Mr. Chair, committee members, thank you ever so much for giving me an opportunity to come to talk about the fishery, especially as it applies to our nation and to my province, Newfoundland and Labrador—a fishery, I might add, that is of vital importance to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The prosperity of our province has always been highly dependent on the resources of the sea. As a result, developments in international law relating to the concept of territorial seas and the rights of coastal states have always been followed with keen interest in my province.
The fish stocks on our Grand Banks have been significant contributors to the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery and economy. Unfortunately, the Canadian 200-mile exclusive economic zone, the EEZ, does not encompass the entire bank. The nose and tail of the Grand Banks are in international waters, and several fish stocks very important to Newfoundland and Labrador straddle that 200-mile limit.
Historically, the most noteworthy of these stocks is the northern cod. Prior to the establishment of the zone, this stock felt the impact of foreign overfishing. If we go back to the late sixties, foreign vessels in I think 1968 landed approximately 800,000 tonnes of northern cod. This stock has never really fully recovered from this unsustainable fishing.
With the extension of the jurisdiction in 1977 came the establishment of NAFO, a multilateral organization responsible for managing fish stocks in the northwest Atlantic. The objective of NAFO is to contribute to consultation, cooperation, the optimum utilization and rational management, and the conservation of the fisheries resources of the convention area.
We contend as a jurisdiction that NAFO has failed to live up to those objectives. Many others agree. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and the report of the Advisory Panel on Straddling Fish Stocks reached the same conclusion after examining the performance of NAFO.
The problems of the eighties and nineties are well documented. The objection procedure was used regularly to grossly overfish stocks, and NAFO could do nothing—I say nothing—to stop it. Flags of convenience were used to fish outside the rules, and NAFO again could do nothing about it. Many countries were misreporting, and again NAFO could do nothing about it.
The result was the collapse of just about every straddling stock off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Reform efforts have failed to remove the objection procedure or achieve an internal binding dispute settlement. Having one vote out of twelve clearly does not afford the protection this country needs for adjacent and straddling stocks.
Some improvements were made after the infamous turbot war, but the improved fishing behaviour came at a very high price in terms of resource access. And illustrating the poor fishing behaviour, in 2003 the estimated foreign catch of species under moratoria was upwards of 15,000 tonnes, over half of which was American plaice, a stock for which Canada holds 98% of the quota, which historically was fished and processed primarily by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
The Government of Canada did respond to the problem, by increasing its patrols and surveillance in the NAFO regulatory area. This action, combined with the lack of fish and increasing cost, has reduced activity by foreign vessels on the nose and tail of the banks. However, what happens if—or should I say when—the fish return? We believe that without an effective management regime, there's a very high probability, almost a certainty, I would think, that many of the problems will return and that we'll go down that same road.
The motivation behind our province's stand with regard to custodial management is not only to rebuild the fish stocks but to protect them as well. It is about ensuring that the fish stocks that straddle the 200-mile EEZ are given a chance to recover and be sustained for the benefit of all those who fish in the northwest Atlantic. To reach this goal, custodial management involves enhanced fisheries management by the adjacent coastal state. It's an approach that could be used by other coastal states but which would be initiated on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. By applying this custodial management out to the edge of the continental shelf, Canada would manage the stocks that currently straddle the 200-mile limit. This would ensure consistent application of resource conservation measures.
As a coastal state, Canada would assume responsibility for ensuring that conservation and scientifically based management was applied. Canada would be responsible for surveillance and enforcement. This is the start of a solution that could work in a multilateral context. NAFO, as the regional fisheries organization, could continue to be responsible for access and allocation decisions, scientific recommendations, and the management of discrete stocks outside Canada's 200-mile EEZ zone.
Let me be clear: it's not an extension of jurisdiction and it's not a grab for resources or territory. It would respect historical shares, it would promote conservation, and it would enhance our role as a nation, as a coastal state. It would strengthen compliance with management measures and provide greater deterrence for fisheries violations outside the 200-mile limit. Straddling stocks, such as cod, American plaice, flounders, redfish, and Greenland halibut would all be given a better chance to rebuild.
