FISH Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, April 2, 1998

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. George S. Baker (Gander—Grand Falls, Lib.)): We'll bring the committee meeting to order.

Today we have witnesses from the west coast. The subject matter is of course the recent announcement by the Government of Canada concerning coho. We also have with us the director of the fisheries research branch of DFO, Mr. Mike Henderson, who will be sitting in here in Ottawa during this committee meeting.

As you are also aware, we are on FM radio and being obviously monitored by the media. That's the way it's done in Ottawa these days. Committee meetings are normally monitored by the media and also by the department, of course, by the minister's office and so on, so that apart from the official transcript we receive there is a simultaneous broadcast on FM.

I wonder if we could go around each table, both here in Ottawa and in Vancouver, and let everybody introduce themselves and the organization they represent. We would start in Ottawa with Mr. Young. Could you say your name slowly and the organization you represent?

Mr. John Young (West Coast Sustainability Association): My name is John Young and I'm here today on behalf of the West Coast Sustainability Association.

Mr. Russ Helberg (Chair, Coastal Communities Network, and Mayor of Port Hardy): Russ Helberg. I'm the mayor of Port Hardy and I'm the chairman of the Coastal Communities Network for the Pacific coast.

Ms. Christine Hunt (First Vice-President, Native Brotherhood of B.C.): My name is Christine Hunt and I'm the first vice-president of the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia.

Mr. John Radosevic (United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (CAW)): My name is John Radosevic. I'm the president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, CAW.

Mr. Wilf Caron (Vice-President, Area G Troll Fishery Association): My name is Wilf Caron. I'm the vice-president of the Area G Troll Fishery Association and a director of the West Coast Vancouver Island Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council Regional Aquatic Management Board.

The Chairman: Now we go to our witnesses in British Columbia.

Mr. John Sutcliffe (Organizer, United Food and Allied Workers Union (CAW)): John Sutcliffe, UFAWU staff and member of a variety of fisheries advisory boards, including the southern panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission.

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Ms. Mae Burrows (Executive Director, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation): My name is Mae Burrows, and I'm the executive director of the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, which works with coastal community people to protect fish habitat and water quality.

Mr. John Stevens (Vice-President, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union): My name's John Stevens. I'm vice-president of the UFAWU and the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, and I'm also a working fisherman.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Eastern Shore, NDP): I'm Peter Stoffer, the member of Parliament for the NDP in the riding of Sackville—Eastern Shore, Nova Scotia.

The Chairman: And that is the extent of the witnesses in British Columbia, Mr. Stoffer?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, sir.

The Chairman: Let's start our committee meeting in this way: we would divide the time here in Ottawa, then go to British Columbia, and then we'll go to questions and answers. We want to make sure that you're able to get your points across here today, because that's the whole purpose of the meeting, so that the committee and the department and the media can consider the points you raise.

So perhaps we could start with Mr. Young, and go over to Mr. Caron. Mr. Young.

Mr. John Young: Thank you. Firstly, I want to thank the chair and the members of the committee for providing us this opportunity. I know it came at very short notice. The urgency of the situation on the west coast facing our coho salmon stocks was obviously sufficient to get us here and we're very grateful for that opportunity. So thank you to all the members of the committee.

I think all of us will keep our remarks very brief. I will just provide an overview of some of the concerns we have, which are shared by a number of people in coastal communities up and down the coast in B.C.

First and foremost, our concern is what's been termed the biological crisis, which I think all of us agree is in fact a crisis facing our coho salmon stocks. They've been in precipitous decline for a number of years now, and the minister, I believe on February 21, just a little over a month ago, identified a coho crisis. And we're in full agreement that in fact there is a crisis facing our coho salmon stocks.

There are a number of key factors that have created this situation. Some of them are under human government or fishing fleet control, others are acts of nature, or acts of God—I think the Prime Minister has referred to such things as the ice storm—ocean survival being among them. But those that are under our control as human beings are what the fishing fleet does and what government policies, programs, and international treaties do.

Government policies on habitat protection and restoration and specific salmon treaty negotiations with the United States are two key features that will need to be addressed and resolved, where significant will and leadership will have to be brought to bear in order to rectify the coho salmon crisis and restore both our coho salmon stocks and other stocks to health, which will of course assist our coastal communities as well.

From our perception, speaking on behalf of the group, I think all of us would agree that the west coast fishery is at what we're calling a critical juncture right now. There are a number of choices to be made in the next very short while that will determine whether our fishery and our coastal communities end up in a position like the east coast. This committee has just had an opportunity to release a very comprehensive and I think impressive and powerful report on the east coast fishery. It deals with what's happened to that fishery, what's happened to those communities and what DFO's role has been in that situation occurring now.

We're very concerned on the west coast—from first nations to coastal communities to the commercial fishing fleet, union, non-union, environmentalists—that we're at a point right now where, if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans goes down a certain track that we believe has been telegraphed by the minister and his department, we could end up in a situation very similar to that of the east coast. But it doesn't have to be that way, the critical juncture being that's one fork we could take, and the other fork is one where, with significant commitment and investment in the resource and in our coastal communities, we can re-establish significant stocks on our coast, in our rivers, in the oceans, and that will go a long way to restoring the socio-economic well-being of our communities.

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The position we're taking, which has been uniquely adopted by an alliance that has loosely formed in the last several weeks to address the coho crisis, is that we cannot and will not accept becoming another east coast disaster scenario. It just doesn't have to be that way.

Many critiques were very fairly and evenly addressed in the east coast fishery report but were nonetheless tremendously harsh in their judgment of DFO's handling of the east coast fishery. One of the critiques that has struck us on the west coast is that the department has not listened to the coastal communities. The department has not listened to the expertise of fishermen and the expertise found in coastal communities, often going back through generations of people who know the ins and outs of the fishing grounds and their communities.

We've seen that critique. We have those same feelings on the west coast. Everybody at this table and everybody joining us by video conference I think would share those feelings. We understand and know that the department has launched a consultative process to deal with the coho issue right now. It's meeting in dozens of communities, and that's a tribute to the department.

Our fear is that this process could eventuate very much as the Mifflin process did. It listened to all of the communities, registered the profound negative sentiment around the proposed Mifflin plan, and then went ahead and jammed it down the communities' throats anyway.

Our concern is that with the minister's comments of the last couple of weeks, he's essentially announced his coho plan already. He's essentially announced his version and vision, and it will ultimately be his decision as to what the 1998 fishing season will look like. According to him, as reported in last week's Globe and Mail, it involves at least a 50% reduction in the salmon fishing season and the most severe conservation measures ever seen in this country.

No one is arguing that conservation measures need to be taken. But we in the alliance that has come together are trying to produce what we're calling a coho-safe 1998 fishing plan that would allow fisheries to be prosecuted on viable stocks while preserving coho stocks.

We're hoping the fishing plan will be ready by about the third week of April. We hope to submit it to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, have it be one of the key drivers, and have it inform the 1998 fishing plan that will be adopted and announced by the department probably in the first week in May.

Following on the east coast criticism the department hasn't listened to, and having it blared from coast to coast— Mr. Baker, I heard your comments on As it Happens a couple of weeks ago. They were very eloquent and obviously heart-felt. They have to be heard by the department. They have to be heard by the minister.

The troubling part is on the day the report was released, the minister appeared to be more interested in defending the department than accepting the report and its recommendations. That's troubling to us, but it doesn't mean he hasn't had time for a sober reflection of those recommendations and to understand that the department needs to fold the expertise of the people in coastal communities into its decision-making process.

In the submission I presented to the committee, there's a heading that reads “Better decisions for fish and the people that rely on them”. We're talking about using this opportunity of the alliance that's come together around coho salmon to try to make better decisions for the people in our coastal communities and the fish they've always relied on.

Although we're all very sincere about the coho crisis, and I know the minister is as well, and the department and its staff are very concerned about the survival and hopefully improvement of this species, we're concerned it also provides an opportunity for the department to pursue an agenda that has been perceived as being one of privatization, driving out the small-boat fleet and concentrating ownership of the resource in fewer and fewer hands controlled by larger and larger corporate entities.

There's the concern the minister has hinted at of buy-back. We're not necessarily opposed to a buy-back, but it should be a carefully targeted buy-back. It should be one that's framed in consultation with all of the communities—with the small-boat fleet as well as the big-boat fleet. So we're concerned that if there is a buy-back and fishing opportunity is severely curtailed or virtually eliminated for this coming season, those most vulnerable in the industry will disappear.

Of the boats that left the fleet as a result of the Mifflin plan, 63% are from the small-boat fleet. We're very concerned that number could rise to over 80% if there's a kind of covert Mifflin plan that comes in under the guise of the coho crisis response.

The Chairman: Mr. Young, I wonder if you could slow it down just a little bit, because we're translating as well into French on the FM radio.

Mr. John Young: I get a little wired for these things. I apologize. I'll breathe.

