Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans
Issue 4 - Evidence, November 9, 2006 - Afternoon meeting
ST. JOHN'S, Thursday, November 9, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met this day at 1:30 p.m. to examine and report on issues relating to the federal government's new and evolving policy framework for managing Canada's fisheries and oceans.
Senator Bill Rompkey (Chairman) in the chair.
[Traduction]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we now welcome Mr. Tom Best to our committee. Tom is a fisherman from Petty Harbour, and when we were in Labrador we learned that that was one of the operating co-ops, among other things — a very old, famous, and traditional fishery out of Petty Harbour. Tom has been associated with it for a long, long while and has got a lot of firsthand, on the ground, frontline experience in it. That is why I am particularly pleased that he is presenting to us today.
Tom Best, as an individual: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and other members of the Senate committee and your staff, because I have been talking to some of them, for this opportunity and for your interest in hearing my views on fisheries and fisheries management.
I will begin by presenting my personal views as to why we find ourselves in the situation currently confronting global fisheries and the sustainable management of global fisheries. This will give you a perspective on commercial fisheries in general, which are a fragmented industry. From my personal perspective and based on my interpretation of numerous documented accountings, the commercial fishing industry locally, nationally, and internationally has been comprised of many competing individual sectors and associated interests.
Historically, and to the present day, the nature of global commercial fishing has been very competitive, fragmented, and self-serving across sectors and participants. The main focus at all levels has been who can get the most benefit out of the various commercial fish stocks today, with little concern for future sustainable commercial fisheries.
There has been little unity of purpose locally, nationally, or globally across fishing sectors in issues critical to sustaining key fishery resources, sustaining healthy and productive ocean ecosystems, and sustaining vibrant social and economic fishing industries and economies. In fact, the fragmentation and competitive nature of global fisheries has led to the severe depletion of key fish stocks and the subsequent decimation of many dependent coastal economies and communities throughout the world.
I would be remiss if I did not talk about the local impact. This province has not escaped the consequences of the pillage and destruction associated with the advent and introduction of modern day freezer processing technology, inshore/offshore surface and bottom gill netting technology, and dragging and factory freezer trawler harvesting technology into our key northern cod fishery in the last half century.
The introduction of so-called progressive modern-day harvesting technologies into our domestic fishery occurred, for the most part, in the last 50 years in the absence of appropriate management and enforcement regimes. The rationale used was the necessity of meeting the year-round competitive demands of the new global economy and the international marketplace. The rush to modernize the Canadian fishing industry on the East Coast of Canada escalated in a major way after the extension of jurisdiction to 200 miles in 1977. Foreign fleets that had raped our northern cod stocks for approximately 30 years previously were moved beyond our 200-mile limit and replaced with our own domestic inshore and offshore fleets using similar and more advanced destructive fishing technologies. In this rush to modernize the traditional inshore fishery, and that is where I come from, traditional sustainable harvesting technologies and methods were characterized as passive and even archaic by some academics and so-called experts on the issues of commercial fisheries. I was involved in all those debates.
Those in the industry, in particular owner-operator harvesters who recognized the trend of stock depletion already occurring and the future resource destructive potential associated with the use of much of this technology and dared to openly express their views and concerns were characterized as irresponsible, clinging to the past, and not prepared to move away from passive fishing methods.
Unfortunately for the fishing industry in this province, the concerns and warnings of those individuals were ignored. The numbers of onshore freezer processing plants increased dramatically to coincide with a major buildup of fishing fleets equipped with the most advanced modern day technology to fish our coastal waters to the extent of our 200-mile limit and beyond. The effect of this rush to modernize our fishing industry within a very short number of years resulted in the necessity of declaring a moratorium on northern cod to save it from complete decimation.
The announcement of the northern cod moratorium on July 2, 1992, sent shockwaves throughout the Newfoundland fishing industry. It was a devastating blow and thousands of fishery workers were immediately displaced from their employment, their social and economic futures jeopardized, and the very existence of their communities and coastal fishing economies threatened and left hanging.
Some 14 years later, the associated negative outfall continues. The unprecedented outmigration of our population from this province since that announcement along with the relocation of thousands more from rural costal communities to provincial urban centres, where meaningful employment opportunities are limited, leaves the jury out and the full negative impact for this province yet to be determined. That goes beyond fishing communities, in my perspective.
Our industry should not and would not be confronted with the current situation had the rush to modernize not occurred and had appropriate, industry-wide interaction, consultations and planning for the modernization of our fishing industry taken place. Much that could have and should have been done differently in attempts to modernize the cod fishery and have a year-round presence in the demanding global marketplace was not considered.
It continues to bother me that those who called the shots on the modernization of our fishing industry ignored or never recognized the significant potential associated with integrating components of our traditional inshore fishery with the modernization of our fishery. For example, in this province we obviously missed a great opportunity to take advantage of the potential of combining the productive traditional cod trap fishery with developing innovations in the wild and cultured cod aquaculture industry. It appears the modernizing mentality for the cod fishery was that of gearing up for hunting and destroying rather than that of culturing and developing a sustainable fishing industry.
In the management of today's fisheries, the bottom line is that we are no longer just dealing with the baited hook and line and other forms of non-destructive traditional fishing technologies. Many traditional fish harvesters, as the modernization evolved, moved beyond their home ports of operation as cod stocks were dwindling and invested in vessels and modern-day technology to follow cod and other species further afield. Subsequently we are dealing with a whole range of continually evolving, potentially destructive, modern-day fishing technology used by our Canadian domestic fleets in inshore and offshore waters and, of equal concern, by foreign fishing fleets outside and adjacent to our 200-mile limit.
In my opinion, and I am firm on this particular view, global commercial fisheries are now equipped with harvesting technology and the supporting high-tech tracking and detection technology to find and kill every last finfish in the ocean. I also feel we are near to having the technology to track, detect and kill every last bottom-dwelling species in the ocean. We are attempting to find the necessary balance to manage fisheries in a sustainable manner at a time in our history when the use, overuse, and abuse of these modern-day fishing technologies are creating a significant imbalance in the ocean ecosystem and putting many fish species at risk.
The predator-prey population relationship and interdependency for food and survival purposes have been totally disrupted due to heavy commercial fishing activities on key fish species. This is another real and serious concern that has to be addressed in future fisheries management planning; it cannot be ignored.
I will now comment on fisheries management inside the Canadian 200-mile limit. In my view, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, with the involvement of the Canadian fishing industry, in reaction to the negative outfall associated with the decimation of the northern cod stocks, has been moving in a very positive direction on fisheries management inside our 200-mile limit in recent years. We are continually and progressively moving away from the pattern of destructive, competitive fisheries management planning and we are embracing a more equitable and precautionary fisheries management approach.
The new focus involves increased and wide-ranging government and industry involvement in fisheries science, stock review and assessment, and quota management planning for every next fishing season. The new scenario embraces the concept of considering a whole range of new measures for sustainable management of fisheries inside the 200-mile limit. One important measure being considered and implemented, especially in the midst of all this technology, is the establishment of specific fishing areas that are off-limits to particular harvesting technologies. Another important measure that is generating much interest and support is the creation of sanctuary or protected areas that would be off- limits to any commercial fishing activity at any time of the year.
As a major progressive step forward, government and industry have agreed and moved significantly on the subdivision of greater quota management areas into a range of smaller management areas to fairly reflect quota allocations and accommodate the mobility patterns of the various fleet sectors. With respect to the latter, this is a significant move away from destructive competitive quota fishing. This is a quota management measure that allows all the owner-operators licensed to fish a particular species in a particular management area an equal share of the quota allocated in that area for that species.
Quota shares allocated under this system are commonly referred to as non-transferable individual licence quotas. The quota allocation approach is considered by a great majority of harvesters as a fair and equitable quota allocation management approach that provides for an orderly fishery and greatly reduces the negative aspects of competitive quota harvesting.
It has also been seen by many as the quota management measure that provides quota owners in the various management areas with a sense of ownership and a responsibility for protecting a particular resource in their own management area.
However, there are some concerns, in the meantime. We still have a long road ahead in breaking down the industry fragmentation and we still have significant quota management issues and concerns to address. One of the more contentious and escalating concerns is the ability of the corporate processing sector and others to gain control of quotas allocated to owner-operators in the harvesting sector. Such is the case with the use of financial trust agreements. Those are legal financial agreements — contracts — whereby numbers of the processing sectors and other corporate entities are financing existing owner-operator harvesting enterprises on the purchase and transfer of harvesting enterprises from one owner-operator to another. These types of financial arrangements are not recognized by government as giving the financing entity entitlement to quota allocations. However, they are certainly recognized by the majority of the Newfoundland fishing industry as a growing and troubling phenomenon that gives the financing entity control over significant amounts of quotas allocated for various species.
Through such agreements, the financial entity indirectly gains control of quota allocations and determines how those quotas are fished and the sharing of revenues generated from those quotas. In the case of processors involved with such arrangements, it provides their operations with a form of indirect cash flow beyond the normal cash flow of their operations. In turn, this additional indirect cash flow has far-reaching negative effects on industry price negotiations. It provides some processors with the ability to pay bump-up prices for product to some fish harvesters above what others receive and above what other processors can afford to pay. In turn, this activity contributes to continuing industry discontent and turmoil.
Many in the industry, including myself, believe this indirect control of how quotas are fished and revenue shared provides a significant incentive to misreport and under-report catch levels, target bycatch, and so on. This is a scenario that significantly fosters non-compliance with management regulations and seriously jeopardizes sustainable fisheries management planning. For example, rumours are currently rampant in the industry that as a direct result of such arrangements thousands of tonnes of unreported and unrecorded various fish species are being harvested, landed, processed and marketed. That is a serious concern, along with many others, that has to be recognized as happening inside our 200-mile fishing zone and an activity that has to be curtailed by enforcing heavy penalties and sanctions on the perpetrators. If not, we should question the strength of our own credibility when talking to the international fishing community about compliance issues and necessary measures to ensure an appropriate and effective regional management organization for straddling and discreet fish stocks on our continental shelf outside 200 miles. In fact, if these infractions are occurring inside 200 miles and not curtailed, any progress we make on implementing effective sustainable fisheries management on our straddling stocks outside 200 miles will be of little benefit.
I will turn now to fisheries management outside and adjacent to the Canadian 200-mile limit. With respect to the management of straddling and discreet fish stocks by NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, outside our 200-mile fishing zone, rumours of fishing violations are rampant in the industry and within the Newfoundland public. Those violation include, among others, the misreporting of fishing location and species caught; the under- reporting of allocated quota catch levels; the targeting and under-reporting of bycatch species; the illegal targeting of species under moratoria; the use of illegal fishing gear; and vessels from NAFO contracting states using non- contracting state fishing flags of convenience. Of more serious concern are reports that NAFO, due to its insufficient governing articles, is incapable of imposing penalties or sanctions on the vessels or vessel owners conducting those infractions.
From my interpretation of the written transcripts of presentations from a number of your very knowledgeable previous witnesses, NAFO has been functioning with very deficient constituted governing articles which are rendering the organization totally ineffective. It appears that a number of the key governing articles that truly render NAFO ineffective were highly influenced by the self-serving influences of signatory states who became members for the sole purpose of entitlement to NAFO quota allocations. Numbers of these governing articles flow against any semblance of a democratic decision-making authority and significantly favour the ability of any signatory member to object and not comply with the majority decisions of the authority on a whole range of matters.
It is of particular concern that a signatory state can disagree and object to the level of quota it receives and have the legal right to arbitrarily set its own quota. Of equally serious concern is the fact that vessels are able to not comply with NAFO fishing regulations with the knowledge that only their flag states of origin have the legal authority to impose any penalty or sanction for infractions they commit. In fact, it appears that NAFO does not have the legal authority to enforce compliance with management regulations that were determined by the majority of its contracting state members.
In my opinion, for NAFO to be governed by articles that become convenient and self-serving to objecting non- complying members defeats other members' subscribed objectives of democratic decision making and effectiveness.
The owners of high seas fishing fleets are well aware of the shortcomings in the governing articles of NAFO. Therefore, I would assume that the fishing plans of these fleets are drafted and their fishing practices directed from the offices and corporate boardrooms of the countries of origin of these fishing fleets with the full knowledge of these weaknesses. I tend to believe that the captains are being blamed, but the captains of these distant water fishing vessels do not make decisions on whether or not to comply with NAFO fishing regulations. They are employee fishing captains who take orders and function according to what is directed and expected of them. This situation is quite different from that inside our 200-mile limit where the great majority of Canadian fishing captains are the owner- operators of fishing vessels.
Therefore, the focus of meaningful attempts to address overfishing and non-compliance issues on the high seas should be directed at the corporate owners of those foreign fishing fleets in their various countries of origin.
Based on my view of the report on the management of straddling fish stocks in the North Atlantic, which was chaired by Dr. Art May, I have to agree and conclude that NAFO, with its current constituted articles of governance, is not effective and is seriously lacking in credibility as a regional fisheries management organization. It is not in the interest of the Canadian fishing industry to further support NAFO in its current governance form.
