Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 11 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Tuesday, September 23, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 7:07 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: We will continue this evening with an examination and report on matters relating to straddling stocks and to fish habitat.
We have reported on straddling stocks, so we will be concentrating this evening on fish habitat. We are fortunate this evening to have as our witness Professor Jon Lien, chair of the Minister's Advisory Council on Oceans.
Professor Lien is also an honorary research professor of the Ocean Science Centre bio-psychology program, whale research group, of the Memorial University of Newfoundland.
I know Professor Lien is devoted to the whole concept of oceans, habitat and so on. We look forward to a productive evening.
Before we get on with the program, I wish to advise that it is good to be able to welcome a member of the Minister's Advisory Council on Oceans, because we are now the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. It is a plus since the last time we had people from the oceans area.
Professor Lien, the people you see around the table are all great supporters of the Oceans Act, which we passed a couple of years ago. We hope that you have something to say about it, and that we will be able, in the course of our examination, to report back on how you see things happening in the ocean.
I do not want to take up any more of your time. I understand that you have a presentation to make, at which point we will go on to the more productive or fun part of questions and answers.
Dr. Jon Lien, Chair, Advisory Council on Oceans, Department of Fisheries and Oceans: I am very happy to be here, especially appearing before the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I congratulate you for that. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been a bit of an anachronism, as has the Committee on Fisheries.
We do not have an agency called ``Cows and Agriculture,'' or ``Lumber and Forestry.''
Fisheries has stood alone, and has been an industry advocate rather than managing an environment. That is what I want to talk about tonight.
I am used to dealing with graduate students in seminar situations. I am not used to speaking from notes, but I submitted a written brief and I will try to stick fairly closely to that for the benefit of everyone. I also appreciate being interrupted — as I am in graduate seminars frequently — if I am not clear. Please feel free to do so. I, too, look forward to the discussion. This is an important topic.
We thank you for making time for the council to talk to you. We are eager to present our views on oceans and what is going on there, and some of the things that I think need to be done.
The council was established a few years ago under Minister Dhaliwal and has continued to serve Minister Thibault. The idea of the council was to establish an expert, independent advisory group that could advise on implementation of the Oceans Act and the development and implementation of Canada's Oceans Strategy. That has been the main work of the council.
We have consulted the department frequently, not just the branch that deals with oceans, but with all departments within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We have done broad public consultations throughout Canada, talking about the Canada Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy, and have been active in trying to assist in any way possible the minister and the department in implementing what we see as an important act and a change in direction for the Government of Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
To tell you a bit about the council, it is composed of the two Oceans Ambassadors, Geoff Holland and Art Hanson. In addition, there is a group of experts from a variety of fields. They have expertise in oil and gas, fisheries, oceanography and science, and so on. The idea is to get broad representation on the council so that we have truly expert opinion and can give the minister expert advice. We meet quarterly generally, but also at the request of the minister or the department. From time to time, things come up and they want help with this or that and they want an opinion, so our meeting schedule is, in fact, a little erratic.
With the passage of the Oceans Act in Parliament in 1997, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans greatly expanded their mandate and responsibility for oceans. The department, by law, had to expand its historical focus on fisheries to deal with the oceans of Canada in a comprehensive and holistic way. As a federal partner, the department takes a leadership role among the other federal departments in coordinating our government's action in managing oceans. This is a large change that has been given by law to this particular department.
In my presentation, I will talk about a number of issues. The first is oceans as a unique and critical habitat for the well-being of Canadians and for the economic development of Canada. That needs to be discussed.
Second, I will talk about how the Oceans Act changes the federal government's view of oceans and what that may mean for things like marine habitat and all the other things that oceans provide for Canadians.
Third, I will talk about the very real funding constraints that have been impeding implementation of the Oceans Act, which is the law of Canada, and Canada's Oceans Strategy, which is the policy of the Government of Canada.
The last point I will make is about the public, their growing knowledge of oceans and some of the constitutional constraints that have occurred in implementing the Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy.
Honourable senators probably realize that oceans are the most highly connected environments on the planet because of the density of water. It is impossible to set tight boundaries. This will become an emerging issue as we try to delineate Canada's seabed and deal with associated issues. In fact, some oceanographers talk about one global ocean. It is difficult to divide oceans into basins. Even sound travels faster and farther in water. If pollution enters the St. Lawrence, it can travel throughout the globe because of the pattern of global water circulation. For this most connected of environments, we have the most fragmented responsible authorities to manage it. It is quite amazing when you begin to look at it.
In Canada, there are approximately 27 federal agencies that have responsibility for managing some aspect of oceans. In addition, provinces have activities on oceans such as the use of oceans by municipalities and provincial transportation systems. There are additional responsible management agencies in the provinces and the territories.
The creatures that live in the oceans typically are spawned into the water column and travel with the oceans' currents. The reproductive strategy in oceans is unique. It is nothing like that on land. Creatures from very sophisticated to very small planktonic forms are spawned into the water column and travel the oceans of a basin and sometimes the oceans of the world.
We are just learning about all the ecosystem services that oceans provide, including the creation of oxygen and sequestering of gases such as carbon dioxide, as well as their effect on climate and weather. We know that we have to manage oceans in a much more comprehensive and holistic sense. At one time, the major benefits of oceans were thought to be the fish resources that they provided or their ability to facilitate transportation to new lands and discoveries.
In all Canadian provinces, the fishery has been replaced as the primary economic driver based on ocean resources by other industries such as offshore oil and gas, marine tourism, military uses, transportation and high-tech industries such as cable. The ocean is now being used in many different ways. Fishing as an industry does not provide the jobs that it once did because of sectorial changes in the fishery. Those of you from Newfoundland are keenly aware of this. There are additional job losses partly because of the efficiency with which we use technology and different fleet sectors to catch fish.
These changes have had a critical impact in places like Newfoundland, where the entire demography of the province was based on the availability of groundfish and the jobs it provided. However, the changes in the industry have marginalized these coastal communities. That is an important consideration in ocean habitat.
The second thing I want to talk about is the Oceans Act. It has as its prime goal the sustainable use of oceans. The aim is to ensure a healthy marine ecosystem and maximize the economic benefits and the contribution the environment makes to the well-being of Canadians. It provides the principles by which this aim can be achieved.
It is interesting that oceans all over the world have run into trouble. There have been national commissions of governments to investigate what has gone wrong in oceans and what has to be done. There have been ocean environment studies in the U.S. and New Zealand. The results establish several principles.
The first is that to manage oceans we need to implement an ecosystem approach. The second is that we have to integrate management of that environment so that we accommodate all the new industries and manage the conflicts that are now occurring.
