Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 2 - Evidence, December 3, 2002
OTTAWA, Tuesday, December 3, 2002
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries met this day at 7:08 p.m. to examine and report from time to time upon the matters relating to straddling stocks and to fish habitat.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good evening, and welcome. We are fortunate to have as our witness this evening, Mr. Gus Etchegary, from the Fisheries Crisis Alliance, who began his career in the fishery in 1945. Mr. Etchegary is a provincial hall-of-famer for soccer; the former head of the largest seafood processor in Newfoundland and Labrador, Fisheries Products International; and a former Chair of the Fisheries Council of Canada. His extensive experience in fisheries led to an appointment to the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, NAFO, and its predecessor organization, the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, ICNAF. Mr. Etchegary is a veteran campaigner against foreign overfishing and is appearing this evening on behalf of the Fisheries Crisis Alliance.
Mr. Gus Etchegary, Spokesperson, Fisheries Crisis Alliance: First, I would like to thank you for the invitation to appear before you this evening.
We have an enormous problem facing the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery. As a matter of fact, we have an enormous problem facing the East Coast fisheries in Canada, but most particularly Newfoundland and Labrador.
I should tell honourable senators what this organization is all about. In 1993, when then Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Crosbie, announced a moratorium, it was a tremendous shock to the population. At that time, hundreds of incorporated communities in coastal Newfoundland depended almost entirely on the fishery. As a result of that, the leaders of the five major churches formed a ``Coalition of Churches,'' as they called it, comprised primarily of bishops and archbishops who, obviously, did not have a great deal of experience in fisheries. However, they were facing horrendous economic and social problems in the communities, and so they felt that they should come together and focus on this issue.
That was where we came into it — several contemporaries and I were asked to advise the church leaders on the technical aspects of the fishery. Thus, the Fisheries Crisis Alliance was born. The church coalition passed out of existence in about three or four years. Our group is largely made up of contemporaries of mine: one is a former Minister of Fisheries, another is a chief scientist, two or three are former bureaucrats and four or five are experienced deep-sea and inshore fishermen. We decided that we would remain together and meet approximately once per month, sometimes with fisheries ministers, deputy ministers, bureaucrats or scientists. Besides that, we make it a point to attend science seminars, particularly when they are doing stock assessments, so that we are reasonably current on what is happening in the world of fisheries.
In addition to that, we have a Web site in which we have invited many people to participate. There are numerous links from our site to encourage more and more Newfoundlanders, Labradoreans and other Canadians to learn more about fisheries. One of our objectives is to try to form a high school fisheries association over the next several years to encourage some improvement in the high school curriculum. That is the story of how we began and what we do.
I have a presentation, which was sent to committee members, on straddling stocks and custodial management. In addition, we put together a few notes from which we will speak.
Very briefly, I would like to give you our thoughts and views on the current situation and at least try to identify where we stand.
The East Coast of Canada has been very badly affected by overfishing and by the lack of management. For a major fishing nation, we have had the worst fisheries management in the world. There is absolutely no doubt about that. Comparisons of Canada's performance with that of Iceland, Norway and many other countries that we are aware of, show that we have much to be concerned about.
Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 as one of the founding members of the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, ICNAF, which was formed in response to an enormous increase in the number of distant-water fishing vessels fishing off Newfoundland and Labrador. We gave up our independence and became a province of Canada five years after the Icelanders achieved their independence from the Danes.
It is a remarkable comparison. Iceland has a population of 210,000 people and 75 per cent to 80 per cent of its economy is based on fisheries. Iceland is totally isolated from the rest of the world, and yet the record shows — an accurate figure — that Icelanders today have the fifth highest income per capita in the world. They are ahead of Germany, the United States and some other well-developed Western nations.
That fact begs the question of how 210,000 people on a remote island between North America and Europe could produce such a high standard of living. Not only is the standard of living to be wondered at, but also, and any visitors would know this, the fact that they are all very well educated — the literacy rate is in the order of 99 per cent.
That capital city, Reykjavik, is so clean that you can eat off the sidewalks. The population is very healthy and tremendously productive, and they have developed some of the best technology for the fishing industry in the world. Today, most of the largest and advanced fishing vessels, particularly factory vessels that process at sea, are using equipment that has either been built, or at least designed and developed, in that little country of 210,000 people.
It is time for someone to sit back and look very carefully at the condition of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery in comparison with that of Iceland, especially given what the former brought to Confederation back in 1949.
A few graphs have been distributed to give you a better picture of the situation. Before Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation, the number of fish, the variety and the diversity of the fishery were such that Canada then ranked about 14th or 15th in the world in fish production. The day that Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation, Canada's ranking shot up to between fifth and sixth place in the world. That will give you some idea of the resource that was there.
We talk about cod a great deal because it is one of the most important fisheries. Nevertheless, cod is not the only important species. There are many, many other species of groundfish, pelagic fish and crustaceans that are enormously valuable. On the graph, there is a statistic from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, concerning cod in 1962. On the left side of the graph, you can see that 1.6 million tonnes are indicated. That equates the number of spawning biomass — the number, the weight and the tonnage of cod fish that were seven years of age and over, and so capable of reproduction.
In addition, at that time there were about 2.5 million tonnes of fish from under seven years of age and younger to the larval stage.
It will give you an idea of the strengths of that resource: 1962 was about seven or eight years after the introduction of the massive foreign fleets, which came about as a result of the war ending and a shortage of protein in those countries. All of those European countries, from Spain right through to Bulgaria, Russia, the Baltic States and Scandinavia, converted their shipyards from building warships to building trawlers. They built a massive fleet. If anybody read any of Dr. Templeman's work in the 1950s and 1960s, they would see a statistic for 1957 that showed that there were 600 large factory vessels and 44,000 European fishermen fishing off the East Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. That went on for 35 years unchecked — no monitoring, nothing.
