Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries
Issue 7 - Evidence - May 7, 1998
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 7, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries met this day at 8:30 a.m. to consider the questions of privatization and quota licensing in Canada's fisheries.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the Chair.
[Translation]
The Chairman: The committee is meeting today to continue its review, pursuant to the Order of Reference of the Senate of 19 November 1997, and to examine the question of privatisation and quota licensing in Canada's fisheries.
The first witness is Mr. Jean Saint-Cyr, executive director of the Fédération régionale acadienne des pêcheurs professionnels. Formerly called the Association professionnelle des pêcheurs acadiens, or APPA, this federation represents the captains, crews and midshore fleets based on the Acadian shore of New Brunswick.
The members of FRAPP participate in lucrative fishing such as shrimp and crab, which, in the Canadian context, are relatively recent. The committee welcomes you.
Mr. Jean Saint-Cyr, Fédération régionale acadienne des pêcheurs professionnels: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make one clarification to what you have said. When you mentioned shrimp fishing, Mr. Chairman, you said it was lucrative. We should first examine the balance sheets of these companies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which have a lot of difficulty reaching a break-even point or viability.
As you have mentioned, FRAPP is a midshore organization. It has been in existence for 30 years; it was founded in 1967. It has evolved since and has changed its name a few times.
Currently our members are fishermen who are all under an individual quota plan or an individual transferable quota plan. The first to be put under such a plan were the herring seiners -- those that use mobile gear -- then the bottomfish, shrimp and crab fishermen.
We have to point out that all the fishing businesses that are members of the federation are owned by captains who own their own business and who believe in keeping fish harvesting in the hands of professional fishermen who belong to their coastal community.
We have only been under this system for a dozen years. For us, it is obviously the system we prefer. It is the system we encourage for Atlantic fisheries, even for coastal fishing. In fact, we have been able to compare, over 12 years, the marked difference between the two systems: competitive and non-competitive fishing.
We have noted that when we were doing competitive fishing, when there was a basic quota, people had to hurry to catch as many fish as possible before the quota was reached. At that time, that created an overcapitalization of the fleet. The fishermen wanted the best equipment possible, they wanted to have as much time as possible to fish, and they wanted to fish their quantity in the shortest period of time. That lead to inhuman working conditions and situations that put the lives of captain-owners and crew members in danger.
In fact, our last sinking in the fleet was in 1987. The much more normal rhythm that the individual quota system per vessel allows is not without influence in this matter. If there is a problem with the vessel, they take the time to fix it. They will not hurry and wait until the fishing season is over.
It is only these advantages that lead us to insist that the individual quotas per vessel be maintained, and, in another step, the partnership systems with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
In our experience, since our fishermen have been under the system of individual quotas, transferable or not, given the situations, this formula offers many possibilities. It allows fishermen to plan their fishing activities better, to humanize, as I said earlier, the work rhythm on the vessel and to extend the fishing season. This creates longer periods of employment in the fish plants, and that prevents overloading.
We had overloading problem for virtually all species when we under the competitive quota system. Now that we have individual quotas, the plants are more able to ask fishermen to follow a certain schedule for unloading and for the fishing season. We do not have to over-equip the vessels to compete with our neighbours. We can adapt the capacity of each vessel according to its quota, or even buy certain quotas to make a fishing unit profitable.
That goes both ways: either we decrease the kind of investment we make or we try to increase the vessel's share. All of that is part of a negotiation process between the holders of individual quotas.
It is important to underline that before, under the competitive system, the control of catches was random and at least distant, which means that there were sporadic visual inspections by departmental authorities. People relied mainly on two tools to control catches: the purchasing slips from the plants that were buying or an audit of the fisherman's log that indicated the volume of catches unloaded.
With the new individual quota program, as this program was put into place, fishermen, at the request of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, organized and financed an audit system called wharf auditing. These audits are done on each vessel and are done according to standards decreed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and by independent firms.
I believe the picture is much clearer for the fleets that are under a program of individual quotas and volume of fish unloaded. Each unloaded pound is weighed and recorded.
Why do we promote the joint management and partnership approach for fisheries? We believe that all participants in the fisheries have responsibilities if we want to be able to manage these fisheries. We have asked for a minimum of stability in this field for a number of years without getting it. If you are listening to the news, as I am sure you are, you are aware that for many years there have been crises. Crisis management is not the kind of management we are looking for to stabilize the Atlantic fishing industry As the individual quota system expands throughout Atlantic fisheries, and as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans signs partnership agreements with various fleets, the more stability we will have. One thing is certain: we will be able to plan our activities better and stop managing the fisheries from one crisis to the next. We are really tired of managing crises each year that could be avoided if we put rational planning systems into place and we made the fishery system less political.
I believe that politics has a right to oversee what is happening in the fisheries. The political arena has a responsibility for the welfare of citizens and the protection of a resource. If we can have four- or five-year plans, we would eliminate this political fight between the recommendations of the consultative committee and the minister's decision.
Between these two events, there is enormous pressure on the minister's office. The suggestions made to the minister are not always in the best interest of the fishing industry.
I have given you a broad outline of our objectives as a federation in terms of fisheries management. If you would like further details, I will answer your questions.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Saint-Cyr, that was a very good overview of your industry.
[English]
Senator Stewart: I notice the Acadian Crab Association represents midshore crab harvesters, while the Gulf Crab Association represents offshore, mobile, herring fish harvesters. Would you explain the where midshore is and where offshore is in this area?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: We use the term midshore for vessels that are more than 45 but less than 100 feet in length. It is also a question of day at sea, and except for three seiner trawlers, all our vessels are less than 100 feet. The average for the fleet that is a part of our federation is 64 feet.
[English]
Senator Stewart: Does this mean that midshore crab harvesters may very well be fishing throughout entirely the same area where the offshore herring harvesters fish?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: To our knowledge, not quite, because where you find herring, it is not favourable for crab. Fishing grounds naturally separate fleets.
[English]
Senator Stewart: But if the crab were there, there would be no distinction, insofar as the area is concerned, between what is midshore for the crab harvesters and offshore for the mobile herring harvesters, is that correct?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: That could be possible, yes.
[English]
Senator Stewart: You have made a very strong argument in favour of individual transfer quotas. I note that the crab fishery began with individual transferable quotas in 1990. When the quota system was first introduced how many quotas were there?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: If the question is knowing the number of quotas at that time, in 1986, we were really at the bottom of the barrel. Crab fishing in New Brunswick has always been important, especially since the 80s. In 1982 New Brunswick reached the peak in unloadings. At that time, they were of 20,000 tons for New Brunswick alone.