That being said, I also agree with other witnesses who have suggested that the reform and renewal of NAFO would be far less time consuming and more likely to gain international support. In my view, a renewed or revised NAFO with reformed governing articles that are in accordance with the recommendations and agreements of the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement convention of 1995, with some further important additions and amendments, could be a very effective regional management organization. There is no question that much work is required on the objection article, the dispute mechanism, the principle of having universal measures and penalties or sanctions binding on all parties, and the flag state enforcement issue.
If a renewed and effective NAFO is not achievable within a reasonable time frame acceptable to Canada, we have no recourse but to find a legal avenue to implement some form of custodial management of our fish stocks to the extent of our continental shelf. The legal means was found in international law for Canada to achieve what was considered necessary to the extent of our continental shelf with respect to control and ownership of ocean bottom oil, natural gas and mining resources and non-migratory bottom sedentary species. Therefore, I fail to understand why our international law experts are seemingly convoluting their interpretation of international law in suggesting that Canada would not find any legal intervention mechanism that could be used to ensure the sustainable management of our fish stocks to the extent of our continental shelf.
While the rhetoric continues, the concern remains that foreign fishing fleets will continue with their fishing infractions and jeopardize any semblance of responsible and sustainable fishing and sustainable fisheries management. However, after reading the transcripts from your October 3, 2006, hearings with Minister Loyola Hearn and his department officials, I am somewhat encouraged. The minister indicated that attitudes are changing at the international level and that much progress has been made in recent months towards the effective reform and renewal of NAFO.
With respect to Minister Hearn's indication and assumption that attitudes are changing in the international community, I have been directly involved with many discussions with fishing industry delegations and media delegations from the European Union on fisheries management issues since the declaration of the cod moratorium in 1992. The most recent discussions occurred in Petty Harbour within the last two months. Two separate delegations comprised of media and industry hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs visited Petty Harbour for discussions on the state and management of fisheries inside and outside our 200-mile limit. One of those delegations was from a cross-section of European countries and the other was specifically from Spain. From these discussions, we were encouraged to hear and led to believe that there is a significant change in attitudes and viewpoints within the European Union with regard to the state and management requirements of the fish stocks inside and outside our 200-mile limit.
Both media delegations consider this form of ongoing country to country discussions between people in communities directly involved with commercial fisheries to be of great importance. They indicated such discussions were fostering a growing knowledge and acceptance within the European community that our fish stocks within and outside the 200-mile limit were in trouble and that appropriate management measures are necessary to rectify the situation. If the attitude is truly changing in the fishing nations of the European Union as indicated by these two media delegations, perhaps Minister Hearn can feel positive and expect some sincere cooperation and real progress on the effective renewal of NAFO.
In my view, Newfoundland fishery workers who were so heavily dependent on northern cod have shown significant commitment to conservation over the last 14 years and have paid an extreme price. However, the same cannot be said for foreign fishing nations who over that period have continued to break the rules and overfish our offshore straddling stock on the high seas. If these fishing nations have changed their attitude and now recognize that stringent measures are required in our continental waters to rectify stock depleted situations, they should be willing to show some real gesture of commitment to bringing recovery about.
To that end, Minister Hearn, while attempting to gain ratification of a renewed and effective NAFO, might press for understanding and cooperation within NAFO and the greater international community for the implementation of a temporary moratorium on bottom dragging on the high seas of our continental shelf. Such a request should not be seen as seeking management measures outside 200 miles that would require similar and consistent measures inside 200 miles. I recognize and understand how difficult an issue this is for Minister Hearn and his concerns over generating reverse pressure to implement consistent countermeasures on our shrimp fleets inside our 200-mile limit. However, it could be argued that such a measure on the high seas outside 200 miles would show some consistency with those in the Canadian fishing industry who have accepted a 14 year moratorium on the use of any form of harvesting technology to fish northern cod inside 200 miles.
We are currently confronted with a situation of numerous depleted commercial fish stocks and an ocean ecosystem imbalance whereby many predator-prey relationships for food purposes are totally disrupted. Many more unknown factors, including environmental change, could also be contributing to current imbalances in the ocean ecosystem.
Whatever combination of factors is causing the further decimation and impeding the recovery of many species in our ocean requires understanding and immediate attention. Rectifying the situation, and I am an inshore fisherman who has never fished the heavy offshore mobile technology, is not a simple matter of banning the fishing technology used by one group of harvesters or another, whether they are of domestic or of foreign origin. Those who have investments and generate their incomes from commercial fishing will not cooperate in sustainable fisheries management planning with a focus that includes banning their harvesting technology and forcing them out of business. However, it is my belief they will be responsible and open-minded to sustainable management strategies that include, among others, the following, and I am particularly referring to dragging technology: off-limit sanctuary or recovery areas; restricting the concentration of effort in vulnerable areas; establishing management areas that are completely off-limits to specific harvesting technologies but not others; establishing management areas that limit the use of various harvesting technologies at specific times in specific locations; and temporary moratoriums. As I suggested earlier, the European Union should consider a temporary moratorium right now on our high seas adjacent to our 200-mile limit.
However, the sustainable management of current and future commercial fisheries has to go beyond measures aimed at minimizing the negative impacts of potentially destructive harvesting technologies. As I have previously indicated, commercial fisheries have created a significant imbalance in various species populations, which in turn has created a serious predator-prey feeding imbalance. It is apparent that such imbalances are creating a situation whereby the feeding patterns of highly populated more aggressive species, such as the harp seal, are now contributing to the non- recovery of many less aggressive species, such as northern cod.
In closing, we cannot afford to ignore the ecosystem imbalances that currently exist within our oceans, nor can we ignore the fact that many rural economies throughout the world depend on commercial fisheries and that much of the fishing technology currently used in commercial fishing is potentially destructive. Therefore, we must find the right balance in developing sustainable fisheries management planning that recognizes and takes all the various factors and issues under consideration. To do so in an effective manner will require the cooperation and involvement of all the relevant players locally, nationally, and internationally. Thank you very much.
Senator Johnson: Mr. Best, we have had some excellent presentations today and yours is also very good. Thank you.
Are you in favour of reforming NAFO or backing away, as one of our previous witnesses, Dr. May, has suggested in his report?
Mr. Best: I have reviewed all of the transcripts from your previous witnesses and I tend to agree with those who suggest that trying to put a new system in place would be a long, time-consuming process. If, as the minister and other officials suggest, progress is being made towards the reform and renewal of NAFO, my view is that that is the direction we should go.
Senator Johnson: How would you like to see it reformed?
Mr. Best: All of those particular items that were referred to as inappropriate need to be clearly changed and revised so that they can provide NAFO with the effective governing articles to do its job. It certainly does not have them now.
Senator Johnson: Mr. Best, in terms of custodial management, do you have trust and confidence in the current marine ecosystem research?
Mr. Best: I do not know how broad ranging or how effective it can be depending on the amount of financial and other resources that are put into it, but from my own observations and from the conversations I have had with people from many, many countries — I have been in Spain, I have been in Portugal, more or less as a voluntary invitee rather than as a paid official — who are involved in fishing all over the world, there is a concern that we have many troubles in our ocean ecosystem. I think the scientific community and the researchers are concluding that it is to a point right now where the whole system is in serious danger of cleaning up all the species that are there and nothing will be there for anyone in the future. I do not know whether I have confidence in what is being done, but I do have a view that we have a major problem in our oceans and that a lot of work has to be done to clean it up.
Senator Johnson: What feedback do you get from the other countries to which you have been talking?
Mr. Best: Until recently, every time we spoke with delegations from the European Union they argued that Canada was putting forth arguments just to have all the fish for ourselves and that there was not really any problem with the resources in our area. Ironically, the two delegations that were here a few months ago and another delegation from the European Union that was here about two months previous to that all indicated that they now agree there is major trouble in our waters on our continental shelf and that things need to be done to correct it. There seems to be a changing attitude.
I am not sure whether that is an attitude of convenience because things are so bad, the economics are not right, and it is easy to say that right now or whether they are really serious. If they are serious, they should be prepared to agree with taking the necessary steps to correct the situation in our water, and elsewhere for that matter.
Senator Baker: Mr. Best, you said that if progress is being made as it appears in the media, in the statements of the minister, and in the statements of NAFO members, then that is great and you support that progress. You have read all the NAFO reports and the minutes of these meetings. We had a private meeting yesterday with the enforcement people for about two and a half hours. We were informed that the decrease in the observer program on our shelf by the foreigners is being made up for by an increase in the technological VMS program, the vessel monitoring system by satellite. However, upon questioning, we discovered that if your boat's VMS system breaks down, you have to go back to port or you will be charged, but not so the NAFO members. In other words, if this sophisticated program that has been announced and that everybody says is so wonderful and in which you put your trust a moment ago breaks down, NAFO members do not have to go into port to get it fixed. Also, we learned that the observers are not compellable in a court. In other words, the observers cannot be made to go into court, even though they are the people doing the prosecuting. There is no system of sanctions, no uniform system of punishment. We obtained that information from private meetings.
Those three things exist in Canada: the satellite system has to be operative; the observer is brought into court to prosecute; and there is a system of punishment. However, none of those is present in this new NAFO system that is said to be so great. What do you think of that?
Mr. Best: If that is part of the new system, we obviously have not reformed NAFO to make it effective, or we are not going to, if that is the case. If that is the kind of enforcement regime that would be a part of a reformed NAFO, we have a problem. Then I would agree with those who suggest that we have got to find the means in international law to have some control over how the fish stocks on our continental shelf are managed.
In the transcripts I have been reading, people of competence who go to the high level meetings have suggested that the players are ready to come on board, that we are ready to put the enforcement mechanisms in place to support the articles of governance. However, from what you heard yesterday, the enforcement regulations for this new NAFO are basically no different than they were in the past.
Senator Baker: Exactly. Getting that information was like pulling hen's teeth; it was not easy. We really have to pursue the information to get it out.
You support custodial management. You are aware, however, that custodial management would mean foreigners forever; the foreign nations would always have a quota, although they would not be able to exceed their quota and Canadians would manage the quotas and manage what the foreigners fished. Mr. Best, do you think that if the inshore fishermen were told that that is what custodial management means, the majority would be in favour of custodial management?
Mr. Best: The majority of inshore fishermen, as I knew the inshore fishery, were not the same kind of inshore fishermen that we have today, but the great majority of them still do not fish outside 200 miles. If we can put an effective regime in place that allows our fish stocks to be managed in a way that is sustainable for foreigners and for Canadians, I do not think they would have a problem. The question becomes how to put a regime in place. How can we ensure that it will be effective and that people will abide by the rules and regulations?
I do not think there has ever been a particular issue with the Portugese and Spanish fishermen's being off this coast. The issues for the last 25 or 30 years have been the destructive potential of the technology they have moved into and the non-effective management of that technology, and believe me, that goes beyond 200 miles and moves inside 200 miles. If you think that that is a problem only outside 200 miles, you are sadly mistaken. We have a problem inside and outside.
Senator Baker: Yes, but in your address here you said what I thought was the limit of the dragging inside. I had believed the largest boat you could have in Newfoundland was 65 feet — the shrimp dragger, 65 feet, dragging in defined areas of the ocean. Yesterday I was shocked to learn, although I should have known, that we still have draggers way over 65 feet inside 200 miles, still dragging and supplying fish to some of our fish plants. Furthermore, offshore quotas in some areas inside 200 miles are still there, were never ever taken away, and they actually give the inshore fishermen the quotas each year to fish, but they still maintain ownership of the quotas.
It does not appear to me as if the Government of Canada or the Government of Newfoundland or anybody else is moving toward what you advocate really is an end to dragging. Let me correct that — an end to dragging by 200-foot or 300-foot vessels dragging the living daylights out of groundfish, cod dragging for example.
Mr. Best: On the high seas.
Senator Baker: Are you in favour of the ban on dragging in unregulated areas of the high seas? Can I gather that from what you have said here in your presentation? If you are in favour of it, you realize that you are against what the federal government and the provincial government are advocating. You are not unaccustomed to being in that position.
Mr. Best: Given what we have contributed in the last 14 years in closing out all fishing technologies to northern cod, if the European Union countries accept that we have problems with our fish stocks on our continental shelf, they should be prepared to show some gesture of commitment, and what I am talking about is not a ban, it is a moratorium. We are supposed to be under a moratorium, not a ban, and we get an odd poke at an index cod fishery or something like that. That was supposed to last for two years.
We have to find out what is wrong with the stocks on the outer shelf, why they are not recovering. In my view, it is probably a combination of predator-prey relationships, dragging of many different kinds, the interception of juvenile cod and certainly the feeding pattern of harp seals on capelin, which is critical to the survival of cod and juvenile cod. Let us take one particular component out for a period of time to see whether that would anything change and start using the precautionary principle that we all talk about in Canada and that the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement talks about.
If people are sincere, recognizing the pain that we have had to bear, they would be prepared to accept at least a five- year moratorium on any high seas dragging on our continental shelf to see if that will help the situation along with all the other measures that Canada is saying it may implement inside, like restricting the shrimp draggers to particular areas, making other areas totally off-limits and identifying seasons of the year when they are not allowed to fish when at-risk species are vulnerable, and so on. For years and years we have been recommending a whole range of management measures.