Our concern is that there could be a second phase of the Mifflin plan woven into the coho response, without necessarily addressing fully the social and economic consequences of such a plan.

Traditionally it has been the small-boat fleet that has sustained our communities, and it will ever be thus. If it disappears, those communities will disappear as well. That simply shouldn't happen.

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Another aspect of this, and the minister addressed this in a very partial way yesterday, is that of transition program support for those who are in need as a result of the hardship visited upon them by the Mifflin plan and by the downturn in the industry.

The minister announced some money yesterday for commercial salmon fishers, and that's very welcome. A number of people have been advocating that for some time. However, I think $7.8 million is insufficient in everybody's view, with perhaps the exception of the minister's office and his staff.

I gather that half of that money is in the form of small-business loans, in the form of prime plus 4%, which is not necessarily of great assistance to people in need. Most of us have a hard time meeting our loans at prime. Prime plus 4% seems to be a strange way to go to assist people in desperate need. So while it's certainly a good sign that the minister has heard the concern and the requirement for a transition program, that appears to be a highly inadequate response. But it's a good step in the right direction, and we applaud the minister for that.

To conclude my brief remarks, I think we have a fishery with a potentially tremendously positive future, one where we don't have to wait and hope and pray that the cod are going to come back but where with the exercise of will and leadership we can secure both a fair treaty that will prevent future Alaskan destruction of our salmon stocks and one that, with significant investment in habitat work, whether it's the provincial government or the federal government— I think the crisis is of sufficient scope to warrant significant resources by both governments to restore salmon habitat and to bring millions of fish back to our rivers and our communities and have a profoundly positive impact on those communities for generations to come.

I think the urgency with which the committee heard from me and my pleas to come and speak here today is felt up and down the coast. It's an urgency because the feeling is that over the next very short while decisions that will be made will determine whether we head down a very sad and tragic path or whether we head to a very hopeful and positive future. Our desperate hope is that we take the second route, and we will do everything in our power to work with this minister, this government, or whatever government there may be—provincial, federal, Liberal, Reform, whoever—to ensure that we have a sustainable and healthy future for our coastal communities.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Young.

Mr. Young is the spokesperson for the West Coast Sustainability Association. I think that's the correct term.

I wonder if we could go through any other speakers who wish to be heard here in Ottawa. Just give your name and the organization you represent, so the people listening will understand who you are. Then we'll go to British Columbia and do the same thing.

Mr. Russ Helberg: I'm Russ Helberg, the mayor of Port Hardy and chairman of the Pacific Coastal Communities Network.

Mr. Chairman, thanks for hearing us on such short notice. I listened to your press conference this morning on the west coast findings, and I have to congratulate you on listening very well. From the fun some of you seemed to be having at the odd time out there, I figured maybe you'd miss some of the points, but you didn't miss a damn one, which is excellent. I'm quite pleased. And I'm really looking forward to the fisheries management and science report, because that will tackle the long-term problems.

We certainly appreciate the two-part report in that it shows that you appreciate the gravity of the immediate situation on the coho. The recommendations you've made will go a long way to solving that. I just hope the minister will accept your recommendations quickly and get on with it, because the problem is that the coho crisis is on us now and there's only a couple of months until they announce the fishing plans. We have to get things going the right way, otherwise we're going to be really facing a problem.

As it sits now, as John has mentioned, it looks like the minister's response is going to be very heavy-handed and an almost complete closure of a lot of the salmon fishery.

I had a talk with David Suzuki last week, and it was very reassuring to see that the mainstream environmental groups have accepted the fact that if you don't have a healthy, economically viable community, your environment does start to suffer, because when people are faced with desperate times they really worry a little less about whatever they're harvesting. So we both agreed that what we have to drive for is to make sure that the communities stay healthy and that they really keep conscious of the environment.

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I think that can be done, because if we have anywhere near the closure the minister seems to be recommending, it's going to be devastating to a lot of the smaller communities. We've had two bad salmon seasons already and two more forecast to come. Herring was not very good at all this year. As a lot of you know, a lot of people fish with more than one licence. They can stand one bad fishing pattern, but when they start getting two or three combined together, it really starts hitting them. The ones it's going to hit most are the small-boat operators, the owner-operators, who are the mainstay of the small communities. They don't have the legs to weather out another couple of bad seasons.

We are strongly recommending that the Government of Canada very quickly conclude with the Government of the United States a Pacific salmon treaty. We certainly recommend that the department listen to the coho alliance. We're going to come up with what we consider to be a very viable alternative to handling the coho crisis, and we certainly would appreciate them listening closely to it.

As well, as a sign of good faith, we recommend that the minister immediately reinstitute the mapping and inventory program. Our premier was in town last night and is in town today. He's stressing the same story.

We have the annual general meeting of the Coastal Community Network, starting tomorrow night, and it will go for the next two and a half days. A couple of your committee members will be in attendance at that. We're going to be asking the representatives of the 420,000 members we have to come up with recommendations to direct the executive on how to approach the next year. A lot of those will be in regard to the coho crisis.

We on the west coast really believe we have a sunrise industry. We like the recommendations that have come out of the standing committee. We don't want a repeat of the east coast. We want short term, with a definite sunset clause on, and how long the transition will last. Then we'll get on with doing business.

Once again, thanks for listening to us. We're certainly looking for positive response from the government.

Thank you.

Ms. Christine Hunt: I am the first vice-president of the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia and a member of the Pacific Salmon Commission.

I would like to focus on some positive solutions to the west coast fishery. As you have heard, we have this alliance that includes the environmental community and the commercial fishing community. The sports sector attended one of our meetings. We are looking to come up with a plan that is suitable for everybody for this year and conserve coho.

The first nations in British Columbia are willing to forgo their subsection 35(1) constitutionally protected right to their allocation of coho to do their part in conservation. We expect everyone to join in with us in giving up. We all have to give up something to conserve this year.

We're all working to devise this plan. The people working on this plan will consist of long-standing fishermen. Some of them have fished for 50 or 60 years in their regions. We're looking at picking people from specific regions to help devise a plan that will protect the coho and make a selective fishery for sockeye.

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It is imperative that the Pacific Salmon Treaty is moved along to address the Alaskan overfishing. The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia is in the process of setting up meetings with our Alaskan counterparts at the end of this month or the beginning of May to see if we can find some common ground so that they can push their government to help this along. So we are doing our part in trying to move the treaty along.

We must have federal commitment to the habitat. Since I was here a couple of months ago, in October, we have had two deaths by hanging in my community. They were young men, 21 and 22 years old, who saw no light at the end of the tunnel. These young men fished. And in one of the funeral programs we read about one young man whose happiest days were fishing with his father, but he knew that he would never again be on the deck of a boat because of the recent events in the fishing industry.

Our community still suffers, because now there is talk of suicide pacts among other young people who do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. They see only despair. Their fathers have lost their boats and their licences. They will no longer be fishing. Whether we will even get our allocation of food fish for the winter is debatable for my people.

As politicians in my community of Port Hardy, we are trying very hard to react to this and to stop it. I feel that a meaningful job transition strategy would give the young people a light at the end of the tunnel, but it has to be meaningful. It can't be a short-term, minimum-wage, going-nowhere job. It has to have training, something meaningful for my people.

That's all I have to say. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. John Radosevic: I'm president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, CAW. I want to thank the committee for this emergency meeting on short notice. I appreciate the report that came out this morning, along with your recommendations.

I just want to say that the commitment our organization is making on behalf of a lot of licence holders, a lot of deckhands and a lot of people who work in shore plants is a serious commitment to try to work out fishing plans in concert with others from the coastal communities, the commercial sector, the sports sector, if we can bring that about, the conservation groups and the aboriginal community. The commitment is to develop a fishery that is conservationally sound and coho-friendly which at the same time allows us to survive and fish the stocks that are harvestable.

But after having gone through those steps and made the sacrifices that we have made and intend to continue to make, we want to know that the sacrifice is not in vain. And we're very concerned about the remarks of the minister and of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and the overemphasis, in my estimation, on the issue of bycatch, while at the same time the claim is to be interested in conservation—conservation in conservation. The emphasis is not on the main issues.

In my estimation, one of the main issues is primarily Alaskan overfishing. The numbers are in and the stats are out. There is no question that in the northern areas the Alaskans are the main overharvesting concern. You have Canadian fishermen saying there should be no directed catch on coho and you have the Americans taking the kinds of numbers they take.

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In addition, we see continuing habitat destruction and mainly business as usual in terms of how the Department of Fisheries intends to address the problems of habitat destruction. We don't see a serious commitment. The ad hoc approach, volunteerism, and so on and so forth, is valuable, but you see the results. The results are not pretty. We are not saving the fish.

I'll say it as plainly as I can. If we do not address the interception problem on the north coast by the Alaskans and if we do not take measures on an emergency basis now to protect the habitat we have left, there will be nothing we can do as Canadians in terms of the reduction in fishing effort that will save the fish, pure and simple. If there is nothing done now, and on a fairly urgent basis, to address the needs of people in various costal communities up and down the coast, then both the fish and the people will be gone.