In 1983, 1984 and 1985, we had unloadings of about 18,000 tonnes. Since 1986, crab unloadings have dropped considerably, to reach about 5,000 tons in 1989. That is when we negotiated the quotas. In 1985, the DFO asked our fishermen to consider a system of individual quotas. The fishermen refused, and finally everyone agreed that it was better to change the management system. Obviously the global quota system was not working for this kind of fishing. Today, after the initial resistance of the fishermen at the time, if you asked the fishermen now what they prefer as a management system, the vast majority would tell you they would prefer to keep the current system.
[English]
Senator Stewart: I was not asking about the size of the quota, I was asking how many of these individual quotas there were. How many boats or fishermen had quotas, not the size of the quota, in terms of pounds?
Senator Jessiman: There are 130 now. Are you asking how many there were then?
Senator Stewart: Yes.
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: There are 130 midshore vessels -- 2 in Nova Scotia, 81 in New Brunswick and 47 in Quebec.
[English]
Senator Stewart: How many are there now in New Brunswick?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: It is the same number. Could you repeat the question?
The Chairman: The question, Mr. Saint-Cyr, was the following: how many vessels were there before the current individual quota system was put into place?
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Exactly the same number we have today. The number of permits has not changed.
[English]
Senator Stewart: We were told that in the sable fishery there were nominal boats. In other words, the number of quotas had not changed, but there had been a consolidation of the boats, that is, some boats would be fishing two or three quotas. These are individual transferable quotas, and I am trying to ascertain how much, if any, transfer has taken place.
Senator Jessiman: Would the question not be better put by asking if there is more than one licence for each boat?
Senator Stewart: I think that introduces a new complication.
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Senator Stewart, the situation you refer to does not apply to crab fishing but to shrimp fishing. For crab fishing, the number of quotas and permits are identical. There have been no transfers between individuals because for crab fishing we do not have individual transferable quotas. The department has decided that the current quotas are sufficient to make a fishing unit profitable. However, the situation you have described is correct in terms of individual quotas for shrimp fishing. There has been a consolidation there because, given the available quantities, there is an over-capacity of fishing units. The participants have made an effort to rationalize things as much as possible. That effort to rationalize the shrimp fishing fleet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is continuing.
[English]
Senator Stewart: My remark is addressed to the Chair. My information is that the fleets under the FRAPP were under the individual transfer quota regime, and that regime was introduced for crabbers in 1990. We are now told by the witness that they do not have a transferable system. They have it for shrimp but not for crab. What is accurate?
The Chairman: I was under the impression as well, Senator Stewart, that crab came under the individual transferable quotas.
Senator Stewart: This is important because one of the complaints against the transferable quota system is that it is likely to lead to consolidation. There are quotas, but there are only five or six owners. Perhaps this could be cleared up later.
The Chairman: We now have more accurate information to the effect that crab is not under an ITQ, but shrimp is. That is what the witness seems to be saying, so we will proceed on that new information.
Senator Stewart: You have given the impression that your fishery, the crab fishery, was not very profitable 10 years ago, but under the new system, whatever it is, it is more advantageous for those who engage in the crab fishery. Are you just making a little money, are you making a lot of money, assuming that the crab are there and that the Japanese want to eat it.
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: You have to remember that Alaska king crab fishing collapsed in the early 80s. In 1982, their unloadings dropped dramatically. For many years, there were almost no king crab unloadings. That is when the Japanese turned to the Atlantic for crab and prices increased fairly rapidly. It was already relatively profitable to fish for crab at that time, before individual quotas.
We have seen significant drops from 1986 to 1990, of quotas and of the resource. When individual quotas were established, the entire fishing atmosphere changed; it especially changed the approach to managing crab stocks in the south of the gulf. If we have been able to get back to a reasonably interesting level of crab stocks, it's because of the measures midshore fishermen took at that time.
In 1990, we were at the bottom of the barrel. In 1995, we managed to get the resources back to a healthy level and to be able to fish in a way that allows us to depend on recruitment and attain a certain stability. Now we are in a declining cycle but at least we are aware of it. We have worked enough with the scientists to foresee the cycles and take the necessary steps to avoid an abnormal decrease. It is normal for the stock to increase and decrease. But now it is expected and we can prepare for it.
[English]
The Chairman: May I ask you, Senator Stewart, to save your remaining questions for the second round?
Senator Stewart: Certainly.
The Chairman: I have difficulty with the answer, so I will make sure we come back to it.
Senator Robertson: Good morning, Mr. Saint-Cyr. Like some of my colleagues, I am confused about this transferable quota. Let me approach it in a different manner. It is a fact that different fisherman have different quotas; is that not a true statement?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Yes, that is correct.
[English]
Senator Robertson: As I understand it, there are many explanations for this. From information I have, I believe that one of the explanations includes the transferable quotas. Is that one of the reasons why they have different quotas, sir?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Not quite, Senator Robertson. When the individual quotas were set up, part of the quotas were distributed equally, and the other part of the individual quotas was based on the history of unloadings of each permit holder.
First, there was the quota: it was divided equally so that everyone had an operating minimum. The other part allowed the bigger and more expensive vessels to operate. The people who were equipped to look for crab further out would have invested more that those with smaller vessels who stayed closer to their home port. To allow everyone to be profitable, this distinction between an equal individual quota for all and a breakdown based on the history of each vessel's catches was made.
[English]
Senator Robertson: You represent, I believe, about 32 fisherman, is that correct?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Last year, we had 44 crab fishermen, this year we only have 32. We hope to have 50 next year. Local politics are somewhat at play.
[English]
Senator Robertson: Would all those fishermen have their own vessels?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Yes, except for two who have died, and then the vessel belongs to the estate. All our vessels, except one that belongs to Pêcheries Belle Baie, are owned by independent fishermen.
[English]
Senator Robertson: I want to phrase this carefully because I am still confused about this transferability. What is your opinion, sir, about an individual quota system that results in all fisherman or licence holders having the same quota, perhaps an average quota; and would this have the effect of distributing the resources more fairly?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: That is true in some cases, for example in Prince Edward Island, but usually our quotas are the same for everyone. When new permit holders arrive in an area, a part of the quota is reserved for them. They have access to that fishery but everyone shares the same quantity.
In crab fishing, there is a nucleus of 130 vessels that started fishing in the late 70s. There were more fishermen 30 years ago, at the beginning, from 1966 to 1970. The DFO imposed a freeze on permits, meaning a limited access to fishing. We eliminated those who had stopped doing that kind of fishing.