However, if this cannot be implemented within NAFO, then in the interests of allowing the stocks to rebuild, we will continue to urge the Government of Canada to pursue this option through other means, such as creating an alternate regional management organization, as suggested by the advisory panel chaired by Dr. Art May.
The current federal government did promise the people of my province, Newfoundland and Labrador, that it would indeed pursue custodial management if elected. Both Prime Minister Harper and the former Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Loyola Hearn, committed in writing and verbally that they would indeed pursue custodial management. The failure in this instance is that they never even tried. Instead, the Government of Canada, along with other NAFO members, undertook a NAFO reform process.
As part of this process, the NAFO convention has been amended. We indeed have great concerns in regard to some of these amendments. The amended NAFO convention will serve as a vehicle for other nations to impose their management over stocks inside Canada's sovereign 200-mile limit. History has shown the tragic ecological results of mismanagement of stocks by foreigners outside our 200-mile limit. We must ensure that this never happens again within our own borders.
We wrote to then minister Hearn in September 2007 and stated that “The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador will not support reforms to a convention that may allow NAFO to set measures inside the Canadian zone.”
Our position today remains the same as it was then.
Our province and many experts, including DFO executives with extensive NAFO experience, are extremely concerned with the clause in the amended NAFO convention that in certain circumstances allows NAFO to apply measures in the waters under our national jurisdiction. The new wording could very easily and clearly lead to the increased influence of NAFO inside the Canadian 200-mile limit.
I wrote to Minister Shea in July 2009, concerned that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans alone could make this decision. I asked that any request of any management of NAFO within the zone certainly at least be a decision of cabinet. Since then, the high-calibre representation that we've had from former DFO executives has demonstrated that the risk is simply too great to proceed with the amended NAFO agreement. Indeed, there are no other persons in Canada who have such an intimate knowledge of NAFO conventions as these officials. Their sage advice cannot be ignored.
The province has certainly again reiterated that we can take no risk and that the amended convention should not be ratified by Canada. Particularly in these times when arctic sovereignty issues abound, Canada must demonstrate with clarity and certainty that we will not accept such measures in any jurisdiction in this great country.
Some have argued that we need not worry because the opposed amendment would only put that option into the NAFO convention and Canadian politicians would never allow it to happen in practice. Unfortunately, no one can predict how any future minister or government will act. Therefore, it's critical that this option not exist in any manner, shape, or form that opens the possibility of foreign management or enforcement in Canadian waters.
One of the primary objectives stated by the federal government when heading into NAFO reform was to prevent the continued abuse of the objection procedure. The EU has historically used this clause to grossly overfish stocks off our coast during the 1980s and early 1990s, with the blessing of NAFO. The agreed-upon NAFO objection review procedure in the new convention continues to be inadequate. While it puts a process in place, nothing in this process is binding on the contracting party or prevents unilateral action that could seriously jeopardize conservation. Nations can continue to use the objection procedure. While this can be challenged by others at NAFO, unilaterally decided quotas will continue to be fished, further eroding the precious and often valuable resources off our shores. Indeed, such quotas are being set today in relation to shrimp stocks off our coast.
Just a few days ago, in Bergen, NAFO agreed to set the TAC for a number of stocks, again above the scientific advice. This is indeed time that we did something different. We know that the NAFO approach has and will continue to require that member states, particularly Canada as a key coastal state, compromise either their historic attachment to the resource or conservation of these important stocks.
The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador believes that Canada should not be willing to stay on such a destructive path. Custodial management is a multilateral and collective opportunity to restore, protect, and share resources in the future. It speaks to Newfoundland and Labrador's awareness that the current system is not working. It just might serve as a model for other parts of the world as well.
I ask for your support for Canadian custodial management of straddling stocks off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Thank you very much.
:
Again, as I alluded to in my opening statement, we were not satisfied with the decisions that were made by the Canadian delegation at the negotiating table, or the NAFO table—whatever you want to refer to—in the current year at Bergen.