I will tell you a story from firsthand experience. We hired a skipper who had been on the first or second British factory vessel that came out, and afterwards he was a skipper for about 10 or 15 years in Newfoundland. He told me that on their first voyages to Labrador in 1953, they were up to their ankles in spawn from fish that were caught off Labrador in, believe this, three and four feet of ice. The vessels were built in those days using the technology that the Germans had developed for U-boats. The Lloyds people had developed a structure for vessels that allowed them to fish in heavy ice conditions.
These vessels were fishing for very high concentrations of spawning fish. Therefore, the downside was the result of 30-odd years of uncontrolled fishing.
You have to understand that Canada sat in the room when a fisheries commission called ICNAF, the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, was supposed to be controlling this activity. There is no question that it was outside the three-mile limit to begin with, and then outside the 12 miles, so it can be said that Canada had no jurisdiction. Having been present at many of the meetings, I will say that it was not at all pleasant to sit in a room and listen to scientists give frightening figures on what was happening to the fishing industry. We knew this was happening in 1971. This did not come about in 1990. We knew in 1971.
I can tell you about an experience that took place in this town, with a presentation to Prime Minister Trudeau and eight of his senior cabinet members, giving them just such information. Also in the room in 1971, incidentally, was a man named Mitchell Sharp, who was the Minister of External Affairs. The scientists and fishermen who were living with this knew it was happening. They knew that there was going to be a collapse in 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Much effort was made to get Canada to move, although I readily agree that they could not move out into international waters and start a war. However, the very least that should have been done was to mount a concerted, sustained information campaign to these countries about what was happening. It was in the best interests of all of the participants, including the foreigners, to deal with this situation, because today, these countries, for instance, the United Kingdom and many others that were participating in these fisheries, are not here any more. Spain and Portugal and many other countries are; however, some of these countries are not because the catch rates have gone down to such low levels outside of 200 miles.
Some might ask: How can the Spanish do it? I do not know whether honourable senators are aware of this, but the Spanish received a half-a-billion euros from Brussels in 2001 to subsidize their fishing fleet on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. That is why they are able to continue to fish.
One of the principal reasons there will never be any recovery is foreign fishing. One way or another, Canada has got to stop compromising and taking this — I am sorry to say it — wimpish attitude in the international negotiations that take place year after year and start to take a position. I am not alone. I can assure honourable senators that there are people with more experience than I and have been around the same length of time who will say that we have an opportunity here, if there is a willingness and the intestinal fortitude in Ottawa.
By the way, this is a non-political organization. I want to make that clear. The fact is that government after government has had the same attitude. Sometimes we wonder whether it is deliberate; nevertheless, we cannot speculate. The fact is, unless the Government of Canada decides to take a strong position with these governments that are subsidizing the kind of fishing effort going on, we will get absolutely nowhere.
What will happen? We have already lost 50,000 people out of Newfoundland and Labrador since 1993. I can guarantee that we will lose more people if another moratorium is announced in March. On the basis of science, it should be. There is no doubt about that. The only reason, as I see it, that it may not happen is if there is an uprising among the people, because the fishermen will not stand by in Newfoundland and Labrador and accept another moratorium when, at the same time, there are 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 vessels and 16 or 17 nations fishing on our doorstep, landing that fish in our ports and transhipping it back to their home countries. Or they are shipping it to China for further processing with 10-cent-an-hour labour, providing them with all the goods and services they need to facilitate their operations so that it can be done as cheaply as possible. That, combined with the subsidies they are getting from the European Community in many cases, will cause a reaction in the spring that has never been seen before.
Nevertheless, it will not help the situation, and by the way, it is not just cod. There are tremendous flounder, haddock and turbot fisheries. There are four Russian vessels, owned by two Russians living in New York who have a contract with a broker in Hong Kong, landing regularly for the last three years in Newfoundland and shipping the fish by container through the Panama Canal for processing at 10 cents an hour in China. How we, as a people, can allow that to happen is beyond me.
Why are DFO and its officials not alerting the senior cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister to this situation? It is beyond me, and beyond a lot of people who understand. That is the kind of thing we are facing.
You know, people will say, ``Iceland? Well, so what?'' Somebody may say the environmental conditions have had their effects on Newfoundland and Labrador and the East Coast of Canada. Well, when someone brings that subject up, and I do not doubt they will, someone should ask why Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, which are in the same hemisphere in the North Atlantic, right next to Newfoundland and Labrador, have an extremely well- managed fishery providing a quality of life and an income that is fifth or sixth or whatever the case might be in the world. The fact is they are managing their fisheries.
Not to oversimplify, but let me assure sure you that if you took the time to read the regulatory measures in Iceland, Norway, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland for that matter, you would see that these governments impose regulatory measures in terms of the type of fishing gear and the size of the mesh, which is all-important in the escape factor with young fish. You have to let young fish escape in order to grow and reproduce. If you do not, then there are two strikes against you. There is a law in both those northern countries against fishermen deliberately landing small fish.
If, by chance, a lot of small fish show up on traditional fishing grounds, the fishermen immediately report it to the science institute and five or six scientists are dispatched to that site. The fishery is closed until they come up with an answer as to why this is happening and what should be done to alleviate the problem.
That sort of thinking is so far from that of DFO in Canada, or in Newfoundland and Labrador, that it is like a fairy-tale. I am not exaggerating. I am telling you the truth.
When you look at this graph, you get to this point where you see it going down from 1.6 million to 70,000 tonnes, and then you see a rebuilding. That low point was when the 200-mile limit was established in 1978.
