced to survive to the fishery through this period compared to the long period before that.
Senator Raine: Your chart showing the historical lobster landings does not seem to correlate to the next chart, which shows the last basically 20 years and shows it being very flat, yet the chart on the historical one is going up and up. I could not quite correlate them. Are we looking at different things? I think it is tonnes, not values, so we should be measuring the same things. I do not understand why those two charts do not show a nice evenness between 45,000 and 60,000 tonnes, where the other one goes down below 40.
Mr. Gillis: I think it is a scale issue. If you were to look on this visual and only focus on the period from 1990, which would be on the far right —
Senator Raine: We still have a spike in the early 1990s, and then a dip. I do not see that reflected in the other chart.
Mr. Gillis: If I look at page 22, I see that, in 1990 and 1991, it was close to 50,000 tonnes, which maps across to that little spike that you see, and then there was a decline. I think it is a scaling issue. It makes it appear like the differences are greater in one graph than they are, but you can map across the numbers.
Senator Raine: Well, I will leave that. Sometimes graphs can be designed to tell you something that is an interpretation.
What I really wanted to find out, though, was the value of the fishery and, in particular, the difference between the landed value and the export value and what is being done to increase or almost not quite double the value of exports versus the landed value. The landed value, I take it, is what the fisherman is being paid for at the dock, and the export is the value as it leaves our country, what it is being valued at. Then there is another value out there, which is the retail value. Who adds the value between the dock and the border to be almost as much as what the fisherman makes on it?
Senator Harb: It is called profit or capitalism. Welcome to Canada.
Senator Raine: How does it work, and is it functioning well?
Mr. Balfour: First, let me caveat my remarks by saying our focus is on what occurs on the water as opposed to the other aspects of the value chain, but there are a number of different product forms for lobster. There is a high value in live lobster. That involves a lot of handling and transport and preparation and so on. A lot of lobster is processed into different product forms that have a value-added to them. You are seeing that in terms of the difference, and you see that as well in terms of values for other fish species in terms of the comparison between the landed value or the prices paid to harvesters on the wharf compared to what is going into export in terms of all the various fisheries species.
Morley Knight, Director General, Resource Management, Ecosystems and Fisheries Management, Fisheries and Oceans Canada: Other factors have come into play in the last 20 years or so, and when you look back at your previous question about the longer term, it is really about how the product is marketed. For example, during the period going back to the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, a lot of the lobster exported was canned and was not a live, fresh product. Over time, better marketing, better transportation ability to fresh markets and other processes have occurred in the last 10 years and 20 years that you are talking about in particular relate to things like the fact that lobsters are now being held and put into the market when they are most valuable. They are being shipped and marketed in more valuable markets.
For example, in the last 10 to 20 years, technology has evolved and been developed where lobsters are caught in the peak period of the year but made available to the market throughout the year. All the studies that we have done have shown that every year, about this time, the price of lobster in the marketplace will reach its lowest point for the year. When all the lobster starts fishing, obviously it is a matter of supply and demand and the price goes down to the lowest price of the year, whereas possibly in December it is the highest price in the year. In certain markets that we ship our product to — for example, it is a tradition, for example, in parts of the States to eat lobster at Christmas — the price when no one is fishing is at its highest point, so because of the marketing strategies that are being used, there is probably more value added now than previously.
Another factor that has come to play in the last 10 years is that because of different management measures that we introduced, we have gradually increased the carapace size in quite a number of areas, dating back to a previous FRCC report that was done in 1997. Over time, that is probably creating a larger size lobster coming into the marketplace, and those lobsters get more return than the previous smaller canner lobsters that were being sold at that time. There is a wide variety of factors, but I think largely it is marketing and responding to the supply and demand chain in a better way through an organized industry.
Senator Raine: Just to follow up, would it be good for us to bring in the Lobster Council of Canada to address these questions in terms of making sure that the people who are fishing are optimizing their pricing? It is a little disconcerting to hear the price they are being paid for today is the same as it was 20 years ago.
Mr. Balfour: They would be a good group for you to meet in terms of getting a sense in terms of what challenges are faced in the port market and ultimate markets for lobsters, as well as to describe the strategies that they are focusing on in order to improve value. Certainly they are trying to improve the value for all the participants in the value chain.