The battle around the idea of individual licence quotas was fought within the ranks of the union as well as everywhere else, and it is only within the last seven or eight years of the crab fishery that that has been taken on as a far more responsible and non-destructive approach to fishing crab than what we were doing with one general quota and everybody taking out whatever they could get and competing for as much as they could get in as short a period of time as possible, and dumping and dumping triple the quota levels. There are measures that can be taken.
I am not suggesting there should be a ban on dragger technology. The counter-argument I hear Mr. Hearn talking about is how can we say to the world we want dragging banned on our continental shelf on the high seas when a great majority of our fishing industry now depends on the shrimp fishery. He is in an awkward position as the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans hailing from Newfoundland.
Senator Baker: If you are in favour of a ban outside, then you have to have a ban inside. That is what you are assuming.
Mr. Best: That is the feedback.
Senator Baker: That is the feedback, but that means countries like France, Norway, Germany, and all the other EU countries that are in favour of the ban will now have to stop dragging on our coast.
Mr. Best: You would assume that.
Senator Baker: It goes right back to what you were saying about these legal minds, these international people who just cannot seem to make any sense at all in what they are saying.
Senator Cowan: Could tell us a little about the Petty Harbour Fishermen's Co-op? What makes it successful and what lessons could be applied elsewhere in the fishery?
Mr. Best: Most of us work for nothing. Our processing plant was built by fishermen at a time when, as ironic as it may seem, there was so much cod coming into the community that the plants already set up in the community could buy only limited amounts. The fishery was evolving, with capelin, squid, and other species. We built our own operation from the ground up. The plant was built to process cod specifically. We had 130 fishermen in 45 or 50 crews fishing out of that community, and there are still 45 or 50 crews fishing crab today. In order to deal with the situation of not being able to sell our product, we took the bull by the horns and built our own processing plant, and we fed the plant and the workers worked in the plant. We created 130 jobs.
The moratorium was declared in 1992. I will not go into all the history of the co-op. We became innovative. We made it a school for a period of time to accommodate the education associated with the moratorium, which was being provided by the Government of Canada. Then the crab fishery came along. Now we need 15 workers in our processing operation and we are not processing crab. We entered into joint ventures with the biggest enemy of the 1980s, Fishery Products International, which is getting a lot of bad press around here for other reasons. Back when we were fighting the battle of quotas and the offshore quotas in the 1980s, we could not get any support from the people in the towns, in particular from the production workers who depended on product going over the line. We could not get support for reduced quotas, which probably would have saved us from the problems we have today.
We basically are now a crab partnership operation with some of the bigger offshore companies. They got out of the business of catching fish, which we think is a good thing, and this particular company is moving away from catching fish and is entering into partnerships with harvesters who can catch it and deliver it in some form of partnership. It is an innovative venture and we have been very successful since 1996 in being able to maintain operations and generate profits. That is mainly because the board of directors are the fishermen who own the plant and they work as volunteers. I act as general manager, free of charge. Without a plant, we have no negotiating power, so we use that as our means to survive in the community.
Senator Hubley: You mentioned that one of the more contentious and escalating concerns is the ability of the corporate processing sector and others to gain control of quotas allocated to owner-operators in the harvesting sector. Such is the case with the use of financial trust agreements. I wonder if you might speak about how destructive that is to the industry and what checks and balances we could put in.
Mr. Best: I would not like to say publicly the things I hear, but I think there are many investigations happening currently about thousands of pounds of particular species all over the place being landed by companies unreported, unrecorded, and somehow getting into the marketplace. We have a quota allocation regime such that, given the pressures of the industry and the people who are trying to survive in the industry, quotas are probably maxed out to where they should be at this point in time. If we have any abuse or overfishing of those quotas, we are asking for nothing but trouble down the road. The more people who become involved in the ownership of a quota, and the more the revenues from that quota have to go around, the more reason for misreporting, under-reporting and targeting other species.
Also, you have to know the Newfoundland fishing industry. For the last several years we have been in turmoil around fish price negotiation. The fishermen's union negotiates a minimum price. It should be a maximum price, in my view, but it is a minimum price, and under the table many processors are able to come up with the money to gather up quotas from fishermen, probably controlling many of the quotas themselves, probably owning most of them. How can they do that if the maximum price was stated under negotiation as a certain price? Well, they are obviously generating all kinds of income from somewhere else. They probably own half the quotas that are allocated to other people, and some are probably landing way beyond the quota limit. They have the financial resources within those organizations to do all kinds of things under the table that those who are trying to be responsible cannot do. That is my simple answer.
Senator Gill: This morning people from the university told us that there is a lack of knowledge and information about the ecosystems and the different species. Would you say the same thing? Do the people who are truly involved in the fishing industry work together with people from the universities and the people doing the research? Is there cooperation?
Mr. Best: I would say yes. A lot of work needs to be done to understand the problems of the ecosystem. Much is being done, but I think a whole lot more has to be done to figure out what is causing the further decimation of particular species and the non-recovery of critical commercial fisheries. The fish harvesters are working with the scientists and the Marine Institute; there are many ongoing projects. There are projects in sentinel fisheries where scientists and fishermen, mainly through the fishermen's union, are working out in the field, and I referred to that in my presentation. They are looking at the health of the stocks, entering into discussions and consultations throughout the year and being part of a year-end review process. For the first time in the last seven or eight years the fishermen themselves have been at the table with the scientists and with the fisheries managers to determine the appropriate level of quota for a particular species every new coming year.
Quite a lot of work is being done, but there is no question in my mind that we have serious, serious problems. I think we have a combination of factors, including the use of heavy technology, the ocean ecosystem disruption, and the predator-prey relationship, in particular in the capelin fishery. There are fisheries that should never be allowed commercially, and capelin is one. Tell that to the fishermen today who are involved in those fisheries. Twenty years ago we circulated a petition to have that fishery completely banned. Only one fisherman disagreed with that ban. That was in 1981. We thought it was so critical to the survival of the cod species. Today if you were to circulate that petition, because of the fact that people have moved on with the technology, have lost their cod fisheries, have had to make their incomes from other fisheries, you would not get that same kind of coercion in the industry to support those kinds of things. I think this is a role that government has to play; it requires independent people who are concerned about the resource. To manage the fishing industry in a sustainable manner we have to go beyond those who make their living directly from the fisheries because they have so much vested interest right now — and vested interest of survival, particularly since what went on with cod and the moratorium in 1992.
Using the technologies fishermen used for hundreds or years, whether you call them passive or archaic, would never destroy the resources of the ocean. Had we continued to use those technologies, we would likely have at least half vibrant fishing communities all over this province; we might have several hundred communities, where we now have probably only 50 or 60 communities. We would still have sustainable activity in the fishing industry. Much has happened that has to be corrected and action has to be taken to restore balance.
I have been fishing since I was a boy of seven or eight years old. I fished with my uncles with bait and hand line, and I took over a cod trap operation when I was 16 years old coming out of high school. It was unheard of in my community for someone of that age whose father did not hand the operation down. My father gave us some traps and I got into the cod trap fishery before the uncles I fished with got into it. I became directly involved in all the issues of the fishing industry and making changes and trying to be more responsible and looking at innovative ways to use the traditional fishery in conjunction with modern-day changes, but people like me did not call the shots on where all that went. I do it. I do not ask to be paid. I come when the opportunity provides itself, and I greatly appreciate opportunities such as this.
Senator Baker: A great many people who appear before this committee look to Iceland as being a good example of a fishery. However, Iceland is one of the big problems we have on our own continental shelf. They have huge draggers and they change flags every now and then, and they are perhaps with the EU and Russia, the biggest of our problems. Would you advocate that we have a fleet like Iceland's to go around on other people's continental shelves?
Dalhousie University released a report the other day, together with universities around the world, predicting the end of our wild fish, our cod fishery, and living resources in the ocean in a very short period of time. About five weeks before that in the local paper here the same prediction was made by the witness coming after you, Mr. John Crosbie, who is predicting the end by the end of the century. I never thought I would ever say that he is perhaps right, but do you agree that the Dalhousie University study came to a legitimate conclusion?
Mr. Best: On the question of whether our fleets should go other places and destroy the resources of other people, I do not agree with people coming and destroying our resources, so I certainly would not advocate that.
Do I agree with the Dalhousie University report? Absolutely yes. I wrote my presentation before that report came out. Basically, they say the same thing: we have the potential to destroy every last living thing in the ocean. However, they also said that if we do the right thing, we can still use these technologies in a sustainable manner, but that will take serious commitment and serious political will on behalf of those who make their living from these technologies.
Believe me, the industry is more fragmented than anyone could imagine, even within our own province. On The Fisheries Broadcast yesterday afternoon, we talked about dragger technology back in the gulf and the dissent that that is causing again now as it did in the 1980s. That is the situation we have regarding cooperation within the fishing industry. During the broadcast yesterday, a fisherman called in criticizing the fact that he had a meeting with his representatives and that draggers are moving back into the Gulf and they do not want them there. This individual was saying the same thing I have said about making areas off-limits; we can use these technologies, but the people who are using them have to realize that they are not going to have the right to come and destroy everything. Other people have a stake in the industry as well.
The Chairman: We will have officials before us again, and we will bring that up with them. Mr. Best, I want to thank you for being with us. Your presence and your testimony are all the more valuable because you have been involved on the frontline yourself and I think it is evident to us that you are coming out of a sense of dedication to what you do and to the people you work with, and we are very appreciative of the fact that you are here.
Mr. Best: Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I have been of some benefit and interest.
The Chairman: Senators, we are now going to hear from the Honourable John Crosbie. Obviously, we have a witness who needs no introduction. People often say that, but in this case it is true. This man has had experience as Minister of Fisheries and experience in Newfoundland in politics. He comes from a family that operated fishing companies some years ago, so his roots are quite strong in the fishery. He continues to speak out as he always has done. Many of us have read his recent columns, which have given us much food for thought, and we are looking forward to hearing him today.
Hon. John Crosbie, P.C., as an individual: Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before your committee. I have always had a good opinion about Senate committees. They are usually well organized and far more relevant in their approach than House of Commons committees, and the committee that you chair is one of those. I am delighted to see you here in Newfoundland in your inquiries.
I did send the clerk of your committee copies of four articles that I had in The Independent in the last few weeks, and my last one will be in this Saturday, because I hope to save time and not be too lengthy in my presentation. I will try to summarize some of the points that I made.
I was very pleased that the clerk sent me transcripts of the evidence of your earlier meetings from October 3 on and to note what Minister Hearn and his officials had to say, and people like Bob Applebaum, Earl Wiseman, and Bill Rowat who were there when I was involved as minister in the department, and Dean Saunders of Dalhousie Law School, and the people you had from External Affairs. That was very helpful background and what they all had to say was quite interesting.
I am no longer a politician, so I can say things exactly as I see them and there are no political consequences. I know that you gentlemen are a step away from depending on votes and elections. A principal weakness of the fishery in every part of the world is the amount of influence. The fishing industry is too politicized. I cannot think of any other industry where what happens with the industry is so affected by politics. Politics is such a dominating consideration when governments deal with the fisheries, which I suppose is inevitable. Once you are no longer elected, you can say exactly what you think, so that is what I hope to do this afternoon.
I want to say at the start that I agree with Dean Saunders from Dalhousie University that custodial management of fisheries outside our current 200-mile limit on the east coast is not on. It is a waste of time, a political fantasy. I do not think time should be wasted on it because it will never happen; it is impossible, it is incompatible with international law. What does it mean, in any event, and why should other countries give Canada custodial management over areas on the high seas where they have the right to fish? They will not do it. Also, let us face it, looking at how we have done within the 200-mile limit where we do have some jurisdiction over the fisheries, will people say, "well, they have been so successful that we should invite them to decide all the issues outside the 200-mile limit under some arrangement called custodial management''? It is incompatible with international law, and if it were put in place, which will not happen because other sovereign countries will not agree, it would lead to the dissolution of NAFO, because other states would object and defy the attempt by us to assert jurisdiction outside the 200-mile limit. Custodial management is not going to occur.
Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS, which we have finally joined, and it is astounding that it took us so long to become a party to that, we are subject to mandatory dispute settlement procedures and we would lose if we attempted to take custodial management of what happens to fish when they are outside the 200-mile limit. I think we should cease wasting our time talking about custodial management. It is not on, it will never be on, and, therefore, we should get down to more basic things, the more important things which I will mention.
My father was in the fishing business principally for years, and his father was in the business when it was a salt fish business, the original kind of fishing business that we did in Newfoundland. Unfortunately for him, my father got into other aspects of the fishery, including what was then new herring reduction and the use of herring and capelin not just for food fish but also for industrial purposes. He had a plant in the Bay of Islands, and made an attempt in Fortune Bay and in St. John's, which was not a great success; a large investment was lost. Anyway, they were involved in the fishery since the beginning of the 20th century, and when I was a teenager myself I worked in the whaling factory. Of course, that is a no-no these days and it has not been legal in Newfoundland since the 1950's. I also worked in the herring reduction plant and so on. Then I had a year as Minister of Fisheries in Newfoundland and, as you know, 27 years in politics, 10 of them in the local legislature and 17 in the federal legislature where at least one third of my district was in a rural area, the fishing area of the Southern Shore where Tom Best, who spoke so well here this afternoon, was located. Federally, I was Minister of Fisheries and Oceans from April 21, 1991 until June 25, 1993. I have to say that that was the most difficult period I had in public life or in politics, ending with the moratorium that had to be declared in 1992 with respect to the northern cod. That was a traumatic experience, the most difficult time I ever had in politics, and it was a shocking stage in the development of Newfoundland that we had to declare a moratorium on our principal fishery.