Something different should have happened, given the knowledge that we had. When I say ``we,'' I am talking about senior scientists with tremendous corporate knowledge, and who knew precisely what was happening in those days
Many of those people were recommending, not closure at that point, but reduction of effort to allow rebuilding. You see the line drawn across the graph here? That is 1.2 million, a level established by scientists for the spawning biomass of seven years and older to rebuild the stock over a period of time. They were ignored.
Not only were they ignored, but a federal Minister of Fisheries of the day put in place a financial subsidy instead. I have the letter here in this file, from October 1, 1978. That financial subsidy was given to encourage Canadian offshore trawlers to come back to this fishery off Labrador that had been annihilated over 30 years by foreigners. Lo and behold, in January 1978, there were close to 150 Canadian trawlers back in there, attacking the young, concentrated cod for spawning, because the spawning period is January through April. That was the period when these trawlers were let loose in there and caught enormous quantities of small fish; 80 per cent of the fish were so small that they had to go into the lowest value pack, called a ``cod block,'' that went to the United States for further processing into fish sticks and fish portions, while yielding the lowest return from the market.
At the same time, the Icelanders and the Norwegians were busily producing fish that provided 20 to 25 per cent higher returns in American prices.
Two or three sectors of the fleet protested that action by the minister on the following bases. First, the vessels that were going to participate were not built for the icy waters off Labrador. They were built to operate off the southern coast of Newfoundland and off the Scotian Shelf and George's Bank in ice-free conditions. Second, many of us did not want to go in there because we knew that 80 per cent of the fish would be processed and put on the market at low value, which is precisely what happened.
That fishing effort was applied for about five years, until it was knocked down. Then the 1993 moratorium was declared. It has not recovered since because of the foreign overfishing. While they are not directing their efforts at the cod alone, they are getting large bycatches of cod. Any fisherman knows and understands that there is no way in the world, if you are fishing for flounder or turbot, that you can avoid catching cod; therefore, large quantities of cod are landed and taken, by the Spanish and Portuguese particularly, but also by others.
There is overfishing. In addition to that, the seal population is totally out of control. We have made copies of this scientific information for honourable senators. When you get a chance to read that, you will find out that after being in the business for close to 50 years, and trying to find out what is going on in our fisheries, we still do not know precisely, as this scientist says, the true relationship between capelin as a food fish and cod.
Another fact that is outstandingly depressing is that we have over 5 million seals. There are grey seals, as Senator Comeau is aware. They are prevalent off the Scotian Shelf. They have spread. There are also harp seals and hood seals.
The federal government, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans specifically, have deliberately avoided advising the public as to the true consumption of cod or groundfish by seals.
Many fishermen have an idea what the consumption is. However, anecdotal information is not worth much.
My friends and I have been listening to our provincial people. They were here yesterday. They are all excited and concerned, as they should be, about foreign overfishing. Foreign overfishing is a real problem. There is no question about that whatsoever, as I said before.
That is important, and foreign overfishing must be stopped somehow. However, the biggest challenge that we have in Newfoundland and Labrador is not with the foreigners, it is with Ottawa. That is where our problem lies.
This is not political. We have no concerns whatsoever about the political aspects of it.
About five months ago — perhaps some of the senators know this — the Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries came to Newfoundland, and visited other places on the East Coast. We spent much time with that committee. For three or four days, they were given an opportunity to get information on some of these things firsthand.
They came away with a clear understanding that one of the things that has to be done is for Canada to gain control of the area on the Continental Shelf. That committee eventually made that recommendation.
The minister of the day nixed the report without reading it. I do not know whether the recommendation was misunderstood. Custodial management is not an extension of jurisdiction and a grab by Canada, or the Newfoundland or Nova Scotian fishermen. The idea is to use the word ``custodian.''
Custodial management means going to Spain and Portugal and telling them that we recognize that they have been here for four centuries and that they have historic connections to this fishery. However, they must understand that the fishery is gone. We in Canada are willing now to bite the bullet, shut down the fishery and give nature an opportunity to rebuild. However, they must do the same thing. They must join with us and cooperate in the field of science, whatever the parameters might be, to rebuild this resource.
When it is rebuilt, we will sit down to talk. On the basis of their historic past, they would participate in the fisheries again. We are not saying to go away and stay away. We are saying that we have a colossal economic and social problem on our plate with which we must deal. They must help us to rectify it. That is custodial management.
Instead of paying attention to that aspect of it, what happens? It is nixed, and 10 days later there is a meeting of NAFO in Spain, where the first item on the agenda for the 18 nations around the table is that the minister in Canada is not concerned. He is not talking about custodial management. The legs were cut completely from under the Canadian negotiating position.
I do not think that was deliberate. I just think that it was a misunderstanding. It had to be, because it was so clear.
It seems to me that somewhere along the way we have gone off the road. People like the honourable senators in Ottawa must understand more about what is happening. We are going to lose another 50,000 people in Newfoundland in the next 10 years. There is no doubt about that. We have an economy in Newfoundland with about 25 per cent unemployment probably, perhaps less, when the national unemployment level is somewhere in the order of 8 or 9 per cent.
We have about 300 communities, all of which were encouraged over the last 25 or 30 years to incorporate and put in expensive sewers, water, lights and all of the rest of the amenities, and all of which they cannot afford. People in many of those communities today are turning off streetlights because they do not have the budget. They do not have the money.
Many of these communities have an aging population because many of the young and better-educated people are leaving for the mainland, the United States and elsewhere.
That is the problem. I can go on about this, Mr. Chairman. However, the fact is that we must convince the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister and the DFO of the problem.
I will come to the science issue. You cannot have fisheries management comparable to Iceland or Norway unless it is based on science. You can travel by plane over the forests of B.C. or Ontario and get a pretty good idea of what is there. You can get a pretty good idea in a short time of what is in that forest, and what it means.