Just to give you a sense of what we're talking about here, on the entire south coast of British Columbia the entire mortality rate for coho was something in the order of 50,000 or less. Compare this to, for example, 165,000 pieces in the sport fish sector and more than 500,000 on the interceptions on the north coast by Alaskans of Canadian-bound coho.

Very clearly, you could have cut all of the Canadian fishing effort out, 100% in the south, and you would have not saved any more than 50,000 coho. If you look at how that transpired, we were actually given a cap in the commercial sector of 165,000, but we took 50,000. If you look at the numbers coming out of DFO, we reduced our expected mortality rate from 300,000 down to 200,000, 205,000, or numbers in that order.

All of that was a result of the commercial sector not taking the coho. It shows that, given the opportunity, fishermen can and will be able to reduce and avoid catching the fish that are in trouble. They know how to do it. They use selective gear, time closures, area closures, and all kinds of things. We know how to catch the fish we've got to catch, and we know how not to catch the fish we're not supposed to catch. We're looking for an opportunity to prove that, and we want DFO to listen to us.

We call on the minister to change course. What we're most worried about is that he doesn't listen to the recommendations of the standing committee and that he does repeat the way that the department has operated on the east coast. We are deathly concerned that he will not listen to fishermen in coastal communities in terms of the solutions that will actually make some sense.

We are calling on him to make a strong commitment to the Pacific Salmon Treaty, which is essential if we're going to get the Alaskan overharvesting under control. We're not just talking about the long-term, final treaty, which may take some time, we're talking about the interim agreements. We're also talking about a serious commitment now on habitat. We're asking him to have some compassion for the fish and the people.

We see very many similarities in the way the department has operated in B.C. compared to the way that it operates on the east coast, but we also see some tremendous differences to the extent that we have habitat that can be renewed. We can bring back the fish if we act now.

We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of people who are available to do the work. All that's missing is a commitment to put them to work to build the fish runs and to get this thing back on the road. We're asking this committee's help to get the message to the minister that we're having so much difficulty doing.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mr. Wilf Caron: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to give our petition to this body. As was stated earlier, we are an alliance that is looking for solutions. I concur with the statements of my colleagues. My statement will be from a working fisherman's viewpoint and with a slight change of focus in that direction.

The area that I fish in and am licensed for has approximately 450 licences. And I would like to again remind this body that they are just not individual paper licences. Each one of those 450 individuals is a separate entity as a business, with infrastructure around it and a supporting infrastructure in the communities in which it is based.

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The hook-and-line troll fishery has historically harvested coho as its bread-and-butter fishery. The others come and go with the fluctuations of stocks, but the coho has been the main issue. Throughout the years, especially since the time of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, we fishermen on the southern coast of British Columbia have been asked to cut back to accommodate American concerns about coho, and we have done that. Successive ministers of fisheries have told us to please accept this short-term pain for long-term gain. We are now at zero fisheries in terms of our bread-and-butter fisheries, and we are looking at ocean conditions that are having severe impacts on anything else that could fill in those bread-and-butter fisheries. What we are left with is zero. Our expectations are reported to be zero.

If commercial fishermen are going to be asked yet again to bite the conservation bullet, the three principles of the minister's operating philosophy of conservation, conservation, conservation—which he has repeated several times in the media and to the public—must be applicable to all the users and not just the commercial fishers who partake of this unique species.

To offer some positive solutions, we have formed an experimental management board on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where I reside. It is made up of an ever-broadening base of the participants in the harvesting of all aquatic marine resources. We have formed an alliance with the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council. Happily, the fishing zone that this licence happens to participate in coincides with approximately the same geographic area of their treaty claims, and there are also other ones for different species harvested within that zone. It is a vision for the future.

There was dispute within certain of your recommendations today, but I put this to you as an example of how cooperation can be achieved by people sitting down at the table, people of good will who have a vision towards the future. There has been recognition by the ministry, the minister, and the province about the positive attitude and the ambition. That has been lauded and there has been support for it.

There are stocks of concern there, but we are looking for solutions. We're inviting all people of good will to join us at the table, and we believe that our petition to you here today to forward that application would go a long way toward resolving some of these issues.

Thank you very much.

The Chairman: Thank you.

We'll now go to British Columbia. We'll pass it over to Mr. Stoffer. Perhaps you could have each of the witnesses sitting there introduce themselves and go one by one.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We'll do the introductions of the three, and I believe Mae Burrows, of the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, will speak first.

Ms. Mae Burrows: I had the pleasure of appearing before this committee when you were meeting in Steveston, and it's a pleasure to be here again today. I thank you very much for your work and for your report. It has certainly helped to give a voice to some of the very serious concerns that we have here on the west coast, both from the fishing and environmental communities.

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I work with an organization called the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation. We're no relation to the David Suzuki Foundation, although we share the same goals and are working towards the same ends. Buck Suzuki was a Fraser River fisherman and environmental activist who was doing work on water quality and habitat issues in the fifties, long before environmentalism became such a big issue.

That's one of the things that happens with people in the fishing community. They have a very long record of looking after habitat and water quality because their livelihoods literally depend on it.

That's what's happening today in terms of the particular threat we're seeing to coho. I really am urging this committee to take a look at the issue of protecting coho habitat and bumping it up to a very high priority on this whole coho crisis agenda.

For people who don't know British Columbia as well as some of us do, coho migrate throughout the whole province. They'll go 500 miles away from the coastal waters that they spend their adult lives in. They need both spawning and juvenile-rearing habitat. The spawning habitat they need is clean, cold water without sedimentation in it. They also need—and coho are very vulnerable fish in this regard—really small streams. They'll spend two years of their lives before they go back from their natal spawning streams to the ocean to spend their adult life. They will be in these small streams, which are oftentimes less than a metre large.

So sedimentation into those streams, temperature, and water quality in those streams are extremely important. That's why coho are particularly vulnerable, and perhaps why they're so threatened now by habitat destruction. Of the special fish, the salmon, they're very special fish.

I'm very, very distressed to see our current Department of Fisheries and Oceans policy, which has just come out now, that says they don't manage the damaging activities, that certainly the provincial government and municipal governments have a role in management of activities to do with logging and urban development and so on, and the Fisheries Act is only enforceable after damage occurs.

If that means the most senior level of government responsible for things like coho habitat is somehow literally off the hook—if you don't mind the pun there—well, they're not. They have a real legal and moral responsibility to enforce the federal Fisheries Act, and we're just not seeing that happen.

If we compare it with the police department, which only has an enforcement role as well, supposedly, we see some really effective programs by police officers where, if somebody is caught speeding and endangering other people's lives, those people are stopped. They are charged. They are fined. It's made apparent to the public. People hear about them speeding. If you're drunk driving, you're caught, you're charged, you go to court, and you're fined. The same goes for running a red light. People are caught, they're charged, they go to court, the public knows about it, and their family knows about their behaviour and so on.

DFO is doing a woefully inadequate job in terms of their fiduciary and legal responsibility to enforce the federal Fisheries Act. Right now the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a lawsuit against it, because we're wanting to see the charges they have laid. Many of the crimes against the environment are to do with coho habitat. I think DFO is having a hard time coming up with that list of charges. Many people are really concerned that it's because there hasn't been the kind of charging and fining and deterrence of destroying fish habitat and water quality that the department should be doing.

We're asking this committee to take a real look at the damage that's happening to fish habitat and to the Department of Fisheries and Ocean's real role in enforcing that. Let's go all the way up, past Vancouver Island, on the central coast, and then inland to Dawson Creek, which is one of the highest coho-producing streams in the central coast, and perhaps even in B.C.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a responsibility to be in there, making sure the forest practices code is enforced. If it's not, if roads are built in a wrong way and then the sedimentation causes those small coho salmon streams to fill up and we lose those fish, it's the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that needs to be in there, and they're not doing that.

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In terms of charging major polluters, we as citizens have asked them many times to go after the GVRD in terms of the sewage pollution, and they didn't lay charges there. To a certain extent it's staffing levels. You've mentioned that in your report, and I really appreciate that. But when I was in Ottawa on February 25 at the Ministry of the Environment standing committee meeting, it became really clear that the staffing levels are so low that Ottawa is giving what are called administrative directives to field staff to only enforce certain pollution laws. Because they don't have enough staff to enforce all of them, they strategically target one or two laws. That is just a travesty of federal responsibility. That's the kind of thing we're really asking you to include in the next part of your report.

Instead of taking a look at the big-picture damage, we often see fishermen at the end of the whole cycle being accused of hurting the coho. There really is a much bigger picture that goes on before that.

Government policy with regard to fisheries can force working people into bankruptcy. It can destroy small communities. But if it doesn't change in terms of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans enforcing habitat policies, we won't do anything for the environment and the fish.