With that background, I am interested in giving you some opinions and then answering any questions you might have.
In 1990, Dr. Alverson reported that 44 of the world's 186 major fish stocks at that time were over fished. All of us here knew Dr. Alverson; he was very familiar with the East Coast of Canada and the Newfoundland situation. On November 3, after a four-year study, the group of ecologists and scientists led by Dr. Boris Worm from Dalhousie University has found that about 29 per cent of seafood species worldwide have reached what they call a collapsed state, with catches declining to less than 10 per cent of previous averages, and they are, therefore, losing their ability to multiply. The scientists predict that by 2048 marine life could be reduced to poisonous algae. That is quite conceivable and possible, as anybody who studies fisheries, not just off our own East Coast but around the world, has already observed. This latest report is not telling us anything that we did not already know, as Senator Baker mentioned. I predicted myself that by the end of this century there will be no wild fish fishery, and I am surprised, not pleasantly surprised, to see the prediction is even worse than I expected. After extensive study, this group of scientists has concluded that there will be no wild fish fishery by the middle of this century. The battering fish stocks are taking everywhere in the world is upsetting the biomass and the environment in which the fish live. The situation is very serious.
Another weakness of the fishery is that political considerations are of tremendous influence. I have noticed that anybody who does not have political acumen will not survive as an entrepreneur in the fishery. You must have an acute political sense about what is happening or might happen. That it is so important politically is one weakness in dealing with the fishery, and politicians feel that they must intervene at every moment for political reasons.
The primary reason for the perilous state of the fisheries of the world is overfishing. I do not want to get distracted by the environmental considerations; they are very important too, but they are only excuses for our own neglect, our own ignoring of the effect of conservation methods. The real reason for the critical state of the fisheries of the world is overfishing on a vast scale, which appears to be tolerated because of the political sensitivities involved in the global fishing industry. Overfishing on a vast scale commenced with the end of World War II and the technological changes there have been since. It is now technologically possible to take every fish that is out there, using sonar and the other technological advances we have seen in the years since 1945.
I believe that the worst enemy of the fisheries around the world is that they are still treated as a common property resource. The common property nature of the fishery is dooming fisheries everywhere in the world to disaster. The fishery will not survive as long as it is a common property resource. The sea is taken to be a common property, and everybody looks out for his own self-interest when it comes to the fishery. Mr. Crowley of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies once said, "What is everybody's property is nobody's responsibility.'' That is the problem. There is no incentive for fishermen, wherever they are in the world, whether Canada, Newfoundland, Spain, Portugal, to act responsibly and to put conservation at the top of their priority list as long as we have the present common property regime in the fishery. I believe that we have to change the common property fisheries to rights-based fisheries.
The basic problem is how to encourage fishermen, whether they are Canadian or foreign, to act always to conserve fish. The only way we can do that is to give them an incentive, and there is no incentive in the system under which we currently operate, where government regulates the fishery, gives fishermen a licence to fish and then tries to control how they do it by administrative means. That is not effective; it is not working. Our present administration of fisheries does not work. It needs a fundamental change.
I do not have time to be too lengthy on this today, but we need to change the common property nature of the fishery to a rights-based fishery. There is lots of literature on the individual transferable quota system, and you are all familiar with it. In the last 10 years, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, AIMS, has done a lot of work on property rights and fisheries management. I would recommend that this committee have a look at the fundamental problem of the fishery. The fundamental problem of the fishery everywhere in the world is that it is not administered sensibly; we have allowed the tyranny of the common property of fisheries to exist for too long. We now have to change to a rights-based fishery. For some reason, many fishermen resist that idea, particularly the inshore fishermen and smaller fishermen who feel that somehow or other that would give the big fellows, whoever they are, an opportunity to take over control of the fishery. They already have control of the fisheries.
The change to a rights-based system would give the individual fishermen the right to own a quota and to have a certain percentage share of what the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the scientists find to be a proper and safe total allowable catch. They get a percentage share of it, and if they all obey the rules and are successful, their property rights to the fish will increase and they can see that it will benefit them directly. Today, on the contrary, if you are a fisherman in our present situation and you obey all the rules and you are a really first-class person thinking of conservation and the rest of it, what you are afraid of is that the other fishermen are not doing it and are just taking advantage of the sacrifices that you have made to conserve and increase the supply of fish for the future. We must do something, and not just here in Newfoundland or Canada; we have to encourage a change everywhere in the world to overcome this problem and to save the world's fisheries.
As you know, for centuries here we had catches of northern cod that did not exceed 300,000 tonnes a year. In fact, in most years 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes a year of northern cod would be caught, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1968, after we got the new modern trawlers and all the modern technological developments that occurred after 1945, the catch of northern cod went to 810,000 tonnes, principally because of the Russian and the German long distance fleets, factory freezer trawlers and the like. The fish could not take that pressure, and that all led, of course, to the UN decision back in the 1970s to give coastal states jurisdiction out to 200 miles, the economic 200-mile zone.
That did not turn out to be the solution. We had control over the fisheries out to 200 miles, but there was a problem beyond that because straddling fisheries on the continental shelf went out to 280 miles, which made for quite a difficult situation. Moreover, despite the fact that basically we had control of what went on within 200 miles, our regime was not a great success. It turned out that the scientists overestimated their ability to determine what total allowable catches should be and what was the state of the biomass. After about ten years of operating and controlling fish within the 200-mile limit, we discovered, and the politicians in charge were advised, that the catches scientists had thought we were keeping within the FO.1 guideline turned out to be much greater. Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, they had greatly underestimated the amount of fish being taken. They had thought that the measure they were adopting was going to leave about one third of the fish there, but when they reviewed all the facts and figures, they concluded that in fact we had been taking all but one fifth of the northern cod stocks in our 200-mile limit. Thus we had a failure there ourselves, altogether apart from the problems caused by straddling stocks and every sovereign country determined to look after itself.
What has happened to the fish stocks of the world? People talk about environmental causes, and there are some — the water column being warmer or cooler, for instance — but the basic reason we have the current difficulties is tremendous overfishing. At the time of the moratorium, Canadian fisheries scientists had concluded that the millions of tonnes of fish that we had offshore that used to come into Newfoundland every spring following the capelin and that provided the inshore fishery had been reduced to about 2 per cent of what they had been. I was dumbfounded when I checked this summer with our scientists in St. John's to discover that they believe that the stocks of northern cod outside, not the inshore cod around the bays, are still at only about 2 per cent of what they had been when the moratorium went into effect in 1992. This is an astounding fact, because when the moratorium was introduced the suggestion had been that we would need it for a couple of years during which the northern cod would replenished itself. As you know, 14 years later we still basically have the moratorium. That forecast was wildly out.
We have to change from the common property system of fishery to a rights-based fishery and remove the control of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The way the fishery is managed now where everybody gets a fishing licence and there are 10,000 rules and regulations about the size and length of the boats is not working to prevent the extinction of the fishery. That system has not worked in Canada, and it has not worked anywhere else in the world that I know of. The countries that seem to be most successful in the fishery at the moment, like New Zealand, Norway and Iceland, have had the courage and the good sense to adopt rights-based fisheries. I strongly suggest that your committee spend some time and give people a chance to see whether there been some change. It is time now for governments to persuade the fishermen who do not believe in this change. As far as I know, wherever a rights-based approach has been adopted in an individual fishery, such as in the halibut fishery of British Columbia or other species on other coasts, including the East Coast, the people who make that experiment find the system to be first class; certainly it is much better for the fishermen and for the fish stocks.
The danger we are in is greatly increased by realizing that the extension of control over the fishery by the coastal states out to 200 miles in 1977 did not save the fishery. We know that the straddling stock issue makes it difficult for the 200-mile limit to be effective, but even where there is not that problem in other parts of the world, just the extension of 200 miles has not saved the fishery. Fisheries science could not produce the precise assessments and projections that scientists thought it could.
The Canadian government is failing to put the proper resources into expanding the scientific research efforts of DFO. For a couple of years after the moratorium went into effect there was a considerable increase in the spending and surveys to get the basic information needed to make a decent guess at what the biomass of cod and other species was, but since then spending has dwindled, and I think it is quite correct to say that the proper kind of spending is not being done on the science, surveys, and the information you need upon which all the rest of your fishing policies should be based.
I know it is always difficult to get money for any department, but I believe one thing your committee should do is put as much pressure as you can on the government to increase in a major way the necessary monies for surveys, acoustic and otherwise, and do what needs to be done so that the forecasts of the scientists can be more accurate.
In addition to the other problems, we have the problem of straddling stocks and high seas fishing and sovereign rights. If we could get the countries of the world, including our own country, to change the whole fundamental basis of the fishery from common property to rights-based, we will achieve a hell of a lot more than we will ever achieve in the blame game. We can blame the foreigners. That does not make any difference. Conflict of interest is a problem in the fishing industry. Everyone blames everyone else. It is one gear type against another gear type, one size of vessel against another size of vessel, one province against another province, the federal government against the provinces, the provinces against the federal government, all in a whole miasma of blame, with everybody blaming the other party.
I have noticed that the provinces, by and large, have often suggested that if the Province of Newfoundland rather than the federal government had controlled the fishery in Newfoundland, we would somehow have done much better in the years since 1949. That is complete nonsense. If our fisheries policy and control had been in the hands of the provincial government since 1949, the fish would have been gone about 10 or 20 years earlier and we would be in a worse situation now than we are.
There is no evidence that any province ever suggested anything sensible with respect to how the fishery should be conducted. I make that statement and I can defend it anywhere. I have never heard a sensible suggestion come from one of the four Atlantic provinces that, had we done it, would have avoided the crisis we now face. In fact, they are one of the worse causes of the problem by licensing two to three times more fish processing plants than were required thereby increasing tremendous pressure for more fish to be caught and more quotas to be caught. You cannot blame the politicians. I am not blaming the politicians because they have to react to the pressure they get, and it is pretty hard to resist if every rural community wants a fish plant because of the employment it gives. That is very hard to resist, but it is one of the reasons we have had such a crisis in our fishery here. We had 50 per cent more fish processing plants for the groundfish here in Newfoundland than we needed, and the same is true in the other Atlantic provinces and in Quebec.
The federal government is a little further removed from the people, so they are not under as much pressure as the provincial governments to do things that they should not do. I have been in the provincial government, so I know.
International organizations and regional authorities like NAFO, of course, have been in effect, and I am glad to see that there are signs now that that is changing, but that alone is not going to be sufficient to save our fishery, even if there is an improvement and NAFO becomes more effective and has some management and control powers it can use. From what Minister Hearn told your committee, it looks like things are improving there. That will be a bit of a help, but it is not going to save the fisheries of the world.
In Canada, we have a problem of split jurisdiction also between federal and provincial governments, and we have competition between provincial governments. We also have conflicts of interest within the fisheries themselves.
By the way, it is awfully significant that every year 20 million tonnes of fish is caught and discarded in the world's fisheries. Eight per cent of the fish caught in the wild fisheries of the world is discarded; the fish is wasted and dies because the people who caught that fish do not want that species or it is not valuable enough for them or it was left in the gill nets too long and rotted, and so on. That is an astounding figure — 20 million tonnes of fish wasted each year. The world has to address that as well.
As the recent study pointed out, scientists are not completely pessimistic. They said in their report that if changes were made now, it is still not too late; there is still some hope. I hope that they are right.
In concluding my remarks, I would suggest to the committee that you concentrate your efforts on dealing with the problem of the common property nature of the fishery to see whether we can lead the way in Canada and persuade other countries of the world to change the basis of the fishery, like they have done in New Zealand very successfully and in Iceland.
The fishery in Iceland is not run in accordance with what political considerations might dictate. If a plant operation is no longer feasible, no longer economic, it closes. They will not subsidize any part of their industry. The industry cannot go to a federal government to look for help. They have got to make it on their own. There is only one government there, one people, so they have to obey economic rules. If a facility is not economically positive, they will not allow money to be put in and lost, and they will not subsidize their fishery.
As you know, our fisheries are subsidized on every side, which is a weakness. Our fisheries are subsidized but they are still not a success, and they will not be successful if they have to be subsidized. We are always talking here in Newfoundland about Iceland, because in Iceland fishing enterprises are permitted to close if they cannot make money. We do not seem to understand in Newfoundland and Labrador or Atlantic Canada that fishing enterprises cannot be kept going just by government or taxpayer subsidies. They have to be able to make a return. That is the way private enterprise works, and the private enterprise system is vital to increases in wealth, like it or not. It is not the government but the private sector that we have to depend on, and if private sector fishing companies cannot make money, then subsidizing them is not the answer and it will not work.