The Chair: As a quick follow-up to Senator Raine's question, a couple of years ago I visited Nova Scotia with the Fisheries Committee of the House of Commons. We visited a holding facility, I guess you would call it, and there was an immense amount of lobsters on hold there.
To get back to Mr. Knight's comments, the person who was giving us the tour told us they were holding them until December. This was mid-summer. Is there a limit on the time that you can hold the lobster? I guess, as you said, technology now allows you to do it a lot longer than what was done 10 or 15 years ago, but is there anything that the department oversees in relation to that, in regard to regulations?
Mr. Balfour: That is an area that is not the responsibility of the department. Once the resource is landed and is being held on commercial terms, that would be —
The Chair: The inspection agency, I guess.
Mr. Balfour: If there are questions in terms of food safety, I think CFIA would take an interest. From our perspective, our focus is on the management of the fishery itself.
The Chair: It seems to be working well there now, just getting back to Senator Raine's comments.
Senator Oliver: Both of my questions have been answered, but I will just ask a couple more questions in relation to them. Senator Harb asked about research; I am interested in research and I have heard your answers. A few years ago, I was in Maine and I was in a research station there. They showed us how they captured some female lobsters with eggs and they would put them in a tank and they would keep them there through various stages — early benthic cycle, adolescent, juvenile and so on.
They worked in cooperation with some of the lobster fishermen. The fishermen would tell them where they would like these young lobsters to go. They had a large boat with a huge pipe that went down very low in the ground. Someone mentioned they had to be in a sheltered area where they were safe. The lobster fishermen would tell them where safe, sheltered areas were, and they put those very young lobsters in that area where they could be relatively protected. This was one of the ways where the lobster fishermen were working with the fisheries department to ensure that they could replenish the stock and ensure the fishery would survive.
Do you do things like that in your research systems?
Mr. Gillis: Not directly, but we do work with fishermen and other community-based organizations in several parts of Atlantic Canada that are doing those same kinds of activities. We call this activity stock enhancement. As you referenced, it is done in the United States and to some extent in Europe.
There are several fishermen- and community-based organizations in Atlantic Canada that are doing it as well and releasing lobsters into the ecosystem. We work with them because federal scientists have compatible questions that we are able to address in working with them on these kinds of projects. We want and need to understand more about the ecology of the smallest lobsters once they settle to the bottom and go into their first series of shelters. It becomes difficult for us to follow them in the wild until they emerge after maybe several years as lobsters that are of a certain size and begin to turn up in the fishery.
We would like to understand what is going on at those stages, so we work with some of these fishermen's groups that are doing enhancement.
Mr. Balfour: I will add to what Mr. Gillis has laid out. There are a number of fishermen organizations that are also undertaking projects to create what are called "refugia'' or structures for adolescent or juvenile lobsters. I guess they have a need to hide. They create that kind of structure that would allow for more productivity and contribution into the fishery. There is cooperation with the deputy on that front as well.
Senator Oliver: It is happening in the Maritimes, then?
Mr. Balfour: Yes.
Senator Oliver: I am interested in some of these egg-bearing females. If they are in a trap and the trap is brought up and put in the boat and suddenly, lo and behold, there is a whack of egg-bearing females, what do you do? Are the fishermen supposed to take them out and throw back into the water? What is the procedure to ensure they are not kept and sold, and to ensure that they live to reproduce again?
Mr. Balfour: The requirement is that those egg-bearing lobsters do not land.
Senator Oliver: But if they are in the trap and the traps are pulled onto the boat, what do you do?
Mr. Balfour: They return them to the waters. That releases them unharmed; they can be returned into the water and they are safe.
Senator Oliver: Right from the traps?
Mr. Balfour: They are taken out of the traps and returned to the waters by the fishermen.
Senator Oliver: What is the percentage in one trap of egg-bearing females that you are allowed to have in a trap?
Mr. Balfour: The regulation is that you cannot land buried or egg-bearing female lobsters, so whatever the incidence of number of females in the trap, they would all be returned into the ocean.
Senator Oliver: How is it that when you go to a pound and buy 10 lobsters to take home that some of them have roe and some do not?
Mr. Balfour: They may have produced that after being harvested, if they have been a pond for a period of time.
Senator Oliver: I thought you said some of them will carry the eggs for over a year.
Mr. Balfour: Yes.
