[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, April 24, 1996
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[English]
The Chairman: Order, ladies and gentlemen. We do have a quorum. We have witnesses who have to make airplane connections, so those who are not here will have to read it in the committee Hansard. I was hoping everybody would be here, because what's happening on the Pacific coast these days is pretty important. It's cause for a lot of concern in the industry.
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I'd like to welcome today Mr. Pat Chamut, the assistant deputy minister for fisheries management; and Louis Tousignant, the regional director general for the Pacific region.Mr. Tousignant would like to go first, because he's the one who has plane connections. His topic will be on the current proposal that has been announced for the Pacific coast fishery.
So if you would like to begin, Louis, we can then take it from there. Members will be showing up as you go along.
Mr. Louis Tousignant (Regional Director General, Pacific Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to explain to you, to the best of my abilities, the plan that the minister has announced and is implementing as a result of the last few weeks.
There are two basic objectives underlying the plan to revitalize the commercial salmon fishery. The first one is conservation, and the second one is economic viability. Let me start first with the conservation objective, which is the underpinning of the plan.
The need for an overhaul of fleet management stems from a number of critical and long-standing problems associated with the current structure of the commercial salmon fleet on the west coast. The catching power of the fleet has risen significantly as fishing gear and vessels have become more efficient. This poses management risks as the current fleet capacity makes it more difficult for fishery managers to meet escapement targets and control incidental catch of weaker stocks. The risk associated with management decisions also increases with the growing capacity of the fleet. Managers have reduced fishing time significantly over the past decade with the result that little management flexibility remains.
Another important consideration is the impact that current fleet management has on effective enforcement. Shorter, crowded openings increase the pressure to fish intensively, and they offer reduced opportunity for industry cooperation. Increasingly, complicated management plans reduce the flexibility of enforcement planning.
Against this backdrop, we're setting new directions for the management of the fishery, and they are the basis of the plan. Essentially, we will continue to apply a precautionary approach to fishing, which involves reducing harvest rates to levels that will meet or exceed spawning escapement targets. This approach will apply most specifically to fisheries where uncertainty regarding stock abundance occurs. This is particularly important in light of the events of last year, when unforeseen ocean mortality reduced significantly the size of the sockeye run. It is also made more relevant as a result of concerns that scientists are expressing about a possible regime shift in the ocean conditions in front of British Columbia, which may justify more precaution to ensure the sustainability of the resource.
So specifically, risk-averse management will mean, and will continue to mean, using more conservative forecasts for the run - for instance, for sockeye in the Fraser River this year, it's1.5 million fish - reducing or foregoing fishing opportunities where there is uncertainty about stock size or escapement estimates in order to place less risk on the stocks; and providing additional escapement beyond the target levels to provide additional insurance against the inherent uncertainty in estimating population size.
In that regard, I will just remind the committee that last year, as a result of so-called buffers that we introduced in the escapement targets, we were able to put in place the third-highest level of escapement on record. We were able to do so despite closure of the fishery, despite a run that was lower, and despite a mechanical error at Mission. We intend to continue along those lines.
The next part of the future directions is the controlling of the harvest rate through time and area closures. Time and area closures are the primary tool that we use in-season to more precisely regulate harvest rates. There are situations where estimates of population size or stock timing are unavailable and there is a risk that stock may be over-harvested, so we will try to design fishery openings to limit harvest rates to levels that would not adversely affect stocks even if the information on population size is inaccurate. It is very important in that context to control the size of the areas.
Sufficient size permits harvesting with a minimum of congestion so that over-harvesting risks are reduced. The department will be reviewing all commercial fisheries to ensure that the impact of a single fishing opportunity will not place important stocks or groups of stocks at risk. I'll remind the committee that one of the observations of the Fraser River Sockeye Public Review Board was that we could have placed...as a result of the number of seines fishing in Johnstone Strait.
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We also to need to tackle key interception fisheries. The further the salmon are harvested from their stream of origin, the greater is the uncertainty associated with run size estimates and other biological variables. So wild salmon populations will continue to be harvested outside interception fisheries. These fisheries will be managed to ensure the correct harvest rate is applied in each fishing area, taking into consideration uncertainty over run-size forecasts, biological impacts on the stock and any other relevant factors.
So where management uncertainty is high, fishery harvest rates and interception fisheries will be conservative in order to reduce the risk of over-harvesting of the population.
We also will focus on the future direction of the fishery - part of the Mifflin plan communicated to fishermen in a package two weeks ago - more selective harvesting practices. We will be examining and setting appropriate harvest strategies for existing fishing areas. It will be important that incidental catch levels be more strictly controlled. Special efforts to reduce the incidental harvest of chinook, coho and steelhead stocks are required, and net fisheries and mixed operations and species fishing areas, such as areas 1 and 20, will be reviewed.
We will continue practices that have been in place over the years in that regard. We will also be encouraging gear modification and alternative harvesting techniques to ensure that fisheries become more stock-selective. For example, the gill-net opportunities in both the Skeena in August and the Fraser in September/October are limited due to concerns about incidental catch. These practices will be continued. These are the management reasons underpinning the plan.
In the package submitted to fishermen, we also indicate each of the areas that compose the coast. The areas have been established basically to limit the competition within each fishery and as a tool to reduce the number of participants.
Area licensing has been introduced to give effect to these measures. Area licensing will: limit the competition within a given area; lead to more area community-based management of the resource; lead to more manageable, more easily enforceable fishing; and mean there are less boats in a given fishery, which will enable us over time to lower harvest rates, provide more time for fishing, get a better handle on the numbers, reduce the risk, and enhance conservation. We will also, in that context, reduce the fleet through stacking of licences and through a licence retirement program.
These are the major factors on the conservation side. We need to reduce the capacity of the fleet. We need to reduce the pressure on the resource. We need to reduce the risk of putting conservation at risk, particularly at times when, as in the recent past, since the early 1990s, there is growing uncertainty about the ocean conditions. We need to be very precautionary in approaching fisheries management to ensure that the resources sustain and preserve for future generations. Without conservation, there is no sustainable use, and without sustainable use, there are no economic benefits.
There are also some economic reasons to deal with this issue. It is not new. It basically has been facing governments for decades. I've always felt stifled by the employment considerations that come into play, because, let's face it, the name of that program is essentially to reduce the fleet by half over time. That is never a pleasurable thing.
Having said that, there are some economic reasons as well as conservation reasons why the plan is in effect. As you know, right now we have about 4,400 commercial vessels that fish in British Columbia. Not only does this fleet pose a conservation risk, as I indicated, but it is also a fleet that is too large for the economic value of the fishery.
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If you look at the value of vessels since the early fifties, it has quadrupled, and that number is adjusted for inflation. The cost of fuel, the cost of labour, the cost of gear - everything - has increased significantly over the period.
The resource base, on the other hand, has been stable over the years. Salmon, as members of the committee know very well, is a cyclical resource. There are years of abundance and years of lower abundance. We now are in the second year of low abundance. Hopefully, things will change next year and the following year, where the cyclical nature of the fishery will mean more fish.
Having said this, if you look at the long view, if you look at the fifties to now, the quantity of salmon has remained more or less stable. If you look at the prices of salmon in the recent past, they're declining significantly. If you compare 1991 to 1994 prices per kilogram of salmon with 1987 to 1990 prices, sockeye prices have gone down by 28%; pink salmon by 45%; chum salmon by 53%; coho salmon by 34%; and chinook salmon by 39%.
So we have exponentially rising fishing costs, a relatively stable resource - we happen to be in the lower part of the cycle right now - and declining fishing prices. There is no sign that the economics of the industry will change. The processing sector has restructured and will continue to restructure, to pare down in size. The aquaculture fish of Norway and Chile will continue to grow in the Japanese market and other traditional markets of B.C. It'll therefore take more fish per fisherman to make ends meet.
This year, in light of low returns, we expect that 65% of the fishermen won't make ends meet, based on the size of the fleet we have right now. Traditionally, if my memory serves me right, we're dealing with about 25% of the fishermen who could not make ends meet. Through the program that has been introduced, we will address the issue over time.
I will simply close by saying that we will want to involve industry in managing this program and overseeing it as we go. We have held meetings with the steering committee of the round table. We intend, as things settle down, to create an industry board with industry, where we will manage the fishery better and more cooperatively with the commercial sector, make a more viable fishery. We will address, and hopefully resolve, prior to the 1997 season allocation issues between the sectors that have been long-standing and that date back fifty years. They require intensive consultations between parties before being resolved. As well, we will address intrasectoral allocations between the sectors of gill-net, seine and trawl.
In that regard, let me just be quite clear about one point. There is no way the historical allocations of the seine sector will erode the traditional shares of the gill-net and the trawl. We're therefore looking at a future in terms of allocations within the commercial sector that is based on the same sector, that is stable in terms of quantities of fish and the share of the small boat fleet remaining relatively stable.
The key question for Mr. Kelleher, who has been mandated as an arbitrator by CFIC to address this question, will be to figure out the principles underlying allocations and the basic rules of the games to catch up, to make up between years and between cycles.
In essence, Mr. Chairman, these form the underpinnings of the plan. I'm quite willing to answer questions.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Tousignant.
I should start with the people from British Columbia. Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott (Skeena): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tousignant, I have a number of questions. I know other members here have questions they'd like to put, so I'll try to get through them as quickly as I can.
You would agree with me that in British Columbia there are no quotas attached to salmon licences at this time.
Mr. Tousignant: That's correct.
Mr. Scott: You, I think, would have to concede, then, that by reducing the number of licences you're not necessarily going to be reducing the harvest of fish. Simply put, the department manages that right now on the basis of the openings. They manage stock levels based on the projected returns or the monitoring going on as the fish are being caught. They open and close the commercial fishery on that basis. Basically they've been managing the fishery in British Columbia for many years on that basis. Would you not agree?