Senator Johnson: Welcome, Mr. Crosbie. It is great to see you again. You are the first to speak to us about the concept of an incentive to act responsibly and the rights-based principle. Can you give us more details? You said there would be an individual transfer of quota encouraging fishermen to conserve and they would have a right to own quota and a percentage of the take. What are two or three main things? The lake area I am from has a quota system like this, and also seasonal fishing.
Mr. Crosbie: The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, AIMS, has been looking at this for about ten years, and they have done work on property rights and fisheries management on the Atlantic coast. They published a book about that in 1996. I will try to be brief. Under our present system, the government gives you a licence to fish, which gives you the right to fish, but it is not a property right. It gives you only the chance to get a share of the fish caught. It is a permit that allows the person who has it to join the harvesting effort within regulatory limits that dictate when you can fish, where you can fish, and with what equipment that you can fish. That is our present system here in Canada. That is why the Department of Fisheries and Oceans administers so many regulations and has such complete control over the minutia. They are trying to conserve the fish, not through property ownership, but through all the regulations, including for example how many hours you can fish, the length your boat can be, and what gear you can use. It is most frustrating for fishermen. Fishing is the most over-regulated industry in the world. That can be changed, but only if you turn to a rights-based system. The present system, of course, causes a lot of political pressure from voters in fishing communities wanting more access to fish. Politically, one has to bend to that, but it leads to giving those voters unsustainable levels of access to fish, and everybody loses money.
As a result of its regulatory approach, the present system gives ever more intrusive limits on gear, onboard storage capacity, shorter seasons, and so on, but those efforts are usually futile because, as the study puts it, the ingenuity and inventiveness of fishermen mean that regulatory restrictions lag behind the latest techniques for circumventing the rules. It does not matter how elaborate the rules are, the fishermen are clever enough to get around them. The government adds more rules to try to stop what the fishermen have now instituted in order to get around the rules, and the system simply does not work.
A fisherman's licence gives him no right to any share of the catch. It only gives him a right to put a certain type of gear in the water and then he starts to invest too much capital in gear, in the boat, and so on, so that he can get more fish. The first person to get the fish becomes the possessor and owner of the fish, and that does not encourage conservation, it encourages the opposite. It encourages getting out there first. Most of the fish go to the people who get there first and work the hardest and put more and more money in it, but eventually they put too much in and they will lose, or they cannot get an adequate share of what is an uncertain harvest anyway. Each fishing season becomes an ever more harrowing high tech race to catch an unpredictable share of a dwindling resource.
What is rights-based fishing? Fishermen are given a share of the stock or a share of what the scientists in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans say is the total allowable catch for that species. Fishermen are licensed for certain fishery — herring, halibut, cod, or whatever. The fishing effort is calculated by the department still, and the individuals are given the property right to take a certain percentage of that catch of that species for a year. It is a quota, and usually it is an individual transferable quota to be successful. It is a property right for fishermen, just like farmer owns the vegetables and everything that he produces, because he owns the land, which is his chief capital asset. Under a rights-based system, the fish harvester has a right to a certain amount of fish each year. Of course, it all has to be administered, and you have to report what you have caught to make sure you are not cheating, but if the system is operated properly, the fish stocks should increase as a result.
Senator Johnson: How would this work internationally? Is that also in the AIMS study?
Mr. Crosbie: You would have to persuade each country to change their system of fishing. They will all be in a desperate state in the next 10 to 15 years, anyway, and ready to try something new, but the first thing we have to do is put the system in effect ourselves. It has been done successfully in New Zealand, in Iceland and in Norway. We would have to do it, and then we would have to campaign to have other countries do it. This is not short term. It will be long term for us to make any change in what happens on the high seas, in any event, but for the longer term we are wasting our time talking about things that are not going to happen, figments of the imagination, like custodial management, when we should be getting at the real issue. The real issue is that everywhere in the world the fishery is pursued improperly and in ways that only increase the pressure on fish stocks.
Senator Campbell: With rights-based fishing, how do you decide who is a fisherman? Would not everybody want to be a fisherman if everybody had an opportunity to get a piece of the catch?
Mr. Crosbie: That would have to be regulated. Under the present system a fisherman has to be licensed to fish for cod or any species. Thus you know how many fishermen there are. If you have got what you consider to be the proper number of fishermen and women, you do not licence more of them. Let us say you have a thousand in some particular fishery, and the TAC or total allowable catch is such and such, and that thousand can make a decent living if they are left to catch that fish. You could regulate. There would have to be some control over who has that property right. It was done in British Columbia in the halibut fishery, and it has been done in other fisheries.
Senator Campbell: But it does not work out that everybody has an equal share of the overall catch. I mean, I eat what I kill.
Mr. Crosbie: You would be given a percentage. Let us say, you can take 1 per cent or one half of 1 per cent or whatever the TAC is for that particular species. Everybody would start off with the same quota. If you decide to retire from the fishery, you can pass on that property right to your family, your sons or your daughters.
Senator Campbell: Coming out of high school in Newfoundland, if I decided I would like to be a fisherman, how would I get a right?
Mr. Crosbie: You would have to apply to the regulatory authority, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to be licensed as a fisherman, and if you are licensed as a fisherman and you are in some particular fishery, you would have to be given the right to take a certain amount of fish in that fishery, unless the government had decided that that fishery was now full and that there was no more room for more fishermen to be fishing that particular stock. The government would control the number of fishermen. You would have a property right, and if your fishery had improved and everyone's share had gone up, you could sell your property right if you wanted to retire from the fishery, or you could pass it on to other members of your family.
Senator Baker: All of the politicians in Ottawa, especially the Opposition Party, the Liberal Party, the NDP, the Bloc, the Independents, and three other registered parties, the Marxist Leninist Party and the Communist Party as well, all of these recognized political parties are demanding that the federal government institute custodial management. Just so that everybody is certain of your position on custodial management, what message do you have for people who advocate custodial management?
Mr. Crosbie: Why not try living in the real world? Never mind your political fantasies. This is all a fantasy. Canada cannot unilaterally force other countries to agree that we are going to have custodial management of fish outside the 200-mile limit. All they have to do is look at the shambles we are in already when we have control up to 200 miles. Would they say that Canada is so good, our administration so effective, that we should have custodial management? They will not do it. The French and the Portugese have been fishing out there now for 450 years and their fishermen and women are just as dependent on those fish as ours. Custodial management will not fly. Unfortunately, every country is selfish. We are selfish. We think we are the best, the most humanitarian; we think we have got the biggest conscience; we are peace lovers, peacekeepers. We are not even pugnacious. I will not say what we are because I do not want to get into that, but custodial management will not fly. Why would anybody else agree to it?
What we have got to do is get the countries of the world, particularly the fishing countries, to agree that this is the direction we must move. Outside the 200-mile limit, you get into all the doctrines about freedom of the seas. We will never have the support of the U.S. They insist that their vessels have the right to go everywhere in the seas, so they will not be supportive. We were very lucky with the Estai and Minister Tobin. I am sure he must have been backed up by Mr. Chrétien at that time. He took a tremendous chance when they seized the Estai outside the 200-mile limit, and that had certain other consequences for Canada that are not immediately apparent. One of the reasons we did not adopt these other conventions and so on was that we were afraid we would get caught in a situation where we might have to go to arbitration on the Estai, and we were certainly going to lose if we were forced into that because what we did was a violation of international law.
We should not be wasting our efforts on that. We should push for something that will make a fundamental change and not waste our time. This is political fantasy and game playing. It is the old blame game. There is no industry in the world where the blame game is played more than the fisheries. We all like to think it is the foreign fishermen and foreign countries who caused all the trouble. They like to think we caused the trouble. The French and the Portugese will tell you we are greedy. They used to fish up to three miles from our coast, and then twelve miles, and then the greedy Canadians grabbed 200 miles, and now we do not want just 200 miles, we want 280 miles. Is there any end to the inordinate demands, the shocking demands, the bellicose pugnacity led by people like Senator Baker?
Senator Baker: You are opposed to custodial management, and that would be an understatement.
Mr. Crosbie: I am opposed to BS in any sphere. This is political rhetoric; this is not serious. I am dumbfounded that practically everybody down here thinks custodial management is a sensible concept. If I were any international state fishing out there, I would not agree for one minute to give Canada custodial management. Let us be real. There is a real world out there, and there is the political world, and often they are two different worlds. Do not waste your time on custodial management. I would like to see a man like you dedicating himself to achieving change, to getting us an effective system. Let us give property rights out there; let us get a rights-based fishery. You should lead the charge for that and not waste your time leading the charge on a puffery.
Senator Baker: In your last column, you predicted that the wild fish will be gone by the end of the century. Four weeks later the scientists at Dalhousie University said that it will happen in less time than that. They studied the situation for a long time. Do you mind telling us what is in your next column, your last column, or do we all have to wait and buy the paper?
Mr. Crosbie: I think in the next column I take a vow of silence.
Senator Adams: We met with DFO yesterday on the question of fishing outside the 200-mile limit. Perhaps you are familiar with this because you are a former Minister of Fisheries. I think NAFO managed to put 90 per cent of the quotas outside the 200-mile limit. We found out yesterday that even if we have a quota, we cannot get the licence to fish outside the 200-mile limit. Why is that? Is it because Canada has no control over the quotas?
Mr. Crosbie: I am not familiar with what you are referring to there, outside 200 miles. I presume that we could only fish if NAFO agrees to the fish that we are taking. NAFO would control it, and we are a member of NAFO. I am not sure what the regulations are outside the limit, but NAFO is supposed to control what fish is taken outside the 200- mile limit, so we would have to get their okay to whatever it was we wanted to do outside 200 miles. Of course, it would ill behove us to ignore any decision they made in our case because we have been so properly cheesed off with their membership generally and with the objection procedure. However, apparently, according to Minister Hearn, it will be changed, but these changes are very slow to come, and they are not, of course, going to change the dire forecast that this group of scientists just made in Nova Scotia. We have to have far more fundamental changes if we are to save the world's fisheries.
The figures I have indicate that 40 per cent or 50 per cent of all the fish being consumed today is aquaculture. We would not have smoked salmon if it were not for aquaculture. It is quite conceivable that by the middle of the century we might be dependent on aquaculture or fish farming, and that brings other problems, as you know.
Senator Cowan: Mr. Crosbie, can you give us your views on the position of the government with respect to the moratorium on bottom trawling in unregulated areas of the offshore and the pressure on Canada to sign on or to support that moratorium? Is that a wise thing for us to do or should we stay away from it?
Mr. Crosbie: I think a blanket cessation of dragging or trawling is not a sensible way to go. Yes, many problems have been caused by permitting dragging and trawling in the wrong places at the wrong times of the year. There should be much tighter restrictions on where you can use trawls and go dragging both inside and outside the 200-mile limit, and there are certain areas, as the minister said, where no trawling should be allowed. With certain fisheries, without dragging or trawling there would be no fishery. I do not think it is practical for a blanket prohibition against trawling, but in certain areas that should be the case where it is sensible and reasonable. We should reduce dragging and trawling as much as possible, except where it is absolutely necessary or where you can catch the primary fish you are after without getting too much of any other species that it is undesirable to have caught. It is difficult to explain, but I thought Mr. Hearn's explanation before the committee was sensible, and for Canada it would be a very damaging thing simply to say there will be no more trawling or dragging. We have to be more selective than that.
The Chairman: Mr. Crosbie, thank you for being here and giving us the benefit of your experience, which is extensive and unique. Not only that, but you made us laugh, which we needed at this time in the day. Thank you for coming, and good luck.
Mr. Crosbie: Thank you, senator. I appreciate your listening and I think that your committee is an important one. It is great that you have come to Newfoundland. I do not always speak in support of the Senate, but when I do, I note that one of its great strengths is its committees, because you do not waste your time on complete political tiffle, which is what happens in the House of Commons committees. When as a minister I went to the House of Commons committee, I never had to prepare for it because I knew it would be all political rhetoric back and forth, and I would not have to be on my toes but could just be a politician and answer the political rhetoric with political rhetoric of my own. But to appear before a Senate committee, I always had to work a hell of a lot harder because I might get asked an intelligent question by somebody who knew something about the subject and was not just trying to score political points. I am an admirer of Senate committees, generally, and it is very valuable for you to come here. If you pursue what I am suggesting, you could have a considerable effect, because we need to have a debate on this. For some reason, smaller fishermen are scared to death of looking at this concept, which would give them an asset and a property right and help them, but they are scared that somehow this is a plot for large enterprises to take over. Nobody can force the fishermen to give up their share. If the Senate committee had an interest in this, you could be very helpful.
The Chairman: Senators, we now welcome Earl McCurdy, the president of the fisherman's union. He has been with the union for a long time, maybe his whole career. He succeeded Richard Cashin and he has been with them ever since, which is a testimony to his service and the esteem in which he is held.
Earle McCurdy, President, Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers: Thanks very much, senator. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have been around with the union roughly as long as the 200-mile limit has. I followed the 200- mile limit by about three months and have been struggling with it ever since and wondering why we did not make it 300 miles while we were at it. In any event, I guess I will come to that.
I certainly congratulate the committee for coming to the province. I understand from the chairman that you had a chance to go down to Labrador, which is great because that is a unique part of the world to be sure, and you had a chance to find out a bit about the history and the affairs of the Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company Limited. As its name implies, that organization was triggered by our organization with a lot of help from then MP Rompkey, and the minister at the time, Mr. Leblanc. That the organization is still going strong 28 years later suggests, I think, that the concept was a good one.