As an environmentalist and as a mother, I am asking members of this committee, who I know are people of good faith, to make sure you really emphasize the habitat issues related to this coho crisis and address them all summer long and past that.

Thank you.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: Thank you, members of the committee for an opportunity to appear today.

When you were on the west coast there was no doubt a coho crisis brewing. Some people were probably aware of it. In particular, I'm sure that at the time DFO staff members were beginning to construct their response to the situation. However, I do believe the committee at the time didn't hear about it, so this opportunity is really important, because in the second report, which the committee has indicated will be forthcoming, those broad policy issues will be made quite immediate in terms of responses to the coho crisis in this season.

You've heard several people express the concern. It's a concern we all share that the coho crisis, which nobody denies exists, will be used to pursue an agenda with respect to the fishery on this coast, and probably with respect to the resource itself, which we have seen, going back to the Pacific policy round table, has very little to do with the viability of our fishery or the viability of our resource.

The simple response to the coho crisis in curtailing fishing impacts and pretending to be addressing the situation that way, while at the same time driving further the disastrous fleet destruction and fleet restructuring agenda there has been, with all of the fallout for coastal communities and ultimately with the lack of any serious address for the resource, is a problem we would really like to head off at this point.

Those kinds of issues, the licensing and fleet restructuring issue, and the program review vision for the west coast fishery as a small concentrated industrial fishery, are an agenda that really has to be looked at very carefully. It's displacing fishermen. It's having disastrous consequences for coastal communities and is doing nothing for the fishery. No industrial fishery ever has done anything for a fishery.

In response to the coho crisis—maybe the coho crisis is an opportunity—we want to see if the department can begin, in this season, around the coho issues, to address in a rational instructive way fleet viability issues—which several people said an alliance of non-governmental interests is prepared to do—and begin to address in a serious way the resource issues as well.

• 1635

You do not address the resource issues and you only continue the devastation of the current fleet reduction plan by curtailing fisheries and appearing to address overcapacity problems by buying out those who have been made most marginal by a totally ill-thought-out plan for fleet reduction that also, by the way, nobody opposed.

It's the way these things have been done. It's the attempt to marginalize, not make viable fleets, not renew the resource, not make a more manageable fishery. Ultimately, it had nothing to do with conservation, as Mr. Mifflin proposed, and I gather, as the current minister continues to believe.

These policies around licensing have to be changed, and the whole crisis and the way the fishery was conducted this season gives us an opportunity. I frankly think the agenda of the DFO—not to be confused with a vision, which our fishery really does need—will be unmasked at this time.

I implore the committee, in their second report, to be very focused with respect to those broad issues and how the response of DFO to this coho crisis in 1998 and 1999, when we'll be facing the same situation, can be addressed.

Thank you very much.

Mr. John Stevens: Good day. My name is John Stevens, and I appreciate the chance to talk to you today. I haven't had a chance to draft any kind of a formal presentation because I've been working on my boat today. I've been just dragged off the street to be here, but I have a few comments that I think you would appreciate.

I want to talk about coho. I would like to respond to something that I understand the Minister of Fisheries said in the House yesterday. Apparently, he congratulated Mr. Mifflin on what a great job the Mifflin plan had done by putting more money in the pockets of fishermen out here.

I'm totally outraged by that statement. I'm living proof here that the fishing industry and the people who work here are in a serious financial situation. I personally had to borrow a whole bunch of money against my house in order to survive the winter. I borrowed more than $30,000. So when I hear that kind of stuff coming out the Minister of Fisheries, who is supposed to speaking for me, he's lying to you and the whole country.

Getting back to the coho problem, the reason we have a coho problem in British Columbia is because there's a whole long history of mismanagement of coho salmon in British Columbia. It has the potential of being another east coast cod crisis. The people in DFO, the top bureaucrats and the fisheries ministers, going right back to Jack Davis, have known that this thing is coming along, yet nothing has been done about it.

The solution, what we really need in Canada, is a new relationship between the Government of Canada and the people who work for a living out here on the west coast and other places where there are fisheries in Canada. We are just not being heard. As you heard from all the other speakers who have appeared before you today, there are lots of solutions, but we have to have decisions from Ottawa that honour those kinds of solutions. Anything that happens out of Ottawa this year will be a total waste unless people out here are consulted.

The best advice I can give people back in Ottawa is to gather up as much money as you can and say you're going to fix the west coast. But put the power to determine how that money is spent in the hands of people out here. Don't leave it up to those bureaucrats or the Minister of Fisheries. We can do the job out here. We have the people and the will, and we can do it.

Thanks very much.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, back to you now, sir.

The Chairman: Okay, thank you. I think you delivered the message loud and clear.

Perhaps we can go to some questions with some of the members here, or perhaps Mr. Stoffer has some questions.

We'll go first of all to Mr. Carmen Provenzano of Ontario.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

• 1640

There is certainly a lot of food for thought in the presentations that were made today. I'm particularly interested, Mr. Chairman and committee members, in the comments that were made by some of the people regarding fish habitat, fish habitat destruction, and in particular the call for emergency measures to address that particular problem. I gather the problem relates to remedial action that has to be taken with respect to the destruction of the habitat, as well as protective action and action in the nature of enforcement of our existing laws and regulations.

I think this committee has endeavoured to listen carefully throughout its hearings so that the representations that have been made before it are given due consideration and so that the recommendations we make as a committee reflect what was told to the committee at its various hearings.

With respect to fish habitat in regard to a couple of the presenters today, and particularly yourself, Mr. Radosevic, I think you've been a critic over a period of time of the federal government's, of DFO's, involvement with respect to the protection of fish habitat. I think it goes without saying that the federal government and DFO have spent a lot of money for fish habitat protection. I think you would agree with me, Mr. Radosevic and the other presenter in British Columbia, that while those efforts may not have been sufficient, they certainly have been there. We certainly feel the pressure to respond.

The jurisdiction in this area is split between the federal and provincial governments. I think you'd agree with that. I guess the question is what kind of pressure you or the different groups represented here have put on the provincial government with respect to protection of fish habitat and the enforcement measures that should be taken. Can you relate that to the committee so that we can get some kind of perspective here? Are you saying it's all the fault of the DFO, or do we have some shared responsibility with the province to address these problems? To what extent have you lobbied the province to address these problems, and what kind of response have you had from the Province of British Columbia?

The Chairman: I wonder if the witnesses could give their names before they respond, so that people listening on the radio will know who they are.

Go ahead, John.

Mr. John Radosevic: Thank you. John Radosevic, of the fishermen's union.

I think the question is valid. We have been critical of the way the DFO has managed things on our west coast. You say that the Department of Fisheries has spent a lot of money. It has spent money and it has done some work on habitat, but clearly it is not sufficient. It's not a question of whether or not we think it has been sufficient. I think the results you see now would indicate how sufficient it has been, and the answer is “not”.

Jurisdiction is split, that is true. The Department of Fisheries is responsible for fish habitat enhancement. It's responsible for enforcement, stock assessment, so on and so forth. We have been saying for a number of years, and have been trying to get the message out, that the continuous, large-scale cuts to the Department of Fisheries budgets in regard to enforcement, science, and a lot of other activities are going to eventually have a negative effect. It may take ocean conditions and other complex issues that also affect the fish to bring that to the fore.

• 1645

We know that a big part of our problem is ocean survival conditions, but what that means to us, as it has many times in the past and as our history will show, is that we take the short-term sacrifice for the long-term gain. We make sure that the fish get back to the spawning grounds even if we have to cut back on our fishing efforts, because it's our future. And that's not rhetoric. The record is clear on what we've done in the past and it's no different now. We have to make sure the spawners get onto the grounds and survive.

And you asked a question about what we were doing insofar as pressing the provincial government. We pressed the provincial government hard to work with a variety of organizations and groups to try to do something about the habitat, and the Government of British Columbia has responded. In fact, I just attended a meeting not more than a few nights ago about the fisheries renewal. We're pressing for more money for the provincial government's fisheries renewal program. We're saying that the provincial government has to work with coastal communities, fishermen's organizations, aboriginal groups and conservation groups. They're doing that, and—

Ms. Mae Burrows: I'd like to step in and make a response as well.

Sorry, John. I thought you were actually finished and I was going to grab a pause.

Mr. John Radosevic: They're doing that, and we're pressing them to do more. There has to be more money in the programs, and I think there's some indication that some money from Hydro and others could add to it.

The thing that's missing is a similar commitment to work with us from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And instead of putting forward some fisheries renewal schemes that have the kind of breadth and participation by communities and all the people that we're talking about, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is cutting back on those kinds of things.

We've made much of the habitat training and mapping program because that is symptomatic. It is only one of many examples that can be used to show that instead of working with people and working with us, and despite our pleas and entreaties and everything else, the fisheries department is going the opposite way.

So in answer to your question about what we have done, I think I've answered that. What will we do in the future? We'll do more. We have to press the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for a real commitment to this stuff and we'll continue to press the province.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Mr. Chairman, Mae Burrows would like to comment on that question.

The Chairman: Go ahead.

Ms. Mae Burrows: Your question is about split jurisdictions, and I think what's very important to note here is that, yes, there are split jurisdictions, but there's a federal responsibility that is simply not being lived up to. And habitually it has not been lived up to.

You refer to the fact that a lot of money from DFO has been spent. Oftentimes that has been on hatchery programs and the like of that, when there hasn't been a political will on the part of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to enforce the federal Fisheries Act. And that's the important point for this federal committee to be addressing.

It took neither money nor very much staff, for instance, for the federal department to lay charges against the GVRD for their sewage treatment, their untreated sewage that they were putting in the Fraser estuary. Billions of litres of untreated sewage were going into the estuary, and it was citizens who did the analysis and paid for the studies for that.

We pleaded with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to stand up and enforce the federal Fisheries Act, which says you can't do that. That estuary, the Fraser estuary, is prime coho habitat to billions of small fish every year, and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans simply didn't lay charges nor did they even— we begged them, after we laid charges against the Greater Vancouver Regional District for their billions of litres of untreated sewage into that prime estuary, we asked them to simply issue a press release saying, “we think that GVRD should not be putting this sewage in”, and they couldn't even do that.

So there's been money spent, but there's not the right attitude. And not only have we not seen a strong proactive attitude on the part of supporting the federal Fisheries Act by its own department, we're seeing a very alarming—in the last two or three years—backing off, begging off, on the part of the department from enforcing the federal Fisheries Act. They are not taking the kind of position with regard to the referral process that we've seen in the past.

In the past, I used to look at different referrals from industry, be it forestry or mining or whatever, and I would frequently see a very strong statement from a DFO habitat officer, who would say “No, if you go ahead with this project, it will be in violation of the federal Fisheries Act and you will be seeing us.” We're not seeing those kinds of strong statements from habitat officers any longer, and that's not good enough.

• 1650

And when you put that in partnership with this business of “administrative directives”—that is, Ottawa actually giving instructions to the regions to not lay charges in certain areas—what ends up happening is that we have a coho crisis. The fish are dying from toxic poison; they're suffocating to death; they're not surviving in the streams. What are we trying to do with it? We're trying to shut down coastal communities and fishermen. It's not good enough.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: I have a supplementary question, and I made note of the way Mr. Radosevic put this. He says we're not saving the fish, and we need to take emergency measures to protect fish habitat. If we don't do this, he says, “both the fish and the people will be gone”. That's a pretty ominous statement.

Mr. Radosevic, can you give us an example of emergency measures that have been taken by the province to this date to address the problems you've indicated to the committee? Specifically, what has the province done?

Mr. John Young: I want to say very briefly, before John answers, that I understand your question, and it's a fair question. Regarding the severity of the biological and human crisis in our coastal communities, I understand the government member's desire to point out the province's responsibilities, and I think that's perfectly fair. But we've seen the minister do this, and we've seen the government of British Columbia do this: go back and forth debating whose responsibility it is.

The people in the coastal communities and the fish don't give a damn whose responsibility it is. They want to see a concerted effort, a coherent program and an investment in the habitat that will protect the fish and the people who rely on them. So I think it's important to talk about whose responsibility it is. It's important for both governments to live up to their responsibility.

It's not particularly useful to debate and quibble about who's pressuring who or who's lobbying who. Everybody here has met with provincial government representatives and pressed them to do as much as they possibly can to invest and protect habitat. So I'm sorry, I just don't think it's—

The Chairman: Do you have anything else to add to that?

You have one last question, Mr. Provenzano.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: To reiterate, the reason for my questions is to make sure that the committee has a proper perspective. What we're talking about here at times are problems that are generated as a result of road-building, logging, and problems such as sewage discharge into rivers, and there certainly is a primary responsibility on the Province of British Columbia to address these situations.

As committee members, we can't stick our heads in the sand and disregard the fact that the Province of British Columbia has responsibility here. When we talk about emergency measures that need to be taken, my question is what emergency measures has the Province of British Columbia taken to this point that directly respond to your situation? That's what I want to know.

Mr. John Radosevic: In fact there have been some emergency measures. The media and the reports will show clearly that the province has taken the lead role, for example, in trying to stop the Alaskan overfishing, with very little support from the federal government. That's an emergency measure.

But three or four weeks ago we had the Department of Fisheries deliver a report, which I can see sitting on the desk over here, that now and for the first time points clearly to the exact degree of damage that has been done to our stocks. We're no longer quibbling like we were last year when all the incidents around the ferry and all of the other arguments were taking place about the Americans robbing us from an economic standpoint. It now appears that they were robbing our spawning stocks as well as our pocketbooks.

I don't have to go into a lot of detail. You know very well what our position is in terms of the provincial government vis-à-vis the federal government in that regard.

As far as habitat is concerned, I've indicated to you that the province has responded to the things we've been calling for, and we've been calling for the same things from the province as we have from the federal government in the sense of taking the steps that are necessary to work with people in the communities, with us, and use our people who are unemployed, and do all the things that are necessary to put those people to work to build fish.

It makes all the sense in the world, and the province is responding. What are they doing? I anticipate within the next very short period of time they'll be putting people to work fixing habitat in provincial and perhaps even federal jurisdiction, using our people and fishery renewal dollars.

I'm not nearly as confident that we're going to be seeing any response in any kind of way that's meaningful to us from the federal government.

• 1655

We're calling on the federal minister to take his responsibility seriously and make sure the fish—which are his jurisdiction, let's not forget, constitutional authority he argues hard to keep—are still in his jurisdiction. He has the jurisdiction for enhancement and enforcement, and we're calling on him to accept his responsibilities. We'll do our work with the province, and I've already indicated all I can about what we're doing with the province.

The Chairman: Thank you. Of course your point is that the Clean Water Act, the Fisheries Act, and the Environmental Contaminants Act are all federal legislation, and when the federal Fisheries Act is violated, of course charges should be laid accordingly.

Mr. John Radosevic: That's right.

The Chairman: Let's go now to Mr. Easter, our second questioner. Then we'll go to Mr. Duncan.

Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I agree entirely with John Young's point that we want to stay on topic here. There's one thing I want to point out to John Stevens initially. I don't want to get into a discussion on this; all I want to do is send you a copy of Hansard and be factual in terms of what the minister said yesterday. He talked constantly about prices being low, that fishermen are suffering and incomes are down. Basically he said—I can't think of his exact words, but I was there—things would have been worse without the Mifflin plan in terms of income. So let's be factually correct. I'm not accusing you, but let's try to be correct in that.

On the Pacific Salmon Treaty, I think we all agree it's a very serious issue. I believe the negotiators met yesterday and the day before. The Strangway and Ruckelshaus report backs us up to some light, and the federal government is working hard on that point. All I can say is all the players, including B.C. and the federal government, worked together in terms of solving something.

On the meat of the matter, on your concern, DFO has launched a consultative process to work toward an integrated action plan on coho, but I need to know what is wrong with the department's approach, what is right with yours, and how to get the two to mesh.

Mr. Russ Helberg: I think the department's approach was entirely correct at the start, where it wanted to put together a consultative process that included the various bodies. We applauded that and immediately started to get the provincial bodies together so we could start discussing how we could come up with some solid recommendations. We're getting close to that point.

What's disturbed us is the minister's apparent early decision on what the outcome of the consultative process will be—i.e., cutting back on the fishery where we will come out with different fishing times, different fishing gear, maybe bag limits, and that sort of thing. It's quite a varied response, and we just want to make sure the department keeps an open mind and is willing to listen to us.

We're working to their deadline. We'll have our response ready well in advance of their May deadline, so they can take a look at it and it won't come down as a last-minute deal. Everyone will have a chance to look at it and come up with some decent recommendations.

Mr. Wayne Easter: I want to come back to a question to Christine.

You basically alluded to gear type or different ways of harvesting, and John Radosevic also talked about selective gear type. I attended an FAO conference in St. John's, Newfoundland, on gear types and was impressed by how, with fish that are much the same, you can be selective. I wonder, John, whether you can expand more in terms of how you see selective gear types working, in terms of the approach you're asking us to take.

Secondly, you said—and I think this is an important point—you just want an opportunity to prove that what you're talking about will work and to have DFO listen. I want you to expand on that and tie in gear type if you can.

And I have one other question.

• 1700

The Chairman: John Radosevic.

Mr. John Radosevic: I don't mind admitting to you that I'm not the one to be talking about that. I can talk to you about it. I can give you some general sense. I know enough about the fishery to do that. But within the next ten days we are convening a meeting of some of the best fisheries experts in every area of the coast, from every gear type. We're going to be sitting down and we're going to be discussing just that. By the end of that process, you ask me that question and I'll give you a list of the things that we can do.

Some of the things we did last year brought our cap from 165,000 down to somewhere around 50,000. It shows that we can do it. I mentioned time and area closures. Fishermen have to know this stuff. If you're going to catch it, you have to know where and when it's going to be there. Likewise, if you want to know how not to catch it, you have to know where and when it's going to be there. It's the same thing. I think fishermen know how to do that. They don't need to be shut down on viable fisheries like sockeye fisheries.

For instance, the fishermen were shut down in the last few years in the Skeena, where more than a million sockeye, a harvestable species, was wasted on the bottom, rotted on the bottom. Millions and millions of dollars were lost. Tens of millions of dollars were lost to the fishermen's incomes because of the Department of Fisheries' mismanagement of how it wanted to get the coho and the steelhead past the nets. It got the coho and steelhead past the nets all right, but at the sacrifice of over a million fish on several successive years, which then led to disease problems in the sockeye stock.

Not only do you get the hits on the coho fishery, but now you're getting hits on the sockeye fishery. Last year there was an illegal fishery. The fishermen had just had enough. They went out and they got their blue boxes, which are the live tanks. They went out there and they fished and they proved to the Minister of Fisheries how it could be done. They got charged for it. You fish in daylight hours. You don't fish at certain times of the year. You take certain precautions. You train your deckhands how to handle the fish so that you don't kill them unintentionally as you bring them into the nets. Lots of different things can be done.

All we're saying is we're making a major commitment here to work with groups we've never worked with before to try to get the expertise of those people that really know this game together so that we can develop a real comprehensive list of things that we can do to save the coho and take the fish we need to take.

The Chairman: Wilf Caron.

Mr. Wilf Caron: Mr. Easter, I have a response directly related to that selective fishery. In 1997 the troll fishery was given a ceiling of coho by-catch to pursue other fisheries. We forgave approximately one third of our total allowable catch on chinook because there was a lack of honest response from the department as to the effectiveness of our fishing patterns and using the gear selectivity.

We had a voluntary network within our fishing fleet to avoid coho concentrations. This was such an effective measure that throughout our fishing season last year we took less than half of the department's estimates on the mortality of coho. That goes to show that we are very selective.

I believe our mortalities of the ones that we did catch, because we voluntarily went to such measures as barbless hooks, returned more of those hooked fish back to the water in live condition. That's one example of selectivity.

The Chairman: Thanks, John, Wilf.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Stevens would like to respond to Mr. Easter's first statement.

Mr. John Stevens: Yes, Mr. Easter, I did have my facts straight in front of me here. As a matter of fact, I have a copy of the Hansard here, and I stand by what I said. The fact is that people have less money in their pockets as a result of the Mifflin plan.

It took away my ability to fish the whole coast. I'm stuck in one area now with my one licence. If I get a little bit more fish in one area, that doesn't compensate for the fish that I lost by not being able to fish the whole coast. In order to fish the whole coast you have to buy another licence, with an outlay of maybe $100,000, which nobody can afford because we're all broke.

I stand by what I said.

Mr. Wayne Easter: I'm not going to get into an argument on that, Mr. Chairman. I made my point in terms of what the minister said, that it could have been worse. I don't want to get sidetracked on that issue.

• 1705

I do have one other question. It's really to Christine Hunt, but I also want to know the dates of that meeting if you can give them to us at some time, John. Could you inform my office? From having looked at the FAO information, I do know that's it's amazing what gear selectivity will do. Whether you fish in deep water, shallow water, during the day, at night, or whatever, it's an important point, and we'd certainly like that information.

Christine, you talked about giving up some rights in order to conserve the coho. I guess what I need to know is how many first nations would be involved in that kind of proposal. Are there any other conditions attached?

Ms. Christine Hunt: As far as I know, the leaders of the Aboriginal Peoples' Fisheries Commission attended one of the meetings of the sectors, independent of DFO. These were upriver fishermen, and it was they who said they would forgo their allocation for this year. As for those of us on the coast, I'm not entirely sure about how the people will handle it further north in the Nass and the Skeena, but I know that from my community south—north Vancouver Island, south and up the Fraser River—the native people are willing to forgo their allocation for this year.

I had a response to a question that you had about the DFO process and the non-governmental process that we're doing. I would just like to remind this committee that some of our people are still feeling very betrayed and jaded after the roundtable process that occurred before the Mifflin plan was implemented. They went through this very lengthy process of meeting to set up the Mifflin plan, and it was all for naught, because the suggestions of the real fishermen who were at these roundtable sessions simply were not heard. Their recommendations simply were not put forward.

So I would say that in our group of non-governmental organizations we would just like to cover our asses, if you will, to make sure that we're doing something while DFO is dragging its feet. When DFO decides to have the next meeting, we'll be ready to present a plan that our fishermen, with their traditional knowledge of the coast, will be able to offer. In my opinion, sometimes that traditional knowledge outweighs science any day of the week.

The Chairman: Before we go to Mr. Duncan, I notice that Mr. Stoffer had made a motion there quite some time ago. I'd like to ask Mr. Stoffer if he has any questions that he wishes to ask at this time, or whether he wants to wait until the end.

By the way, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, Mr. Easter is the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the junior minister.

Mr. Stoffer.

• 1710

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I have a very quick question for Mr. Russ Helberg. Regarding the continuation of some type of support program, for the record, can he estimate how long that program should be? In his best estimate, how much money would we be talking about?

Mr. Russ Helberg: The feeling is that we could do the transition program in three years. It would be tight, but it could be done. There is no use dragging things out.

As well, the initial estimate of the total cost is roughly $400 million.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you.

If you have to go, John, just one verification in terms of clarifying something you mentioned earlier. Were the figures correct when you said 50,000 coho that you restricted yourselves to in your commercial fishery? As well, was the figure correct that the U.S. interceptions—a great deal of this being, of course, illegal under international law that's recognized today by the United States on the Alaskan coast—were eight times that 50,000, which would be 400,000? Is that what you said?

Mr. John Radosevic: It's actually more than that this year. The average over the last number of years has been about 800,000. I believe it was somewhat less than that this year, at somewhere over 500,000.

The Chairman: Let's go to Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, Ref.): I apologize for having to leave for a while. I was over doing a couple of interviews, and Newsworld won't wait.

I understand you're here to talk about the fishing plan and the concerns about coho. The only part of that I'm unclear on is the recreational sector. Maybe you said something while I was gone, but does it appear there will be consensus with the recreational sector in terms of coho?

Mr. John Radosevic: That's something we're working on. The recreational sector has been in the room with us, at the meetings. It's obviously a very touchy subject, and all those questions can't be answered at this time. All I'm saying is that our organization is looking at reduced catch and by-catch, and perhaps no targeted fishery.

All these things are there to be talked about. There is a very diverse group in the room trying to find, and struggle with, those answers.

Mr. John Duncan: But I know you've been concerned about some of the signals you're getting from the minister. I'm wondering what signals you're getting from the minister regarding the recreational sector.

Mr. John Radosevic: That's one of our concerns. We're trying to get a Canadian position together. I just pointed out that the recreational sector actually took about three times as much as the commercial sector in the southern fisheries last year.

The Chairman: It was 165,000.

Mr. John Radosevic: Yes, 165,000 compared with around 50,000; those were the initial figures. There may be some changes in the DFO numbers, but they will be relatively close to that.

I really wanted to point out that even that is not the major problem. The major problem is the fact that once you get those fish past the recreational section, the nets and everything else, we're seeing real degradation in habitat.

If you want, I'll supply the committee with letters going back a number of years from us, saying, look, you have to look at this. You have to take action. You have to do something. Now we're here, saying, well, geez, even if you fix the habitat, it will be four years or so before you find that it's going to have any effect. Yes, but if you'd done it four years ago, when we first started pushing for it, and you'd taken those kinds of actions, perhaps we wouldn't have the kind of habitat degradation we have today.

So those are the main issues: Alaska, habitat, and of course we want to put people to work fixing the habitat. It makes all the sense in the world that the people who harvest the fish are also there building up the runs and being part of the whole solution, not just a part of it.

Mr. John Duncan: Okay.

I have a second question for you, John. If it's May 15 before we agree on an all-Canadian position, does that give us enough time to put an interim quota arrangement in place? How do we come up with interim quotas with the U.S. in that timeframe?

Mr. John Radosevic: That's a very interesting question. You're touching all my buttons now, because this the kind of stuff we were saying about a year ago. It was falling on, I think, deaf ears at the time. I don't think we got an appropriate response from the federal government on the treaty issues.

We may have a process under way now, finally. It's a number of months late, so we're up against very tight time lines.

• 1715

The real quick answer to that is that I don't know. But if we do not do it, there is some doubt in my mind whether we can do anything to save some runs of coho this year. The consequences of not doing it are too great, so we have to get the interim arrangements, as opposed to the long-term arrangements, fixed, because I don't think anybody is going to brook a lot of nonsense in terms of our explanations about politics and everything else. If fish runs start to disappear, people will be pointing fingers. They'll be pointing them at us and the Americans. I think we want to avoid that. I don't want this committee wandering through B.C. four years from now saying that there were some problems with the DFO and the way they managed the coho stocks, so now we've got a disaster on our hands. I want to fix the problem before it gets to that stage.

Mr. John Duncan: Essentially, that's the bottom line. That theme ties all three of the issues you're bringing here today together.

Mr. John Radosevic: Absolutely.

Mr. John Duncan: Okay. That's the message for this committee, I think.

Mr. John Radosevic: That's the message.

The Chairman: I wonder now if we could turn to the British Columbia witnesses and ask them if they wish to comment on any of those questions or answers.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: We have John here to mention some of the facts on the question you had asked, Mr. Chair. He's got some figures in front of him to explain to this committee.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: Actually, I have just a few numbers to do with the U.S. interceptions in southeast Alaska. John was certainly right that they took a preliminary estimate, which is the best DFO has at the present time, which is just over 500,000 fish. In northern fisheries, where we did have one target fishery on coho, the northern troll fishery, they took about 160,000 coho.

There was no target fishery in the net fisheries. In fact, in fisheries designed to avoid coho encounters, they took about 20,000. Those are rounded numbers.

So for about 200,000 fish in the north, as opposed to the southeast Alaska catch of our northern B.C. stocks at about 525,000, the norm would be that we'd be fishing at 500,000 to 800,000 coho, and the U.S. would be fishing at about that level as well, with some years being a little higher.

I want to just make one more point about the north, which has been mentioned today. In the north, in 1998, we face a huge problem. It's not directly a coho issue, it's a sockeye issue. But it's a sockeye issue that arises from what we felt were the misplaced efforts of the department at the time to deal with the steelhead problem. At the time, they were not dealing with the coho problem, although we told them we thought the problem should be a coho problem and not a steelhead problem. We were right about that. Steelhead escapements were optimal, while coho escapements were a problem. They have begun to address that in the Skeena fishery.

Here's what happened. What the southeast Alaskan interceptions of coho will cause for us will be an inability for us to harvest our abundant stocks of sockeye. They're not abundant this year because we couldn't crop them four years ago. The result was a huge over-escapement into the Babine system and an outbreak of a disease. Not only was there the loss of a million fish in that year, but a total collapse of the stock this year.

So the fishermen paid in 1994, and they are paying again this year with no fish to catch. This partly addresses the complexity of dealing with these by-catch issues. It also points out one of the major DFO mismanagement concerns that really creates in the northern fisheries a disaster for this season.

Related to the coho issue, but not entirely a coho issue, I just wanted to get that squarely on the table. You'll be hearing more about the situation in the northern B.C. fisheries. It's a wipe-out.

The Chairman: Okay. Is there anybody else, Mr. Stoffer, who wishes to comment there?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Mae Burrows of the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation would like to say a couple of words.

Ms. Mae Burrows: I would like to respond to the question about British Columbia's and the federal government's involvement in protecting fish habitat. The British Columbia government this year dealt with the Nechako River issue. This is one of our very important rivers, with chinook, sockeye, and coho in it. The provincial government took a very bold action by cancelling Kemano completion project. For more than a year now, we've been begging the federal government to take up its responsibility as the federal fisheries minister and to come to the discussions about how to restore the Nechako River, but we haven't seen hide nor hair of them.

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As I say, it was a very bold move on the part of the province, but I'm once again imploring this committee to ask the federal government to start engaging in restoring the Nechako River now that the provincial government has put legislation in place to actually cancel that project. It would be very good for the fish if the federal government did that.

The Chairman: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: That's it for us here in British Columbia, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Would any of your witnesses in British Columbia have any closing comments to make?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, Mr. Stevens would like to say a few words.

Mr. John Stevens: Yes, I'd just like to tell the people in Ottawa that those of us here in British Columbia will be working hard to develop fishing plans that give us a chance to crop some fish. At least listen to our recommendations and use your ability to influence the minister that our recommendations be accepted by DFO. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer. Do you have anything final to say, Mr. Stoffer?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, there's one more witness, please.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I'd like to make one more small point.

Once again, it's not to deny that there's a coho crisis, but one point that has not been made is that the exact nature and extent of the crisis is unknown. It's unknown because of the fact that DFO's science and DFO's ability to do stock assessment and catch monitoring are so limited, especially with respect to the coho stocks.

There are models. There are assumptions about marine survival. There's no question that marine survivals are low, but for the distribution of fish, the particular stocks, the exploitation rates that are possible, none of those things are known. The stock assessment of the coho resource and the science of the coho resource is worse than all of the other salmon species. It's probably no coincidence that it is the species in the greatest trouble at this point in time.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, I just have one question. Is John Radosevic's group still there?

The Chairman: No, they just left. They had to catch a plane.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, very good.

First of all, I just want to thank all the people who came to Ottawa to present their views to the committee, as well as the witnesses here in British Columbia. They have been very eloquent and articulate in presenting their cases in regard to this crisis that we have here.

I also wish to thank both you and Mr. Bill Farrell, Mr. Chairman, for doing this on the fly, as we say, and for getting everyone together to address this very serious issue. I do want to thank you, and I send you greetings from the west coast.

The Chairman: In concluding our program today, we of course want to thank Mr. John Stevens, vice-president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union in British Columbia; Mr. John Sutcliffe, organizer for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union; and Mae Burrows, director of the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation. You have all contributed greatly to our proceedings here today.

In conclusion, we would like to call on the director of the fisheries research branch of the DFO, Mr. Mike Henderson, to say a few words before the committee concludes. Mr. Henderson, do you have any observations concerning our meeting here today, or any other remarks to make?

Mr. Mike Henderson (Director, Fisheries Research Branch, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members. I would like to make a few remarks, but I will keep them brief, to the order of five minutes.

We have quite a detailed package of technical material related to B.C. coho. We can provide it to you and would be willing to discuss it further with you at any time.

The main intent of my remarks is to recapture or restate a few things I think you have heard, and a couple that you maybe have not, about the technical basis for our serious concern about coho. I want to comment on three areas: first, the status of coho or the health of coho stocks in B.C.; second, issues related to enhancement and habitat—we've heard several comments recently on coho habitat; and finally I'll just say a few words on what we refer to as the regional coho response team. This is a team that's putting together options for the minister in terms of what we do in 1998.

In terms of stock status, there are two areas of primary concern for coho. One is in the upper Skeena, in northern B.C., and one is in the Thompson River, which is a tributary of the Fraser River. We have a big problem in an area in the north and a big problem in the area in the south. In both these locations, there historically is concern with chronic overfishing. This is not overfishing that leads to stock collapse, and it's not overfishing by itself that leads to conservation concerns, but there's no doubt that some stocks were fished at levels in excess of what they could support over the long term.

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There are concerns about habitat. There has been some loss of habitat and some degradation of habitat. The current dilemma, though, that we're facing in both these areas is what we refer to as “the decline in marine survival”. I'm not going to go into a lot of details, but I just want to give you two numbers.

Typically, one out of every ten young juvenile coho that go to sea come back, on average, when you look at all the stocks in B.C. Right now, for many of those stocks, including the Fraser and Skeena stocks, one out of every hundred coho that go to sea are coming back. What that means is that survival, marine survival, has declined by what we call “an order of magnitude”, by ten times.

That means that even if nothing else changes, if there are no changes in habitat and no other mitigating circumstances, you must have dramatic reductions in fisheries if you want to keep the stock, because for the time being, until marine conditions improve, the stock is not as productive, so there are not as many available.

In northern B.C., in addition to the marine environment problem, we also have the problem that several of the earlier speakers referred to, the Alaskan harvest of Skeena coho. And there is no doubt about this. It is well documented and well known, both in Canada, in British Columbia, and in the U.S., in Alaska, that a large portion of the coho harvested in southeast Alaska are coho of Canadian origin.

You can see the dilemma, then, that we're facing now. Some of the upper Skeena coho stocks are very depressed. Those stocks are harvested primarily in Alaskan fisheries, so to some extent our ability to conserve and rebuild these stocks obviously depends on the cooperation of the Alaskans.

That's all I want to say at this time on stock status, although as I say, we have very detailed information. I appreciate the concern of some of the earlier speakers that the department may not be doing enough, but I can assure you that we have a wealth of information on coho. There is no doubt about the current dilemma that we face with some coho stocks in B.C. As I said, I can provide you with that information if you wish.

On the enhancement-in-habitat front, with regard to enhancement our primary interests with coho— There are a few large coho production facilities, hatcheries, which have been very successful, particularly in southern B.C. But in terms of our current dilemma, our interest is more in using enhancement as a way to rebuild or quicken the pace of rebuilding of the depressed stocks or of coho stocks where we have a conservation concern. We are also very interested and involved in rebuilding coho habitat that has been destroyed for one reason or another.

I do want to emphasize—and I won't belabour it—that as an earlier speaker pointed out, many coho stocks come from the small systems. There are thousands of coho stocks in B.C., which probably contribute 80% or so of the total production. In contrast, there are only half a dozen sockeye stocks and they make up 80% of the total production.

When we lose these little streams, we lose a lot of production. And it's very hard— it's sort of an incremental thing. But the main point is that it's important to be able to control the activities on the land and the quality of the water that goes into these streams. That's the only way, in fact, that you can protect the stream. You have to protect what goes on around the stream.

And this is where we have to work most closely with the province. We have made considerable progress recently, particularly through the Canada-B.C. MOU on salmon issues that was signed some time ago. A large component of that deals with salmon habitat in B.C., and we are actively involved in working with the province now, in such things as GIS mapping, identifying key spawning areas and so on.

The last comment I'll make applies to the regional coho response team. This is a team of scientists, economists and people involved in communications and many other areas in the department. They are meeting with hundreds, literally hundreds, of what we call “stakeholders”, like interest groups and first nations people, across the province of B.C.

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The intent of those meetings is first to clarify as clearly as we can our technical understanding of the health of coho stocks in B.C. and what the current problem is. And as I said, there's information we can pass out. It's all contained in these overheads.

Secondly, we want to understand what options there are for 1998, given these concerns. We heard Mr. Radosevic and others speak of various options they thought might be successful in conserving coho and in this case allowing the prosecution of some fisheries. Those are exactly the kinds of advice and information that the department will receive. The coho team will consult, as I said, with everyone in B.C. who has a view on coho, and they will produce a report in early May that will go to the Minister of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

At that point, I think I would conclude, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of people here in British Columbia who would like to respond to that if possible, sir.

The Chairman: You're the boss out there, sir. Go ahead.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'd like to start off with Mae Burrows, please.

Ms. Mae Burrows: I have two questions for Mike Henderson. I've met Mike, so I know him and I've worked with him. Mike, there are two questions I would really appreciate you commenting on.

We all know—you know it, we know it, hopefully everybody on the committee knows it—that in terms of coho habitat in particular we don't know where a lot of it is. It hasn't been inventoried properly. We need to protect habitat. We need to protect water quality. We need to enhance and restore. But one of the things that we have to get on the list of things to do in terms of looking after coho is doing mapping and inventory projects of those streams. That was one of your very strong economic transition proposals that had been put forward by the Community Fisheries Development. The day after a coho crisis was announced, there was an announcement that there was not going to be funding for the mapping and inventory program, which was quite specific to coho streams. It seems that there's a real kind of contradiction there, a real problem there.

So perhaps, Mike, you could comment on the value of those mapping programs and perhaps give us some advice and direction as to where we can go to get some political will in Ottawa to encourage and develop that kind of inventory work, especially since what our intelligence has been saying to us is that people in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are not supportive of that mapping project and perhaps even made statements to HRDC that it shouldn't be supported. How can we get support for that kind of inventory work? What do you think of fishermen being trained in that kind of work? And just give us some advice about how we can look after coho in a much more proactive way by doing that inventory work.

Mr. Mike Henderson: Mr. Chairman, there has been extensive work done on coho distribution in mapping in B.C., although I certainly agree with the speaker that it is not completed. I do recognize the particular project she refers to was not funded.

But I would also draw your attention to the fact that we are now working with the province in the context of the Canada-B.C. MOU on salmon, which I believe you're familiar with, on exactly this issue. In fact, the two governments, the Province of British Columbia and the federal Government of Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, are expending rather large sums of money to bring the data the province has and the data the federal government has together into a central location to do exactly what you're interested in doing, to produce the maps and so on.

We actually know with a great deal of detail the location of thousands of coho stocks in B.C. I agree with you, however, that a lot of that information is not in a form that is readily usable by a lot of the people who are interested in it. That's one of the reasons the province and the federal government are proceeding the way they are.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Sutcliffe would like to say a few words as well.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I have one point, Mike. You referred to the well-known upper Skeena coho problem. You said it was well known in Alaska as well. On the Internet currently and elsewhere there is a concern being expressed by Alaska that they have never received the technical information that would identify the coho problem in the Skeena. Why have they not received Holtby's report? What seems to be the issue there?

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The accusation that's widespread is there's no technical basis for our concern. I'm not suggesting they're right, but there is something that needs to be addressed here. It's certainly not true that the problem is well known or accepted in Alaska at this point.

The Chairman: I wonder if you could wrap up, Mr. Henderson, and then we'll give the witnesses a final word after John Duncan makes a statement.

Mr. Mike Henderson: I can respond to the last question in 20 or 30 seconds.

What I can tell you is the technical people in Alaska are aware of the problem with coho in the upper Skeena. They do have the stock assessment reports, which were produced and reviewed publicly by Blair Holtby and others. In terms of who you're talking about, I can't comment, as I don't know who it is. But I can tell you the technical people with the State of Alaska are fully aware of the status of coho in the Skeena River.

The Chairman: I wonder, Peter, whether you have anybody else there who wishes to make a concluding statement.

First of all, before you do that—Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan: It's been apparent to me over many years, and we heard it again when we were on the west coast tour, that people who are actually highly successful at producing fish, some of our salmon enhancement people, have really had their funding strangled over the years. Those are the people—many on a volunteer basis—who could actually do a whole lot. It never really goes in that direction, and I fail to understand that.

One thing that was brought up to us on the west coast was there was a concerted effort prior to Expo 86 to have a big coho fishery that year, largely for anglers, and it happened. I realize that weather conditions and so on have changed, but it proves if there is energy expended to accomplish a goal, it can be done.

I want to specifically bring up Robertson Creek, because it exemplifies, I think, an El Niño problem. We have macro-predation there that will probably destroy any significant returning run. All those on the west coast know the Robertson Creek run is very important indeed. The department has only really promised to study the issue rather than take active interventionist measures. I'd like to ask you why we're not actually deciding to do something to prevent the predation. There is a technical answer, although it might cost some money.

The Chairman: I think Mr. Duncan has already requested that the minister appear before this committee immediately when we get back from our break. I'm at the hands of the committee.

Mr. Duncan, do you mind—

Mr. John Duncan: Consider it a statement then.

The Chairman: —waiting until the minister comes before the committee? We had requests from Mr. Duncan, Mr. Stoffer, and Mr. Bernier. Everybody wants the minister before the committee to follow through on some of these very important issues brought to the fore today.

Was that the point you were about to make, Mr. Easter?

Mr. Wayne Easter: I think it's unfair to Mr. Henderson to have to deal with a policy matter. The technicalities are fine, but in a policy matter, that's the minister's purview.

The Chairman: We'll go back now, for any concluding remarks, to Mr. Stoffer and anyone with Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mae Burrows would like to give a closing statement, sir.

Ms. Mae Burrows: I'd like to ask Mike Henderson whether he sees a technical impediment to the lack of enforcement of the overall distress in the population—what we see as the lack of enforcement by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans of the federal Fisheries Act. Is it a technical issue or is it a policy issue? Is there a technical impediment, Mike?

The Chairman: I didn't completely understand the question. What do you mean, Mae, by a technical impediment?

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Ms. Mae Burrows: I'll be more blunt, because it's late in the day. Is there some technical reason the federal Fisheries Act is not enforced more frequently in British Columbia, with more charges laid and court appearances, or is it a policy issue? Are there any technical impediments to enforcement?

The Chairman: I'm sorry, Mae, we'll have to refer that to the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Easter.

Go ahead, Mr. Easter.

Mr. Wayne Easter: I'm not in a position to answer that question, other than that I feel quite confident that in terms of habitat destruction DFO certainly does lay charges if violations occur.

But the point I was going to make is that we are getting into a unique situation on the committee when we have witnesses asking witnesses questions, which is different from normal parliamentary procedure.

The Chairman: We do have the minister appearing before the committee, Mae, to respond to the concerns that you and the other witnesses have raised here today. I think that request is going out immediately from the committee following the return of Parliament in two weeks. That will be the first thing on our agenda.

I wonder if John or Mae have any further statements to make. If not, we'll have to wind it up.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I have none, except to thank the committee for this opportunity today.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I want to say as well, coming from the east coast, we now know or we knew for a long time that there's a common denominator from the east coast and the west coast. That is, that the federal government of past and present, through its arm of the DFO, has the ultimate responsibility to manage the fish stocks. As we can tell by this hearing today and in some previous meetings, they have done an unfortunately terrible job, to the cost of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in repairs.

I'll encourage all those DFO personnel listening on the FM radio today—I'm sure the minister's not far away—and the parliamentary secretary to take this example of this hearing very seriously and understand that there is a crisis on both coasts. These witnesses today spent a lot of time and money to come out to visit with us to express their very serious concerns, and I hope it doesn't go in vain.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer, in British Columbia, and thank you to the witnesses.

This meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair. In a couple of weeks you'll receive your notices.