We make a lot of mistakes. Therefore, all of these documents, including the Oceans Act, note that we have to adopt a precautionary approach. This is not meant to stop development, but to gear development so that it proceeds as our knowledge of its impact is understood.
The final plank in all of these ocean strategies, including the Oceans Act, is to develop cooperation in the management of oceans. Those principles are the basis of the revolution in the way in which we look at oceans.
The Oceans Act was passed by Parliament. The Government of Canada released Canada's Oceans Strategy. It offers a number of specifics as to how we can achieve implementation of these principles. One is the development of marine protected areas. That is important, because the efficiency of our technology now allows us to exploit every part of the ocean.
At one time, there were natural sanctuaries. These occurred under ice or because the distance was too great from shore or because of bad weather at certain times of the year. This protected many oceans' resources and processes.
With our great advances in technology, these have largely disappeared, as they have in a terrestrial environment, and we now have to re-establish them by management initiatives.
A second initiative is to establish integrated management projects, whereby we bring people together to focus on an area of ocean. It is almost like a demonstration project; this is how we can work this out. Hopefully, some of those are now works in progress and will succeed, and the idea of using that sort of approach to the oceans will spread.
A third major component in the Oceans Act was to establish a comprehensive monitoring of marine environment quality. Right now, I could tell you as a scientist that what we know of marine environment quality is pocketed in various responsible agencies, covering various numbers of years, stored in various formats and collected by various methods. We do not now have a comprehensive program of monitoring that we can afford in the long term. The Oceans Act will do this.
We went through an interesting exercise in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans: Some people decided they needed to lay a high-tech cable across a prime fishing ground in the minister's riding. Lo and behold, some of us were very surprised that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans had nothing to say about this; it was the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce. They are the ones who decided that this was an appropriate use of ocean space. It is a serious problem, where we have this fragmented management and a unity in an environment. With all the new developments on oceans, we really have not been talking about how we can maximize this.
The third point that I would like to make is that, in spite of the magnitude of the obligations under law that occur with the passage of the Oceans Act, and the obligations that occur with the Government of Canada policy in Canada's Oceans Strategy, there have never been new funds available to implement this program. It has been agreed in principle, but no new funds have ever materialized.
The Prime Minister's Round Table on Environment and Economy estimated that if we were to effectively implement the Oceans Act, it would take about $500 million to begin. If we take the effort and the magnitude of that effort seriously, it is a very big job.
I assume that when we have a law, when we have a policy of the Government of Canada, it is not an option for bureaucracies to implement it if it is convenient or possible. The bureaucracies really need to be given a direction. This simply has not occurred because of the lack of funding. The funds that have been put into implementation of the Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy have been stripped from other Department of Fisheries and Oceans programs at a time when they have had decreasing budgets. That has not made implementation of oceans programs terribly popular with fish management, with science, with habitat, and all the other departments and responsibilities that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans carries.
In the country as a whole, this money that has been reallocated from the department's standing budgets has amounted to about 1 per cent of their total budget of $1.4 billion annually — just 1 per cent for a major new program that not only affects fish and fish habitat, but all of these other industries on which Canada's economy and the well- being of our citizens depend.
I believe this is serious. The lack of effort that has gone into this has caused the perception, in public sectors and in some government circles, that this very important policy is without adequate accomplishments and its implementation is a failure.
This is not in my notes, but I could tell you that, twice before, Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans tried to implement an oceans strategy. At the time it came forward, everyone spoke well of it. No one said, ``This is a rotten idea.'' Everyone said, ``This is what we have to do. It is overdue.'' What happened to these strategies was they withered for lack of resources. It is the council's considered opinion that we are running that risk now. I know that budget times are difficult, but we tried to do this before. The failure rate has been 100 per cent, and the cause of failure has been consistent.
The last major point I want to make is that after the Government of Canada released Canada's Oceans Strategy, the council participated in what the Department of Fisheries and Oceans called the ``public engagement process.'' This was really to lay out this policy and get a public reaction. The council met with industry, environmental NGOs, industry lobbyists, the provinces and so on — all the interest groups we could identify. The reaction to the Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy was overwhelmingly positive. The reaction was typically, ``It is about time. Let us get on with it. It is overdue. We are already suffering from not having this kind of policy in place.''
In spite of this overwhelming support, and probably due to the inadequacy of resources, the implementation of the strategy in the act has encountered real institutional barriers. It turns out that responsible agencies dealing with oceans have tended to work as silos within the controllable limits of their mandate, not necessarily developing horizontal relationships with other responsible ocean managers. Bureaucrats tend to prefer that kind of world. There are very real institutional barriers to cooperation between different federal departments, the federal government agencies and provinces.
A further complication of implementation has been that there has been a problem within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Branches other than the oceans branch tend to prefer to carry on as they have in the past. Oceans is the new guy on the block; do we need them, can we afford them, what have they done? When your own budget is being curtailed to support them, the question becomes even more urgent as you tried to deliver the products for which you are responsible. Some of the branches, or some of the individuals within the branches, have preferred to maintain the historical responsibilities of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. In addition to the financial resources, there are these institutional barriers within the federal government, between the federal government and the provinces, and within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
The view of the council is that we are in there championing the Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy, but we need your help.
It seems to me that your committee, and other committees like yours, need to get behind the Oceans Act and speak out about it within your government circles, among colleagues and parliamentarians, to the PMO and so on. We need to get on with this. It is critical for Canada's well-being.
Canadians view oceans as an important part of Canada and of our culture. They are beginning to understand more fully how important oceans are to their well-being and all the things we care about in Canada.
I am delighted that the committee has added ``oceans'' to its name. It would be a great service to Canada if you would begin to speak out on the issues with which the Oceans Act and the oceans strategy deal. You could be the champions who speak for the benefits of the act. You could bring this to the attention of your colleagues.
You should advocate adequate funding of this important government initiative in all the venues to which you have access. You are a very important group, and your committee has an important voice in Canada.
We are dealing with a huge portion of Canadian territory. As we go through this renewed seabed mapping, we could add an area as large as all the Prairie provinces to the Pacific territory of Canada and an area equal to all the Maritime provinces on the Atlantic side. This is a large issue.
It was in the news today that the Ellesmere Island ice cap split. The fastest-changing environment on the planet is the Canadian Arctic. The Northwest Passage opens in 10 to 15 years. There are all kinds of issues, including those of security, national boundaries, navigation, environment and ecology.
We are in a period in which Canada's oceans are changing rapidly. We need well-placed champions. Fisheries are important to the community in which I live and to my province, but we need to take the view that the topic of oceans is much broader than just fisheries. It is reflected in a very good law and a very good policy document from the Government of Canada.