We gave permits to those who had always been active in fishing. With this continuous activity, there had always been various fishing histories. There were also investments that were not equal for everyone. Some invested a little and others a lot to explore the Gulf of St. Lawrence and find new crab fishing areas.
This discrepancy between vessels exists because today finding new fishing grounds is left completely to the initiative of fishermen and the investments they could make. In New Brunswick, fishermen and the government have invested enormously in the crab fishing fleet. So to put those who have not invested on the same footing would not be equitable.
[English]
Senator Butts: In your literature we are told that professional deck hands are part of your organization. How do you define "professional"?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: We define the term "professional" as fishermen who have experience and who have received adequate training to work on the sea. As for training, we are favoured in New Brunswick, because we have an excellent fishing school. Most of our members have taken the courses offered by the School of Fisheries of New Brunswick, in Caraquet.
[English]
Senator Butts: Is this school run by DFO?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: No, it is administered by the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture of New Brunswick. It is a provincial institution.
[English]
Senator Butts: Your organization has midshore and offshore. Is there any room for inshore?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: In 1967, our association, when the first professional fishermen's association was formed, included two groups: the coastal group and the midshore group. Because of the type of fishing being done, which was becoming more and more different, because of the type of management by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which varied from one fleet to another, we decided ten years later to go our separate ways. The coastal fishermen decide to join the Maritime Fishermen's Union and the midshore fishermen created an exclusive new association.
[English]
Senator Butts: When you say in your presentation that your system is able to distribute shares of the benefits, is that just among your own members?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: I do not know what you are referring to.
[English]
Senator Butts: The statement you made is that the advantage of your system is that you share the benefits. The sharing is specifically among your own members; is that correct?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: No, I do not know if it is a translation problem. The advantage of an individual quota system is that it allows each vessel owner, who is a businessman, to better manage the fish quota he is given. He can better define his objectives and the manner in which he will manage his quota. Usually, because of this system, he manages to fish with less cost that if he was in a global quota system.
[English]
Senator Butts: You also say this system means you would have partnering agreements with DFO. Who are the partners?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: The two partners are a group of fishermen who have the same type of activity and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The fishermen are represented by the association. They must be incorporated and this contract is between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the group. In the case of crab, for example, it is not a partnership agreement but a joint project agreement. Since the new legislation has not been adopted yet, we cannot have partnership agreements. For crab, five fishermen's associations have signed the agreement with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
[English]
Senator Butts: There is no place for anybody outside your membership. How does one go about becoming a member?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: The partnerships are identified by operating groups. It is true that it would be difficult for an entirely independent fisherman who was not affiliated with any other group. That is rarer and rarer. I do not know any fisherman who is not affiliated to a group, given the complexity of fishery management these days. I do not think it would be in his interest or in the in the interest of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans given the significant number of possible people involved. I do not see how the Department of Fisheries and Oceans could manage the fisheries by taking into account the points of view of each individual.
[English]
Senator Butts: What membership dues do they pay to members of your organization?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: We are a federation that includes four associations, each one setting dues according to its needs. For example, the seiners' association, which only has five members, invests a lot in their association, and it costs them about $5,000 to $6,000 for each vessel. The crew members -- those are the workers -- must contribute $300 per year to be a member of their association. As for the crab fishermen, for example, they pay $1,500 to our federation and $1,500 to their association. The dues for shrimp fishermen are $1,500 dollars to the federation and $1,000 dollars to their association.
[English]
Senator Jessiman: I assume that a licence and a permit are the same thing, and within the licence there is a quota, is that correct?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: The licence or fishing permit allows you to go fishing. The Department decided that the number of permits that were valid at a certain time would not be allowed to increase. I think it was a wise decision.
As for individual quotas, it is a management program that allows individual fishermen a share of the quota. It does not grant a fixed amount of fish but a percentage of the overall quota. That is the percentage the fisherman keeps. If the overall quota goes down, so does the individual's and if it goes up the fisherman's goes up, that is how it is managed.
[English]
Senator Jessiman: Is the licence issued to a person or a corporation and, if so, is it also attached to a boat, or just to the individual, be it an individual person or a corporation?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: In the vast majority of the Gulf of St. Lawrence cases, most of the midshore fishing permits, whether for crab, shrimp or bottomfish, are held by independent fishermen. Some of these fishermen have formed companies to manage their fishing operations. Usually the fishing permit is always given to an individual. In some cases, it is granted to a company named after the individual, a company of which he is the main shareholder.
[English]
Senator Jessiman: Is the person who has the licence obligated to operate a particular boat, or can he operate one boat, two boats or five boats? Is he limited in any way? I know that, under this new system, he can transfer the licence. Can more than one licence be held by more than one person, and can one boat be represented by more than one licence? Does each boat have to have an individual licence?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: You will find that information in the licence issuance policy of the Department of fisheries and Oceans. It is a policy that governs the kind of situation you are alluding to. As I said earlier, in the case of crab for example, the vessels are less than 65 feet, and are therefore regulated by the issuance policy that applies to that type of vessel. If the licence owner does not have a vessel, he has a certain amount of time to replace it. Otherwise, he must relinquish his licence. For other species, that is not necessarily the case. For someone who has an individual quota, that is not necessarily the case. As for the person who originally had the individual quota, it happens that some vessels have two separate quotas for the same vessel but that is usually a temporary situation. The licence must be linked to a specific vessel. If the permit holder does not acquire a vessel within two years, he must forfeit his licence.
The Chairman: I will ask a question that will clear up some confusion.
We often use the expression individual transferable quotas.
[English]
We have come to look at ITQs as something that you can transfer from one boat or one fisherman to another fisherman on a permanent basis.
My understanding is that the transferable part of the ITQ in the gulf crab fishery is only for the season.
[Translation]
Would it be correct to say that quota transferability is valid only for the season? Quotas can only be transferred during the season. You cannot transfer them permanently, can you?
Mr. Saint-Cyr: If you are referring to crab, there is a permanent transfer if someone has to sell his quota. That is not the case for other species such as shrimp, where one can transfer part of his quota during the season. If a fisherman foresees that he will have mechanical problems and will not be able to complete his fishing season, he can take part of his quota and transfer it to someone else. Permanent transfers are made as a whole. In certain fleets, parts of quotas may be transferred and the department makes the necessary percentage adjustments at that time. For crab, the quotas are not transferable.
The Chairman: They are individual quotas. There is no transferability.
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Not for crab, except for very temporary situations of mechanical breakdowns and similar situations.
The Chairman: That answers my question. There was some confusion. One of your submissions indicated that fleets represented by the FRAPP were all under individual transferable quotas. That is not the case?