You can determine easily what the dairy industry means to Quebec, or the wheat fields mean to the Prairies. However, when you are looking at a resource that is in 1,000 metres of water, common sense tells you that you have got to do something called ``fisheries research.''
There are three large, modern research vessels in Iceland. On the East Coast of Canada, from George's Bank past Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, there are three old vessels. One of them was on the block three weeks ago, with a memo on the minister's desk recommending that it be taken out. We got wind of it and sent all kinds of messages. Whether it had any effect at this stage, nobody knows.
I have spread around for the honourable senators a piece written by a man named Sandy Sandeman, who retired about six or seven years ago. He was the chief scientist in the St. John's region for 10 or 12 years. He is a brilliant man.
His conclusion is that when they take that vessel out, we will go back in Newfoundland and Labrador to the same level of science that we had in 1949. There is a graph in the back that shows precisely that.
Also in this paper is information regarding the 11 or 12 large research vessels in Europe currently working in an area only slightly larger than the area we are discussing. It is an indication of the focus and attention that the Europeans, despite their bad practices, are putting on science.
We are doing exactly the opposite.
I am almost ashamed to tell you this, but about 12 years ago, two others and I were asked to do a survey of the Vietnamese fishery for the Government of Vietnam to determine whether it could be competitive in the international market. After visiting Hanoi, we went to the port of Haiphong. At the wharf was a beautiful vessel, a gift to the people of Vietnam from Norway. It was the latest in research vessels. There were three scientists on board whose salaries the Norwegians were paying for two years to teach the Vietnamese how to do fisheries research.
The vessel had not moved from the wharf in 16 months because they did not have enough fuel. Can you believe that in St. John's, Newfoundland there were DFO research vessels tied on because the fuel budget was spent?
Senator Cochrane: How long were they tied on?
Mr. Etchegary: Frankly, I cannot tell you. There was a memo to the skippers telling them not to use fuel unless they were in action. In other words, conserve fuel. They were told that when they were at sea, going to research grounds or life saving, they should try to do it at half speed.
This is the kind of thing, Mr. Chairman, that we must bring to the attention of the Government of Canada, and who else better to do that than people like you?
The Chairman: I noted that you had indicated that this problem had been brought to the attention of the government at various times, as you showed on the graph. However, I could not help but remember the testimony of the current Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who told us in this very room some months ago that all of the problems of the cod collapse were strictly attributable to the former government. He said that all the problems commenced with the former government and that blame should also be placed on foreign governments. I cannot help bringing that up.
Mr. Etchegary: There is a book written by Dr. Templeman, who was by far the best scientist that Canada ever produced. It was published in 1965 and is called The Marine Fisheries of Newfoundland. If you takes the time to read that book, you will read paragraph after paragraph that could have been in yesterday's paper. This was not only happening in the field of science, and with people like Dr. Templeman. Those of us who were operating plants, with thousands of people catching and processing fish and trying to market it, were keeping records. We had some good people in our operations. They kept records, for example, on the size of fish. You may not realize that the cost of processing a fish this long —
The Chairman: For the record, we will say that that is about two feet.
Mr. Etchegary: About 24 to 26 inches. It is what we call ``market fish,'' which under normal circumstances and with reasonable productivity, allows a processor to pay fishermen and make a profit. Processing 18-inch fish, if you continue to do it, is guaranteed to put you into bankruptcy. We were seeing this in 1971.
When Mr. Kirby wrote his commission report in 1984, it was 10 years too late. There was nothing new about that. We knew that in 1971 and 1972.
I have information with me this evening that will show you that 25 people from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Newfoundland and P.E.I. came to Ottawa and sat in a big building close to here with Mr. Mitchell Sharpe, Jack Davis and Don Jamieson for a day and a half and presented them with DFO statistics, not ours, on the kind of trend that I show you now on this graph. Mitchell Sharpe said, after we had finished the presentation, ``Finally, I understand the basis of your problem.''
To make a long story short, Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Davis and Mr. Jamieson said: ``We want four or five of you to give an abbreviated presentation to Mr. Trudeau and eight of his senior cabinet members.'' We had the presentation the following morning.
I will always remember this wonderful lady, Madame Sauvé, sitting at the corner of the table. We made our presentation and this little lady spoke up and said, ``My God, anybody knows that if you have fewer fish and they are smaller, you are in trouble.''
We were producing information every day in 1970, 1971 and 1972, that the fish were getting smaller. We presented statistics to the cabinet that showed that from 1965 to 1971, the catch for a 125-foot trawler had gone from one tonne per hour of fishing to 800 pounds. A gill net catch had gone down from 500 pounds per net per day to 50 pounds per net per day. These were the figures put in front of these people. That had great ramifications in terms of the return in the market for smaller fish, et cetera.
A clear declaration that the government would seize on this information and get on with the business of extension of jurisdiction came out of that meeting. We were all pleased to hear that. I have to say that from there on it became a live issue, although it took eight years before it was finally extended.
We were urging that we could not live with a 200-mile limit. We had to have an extension of jurisdiction. I will never forgive some of the senior bureaucrats of the day with whom we were talking so that they could inform their bosses and the politicians.
The reason was simple. There is a little chart attached to the back page of my presentation. It does not take a genius to look at that and see where that red line intersects the tail and nose of the Grand Bank and the Flemish Cap and to know that it is trouble.
It is trouble because there are 45,000 square miles of prime fishing area outside that line, and fish migrate over it. It is open season for the 18 to 20 nations that have no controls whatsoever.
On the subject of ``no controls,'' the graph attached to my presentation shows you the actual figures for European Union quotas and catches, and you can see for yourself that there was no quota for the European Union. Yet they caught, between 1986 and 1991, anywhere from 40,000 to 70,000 tonnes of fish from the most prime fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. This was done under the nose of Canadian officials — they were fully aware of it. This is purely non-political, and so I say to you that successive governments have not been seized of the importance of this fishery.