Clearly one of the biggest vulnerabilities that we have in our fishery is the straddling nature of our stocks and the fact that they are oblivious to international niceties and they swim back and forth across that line. We are quite vulnerable at times that the fish aggregate outside our economic zone. I have read the transcripts, not from this week, but from your prior hearings, so I will try to avoid duplication as much as possible and give commentary or opinion rather than repeat facts you have already had placed before you a number of times.
Like every Newfoundlander and Labradorian, I would dearly love to see the Canadian government have the power to enforce regulations on fishing right to the edge of our continental shelf. It might have been a rhetorical question when your previous guest asked whether there is no limit to the demands of Canadians. In my case, there is: the edge of the continental shelf will do me just fine, and I think most Newfoundlanders and Labradorians would agree. Some people have used the term "custodial management'' which, as far as I know, has no particular meaning in law; it is just a term that was developed, but whatever it means, everyone here would dearly love to see the Canadian authorities have enforcement powers right to the edge of the continental shelf.
I am picking up on some of the discussion with Mr. Crosbie. He said the arrest of the Estai was a risky proposition. I think it was, and I think it was a risk well worth taking in the sense that international law only moves forward if somebody challenges it and asserts some authority, whether or not they really have it on paper or in law. Quite frankly, I think it was a very good idea not to ratify UNCLOS at that time partly because UNCLOS kind of guides us through a certain procedure that would have left us exposed on an event like the arrest of the Estai. Because we had not signed onto UNCLOS at that time, we were able to deny the jurisdiction of the International Court and say, "We did what we did, and what are you going to do about it.''
In any event, we are where we are now and a lot of the water has changed since 1995. I found the analysis of Professor Saunders and some of the other people you had in on that area very interesting. The 1995 action on the Estai was done in a vacuum, and in the eyes of some that vacuum may since then have been partially filled. I am not convinced that it has been, but that may change the water under the beams a bit.
I went to my first NAFO meeting in 1983. If given a choice between going to another NAFO meeting and having a root canal without anaesthetic, I would opt for the latter. I have gone every year since, and believe me it is punishment to sit through, but it is important punishment for people to attend and to make the best of, at least. There have clearly been more lows than highs.
I would like to highlight a couple of significant developments. The Estai was one. I am not sure that we realized our potential in what flowed thereafter. The other development, which was a significant change, was the increased surveillance that was put in effect starting in May 2004. The increase in patrol ships has clearly made it more difficult for violators, and there are some pretty brazen customers operating fishing vessels out there. It has not fixed the problem, but it has helped make violations more difficult. Speaking for myself, there is nothing more aggravating in the world than trying to make some time on the Trans Canada and repeatedly running into patrol cars. Clearly, having more enforcement authority present is a help, but it does not fix the problem.
We still have a number of NAFO stocks under moratorium, which is a huge wasted economic opportunity for coastal communities that desperately need them. I think we can look at the turbot stock out there, which is also called Greenland Halibut. In the late 1990s and early part of this decade, NAFO badly wasted an opportunity: there were classes of young turbot that, if properly nurtured, could have been providing a much better fishery today, but NAFO essentially steamrolled over scientific advice and set quotas too high. We are now paying a very significant price for that.
Regarding the recent changes in NAFO, the jury is still out, in my view. I think the changes to the objection procedure have the potential to be a meaningful improvement. There has not been much use of the objection procedure lately, but it was always a bit of a weakness. Probably the most important change is the power to send boats caught misreporting to port, because the economic consequences of that would be significant. There are shortcomings regarding the flag state enforcement and what level of penalty will be put in effect, but for sure if you are fishing hundreds of miles from home port and you are midway through a trip and you are sent home, that in itself is a substantial penalty.
The organization has ongoing weaknesses, including the inadequacy of scientific advice on a number of stocks. The voting structure is clearly a problem for Canada to contend with at NAFO meetings. Flag state enforcement is a big issue. The impact has been very severe in this province, particularly on the south coast, and the number of jobs has dramatically decreased. Other issues have arisen in recent years that have made the going pretty tough in the fishing industry. The price of oil is a serious problem in its own right because fishing has a high oil consumption component. Oil is a big cost item, and in addition to that it has really driven the dollar and our loss. If an American consumer buys U.S. $100 worth of shrimp or crab or whatever we are selling them today, four years ago we would have gotten $157 in our dollars for that; today we get $111, and that is a lot of money that just disappeared into thin air. A combination of the two is really severe.
We are having an enormous outmigration, a decline in absolute population which, I think, is unique to our province, and the long-term demographics indicate a huge problem. Our fishing communities, notwithstanding whatever benefits oil and gas might have brought to the City of St. John's, are going through a very, very difficult period.
With respect to enforcement outside the 200-mile limit, I would like to mention that contending with the foreign fleets has been an exercise in frustration for more than 50 year. The enforcement officers who actually do the jobs there I think get kind of tarred with the brush that Canada has an ineffective regime. To go 20 miles in a dinghy at night to go over the side of a Portugese or Spanish vessel and lay charges is not a job description for the faint of heart, and I think the individuals who actually do the job of enforcing and policing deserve credit, even though I think they are probably as frustrated as anyone sometimes with the shortcomings we have had in the enforcement.
There are 101 things I could talk about, but I am cognizant of the time limits. As a final point, I will touch on the issue that Mr. Crosbie raised regarding common property and rights-based fishing. First of all, just for clarification, a good many of our fisheries are, in fact, managed under individual quota regimes. They are not transferable quotas. If somebody in a 35-foot boat has a quota of crab in Bonavista Bay, Clearwater Seafoods cannot buy that and put it on board a 200-foot vessel. There are, in fact, individual quotas on a number of fisheries. I do not for one minute buy the argument that rights-based allocation of fish where people have individual quotas, transferable or otherwise, somehow creates better stewardship. As a matter of fact, the track record is that every single stock that is currently under moratorium in Canada historically had a significant component, if not all of it, managed under a rights-based regime that failed to achieve what the idealized will tell you will be the outcome of it. Quite frankly, I think AIMS needs to improve its aim. I always thought a right wing think tank was a bit of a contradiction of terms, to tell you the truth.
I would like to comment on briefly on the recent apocalypse report from a group at Dalhousie University. They say that if we continue to do for the next 50 years what we did for the last 50 years the fishery will be over. Well, in 35 of those last 50 years we fished the northern cod stock at 260,000 tonnes to 300,000 tonnes, today we are fishing at 2,000 tonnes. I suppose I could say that if in the next 70 years we have dropped just as many atomic bombs as in the last 70 years then two more cities will be destroyed, that would be true, but I am not sure how relevant it is, and I really think the whole premise was pretty shaky. Clearly we have some problems, but I do not think we need to go around with "the end is nigh'' signs across our chests.
Those are my comments to get the ball rolling. Thank you again for the opportunity.
Senator Baker: Mr. McCurdy, we are particularly interested in your comments regarding the recently announced changes. You mentioned one is that if a vessel is found guilty of misreporting, then it would go back to its port. We are talking about a foreign vessel out on the nose, tail, or Flemish Cap. After we delved into this, we discovered that, as you rightly pointed out, there is a failing in that the corrective measures may not be taken: the port will ask the captain to justify any additional catch aboard, and if the captain can prove that he was in another fishing area prior to or after, then the case is not made out. We read the minutes of the June 2006 scientific meeting in Copenhagen, I think it was, and most of the static points that were brought up by the Canadian delegation objecting to this or that and trying to get better measures were referred to the general meeting in September. Out of that general meeting come these so-called positive moves by NAFO. Would you agree with that so far?
Mr. McCurdy: Yes.
Senator Baker: When we delved into the positive moves, we found that if there is a problem with the vessel monitoring system on the boat of a Newfoundland fisherman, he or she has to come into port and get it fixed; if he does not, he is charged. However, if the foreigners have a problem, there is no such requirement; that is not at the level of misreporting that would cause them to go home or to the closest port. In other words, the VMS can be found to be out of order by the Canadian inspectors but that would not require the foreign vessel to go into port. We found further that the observers are not compellable in a court of law. In fact, it is not and will not be their practice to bring the observer into court to prove the case. We also found, as you pointed out a minute ago, that the punishment or the sanctions that are imposed by the flag state are not guaranteed in any way.
Those things apply to the Canadian fishermen you represent: if a Newfoundlander's VMS is out, he is charged and has to come into port; the observer is used in court to prove the case against him; and there are in law very stern punishments that your fishermen have to put up with. Yet those things are missing for the foreign vessels out there. How can we really call that progress?
Mr. McCurdy: I guess progress is measured against what was there before. Because all these enforcement measures and so on are of a very technical nature, in terms of evaluating such proposals I generally talk directly to the enforcement people at DFO. I have been around the block a couple of times and I know many people who are directly involved in the enforcement end of DFO. I believe many of them are dedicated public servants, and some of them are Newfoundlanders, and they want to have an effective regime and to catch those guys just as much as you and I do. I will usually take the ones I know who have struck me as being quite competent at their job off to the side somewhere and say, "Look, from your point of view for you to do your job, is this better or is that better?''
I think the only way the observer program would have functioned effectively would be if we had had Canadian observers, but it turned out that on some vessels the observers were glorified crew members. Also, as you said, there is a weakness in that in a number of the European countries observer evidence is not subject to the court. There are some real shortcomings. Therefore, I looked at our enforcement to see if we have something better.
The reason the sending of a vessel to port is significant is that if you curtail fishing, that is a real penalty, especially if you get them during a trip. It may be a funny way to go about getting the penalty, but it is not bad. If I were driving to Port aux Basques and I got stopped in Clarenville for speeding and sent back to St. John's to have that matter dealt with, even if I got off, I would have gotten quite a knock because I would have to drive back to Clarenville again to get where I started. I think that consequence has a salutary effect.
I can only assume that if a vessel had its VMS out that would be a clear signal. Canada does control the patrol vessels, and I assume that our authorities would board a vessel whose VMS was out. I would hope that that would at least make it difficult.
The Portuguese actually believe we are persecuting them out there with repeat boardings and other things. On some of those measures, that is why I said the jury is still out. I do not know how effective those measures will be. I am not ready to put up the victory sign just yet. I think there is potential for better enforcement. Put it this way: the people who do the enforcement believe there is. I think it will be in the fullness of time that we find out for sure.
Senator Baker: Mr. McCurdy, I want to read you a sentence from the NAFO website. I am shocked by this sentence. By the way, I was shocked by something else I learned yesterday: I was not aware that we do dragging other than shrimp with the 65 footers. I was not aware that the fish plants were existing from dragging for groundfish. I thought that had gone out, but they do drag for groundfish. I thought the only dragging we actually did was 65 footers in defined shrimp areas. The second thing that amazed me we heard in testimony here today. Somebody had heard on the Fisheries Broadcast that there are dragging quotas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Are you aware of that? We heard a description of 409 metric tonnes in 4R and 4S, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, assigned to an offshore mobile fleet. They had to go to you to get inshore fishermen to fish the quota, or the understanding was they would use inshore fishermen to fish their quota which they still had over the years and that was never taken away from them in 4R, 4S, and 4PN off Port aux Basques, about 60 miles offshore.
Mr. McCurdy: The areas adjacent to Newfoundland that would be relevant there are 4R and 3PN.
Senator Baker: Then it is 3PN, 4R and 4S, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Before I get to what amazes here, can you first of all address that question? Do we have draggers in the Gulf? Do we have dragging quotas in the Gulf for groundfish? We already know because it has been proven to us that we do have dragging quotas for certain fish plants on the south coast, but this is extra. Could you address that?
Mr. McCurdy: Actually, I am kind of surprised that you did not know that. The yellowtail flounder, for example, which has not been caught this year for economic reasons, is trawled. Redfish, which is caught with mid-water trawl, and a couple of other species in relatively minor amounts are fished in offshore trawlers.
Senator Baker: Offshore trawlers inshore, fishing inside 200 miles?
Mr. McCurdy: Inside 200 miles, yes.
Senator Baker: I did not know that.
Mr. McCurdy: On the issue of 4R, during the time of the moratorium, the minister at the time, Mr. Tobin, or perhaps it was Mr. Crosbie before him — a couple of ministers said this — announced that when the northern cod stocks are rebuilt, the first amount of quota will go to the inshore sector. There has never been a corresponding announcement with respect to 3PS, the Gulf or any other area. That announcement was unique to 2J and 3KL. Therefore, when the Gulf fishery reopened at a very small level, there were companies that had quotas. We made the case that the local inshore fishermen should have the opportunity to fish that quota. The authorities never did fully agree with that. They were not prepared to say that allocation is made here. In some years, they did limit the gear that could be used to gill nets and hook and line. We went to the companies that held the quota in bits and pieces in the Gulf, and said, "Look, we would like to work out an arrangement with you so that that quota can be fished by the small boats, those under 65 feet — most in the Gulf are under 35 feet — and land it for processing in your plant.'' We have negotiated that kind of an arrangement over the last several years to provide a bit of additional fishing opportunity for the inshore fleet in the Gulf.
