DRAFT SYNOPSIS
Public Consultation - Grand Falls, April 5, 2001

Foreword

The Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review (AFPR) is being undertaken by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to develop a consistent and cohesive policy framework for the management of Canada’s East Coast fish stocks. The process of the review includes consultations with provinces/territories, aboriginal interests, the fishing industry, and other interested parties.

The work of the AFPR is being done in two phases: Phase I will produce a policy framework, which will address the questions: What do we want to achieve in fisheries management over the long term? What are our objectives and principles? Phase II will establish priorities and begin to operationalize elements from the policy framework (developed in Phase I), and will answer the question: How do we get there?

The purpose of the public consultations held in March and April was to receive comments and feedback about Phase I of the policy review – the development of a policy framework. A discussion document "The Management of Fisheries on Canada’s Atlantic Coast – A Discussion Document on Policy Direction and Principles" was prepared by DFO. The document which sought to provide a focus for stakeholder input on policy directions and options, was used to guide the round of public consultations held across Atlantic Canada.

The discussion document outlines broad objectives and proposes several principles centred around four main policy themes: conservation, economic and social viability, access and allocations and governance. It also contains a section on roles and responsibilities, which clarifies DFO’s role with respect to other federal departments and agencies, other governments, the commercial industry, and other resource users.

The document was released on February 7, 2001, and distributed to stakeholder groups and others who had indicated an interest in the Review process. In addition, a brochure, which summarized the document, was mailed to every commercial fisheries licence holder in Newfoundland, the Maritimes, Quebec and Nunavut (65,000 copies).

The 19 public consultation sessions held throughout Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Nunavut in March and April, 2001, were open to all and a broad cross section of those with an interest in the Atlantic fisheries came to the sessions and expressed their views.

The same format was followed at each meeting. The meeting began with a brief discussion about the purpose of the meeting and the agenda for the consultation. This was followed by a short presentation which summarized the discussion document. Registered speakers who indicated they would like to make formal presentations were next to speak. Finally, a round table discussion on the four policy themes was held, followed by a brief discussion on next steps including options for additional input.

We indicated that written summaries of the 19 public consultation sessions would be provided to those who attended the meeting and who had signed our registration sheet. This report honours that commitment. The summaries are divided into three parts. First, re-occurring issues or themes from the public meeting which include comments from the formal presentations and round table discussions are provided. The themes are included for ease of reference and should not be interpreted as having more importance than individual comments. Second, a list of speakers who made formal presentations and the highlights of their presentations are noted. Third, a summary of the comments provided during the round table discussion organized by policy themes, is also provided.

In addition to holding public consultation sessions, we invited groups and individuals to submit written comments on the discussion document (with a deadline of May 31, 2001).

Fisheries and Oceans
August 2001

Themes arising from the Session
Grand Falls, April 5, 2001

• Communities are stakeholders in the fisheries and must be involved in the fisheries management process.
• To protect long term conservation of the stocks, Canada must control the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap.
• Small boat fishermen must be given priority in fisheries management.
• Owner-operator policy must be maintained and the corporate concentration of licences must not be allowed.
• Fishermen’s knowledge must be factored into the fisheries management process.

Registered Speakers

• Edward Jones, non-Core Fisherman
• Al Wurdemann, Town Planning Coordinator, Town of Harbour Breton
• Mayor Walwin Blackmore, NLFM,
• Conrad Collier, Coast of Bays Corporation
• Mervin Rice, non-Core Fisherman
• Mayor Claude Elliot, Town of Gander
• Submission tabled by Jerden Bennett, Mayor of Baytona