Senator Cook: Mr. Etchegary, you are a household name in Newfoundland. Suffice it to say, we will have to do things differently. I sit here and remember growing up in an outport; in 1962 we started to do things differently, did we not? It was the end of the Grand Banks era and the hook and line, and it was the beginning of the trawler fleet. As my dad would have said at the time, and I am sure would say today, that was when we began to rape the oceans. There is no question in my mind about that. We did things differently.
I understood you to say that DFO, through successive governments and through that time period, did not hear and did not understand. I was set to talk about NAFO today, but now I am faced with a bigger problem: DFO does not understand and does not have the interests of the East Coast of Atlantic Canada in mind. Where do we begin?
Mr. Etchegary: The transition from salted fish to the fresh-frozen fish industry began during the war and grew quickly. At that time, fish were abundant and no one gave much thought to government conservation or to good management practice. It was simply a question of dipping fish up.
When you look at the records of the number of fish taken by the Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen historically — we have records going back to 1875 — they show a straight line out of that northern cod fishery of approximately 200,000 tonnes. That would have continued indefinitely at that level. However, when that figure increased to 1 million tonnes, then, of course, the crash took place.
New technology was introduced and it was indiscriminate, in that there was no monitoring. There was a huge foreign fleet that dwarfed the total Canadian fleet in comparison. Over the years, I have spent as much time in this place on matters like this as I spent doing my job, because the man who built the company in which I was involved told me that the most important component in our whole industry was the fish. He told me to pay attention to the fish. Thus, I spent one-half of my life on that aspect of the fishery.
Over the years, I have not met one person in a senior bureaucratic position with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who knew a thing about the fishery. I am sorry to say that, but not one knew about the fishery. The department's officials just did not have the experience and the background. In Iceland and in Norway, officials who put the regulatory and enforcement measures in place are in the same harbour — in the same fishery. They interface with the industry day after day, week after week and month after month. You cannot run a fishery from a building in Ottawa, 1,800 miles away. Certainly, people who do not understand the economics of the fishery cannot do it. Some of those people do not have a clue.
I have gone to some of the world capitals with ICNAF and NAFO to attend annual meetings and negotiations. I was a commissioner with both of those organizations for many years. We would come to Ottawa, where there would be three ministers to give us briefing instructions on how we should negotiate. There were always three or four people from the Department of External Affairs and three or four people from the Department of International Trade. I can tell you, there were numerous instances when those specific departments had more influence over negotiations taking place in respect of fisheries management and conservation than the officials from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. There were trade-offs negotiated, such as a car plant being built in Ontario or in Quebec in exchange for Korea receiving a quota on the Grand Banks. I am not pulling your leg; I am telling you the truth. Another negotiation involved the U.K. lifting a 25 per cent tariff on British Columbia halibut and Canada giving the United Kingdom a quota off the coast of Labrador in return. There was another involving airports, whereby access was granted to Canadian airlines to cities such as Amsterdam, Lisbon and Madrid, et cetera.
One of the great problems, Senator Cook, is that the people running the fisheries do not have the experience and the knowledge. Otherwise, what has happened to us would never have happened.
Senator Phalen: What you have presented to us is very interesting. Mr. Chamut, Assistant Deputy Minister of Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was here a few days ago. I asked him these questions: Is the issue of straddling stocks unique to Canada? Do other countries have similar concerns? Would there be international support for extending the economic zone? The answer from Mr. Chamut was no.
Do you believe that the NAFO Convention could be amended to accommodate Canadian concerns?
Mr. Etchegary: I believe it is an uphill battle, but it is one that could be won if the Canadian government were determined to do something about it. First, we should not abandon NAFO. Anyone who says that Canada should get out of NAFO does not make any sense. At least NAFO is a forum in which we are able to speak to people in the fishing industry.
The Spanish and Portuguese, who come here and catch our fish, are doing it for the same reasons that our inshore fishermen or offshore fishermen are doing it — to satisfy the economic and social requirements of communities in Spain or in Portugal. These people have to have a long-term interest in sustaining the fishery. The approach that should be taken by a dedicated country is to get the right people to sit down and formulate an approach to the painful negotiations with those countries so that they will come into the fold and start rebuilding the resource.
Senator Phalen: His indication was that there is little international support for this.
Mr. Etchegary: You can say that, and at ground zero, you may be right, senator. However, you have to begin somewhere. The alternative is to do nothing.
Senator Phalen: I know that.
Mr. Etchegary: The alternative is to say, ``Okay. Forget it. We are done. We are out. That is it.'' That is not the way to do it. The Spanish, the Portuguese and these other people have to be shown that it is in their interests.
Senator Phalen: Can Canada take unilateral action and extend the jurisdiction beyond the 200-mile limit?
Mr. Etchegary: I do not know what a previous minister was trying to do; however, it did not accomplish anything. We wound up with the Estai and with a lot of mud on our face, to be honest about it. You will not muscle people out of international waters. That cannot be done.
At the moment, Canada has control over all the bottom species outside 200 miles. The crab, scallops and clams are Canada's. Canada controls the crab fishery outside 200 miles, as well as the scallops and clams. Under the UN, Canada has access to the bottom-dwelling species. That is a good starting point, because you can go into a room and sit down with a Spaniard who is a pretty knowledgeable fisherman and say: ``What is the difference between a flounder that lives on the ocean bottom and a crab?'' Why did somebody come up with the idea of giving the coastal state the right to manage the crab but not the flounder?
At the moment, Canada has a starting point. That is all I am saying right now.
Senator Phalen: I was at a meeting about a month ago, and I heard the comment that there is no real scientific proof that seals eat cod. What do you think of that statement?
Mr. Etchegary: They have deliberately avoided putting themselves in a position where they would have to tell you that there is a relationship. That is the best way I can answer that question.