That is all I have prepared, Mr. Chairman. I have tried to stay more or less with the notes that I prepared for your committee. I have appreciated the opportunity to talk to you, and I look forward to questions and discussion.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, professor. We appreciate your taking time out of your schedule to appear before this committee to present us with some frank and courageous comments, which we also appreciate.
You have raised some extremely serious concerns that I am sure members of this committee will be pursuing further with you.
Before we start the questioning, however, I wish to welcome the new senator this evening, Senator Trenholme Counsell from New Brunswick, who is a senator of one week.
Senator Cochrane: Dr. Lien, I want to thank you for appearing before us this evening and also for being so candid in your comments.
To tell you the truth, I am just appalled at what you have said. As I have said here before, the budgets that have been allocated to science are quite inadequate. There have been no budgets for science. We have been hearing horrifying stories about the problems that vessels monitoring the oceans are having. They are tied up at different ports because of lack of money for fuel. We have been hearing it here, and I have been hearing it back home.
Let me begin by asking about the council. You are an independent body. From where do the members of the council come?
Mr. Lien: The members are appointed by the minister. The department suggests experts who provide the range of expertise the council needs. The council itself provides the minister with ideas; but the minister decides. It is his council.
At the moment, representation from the Arctic and Quebec is lacking. We have lost an Arctic member. The workload is horrible. You cannot speak as an expert in all areas of oceans. You really cannot participate fully in the council unless you have read what intelligent people have already done in the area. It is very hard work. Most of the council members are busy, and with a real life, it becomes too much. We have lost several Arctic members on that basis.
We do not have a member currently from Quebec, which is a serious fault. Otherwise, we are fairly well represented in the Maritimes and in British Columbia.
Senator Cochrane: In Atlantic Canada?
Mr. Lien: Yes. I am the Newfoundland representative.
Senator Cochrane: You meet quarterly with the minister; is that correct?
Mr. Lien: We do not always meet with the minister. However, we meet quarterly. We provide advice on questions that are asked of us. The minister need not meet with us.
One of the realities of the way we manage fish is that a minister must deal with crises. Crisis management is what we do in ocean management now. The intent of the Oceans Act and the strategy is to move us into a proactive mode of ocean management.
The money we put into that is an investment in economic prosperity. Investment in implementing these policies is an honest investment in the kind of infrastructure that Canada needs to do well.
In consulting other federal departments, the minister will find issues on which he needs to be advised. That could also come from provincial groups, as it did on the tail of the Banks and that whole NAFO issue on fishing. That eventually led to a series of discussions whereby the council recommended a ratification of the UN Law of the Sea. There have been recent developments in that that will make a big difference. Minister Thibault supported that program in cabinet, as did Minister Graham. Minister Graham's department really carried that initiative.
The minister need not meet with us. Departmental members and other federal departments meet with us.
There is a problem, for instance, in Newfoundland, of which you would be aware. Illegal dumping of oil at sea has killed 300,000 seabirds. We bring in the Departments of Justice, Transport and Environment and the Coast Guard. We sit down in the room and say, ``There is a problem that is falling through the cracks here.''
Curiously, we brought in Environment Canada, which has a marine protected areas program. We brought in the Canada Parks Agency because of the national conservation area program. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans was involved with their marine protected area program. I asked them each to present on their programs. As I looked at them, I saw that they were taking notes on what the other agencies were saying. It was clear that horizontality of consultations had not happened. Those are the kinds of things that happen in our meetings.
We will invite whoever we feel represents a fruitful area for discussion to implement the strategy and the act.
Senator Cochrane: How fruitful can it be if you do not have the funds to implement anything? Did you say you have 1 per cent of the DFO budget?
Mr. Lien: That goes down to as low as 0.6 per cent in the Pacific region. When other branches have had shortfalls, they have reallocated the money that has been taken to implement the oceans activities. It has been a real battle. One of the tragedies, for me, is that I keep hearing talk about managing expectations. If you talk to the public, you learn that they are ready for this. You do not want to start talking about integrated management with oil companies if you cannot follow through. You do not want to talk about a marine protected area with environmental or fishing groups unless you can do it well.
It has been alarming to me. For 35 years I have worked in ocean conservation. My graduate students work in conservation biology, from lobsters to whales. I could not believe how lucky we were to get the Oceans Act. I weep salt tears when I realize what we have been able to do with it in the intervening years.
Senator Cochrane: That was six years ago.
Mr. Lien: That is right. We have been at it six years now and there is a perception that we have disappointed in implementing the principles of the act. In some quarters, the act is viewed as a failure.
From my experience on oceans, I can say that if we are to survive as a planet, doing something such as this is inevitable for every country in the world. It is complicated when it comes to the oceans. Talking about ``Canada's oceans'' is a kind of myth, because they are connected by migrations of species, by movement of water, by transport of all the chemicals we are putting into the global ocean. The whole business of managing oceans has to be done within the national waters of other states and within the international oceans of the planet. It is a very complicated business. It has many levels of complexity beyond the business of trying to maintain adequate fish stocks.
Senator Cochrane: There is not one area of DFO that is committed to this ocean management?
Mr. Lien: Oh yes, there is. The oceans branch is passionate about this issue. Ideally, oceans branch would be part of what we do in fish management; of what we do in the Coast Guard; of what we do in science; and of what we do in habitat. Some days, oceans are the primary focus of all the things we do. I deal with the oceans, but I also specialize in fish, in emergencies and in all the things that the Coast Guard does; and my focus is habitat.
Right now, you need a spiritual core that markets the ideas within the act and the strategy to all the federal government departments. Often, they do not know much about it and they have not seen how it applies to them. The same is true within branches of DFO — the comfort level you have when dealing with your own agency and not working out the horizontal arrangements that oceans truly require.
Senator Cochrane: You are saying then that most of the work that has to be done is in the area of public relations.
Mr. Lien: I think it is more than that. There are fundamental changes that we all have to make. Between Parks Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, I have been amazed at how difficult it has been to get a working group that truly reflects the interests of both departments. It would be a shame, now that Parks Canada has more money, for them to go off and invent an ocean science specialization. We have that capability at DFO. It would be a shame, when they implement marine protected areas, to go off and develop a communications specialization. Parks Canada is the most credible communicator to Canadians in respect of the environment. They have to bring their strengths to the process, and to do that they have to solve the problems of horizontal collaboration.
Who do you report to? Who provides the facility? Who provides the computer? Where are the communications? It is complicated for bureaucrats, and I keep putting pressure on them. There are complications that I do not have to deal with in my job as an academic.