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Mr. Tousignant: That is true. There will not be openings until and unless we have an assurance that there is a harvestable surplus. So we will put escapement as a priority, as well as the constitutional section 35 rights of aboriginal people. Once there is a surplus after those needs are forecast to be met, there are openings.
While there are no quotas, it's important, as I mentioned in my remarks initially, to make sure that the congestion on the fishery is reduced to ensure more enforceability and reduce the risk of having a larger fleet, which was traditionally the case, plying the waters at more or less the same time, which makes monitoring the catch more difficult and puts a risk on the resource. So that's why we're moving the way we are.
Mr. Scott: Okay, but just to get back to my question, by the way you've answered it I think you're confirming where I'm coming from on this, which is that the reduction of the number of licences in the fishery does not reduce the number of fish that will be caught in the fishery in any given year.
Mr. Tousignant: That is true. It reduces the effort and changes the catch per vessel.
Mr. Scott: I just wanted to make that very clear, because we have members here from other parts of Canada who don't necessarily understand the fishery in British Columbia.
First of all, the department and the minister have said that the commercial fishermen in British Columbia are very supportive of the minister's plan. We have received, as members of Parliament representing ridings in British Columbia, a great deal of evidence to the contrary. What we're hearing from the fishermen is that they brought proposals to the round table process that were not implemented, while other proposals were not discussed at length or in any real way at the round table process and were implemented.
So I'd like to ask you, why is it that the minister, or the department, I suppose, is proceeding with a major licensing change for commercial fishermen in British Columbia prior to allocations being set? I appreciate the fact that the buy-back is optional, but there is a very short time fuse on it.
For the benefit of other members of the committee who may not be aware of it, the fishery in British Columbia and the fishermen in British Columbia have been asking for a long time, for years and years, to have set allocations. They know, as Mr. Tousignant points out, that the returns will be higher in some years than in others. I certainly concur with Mr. Tousignant, and I think the committee should be aware of this, that the salmon stocks in British Columbia are currently at a very low point. They're in a state of crisis right now. But the opportunity for the future is still very good.
You only have to look back at 1992 - I think it was 1992, and you can correct me if I'm wrong - when we had the highest sockeye returns on the Fraser River in about 75 years.
Mr. Pat Chamut (Assistant Deputy Minister, Fisheries Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): It was 1993.
Mr. Scott: So it's not all doom and gloom out there. I think the members of the committee should be aware of that. But the industry has been asking for a long time for allocations so they will know, whatever the pie is going to be - a big pie or a little pie, if I can use that as an analogy - what their slice of the pie is going to be so they can plan for their fishing year and investments, and how to determine whether they should stay in the fishery or not in the face of this licensing proposal by the department.
Having said that, the committee should be aware that fishermen in British Columbia accept the fact that the commercial fleet is too large and needs to be downsized. I don't think anybody disputes that. All they're asking is for the allocation rules to be set in advance of their having to make decisions about whether or not to stay in the fishery, increase capitalization by buying more licences, or sell out.
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I would like to ask Mr. Tousignant why that is. The department does not require this licensing change to manage fish stocks in 1996. I think you would agree with me on that. You can manage those fish stocks based on openings and closings, and you can close a fishery right down. You don't need that in order to manage the fish stocks.
So I'm asking you this question: given that I can't believe you would disagree with me on that, then why are you putting a gun to the heads of fishermen and saying that they must make this decision now, but Dr. Art May, who's been appointed by the minister as the one to set the allocation rules, is not going to be turning his report in - so I'm told - until the fall of this year? I know I speak on behalf of many people in the industry who are asking that question. Why are you doing it in this manner?
Mr. Tousignant: There are basically three parts to your question, which I would like to address in sequence.
The first is the level of support for the plan. I will simply say in that regard that a lot of fishermen right now are making long-term-future decisions who are in support of the plan. But let's face it, if the plan calls for a reduction of the number of fishermen over a period of time that is relatively short, by definition, a decision of that nature will make the opponents, or the people who are concerned about it, significantly more vocal than the others.
Having said this, in the round table process there was a consensus that significant measures should be taken to reduce the fleet prior to the 1996 season. There was agreement that there was a need to address allocations. But there was also an understanding that, in order to address allocations, which have been a perennial problem in the fishery, it was very important to give people the time to comment on things and to express their views. The decision was to be made in a very deliberate fashion through our process, which is the Art May process you described.
There was agreement that there should be a buy-back. The government has basically made $80 million available to address this issue.
There was also a series of management measures, which I described. Although they were all identified in some way in the reports or in the context of the round table, it was impossible to reach a consensus or unanimity.
Everybody agreed on the need to reduce the fleet by between 25 and 50, but getting agreement on precisely how to do it was not possible. Therefore, the minister and the government, basically, had to make a decision on very difficult issues, I admit.
With respect to the allocation issue, Art May's report, his mandate is essentially to, first, determine the current shares between the commercial, recreational and aboriginal sectors. If he cannot arrive at describing what those shares are, he's to provide the minister with the methodology and an approach to arrive at that description of what the universe is.
His second major task is based on input from commercial and recreational fishermen and aboriginal groups. He is to recommend the rules of the game, which should basically address the transfers of fish from one group to another.
I do not foresee that, in 1996, particularly considering the very difficult year we're facing in terms of abundance, we will see shifts in the share of the resource between the three groups. The aboriginal catch will more or less remain the same. The same can be said about the recreational sector. In fact, the recreational sector share, in the recent past, has been lower. So I don't see that there will be major shifts this year between the three groups.
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Therefore we will manage the commercial fisheries, the openings that are available with CFIC, based on the traditional sharing arrangements that were prevailing within the commercial fishery, with CFIC, basically using historical methods, and also considering that we will have specific problems to deal with such as a lack of sockeye opportunity for the Fraser and a reduced abundance of certain stocks of chinook.
On the issue that is of concern to many in the commercial fishery, which is the impacts of treaty settlements and so on, essentially there is one treaty that has reached a more definitive stage, the Nisga'a agreement-in-principle. That will not come into effect until eighteen months from now, well after Dr. May has addressed the issue.
So I am confident that considering that this issue is very fundamental and very important to the industry and needs deliberate thought, the issue of allocations among the three sectors will be resolved in a timely way. For the moment, commercial fishermen should not be concerned that there will be shifts or that the exercise will be used to transfer fish from one group to the other. They have already received assurances twice from Mr. Tobin in that regard.
On the last part of your question, you basically were saying, well, we could let everybody go north; because this year that is what would happen. If we did not introduce area licensing, and in view of the fact that the forecast for the Skeena River is 3 million fish...that is the major commercial opening on the coast. The alternative is to unleash everybody on those fish. For the management reasons I've mentioned earlier, and also for the need to get the process of restructuring started, this is a risk the minister felt should not be taken.
The Chairman: Harry.
Mr. Culbert (Carleton - Charlotte): Welcome, gentlemen.
One of the questions that are always first and foremost in our minds on the Atlantic coast, since we have actually experienced a decline in stocks - I was thinking of groundfish stocks - over more recent years, and the history that somewhat goes with that, both scientific and otherwise, is that from the perspective of the Atlantic coast, one would want to be assured the same scenario doesn't play itself out on the west coast.
It's my understanding from all the material I've been able to get my hands on over a period of time and read, about the decline of the stocks on the Atlantic coast, the cod and other groundfish too, that indeed scientists were saying for months and actually years that there should be a downsizing in the fishing industry, which certainly didn't occur as rapidly as scientists were indicating or would have liked to have seen. We know perhaps the results from that are the closure of the fishery for a good portion of the Atlantic coast. My constituency happens to be in the Bay of Fundy area, one of the few areas that still have a groundfish fishery, although with the quota system it's on a pretty small scale compared with what it was a number of years ago.
I guess what I'm coming at is a comparison, if indeed there is a comparison, to ensure actions are taken today for both the short- and longer-term good of the west coast fishery. Can you indeed assure us here today in this committee that you and other officials of the department feel very comfortable any and all actions are indeed being pursued to ensure a similar type of occurrence won't take place in the west coast fishery as a result of what's taking place currently?
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Mr. Tousignant: It is indeed very true that concerns over employment in both harvesting and processing on the Atlantic coast have basically forced the fisheries managers of the time and the successive ministers to manage at the edge. In fact, in the case of the Atlantic coast fisheries, they have been forced to basically fish into escapement. Had there been a rationalization of the Atlantic fishery, the problems we have seen may not have existed.
Clearly the department has no intention to practice fishing into escapement in the Pacific, nor have there been such practices in the past. Fishermen of all stripes have cooperated in making sure that we try to put numbers on the spawning grounds.
However, I have mentioned a few things that are worth noting in this context. First, we are managing much more conservatively than we were in the past. This was started with Mr. Tobin last year in a big way and will continue to be the case, because we want to make sure we meet escapement targets.
That has met with opposition from the Americans because the higher we put the possible fish numbers, the more they feel they have opportunities to fish and the more we have to persuade them not to fish. It's met with opposition from the commercial sectors and from aboriginal groups because they feel that by putting high escapement targets we are basically cutting into their fishing opportunities.
The point is that we are fishing further from the edge. We are establishing buffers on what goes back to the gravel in order to reduce the risk of not making the escapement targets we set, which are generous ones to assure sustainability of the resource. Ultimately, that means fewer fishing opportunities.
In the future directions of the fisheries that are laid out in the package that is given to the fishermen, we are going to change the fishing practices to reduce the risk on the resource. There will also be area licensing. For all those reasons, fishing will not be as freewheeling as it was in the past. We will be erring more on the side of conservation, reducing economic opportunities as opposed to enhancing short-term economic opportunities that may basically be bad news for the resource. So we're constraining the fishery and fishing opportunities to ensure conservation in various ways under the program.