Honourable senators, be assured that when you read the document I have presented, you will see that one of the best scientists around is saying that seals do eat cod. How much? We do not know. However, they do eat them. They sure as heck eat what is just as important, and a lot of it, and that is capelin. Capelin is the food for cod.
Senator Mahovlich: You sound to me like you are very frustrated, sir. I can appreciate that. You are right, I am from Ontario and I am not really a fisherman. I caught a few trout at fish farm up in Muskoka, but that is about it.
I think it was Pierre Trudeau who said that the trouble with fish is that they swim, and the fish can swim over that 200-mile line. Where are they going? I was up in Kuujuak, a little town in Northern Quebec. They are thinking of putting some Arctic char in a lake up there. The Arctic char will swim in the ocean. Once they get into that ocean, where do they go? They will probably go up to Iceland. You cannot control the fish.
The same is true with the 200-mile limit. You have to come up with another idea, whereby we get scientists to say this is where the fish are going and police that whole area of the ocean. You are right, you have to negotiate with these Portuguese, because it is a world problem now. Drawing a line is not the answer.
I am not a fisherman. You are right, I do not know a thing about it; however, I can see that you are frustrated. I can see why. You cannot put a line on these things. That is the reason they come here and fish our stock. I said that a few senators should listen to what they have to say during these meetings. We have not come up with the right solution yet.
You are talking about Iceland and their management. Are the Portuguese and the Spanish fishing up there in Iceland?
Mr. Etchegary: No.
Senator Mahovlich: Explain that to me.
Mr. Etchegary: It is simple, senator. Iceland is not a member of the European Community.
Senator Mahovlich: Are we a member of that community?
Mr. Etchegary: They are not.
You asked a question about Iceland. Why are they not up in Iceland fishing?
Senator Mahovlich: Are they in Norway?
Mr. Etchegary: No.
Senator Mahovlich: Norway is number 1 in the world.
Mr. Etchegary: Close to it.
Norway, for example, voted on membership eight years ago, and many enticements were placed in front of the Norwegian government. The government itself was very much in favour of joining the union. I had friends over there. They asked me to come over, and I went and made a few speeches up in the fishing country.
Senator Mahovlich: I was there too. I was in Tronso.
Mr. Etchegary: They were looking for someone to convey to people over there our experience here. They wanted to persuade more and more people to vote against entry into the Common Market. In spite of the fact that the government wanted to join the European Community, the vote was 58 to whatever against. Therefore, Norway did not join and nor did Iceland.
If they joined, what would happen to them is exactly what happened to the United Kingdom. When the U.K. joined the European Community, immediately, Spain, Portugal and all these other countries were able to participate in their fishery right up to their doorstep. As a result, they massacred the fish there.
You ask why they come here. It is because of the exposure of that area outside 200 miles.
Senator Mahovlich: The fish swim over that line.
Mr. Etchegary: We know the migratory pattern of cod. For example, we know where the spawning takes place and where they move after January, February, March and April. Unfortunately, 20 to 25 per cent of them move outside the line. In the case of flounder, which is an enormously important species, the very important nurseries are located 15 to 20 miles outside the 200-mile zone. If you go to a Spanish or Portuguese family restaurant on a Sunday, you will get a plate about this size, and on top are these small American plaice that come from the Grand Banks, about four to six inches. They are small, undersized fish.
The Spanish, in particular, and one particular segment of the Spanish fishing industry called the Pair-fishing fleet, which is in the North, the Basque Country, where my folks came from, use two vessels towing a huge trawler. We proved to the Spanish in 1968 or 1969 that they were catching 50 per cent bycatch of flounder with their big cod nets. They massacred that flounder resource.
We were able to prove it, by the way, with federal people present.
I remember going to Madrid with a group of people and presenting figures to prove to the Spanish what they were doing.
They continue to fish out there. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is working with a substantially reduced budget. By the way, many of the DFO personnel working in surveillance, on Coast Guard duty, directly on the ocean and as scientists and technicians, are wonderful people with a tremendous amount of knowledge and background.
However, two years' work from research vessels in St. John's is now out of date because they did not have the technicians to do the analysis.
Senator Hubley: You have a wealth of knowledge, Mr. Etchegary. We have more questions after listening to your presentation, but I think it is great to have someone from Newfoundland who has a history with the fishery come before us.
If you were going to recommend that this committee focus on something in particular in our study of straddling stocks, that you might suggest would be important, how would you direct the committee? You have talked about NAFO and trying to protect those spawning grounds, et cetera. What do you suggest we do?
Mr. Etchegary: I honestly believe that the present structure of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as it functions under the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, cannot work. There are five fishing provinces on the East Coast of Canada. The fisheries of Prince Edward Island are entirely different from the other four. Quebec has some semblance of a ground fishery, like the northwest coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Other than that, they are all different. New Brunswick has a fishery up in Baie Chaleur and a fishery in the south that are completely different.
Nova Scotia is and always has been an important and valuable fishery, largely because about 70 per cent of it for crustaceans, like lobsters and scallops. I am speaking in terms of value. For that reason, Nova Scotia has not been as impacted by the problems of straddling stocks as Newfoundland.
There has to be recognition that you cannot apply a fisheries policy across the whole of the East Coast of Canada because something is happening in Prince Edward Island. You cannot apply that same policy to the coast of Labrador, because it will not work.
A senior bureaucrat could head up the regional fisheries unit in Newfoundland, with a management board of half a dozen people in Newfoundland and Labrador to whom he was responsible, and deal with the specific problems of Newfoundland's straddling stocks. Fishermen in Yarmouth or Blacks Harbour or P.E.I. are not worrying too much about straddling stocks, but it is on the minds of the Newfoundland fishermen, or at least the responsible and professional ones. That is a concern, by the way, that will cause quite a ruckus in the spring of 2003.