Senator Cochrane: I am tempted to go into my little corner and talk about the northern cod, or the lack of it, but I realize that our challenge and our jobs, like yours, are much bigger than that.
I have three questions. How does Canada's Oceans Strategy respond to the desire of Canadians to become engaged in ocean management activities by promoting stewardship and public awareness? What do you mean by ``integrated management''? Will the Aboriginal and coastal communities become more involved in ocean management under this strategy? I put my oar in on the issue of coastal communities because that is what I care most about.
Mr. Lien: I agree. That is where my heart is.
Senator Cochrane: If it is not viable, do we move? Is change painful?
Mr. Lien: It is difficult. A coastal communities survival summit was held in the Change Islands, Newfoundland. The people of this little island off the northeast coast are trying to survive by diversification.
To go back to the way you began, senator, with the northern cod, we have learned, and the world has learned, from this endless experiment that you cannot sustainably manage major fish stocks on a year-to-year assessment basis. Rather, you need a plan that covers many years and provides goals for coastal communities, economic development and biological maintenance of that stock. We have not done that.
There is one case with groundfish. At one time, the minister asked the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, FRCC, about lobster. There is supposed to be a groundfish council, but the minister said that every sign indicated that lobster was in trouble throughout the Maritimes. The council developed a lobster conservation strategy, which is to this day the best thing the FRCC has ever done. It is a long-term strategy that deals with some of the other questions you asked and whereby you give a community an area to manage. Within that area, they establish an enforcement program, because everybody cheats, and especially in lobster fishing because it was a kind of supplemental fishery. However, when groundfish stocks collapsed, lobster became a major source of income. There was pressure on the stock, which was fished at historically high levels, and biological indicators that were totally unrealistic, and so it just went right through the roof.
An Eastport conservation committee for lobster has implemented this, but you need to establish an enforcement program that involves the fishermen because they know who is cheating. A fisherman can knock on the cheater's door and tell him that he is affecting all of the fishermen and that he cannot keep undersized or buried lobster. They are able to tell the cheater that he has to comply with the rules. In the one instance where I have been working for seven years, there are zero infractions. I would not want one of these guys knocking on my door after supper saying, ``We know about you.''
That is the first step.
The second step is enhanced science. There they established logbook programs and at-sea monitoring in cooperation with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the university. It is the best lobster science that has ever been done in Canada, totally in cooperation with the fishermen. The fishermen on their own, but then finally with the help of the university in Newfoundland and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, started V-notching females. Lobster reproductive strategy is such that one year the females have eggs, and you catch them and V-notch them. The next year, they rest and do not have eggs, but these experienced females are the ones that you have to protect above all others. It is illegal, therefore, to keep V-notched lobsters. It breaks your heart, at $5 to $10, but you throw them back.
Under the enhanced science program, people in Eastport have the high school science classes do their data entry and analysis, so it has become a community education program.
The final point was that they established closed areas. They pick these based on the density of lobster pot buoys; that indicated prime habitat. They closed them to all fishing. They have been doing research fishing in those areas now for seven years, tagging every lobster, measuring the growth year by year, and the lobsters get bigger and bigger. One of my graduate students got sick and I had to tag lobsters in these closed areas. They pull up lobster pots with five to seven huge lobsters in them, all trying to pinch you while you are trying to read the tag numbers. I have worked with whales and done all kinds of things like that, but that was really the most life-threatening situation I have ever been in.
The committee that has done this has now voted unanimously to turn it into a permanent marine protected area. The problem with closed fishing areas is once they are successful, the tendency is to say, ``They are back, boys. Let's go at it.'' You see the benefits, but in fact, because of economic pressures and working to make your community survive and all these other good things, they tend not to last.
That is how cooperation can work. I could talk about other areas. Again, excuse me if I use Newfoundland examples, but private industries in Newfoundland, the fish people and the oil people, have come together in an initiative called ``one ocean.'' It really is an integrated management exercise, initiated, funded and pursued by the private sector. There are other models, whereby the government says, ``We will protect the Scotian Shelf,'' or all these other places — Placentia Bay — but this is a really interesting model.
These different economic sectors do not want to fight with each other. They are using the same ocean space and water. They affect the same resources, and they have to talk to each other and cooperate. If that is not inevitable, it will be a disaster.
Senator Cook: Let's talk about the management of oceans for a moment. You just mentioned the catastrophic change that happened to Ellesmere Island, which was the first thing on my desk this morning, where a freshwater lake disappeared and all the wonderful science went with it. I am sure it is a great loss when looking at the ecosystem.
We think of the ocean as a water column, and then we have a bottom — it all seems very simple. Have you done any research, or is there anything available, on seismic testing and how that affects the bottom in relation to the ecosystem?
Mr. Lien: This is an area of potentially serious conflict between oil and gas exploration and the whole benthic community, the whole pelagic community that exists in the water column. The Environmental Studies Research Fund, which is funded by a tax the oil companies levy on themselves, is now taking this issue very seriously.
On the East Coast, invertebrates are the main fishery — in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, et cetera — so they are looking at the impact of seismic activity on invertebrates. What does it do to snow crab? There was a good recent study in which they exposed captive snow crab to these very high amplitude pulses, and there was no impact on the adults. The question is still there: Does it affect reproduction and the larvae? There are still issues being investigated.
Senator Cochrane: It is comforting to hear you say that the oil and gas industry on the East Coast is aware of what else is in the ocean, in the water column, and they are putting some money into it. Is that what you are saying?
Mr. Lien: They definitely are. They got smacked in the face in Cape Breton over the shallow-water oil and gas. It became a major issue of conflict between the inshore fishermen and the oil companies, which wanted to go in there and do seismic testing. What does seismic activity do, not just in deep water where we usually fish, but where these people fished, in shallow water? That issue led to that whole conflict and all that unhappiness. You cannot manage oceans through royal commissions; once the cat is out of the bag, you cannot put it back.
One of the things the Oceans Act does is give us the tools to be proactive. I am shocked, working in the minister's office, to see that it is crisis management day to day. You would not manage a corporation or your household on that basis. We need to establish policies and implement them on the water so we get out of that mentality and proactively develop the economic opportunities and protect the health of oceans before we move into any kind of crisis mode.
Senator Cook: If you were a minister of DFO, how would you rearrange your priorities with respect to funding?
Mr. Lien: The U.S. Oceans Commission has recommended in their reports that a department of oceans be established. They have already put a lot of investment into those kinds of activities, but they feel that to coordinate all the issues around oceans they really need a department of oceans.