Also entering the mix is the economy of the sector, which is going down. The value of salmon is less, so that calls for doing something with the number of fishermen at play, and in fact we need to reduce it. Everybody agrees on the need to reduce it. All these measures taken together are intended to ensure the maximum chances in favour of a situation where the tragedy that has happened on the east coast simply does not happen on the west coast.
Mr. Culbert: I have one further question. These various actions that are being proposed or are being taken will certainly limit the economics of the fishermen in the Canadian part of those waters, specifically the B.C. coast. Their catches, and therefore their income levels, can affect Canadians. What is being done to ensure that the conservation issue is respected by our neighbours to the south who also fish in those waters?
In other words, if we do our part for conservation from a Canadian perspective and from a B.C. coast perspective, this all benefits, but if it's being downgraded by someone else, we're not really gaining anything. That would be my concern. Are there actions being taken on that front? I don't expect you to speak on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs or anything, but I'm talking about Fisheries and Oceans.
Mr. Tousignant: Mr. Chamut will provide you chapter and verse on this perhaps later, because I only have half an hour - unless you want him to answer it right now.
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The Chairman: Do you mind waiting for that answer, Harold? Our treaty expert isMr. Chamut.
Mr. Tousignant: But Pat surely has a short answer.
Mr. Chamut: The short answer, sir, is yes.
Mr. Culbert: We'll get the specifics later.
The Chairman: As you know, there was a group from B.C., a small coalition, that came in last week and met with the minister and so on last Thursday, I believe. There's a much larger group coming in next week. They'll be meeting not only with you people but also with the committee next Tuesday afternoon. So it's really important that we get an understanding of how you arrived at this particular plan and what was your rationalization vis-à-vis what was in the round table suggestions and what was in the Cruickshank report or the Pearse report, and all the accumulation of reports and studies that were done on the west coast fishery.
One of the questions about the Cruickshank report was whether the department consulted with Don Cruickshank about fleet reduction before they made their announcement or whether that was part of the round table.
Mr. Tousignant: The difficulty we're facing, Mr. Chairman, is that, as we say in French, Tout le monde veut aller au ciel, mais personne ne veut mourir: Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. The problem is very straightforward. We have 4,400 vessels out there, fishing. There is a need to eliminate some of them through a licence retirement program and through regulatory measures.
Therefore, you will have 4,400 views on what we should do to protect the fisheries. If I were one of the fishermen who may be affected, I would give you a view that suits my interest. I'm not saying that in a negative, derogatory or bad way. I respect the views of everybody. But it was extremely difficult. It was impossible in the round table process, which I chaired, where we have 70 people....
We started off with the idea that we would have a committee of 50 and then, in order to make more room for a variety of views, we increased that number to about 70 people. There was no way we could reach a consensus let alone unanimity on how to go about to do this very difficult thing of reducing the size of the fleet, of making a better match between the fleet and the resource.
As a result of that, it is clear that there will be vociferous sources of opposition to individual aspects of the plan. And the plan is tough medicine. There's no question about that. But it's a job that needs to be done, and in the past, if you look at history, when the Davis plan was implemented, changes were made and flexibilities were introduced, which had the effect of basically eliminating its benefits. So it's a little bit of tough medicine.
Having said this, it's clear that we are and we hope to be able to continue - we count on it - to involve industry in implementing the plan and its follow-up. It'll take a number of years to implement. We will need to fine-tune the new consultative structures, both provincewide and on an area level. We will need to involve fishermen more in the future of the fishery. We plan to open up, in the longer term, the scientific assessment process to have a better exchange of views and things like that, but we have to start somewhere. Admittedly, it's a difficult thing to do.
The Chairman: They're saying, let's consult with the fishermen now. Why rush into next June with the $80 million buy-back? Why not a phased-in proposal? They're convinced for one reason or another that the pressure on the resource is not going to be any less. Even though the numbers are reduced, they're convinced the pressure might even be increased and that you'll have some big boats coming out of Vancouver, going up the coast and fishing all the fish, and the little guys in the little communities along the coast are going to be toast. How do you answer that?
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Mr. Tousignant: There are two parts to that. Let's deal first with the small operator. Of the small-boat fleet, 40% of it right now fishes in an area of the coast. They're what we call homesteaders, or people who fish near their place of living. They fish places where they have experience and where they have had good catches and so on.
The plan does not force them to change. One can stay in his own area and continue to fish his own area.
The second point I would make in respect to the small operator is that through area licensing we will reduce the fishing pressure in a given area and we will provide maybe better opportunities over time for the fishermen fishing one area.
The third point I would make is that the area licensing will limit the competition within an area. We're not forcing individual fishermen out. They have a choice to stay or to leave with compensation.
Having said this, however, the objective of the plan is to reduce the number of vessels or of licences by half, so I would not say there will not be human impacts. There is no question about it; there will be.
The last point, I would add, with respect to the small operators, which is the gill-net and troll fleet collectively, is a reiteration from my introductory statement whereby by and large, subject to what Mr. Kelleher, the arbitrator on intrasectoral allocations, said the share of the small-boat fleet will be protected within the commercial fishery. In other words, this exercise will not be used to expand the share of a fishery available to the same fleet.
As a result, there will be impacts on small operators. We will reduce the number of gill-net and troll units and combination boats. No question about that.
Having said this, they can count on roughly the share they've had in the past. They can still fish one area.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Cummins.
Mr. Cummins (Delta): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tousignant, you made a number of statements I would like to question. One, you suggest that fleet reduction will reduce pressure on the resource; you suggest it's going to enhance conservation.
I'd like to know how you are going to do that if you remove those with the lowest catch history and you increase the debt load of the higher producers, those people who'd be inclined to double up their licences or even buy two more licences. You're going to increase their debt load and in fact you are going to increase their motivation. How is that going to reduce pressure on the resource?
Mr. Tousignant: First, I will say that the plan, by providing for less fishing effort, less vessels on the water, will reduce the risk on the resource. There will be fewer fishermen fishing the fish, which will enable us to have better harvest rates, lower harvest rates, and more fisheries that are spread more over time - over a number of years, of course.
Mr. Cummins: Could I just interrupt for a minute, Mr. Tousignant. Less vessels, less congestion. In Johnstone Strait you have a line-up at a point of ten vessels. You reduce the fleet by half and the line-up is now five. Only one vessel is going to be fishing off that particular point at any one time. How is that going to reduce pressure on the resource?
Mr. Tousignant: I will come to that in a second. I will answer it.
One, I mentioned that we would be limiting the interception fisheries. We would have more selective harvests. We would have more cautionary rules governing the fisheries. Area licensing will reduce the pressure on the resource. We will have fewer operators in the gill-net and troll sector. So these measures will reduce the capacity of the fleet - make for a kinder approach, so to speak, to managing the resource with a reduction of risks.
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The seine fleet will reduce in numbers. Although we cannot speculate at this time on the impacts, because we have yet to receive applications for the retirement program, in the seine fleet, while the numbers will reduce, we will probably see older vessels being offered up for the buy-back and we will see inactive licences being offered up for the buy-back.
That will have the effect of removing permanently from the fleet those older vessels which historically have been modernized to modern standards and have become the big fishing machines they are right now. It will remove from the fleet forever inactive licences, which have a tendency to resurrect when the fishing is better - i.e., in 1997, 1999, 1998 - and therefore will reduce the capacity of the seine fleet to expand. Also, there will be a limitation, which will be more or less based on historical catch for the seine fleet. So regardless of the efficacy of the fishing machines that remain, the seine fleet will have at its disposal only the number of fish allocated to the seine sector.
Overall, if you take a combination of area licensing, new directions in each area in terms of fisheries management practices, reduction of units in gill-net control, and reduction of units in the seine, with a cap on what they are allowed to catch, I think you will agree with me that capacity will be reduced and the effort will be reduced and the risk will be reduced on the resource.
Mr. Cummins: No, I don't agree with you, because I think what's going to happen in seine is that the company vessels, the larger companies that have fleets, will remove the junk and put those licences on their better, bigger, and more efficient vessels. So you'll get rid of the old stuff, the older vessels that probably only fish the tides, and that licence will then go onto a vessel that will be capable of fishing 24 hours a day. You will reduce the line-up, but you're not going to reduce the fishing effort. That's a given.
Mr. Tousignant: These boats will be fishing the same allocations. If in the future we had no openings for the seine and said, ``Go ahead, it's a free-for-all'', then I would agree with you. But by limiting seine openings, we will continue to do that. By limiting the allocations given to the seine, the problem of fishing power that you seem to be worried about is quite manageable.
Mr. Cummins: The suggestion is that the buy-back will be paying 1994-95 licence prices. Is that a fact?
Mr. Tousignant: To be quite honest with you, I don't know, in the sense that fishermen are now determining their options. We will receive bids and we will see what will be put forward by fishermen who wish to retire in terms of offering their boats for sale. We have yet to see what offers will be coming out of the system.
I understand that before finalizing transactions we have an opportunity to go to the Treasury Board to examine how, on what terms, the overall program will be managed. Furthermore, we will receive the advice of a fleet reduction committee, the nominal composition of which has been agreed to and on which we're seeking names from the industry in B.C. to advise us in these matters.
Mr. Cummins: What's going to happen essentially is that the government is going to go into competition in bidding for the junkers. You're buying only licences; you're not buying boats.
Who in their right mind, who has a good vessel and a licence, is going to sell to the government for the price of a licence? The boat has no value other than as a fishing vessel.
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Mr. Tousignant: That's not for me to say. We will see what comes out of the system. This program will be spread over a number of years - not the licence retirement one, but the implementation of the salmon rationalization program.
Our initial hypothesis - and it may very well be an hypothesis; I don't know, but time will tell - is the $80 million that has been put forward may result in reducing the number of vessels by about 20%. It may be less; it may be more. I doubt it will be more, but we could achieve that. We'll see as we go, on the understanding, of course, that we will be working with the industry.
We must start somewhere. Admittedly it's very probable that the more marginal licences or operators are likely to be coming forward.
