Thank you.

Good day, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans about the enforcement and penalties for infractions under the Fisheries Act.

It is our opinion that the regional capacity to carry out enforcement and protection provisions of the Fisheries Act lacks the tools to carry out such a task. We believe there is a serious problem with the lack of funding for assets on the water and for personnel in the field.

While technology certainly plays an important part in enhancing the capabilities of DFO, nothing can replace the physical presence of boats on the water, either DFO or Coast Guard, or having more officers in the field. It will take more government departments, such as CRA, Canada Border Services Agency, CFIA, RCMP, etc., along with DFO, to properly enforce the regulations and penalties for the protection of our fisheries under the Fisheries Act.

This type of collaboration is a necessity because of the emerging problems our fisheries face and the sophistication of some of the illegal activities taking place. The department must work coherently and share information and concerns; operating in departmental silos will simply not work going forward.

On the penalties side of enforcement, there must be a more robust response to convictions. The fines attached to convictions, in most cases, amount to nothing more than the cost of doing business for the perpetrator. These penalties should reflect the serious impacts that certain violations have on the species in question and the fishery in question, and we must not lose sight of the fact that the violation has been carried out against a Canadian resource. The fines should be large enough to act as a deterrent, although it could cause hardship to the guilty party.

The same holds true for suspension of licences. Usually a penalty like this is either applied during the slowest part of a fishery or is applied for a period of several days to a couple of weeks, which does not have the intended penalizing effect. The penalties must be a deterrent to illegal activity.

The U.S. treats fishery violations in a manner similar to criminal activity. They impose much harsher penalties, including the permanent loss of a licence for repeat offenders.

I will describe some of the issues pertaining to enforcement that we'd like to bring to light.

The first is the enforcement of licence conditions. Without this, DFO has no legitimacy in the eyes of many fishermen. When considering the inshore lobster fishery licence conditions, DFO must address pot limits, lobster fishing area boundaries, legal size of retained lobster, non-retention of berried females, etc. These are all areas within the licence conditions that must see greater enforcement and much more vigorous prosecution.

An example of fishermen losing respect for licence conditions occurred this past season here at LFA 33, 34 and 35. A new DFO regulation for mandatory bycatch data collection was implemented in the licence conditions for the 2018-2019 lobster season. Fishermen who were not registered with the recognized fishermen's associations that were overseeing a bycatch monitoring pilot—approved by DFO to address the department's need to capture bycatch data in the lobster industry—required a hail out for fishing. Fishermen not joining the fishermen's associations' pilot, according to the licence conditions, had to hail out at a 100% level, which means that every day they went fishing, they had to hail out. DFO did not enforce this licence condition at all, for the entire season. This created an atmosphere of confusion and mistrust and a general loss of respect for the department. The associations became caught up in the unnecessary confusion resulting from the lack of enforcement. Such a lack of response has created an atmosphere in which fishermen have begun to question the validity of all licence conditions.

Second, there is a growing problem in the industry with cash sales, along with the very real possibility of money laundering. Although cash sales have been around for a significant amount of time, they seem to be getting more and more prevalent. That could be a result of the influx of illegal money accumulated elsewhere and then made somewhat legitimate by buying our product for cash. This leads to significant misreporting of catches and misleading reports of the values of landings.

Undercutting prices on the shore or in the marketplace affected numerous individuals in the fishery. In this example, if multiple federal agencies were working together, they could potentially curtail these activities. The need for more fishery officers conducting checks and/or investigations on the ground is also highlighted in this instance.

There must be better enforcement of all licence conditions, including increased surveillance of the LFA 34 50-mile line, along with the Brown's Bank lobster closure area, LFA 40; stricter enforcement of compliance with the pot limit of 375; and stricter prohibition of the landings of undersized lobsters and berried females.

Another thing DFO could do is target known violators rather than an entire fleet.

All the restrictions I mentioned must carry substantial monetary penalties and possible suspension if compliance is to be maintained.

In addition, as previously mentioned, DFO needs more assets, such as boats and personnel, and needs to expand its technological tools to help in the orderly running of the fishery and to maintain the sustainability of the fishery. This would also benefit our product in the marketplace.

The Fisheries Act also addresses the importance of rebuilding stocks and maintaining healthy stocks. Enforcement plays a critical role in this initiative, along with science and working with industry to increase the knowledge base for the species in question.

Moving forward with the updated Fisheries Act, it is going to take a concerted effort by all stakeholders and rights holders in government and industry to help improve enforcement and protection of the fishery so that all participants are contributing and playing by the same set of rules and are regulated by a much more aggressive penalty phase.

Thank you for the opportunity to present on this very important topic.