The truth is we have to put our own house in order. We have never been able to live within our budget. The Auditor General now has ordered an assessment and alignment process. They are in the depths of that. It is a long, unhappy, difficult process. We need to get through that.
Regardless of what comes out at the end, my concern with that entire process is that it is not transparent. It does not get outside eyes looking at the department. If I were minister, I would have ensured they had the benefit of that. I think the transparency is necessary for credibility at the end of the process. I think asking a department that is in a fair amount of trouble to go into the closet and examine itself is not the best way to make decisions. You need outside advice. There are certainly people willing to give it.
Whatever recommendations come out of it, I think we as a government in Canada, as the public in Canada, have to sit down, look at it and say, ``They did it right. They should have also added this,'' et cetera. As far as making changes in the department right now are concerned, I would use that process to involve the Canadian public and the responsible agencies in a broader consultation. Then the key is to come out of that with an action plan.
Implementing the Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy will not be easy. It is not a one-year thing. It is a decadal process, perhaps a generational process, I do not know. It will take a long time, and I think we have to get our goals and priorities and work plan right at the start if we are to make it successful.
Senator Phalen: Our questions will probably overlap. It is difficult to move away from that.
I have been doing a study lately on the impact of dumping munitions in the oceans. The Minister of Defence is responsible for that area. He has put out millions of dollars to do a study to determine where the munitions are.
Who is ultimately responsible? If the Minister of Defence finds that there is dumping and determines that maybe the munitions should be removed, who is responsible at that point? Is your advisory council responsible? Is the Minister of Defence responsible? Is the Minister of the Environment responsible? Who is responsible?
Mr. Lien: The council does not do anything except give advice. We are powerless to implement a Government of Canada policy.
Senator Phalen: Would I go to you at that point for advice?
Mr. Lien: Absolutely. We would consider giving that kind of advice. It is part of a larger problem; 80 per cent of all the emissions in oceans come from us on land. I have a little sticker that I put on public toilets that says, ``You are sitting on the edge of the ocean,'' because we do not connect our activities on land with what we are putting into the oceans.
This is a shock for Newfoundlanders, but 50 per cent of all the potential aquaculture sites in Newfoundland are polluted with municipal sewage. Twenty per cent comes from ship-based activities — industries that are active at sea. A city of 3 million people puts as much oil into the ocean in a year on an annual basis as went in from the Exxon Valdez.
We have abused oceans by putting whatever like into them. It is the sink of the entire terrestrial environment. It is the dumping ground for everything.
Munitions are a serious issue. I would say there would be multiple agencies responsible, including the Departments of Defence, Environment and Fisheries and Oceans. Probably, because it seems like there could be a hazard, the Department of Transport, with responsibility for ships at sea, would be involved.
Senator Phalen: You mentioned that the Oceans Act and Canada's Oceans Strategy provide for the establishment of a monitoring program. Can you tell us the status of that program?
Mr. Lien: It is evolving. It has certainly been hampered by the general lack of resources. It is also hampered by the complexity.
As I said earlier, it does not make sense to just deal with Canada as an ocean country. Our oceans are connected with those in the United States, Greenland, Iceland, the European Union and so on. To be successful, a monitoring program has to develop measures that work in all of these different nations, using different rules and different agencies. It is not a matter of just going out and picking up PCBs, heavy metals or hydrocarbons. It is a very difficult problem.
Funding always defeats us in trying to establish a long-term data series. It must be affordable or it will not work. It is as simple as that.
We are affected by what China is putting into and taking out of the ocean. There are different economic bases and different forms of government. Getting our act together within Canada is difficult when you look at oceans as a global entirety.
Senator Phalen: Are there protected areas of the ocean?
Mr. Lien: Less than 0.01 per cent of Canadian territorial waters are protected. Some would like to say that closed fishing areas, such as the entire northeast coast of Newfoundland, are essentially protected areas. As soon as the fish are back, that will no longer be a closed area in order to ensure some kind of survival for those communities. In terms of formally protected areas, I used to have an example, the details of which I have forgotten, but if you had an acre lot, it is something like so many square feet — period.
We will never restore an ocean nor keep it in a pristine state. The best we can hope for is to make it sustainable. Marine protected areas are important because natural sanctuaries, which provided a place for fish to spawn and for juveniles to mature, have now been invaded by our activities.
We can catch anything, anywhere at any time of year. If I do not catch it, as you are coming out in your boat I will tell you where it is and you can catch it. It is astounding. I have a 20-foot boat and it has all of the electronic technology that the draggers had at the start of the moratorium in 1982. I could probably find the last fish. The last two fish will be a school of two fish. They are very social.
Restoring natural sanctuaries is not a ``nice park'' idea. It is an essential way to protect some of these ocean resources.
Senator Hubley: I want you to speak a little more about the global situation. You mentioned that the oceans of the world were highly connected. Are there better examples than Canada around the world? Are there countries that also have seen the writing on the wall in terms of what is happening to the oceans of the world and made some inroads and provided the funding?
To follow that up, I would like to know if your council meets with any other groups around the world. Do you have a global responsibility as well as a made-in-Canada responsibility?
Mr. Lien: We are responsible to the minister. Given that he is the minister of an agency that purports to have international leadership ability in oceans, we have to advise him on things like that. We initiated this new ratification of UNCLOS, which Canada has taken on and done.
There was a time when there was no doubt that Canada was a leader in ocean management. If you look at the 50 years during which the Law of the Sea was negotiated, Canada drove that process. Over time, that expertise and interest just has not been there.
In June, I participated in the informal consultative process on oceans at the United Nations. Navigational safety and marine environmental quality were the issues discussed. Canada did not send anyone from the Department of Transport or from the Coast Guard. It sent no scientist who could speak to the issues of marine environmental quality.
Little Norway and Iceland sent representatives. I was not happy.
It is my job, as a council member, to give advice to the minister, not to implement government policy, but I was disappointed in our leadership there. We have to pull up our socks.
As a council, we certainly participate with these other groups, such as the U.S. Oceans Commission, which was established under a presidential order and reports to the top, not to a minister down the ranks. We will see what they do.
Their final report is not out. They have issued an interim report. I have been talking to people on the commission and the chair. One of the good things is that they will recommend ratification of UNCLOS, which is quite astounding, because some of the people in the Senate have moved on. To ratify, they must have two-thirds of the Senate and presidential approval, which not many years ago would have been impossible for virtually any international treaty.
However, they are recommending it and it will be pushed forward.