Mr. Cummins: I think you've created a competition for these licences between the government buy-back program and the fishing community itself. The fact of the matter as I understand it is the government bids will limits its compensation to 1994-95 prices. So really the$80 million at the end of June is not likely to be returned to Treasury Board.
Be that as it may, the gill-nets are divided into three areas: D, E and F. F is the Fraser River-San Juan area, the entrance to the Strait of Georgia. While area F essentially is a Fraser River fishery, in all likelihood in 1996 there won't be any fishing on the Fraser River for the commercial fleet. How is somebody who just went through the 1995 season, and the 1995 disaster, going to be able to afford to opt for area F when that means they're going to have to go a second season without income, essentially? What are you telling those guys?
Mr. Tousignant: Well, I don't know. They have a long-term choice to make in terms of their participation in the fishery. The alternative to staying in area E, which is the lower Fraser gill-net area, is to have everybody go through Rupert.
Mr. Cummins: Well, that's what's going to happen, because essentially area E is a Fraser River fishery as well.
Mr. Tousignant: Area E is the Fraser River. For the gill-net, area C is north.
As I said to Mr. Scott earlier, the alternative of not moving with the plan right now and having delays and things of that nature would result in everybody going fishing in the north for the estimated 3 million catch of sockeye, which is the major commercial opportunity. It's questionable whether there would be a decent living for all the fishermen participating in the fishery, let alone the management and competitive problems that we simply don't want to see again.
Mr. Cummins: But I think the issue here is that out of the three gill-net areas - C, D and E - the only area where there's any likelihood of any fish this year is area C.
The small-boat fleet, the gill-net fleet, had a disaster last summer. I don't know anybody who made any money. I know very few guys who made over $10,000 last year, and that was for natural reasons.
In 1996 the problem is not because of nature; the problem is mismanagement of the fishery in 1992. The department, rather than facing up to its responsibility for creating the disaster of 1992, is pushing this program forward and asking the fishermen to pay the price - to pay the piper for what DFO did in 1992.
Mr. Tousignant: Yes.
Mr. Chamut: The outlook for 1996 throughout the coast is extremely bleak. We have known for some time that the levels of harvest in 1996 are going to be low. We've known that chinook stocks on the west coast of Vancouver Island are low.
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They are low because of environmental conditions that occurred in a number of sequential events where warm water moved north, bringing with it large numbers of mackerel that consumed large numbers of juvenile chinook. As a result, we've known for at least three years that the returns in 1995, 1996 and 1997 would be low. We've also known the returns of Fraser sockeye would be low. But I really must disagree with Mr. Cummins about the reasons for why returns are low in 1992.
In 1992, Mr. Chairman, we had a large amount of controversy about management. There was a management review in 1992. The report prepared at that time indicated there was an escapement of around 850,000 sockeye that was below the set target, but nonetheless it was about the second highest on that run in many decades.
Based on that return in the past we have seen ample returns of Fraser sockeye, but we know that 1996 is the low part of the cycle. We knew it would be low in 1996. The only comment I can add is that it's lower than might have been expected because, as Mr. Tousignant said at the outset, there does seem to be a shift in temperature regimes that has resulted in declining productivity for Fraser sockeye.
Mr. Cummins: Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of items here that I think are worthy of note. First, mackerel don't swim upriver. Seven hundred thousand sockeye went missing above the Mission Bridge. In 1992 in the upper Pitt River they expected a return of 25,000 and ended up with 1,282 by the end of September. In the Bowron River they wanted 16,000 spawners in the gravel and ended up with about 2,500, and in the early summer run, they wanted 212,000 on the gravel and ended up with 30,000. Those fish went missing above the Mission Bridge.
The report that DFO commissioned in 1992 was by Mr. Peter Pearse and was self-serving in the sense that Mr. Pearse was the father of the AFS. He was the guy who recommended we get into this native commercial fishery that put an added burden on the managers and resulted in the disaster in 1992.
We've been waiting four years to find out what the government was going to do about addressing the problems the industry is going to face in 1996. Their response was not to own up for their management shortcomings. The response simply has been to initiate a buy-back that is largely financed by licence fees from the fishermen and to have the fishermen cannibalize the fleet, all at their own expense. They're doing this because of mismanagement of the resource in 1992. Those are the facts of the matter, and there's no arguing it.
Mr. Chamut: Mr. Chairman, may I respond?
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Chamut: First, let me clarify for the record that I never implied that mackerel swim upriver. I commented about the effect of mackerel on chinook salmon. I've certainly never indicated that mackerel have in any way swum up rivers and consumed large numbers of juvenile fish.
I simply must reiterate that I disagree with the comments Mr. Cummins has made, particularly with respect to the allegations about Drs. Pearse and Larkin, the two individuals who prepared a 1992 report that investigated the reasons for the shortfalls in escape. The report concluded there were certainly not 700,000 missing salmon.
Mr. Cummins: There were.
Mr. Chamut: There was a number unaccounted for, which they ascribe to in-river mortality. The number of fish that did get on the spawning grounds was, I repeat, the second-highest escapement level on that cycle in a large number of decades - since I don't know when.
The fact is, in previous years there has been adequate and reasonable amounts of abundance returning from an escapement level of about 850,000, which was there. It's been known for some time that the 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984 cycle is historically low on the Fraser. We knew a number of years ago the returns would be low at this time as well.
Mr. Cummins: Nothing like what we expected.
.1640
The Chairman: Mr. Scott should have a question here, Mr. Cummins. You've had a good kick at the can.
Mr. Scott (Skeena): I'll only hold you to one question, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask a question of Mr. Tousignant before he goes, because I know he's going to leave here pretty quickly to catch a plane.
The Chairman: Yes, in five more minutes.
Mr. Scott: Mr. Tousignant, I believe in November of last year the department announced a further funding cut to the salmonid enhancement program in British Columbia, to the tune of$3 million plus. This is after a number of cuts have been made over the last couple of years.
I believe you can probably answer this question better than Mr. Chamut can. I would like to know how many dollars have been cut out of SEP's budget over the last three years. I talked to you at the end of January or the beginning of February of this year, and you told me that the department had made recommendations to the minister with respect to the $3 million in funding cuts for this year, and that the minister would be making a decision at the end of February.
We're getting close to the end of April and we haven't heard the announcement yet. I wonder if you could tell us what the decision is with respect to.... I'm hoping you're going to tell us that the department has changed its position and that it's going to retain the funding for the SEP program, but I'd like you to clarify that.
For the benefit of the committee members here, I'd like you to tell us how much the salmonid enhancement program has been reduced over the past three years, and I would like the committee members to know that in the face of talking - and this really makes me mad - about conservation of the resource and enhancement of the resource, for a mere pittance in relation to DFO's total budget, a proven program that puts fish back in the water and really enhances the resource, in some cases extremely successfully, is being cut. This year it's supposed to be cut by $3 million. In my understanding that could affect as many as eight or nine hatcheries in British Columbia.
Maybe Mr. Tousignant can elaborate on that. I would like to know how the department can talk about conservation on one side and cut the salmonid enhancement projects on the other side.
Mr. Tousignant: With respect to your question on budgets, I will ask Mr. Don Kowal to provide the clerk of the committee with the precise numbers for the last three years. I don't want to speculate. I would like to give you the straight goods in that regard.
The cuts for the department that we are proposing in the context of the program review would come into effect in 1997 and 1998. It would be in the neighbourhood of $3 million from SEP. It would bring the level of the program from $27 million to $24 million, roughly. These proposals were reviewed from a long list of projects down to a shorter list and are before the minister. He has yet to make his decision.
Mr. Scott: How many jobs have been cut in Ottawa over that same period of time? That's the demonstration of DFO's commitment to the fish in British Columbia right there.
Mr. Tousignant: As I said, Mr. Scott, the minister has this question before him and he will make a decision on where to go with it.
The Chairman: Mr. Chamut, do you want to tackle that last question?
Mr. Chamut: Yes, Mr. Chairman, if I may. I can't talk about the entire department but I can talk about the sector I'm responsible for, fisheries management, and as part of program review we have in fact reduced our employment, the level of the number of jobs in Ottawa, by about 25%. We did that in the first year, because I think we feel that we do have an obligation to the well-being of the resource and that commitment is best expressed by maintaining the programs and the services that deal with the enhancement, the enforcement and the management of that resource.
There's still an ongoing program of review. There will be further cuts in Ottawa, and in my sector alone that level of cuts will be well in excess of 30% to 35%. In addition to that, we've also looked intensively at the overhead in this area, in terms of both Ottawa and the regional headquarters, because there are a number of people involved in activities that were often seen as warranting changes, such as the need for greater efficiency and the need to focus our efforts on those elements of resource management that are most key in making sure we meet our responsibilities for conservation.
So there has been or there will be, as I recall, about a 40% reduction in those jobs across the department. We're very much aware of the need to focus our resources in those areas that have the highest investment. We have significantly reduced the jobs in my sector and elsewhere in order to meet that commitment.
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Mr. Scott: Perhaps, Mr. Chamut, you would be good enough to give us the information with respect to the number of employees here in Ottawa, say from 1992 through to this year - the levels. Perhaps you would be good enough to tell us, out of DFO's total allocation, the cost of that and the cost of maintaining regional offices, because the information I have runs counter to that. I'm told that the number of employees in Ottawa working under DFO's umbrella has actually remained the same or perhaps even risen slightly. That's the information I have, so I'd like to see that information.
Mr. Chamut: As I say, Mr. Scott, I can tell you personally that in my sector we have cut in the first year of program review by 25%, and there's more to come.
Mr. Scott: You've cut your payroll by 25%?
Mr. Chamut: We've cut positions - jobs.
Mr. Scott: Have you cut your payroll by 25%?
Mr. Chamut: I don't have the absolute figures in front of me.