Part and parcel of the plan, 400 tonnes, which is really part of the science program in the Gulf, is allocated to under 65-foot trawlers. For example, they do survey fishing. One problem we are running into is that even though the catch rates in the Gulf last year were phenomenal — wherever you put gear in the water there were exceptional catch rates, unheard of in a long, long time — the scientific advice is that stocks are still at a very low level. There is not a fisherman in the Gulf who buys that. Therefore, we have what are called sentinel fisheries, which have been in place for 12 years to provide additional data and to involve fishermen in the scientific process rather than simply relying on the computer analysis of the scientific community, which frankly did not serve us all that well in the past. You will be pleased to know that in 2006 the mobile gear, the long lines, and the gill nets all had the highest catch rates in 12 years. That stock is bouncing back.
Senator Campbell: You are the only one, I think, who has commended DFO on their enforcement, and I agree with you. If we take it as a logical given that every community would like more police officers on the street, would it not make sense to increase the number of enforcement officers and boats out there? I believe they said they have two on station pretty well all the time. Considering the area they have to cover and the number of boats out there from the different countries, it is an impossible task.
Mr. McCurdy: You can never have too many enforcement officers. I have heard from the people who actually work on the surveillance and from some of the senior people that some vessels are known to be pretty law abiding and do not pose much of a problem and the officers check on them from time to time, while other vessels are known to be more trouble. Like a cop with a couple of tough streets on his beat, the officers probably spend a little more time checking them out. There are some vessels you cannot turn your back on for two seconds because they will cheat. The enforcement people told me that the extra surveillance has significantly increased their ability to do their job. I am sure they would all say give us more, and I am not suggesting that we have enough. When you look at the stats of the amount of activity since May 2004, things have improved. I would say that having that extra vessel time was an improvement, and really I was commending as much as anything the people on board those vessels for a thankless job.
Senator Campbell: It is fair to say we are not going to get the cap, the nose, and the tail back, right?
Mr. McCurdy: Hopefully you will be wrong on that.
Senator Campbell: I hope I am too, and I have already made a suggestion of how we could do that, World Court be damned, but if we are not going to get that back, then we had better be enforcing big time and be the meanest gun in the west in the area, because from everything I hear, we are not getting it back. Would you agree?
Mr. McCurdy: Who knows what will happen, but certainly there is nothing I can see on the horizon that suggests that we will not.
Senator Campbell: "Rights-based fishing'' is a misnomer, it is not? Rights-based fishing has nothing to do with rights.
Mr. McCurdy: No, it is privatization.
Senator Campbell: Exactly.
Mr. McCurdy: There is a view that to everything you simply assign a commercial value and have it traded on Bay Street like futures and pork bellies. Personally I think fishing rights is a legacy of a coastal people, not something to peddle on Bay Street.
Senator Campbell: It is best described as buying a taxi licence in Vancouver.
Mr. McCurdy: If you want to see what a mess you can make of managing a fishery like that, just go to the coast of British Columbia. The management of British Columbia's domestic fisheries is an unmitigated Canadian disaster.
Senator Campbell: It is an unmitigated disaster because it is all based on the money that you have to pay to get your licence. Your fish is worth nothing. Your licence is worth the money. Licences go for $250,000. They are traded or sold. That is what I was trying to get at this morning. You cannot get into the fishery in British Columbia. It would be impossible unless you had $250,000 to get a licence.
In Labrador we talked about the ability of the young people in a fishing community to stay in the community and become fishermen instead of having to go to Fort McMurray for work, for instance. How do they get into a rights- based fishery? There is nothing rights about it. You cannot say, "If I can buy a boat, I want to go fishing.'' That is rights. The way it is now is about privatizing.
Mr. McCurdy: There are fisheries in British Columbia where more than half the landed value is used up in paying to buy the licence to catch the fish. My view is that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans should issue the right to fish, not the right to peddle the right to fish, which is what happens under these so-called rights-based fishing regimes. It is really the extraction of resource rent by non-fishing people that waters down the benefit of the fishing for those who actually go out there and get their hands dirty.
Senator Campbell: We heard from another witness about selling licences. For example, I own a licence, I live in Palm Springs, I give you my licence, you pay me for it, and I get a percentage. The same thing applies if I own farm land that I lease out. I do not farm it, I lease it, and that is exactly what happens with these licences. The big companies end up with licences and they decide where the fishery is will go and who will be in it, and what price they will pay, and how much of it you get. There is nothing democratic about rights-based fishing.
Mr. McCurdy: You will get no argument from me on any of those points. I concur.
Senator Johnson: Mr. McCurdy, we have heard a lot about NAFO in the last few days. You were commissioner. Can you tell us about that job?
Mr. McCurdy: The best I can tell, the difference between a commissioner and any other industry adviser on a delegation for Canada or another country is that we get to sit at the front table and I think we might get bottled water and those in the back may only get tap water. Apart from that, really the decisions are made under the direction of the minister whose only contact during a NAFO meeting is with the head of the delegation who is a government official, and there are generally two industry people who are notionally senior advisors, and I am not quite sure how senior we are, to be truthful. It is not the most prestigious position I have ever held, put it that way.
Senator Johnson: Is it effective? Are there enough teeth in NAFO to manage the fisheries sustainably? We have heard quite the contrary from several witnesses this morning, especially on the scientific side, who think that NAFO has failed and even the reforms are only band-aid treatment?
Mr. McCurdy: I think it would be fair to say that to date NAFO has failed dismally. I think the turbot stock would be a recent example of failure. I hope I did not portray those changes as suddenly fixing the problem. I think they may plug some of the shortcomings in NAFO, but I am not convinced. Only to the extent and at the time that Canada is actually able to do the enforcement would we really be more successful. That is not perfect either, but at least that would be our best shot at it under whatever regime. Maybe some of these changes will help. I think there is potential for some of them to help, but to date it certainly has not worked, and I have not gotten excited over the changes yet because we have to see them work.
Senator Johnson: What do you expect in the future? Are we on the right track at all with reform?
Mr. McCurdy: Most likely the future will bring further aggravation, although perhaps the aggravation will be more controlled and we might actually see some improvements. For example, what would happen if we had a greater abundance of fish? Right now in the NAFO regulatory area there are not huge amounts of fish for people to get excited about, so it is easier. It seems to me that now is the time to make progress because people are not getting hit in the pocket book when you do it and there is not a lot at stake. I would say firm things up as best you can now so that when the fish do come back, you have reasonably tight rules in place already.
Something you may not have heard that sort of looms in the background for me and that someday could be a big problem, which I think is a reason for all the NAFO countries to try to toughen up the regime, is the idea that China could get serious about sending out boats.
Senator Baker: Mr. McCurdy, as you know, Senator Adams represents Nunavut. He asked a simple question that I cannot answer but perhaps you can. When you look at the chart of all the vessels that fish on any given day, you find that Canada is way down compared to the European Union, Spain, Russia, Portugal, Iceland, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia. There are a few below Canada. The Ukraine, Poland and Germany have fewer than Canada. The NAFO website just shouts at you that the NAFO fishery targets approximately 25 commercial species, of which 11 species are managed by NAFO. Catches are reported to NAFO and published on the website when they become publicly available, which is usually about a year later. Now fishery of NAFO targets 25 commercial species, of which 11 species are managed by NAFO on Newfoundland's continental shelf. Can you explain that? If 11 species are managed, 14 species are targeted and yet not managed. Does that mean round nose, grenadier, argentine, and these species?
Mr. McCurdy: I do not know. I assume that means species that have relatively minor commercial significance, but I cannot answer that one. I have never seen that graph before, but I suspect that that is vessel presence on the NAFO regulatory area, NRA. Virtually all of Canada's NAFO quotas we fish inside the 200-mile limit, which is not part of the NRA and therefore would not be reflected in that graph. For instance, our shrimp in 3L is all fished inside the zone.
Senator Baker: Senator Adams's question was about the 14 species that are not managed by NAFO. If a Canadian fisherman wanted to fish that, he would have to have a licence from DFO, whereas the foreigners can fish it and can target it without a licence. I could not explain to him what these 14 other species are that NAFO targets but does not manage.
Mr. McCurdy: That answer puzzles me. My understanding is that a groundfish licence entitles you to fish groundfish, with the exception of a couple of groundfish species that have particular extra requirements, and if there is are groundfish stocks that do not have a quota, then someone with a groundfish licence is entitled to fish them. We do have some relatively minor stocks in our waters for which there is no quota. That seems like a puzzling answer. I am not quite sure what stocks they are talking about.
Senator Baker: Yes, but what would happen if you did not have a groundfish licence? Senator Adams was talking about entrance into the fishery. Fishermen from Japan, Poland or Lithuania can go out and fish it, but somebody from Nunavut or Newfoundland cannot. That was his point. We manage and control all species that are caught, whereas NAFO does not. I was puzzled about the 14 species. You, as a commissioner of NAFO, are also puzzled that this is on the NAFO site. I had never heard of it before.
Mr. McCurdy: It is news to me. I can only assume that they are minor species of minimal commercial interest.
Senator Baker: Yes, like some species that are now coming under management.
Mr. McCurdy: Some have come under management recently; some are still unregulated.
Senator Baker: Why is it that for all the new species that came under regulation, like skate, Canada got very little compared to what the foreigners were given? Is there a formula that is followed if a species comes under regulation that gives Canada only a tiny bit?
Mr. McCurdy: No, there is no formula. I think the short answer is that, in the absence of regulation, that could be used as an excuse to fish moratorium species, and it was a plugging of that loophole that had more to do with it, I would suggest, than anything else. Those species were previously used as an excuse to be fishing in shallow water, which at the time was an unlimited skate fishery, and foreign vessels who felt like doing so would pretend to be fishing for those species when in reality their target was, say, plaice or cod.
The Chairman: Mr. McCurdy, thank you very much for coming and being so clear and frank with us and joining the debate on certain issues. We value that because it will be helpful to us in making up our minds on our final presentation.
Mr. McCurdy: Thank you.
The Chairman: Senators, we have come to the end of our invited guests, and we now invite those people who want to make presentations to us to come forward. I have a list of people who have registered. I would ask you to confine your remarks to three minutes, if you can.
Julie Huntington, Newfoundland and Labrador Coalition for Healthy Oceans, as an individual: Thank you for making this time for people to speak. I am an environmental activist. My background is that I fished, bottom trawled in Australia for five years, and then after that I sold fishing licences and fishing boats. I could go around every regulation there was in the south east trawl fishery in Australia and make it beneficial for fishermen to buy other people's licences and to build their licences up. I know that it is very difficult to manage a fishery because fishermen and people who sell fishing licences can always get around the rules that are put forward.
I would like to speak with you about the proposed interim international waters bottom trawling moratorium that is before the UN at the moment. I am in support of a temporary time out for bottom trawling in international waters to ensure the protection of sensitive habitats. We, in Newfoundland and Labrador, have lived for hundreds of years using the oceans as a source of food and industry. We know that without environmental protection fish habitat and other sensitive areas can be destroyed and can take years to recover and perhaps they will never recover in our lifetime.
As citizens of the world we need to act responsibly. We need to think outside our own fishing areas. Now we have the opportunity to protect vulnerable areas in international waters and we can protect them from being destroyed. We can do this by supporting a strong United Nations resolution on bottom dragging in international waters.
This proposed moratorium does not affect the fishery management inside Canada's exclusive fishing zone. We already manage our fishery here, including bottom trawling zones, gears, and different types of bottom trawling that are allowed, although one might say we need more observers and more fisheries officers.
By supporting the international bottom trawling moratorium, Canada would show that we recognize the need to work collectively with other nations to manage in an effective manner vulnerable ecosystems in the high seas, such as corals and other sensitive areas like sea mounts.
Senators, I call upon you as representatives of the citizens of Canada to put words into action, to publicly support this international time out on bottom dragging. This issue will affect us, whether we choose to participate in a moratorium on bottom trawling or not. It will affect us because ecosystems within our zone and worldwide are interconnected. That is the basis of the ecosystem approach to management, and even activities outside our waters do and will have many environmental consequences within our waters. We need time to learn about and protect sensitive vulnerable habitats, and by supporting the United Nations proposed moratorium on bottom dragging in the high seas we can do this.
The Chairman: Ms. Huntington, thank you very much indeed for your presentation and for being within the time limit.
J. Leonard Barron, as an individual: Senators, most of my life has been spent in the paper industry as a senior supervisor, and many of the principles I learned there are applicable to other industries.
After a disaster or catastrophe in the paper industry, an investigation always follows to determine the causes and to make recommendations so that there is not a reoccurrence. Most times the recommendations are circulated throughout the industry.
The loss of our groundfish stocks has not received any detailed inquiry into the events associated with the collapse. Unless this is done, there will never be a successful program leading to the recovery of the stocks. We have been 14 years now since we had to have a moratorium.
When Senator George Baker was chair of the House of Commons Fisheries Committee, he announced his intention of carrying out such an inquiry. However, because of very strong objections from the industry and the federal bureaucracy, his membership on the Fisheries Committee was terminated by Prime Minister Chrétien. That was in 1995. With the passage of time and personnel changes in both the industry and in the bureaucracy, there should be a new effort to seek out a program for the recovery of the stocks.