What we heard in the Presentations

• The Core policy disadvantaged some fishermen who took a temporary job outside the fishery rather than social assistance.
• The Core criteria were changed during the process without informing people who could be affected by the change. There has been approval of many fishermen as Core without proper investigation, catches documented by some individuals were actually caught and landed by someone else, resulting in them being approved as Core.
• DFO seems to place more emphasis on a person’s ability to buy an enterprise than their experience in the fishery.
• Historical attachment should be the basis for licensing policy.
• The history of DFO is one of micro-managing the fish resources and being reactive rather than proactive, it seems to have no long term strategic plan for the fishery.
• Communities need to become more equal partners at the fisheries management decision making table.
• Canada should ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and adopt its five criteria for resource allocation: historical performance, mobility, adjacency, economic dependence and stability.
• The concept of community-based management needs to be studied with a view to implementing real community input into all decisions and proposed legislation concerning the entire management of Canada’s fisheries.
• DFO’s budget for science and research need to be increased to a level that will allow for a sound basis for making fisheries management decisions.
• Fundamental resource access principles must be adhered to, clear understanding of prioritized allocation principles must be a priority.
• Canada must implement more effective enforcement and monitoring within the 200-mile limit, should examine the possibility of extending Canada’s jurisdiction to include the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks.
• The vulnerability of cod stocks in 3Ps needs to be examined.
• The large processing companies are exercising a monopolistic control over the processing sector, there is enough fish to keep the local core plants in operation. It is recognized that businesses must act in their own interest but there comes a point when governments, industry and communities should act to keep communities alive.
• Canadian industry must work toward maximizing value-added processing.
• Fishing communities must be fully integrated into the decision-making process.
• DFO should consider the options of community-based co-management through the development of community-based management boards and the issuance of community development quotas.
• Science and research are key, an adequate science budget should be allocated. The best informed fisheries management decisions regarding conservation will come from a combination of fishermen’ traditional ecological knowledge, data from fisheries science and community input.
• There should be zero tolerance for blatant disregard of fundamental access to resource principles (northern shrimp was the example).
• Canada should extend the current 200-mile jurisdiction to include the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks.
• Unless current practices change, resources within 3Ps and other divisions will continue to decline. The practice of allowing ghost nets must end.
• The problem of harvesting and processing over-capacity continues to cripple communities that rely on the benefits of exploiting a fishery. Communities must become more economically resilient to the unstable nature of the fisheries resources upon which they depend.
• Canada must control and protect its territorial waters, effective enforcement and monitoring control must be implemented.
• Conservation is the sustainable management and protection of all the components of the marine environment – from the phytoplankton to the top of the food chain – it is the underlying principle without which we do not have anything.
• Top grading must be stopped, a formula with a quota compensation should be developed that would allow fishermen to land the smaller fish without affecting the core quota. Such a formula could be developed jointly by DFO, harvesters, unions and the processors.
• DFOs science budget should be increased to understand the relationship between the various species, to ensure that one activity does not negatively impact another (i.e. predator/prey interactions, habitat, environmental changes).
• It is not clear what effect the use of seismic technology in the search for oil and gas has on spawning fish, studies from around the world indicate that this activity does not affect fish behaviour but we need to act now to ensure it does not have serious consequences in the long term.
• Rural communities must develop a diversified economy to ensure their survival should extreme conservation measures have to be adopted. The smaller communities are now moving into tourism, aquaculture, emerging fisheries and cod ranching to supplement revenues from the traditional fishery. The communities need to have a hands-on input in the management of the fishery and other marine resources in their areas.
• Adjacency should be the first criterion in determining access and allocation, decision-making for political rather than conservation reasons will spell doom for the resources and the communities that depend on them.
• There are concerns about ITQs which allow anyone with money in Canada to ‘own’ a quota and to lease it to a harvester who can land the product wherever they wish. There is no social attachment or accountability, it is unclear how a financial secure person in Central Canada could care about the survival of a small rural community in Newfoundland.
• A general feeling that Newfoundlanders are being discriminated against when it is considered illegal to fish a few cod for personal consumption, those across the Cabot Strait can fish any time of the year for their dinner.
• As aquaculture operations expand there exists the possibility for conflict between aquaculturists and traditional fishermen over land/marine use, with coastal property owners about the destruction of a view or use of a bay, with recreational boaters about access to a beach, and with conservationists about protection of the genetic diversity of native stocks. The ability to resolve these conflicts at the local level is all-important.
• There needs to be a shift of management of the fishery resources from the board rooms of Ottawa closer to the people that rely on these resources for a living.
• Conflict resolution mechanisms must include the communities to ensure that decisions are made based on science and conservation of the stocks and not on political motivation.
• For any fishing community to be sustainable, it must have access to fish, DFO should allow communities to hold quotas that are controlled by the community, and not dependent on the economic decisions taken by commercial fish processing companies not based in the community.
• It is not just the coastal communities that feel the effects of the health of the fishery, other inland communities that act as a service area for the surrounding areas are also affected by upturns and downturns in the fishery.
• Consultation with stakeholders is essential and their opinions and insight must be considered when deciding the future of Canada’s offshore resources.
• In order to carefully manage the fishery off the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador, a management body for the Newfoundland fishery should be established as a separate entity. A management policy office that is proportionate to the participation in the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada should be established.