Mr. Tousignant: I guess what you're looking for, Mr. Scott, is the total headquarter expenditures over the past years, and I would like Mr. Cole, on my behalf, to provide that through the ADM corporate.
The Chairman: Mr. Tousignant, do you have to go?
Mr. Tousignant: I think so, unless you want me to stay longer.
The Chairman: Does the committee want Mr. Tousignant to stay?
You might want to stay overnight in Ottawa. If not, we can go to Mr. Chamut.
Mr. Byrne (Humber - St. Barbe - Baie Verte): We should get into that region and spend some money out there rather than here.
Mr. Cummins: Before we let Mr. Tousignant go, I'd just like to ask one final question.
The Chairman: Can you make it a tight one?
Mr. Cummins: It'll be tight.
The Chairman: Go ahead.
Mr. Cummins: Mr. Tousignant, I know that you're a good-humoured man and a good-natured fellow. The University of Victoria made some uncharitable characterizations of detractors of this structuring program. I wonder if you'd care to go on the record as withdrawing those remarks.
Mr. Tousignant: I'm grateful for the opportunity, because I don't know whether The Vancouver Sun has published the letter to the editor I wrote to that effect. I qualified that those who argued that the Mifflin plan did not enhance conservation were coming into five categories of people. My remark was interpreted as embracing all the opponents of the plan, regardless of the reasons they opposed the plan.
I was simply saying that if you look at the impact of the plan in terms of its ability to enhance conservation of the resource, it indeed has one. That was the first part of my remarks. And Mr. Pynn from The Vancouver Sun put the qualifiers that I attached to those who were challenging the fact that it was not enhancing conservation as encompassing all of the critics of the plan, which was by no means my intent.
I am the first to admit that it's a tough plan and that people may be opposed to it for economic reasons and for hardship reasons that are quite valid and indeed good.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. We should let you go.
Mr. Cummins: Thank you.
The Chairman: Maybe we'll go to Mr. Chamut's presentation. Maybe next Tuesday we could have some people from your department here when the coalition is here. If possible, we'd also like to have before then some background on the Mifflin plan - what led up to it in the roundtable recommendations. We're really sort of empty-handed here. We don't really have a backgrounder to refer to.
Mr. Tousignant: Okay.
The Chairman: We certainly would like to have that before next week so that we can talk with some intelligence to the coalition when it comes in.
Mr. Tousignant: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Mr. Bernier, do you have a question?
[Translation]
Mr. Bernier (Gaspé): I would like to start by apologizing to our witnesses for arriving a little late this afternoon. I will read the proceedings, because I'm interested in this issue as well.
I wanted members from the Vancouver area, such as Mr. Cummins and Mr. Scott to go ahead of me today. However, I should point out that this will not be the practice in future.
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I particularly wanted to hear Mr. Tousignant's remarks, because I was missing some documents as well.
I would like some assurance from Mr. Tousignant that even though some may be opposed to the plan, he and his department will be opened to changes to rationalize this fishery, provided they're in keeping with ecological and economic considerations.
Mr. Tousignant: The main points of the plan, namely the licence buy-back program, sectoral management, stacking - I don't know the term in French...
Mr. Bernier: It's l'étiquetage.
Mr. Tousignant: No, it refers to having two licences if you want to fish in more than one sector in British Columbia.
The major program trends have been determined, because at the moment there is a considerable number of people in the fisheries who are making important economic decisions. Hence, in the interest of these individuals, it is quite important that the plan not be altered dramatically.
Having said that, we are working with a round table steering committee which will become an industry and department committee to examine the provisions of the plan as we go along and the information that will be sent out. A kit has been sent to all fishermen and it was reviewed by these people to ensure that the information included input from the industry.
[English]
Next week we will delegate somebody from the region, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Okay, thank you very much.
Assistant Deputy Minister, you have a presentation before we have questions.
Mr. Chamut: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I'd like to do is just talk a little bit about another issue I think will be an important preoccupation for the Pacific fishery in 1996.
As you've already heard, there are a number of changes being made in fisheries management. I also referred earlier to a number of declines in abundance in certain stocks. I mentioned chinook salmon and Fraser River sockeye. All of those issues are going to make it fairly challenging and very controversial in 1996.
The third issue, which I think is going to be equally controversial, is the implementation of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. We continue, in 1996, to have difficulties in the implementation of the treaty. In 1996 we have two main concerns. One is short term and involves trying to come to agreement with respect to fishing arrangements with the United States in 1996. The second is a longer-term concern dealing with the implementation of the so-called equity principle of the treaty.
The equity principle is one of the two key principles of the treaty. The other is conservation. Both of these principles are based on the reality that as salmon stocks migrate south, they are intermingled. So you have stocks from the United States mixed in with stocks from Canada as they migrate down the coast. It is evident that because they are harvested by the fisheries of both countries, some form of bilateral cooperation is necessary in order to ensure the proper management and conservation of the stocks. The conservation principle, which is one of the two, obliges the parties to work together to try to ensure the conservation of the stocks and to achieve optimum production.
Similarly, the equity principle is designed to ensure there is a balance in benefits in the harvest of the stocks in both countries. Essentially what the equity principle says is that each country should receive benefits equivalent to the production of salmon from its own rivers. It is essentially a way to ensure there's a balance in the harvest of the stocks of both countries. It's based on what I think is a very sensible notion that if you have clear allocation rules, it will in fact facilitate conservation.
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So the two principles work together. Equity ensures that there's a balance in the shares, and conservation ensures that the long-term well-being of the resource is maintained. It's clear that when you have an understanding about shares, there's a greater incentive to conserve and to enhance.
Since the treaty was signed in 1985, we have worked very hard to try to come to agreement on how to implement the second principle, this equity principle. To this point and through a long history of negotiations, the U.S. has been quite resistant to any definition of what this equity principle might mean.
Since the treaty has been signed, we have run into increasing difficulty because of two factors that have occurred. One is that there have been increases in the U.S. interception of Canadian salmon at the same time as there has been a decline in Canadian interception of U.S. salmon. So the conclusion of these two trends is that the U.S. over the years has been harvesting more and more salmon than its legitimate share, and Canadians have been getting less and less. These conclusions about the imbalance that currently exists are based on bilateral data on interceptions. We've reached the point now where it's very clear that the U.S. is receiving disproportionate benefits. They're harvesting more fish than are produced in their own rivers.
The problem has been discussed and negotiated around the table of the Pacific Salmon Commission, essentially since the treaty was signed in 1985. There have been efforts made to resolve this disagreement, and they have been unsuccessful at the level of the Pacific Salmon Commission.
The Chairman: How many more salmon have they taken than they should? How many millions, or whatever?
Mr. Chamut: The current estimate is that for every species of salmon - there are five species - the U.S. is now harvesting more Canadian salmon than we are of theirs. So there is an overall imbalance. If you add up all the figures, it amounts to about five million salmon, which by Canadian calculations, based on 1994 data, would be about $70 million. So it's a fairly sizeable chunk.
The issue has grown over time to the point where there is now a very significant imbalance. We have discussed this issue in the salmon commission; we have discussed it in government-to-government negotiations when discussions failed in the salmon commission. In the past, we have appointed new negotiators, we've elevated the debate, all of this without any substantive progress in convincing the United States that they do have a treaty obligation, that there is a requirement for them to adjust their fisheries in some way so as to provide a more favourable balance and comply with the equity principle.
After no progress had been made over a large number of years, it was agreed between the two parties that a mediator should be brought in to try to work with both Canada and the United States to find a solution to this very difficult problem. So Canada and the United States agreed on the appointment of a mediator, an individual named Chris Beeby, who was a diplomat from New Zealand with experience in these sorts of matters, experienced in fisheries issues in other venues.Mr. Beeby was appointed in September. He was engaged in being briefed by the parties in October. He met further with Canadian and U.S. officials, and finally in January brought forth a proposal that in his opinion would represent a reasonable framework for implementing this so-called equity principle.
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When Canada reviewed this proposal, it obviously involved compromises on the part of both Canada and the United States. Nonetheless, we were prepared to engage in further discussions using the mediator's proposal as a basis for further negotiations with the United States. Unfortunately, the United States was not similarly prepared to compromise. They reviewed the mediator's proposals and indicated that they did not see it as a reasonable basis to proceed. They were unwilling to make any compromise. As a result, in February the mediator essentially concluded that he could do no more. The mediation effort failed, and it failed because of American unwillingness to work with the mediator's proposal.
Since that time, Canada has pressed the United States to find alternative ways of dealing with this dispute. We have requested that the U.S. consider a binding dispute resolution. It was proposed to Secretary of State Warren Christopher of the United States that arbitration be used to deal with this dispute. At the present time, we're still awaiting a formal response from Secretary of State Christopher, but the preliminary signals from the United States are not favourable. In the meantime, we continue to press for arbitration as the most appropriate way of dealing with what has been a longstanding and very difficult dispute.
So that essentially is where we are. We're currently awaiting a formal response. We're pressing for arbitration, and we expect to hear shortly with respect to that proposal.
The other issue, which is a short-term one, is essentially how to deal with 1996. While the treaty remains in place and operative, we still have to negotiate fishing regimes on an annual basis. Those are the arrangements that will govern the conduct of the fishing arrangements for the coming year.
The Pacific Salmon Commission, consisting of representatives of the Government of Canada and that of the United States, has met through the months of January and February, 1996, and at the end of March. During those discussions, we had focused on working out fishing arrangements for coho salmon, for chum salmon, and for Fraser sockeye, as well as chinook salmon. It is the latter species that will be the key issue in terms of sorting out fishing arrangements with the United States in 1996.
Within Canada, we have - and I alluded to these problems earlier - very significant conservation concerns with respect to stocks of chinook on the west coast of Vancouver Island. We have asked the Alaskans who fish on these low-abundance stocks of chinook to reduce their harvest rate to complement Canadian harvest rate restrictions that were implemented in 1995 and will be continued in 1996.