Mr. Saint-Cyr: They are all under individual quotas. Shrimp and bottomfish have individual transferable quotas.
The Chairman: That answers our question.
[English]
Senator Stewart: This is going so poorly I find it difficult to think of a useful question. I am looking at a document prepared by Fisheries and Oceans. In Annex VI, the heading is "ITQ List", "Traditional Midshore Fleet", and the first name is Jules Blanchard, and his IQ number is given there. The next name is Serge Blanchard. Each of these men is given a percentage of the TAC, the total allowable catch. Could Mr. Jules Blanchard sell or lease his portion of the TAC, either temporarily or permanently, to Mr. Serge Blanchard?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: Actually, no.
[English]
Senator Stewart: So, in that sense, it is not transferable.
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: In the case of crab fishing, it is not transferable. In the case of shrimp fishing, it is.
[English]
Senator Stewart: The problem is that the DFO document, Annex VI, which gives his ITQ, seems to be incorrect. It is not transferable, as the witness has said.
Senator Jessiman: Two people use the same boat.
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: I would simply like to clarify something for Senator Stewart; I saw the document he was showing. That is the integrated crab management plan for the south of the gulf and the list he was referring to is the administrative list of individual quotas, but they are not transferable.
[English]
Senator Stewart: Notwithstanding, it is entitled, "transferable".
Where are the crabs processed? Are there processing plants on Prince Edward Island? Are there processing plants in the Shediac area of New Brunswick?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: You will no doubt have discussions with people from the processing industry who could give you a much clearer picture. For us, as far as the New Brunswick fleet is concerned, processing is done mostly in the Acadian peninsula, the north-east of New Brunswick. There are a few plants in the south-east of the province that get their supplies from vessels whose home port is in the north of the province.
[English]
Senator Stewart: One of the claims in favour of the individual quota system is that it is good for stock conservation. I was told by a man from New Brunswick that high grading takes place in the crab fishery. As he put it, "The Japanese eat with their eyes. If one leg is missing throw it back". Even with the quota system there is room for high grading. High grading is one of the charges against the more competitive regime, but does it also take place where there are individual quotas?
[Translation]
Mr. Saint-Cyr: We have set up a system that tries to evaluate fairly if there is a sorting factor at sea. We are not in favour of sorting at sea because in the medium and long term there are problems with the resource levels. Catches must be made in a way that does not target, for example, crabs mutilated by cannibalism or poor handling. After a few generations, there could be problems.
The quality of the product brought to land influences the price a little. In the long run and in the medium term, it should average out. We are not in favour of sorting at sea and we are putting measures in place that will allow an evaluation if someone is sorting at sea If that happens, there could be sanctions.
The Chairman: Mr. Saint-Cyr, we thank you very much for your presentation. We have had technical difficulties, the sound quality created problems for us, and that is mostly because of the room and the microphones we used. We are sorry that the quality is not as good as we would have hoped. We appreciate your patience and your understanding. It is the first time we have had this kind of problem with the technology since the beginning of our deliberations. I would also like to thank the interpreters who have helped us throughout our discussions.
Mr. Saint-Cyr, we appreciate you good contribution to our study. Good luck to your fleet.
Mr. Saint-Cyr: I hope you will not hesitate to communicate with us for clarification. I prefer spending time clarifying things to leaving you under false impressions.
The Chairman: That is the problem we have had from the start. We have received documents that indicated that the quotas were transferable. We had based ourselves on those documents. They were documents from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that indicated that they were ITQs. That created problems for us, but it wasn't your fault, Mr. Saint-Cyr.
[English]
Our second witness is Mr. David Coon, Policy Director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick which was founded in 1969. The council is a non-profit environmental organization with charitable status.
The council's core funding is provided by donations from its members and supporters and income earned from special events. A board of directors, consisting of 24 volunteers from across the province, oversees the organization's work.
In 1990, the council was named to the United Nations Global 500 Draw of Honour in recognition of its contribution to the improvement and protection of the environment.
The council was also one of the founders of Friends of the Earth Canada and the Canadian Environmental Network. We welcome you as a witness to the committee, Mr. Coon. We really appreciate your acceptance of our invitation to appear before us. As I have indicated to previous witnesses, you have half an hour for a presentation. If your preparation is shorter, it gives us more time for questions.
Without taking any further time, I welcome you to the committee, Mr. Coon. If you have any opening statements, by all means you may proceed.
Mr. David Coon, Policy Director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick: The conservation council, as it is described in your document, is a citizens' organization. Among our activities, we promote policies to foster the stewardship of natural resources to ensure those resources provide wealth to our communities in perpetuity.
This is the context within which the conservation council has been developing and promoting an alternative approach to fisheries management, an alternative to the trend towards the quota licensing approach and towards increasing the use of individual transferable quotas.
We are proposing or promoting a system that is more in tune with the marine ecosystem, with the fisheries, with ecological processes, and one that favours access to the marine resources by historically dependent communities.
Our work is based on three assumptions. First, nature itself should impose constraints on where, when, how, and what we fish for. Second, that small scale fishing efforts, such as those that constitute the inshore fishery, in all of its diversity, are best suited to work within those natural constraints. Finally, communities, and we mean geographically based communities that have been historically dependent on the fisheries, should have the proprietary right to the common fishery. That is not to say they should have property rights which flow from ownership, as in the case with ITQs, but, rather, proprietary rights in terms of trusteeship.
The explicit goals of what we call "community-based ecological fisheries management" are conservation of the fisheries and the coastal communities they support. To us it is essential, when talking about the fishery management, that the goals of the management regime are set out articulately in a very clear fashion, because that is the context within which you are working, and it is not always clear that those goals are explicitly stated.
In the context of quota licensing and ITQs, which is what your committee is dealing with, I would like to review the key components with respect to community and ecological management, in contrast, perhaps, to ITQ management and quota licensing.
There are a couple of initiatives in the Bay of Fundy area, in particular by fishermen who are moving in this direction, that I would like to touch on. I would also mention some of the difficulties they are having in trying to move in a new direction.
Much of what has been proposed around fisheries management, changes to management, has been, in a sense, tinkering with the situation. It assumes there are no fundamental problems in the way we are managing the fisheries. However, as we have seen, there are such problems. The evidence is there for all of us to see. There have been collapses and declines, not only in Eastern Canada, but in many of the world's major fisheries. Clearly something is not working.
In Canada we blame the failure of fisheries management on everything from politicians to fishermen, from seals to sea water temperature, but none of these things adequately explains why it has gone wrong. To us, basing a management system on the presumption that you can count fish is the problem.