There are a couple of them. One is the Greenland halibut or the turbot. There's a 15-year plan and we're five years into it. Because it's a recovering stock, the plan was to reduce each year, as the years went on. Canada went in, and the position they put on the table immediately was a rollover, which then got away from the plan, against scientific advice. Of course, that worried us, to have a nation go in and again ignore scientific advice.
But the 3M cod is worrisome for us because it's the first year off moratorium. We have northern cod, which is under moratorium as well, and some scientists are telling us that it is coming back. I think the Europeans are getting a whiff of that as well. I think this was a first test of Canada.
At the table, again, the scientists indicated that they wanted to be very precautionary. It was a stock coming back from a moratorium. They suggested that it would be—I don't have the figures in front of me—somewhere around 4,000 tonnes. They had some dissenting people around the table, some nations. The United States and Norway voted to stick with science and the Scientific Council, which gave the advice. The European countries went for the bigger quota. Suprisingly, as we have an interest of probably 1% of that stock, Canada, against scientific advice, said and voted with the Europeans to increase the quota. It might not seem like a lot, 5,000 tonnes or whatever, but it's just the fact that our country had a chance around the table to make a statement that when our northern cod comes up we're going to be precautionary, but it ignored that.
So those were two incidents, and there are some others that I won't belabour. But again, it was disappointing.
It was not our position, by the way, as a province, because we certainly indicated to the minister prior to going over there what our positions were. It was to reduce the halibut, to basically stick with scientific advice.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And, Minister, thank you for coming here today.
One of the confusing things for me is that a few years ago, Mr. Scott Simms, who was the then Liberal critic for fisheries and oceans, and I met with Mr. Tom Rideout. Mr. Rideout was affectionately known as “the minister for everything” at that time in Newfoundland and Labrador. We had just finished meeting with the four gentlemen you talked about, here in Ottawa and in Newfoundland, and they were very concerned about NAFO and what it meant.
Thus we took it so seriously, and we wanted to do it in a non-partisan way and go and meet Mr. Rideout, who was speaking on behalf of the government. He basically said he had no concerns about the amendments. He seemed to think everything was fine and that Mr. McCurdy, who was the president of the FFAW, representing thousands of inshore plant workers and fishermen, seemed to think this amendment or this particular recent NAFO discussion was okay. It put me in a bind, because I was personally against the amendments, but if the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador at that time seemed to be okay with it, if the people most affected by it seemed to think it was okay, I didn't have much of a leg to stand on.
First of all, when did this sort of...not necessarily change of opinion, but reassessment of the situation take place within Premier Williams' government?
Secondly, when Earle McCurdy, whose name I mentioned earlier, appeared before our committee, he seemed supportive of the amendments. So my simple question is, do you agree with Mr. McCurdy's assessment of the NAFO amendments?
The last one, which I'm concerned about as well, is the 3M cod. Why would Canada allow a higher outtake of that cod species than science would allow?
When you listen to VOCM or to other people in Newfoundland and Labrador, a lot of them—Senator George Baker is prominent on this—say that for years, fish stocks off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador were used as a sort of bartering chip for other aspects of the Canadian economy. And we know that Canada-EU talks are ongoing.
I don't necessarily need you to respond to that particular assessment, or I guess you could call it more a conspiracy theory than anything else. But on the other two, could you possibly respond to when the government amended its opinion on the agreement, and also on Mr. McCurdy's position?
Lastly—and you can take this one home with you, because it has nothing to do with what we're talking about—there is the issue of light stations in Newfoundland and Labrador. The government's position is that it is reviewing the possible de-staffing of light stations. We'd sure like to know, at a later time, the province's position, your view on that possibility if indeed it were to happen.
Thank you so much, and thank you for appearing today.