There must be recognition that the minister cannot act as a dictator, and certainly not when he has no experience. You have to be a wise man to deal with the problems of the East Coast fisheries.
A management team in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, headed up by a first-class bureaucrat and reporting to the minister, could deal with science, regulatory measures, enforcement problems, the problems of how much fish seals are eating, and other things that uniquely apply to that fishery. They would not be the same as the problems that Prince Edward Island fishermen might be having.
Something has to change in the structure. Politically, it may be difficult to do, but something along those lines must be done. However, that is only one thing. There are so many issues; it is a complex industry.
For example, Senator Cook mentioned the transition from salt fish to the frozen industry in 1950 and all that that brought with it. The honourable senator called it ``the beginning of the end,'' and it was, to a large degree.
Approximately 80 per cent of the Icelandic catch is caught by trawlers using a cod-end, which has a square mesh to allow younger fish to escape. In Newfoundland, that same trawler is operating with a diamond-shaped mesh, which will not allow that escape. We have shown that to DFO year after year, but there has been no response.
Senator Hubley: Is the spawning ground for the fishery a protected area?
Mr. Etchegary: No, it is not. On the contrary, fish concentrate when they spawn. Unfortunately, that is when fishermen are permitted to go in with fishing gear that will not allow the younger fish to escape. On the Grand Banks, there are about five areas that have been specifically recognized as prolific fishing grounds. Had the right kind of brains been on the spot, those areas should have been closed off and inspected every two or three months by scientists to see what was happening. Today, we know nothing about that sort of thing. You are dead on, senator, it is a good question.
Senator Cochrane: You have given us so much to think about and you have so much more to give. Every time you say something, it raises a question in my mind, no matter what it is. I am amazed at your knowledge.
In 1992, we implemented a cod moratorium in Newfoundland. It is now 10 years later, but the cod stocks have not been rebuilt. Am I right?
Mr. Etchegary: That is correct.
Senator Cochrane: You used the phrase ``when stocks rebuild.'' How long do you think that will take?
Mr. Etchegary: They never will.
Senator Cochrane: We have waited 10 years.
Mr. Etchegary: They never will until we recognize several principal reasons for the depletion. Ordinary fishermen already know that foreign overfishing, seals and capelin are part of the problem. We need conservation areas, nursery grounds for certain species, and real controls, particularly over foreign activities
Much is said about the activities of foreign vessels. Believe me, we are only scratching the surface of their activities. Foreign fishing is a very big problem.
That is only one area. There are several others with which we must deal. I can assure you that there is no chance of those resources coming back unless there is a complete change in the attitude of the PMO, the Prime Minister and the cabinet of the federal government of Canada. Otherwise, we are finished.
Senator Cochrane: You are saying that we have to deal with all of these issues. We have to deal with the seals and foreign overfishing. We have to deal with the nets that we are using and other things before any cod stocks will be rebuilt. We have to deal with all the other things first.
Mr. Etchegary: That is right. You have to stop capelin fishing. Tremendous numbers of capelin are destroyed in order to provide a few Japanese with capelin roe. There are many other things, Senator Cochrane. That is just scratching the surface. It can be done. However, at present, nothing is being done.
Senator Cochrane: The moratorium does not mean anything.
Mr. Etchegary: The moratorium has been an absolutely useless exercise. Many people are coming to the conclusion that this is cultural genocide.
Senator Cochrane: Let me go back to Spain and Portugal. They are the culprits.
Mr. Etchegary: They are not alone.
Senator Cochrane: However, these are the two countries that we have been hearing the most about over the years, at least for the 16 years that I have been here.
Some individuals, and I was one of them, went to Spain to talk to the government about the problems that we are having off Newfoundland shores. Other people went to speak time and time again. Still nothing has happened.
Mr. Etchegary: It is a waste of money.
Senator Cochrane: What are we going to do?
Mr. Etchegary: The situation in the Portuguese fishing industries is that an owner spends $25 million for a modern trawler. He puts 50 to 60 people on board. He has to amortize the vessel and make a profit, while 50 to 60 men have to earn a living.
They have absolutely no concern whatsoever about conservation. They could not care less. Their objective in life is to catch fish in order to pay for the vessel and pay the crew.
The Government of Portugal has no control over that. I have not spoken directly to Mr. Thibeault, because I do not know him, but I have I tried to get the message to him that it is a waste of time and money to talk to the Government of Portugal. The people who decide what the fishing activity on the Grand Banks will be are not the governments of Portugal and Spain. The owner and the crew decide. It is as simple as that.
These people are learning. For example, the European Community decided last year that they would cut subsidies to fleets, whereas in 2001 the Spanish spent 500 million euros to subsidize their fleets. They will not have that amount in 2003.
There will come a time when, despite the differences in the standard of living, they will not be able to afford to come and catch one quarter of what it will take to amortize that expensive asset. They will not be able to afford to pay the crew. There will come a time, and it is probably a lot closer than we think.
I have many friends in Iceland, and I have great admiration for them. However, in the past two years, they have found it difficult to put an Icelandic crew on their vessels because they cannot catch enough fish to pay them.
What do they do? They flag the vessel in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, where they pay a salary of $65 a week. It then becomes a different proposition.
These things are evolving. We know things with which we can confront these people.
At the same time, however, it does not preclude us from taking these same arguments and positions to the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention. Surely if we continue doing what we are doing in world fisheries generally, which is pretty much reflected in what is going on in the Grand Banks, somewhere down the road there will be nothing left in the ocean.
Senator Adams: I started working on this many years ago now. We have some small quotas in Nunavut now for the turbot and others. Perhaps you are familiar with it.