We are in contact with others and some are further along in implementing their programs. Australia is quite amazing because they have established a marine protected areas network that is probably the most comprehensive in the world, and it is paying off. The net revenues in tourist dollars each year from the Great Barrier Reef are about Aus. $4 billion, and the management costs are quite low. We have an MPA project whereby the total federal and provincial government investment was less than a quarter of a million dollars. The annual payoffs — economic benefits — from that MPA, which is in process, are $3 million a year. People who have gotten on with this are finding that it pays off.
To emphasize the point I made earlier, I see these as economic development opportunities and not just as nice guys taking care of the environment. It is critical for the well-being of crabs.
Senator Hubley: You mentioned that there were 27 federal agencies that deal with oceans.
Mr. Lien: Do not ask me anything about them right now.
Senator Hubley: Do you want to comment on them? Do they have legitimate concerns? Should they be set up in a different way? Do they work together, in your opinion? Do they receive a great deal of funding?
Mr. Lien: Yes. We are spending large amounts of money on all of these agencies. Perhaps a portion of that should go to promoting working together. We have to sit down with everyone and talk about it. Mr. Peter Harrison, then Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, had planned to revitalize his committee on oceans. That committee has never met. We have to put something in place at that level so that we are able to work this out. We need an action plan for all of the partners to implement the Oceans Act.
A group of us will meet in early October with the Clerk of the Privy Council Office to present the problems that we perceive in the implementation of the Oceans Act and the strategy. We will say that we want to develop, as a government and as a group of Canadians, an action plan. We will discuss how we could proceed so that it becomes a reality.
Senator Watt: I will try to have a better understanding of the Oceans Act versus the Advisory Council on Oceans.
Correct me if I am wrong on this, but did I hear you say that when the advisory council was put in place, its mandate in respect of the minister was focused more on economic concerns? Did you say that earlier in your presentation?
Mr. Lien: No. We do not have an economist on our council so we are limited in that area. Certainly, the intent of implementing the Oceans Act includes economic development. We do not advise specifically on that. It is curious to me that we were the first group in DFO to talk to the high-technology sector that deals with marine innovation. They had never to talked to anyone from DFO before. We also talked to the offshore oil and gas people before problems arose. In a sense, we are connected with industry, but our concern is managing the conflicts and the use of ocean space, and ensuring environmental quality. It is about implementing the principles of the act, the limited programs, the management and responsible agencies and maintaining the health of the oceans, et cetera. Dealing with the specific economic interests of any sector, fisheries included, is really not what we do.
I suppose if the minister said, ``How can I make more money in fisheries?'' we would be obligated to try to develop an opinion.
Senator Watt: With regard to implementing the Oceans Act, I believe that you implied that the government has to be more serious about it. You said that the minister is occupied with crisis after crisis in the industry and that he is managing the existing stock, and what is thought to exist, in responding to fishermen and other stakeholders. If that is the preoccupation of the minister, do you not think that to implement the Oceans Act would probably require another attempt? When I say ``another attempt,'' I am talking about a ministry other than the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Perhaps they need to be pushed to move this file forward if the government is to meet with success, but I think the damage has already been done, and you have highlighted it well.
I have been preoccupied, since becoming a member of this Fisheries Committee, with the conditions in Newfoundland. It now seems as though they are moving further and further out in the ocean.
Mr. Lien: That is correct.
Senator Watt: Sometimes politicians tend to think that fish do not ``cross the borders,'' but we know that this is not only a Canadian crisis but also an international crisis in which we now find ourselves.
I come from the Arctic and I am worried that the same kind of practice will be allowed to continue in the North. There does not seem to be too much concern about whether the stocks are there or whether the stocks will produce economic gain for the business sector. There is a definite need for a good scientific look at this issue in the North. At times, because of the lack of financing, the scientists are not always able to complete their work. I will give you an example.
This concerns the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The beluga whale is being put on the endangered species list now. People in the know are wondering what the scientific basis for that is. The information that the people have is that this is a kind of wishful thinking and not real, because there has not been enough scientific work done in that area due to lack of financing. I speak to this aspect of the issue because your comments, such that the Oceans Act needs to be implemented, are important. That is, not only the economic side of it but also the environmental and scientific sides. There is a scientific requirement to know what exists and what no longer exists.
I am unsure at times, and like you, I question whether, without restructuring the department and with the minister having to deal with crisis after crisis, whether the Oceans Act will ever be implemented. I do not think that the minister's mind is geared in that direction. I should like to have a response from you on that. That is a start.
Mr. Lien: I have worked for seven fisheries ministers, not just the current minister. In fact, the urgent matter always takes priority over the longer-term goals. That is true with the Coast Guard, whose priority is to save people before taking time to make changes to their fleet or to their programs. That is also true of fisheries and of habitat management, et cetera. That is just the way the world works: urgent matters take priority.
Crisis management is what a ministry can get done. That is unfortunate because we need to turn all the power and ideas that office can develop into implementation. The question is: Does DFO need help in implementing this? There is no question about that. This will only work as a cooperative program between all responsible agencies, and there is no seawater here. It will be implemented in the oceans of the Arctic, of the Pacific and of the Atlantic. If the provinces and the industries, which know a great deal about oceans that the federal government does not know, are not working together on this, then it will not happen.
Some people have said that the Oceans Act is a good idea, however, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans managed the groundfish into the dirt. Should we trust them to manage the whole ocean? This kind of skepticism has been expressed. There is no question that they need help with how that would be organized institutionally. That is a job for the Prime Minister, the PMO and the Clerk of the Privy Council Office. It certainly is beyond a ministerial advisory council and it may be beyond your committee. That understanding of the importance of the act and of the difficulties in implementing it could lead you to talk to people about how we actually get it done. What is the action plan? What are the institutional requirements to implement the Oceans Act?
There is no question that we are faced with a critical situation in the Arctic. The situation of communities in Newfoundland and coastal B.C. is not much different from that of the dependent communities in the Arctic. We are ocean people of one kind or another and it does not matter if fish is the resource that we live on or if it is oil and gas or tourism; we are ocean people. That is the resource upon which we have to make a living. Taking care of that in a period of exceptionally rapid change certainly requires much more focus by government. We are just an advisory council to a minister and we do not tell the Prime Minister or the Clerk of PCO what to do. It takes a different platform to provide that kind of advice to government.
Senator Watt: I think I understand and I read you loud and clear. As you said, it is beyond one minister and it is the responsibility of the whole country and of the international community.
Regarding the issues that you raised about the Northwest Passage, you mentioned 15 years. I tend to think it will happen before 15 years because things are moving fast. I live there and I see things that were not happening many years ago. The trees used to be up to my knees but now they are taller than I am. This shows how fast the vegetation is growing. The ice is disappearing and the polar bears are multiplying along the coast. We could almost be eaten by polar bears now because we are good game for them. That is because the ice out in the ocean is dissipating fast. If we are not careful, we will lose control over the Arctic quickly because we have no understanding of the ocean; we have no understanding of the ocean bed; we have no understanding of the fish; and we have no understanding of any species that lives in the ocean. There has never been sufficient gathering of that scientific information.