First, I obviously can't speak for Minister Rideout. I'd like to be able to say that I knew where he was coming from. I've been the minister for less than a year now, and from my briefing when I came in, it was clear to me that we were not satisfied with the conventions. This was last Hallowe'en, as a matter of fact—a scary proposition, I know. Basically, when I did my briefings I went to NAFO and I found nothing there that indicated to me that we were happy with the conventions.
With regard to Earle McCurdy, to respond to a previous MP, obviously if he's comfortable with the conventions...I don't agree with him, nor does the province. What you have to understand is that these conventions were brought back and we reviewed them. As a matter of fact, in a letter I wrote to Minister Shea I explored the possibility.... I could not believe—it was incredible—that a minister of the crown could allow our sovereignty to be breached simply on his or her say. I asked whether he would even consider going to a cabinet level. The response I got was no, it would be things as usual.
That again raised big concerns. It was shortly after this that we went back—some of these gentlemen I referred to, these former executives, and I—to the premier and said we wanted to do a review. When we looked back on it, we came to the conclusion that regardless of whether it was cabinet or a minister, if there's any sense of a risk that NAFO will get inside the 200-mile limit and compromise our sovereignty, we're not there. That's the long and short of it.
Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you very much.
Hon. Tom Hedderson: With regard to the 3M cod—as I pointed out, we weren't around the table—my officials got back to me and said, “You won't believe what happened today”; our nation had voted with the EU, against Norway and against the United States, to increase the quota from a recovering stock. The reason was that something had happened around that table, I suspect, because when the Europeans came in, with regard to the halibut, it's my understanding that they wanted it to be reduced; Canada wanted it to be rolled over.
I guess it was a case of “you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours”. That's my conjecture, because, again, I wasn't around the table, but I know that around that table you don't get anything unless you give something up. So Canada had to have made some sort of deal, and it will be up to those who were around the table to make good on it.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With me today is my colleague from the Department of Fisheries and Ocean's science branch in Ottawa, Mr. David Gillis.
On behalf of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we welcome the opportunity to speak about the science within the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, NAFO, and also the important role of Canadian fisheries science and scientists within that organization.
Within NAFO, science and scientific advice is produced by a constituent body called the Scientific Council. Based upon their advice, the NAFO Fisheries Commission adopts measures to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of the fishery resources in the NAFO convention area, which comprises both Canada's exclusive economic zone, the EEZ, and the NAFO regulatory area, the NRA, beyond Canada's 200-nautical-mile limit.
I'd like to start by providing the committee a brief overview of the Scientific Council, its function, and how it accomplishes its mandate. Within NAFO the Scientific Council is one body, which is equal in status to the other two bodies: the Fisheries Commission and the General Council.
The Scientific Council is responsible for a number of functions. They provide a forum for consultation and cooperation among the contracting parties—the member states of NAFO—to study and exchange scientific information and views on fishing activities and the ecosystems in which they occur. They study and appraise the current and future status of fishery resources, including environmental and ecological factors affecting them. They promote cooperation and scientific research among contracting parties to fill gaps in scientific knowledge. They compile and maintain statistics and records and publish or disseminate reports, information, and materials pertaining to the fishing activities in the NAFO convention area and their ecosystems. They provide scientific advice to the Fisheries Commission and coastal states as requested.
To address its mandate, the Scientific Council has established four standing committees.
Fishery Science, or STACFIS, is the committee that conducts the stock assessments that are the basis for the actual advice, which is then formulated by the Scientific Council.
Research Coordination, or STACREC, is the committee that provides a forum for the discussion of scientific research and studies in the NAFO area and compiles fisheries statistics.
Publications, or STACPUB, is the committee that oversees the publication of scientific information, including NAFO's Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Science, a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on environmental, biological, economic, and social science aspects of living marine resources and ecosystems of the northwest Atlantic Ocean.
Fisheries Environment, or STACFEN, is the committee that provides reviews of environmental conditions and advises on the effects of the environment on fish stocks and fisheries in the convention area.
Each contracting party of NAFO is a member of the Scientific Council and may appoint representatives, who may be accompanied at any of its meetings by alternates, experts, and advisers. These scientists generally participate in all the work of the Scientific Council and of some or all of its standing committees.