Regardless of the caveats and conditions one puts on total allowable catches, those are interpreted as being absolute numbers. When managers work with them, the managers manage those numbers and no longer manage the fishery. Most importantly, those numbers ignore the ecological and biological imperatives for fish and fish populations, and to us that is why Canada's fisheries are in such dire shape.
In fact, when we first started looking at the state of fisheries management, and the approach to fisheries management, we were extremely impressed by the lack of biology and ecology that factored into management decisions.
To get back to numbers management, that leads to quota licensing, permits, as well as a TAC. It assumes a number of things, including that fish are randomly swimming through the sea and that fish and fish populations exist in some kind of splendid isolation from other species and their physical environment.
It assumes that all we have to do, or the main thing we have to do to sustain fish stocks, is try to limit the mortality to a certain percentage of some overall estimate of what we think might be there, and a particular management area that is not necessarily rooted in any kind of ecological reality, but is an administrative or management unit established by the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
The final assumption upon which this was all premised is that it is possible to estimate fish populations with some degree of accuracy, and that has proven not be the case. All of these things have little relation to the undersea world in which fish live, reproduce, grow and die.
Marine ecosystems are complex ecological arrangements into which fish and their populations are intricately woven. If this is not considered when management is designed, then we will continue to fail. It is also the underlying biological, chemical and physical processes on which the function of those ecosystems depend that is critical to the health of fish populations.
When compromised, fish populations will not thrive, and management does not anticipate that either. In fact, there is some suggestion that one reason some fish stocks are not recovering as they should, is that fundamental ecological processes or important ecological elements of the system have been compromised in some fashion.
To give you another example of situations quota licensing does not anticipate, many species of fish that we fish are constituted by distinct stock which may include many local population. Many, like herring, have their own spawning grounds, and it appears that cod have their own migratory patterns, preferred nursery areas, and so on.
Quota licensing is premised on the basis that it does not really matter where, when, how or what you fish, but clearly, in the case of stock structure, if your fishing effort in one region is concentrated on a small local stock, the potential is that you will extricate that stock. There is an apparent local example of that with the tremendous shift in fishing effort for ground fish from the Scotian shelf to the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, where it is generally held that there are local product stocks, at the very least, that are distinct, and that specific fishing grounds or specific spawning grounds are at risk of being hammered. That is one important issue.
Another important issue is that management on quota licensing largely ignores the critical stages of a fish's life history. We have an egg fishery, a roe fishery, for herring, which hatches. Of course, the harvests is of the eggs and sexually mature females. Obviously, that has important implications for the health of those stocks, and it is not adequate to simply say we will only remove a certain percentage, as if these were just any old fish. Similarly, large, sexually mature fish, older fish in the system, unlike all of us, get much better at reproducing. They are much more fertile in the sense that their eggs survive much readily. Overall, these big "brooders" are much more successful. Our management system does not take this into account. The mature fish are treated as are any other fish.
It is remarkable, when we first started looking at this, that fisheries managers, for the most part, have a very little idea of the location of spawning or nursery grounds. In fact, even the reproductive biology of cod was relatively poorly understood, and only in recent years, since the big crisis, has that been a consideration.
Again, these are examples of how we are trying to manage by numbers, and without the fundamental information that is essential to successful management.
Quota licensing also ignores the need to provide the best possible living conditions for fish, for larvae, juveniles and spawning adults.
Different species have different habitat requirements at different stages in their life cycles and at different stages of the year. Let me give you a couple of specific examples. The scallop fishery is not in great shape in the Bay of Fundy, particularly over on the Nova Scotia side of Digby County, and the scallops do not seem to be recovering. Recently I attended the DFO science meeting which was assessing the status of the stock. The scientist present offered the notion that, perhaps, one of the reasons the scallops were not recovering as they would expect them to, with the reduction in fishing pressure, was that the little animal-like hydroids, and so on, that grow on the bottom, which the scallops required, had been eliminated because of repeated and intensive dragging in the areas and, therefore, an adequate habitat for the scallops no longer existed.
This is not factored into fisheries management or, in fact, into the science that informs fishery management decisions. It is almost entirely based on a numbers game.
There are other examples, such as the harvest of rockweed, the seaweed along the shoreline in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Rockweed is an important habitat for pollock, a commercial fish, and yet the management of rockweed is simply based on quotas, on numbers. How much rockweed can you take out without compromising the biomass of rockweed? Quota licensing does not consider that sort of information. Quota licensing does not insure that spawning habitat or spawning grounds are not altered or disrupted by all the fishing activity or non-fishing activity, which is important.
Another consideration that is not taken into account is the interactions between species which are so critical to the success of the fish stocks. We conducted extensive interviews of fisherman to compile an oral history of the Bay of Fundy which we needed for a more recent project which involved trying to identify local spawning in the nursery area.
One of the impressive pieces of information which came out of those interviews was the fact that the fishermen talked a lot about the interaction between the species. Most fishermen in the Bay of Fundy are multi-specie fisherman, they fish a variety of species, depending on the time of year.
They also told us that the herring have not been coming inshore, have not been swimming into the weir, into the big fish traps that are so common in southwestern New Brunswick and Digby County in Nova Scotia. The fishermen say that the predators which used to drive the herring inshore are gone. That is important information. Yet, quota licensing does not consider those kinds of issues. Similarly, when they do come inshore we have salmon penned in many places in southwestern New Brunswick, and salmon are a predator on herring. The salmon in pens are fed meals of herring. These facts deter the herring from coming close to any areas where there are salmon.
The longline fishermen off Saint John who fish for cod in the spring are very concerned that the number of gaspereau is way down. In fact, it is the gaspereau that bring the codfish into the fishing grounds off Saint John, because they are a food supply. Those gaspereau are heading up the Saint John river to spawn.
Quota management ignores these kinds of interactions, as it does with respect to species lower on the food chain, species that are just being proposed now for possible fisheries, like krill. The discussions of managers around a proposed krill fishery in the Scotia/Fundy region focus on: "How many krill can we take out?", rather than on the role that krill play. In fact, krill, being a little shrimp like plankton, is a critical link in the marine food web between plankton and just about everything else. This is important. All of these things are not reflected in quota-based management.
Finally, quota-based management obviously does not reflect what is really going on in the business of fishing. Not only does it not reflect what is going on in the sea, which is one important point, but it also does not reflect what is going on in the business of fishing, in the way fishermen fish.
We get a lot of misreporting, a lot of dumping, and a lot of sort of playing the game, playing the system, because many of these rules do not make sense to fishermen. The bottom line in what we are proposing -- and this is in a report we have produced, called "Beyond Crisis in a Fishery", which I certainly could provide to the committee, as well as copies of the brief -- is that we need a fisheries management system driven by the biology of fish and the ecology of the system in which they live, aided by appropriate stock assessment, but not dependent on that.