On this issue the United States is quite divided. They are unable to agree, within their own delegation, on the sort of arrangement that should be proposed for chinook salmon for 1996. And I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that I found an insightful cartoon in The Vancouver Sun. I'm not sure people have seen it, but there were a number of fishermen standing around, one of whom was holding a fish. The one holding the fish had on a T-shirt labelled ``Alaska''. The caption was ``What I don't catch, you can conserve.'' I think that sort of nicely captures the current level of debate that exists within the United States section. There's a lot of disagreement over how the Alaskans should be managing chinook salmon in 1996. As a result of their internal disagreement, we do not yet have any U.S. position on which they're prepared to negotiate with us with respect to chinook.
.1705
I spoke to the chairman of the United States section this week. We have pressed for a continued discussion to try to sort this out. I expect we will have a U.S. response on chinook salmon and on some of the other arrangements. We expect to meet in early May. Once we get the position from the United States on the chinook salmon harvest we will review it and then be pursuing arrangements for harvesting in 1996.
In these discussions our objective is to conclude arrangements that will meet Canadian conservation objectives, first and foremost, because in 1996 they are very important. We also intend to negotiate arrangements that will not worsen the interception imbalance that is at the heart of this equity dispute.
We do expect to be carrying on further discussions with the United States colleagues in the first or second week of May.
The Chairman: Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott: I'm not a lawyer, Mr. Chamut. Maybe you can help me a little. When two countries sign a treaty, is that not a binding contract or an agreement between those two nations?
Mr. Chamut: Mr. Scott, I'm not a lawyer either.
I think this issue boils down to a question of interpretation. I think everyone has gone into this treaty believing exactly what you have just stated, that in fact we do have an agreement, we do have an arrangement that should be binding. The U.S. has a very different interpretation of this principle called ``equity''.
As a result, much as we might like to force the United States to live up to their obligations under this treaty, my understanding of the legal context of it - and again, I say it without being a lawyer - is that there is no final court you can use to force the United States to live up to what we see as their obligations, short of going to the World Court; and the World Court is an instrument that can be implemented, or can be brought into the picture to deal with an issue like this, only when the United States agrees to submit to its jurisdiction, which I do not believe it will do. It leave us in the situation of having to continue to negotiate and press as hard as we can to find a solution that will be acceptable to us.
Mr. Scott: Let me ask another question, then. Canada and the United States agreed to a mediator and to non-binding mediation. His name was Christopher Beatty, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr. Chamut: Beeby.
Mr. Scott: Beeby. He agreed to mediate. He came to North America from New Zealand, spent a considerable amount of time and effort, put together a report, as I understand it, and tabled or submitted the report. As soon as the American delegation saw what was in it, they walked away from mediation. Mr. Beeby booked out and went back home.
I don't know if I have my facts right or not, but those are the facts as I know them. You can correct me if I'm wrong.
I have never seen a copy of Mr. Beeby's report. I do not know what his recommendations were. Particularly in British Columbia, I think people who depend on the fishery for recreation or for their livelihoods would really like to know what Mr. Beeby had to say.
So I'm going to ask you, do I have my facts substantially right? If not, could you correct me where I might be wrong? Secondly, can you tell me when we might expect to see a copy of Mr. Beeby's report and recommendations?
There is one other court, and that's the court of public opinion. If it can be shown to our American friends that in this particular instance the Alaskan commercial fishermen are being unreasonable, we might be able to win some battles in that regard.
Mr. Chamut: Thank you, Mr. Scott. I think you've summarized things reasonably well.
The mediator did table a proposal. I should emphasize that proposal did require compromise on the part of both parties. Canada was prepared to work within that framework to negotiate an arrangement. The United States simply was not. So it was not prepared to work further with the mediator's proposal. He essentially found his task to be frustrated by the unwillingness of the United States to work within a framework that he believed was a reasonable compromise.
.1710
So I would verify your statement of facts.
On the issue of the report, there have been a number of requests for the report that Ambassador Beeby prepared. They requested it to be released. When the mediator was established, when the terms of reference for the mediator were agreed to by the parties, it was agreed that any reports or any documentation associated with the mediation process would be held in confidence by the parties unless it was agree by both parties for it to be released.
So all I can say to you is that I realize that there is an interest in this report, but the government is bound by the terms of reference, which it agreed to with the United States, which indicated that this written material would not be made publicly available without the concurrence of both parties. That's essentially where we are.
Mr. Scott: Mr. Chamut, as a long-time co-member of this committee, I recall receiving a briefing from your department some time ago. I don't know if you were there or not, but there were certainly some officials from your department who understood this issue very well. They showed up and they testified in front of the committee and talked about the volumes of fish.
I'm not sure if some of the members here really understand the numbers of fish we're talking about, but they are significant.
For the benefit of the members here, maybe you could elaborate a bit about the Skeena River coho and the sockeye and so on, on the numbers as your department sees them and the incremental increases or spreads every year away from that equity principle. The last time you used some graphs that I thought were very well laid out. It might help the committee with their understanding of the issue.
Mr. Chamut: The chairman had asked what the magnitude of the degree of imbalance in interceptions was. My response was that it's about five million salmon, in total, of all five species, worth about $70 million in 1994.
I have here material to which you referred, some of the graphs the department has put together, which demonstrate what the differences between the two parties are in the interceptions. With the permission of the chair, I could provide copies of this to you, which might help to explain and amplify what I have talked about here. They illustrate graphically what the nature of this issue is all about.
Mr. Scott: That's what I was getting at. I remember the overheads that were used by the department in the past. I thought it was an excellent presentation. It made it very easy for people to see, in graphic terms, the magnitude of the problem.
Mr. Chamut: With your concurrence, sir, I'll make a copy of this available and provide it to the clerk.
The Chairman: What do you think can happen there? The Americans know that they're getting away with murder. They know that any mediator is going to come down basically on the side of Canada, because if you go by the past treaty they're obviously taking more and we're taking less. Do you foresee this ever coming to a conclusion without our just throwing up our hands and giving our resources to the Americans just for the sake of a treaty? How do you see this turning out in the near or not-so-near future?
Mr. Chamut: As I said, from Canada's perspective the best outcome is to have a binding dispute resolution mechanism with the United States. I personally am confident that Canada would fare well in that. I believe we have a strong case.
The Chairman: Under what?
Mr. Chamut: I think that when you see the information, you'll agree.
The Chairman: Under the CUSTA? Under what? Just an agreement to have a binding...?
Mr. Chamut: The proposal would require that there be agreement from the United States to submit this issue to binding arbitration. But, assuming they agreed, it would be done in such a way that it would probably be according to rules similar to some of the dispute-resolution arrangements under other bilateral instruments. It would not be under the authority of NAFTA or any of these other instruments, because they have no relevance or application to the treaty.
.1715
It does require U.S. concurrence, and our objective is to continue to press for a negotiated solution. The issue is too important to simply ignore and allow to continue, because at this point it's not only an economic loss to the coastal communities and to the fisherman of the province of B.C., but it's also creating many tensions within a treaty that was established to provide for the conservation and long-term well-being of the stocks.
For that reason, I think it behoves both parties to find a solution to this to ensure that our mutual interest in conservation is in fact achieved. I'm confident that over time we will be able to come to some agreement with this, but I have to acknowledge that in my view we are not looking at a solution that will be immediate. It's something that will require continued effort in order to ensure that we resolve the issue in a way that's acceptable to Canada and Canadian fisherman.
The Chairman: So because we're the mouse next to the elephant, there's no place we can go to force these guys, in the eyes of the world, to come to some kind of an agreement.
Mr. Chamut: I think an important part of Canada's strategy, which I think Mr. Scott alluded to, is the need to publicly demonstrate what the U.S. has been doing. In some cases we could point to the record where they have not met conservation objectives and where their interceptions have increased dramatically over Canadian interceptions. We need to build alliances with groups in the United States that in fact share the Canadian view. Because of the way in which this issue has evolved, I think we can take advantage of a very strong and compelling Canadian position to demonstrate the rightness of our view.
The Chairman: Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott: I know my colleague has some questions, but I have one quick one.
Mr. Chamut, maybe you could answer something just for the benefit of the committee. Again, I don't know that I have all my facts straight so maybe you can help me with this, but it's my understanding that over the last 15 years or so, Canada has worked hand in hand with the United States to discourage interception of our American and Canadian salmon stocks on the high seas. It's also my understanding that the Alaskan commercial salmon fishery is far larger than Canada's. Canada's commercial fishery is a fraction of what theirs is, in terms of Pacific salmon stocks.
It's also my understanding that the two countries were largely successful in getting international agreement to stop fishing Pacific salmon stocks on the high seas. It's my understanding that as a result of that joint effort on the part of both nations, Alaska has reaped the benefits in the sense that they have a commercial fishery that's gone from taking 30 million pieces of fish a year to almost 200 million pieces of fish a year in the last ten years.
My numbers may not be accurate right down to the last million, but I think the general idea is there. The information I've been given is that the Alaskan commercial fishery has certainly reaped large benefits over the last ten years as a result of that. Also, to be fair to them, their conservation and enhancement programs have worked very well. It's not that they have not paid attention to their own fishery but that they have reaped the benefit of this international agreement not to fish Pacific salmon stocks on the high seas.
They were successful in achieving that, linked arm in arm with Canada while they were out lobbying for this in the world with other nations.
.1720
Can you give the committee some idea as to the veracity of this information and whether or not DFO sees it from that point of view?
Mr. Chamut: Mr. Scott, in response, I think your numbers are, talking on average, probably not that far off, because I know B.C. would normally be about 15% of the total of Alaska, assuming we normally catch between 30 million and 40 million fish per year. It's in the ballpark of 200 million for the total Alaskan catch, which includes not just the southeast portion; most of it's coming from up around the Gulf of Alaska and Bristol Bay.