Mr. Lien: Losing control of the Arctic is a real possibility and not just in the ecological sense that you have talked about. Russia has done its seabed mapping and has filed the papers. The United States has their seabed data collection underway.
Senator Watt: Yes, they have their plans.
Mr. Lien: What has Canada done? Major portions of what we call the ``Canadian Arctic'' are in dispute. The seabed mapping exercise has to be completed in a fairly short period of time — within 10 years, I believe. Canada developed the technology to do this beautifully but we have to get on with it.
Senator Adams: Mr. Lien, I wish to ask you a couple of questions. First, your council members from the Arctic were not with you for long and you lost a member from Quebec. Perhaps it was because they were frustrated and they had no space to work. How long have you been on the board? What is happening?
Mr. Lien: People are appointed at the minister's discretion. We have told the minister that we should have an opportunity to brief him on how much work this truly is because it scares people off.
We have lost a member from Quebec because the department refused to pay for the fuel for her private jet to come to meetings, which is a different issue. We have lost members from Nunavut because the reading load is horrible and English may not be their first language. The literary traditions may not be the same because much of their knowledge is traditional and comes from the land. There are complications. Our council needs to reflect the diversity of expertise; I agree with that. Again, council members can make recommendations on the expertise that the board needs to deal with the issues. Certainly the people who live in the Arctic are frustrated.
Senator Adams: We are akin to Newfoundland. We have 27 communities in Nunavut and only one of them is on the mainland, Baker Lake. There are 26 communities from coast to coast that depend on the sea, but we also depend on the land for caribou.
Mr. Lien: It is not just the fish in the Arctic that will disappear.
Senator Adams: I know. We will hear from people from Baffin Island tomorrow. You have travelled up there before. We will look at the commercial fishery and shrimp fishing. We do not have any information from the scientists about the numbers and sizes of those fish. There are only 8 metric tonnes of turbot and about 3,000 metric tonnes of the others. Three and one-half years ago, the minister visited and said he had $200 million in the budget to be spent on research each year and yet he never spent one dollar in Nunavut and the coastal community. Will there be financing in the future for the northern commercial fisheries?
Mr. Lien: You have the ocean resources to live on and so it is absolutely essential that we protect them with the full collaboration of the local people.
I was involved in a case in which the turbot fishery extended into the Davis Strait and Nunavut certainly had a claim on that.
It is the breeding ground of the entire turbot stock. Newfoundlanders, especially, were fishing that with gill nets. They would haul up a load of gill nets in the fall and often return with not many gill nets, but piles of fish.
It is a serious environmental hazard that has resulted from the fishery. It is a problem in adjacency and allocation rights. That is being corrected now.
Nunavut is gaining control of that. There is a realization in government. That happened under Mr. Tobin. It was quite a while back. The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council was among those who did not know about what was happening. They were allocating to the traditional sectors in Newfoundland that were catching fish and not really knowing what was going on. We quickly begin to meet in Nunavut, which was very helpful to the council, to hear some of the Nunavut views.
Senator Adams: Currently the Government of Canada does not recognize us as commercial fishermen. We are seen as living off the land. We should have some kind of a government policy such as that in Newfoundland with regard to commercial fishing. There should be some kind of a policy.
Mr. Lien: Being from Newfoundland, I hear the quaint ``rubber boots'' idea of what we do there too. Our fishery is a high-tech sector of great professionalism. They run vessels that I could never afford and do not understand.
There is no reason that some of that could not work in Nunavut. I would caution that you have an ecosystem with productivity limitations. You do not want to take us as an example of how to do it right. This industrialized route to community fishing and community survival is not necessarily the best way.
The science will always be inadequate in implementing the needed precaution, especially in a frail ecosystem. We are in this situation in Labrador with snow crab right now.
There has been a 94 per cent reduction in biomass, probably due, at least in part, to our destructive method of fishing for shrimp. We have communities that became dependent on that industrial fishery and now the resource is gone.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: This has been most interesting. I hope you are not too pessimistic about all of this. As I was listening I thought maybe you were a little.
You used the term ``integrated management'' often. I hope that what I am about to say is not considered heresy. You mentioned that there are 27 federal agencies managing the oceans.
It occurred to me that many of the things that you mentioned this evening were environmental issues. What relationship does the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have with the Department of the Environment and do we have sufficient integration of the two? How do you work together?
We think of the environment as the air, land and water. To what extent is Environment Canada dealing with water?
Mr. Lien: They are certainly responsible for monitoring environmental quality in inland waters. They are responsible for the Species at Risk Act. The implementation of that, as regarding marine creatures, is the responsibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
They are working together on some of these things. If you ask: Is it a seamless integration? The answer is no. Could it be better? The answer is yes.
How you achieve that is not just a matter of walking into the office, stomping your foot and saying, ``Work together!'' There are details and understandings to work out in both bureaucracies. The complexity of the bureaucracies must be dealt with.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: The fisheries is one thing. It is economic stupidity to a very large extent. So much of what you said is environmentally related. There is cooperation, but the management of all this is with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?
Mr. Lien: The responsibility for leadership among the federal partners is with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, yes.
The Kyoto initiative was under the Department of the Environment, and I was shocked and surprised at how little discussion there was about the role of global oceans in the control of climates, the gas exchanges on the planet, et cetera.
I did not hear anything about that in the discussions in Parliament, government, the public or the media. That is rather shocking.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has scientists who understand that. We have a climate change group that understands the role of oceans. To me, that symbolized the lack of coordination among all the various partners who deal with oceans. Oceans should have been front and centre in our discussion of Kyoto. It just was not there at all.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: That certainly concerns me. I can understand the day-to-day problems facing the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans because he is dealing with the immediate problems of fishers' lives. It is fully understandable, but you need a greater perspective to deal with all of this.
I would hope that there would be a growing cooperative relationship and integrated management with Environment Canada.
Mr. Lien: That is my hope. I am not cynical or pessimistic. That is not a sustainable, wise strategy for anything. It reflects the diversity of the country.
Senator Mahovlich: I received a letter today from a member of Parliament from the Yukon. He is trying to get everyone to sign a document to stop oilrigs from drilling. I am thinking that there must be a policy in place.
Mr. Lien: This is in what region?
Senator Mahovlich: I think it is the Arctic.