That means we need people in charge who are not the disciples of the numbers-based management, but who can put forward these kind of issues.
Practically speaking, this means three things. It means writing rules about how, where, when and what you fish, according to the biology of those fish and the ecology of the system within which they are existing. This would be the primary means to determine how much you fish, and this is exactly what some of the community ground fish management core in the Bay of Fundy have been trying to move toward, to move away from quotas and towards writing rules about how, where and when you fish, based on the biology and ecology of the situation. However, they are running into a brick wall. DFO is telling them that is not the way they want them to go, and they are getting nowhere. These fishermen are well organized into organizations. They are community-based organizations, and those organizations have organized the community board to administer the community quota that they have been given by DFO.
The second thing it means is integrating the protection of critical fish habitat into fisheries management, which is not the case. Of course, thatt means writing different rules for different areas, because we are dealing with different ecological systems that have real differences at the local level. This creates a self limiting system, determined by the constraints and dictates of the ecosystem. This all may sound very abstract, but we do have an example, and that is the lobster fishery. The lobster fishery has components of this built into it. It would have some significant gaps if it were fully managed in this way, but it can be used as a example of this approach.
In terms of thinking about how you fish, you would want to regulate an efficient fishing gear technology, and specialize it in ways that eliminate the catch or landings of unwanted species and sizes, and which would avoid the ecological disruption of fishing grounds, and so on.
In the lobster case we only fish with fixed gear in Canada, in fact with traps, and the number of traps is limited. The technology, how we fish, has rules written around it. The traps are designed in a certain way to ensure the juveniles can escape. How we fish is regulated in the lobster fishery.
We do not, in any kind of consistent or reliable way, regulate where we fish with respect to spawning grounds, nursery areas, or other important areas of nutrient production which support the commercial fishery.
The specific closures that we have for specific fisheries are hit and miss, are inconsistent and, in many cases, altogether missing. These kinds of things could be designed.
In the lobster fishery, where you fish does not particularly apply, because people fish within the lobster fishing areas, but it could be applied to ensure that the effective brood stock for the lobster fishery is not fished. The areas where the lobster brood stock exists -- the big jumbos -- could be subject to closures. They are not, but they could be.
When you fish is another concern. Seasons apply for lobster fishing, which do not necessarily apply in other fisheries. When there are seasons in other fisheries, they are not necessarily designed around the particular life cycle of the fish being targeted. Sometimes seasons are simply an effort control measure, like the two-mile scallop conservation zone off New Brunswick in the Bay of Fundy, within which a season applies.
When you fish is also determined by the nature of the fishery. In the Bay of Fundy, we have a multi-species fishery. Therefore, you are moving from lobster to groundfish to herring, back to lobster, and to scallops and so on. This is a year-round phenomenon which is inherently conservation-based, and which helps even out the family income, leaving it less subject to the natural ups and downs.
I have touched on what you fish. In the lobster fishery, we throw back "berried" or egg-bearing females. We should be doing more, in terms of notching them. In other fisheries, we allow roe fishery, as in the herring fishery. We allow fishing of effective brood stock. We are talking about allowing fishing of species low down on the food chain that are essential for the health and well-being of so many other species.
The inherent assumption is that the suite of ecologically based measures would be organized according to the dictates of the marine ecosystem and the life history of the species being fished, and it will be essentially self limiting. If a stock did decline through too much effort, then all of the ecosystem components and the stock structure would still be in place, and recovery would occur.
As I mentioned earlier, these are some of the approaches that some fishermen's organizations in the Bay of Fundy are trying to pursue, and they are getting no cooperation from DFO.
The other point around this gets us into some discussions of ITQs. The centralized approach to fishery management will not work if it is ecologically based. It cannot cope with the large volume of ecological detail that exists, and the relatively smaller scale of ecological events that would receive increased emphasis in this type of a system.
The centralized approach to management does not foster stewardship among fishermen either. It has the opposite effect. People do not buy into the rules, and find ways to get around them because they do not make sense to people in terms of conservation. What we are proposing would require the active engagement and participation of fishermen, in terms of the definition and structure of the actual rules.
Ecological management, then, as opposed to quota licenses, needs new institutional arrangements where real control is transferred to fishermen in the context of their community, not in the context of the industry. The biggest stumbling block with DFO is that it is unwilling to transfer any meaningful control to fishermen in the context of their community and their community-based fishermen's organizations.
What is the goal of ITQs versus the goal of a more community-based approach? If our goal in fisheries management, in addition to conserving fisheries, is to conserve fishing communities, as it certainty is in proposing these policies and approaches, then ITQs work in the opposite direction. They are the antithesis of this.
If our goal is to conserve fishing communities, and I cannot see why it would not be -- fishing is the basis of the local culture in so many communities. In fact, it is the rock on which social relations have developed over generations. When you inject something like ITQs into a community, it also upsets the apple cart socially. It goes without saying that fishing is the economic lifeblood for everyone in fishing communities -- the car dealers, the drugstore owners -- everyone.
To ensure that coastal communities continue to exist into the future, and continue, or are again able, to support themselves through the fishery, we say communities must have proprietary access to the fisheries resources within their traditional fishing grounds. We know that fisheries are a common property resource. Right now the trusteeship of that resource rests with the federal government, and we are saying that much of that trusteeship should be transferred to new community institutions at the local or the regional level.
This gets into a lot of details, and you will have many questions about it. It does run in the opposite direction of where we are going. The ITQ system is based on notions of maximizing economic efficiency and profit, rather than ensuring the ability of communities to support themselves economically. As some fishermen say, they need to earn a life rather than earn a living. It is different from a system where people are able to get rich or to generate profit. It is not a system designed for people to earn a living, to earn a life -- to support the economics of communities.
DFO has a number of goals with respect to ITQ, and one is downsizing the fishery into a smaller number of stable fishing enterprises. In looking at the fishery, it is fascinating to us how DFO has become so involved in worrying and making decisions about who will be financially stable and who will not. The level of micro-management from a conservation, fishery management, and socio-economic perspective was shocking to us when we first began to look at how fisheries were being managed, some years ago.
Concerning ITQs, I would also raise the issue that it is hard for us to see how governments have the right to hand over a public resource to private interests. How can the government bestow fish resources unto a few, turning what is a public resource into private wealth?
We say that to safeguard fishing communities, this thrust towards ITQs must be stopped, and in fact reversed. Certainly government-based management to date has precipitated the crisis, and going backward is no option. We say that there must be a new way, and community-based management may provide a way forward.