As a general rule, the Scientific Council provides its advice by consensus. All reports provided by the Scientific Council are published by the NAFO secretariat and are made available on the NAFO website as soon as possible after the Scientific Council meetings are concluded.
In addition to its standing committees, the Scientific Council establishes working groups and study groups as necessary to deal with specific terms of reference. Such groups created recently include a working group on an ecosystem approach to fisheries management and a study group on management strategy evaluation for Greenland halibut. These groups draw on a wide range of invited expertise, including scientists, fisheries managers, and industry representatives, including as necessary participants from countries that are not contracting parties of NAFO.
The Scientific Council provides advice to the Fisheries Commission on 18 stocks of fish and invertebrate species. These include species such as cod, flounder, Greenland halibut or turbot, redfish, capelin, shrimp, and squid. Some of these stocks, such as those on the Flemish Cap, are located entirely outside the Canadian EEZ. Other stocks, such as those on the Grand Banks, which are found both inside and outside the Canadian EEZ, are called straddling.
In addition to those 18 stocks managed by the Fisheries Commission, the Scientific Council is also requested to provide advice to coastal states on certain stocks. For example, Canada and Greenland agreed to submit joint requests to Scientific Council for advice on the northern Greenland halibut stocks in the Davis Strait-Baffin Bay areas. The Scientific Council reports on the status of all the stocks for which it receives requests and provides responses to requests for the total allowable catch or management advice, usually over a range of options. Where possible, the Scientific Council tries to quantify, or at least provide information on, the risks to the stock for each of the specified TAC or management options.
In addition to TAC advice, the Scientific Council is often requested to provide advice on issues other than TAC, such as an evaluation of existing or proposed management measures--for example, mesh size used in some fisheries, potential closed areas or seasons, etc.
The Scientific Council usually meets three times per year, generally for one to two weeks each time. The council meets for two weeks each June in the NAFO headquarters region, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, to evaluate most of the stocks and respond to the various requests for advice. It also meets during the NAFO annual meeting each September, where it is often called upon to answer questions from the Fisheries Commission pertaining to its advice on the stocks. As well, the Scientific Council meets each October or November in conjunction with the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, known as ICES, to provide advice on shrimp stocks throughout the North Atlantic.
There has been much recent discussion about the amended NAFO convention. Although the amendments to the 1978 NAFO convention are not expected to significantly change the way the Scientific Council conducts its business, some of these amendments will clearly be important for the Scientific Council to consider in its work and in its provision of advice. Particularly noteworthy to the Scientific Council are the amendments that state that contracting parties shall adopt measures based on the best scientific advice available, apply the precautionary approach, take due account of the impact of fishing activities on other species and marine ecosystems and in doing so adopt measures to minimize harmful impact on living resources and marine ecosystems, and take due account of the need to preserve marine biological diversity.
During the NAFO process that led to the adoption of the amended convention, the Scientific Council was fully engaged throughout and provided its input into the sections of the amended convention relevant to the council's mandate and activities. In addition to the four points noted above, one important organizational consideration was the continued recognition of the Scientific Council as an equal constituent body within NAFO.
The existence of the NAFO Scientific Council as a scientific body within NAFO contrasts it with an adjacent international fisheries management organization, NEAFC, the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission. In NEAFC, the commission requests its scientific information from an external source, ICES; within NAFO, the existence of both scientific advisers, from the Scientific Council, and management, from the Fisheries Commission, allows extensive collaboration on issues such as implementing the precautionary approach and protection of such vulnerable marine ecosystems as those of coral and sponges.
In fact, joint committees involving members of the Scientific Council and the Fisheries Commission were instrumental in achieving substantial progress and implementation of key measures on both these issues. At the recent NAFO annual meeting, the ad hoc working group of fishery managers and scientists on vulnerable marine ecosystems produced several recommendations on closed areas for the protection of corals and sponges, which were then adopted by the Fisheries Commission.