In Nunavut, since we settled land claims, the people began to think that perhaps sometime in the future, they would be able to become fishermen. We are familiar with the water and the fishing, but we do not have any type of equipment.
You mentioned that there are 210,000 people in Iceland, and that about 70 per cent of them are fishermen?
Mr. Etchegary: A very large percentage.
Senator Adams: I hope that the governments of Canada and Nunavut will start training local people to fish and provide some equipment. The fleet is gone.
Iceland trains people to be fishermen. They are such good fishermen. Perhaps it is the only resource they have, I do not know.
In Nunavut, we have mining coming in now. We have gold and diamonds. We may have natural gas or something like that. We do not know.
In some small communities, 80 per cent of the people have no job.
We are looking for ways to create work. We are losing much of our fish to the foreigners, and Russia and Iceland are taking the turbot.
How would you see the people of Nunavut getting into fishing? Currently, we catch only about 8,000 tonnes per year.
Mr. Etchegary: Yes. I have to confess that I am certainly no expert on the fisheries up there. I know a little through talking to other people.
I do not think that there will be any great difficulty for the people living in that environment to develop the skills.
More than anything else, I would be concerned that by the time they are skilled, able to fish and ready to make an investment in a fishing boat, they would be confined to shore fisheries because the offshore fish would be pretty much depleted. Icelanders and others are fishing the turbot offshore. There is a great deal of evidence to show that very small turbot are being caught and discarded. As a matter of fact, they have nicknamed the turbot ``postage stamps.'' They are so small that they stick to the deck and the crew have a heck of job picking them off to dispose of them.
That is the kind of thing that I would be concerned about — the continued offshore assault on fisheries by foreign fleets. They may be good people simply trying to do the same thing as everyone else; however, they are doing it in an uncontrolled fashion. They are not concerned about conservation.
Senator Adams: Thank you.
Senator Cook: I will ask a few questions of Mr. Etchegary. DFO has an incredible facility in St. John's. What are they doing there these days? I have heard that the science program has been cut back, and if so, what can we do about it? Is this having an impact on what is happening out there? If you were the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans today, what would you do to solve this problem?
Mr. Etchegary: Well, the group at the regional centre in St. John's are fine people. However, they are understaffed and do not have the money.
When the budget is cut in half, you will lose top-notch scientists — people with enormous knowledge. I do not speak only of the working scientists, but also people with the knowledge and the vision to establish broad scientific objectives in a fishery that is complex and difficult to manage. When those kinds of people are lost to the industry, they end up at Dalhousie, the University of British Columbia or down at Wood's Hole, Massachusetts. That is a great part of the problem. Those people have become fed up with trying to put their views forward.
The following was a pitiful thing to read: it is an internal memo that resulted in something in the order of 40 or 50 scientists responding to questions on how to improve their scientific effort. Almost to a person, they said that morale was low because the skewing of their assessment figures by bureaucrats discouraged them. After their assessments of stocks, they prepared stock status reports and recommendations on fishing levels and other related things. The bureaucratic level twisted that information. I am not saying anything new. The politicians and senior bureaucrats twisted the information to suit the situation.
This is pathetic, especially when you consider that you are looking at the possibility of losing a large part of your population due to that kind of thing. There has got to be a complete change in attitude toward the management of fisheries, including the work of scientists, scientific programs and all that goes with that.
Senator Cook: If you were the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, how would you go about those changes?
Mr. Etchegary: It is easy to make statements, but I am not alone in my thinking and my comments. There are many others who feel just as strongly about this. I do not think it has so much to do with the personality of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans as with an inappropriate structure. The required professional, focused attention to deal with the problems is not there. Officials must go to the minister or to their superiors and advise them on what has to be done.
God help us, it is taking its toll. We are on the road to creating a group of people who are just jaded — they are fed up. Not many people would want to say this, but it has to be said: I have been involved in the fisheries going back to the mid-40s. I was saying earlier tonight that for 35 to 40 years, there was a 50-week fishery. You were in the middle of it, Senator Cook. There was a 50-week fishery on the south coast of Newfoundland because it was ice-free. You did not depend entirely on an inshore fishery. People were taxpayers then —they paid taxes for health costs and education. They made their contribution. Today, if we had managed it properly, the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery would be making a substantial contribution, not only to the economy of Newfoundland but also to the national economy. We would be paying our way. Instead, what do we have? We have far too many men and women who are desperate — desperate — to get sufficient hours to qualify for unemployment insurance. That is a pretty serious situation. Somebody had better wake up.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Senator Watt: I missed the early part of your presentation, but from what I understand, there has been a great deal of overfishing in the Newfoundland and Labrador area.
We are about to do exactly the same thing, most likely, in the Arctic, if we are not already. What would be your recommendation? How do we handle the Arctic — the last remaining frontier, if you like?
Mr. Etchegary: If you have leadership in your area, there is only one way to do it: stop it. If that is the case, you have to stop it. If you do not, it will continue. We have the same thing in Labrador and Newfoundland with respect to shrimp and crab. Both of those species temporarily replaced the ground fishery. It is the same, traditionally, around the world — in Asia, South America, South Africa, et cetera. It is not the same as the ground fishery.
Therefore, the leaders in your area have to get someone to look at the problem. If that is the way it is, then you have to deal with it.
In our case, they let it go on and on, and now we have wound up with a bad situation. That is not very helpful; however, that is the truth of it.
We will have to deal with a bit of housekeeping in a couple of minutes. However, before we do, Mr. Etchegary, I would like to thank you for consenting to appear before us. It has been a very interesting and informative evening for all honourable senators. I am saying, on behalf of all honourable senators, that we appreciate the straightforward dialogue, the frankness and the experience that you have been able to present to this committee. It is especially enlightening when coming from a living legend that some of us have wanted to meet for a long time. On behalf of committee members, thank you very much.
The committee adjourned.