There are two principles here. With respect to community-based management, proprietary rights to the common fishery resource should be allocated to communities dependent on those resources. As well, management of the fishery should be placed in public hands at the community level. This is an important point to make. We are not talking about privatizing management to the industry at the local level; we are talking about putting management in public hands at the local level.
The Chairman: Several senators have questions, and we would not want to run the full hour without having questions being asked. I know that you have a lot of very important information, but we would like to get a few questions in, if we could.
Mr. Coon: Let me take five minutes to describe the institutional arrangements that we would see necessary, and that in fact are starting to develop.
What kind of institutional arrangement would you require for such a system? Certainly you would require a community fisheries board. These fisheries boards would essentially serve as a trust to hold and oversee the management of fish resources within a defined geographical area. We are not necessarily talking about drawing lines, and saying that you cannot fish in this area. We are talking about drawing lines, and saying that, historically, these are your traditional fishing grounds, and you have a responsibility to be the stewards of them. You have a responsibility to write the rules about what happens there. Whoever comes to fish in those fishing grounds must fish according to those rules.
Of course, we could get into a discussion about going the final step, but I do not think that it will wash in the Maritimes. The final step is to set areas where only the fishermen based in those communities can fish, and someone coming in from outside would need a permit. There is some interesting discussion around that, and it has interesting conservation aspects and ramifications for community development that perhaps bear discussion, but our view is that it probably will not wash.
Community fisheries boards would act as a trust, and would not strictly be made up of fishermen's organizations. Under the auspices of community boards, councils of fishermen's organizations would actually write the rules about where and when and how you fish.
Of course, it cannot stop at this. We are suggesting that these community boards would actually do the licensing, and take over many of the functions that DFO currently has. We are not talking only about management at such a local level. Clearly, when you are managing on a more ecological basis, you have to take the bigger picture into account. You need a nested system of management. Bioregional boards would therefore be necessary on the scale of the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Scotian shelf, or other similarly ecologically defined areas. The bioregional boards would be constituted by representation from the community board, and the community boards and the bioregional boards would have compatible responsibility. For the offshore, you would have an offshore board with representation from these lower levels.
I do not have the time to go into this in detail, but I think that it is important to note that this kind of institutional development is already happening. In the Bay of Fundy, in both Digby County and southwestern New Brunswick, we have the beginnings of community boards that apparently are community-based fishermen's organizations. Some of them have community advisory boards attached to them. Right now they are specifically managing fixed-gear groundfish, but many of them are looking at ways to branch out in order to bring in scallops and lobster. They are not just fishing groundfish, but also lobster, scallops, and herring.
We also have a Bay of Fundy Fisheries Council, which is, in effect, a kind of bioregional board. It is fascinating. All the fishermen's organizations from the communities around the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have come together and created this bioregional board. The express purpose is to attempt to design a fisheries management system on a Bay of Fundy-wide basis, in order to deal with those issues that cannot be dealt with at the local level. Of course, they do not have the authority to do that right now, but they are moving in that direction, and will be seeking the authority. To bring the broader community into this, they have set up a fishery advisory committee that works hand in hand with the fishermen's board part of the council. They have the council, the fishermen's board, the fishermen's organization board, and then the advisory committee.
I sit on the advisory committee for both the Bay of Fundy Fisheries Council and for one of the community boards. I was at a meeting last week with some of the same fishermen talking about scallops, and trying to sort out how we can integrate scallops into the community management system. These groups are starting to evolve. Things are happening at the grassroots level, and they are running into a brick wall in terms of gaining the kind of authority and control that they need to move forward.
We look to this committee, not only to consider the ideas in our brief, but also to look at the fact that some of these things are already developing, and they should be supported and not set back or eliminated.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Coon. You certainly have given us a lot of food for thought on the concept of community management, a subject that is extremely complicated. You are certainly adding a great deal to the study that we are doing.
Before we go to questions, I would note that the clerk will follow up on getting the document Beyond the Crisis In the Fishery, which will also be helpful to us.
Senator Stewart: We have had evidence that the quota system works very well in certain fisheries. For example, we were told that, on the West Coast, it put the blackcod fishery back on a sound basis, whether we are talking in terms of conservation, the health of the fishermen's financing, or indeed the quality of the fish sold in the international market. We were told just this morning that, in the case of the snow crab fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the quota system has worked extraordinarily well, and presumably should be applied to other species.
I ask this witness from New Brunswick for his evaluation of the quota system as it has worked out in the case of the snow crab fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Mr. Coon: Much of our work has been formed by the fisheries in the Scotia Fundy area, because that is geographically where we are based. It is important to say this is still a single species management approach. It does not deal with many of the issues that I raised. The snow crab population certainly goes up and down. Compared to lobster, groundfish, or herring, it has not been a long-standing fishery. It is a relatively new fishery, and it is very specialized. It was in dire shape before, and it seems to be in decline once again.
As to quota management, if it works in specific fisheries, it would be interesting, and I too would like to know why. Is it because there is a happy coincidence?
Senator Stewart: This is certainly a community-based fishery. In New Brunswick, we were told this morning, it is concentrated in the Acadian peninsula. Have the financial and the social conditions of that community improved during the period when the quota system was applied?
Mr. Coon: With respect, I do not want to go into great detail about the crab fishery. It is not a community-based fishery at all. That fishery, in a sense, has made millionaires of relatively few people, and the battles that have ensued over this have been very dramatic and emotional. Again, it is because the access to the resource has been very restricted. For a few years, we had some sharing around with other fishermen, but it is very limited access.
Senator Butts: Mr. Coon, you have stated that you cannot count fish. Does that mean that DFO cannot count fish, fishers' organizations cannot count fish, community boards cannot count fish, and even environmentalists cannot count fish?
Mr. Coon: That is right. We are saying that you cannot get reliable estimates of the number of fish out there, and that that is not an adequate basis upon which to manage fisheries.
Senator Butts: You have written that coastal communities have proprietary rights. Would you define for us what you mean by "proprietary rights" and whether that includes having a community quota? Would you also define "community" for us?
Mr. Coon: In the first case, they do not have proprietary rights. We are saying that they should. It is a question of access. This is not to deny aboriginal rights, because we know that comes first.
We are saying they should have proprietary rights. The right to fish, and the access to the fishery should rest with coastal fishing communities. We need to define "communities." We are talking about a collective right which should be conveyed to communities, and to the institutions which are needed to operate that fishery.
How do we define "communities?" Obviously, we are talking about a geographic community. We are not talking about a single village, but a region where villages or island communities have shared a traditional fishing ground. Fishermen must themselves define this.