The work of the NAFO Scientific Council is also important internationally in the field of fishery science. The council regularly holds symposia that draw experts from around the world and publishes these findings in editions of the NAFO journal. It also conducts various special sessions that focus on topics such as introduction of new stock assessment methods and tools to Scientific Council participants. It also works collaboratively with such organizations as ICES by forming joint working groups to examine wide-ranging species, such as shrimp and seals, and such issues as deep-sea ecology.
The chairs of the Scientific Council and its standing committees often represent NAFO in other international fora. It should be emphasized that the Scientific Council is not a research organization per se, so it does not conduct its own research projects, nor does it have the funding to allocate for such work. However, the relevant research that feeds the stock assessment process is carried out by the contracting parties of NAFO and brought to the Scientific Council for peer review. As noted earlier, the council does have a standing committee in which research projects can be discussed and coordinated among contracting parties.
Mr. Chairman, Canada takes its role in the Scientific Council very seriously. At any given time, Canada is likely to have two or more chairs within the Scientific Council. In fact, three of the past five chairs of the council have been Canadian scientists from the DFO science branch in Newfoundland and Labrador, and also chairs of the standing committees and well over half of the 18 stock assessment designated experts; these are the scientists responsible for taking the lead roles, conducting much of the analysis, synthesizing the available information, and presenting the individual stock assessments within the Scientific Council.
In support of its NAFO scientific commitment, Canada--DFO's science branch--conducts two major multi-species, ecosystem-based trawl surveys on the Grand Banks every year, in addition to substantial oceanographic research and other surveys aimed as species such as capelin. This work represents an ongoing science commitment in excess of $5 million per year, which has contributed to the building of invaluable biological and oceanographic databases for many stocks dating back to the early 1970s or before.
The results of these surveys provide vital information on abundance and distribution and biology that underpins the Scientific Council stock assessment process for many species and stocks. Without these surveys, which cover the areas of the Grand Banks inside and outside Canada's EEZ, many straddling stocks would have significantly less data for the Scientific Council to analyze.
Canada continues to invest heavily in ongoing and new scientific research on the NAFO stocks: $11 million over three years, 2006 to 2008, invested in new science projects under the international governance strategy umbrella to increase knowledge of offshore marine ecosystems and to enable sound management decisions concerning resources within these ecosystems. Much of this funding has come to researchers working on stocks on the Grand Banks for specific studies on Greenland halibut, skate, yellowtail flounder, redfish, capelin, and marine mammals.
Following the completion and success of this program in 2008, Canada renewed the funding for this program and it was made permanent. Canada now invests $4 million per year on an ongoing basis for science in support of international governance. This funding, combined with new funding for projects in 2009 and onward, has been directed at the study of corals and biodiversity, improving stock assessments, and precautionary harvesting strategies for Grand Banks cod and flatfish.
Canada is also engaged bilaterally with many NAFO countries on scientific issues, and it has recently signed a memorandum of understanding for scientific cooperation with Spain. Funding provided under this agreement has led to much new cooperative research in areas such as reproductive biology of Greenland halibut, annual multi-species surveys in divisions on the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap on a Spanish vessel, and joint participation in a large-scale, multi-year study directed at vulnerable marine ecosystems in the NAFO regulatory area on the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap. This work is realized through multi-million dollar collaborations.
It is important to note that Canada's investments are very generously leveraged by Spanish investments. All this research is, or will be, peer reviewed through the NAFO Scientific Council.
Mr. Chairman, in closing, we would like to acknowledge the vital role that the Scientific Council advice plays in the management of stocks under NAFO's mandate, and we are encouraged by recent advice from the council on the recovery of some stocks. Canadian scientists have a long history of taking lead roles in the work of the Scientific Council, and this is continuing today.
DFO remains firmly committed to conducting the best possible research on the NAFO stocks to ensure that the Scientific Council has the data necessary to provide its advice.
Thank you, and I apologize for going over my time, Mr. Chairman.