Senator Oliver: They will not reproduce eggs that quickly.
Mr. Gillis: I think it might be a rare instance, but they can "egg up,'' as it is called, after they are caught, and maybe even in the pound. I believe the regulation would require them to be still returned in that event.
Mr. Knight: That is true. That happens from time to time just because I believe, in most cases, the eggs come to the outside on the female and are carried under the tail. That usually occurs in the late spring, I think, in most of Atlantic Canada. Then they are there pretty well for the best part of the year. If a lobster were caught in May, for example — if it were caught today — and held in the pound for a month, then it might very well have eggs on it. However, there is a requirement for any of those that are found in that condition to be released immediately by the operators of the pound.
It may be on a rare occasion that a lobster might have eggs on it when it is being bought, but it should not. If it is determined to have it, it should be released immediately.
Senator Cochrane: Being from Newfoundland, I was wondering if I could get you to give me a status report on the lobster fishery. I understand there was a conflict between the fishermen and the fish processors and they were deciding at one point to truck their lobster out to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick.
Mr. Balfour: As often is the case, and I think Mr. Knight alluded to this in his earlier remarks, there is a variability in prices. At the beginning of seasons, you generally see the low point in prices in the season. There is often an interplay between buyers, processors and fish harvesters. Recently in Newfoundland, the union undertook to create a cooperative in terms of buying and selling lobsters. I think they were active in that.
However, I have read in the media most recently that they have been able to negotiate prices with the processors, and that things are, if you will, normalized for this year. However, they have indicated they will likely maintain the co- op concept into future years.
Senator Cochrane: Is the price about the same as last year?
Mr. Knight: The price is based on last year's price. I think they have settled on price now as pricing structure, but that may vary as we move through the season. Due to all of the lobsters coming into the marketplace from other areas, it will probably decline a little. In a normal year, it declines to its lowest point around mid-May. In a normal year, the variability is within the range of a dollar price per pound.
Senator Cochrane: Let me ask you about a basic scheme. We were talking about all of Atlantic Canada — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and then Quebec and Newfoundland. The difference in the volume and the value has quite a distinction here. Newfoundland is the lowest. Could you explain that, please?
Mr. Knight: I could take a crack at explaining that, given all my years with the Newfoundland and Labrador lobster fishery.
As my science colleagues can add to, Newfoundland and Labrador is basically on the fringe of lobster habitat. The further north you go, the less abundant they are.
Senator Cochrane: Is it the colder water?
Mr. Knight: Colder water and more rugged habitat. In fact, there are no lobsters in Newfoundland and Labrador except for a small portion in the Strait of Belle Isle. The lobster habitat in Newfoundland and Labrador is limited because of the deep water conditions. For example on the northeast coast, the lobster habitat is within a kilometre to the shore, generally speaking, and the water was so deep that the lobsters cannot live there. On the other hand if you did the same comparison with snow crab you would find the reverse to be true. You there is more snow crab in Newfoundland and Labrador than the rest of Atlantic Canada combined. It is the water depth and better habitat more suited to crab production than lobster. That is in essence why you see — even though it is a large area — a lower production.
Senator Cochrane: I am not being prejudiced, but the lobsters in Newfoundland are the best.
This is a general question. Have you seen an increase in the younger generation taking over the fishing from their fathers? Years ago there was a concern back home about how the younger generation were giving you have the fishing and they were going off for better waters.
Mr. Balfour: I think the demographics in the lobster fishery are aging. The latest figures I saw would put the average age at around 58. There are new entrants coming into the lobster fishery.
Senator Cochrane: Young ones?
Mr. Balfour: Young ones are coming in, but I think that is probably a challenge that will emerge into the future in terms of intergenerational transfer of lobster licences.
Senator Cochrane: Can the young ones not get the licence that their father is about to give up?
Mr. Balfour: They can get the licence.
Senator Cochrane: Transfer?
Mr. Balfour: They can get the licence transferred to them if they have participated in the fishery and they qualify under our licensing rules. Yes, they can get that.
The Chair: Are licences grandfathered?
Mr. Balfour: No, the licence is not grandfathered. However, there is nothing to stop a licence being transferred to a son who wants to be in the fishery, as long as the son qualifies under our licensing rules.
The Chair: Anyone who holds a licence must participate, right?
Mr. Balfour: Yes.