One example is the traditional fixed-gear groundfishery. Southwestern New Brunswick has been defined as the "community," basically from Saint John to Campobello Island. On the Nova Scotia side, one of the community areas defined for fixed-gear groundfish has been Digby County.
It is not straightforward to define "community" as a geographic region, but already there is some evidence that it is not that difficult until you get to Shelburne County. It can be done. It is a geographic community.
Senator Butts: Does your proprietary right mean that a community has a quota?
Mr. Coon: Ultimately, in the proposed system, you would not operate with a quota. It would operate with a whole fleet of rules which we are discussing. Stock assessments would continue, and other control measures might be in place. The community board could limit the overall number of fishing licenses, for example, depending on the requirement.
In the interim situation, we would see quotas as being the backstop against which everything else could survive. At this point, quotas are just a way of allocating fishing rights. Right now, and in recent history, those allocations to inshore fishermen have been, and are, extremely unfair.
Senator Butts: Some groups have defined "community" as those who use the same wharf. Would you accept that?
Mr. Coon: Our definition of "community" is not just restricted to the fishermen and their organizations. Everyone in the community is covered. No, one wharf is too small an area. We are talking about the area where people share a common fishing ground. You can always find exceptions to someone who fishes here or there, but generally the inshore fishery is fairly straightforward in identifying the common fishing grounds and, therefore, the community limits. This definition should not be imposed. It should be determined by all of the people involved.
Senator Robertson: Mr. Coon, we are all very concerned about the health of our coastal communities. You spoke of certain communities in New Brunswick around the Bay of Fundy, which have been moving toward a community-based fishery management. They are getting resistance from DFO. Can you tell me some of the specific reasons why DFO was saying no to the further development of this attempt at community-based management?
Mr. Coon: To be honest, I have been in many meeting with fishermen and DFO. It comes down to DFO managers not wanting to release their ironclad control on management decisions. It is an issue of control. Just recently, the fishermen from Digby County put forward a pilot project to move further in this direction, with respect to groundfish and perhaps other species. That project was rejected. Recently, DFO also rejected the efforts by the Southwestern New Brunswick fishermen to begin writing rules about how, when, and where to fish, within the context of their conservation harvesting plan which they are required to fill by DFO.
Senator Robertson: Under your model of community-based management, how could we be sure that the ecological questions would be addressed by the community board? Ultimately, would conservation groups and environmental groups, such as your own, determine the issues which affect the interdependency of life in that ecosystem? Who determines that? I am sure that, in the beginning, the fishers would not have that exact knowledge. Would they have to depend on groups like environmental groups to get this information?
Mr. Coon: No. Firstly, by law these community boards would have legal requirements to ensure certain things, and that would be built into their by-laws. The federal government will always have ultimate trusteeship over fisheries, and this would be through some kind of agreement with the federal government.
In terms of the details, this would be done at the community level by the fishermen. We would see a need for DFO scientists to be made available. DFO's research, and the direction of its research, would need input from this kind of management. Today, a lot of research is going toward aquaculture. These things would have to be brought in.
When you invest these responsibilities at the community level, stewardship kicks in. Obviously one of the requirements would be for community boards to ensure management in perpetuity. People not directly involved in the fishery would sit on the community board. This would create a system that fosters stewardship, which our current system does not.
Senator Robertson: You say that the research at DFO would be involved. So far, we have not had much success with the results of the research done at the national fishery. Would you have confidence that this research could be developed into a helpful support?
Mr. Coon: Our fisheries management system is numbers-based, and that drives the science. The science is done to serve the numbers. In a different system, science will work in a different way. We are already seeing evidence of this. I will give you a concrete example.
With respect to the community groundfish management boards in southwestern New Brunswick, and the one in Digby, Nova Scotia, we have a DFO scientist, an expert in cod, working directly with them, and sitting on the advisory committee. DFO did not tell him to do that, but he asked permission. He is very well respected by the fishermen, but he cannot find the resources to do the necessary research, although they have identified a significant research agenda.
It is exciting that the fisheries organizations are finding ways to conduct their own research. This is happening. Clearly, it is a rightful role for DFO scientists to be supporting this, and for resources to be put to it.
Senator Robertson: It seems that the numbers do not drive the science. The research should drive the numbers, it would seem. That is for another day.
Senator Jessiman: Has this community-based management suggestion been tried elsewhere in Canada, or elsewhere in the world? If so, where, and has it been successful?
Mr. Coon: Elements of this community based management suggestion are now being tried in the Scotia-Fundy region by the fixed gear ground fishermen.
In terms of a fully developed approach, there are examples. The best one is with the inshore fisheries in Japan, where it has been in place for about 100 years. There are lessons to be learned from that, but certainly we cannot make direct comparisons.
We found it useful to look at that model in thinking about this. However, we also found it useful looking, in Canada, at the native fisheries. The native fisheries are more in this direction, where they see this as more of a community effort than an individual effort. We have some effort starting to move forward in Canada in the more traditional commercial fishery.
Senator Jessiman: Do those who oppose what you suggest refer to it as a form of socialism?
Mr. Coon: I have not heard that. Certainly, if your unit of development is the community rather than the enterprise, this is the kind of system that develops. It completely makes sense to people who have thought about community and economic development.
Those who have expressed opposition to it are those who are not community-based fishermen. They are those who are involved in enterprises, and who want to accumulate wealth as an individual, rather than bringing economic prosperity to the community.
Senator Jessiman: Could you develop this as a cooperative?
Mr. Coon: In the Japanese example, they are co-ops. That is the system. Some areas of the country that go down this road will form cooperatives. In other areas, co-ops do not have a long tradition. The formal idea of co-ops in New Brunswick does not have a long tradition. On the Acadian peninsula or in Cape Breton, it is a different matter. It would depend on where you are.
The Chairman: As you were describing the community management approach, I was thinking of how difficult the model that you are proposing really is. It is a much more complicated model than the property-based model which is being proposed by other individuals. Yours is a qualitative model, whereas the other one would be a quantitative model.
Much literature on the great benefits of privatization is in the public domain. Very little literature on your community-based model has yet reached the public domain; would that be a fair assessment, or am I wrong on that?
Mr. Coon: I have not looked at the privatization literature too much. There is a significant amount of community-based management literature, much of which is Canadian -- from both coasts. We have a fair amount of expertise from the academic side. It is not too surprising, because this kind of approach is much more Canadian and the ITQ approach is much more American.
The Chairman: Thank you for your presentation. We look forward to hearing from you again in the future.
The committee adjourned.