The Chairman: It is a letter from a member of Parliament, Larry Bagnall, who I believe is from the Yukon. The letter is in regards to some offshore drilling.
Senator Mahovlich: I do not know whether to sign it. Is he getting everyone to sign this? Do we get things done by signing letters? It is an industry. Should we do it?
I am a little puzzled. Have you ever had any experience with this? There are oilrigs in the Atlantic currently. We cannot stop them; it is industry. Can we stop them with letters?
Mr. Lien: It would stop $2.3 billion a year going to the Newfoundland economy. I cannot say what that figure would be for Nova Scotia.
Senator Mahovlich: Do they really create much pollution? Do many pollutants escape?
Mr. Lien: In offshore exploration, compared to land-based discharges, it is almost trivial. The assessment process for these kinds of activities is very intense.
I have participated in these environmental assessment panels. These oil companies say, ``We want to develop this resource,'' and the government says, ``Okay, spend your money, figure out what the impact of this will be; you have to tell us all kinds of details about this.''
They come with this information. If we do not think it is good enough, we send them back to do more homework. We then take all this homework, which should be a pretty comprehensive understanding of how this development will impact oceans, and then we put it through an environmental assessment review where we really scrutinize this. If we had done this with groundfish resources on the East Coast, we would not have cleared out that whole trophic layer in the ocean. We would have been more cautious.
I can understand concerns about the offshore oil and gas. It is a new activity in oceans. It also has a shelf life of perhaps 25 to 30 years. Communities that have been sustained for 500 years by other resources are concerned about the new boy on the block, who will take what he wants and then leave. What kind of trail does he leave for our communities, our workforce and the culture?
I am living in a culture where these changes are very marked. There is no question that oil and gas in Newfoundland has supplanted the fishing industry as an economic activity. The Avalon Peninsula has the fastest economic growth in Canada. It only exists there. It is not in the whole of rural Newfoundland, so we are developing a two-tier society as an impact of that industry.
It is not just the industry's fault; it is how we manage these opportunities. We do not do it proactively. Okay, we have a crisis, rural Newfoundland is clearing out, and so we go back to this crisis mode and what is urgent will always take priority.
I do not know anything about this Yukon issue so I cannot comment specifically on that.
The Chairman: I had several questions but I will limit myself to one with regard to fishing. I know I probably should not be asking you a question on fishing, but currently it could be compared with clear-cutting. The vessels are extremely efficient, they go out there and they can find the fish — I think you were talking earlier on about finding every last fish, even the last two of a species. Over the years, we have created a system where there are pursuers for groundfish, some for shrimp, some for crabs, and everyone is a kind of professional. They fish their own catch and there is little regard, I would assume, for the other species. The ecosystem approach tells us that if somebody goes out to fish cod, that there is an impact on the other species.
I was wondering whether, under the ecosystem approach that I think you mentioned, for cross-species fishing — so that if you are fishing, let us say crab, it is going to have an impact on some other species down the road — if there might not be some way for us to develop the types of licences that would make the fishermen mindful that whatever they are catching of one species will have an impact on some other species in the area? I may be heading into multi—species licensing. Have you, as an advisory group, looked at the potential impact of a multi-species licensing system on improving, or aiming toward, the ecosystem approach to fishing that you are talking about?
Mr. Lien: Traditionally, harvesting technology in fisheries has concentrated on effectiveness and efficiency, not on the total mortality it produced in a stock, on other species, or its implications for habitat.
A good example of that is on Southeast Shoal, which is a seamount close to the tail of the Grand Banks. A large portion of the tail of the Grand Banks is a juvenile area for four commercial species of fish. These are fish that have been traditionally exploited by Canadian fishermen, but also by the foreign fleets that have historical rights.
Juvenile fish simply do not survive unless they have an intact benthic habitat. The technology we are using to fish there is bottom dragging. That has been talked about as similar to clear-cutting. It has implications for the intact floral community on the bottom, which is critical to these young fish. Four species — 84 per cent of four commercial species of juvenile fish — exist in those areas and are affected by that kind of fishing.
The FAO and the Canadian fish harvesters have developed codes of responsible practice. I think it is changing, but there are economic disincentives to changing your technology. It requires a lot of research and retraining and reconfiguration of vessels. Finding the money for this is difficult for a marginal industry that is experiencing hard times. It is not the role of government to step in and say, ``We will subsidize you.'' Already, one of the problems we have in the fishing industry is overcapacity, which is due in part to direct subsidization by governments in Canada and virtually all the other nations of the world.
As far as multi-species licences are concerned, with certain fishing technologies we just caught what was there. Dragging, purse seining, pair trawling — these simply caught whatever was in the water column, so long as they did not go through the mesh size.
Much of that created the total mortality impact on fishing. That is why we were able to clear out whole trophic levels. What has happened in world fisheries is that we have moved from large pelagics to smaller pelagics, to the bait species like herring, capelin and lance, down to invertebrates. This trophic cascade characterizes the entire world fisheries. Because we have not been responsible in the exploitation of technology, world fishery catches are known to have been falling for the past decade.
Some publications will say they have not fallen, but that is because they included China; they took the reports at face value and the Chinese lied through their teeth — they wanted to look good. If you subtract the fudge factor in the Chinese catches, world fishery catches as a total of that entire ocean environment have been falling. Whether it is through multi-species management, we must get our management objectives clear. Are we doing this to maintain the stock at a safe level? Are we doing this to maintain communities and fishing sectors? Are we doing it to make money? We have never managed fisheries in Canada with a single objective. These objectives all compete and whisper in the minister's ear when he has to make a decision, so it is a very difficult industry to manage.
The Chairman: I suppose we have to go from clear-cutting to selective cutting; that might do it.
Mr. Lien: That might be the right analogy, yes.
The Chairman: Professor, as I said, it has been a long evening. However, it certainly has been most informative and very agreeable for all of us. The attention of the committee, and the length and quality of the questions, is testament to your presentation. We appreciate the professionalism, the candour and the honesty with which you approached both the presentation and answering our questions this evening.
You mentioned the challenge earlier, that you want us to be champions. We may not be able to live up to the task, but I hope we are able to make some contribution to helping attain your goal.
Mr. Lien: I have enjoyed my time here.
It was important for the council to talk to you. I have something that will remind you of your responsibility for oceans. I went down to the wharf in my community; this is North Atlantic Ocean. You can put it on your desk as a paperweight if you would like one. I do not have enough for everyone, but you can put it on your desk and, if you like, I will get you one from the Beaufort and the Pacific. You can collect the whole set, like hockey cards.
The Chairman: It will be a wonderful reminder of what we are here for.
The committee adjourned.