The Chair: I cannot hold a lobster licence?
Mr. Balfour: No.
Senator Poirier: Can you explain to me why there is a difference in the number of weeks the lobster season lasts in different regions?
Mr. Knight: Over the last decade in particular — but really over the last 20 years — different management regimes have developed based on the input from the harvesters in a local area. As we discussed earlier, there are only so many lobsters in a given area, and they will be most of the commercially sized ones that are not the egg-bearing females that will be taken in a given year. In most cases, the primary production of the lobster fishery occurs in about four weeks.
Traditionally the seasons have been eight, 10 and 12 weeks in some cases. However, based on input from the harvesters and a couple of reports from the FRCC where it was recommended that effort be decreased, when harvesters are fishing for longer periods, they are fishing for less and less return. It has been agreed to reduce the season, which creates a little less pressure, allows for better "reproductivity,'' less fishing later in the season when lobsters are starting to go through the moulting stage, and has less negative impact on the reproductive cycle. Overall it has not meant diminished returns for the harvesters because they are still catching the same amount of lobsters in the earlier weeks of the season.
Senator Poirier: That is determined locally in different regions?
Mr. Knight: Yes. Conditions vary from region to region, so that is why it is variable by different lobster fishing area.
Senator Poirier: Page 8 in your presentation talked about region 41 and it says that they have a total allowable catch. Are they the only region that has a total allowable catch?
Mr. Balfour: That is the only LFA where there has been a total allowable catch established for the reasons we described earlier.
Senator Poirier: Right. At the beginning, on page 4 or 5, you talked about the chances of a lobster — the lobster life cycle — and the chance of the lobster making it to the adult cycle or adult stage. Can you tell me what percentage of the lobsters make it to that, to the number that starts from stage 1 that is released?
Mr. Gillis: It would be incredibly low. If you start from the egg or the larvae, the mortality rate on those stages in those weeks would be very high; in the high 90s per cent. They would also have a fairly high mortality rate through the early several years of benthic life where, as I mentioned earlier, we would like to understand better what is going on. It is only once they get to close to an adult size that their mortality rate drops down to a low level, and actually stays at a fairly low level for the rest of their adult life.
It would be — I am taking a stab at it — 99.5 per cent; it would be a very high percentage. Many eggs are produced yet only two would result.
The Chair: You mentioned area 40 is closed for conservation.
Mr. Balfour: That is correct.
The Chair: How long has that been in place? How are areas 34 and 33, which border on area 40, in relation to numbers?
Mr. Balfour: I think that area 40 has been closed for something like 25 years. It has been long-standing and there is no prospect of opening it. I do not think there is actually any history that is attached to fishing in that area. Areas 33 and 34 have a fairly high abundance of lobster, and there are reasonably significant landings that occur in those LFAs.
The Chair: It seems like it is so close, where it borders on the other areas that are so productive. It is strange it would be closed for conservation purposes. I am wondering why that would have happened. Was there a mortality rate there?
Mr. Balfour: We would have to go back, senator, and research the history of that area. It is just not an active fishing area, and it is also in a transboundary area, too. That may also be a factor.
Senator Raine: I would like to go back to the comment that was made on the question earlier about the sea lice pesticide, the use of AlphaMax. The initial report came from some scientists that it was not harming the lobsters. Then another group of scientists went out and put a dye in the water so there was a plume, measured lobsters where that plume went, and there was a very high mortality rate.
My fear would be that if the adult lobsters — the ones that they can trap and catch that were being affected — are hurt by this pesticide, what is it doing to the lobsters that are in the planktonic phase? It must be super deadly to them. These are toxic substances used to control sea lice in the aquaculture industry; I do not know if we are doing the proper job of figuring out what we are doing to the habitat of the planktonic phase of the lobsters and the other phase.
When you mentioned at one point that DFO does not have a mandate regarding market development, that it is usually done by the provinces, it seems like DFO has a mandate to promote and market aquaculture. It seems to be actively promoted by DFO. I am just nervous that we may not be taking the most precautionary measures that we can to protect such a valuable resource from what could be, down the road, harm that we are not going to see for a few years because we have actually interfered with the planktonic phase. I would like some comments on that.
Mr. Balfour: I will start, and maybe Ms. Mithani will want to add something on the impacts on lobster.