What we heard in the Round Table Discussion

Conservation

• It appears there are two sets of rules: one for Canadian fishermen and one for the foreign fleets, there should only be one. No one believes fishermen when they say that foreign fleets are over-fishing and when they report foreign draggers in Canadian waters.
• There is a substantial under-staffing in DFO of fishery officers, we are expecting too much out of a small staff, additional funding is also required for science.
• We need someone with intestinal fortitude to take hard decisions on resources, until Newfoundland has control of its fishery all along the coast, nothing will change.
• A small study is underway to determine what is happening to salmon at sea but additional research is needed into our river systems (tied into under-funding of science).
• It is time the federal government got serious about the fishery and stopped using it as a bargaining chip in other Canadian negotiations.
• Conservation has to start with understanding (good science that fishermen can understand).
• Fishermen have to be listened to and their views acted upon.
• There has to be a seal cull.
• The Newfoundland fishery should be administered from Newfoundland, not Moncton (reference to Gulf Region of DFO).

Economic and Social Viability

• The provincial government needs a larger role in the Newfoundland fishery, under the current sharing of authority, DFO is responsible for live fish, while the province is responsible for dead fish (harvesting versus processing).
• The owner-operator policy should be the basis of Canadian fisheries, control of licences should not be in the hands of lawyers and dentists.
• While expanded local decision making sounds desirable, (we have been sharing some responsibility with DFO), we have not always agreed with DFO’s decisions, but competing interests means that the department has a major role to play. However, if it is going to be effective, core funding must be restored.
• Three quarters of the fleet are small boats, with control over what happens resting with the remaining 25%.
• Industry participants and aquaculturists should not have to bear the costs of DFO/CCG services.
• New structures should allow fishermen more of a feeling of ownership, they should have this recognized in exchange for all that was given up for Confederation.
• Adjacency and historical dependence should be given more prominence.
• The results of the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review must involve all stakeholders – the resulting policy should not just be dumped on the industry – DFO should use a pilot project process to implement any changes.
• A recreational (food fishery) is integral to the culture of rural Newfoundland and should not be subject to time limits.
• The viability and sustainability of coastal communities are the responsibility of the federal government and should be among the principal objectives of fisheries policy. The communities will work with all levels of government to ensure the sustainability of the communities.

Access and Allocations

• Allocations should be given to harvesters, not plants – keep the fleet separation policy.
• The small boat fleet has been hurt by past allocations, this will have to change now or the fleet will disappear.
• The large boat fishery for shrimp are destroying the turbot and crab fishery, they are discarding the equivalent of the small boat allocations.
• We don’t know the impact of offshore drilling on fish populations but we do know that the water is now dirty and cannot sustain fish.
• The politics must be taken out of access and allocation decision making, more decisions should be at the local level in consultation with fishermen.
• Responsible fishing practices should be rewarded, irresponsible practices should be penalized. Fishermen must be responsible for their actions and held accountable.
• Do not entrench existing shares until resource sharing is fairer, there should be a process to review sharing arrangements periodically.
• While it is recognized that other interest groups want access to fish stocks, priority access should be given to the commercial sector who should also be consulted on allocations to other resource users.
• The Aboriginal fishery must be conducted under the same rules and seasons as the rest of the fishery.
• DFOs cost recovery must be managed carefully and not risk programs and cooperative efforts that pay conservation and management dividends.
• All allocations should be made from a good scientific knowledge base.
• Adjacency and historical dependence should be the cornerstones of the allocation process, those most affected by a decision should be involved in reaching that decision.
• Some mechanism should be developed to accommodate the reality of by-catch to prevent dumping (the fish are already dead) as well as some way of minimizing the effects of high grading.

Governance

• Everything goes back to science and conservation – the impact of harvesting on other species is not known – the lack of science has got us where we are today.
• Decision making must be decentralized, decisions should be taken as close to the resource as possible.
• Harvesters have to be convinced it is in their best interest to conserve. Fishing violations should be heavily penalized; DFO should ensure that violators are prosecuted and heavily penalized for infractions and rewarded for good stewardship.
• DFO should refine its definitions of a number of terms used (i.e. ‘local’ areas).
• Responsibility for enforcement must be left with DFO, not to communities or to the fishermen themselves.
• Science data should be more readily available to outside users.
• Stricter penalties should be introduced for offences.
• The absolute authority of one man (the Minister) has to change.