I think your figures are generally close, and I would agree that the Alaskan harvest in particular has benefited from the elimination of any opportunity for high seas harvest.
The only question I would have is what is the total extent to which that high seas harvest would have been taking stocks of Alaskan origin. I don't have the answer to that question, because I think the production in Alaska is the result of a number of factors. I think it does reflect a commitment to try to rebuild stocks. It does reflect a commitment to some enhancement and certainly to some fairly favourable ocean conditions in the Alaskan area for pink and sockeye salmon, because they've done very well with the sockeye production in Bristol Bay.
I think I would agree in general that they have had some benefits. I don't know whether I could give you an answer as to the extent to which you can quantify that benefit, because I don't know whether anyone really understood the total extent of high seas harvest, because it was not necessarily well enforced or well documented.
[Translation]
Mr. Bernier: I have two brief questions for the Assistant Deputy Minister.
Mr. Scott referred to the information provided by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regarding a salmon problem that occurred last year on the west coast. What is the link between your department and the department of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Chamut? Is it your department that is involved in these negotiations, or is it rather the Department of Foreign Affairs, underMr. Axworthy?
Second, I don't know how the legislative power works in the States, but I would like to know whether in Alaska fisheries management comes under the state or whether it is a federal power, as it is in Canada. That would help me understand the rest of the discussion better.
I understood your answer about organizing a media campaign to make the Americans understand the issue better.
[English]
Mr. Chamut: Thank you, sir. In response to your first question, the responsibility for negotiating the fishing arrangements under the treaty resides with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. That negotiating process is done in the Pacific Salmon Commission, which is a group of eight Canadians, two of whom are from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, six of whom are from B.C. - commercial fishermen, aboriginal people, and sports fishermen - and one of whom is from the province of B.C. That's the group that's responsible for negotiating the fishing arrangements, and it is under the responsibility of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
In terms of pursuing some of these other issues with which we have difficulties with the United States whereby we're not successfully able to negotiate a fishing arrangement, the issue often becomes elevated above the level of the Pacific Salmon Commission and becomes an issue of bilateral importance. It then requires consultations between Ottawa and Washington at very senior levels, and in those circumstances the Foreign Affairs embassy in Washington becomes engaged and works very closely with people in Fisheries and Oceans.
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Essentially we represent the technical capacity to explain the issues and to deal with the technical aspects. The Foreign Affairs people will often work with their counterparts in Washington, D.C., to advance the Canadian position. It works in a very cooperative way, and I think we have been successful in being able to integrate the technical with the diplomatic. So it has worked and it continues to work today.
Now on your second question about the management of fisheries in the United States, it is far more complicated in the United States than it is in Canada. The U.S. federal government does not have jurisdiction over management of the salmon stocks as we do in Canada. The U.S. federal government has jurisdiction outside three miles from the coast. The state government has jurisdiction within three miles. Much of the fishing occurs within three miles of the coast; accordingly, it is a state jurisdiction to manage.
Now, I think you can appreciate it is extremely complicated to sort out jurisdictions. It's for this reason the U.S. federal government frequently has difficulty in being able to meet with Canada and being able to negotiate with one voice. Each party on the U.S. side, whether it is Alaska, the State of Washington or the State of Oregon, has their individual interests. As a result, it becomes very difficult for the U.S. government to provide Canada with a single negotiating position.
I referred earlier to the difficulty in dealing with chinook salmon. The Alaskans do not agree with the State of Washington and as a result the federal government is unable to come and negotiate effectively with Canada. I think it is this structure and the difficulty in being able to deal with the United States as a single party that has created a lot of the difficulties we have in 1996 in implementing many provisions in the treaty.
The Chairman: We will have a short follow-up. Harold, do you have a short question? Then we'll conclude with John. We're running out of time here.
[Translation]
Mr. Bernier: The comments made by the Assistant Deputy Minister caused a red light to go on in my head. I have been told that the House is supposed to be resuming its study of the Oceans Bill on Friday, I believe. This is an issue of some importance.
The Assistant Deputy Minister tells me that in the United States the system does not work in the same way as it does in Canada. Has the United States signed the new convention of the law of the sea? In it, there's reference to a terminology that people are trying to have used throughout the world. The Oceans Bill is being presented in the House so that Canada will comply with this new terminology. If the United States have already signed, why, in its definition of the laws of the sea, do they say that the three nautical miles will come under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and that inland, it will come under the coastal states, whereas here in Canada, that matter comes under the federal government?
My question may be political, but is it preferable to harmonize the terminology taken from the Convention of the law of the sea to include it in the Oceans bill and the legislation passed by the United States? This would mean that there would be fewer participants around the table. It would mean that British Colombia would negotiate with its actual neighbours.
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I come back to my first question. Has the United States signed the Convention of the Law of the Sea?
[English]
Mr. Chamut: Unfortunately, I don't know if they have signed or not, and I'd be reluctant to speculate. But I would offer the comment that the jurisdiction in Canada and the U.S. with respect to fisheries is obviously quite different and I would not necessarily make a linkage between jurisdiction for law of the sea and the jurisdiction for fisheries management.
In Canada, there is a clear legislative responsibility for management of sea coast and inland fisheries assigned to the federal government. Constitutionally, the U.S. has obviously dealt with their fisheries management in quite a different way.
I'm not sure the link to the law of the sea is entirely relevant in terms of this specific issue, which prompted your question dealing with the state of Alaska and the states of Washington and Oregon under the treaty.
The Chairman: Harold.
Mr. Culbert: Mr. Chamut, I'm a little confused at your description of the salmon that come from the respective rivers or streams in B.C. or Alaska. If Alaska is catching many more than their would-be quota according to the agreement, are those salmon coming from the streams of B.C.? Or is the reproduction of the salmon in the streams of B.C. dropping while the production in rivers and streams in Alaska is going up? I'm a little confused on this part of it. Straighten me out there.
Mr. Chamut: Actually, what has been happening is the productivity of Canadian salmon has been increasing. The harvesting of salmon occurs as the salmon migrate from north to south. They return to the coast as adults, where they are subject to harvesting in fisheries by the various jurisdictions. The Alaskan harvest generally occurs first because they're first in line. They're fishing on stocks that are a mixture of Canadian fish, Alaskan fish, and fish destined for Washington and Oregon. And what's been happening is Canadian production has been up and the United States harvest of Canadian stocks has been proportionately up as well. Because they're at the top of the line, a lot of the interceptions occur in Alaska.
The other factor is until 1994 Canadian production in the Fraser River was also going up. The Fraser River is located right along the southern boundary with the United States, and the sockeye and the pink salmon headed for the Fraser River are subject to interception by U.S. fishermen from Washington and Oregon. So Canadian production is up, and as a result, U.S. interceptions are up as well because of the greater abundance.
Mr. Culbert: But our catches are down.
Mr. Chamut: Canada's catches have not been down until recently. Up until the beginning of 1995, Canadian fishermen have enjoyed probably the best ten years since virtually the turn of the century in terms of production. I think what has been happening is during that ten-year time period from 1985 to 1994, there was a greater degree of Canadian production of stocks from Canadian rivers and a greater degree of interception by U.S. fishermen of those fish as they moved through U.S. waters into Canadian rivers. The problem has been made worse because many U.S. stocks have been declining.
So the U.S. catches more of ours. We catch fewer of theirs. The net balance is doubly negative in the Canadian interest. It provides for a greater imbalance in interceptions that significantly favours the U.S. That's why we have this problem. Canada has been seeking a resolution, seeking to have the United States meet their obligations under the treaty, to ensure each party receives benefits equivalent to the production of fish from their own rivers.
.1735
Mr. Culbert: I think the chair referred to the elephant and mouse as a description. In fact, from what you've just said in answer to a previous question, it's not really the elephant and the mouse. In this case, it's two or three other mice of equal size because we're dealing with Washington state, Oregon state and Alaska. Are these the three main areas of concern in the U.S.? So the dealings are with them because of the description you gave of the three-mile area of state responsibility.
Quite often when you have negotiations, you have to find something the other partner in the negotiation needs desperately and something you could use as a negotiating tactic. I suspect there are things Alaska would like to see happen and I suspect the same would apply to Washington and Oregon. I guess our responsibility might be to find out what those are and assure we get a proper and equitable trade-off, because if I were in their position I wouldn't see any advantage to coming to an agreement. I wouldn't agree with us either. They are able to have their cake and eat it too. They have all the gravy, so why would they change unless we pressure it somehow?
Mr. Chamut: First of all, I agree that you've put your finger on the problem. In order to negotiate an arrangement, you need to find something you can start to negotiate with. Unfortunately, the situation we're in right now is the Alaskans would like more fish and the people in the south would like more fish. At the same time, they would like Canada to restrict our interception of their stocks. By my calculation this means lose, lose, lose for Canada.
The three main groups are Alaska, the combined states of Washington and Oregon, plus the tribes in Washington and Oregon who have a management interest and a responsibility for management in the two states. And the difficulty in this whole equation is those three groups each have a veto by law over any position put forward by the United States. Hence there is very little ability to seek the sort of compromise that might allow this dispute to be resolved.
Essentially, the Alaskans are not willing to give up any of their harvesting in order to provide a benefit that might accrue to people in Washington and Oregon. And this is why in this equation Canada has, in order to deal with this, been insisting the United States federal government take on a leadership role and meet its responsibilities as a party to a treaty with Canada. It will require U.S. federal leadership in order to ensure their obligations under the treaty are met, because the whole issue now is that it has become, in the U.S. section, very regionalized.
In other words, there are three individual groups, none of which has any incentive to compromise. It has become a serious problem in terms of implementing a treaty both parties felt was in the best interest of the resource. And ultimately, the stakeholders in both countries were trying to get back into the balance that was intended when the treaty was signed.