First, in terms of aquaculture generally, what the department is really emphasizing is the importance of a sustainable aquaculture industry. That is our main focus. We are not involved in doing marketing of product for aquaculture, as we are not doing that for product from the capture fishery either. We are really putting an emphasis on ensuring that there is proper use of pesticides and treatments in the lobster sector and ensuring that it is done in such a way that it would not be harmful to other organisms and the environment. That is really the focus of the proposed release of aquaculture substance regulations.
I do not know if Ms. Mithani has something to add in terms of the science.
Ms. Mithani: Allow me to give you a bit of an overview in terms of the whole process of the approval of pesticides and the fact that there are various organizations within government that are looking at the environmental effects of the use of pesticides. Clearly, the data that, for example, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency uses when they approve whether it is for emergency release or otherwise does account for some environmental data.
There is also a lot of work that we are doing. From a regional perspective, for instance in Newfoundland, this has been identified as a regional priority. Some research is being done to look at the interactions between some of the pesticides and, for example, mussels and lobster, et cetera. As I explained earlier, we have the Aquaculture Regulatory Program and the Program for Aquaculture Regulatory Research, PARR, that also looks at some of this work with respect to pesticides and contaminants and lobster.
There is also another issue in that there are studies that show toxicity and others that show no toxicity. It really depends on how these studies are done. These studies must be evaluated where in the study research there might be some effects, but when you look at it in terms of how it applies to the real environment, that is a lot of interpretation as well.
Again, work is under way and we are looking at that. I will pass it over to Mr. Gillis if he has anything to add.
Mr. Gillis: I will elaborate on two small points in addition to that. Through the PARR program, we are looking at two areas of research. One is to understand the toxicity of these chemicals, and we are focusing on both juvenile and adult-size lobsters when we do that. The other variable, of course, which is important to understand, is the dispersion field around an aquaculture site or a release site. When you go a few metres away, what happens to the concentration of that chemical? Is it still at a dangerous level? We go outward from there.
We have also been doing work to understand how these therapeutants disperse when you use them in conjunction with an aquaculture operation. These two pieces of information are what go to PMRA for their consideration in evaluating the risks of the use of therapeutants.
Senator Raine: Did you call them therapeutants?
Mr. Gillis: That is what they use to treat —
Senator Raine: They are therapy for the farmed fish?
Mr. Gillis: Yes. For the sea lice that would be on the salmon, yes.
Senator Raine: However, they may not be therapeutic for the lobsters?
Mr. Gillis: No. If the concentration was excessive, no.
Senator Raine: How did AlphaMax get approved, and how did it get taken off the approval list?
Ms. Mithani: I think that is something you might want to speak to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency about because they are the responsible authority for the emergency release of these types of products.
Senator Raine: The Pest Management Regulatory Agency —
Ms. Mithani: — is part of Health Canada.
Senator Raine: Thank you.
Senator Cochrane: I have a similar question. I realize that all of you are here with an objective to see everyone working together for the benefit of the industry and for the benefit of the people.
Our last witnesses that were here, there were eight or nine people from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but not Newfoundland. They were rather concerned because other departments were not working together with them. They could not even get any correspondence going.
I would probably like to have you go back to their discussions while they were here because they were saying that they were sending letters and everything to various departments and getting no response at all. They were very unhappy. I am sure your objective is to see everything flow peacefully and to have everybody happy.
I ask you to look into that and see where the gap is. Would you do that?
Mr. Balfour: We would certainly undertake to read through the reports on your meetings with previous witnesses and follow up on that.
Senator Cochrane: Maybe you could help them become happier.
Mr. Balfour: Absolutely.
On another point, Mr. Chair, we have been looking through our notes with respect to your questions about the Lobster Fishing Area 40. One of the reasons that this area is closed is that it is a known spawning area for large females that congregate there, so it is closed in order that the eggs and larvae contribute to the fishing areas around it. It has conservation benefits in that regard.
The Chair: Thank you very much. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you all for your openness with the questions here this evening; it certainly gave us some food for thought. As we go forward, as always, we reserve the right to take you on recall, if necessary. For now, certainly we thank you for coming here this evening.
We will adjourn the public portion of the meeting. We will take a break for a couple of minutes to clear our witnesses, and then we will have an in-camera session in relation to our draft report on grey seals.
(The committee continued in camera.)