There are many factors involved in the recovery, including the extent of overfishing by Canadians and by the foreigners. Were any controls in place before 1992? If so, how effective were they? Another factor is the amount of wastage to be tolerated with trawler methodology. Approximately three months ago The Telegram, our local newspaper, reported that the shrimp trawlers have a 15 per cent discard rate. That is what is hauled out and thrown away because the fish are suffocated or pressurized in the nets. I have been told by local trawler crews that when they are fishing for the groundfish stocks, they could discard up to 30 per cent of their hauls in order to get a yield that is financially very successful.
There are mesh sizes in trawling, but I would like to bring to your attention that no matter what the mesh size is, once the larger fish have been retained by the net, they act as a filter media so that all solid material that comes in the path of the net is retained. The main thing that a large mesh does is lengthen the time of a fishing effort to pick up a load from the trawling.
Then there is the high capital cost of factory trawlers. It has been estimated that the Estai, which we arrested, cost approximately $35,000 a day to have on the water. Because of that high cost, there is a lot of pressure on the crews to operate quickly to get a full load in as short a time as possible, and the sooner the trawler is full, the sooner it can make a return trip and continue.
The other points I want to make are the environmental factors. They have never been measured, as I have heard, and there is also the estimation of stock populations. That has been done very, very poorly. There is no mathematical justification for the figures that were used by DFO. The Norwegians had a collapse of fish stocks in the early 1980s, and their stocks have recovered. We have something to learn there and we should examine the detail of what they did to recover there fish stocks.
Then, of course, there is custodial management, I am not going to say anything about that because I support it 100 per cent.
Carl Powell, as an individual: I brought along a homemade map to show my points about the serious problems I see in the ocean around our province. I will start up here where Quebec changed the Quebec-Labrador border by raising it up into the Churchill River watershed. They did that in about 1999 and it is now finding its way into all government publications, particularly in Quebec. International mining companies, diamond companies, exploration and logging are using this map, and our provincial government says it is not an issue. That is a very simple response, but this has fishery implications. It has the big five rivers starting with the Romaine, which is now in construction with five hydro plants, and Jean Charest has announced that the Mecatina will be the next. If these headwaters stay in Quebec we are all right, but if they are still in Labrador it will greatly affect the anadromous fish going up, like salmon, alewife, shad, sea trout, and it will also very much affect the salinity and the pH of the water here, which is salt water under the control of drought and flood with power stations as they operate. Unless they put fish ladders here, nothing will be able to get up river. It is a very serious move on the part of Quebec unilaterally, and apparently it is now fait accompli, you might say.
I have seen this in many Canadian publications. Looking at the map, they say this border here marks the federal claim. I cannot find out what that means. This here is Quebec's claim. Actually, that watershed is touching the Lower Churchill watershed. Down here is a line that starts in the Bay of Chaleur and comes out here, if you can see that. I can leave this map with you. That line comes down here below the Magdalen Islands and it is called the Old Harry Deposit. It is very rich in hydrocarbons and minerals. It comes over here off Cape Anguille, Port aux Basques, goes up and it hits a line ten miles down from the straight part of the border, that little bit between the two places there, and it is only about 25 miles off Port-au-Choix.
If you go to any petroleum company or international shipping company — and this was done in 1964, and with our province — you will find the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. The only place you can get a permit is inside that line. If you do it on this side, you have to got to Quebec and they operate unilaterally. It is my contention that that is done with the tacit approval of the federal government, but it is used by everybody now, even the shipping going up the St. Lawrence is using this line coming up here.
That has great implications because of what they are doing in here. Corridor Resources, a subsidiary from Texas, is drilling off Anticosti, but I cannot find out, although the government could, what that might mean because most of the St. Lawrence comes down here through Port aux Basques, North Sydney, and comes down this way. A little while ago an arbitration board in Ottawa changed the boundary and swung it down towards Nova Scotia so that Newfoundland would get more acreage on its Grand Banks for oil well drilling, and it ties in. I read the decision and the statutes, and it ties in with that line. Now that line has got another legality to it because if you describe this as starting here, then that line was 1964, and I maintain that somehow they got the information from Hooker Chemical with Mr. Smallwood at the time when they were looking for salt domes and KCl domes down in the St. George's area, which has a lot of that. This down here is Saint-Pierre & Miquelon, and that is called the Baguette, which looks like a French loaf of bread, and that comes down here, but there is the big one that comes up.
Last fall in November or September, Pierre Pettigrew and Paul Martin, who was then our Prime Minister, announced that they had given France this huge chunk of land here. Its northern border is on the 200-mile economic zone limit here, and it goes down almost to the continental rise and is owned exclusively by France. What they will do there is fishing, and I know there is going to be a lot of oil drilling because right up here you have Hibernia, the Terra Nova, and White Rose, and here is the tail of the Grand Banks, and I do not have it on my map, but here is the nose up here. That is your slope and out here you have the continental rise.
I just want to point out how badly we did going into Confederation and how little we took in and how much Ottawa maybe took from us. I blame ourselves. A lot of people worry about the Titanic, and Britain, France, and the United States have now formed a consortium to try to stop everybody from taking parts of it because you can get down there fairly easily. You can ask anybody where is that thing sitting; it is sitting right down here on a ridge on the continental slope of Newfoundland, the Grand Banks, the tail. That is where the Titanic sits. We brought it into Confederation and very few people know that except Bob Ballard, which is where I got my information.
Fred Winson, North-East Avalon Group, Sierra Club of Canada, as an individual: I am here today representing the North East Avalon Branch of the Sierra Club of Canada.
By training, I am a fisheries historian, and I am here in support of the moratorium on bottom trawling. To give you an idea of the magnitude of bottom trawling over the last number of years off Newfoundland, in 1973 the federal government froze the number of groundfish licences for vessels over 100 feet at 199 licences. I worked for a number of years as a fisheries observer. An average wet fish trawler would make about 20 trips a year, make about 50 sets every trip, and each set would be about ten miles, a two-and-a-half-hour tow at four knots. Therefore, each trawler would plough the bottom approximately 10,000 miles a year. If you multiply that out by approximately 200 vessels, you are looking at around 2,000,000 miles that we towed the bottom of the Grand Banks and the Scotian Shelf every year. If you multiply that over 20 years, 1973 to 1992, it will give you some idea of the magnitude of the damage wrought by bottom trawling. That is just our offshore wet fish trawler fleet. That is not the vessels under 65 feet and no foreign vessels are included in those numbers. That is just to give you some idea of the kind of magnitude we are dealing with and it is that kind of destruction that has brought me here today and that has brought the East Coast fishery to its knees.
We have destroyed virtually every groundfish stock in Eastern North America, everything from Georges Bank north right up to Labrador. We have destroyed every finfish stock. Groundfish is being fished with wet fish trawler fleet now inside 200 miles; turbot is one good example. That technology and that method of fishing are not sustainable. We talk about how if we close the fishery we will have trouble with all these plants in the shrimp fishery. The shrimp fishery is being fished with the same kind of technology, and it will collapse. We do not know when, but it will collapse. The same is true with redfish because we are fishing the single last redfish stock left now. Turbot is the same. Those stocks will collapse. We just do not know when.
The moratorium on bottom trawling is a positive first step in terms of the ecosystem of the planet. It is supported by over 1,200 scientists from 62 countries. It is backed by quite a substantial amount of scientific background.
In Canada, we never looked at habitat. Habitat is not a consideration in the federal fisheries management plans. You cannot find one regulation in the Fisheries Act to protect fish habitat from destruction by fishing technologies. There is not one that exists and there never has been, not since we started fishing.
The Chairman: I think you have made your point very clearly and thank you for keeping within the time limit.
D.H. Steele, as an individual: I came today as an observer. I did not expect to give any presentation, so this may be a bit disjointed. However, I do believe that those who do not remember their history are compelled to relive it, so I would like to give a little history, because I do not agree that what I have heard today is in fact the way things were in the past.
I started fisheries research back in 1953. Part of that involved working with ping pongs. Ping pongs were the haddock that were caught on the Grand Banks. These were little haddock that were caught in huge numbers back in the 1950s. There was a fishery back then that caught about 70,000 tonnes of haddock a year, but by the end of the 1950s the haddock were all gone. They are commercially extinct, maybe 1,000 tonnes a year or less. That fishery has disappeared, it is no longer there.
Therefore, it is really not correct to say that the collapse of the northern cod and all these other species is something that has not happened before. It has happened, and we should have remembered it when we were and are managing the cod.
It occurs to me that since the federal government insists they are solely responsible for managing fisheries, they should take responsibility for the failure. They should financially compensate those fishermen who have lost their income. The haddock fishery should have been able to maintain catches of 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes every year until today. That is what sustainable management should mean, not this less than 1,000 tonnes that you may catch as a bycatch. The fishery is commercially extinct.
Cod is virtually commercially extinct. There is no fishery. We are arguing about a couple of thousand tonnes when it used to support fisheries of 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes. If those fish were caught today, the amount of money they would pump into the economy every year would be astronomical. I believe the federal government should compensate the fishermen for their loss of income.
The other point I would like to make is that fisheries management should be considered as an experiment. You are running experiments out there. In science, we do experiments. Fishing, fisheries, this is an experiment. You make a prediction, you go out and catch the fish, you get the results. If the results are not what you expect, then you have to make new predictions. You do not argue that those results are due to cold water, seals, or some other extraneous factors. You have to go back to the basic principle and look at where you went wrong.
I have made a number of presentations, which I would like to communicate to you.
The Chairman: Absolutely. Thank you for making that point. If others would like to make written submissions, we would be glad to receive them.
Mr. Steele: I have written half a dozen things on northern cod and so on.
The Chairman: We would be happy to have them.
Mr. Steele: I would like to send them to you. I would say that I had some difficulty contacting the Canadian Senate. On the Internet, all I get are pages from the U.S. Senate.
The Chairman: Did you go to Parliament?
Mr. Steele: No, I did not go to Parliament. I went to Canadian Senate.
The Chairman: The Senate is part of the Canadian Parliament. There are two Houses of Parliament, the lower house and upper house. If you go to Parliament on the Internet, you will find the Senate, and a very adequate website. We will be pleased to hear from you and from anybody else who wants to make a written presentation. Thank you very much.
Raymond Walsh, as an individual: I represent Newfoundland and Labrador fishermen. I have been fishing for 35 or 40 years. I have been on the wharf since I was about eight years old. I can hardly talk about the state it is in. You are talking about overfishing. They overfished when they landed on the island with schooners from England and started overfishing off Pound Cove. That is when it started first. The Queen got in there and took us, we came over from Ireland 500 years ago and we owned it, we found that land, and the Queen came over from England and took it from us and overfished, and now look where it went. Greed and money go together. We never had money back then. All we did was live like an Indian. I am just saying that is the way the people lived. Now look.
I am going to tell you right now I must have nine lives because they had to put me down about six or seven times, and they wrote a book on me. I am not saying you. I am just saying please, hospitals, if they would only go into my files and look what they have done to me. I do not know but I died, but I came back to life, because they pumped so much it scared me, electric shocks, because I spoke about the fishing. If I come out here today, the police officer is there already. They sent three police officers to arrest me a couple of nights ago. They arrested me last year coming out from a coffee shop. I cannot get in to talk about the fishing or anything to express my opinion. Every time I do, they stop me. It is a pitiful sight. Police officers with guns.
Why do you have police officers with guns and everything, because the young people are decked down hard and they will steal, but just like Mexico now. They are sending a bunch in and a bunch out, and we are getting minimum wage, and they are taking all these newcomers in and they are going in to take the oil. The oil should never be out there. The fishing is for fishing. Oil is coming in out there, I am telling you right now.
There are a lot of us fishermen, I can guarantee you. I came here today and there are 25,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 of us, but the thing is that oil is coming in out of there. I was down in Bay Bulls where they bring out the rigs. I said to the buddy running the company, "What do we get if the oil dips out to sea?'' He said you have to put in a request, insurance. We have nothing. The fishermen have nothing. Okay, if the oil pumps out in the sea while I am sitting here, what do the fishermen get? What is our compensation? Is it written in a book somewhere? I do not see it. How much compensation do we get? The oil rigs came to us and met the fishermen and told us, "Okay, if we are going out for oil, this is your compensation if something happens, but there are a few in Newfoundland who are running the whole show.''
I tell you right now, I could sit here all day and talk about stuff. Today, if I had not met George Baker up at the hotel, I would not know this meeting was on the go. We have a union back here, a crab committee, and an action committee. Even my buddies on the action committee did not tell me there was a meeting.
I will tell you another thing: I might be a member of the FFAW, but I am first a member of the teamsters. I was in Toronto before I got in there. I am a teamster member for life. When you are a teamster, that is it. I am just saying about the union that it is another farce. It is not a farce if you had somebody right to run it. It is like Liberals and PCs, Liberals and PCs.
Mr. Chairman: Mr. Walsh, thank you very much.
That concludes our hearings here today. Thank you to all who made presentations. I repeat that if you have written presentations that you want to send, please send them to the clerk and they will be read and considered before we make our final report.
The committee adjourned.