The Chairman: Before we conclude with Mr. Cummins, after the meeting next Tuesday with the B.C. coalition, we should have a meeting for future business. We agreed to do TAGS over a month ago, I guess, so we'll have to meet and decide what we're going to do in the next month or so.
John, do you want to conclude today's hearings?
Mr. Cummins: I have just a couple of questions here. But before I ask them, I would like to point out that, essentially, the fishery in Alaska was on its knees up until the 200-mile limit was signed. With the extension of the 200-mile limit they kicked Japan, Canada and other countries out of the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. These countries had been preying on Alaskan fish. The resource has rebounded tremendously. And then recently, of course, we joined forces and got rid of the drift-netters. So there has been an element of cooperation.
.1740
I think the problem we have here is - and with all respect, Pat, your choice of words in your presentation alludes to it - in this country we've looking at the negotiations as negotiating with the United States when the fact of the matter is, as you well know, there are four groups that have a veto: each of Alaska, Washington and Oregon, as well as the native tribes of the northwest. That has been the problem. We've tended to try to negotiate with them as one entity.
My feeling is that we should have looked at it and approached this in a professional manner, like we did the negotiations on straddling stock and migratory species on the east coast, recognized that we're dealing with four individual groups, and tried to find out what was common among those four groups and what we could do to bring those four groups together.
I'm encouraged by the appointment of Mr. Fraser as the special negotiator. I think that's the first positive move we've seen on behalf of the government in this Canada-U.S. salmon treaty in a number of years. I like to think that my letter to the Prime Minister in early March where I recommended his appointment had something to do with it. That being said, could you give us some indication of what the parameters of Ambassador Fraser's mandate are?
Mr. Chamut: Yes, sir. You had earlier referred to the appointment of Mr. Fraser in terms of him being involved as a negotiator. I think I'd start by saying that his appointment is not to be a person who will negotiate new arrangements. Canada has as its negotiator the former ambassador to the UN, Yves Fortier, and his appointment as Canada's negotiator dealing with the United States will continue. Mr. Fraser's role, though, is to try to augment the efforts of ministers, of public servants, and of Mr. Fortier; to try to serve as an advocate for the Canadian position; to try to raise the profile of this issue.
To pick up on comments that were made about the media and the communication strategy,Mr. Fraser's role will be as an ambassador representing the Canadian interest. He will be working to try to create a better understanding of the concerns, to explain Canada's position, to complement the work of ministers in trying to get a higher profile of this, and to mobilize public and diplomatic opinion that will help us in terms of finding a solution to this problem.
Mr. Cummins: I'm disappointed that his terms of reference are so limited. I think it's high time we had a negotiator on the west coast - and that's not to take anything away from Mr. Fortier's efforts - a negotiator dealing with this problem who didn't suffer culture shock when he got off the airplane in Vancouver. Mr. Fraser knows the neighbourhood full well and I think would be the man for that job.
I want to move on to another issue you referred to a number of times here today, and that is your concerns about chinook salmon and the chinooks' return at the west coast of Vancouver Island. Now we know those fish are caught in Alaska, a large number of them around Noyes Island and that area. Are those fish caught in Canada as well?
Mr. Chamut: The stocks I'm referring to would be caught in a number of areas. You've referred to the U.S. or Alaskan troll fishery in southeastern Alaska. A fairly large percentage of their harvest in the past has been west coast of Vancouver Island stocks. When the stocks were strong, I think they caught upwards of 60,000 chinook salmon from the west coast of Vancouver Island in their fishery. So, yes, there has been a fair amount of harvest in that area, and that's why we're concerned about the Alaskan fishery and the stocks in 1996.
Beyond that, the stocks would be harvested in sport fishery in the northern part of the Queen Charlotte Islands. They would also be harvested in the north coast troll, and to some extent on the west coast of Vancouver Island troll fishery. I recall that in the past, in the early 1990s, when the chinook stocks from this area were strong, there were probably between 40,000 to maybe 70,000 west coast of Vancouver Island chinooks taken in the west coast commercial troll fishery.
.1745
Mr. Cummins: Let's take a look at this sport fishery in the Queen Charlotte Islands, Langara Island in particular. We had a situation last summer - and I'm sure you're aware of my activity on that particular issue - where some of the sport fishing operations in the Queen Charlotte Islands refused to report catches to the DFO.
One of your senior officials stated recently in a newspaper article that it was only a matter of short-term duration. However, documents I received under access to information show that was an ongoing problem through the summer of 1995, and in fact may well have been a problem in 1994 as well.
In particular there was a problem with the Oak Bay Marine Group, whose president is Bob Wright, known to some members of this committee. Mr. Wright's operation refused to report catches. In fact he was quoted in The Vancouver Sun recently as saying:
- Lodges refused to report catches only because they were facing the threat that the sport fishery
would be closed for the season.
If I denied you access to my boat, or if I denied Fisheries officers access to my boat, I'd be arrested, as I was last summer when I sort of ran afoul of fisheries regulations. Yet Mr. Wright, to this point, seems to have escaped that fate. Could you tell us why this gentleman and his operation - an operation that by his own admission refused to cooperate - have not been charged at this point?
Mr. Chamut: Mr. Cummins, my understanding of what happened at that time is we were engaged in reducing the quotas and there were concerns on the part of many of the operators that if the quotas were reduced it might result in unfavourable fishing opportunities for their clients.
At one point during the season when we were introducing a reduced bag limit, the group of lodge owners - I don't believe I would single any one out, but a number of them - indicated they would not cooperate with DFO and would not provide catch statistics. The department sent Fisheries officers to the lodges and a letter was provided demanding the information, and the information was subsequently provided to our satisfaction.
Mr. Cummins: But this was an ongoing event. This was not something that just happened. It was an ongoing event over the summer.
Is it section 61?
Mr. Chamut: Section 61, I believe.
Mr. Cummins: Notifications were given to these lodges. There's obviously a double standard there.
One of your fisheries officers.... One of these access to information reports, in discussing this particular issue of lack of access, says, and I quote from a July 18, 1995, excerpt from a DFO north coast enforcement document:
- Operators are creating political pressure and threatening law suits against the department and
regional officials.
Mr. Chamut: I can't comment, Mr. Cummins. I have no idea.
When you talk about political pressure, it could be simply from letters expressing concerns about the impact of what the department is doing on business. But I would go back and reiterate that we had implemented a conservation program, we required the information and we did receive the information.
Mr. Cummins: You required the information, but they refused. In fact the operator in question, by letter from his lawyer to Mr. Tousignant, refused to participate in the coded wire program, which is a conservation program, a conservation management tool.
.1750
I would assume just from what you've said that we don't have to hold our breath and wait for Mr. Wright or Oak Bay Marine Group to be subject to any charges.
Mr. Chamut: I do not believe there are charges contemplated. I do not believe there was a basis for charges, because we did get the information we were seeking.
Mr. Cummins: You talked as well here today - I've got to mention this - about more complex management in the United States. Essentially management is shared, and in Washington State it's shared with the native groups down there who have some management authority.
That's certainly been a difficulty for us. Simply, as you suggest, it's made management more complex. Yet we're drifting that same way in this country. We're creating management groups, and we seem, in my view - and in the view of others, including Mr. Fraser in his 1994 report - to be undermining the DFO's authority to manage the resource. Why would we be going in that direction?
Mr. Chamut: First of all, I would respond by saying that what we are currently doing is in no way similar to what occurs in the United States. The department has talked about sharing certain management responsibilities with various groups. We have entered into partnership arrangements with groups like the halibut and sablefish fishermen, whereby the fishermen have a greater share in decision-making. We have entered into arrangements with aboriginal groups as well, whereby they would have a greater share in decision-making.
The key difference between what we're talking about in these sorts of partnership arrangements in comparison to what's happening in the United States is that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the responsibility, the authority, and the jurisdiction to make the management decisions. The department has not abandoned its responsibility to set enforcement goals. It has not abandoned its responsibility to decide on harvest arrangements. It has not abandoned its responsibility to deal with all of the enforcement arrangements that need to be made.
I don't think I would see the same sort of parallel that you're drawing about increasing management complexity with reference to the United States.
Mr. Cummins: I would challenge you on that. I think the department has abandoned its responsibility. Given a little more time, I could give you a couple of examples.
I've got one other question that I think is important. This has to do with the negotiations on the Skeena watershed committee, about which there was a meeting held last weekend in Terrace. What's happened here is that because of the restructuring here, the seines are divided into two areas. They picked north, and they picked south. In fact there are some selective seine fisheries operating in that north coast.
You would assume that if you're going to ask somebody to make a choice between the north coast or the south coast, the department would be able to give some kind of guaranteed access to the resource. In fact what happened at that north coast meeting is that a senior official in your department told the advisory committee that if it doesn't reach consensus on the Skeena River fishery plan, particularly the operation of the selective seine fishery, there would be no selective seine fishery in the north coast this year.
What we have, then, is one group of harvesters, namely the seine boat operators, who are being compelled to enter into an arrangement by the department. The department is telling a third group that if it doesn't get its act together, this other group is going to suffer for it. Could you rationalize that for me, because I'm afraid that one escapes me. I just don't understand that at all.
Mr. Chamut: Mr. Cummins, I actually don't wish to offer any comment at all, because I haven't any information about a meeting in Terrace. I don't fully appreciate the comment you're making about a selective seine fishery. I think at this point I would simply be speculating, and I don't think that's a wise thing to do.
.1755
Mr. Cummins: I appreciate that. Could you provide us with that answer?
Mr. Chamut: We'll have a copy of your comments. We can certainly find out. But I think there may be some misconstruance of what was actually being proposed. As I said, I have no knowledge of what was going on at that meeting. We can certainly find out and we will certainly get back to you.
Mr. Cummins: I'd appreciate that.
The Chairman: With that, we will conclude today's hearings.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chamut, for coming in. We will probably see you again, probably sooner rather than later.
Mr. Chamut: It would indeed be my pleasure.
The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned.