HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Mr. John MacDonell (Chairman)

Mr. William Dooks

Mr. William Langille

Mr. Gary Hines

Mr. Charles Parker

Ms. Joan Massey

Mr. Wayne Gaudet

Mr. Keith Colwell

Mr. Gerald Sampson

[Mr. Wayne Gaudet was replaced by Mr. Harold Theriault.]

In Attendance:

Ms. Mora Stevens

Legislative Committee Clerk

Ms. Rosalind Penfound

Deputy Minister

Mr. Greg Roach

Executive Director - Fisheries and Aquaculture Services

Ms. Nadine MacAulay

Manager - Fisheries, Licensing and Investigations

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2005

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. John MacDonell

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to call the committee to order. I'm very pleased to welcome the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries staff. If you would please introduce yourselves for the record and then do your presentation, you can go ahead. Actually, I think before you do that, I will get the members who are here to introduce themselves and I'm hoping there are going to be some more yet. Mr. Sampson, if we could start with you.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please, go ahead. Introductions and then your presentation.

MS. ROSALIND PENFOUND: Hello, I'm Rosalind Penfound. I'm the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.

MS. NADINE MACAULAY: Nadine MacAulay and I'm the Manager of Fisheries, Licensing and Investigations.

MR. GREG ROACH: I'm Greg Roach and I'm the Executive Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture Services with the department.

MS. PENFOUND: Good morning, we are very glad to be here. We understand that you've had some presentations from industry and federal government representatives and we are happy to be here to talk about the fishery in Nova Scotia. We would like to say that in Nova Scotia fish is number one and fish is number one in Nova Scotia. We are very proud of that and it has been that way for decades. Greg Roach is the Executive Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture and Nadine MacAulay is our Fisheries, Licensing and Inspection Manager, and they will both have some detail for you a little later.

I have been with the department about a year and Greg and Nadine have been around for about 100 years. So that is a reflection of how much I know and how much they know. So I will just give a few very brief introductory remarks and then turn it over to these folks who actually know the detail.

Nova Scotia is number one in fish. We are the leading fish province in Canada. Our fishery has a landed value of over $800 million. Our staff are at the ready every second when folks call. The export value is $1.2 billion, that's the 2003 number. Our strength is in diversity. With the downturn in the groundfishery, we have been very lucky to have a strong shellfish sector - lobster, scallops, crab and shrimp - which actually has improved.

Fish is number one in Nova Scotia. Fish and natural gas are the leading export groups in the province. Fisheries was number one for a long time and now natural gas rivals that and they flip back and forth year to year and we are happy to have two strong ocean related industries. Fish leads with employment, however; 24,000 direct and spinoff jobs in the fishery in Nova Scotia. Most importantly, those jobs are in rural Nova Scotia and they are widespread around the province. The fishery drives the economy in southwest Nova Scotia and is a major contributor in Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia.

Now, as you will know, the fishery is a shared responsibility between the federal and provincial governments. DFO, or the federal side, is responsible for the management of the fishery resource. That means they do management conservation, science, enforcement around the resource in the marine fishery. They also have responsibility for fisheries habitat so if somebody is getting a permit to build a wharf, they might have to get a permit from Nova Scotia Natural Resources to place the structure on the bottom of the water but they have to get a clearance from DFO that they are not impinging on fish habitat.

The federal government, as well, is responsible for trade and commerce, so international trade and interprovincial trade issues are handled by the federal government. Navigation, shipping and public harbours are a federal responsibility. That's why we have the Coast Guard, small craft harbours, all those things that you folks would be quite familiar with. Of course, the CFIA, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, is a federal responsibility and having a bigger and bigger presence on both the fisheries and agriculture sides.

So what do we do as a province if the feds do all of that? Well, when it hits the dock, fish becomes property and therefore is a provincial jurisdiction. So we like to talk about the federal government having from the dock out, the provincial government having from the dock in. We are responsible for buying and processing. We license folks who buy and process fish. We are also responsible for the non-migratory sport fishery and we have an MOU with the federal government where we co-operate on that. We similarly have an MOU with the federal government on aquaculture, so we do licensing and leases and co-operate with them on that.

We also manage marine plant issues and we have a successful and significant rockweed harvest in Nova Scotia that provides employment and is a very viable business in Nova Scotia. We also get involved in fisheries, marketing and investment development activity along with other products on the ag side. As you may recall, we used to have the fisheries school in Pictou, which is now part of the Nova Scotia Community College but it is still an active training ground for people who want to enter the fisheries business.

Just one brief thing before I turn it over to Greg and Nadine about the department. In 2000, the Departments of Agriculture and Fisheries merged and we have a minister, a deputy minister, a policy group and communications group that provide the head office and central servicing for the department. The department is, however, organized into four branches. We have what you would probably call the traditional fisheries services side, which is the marine, inland and aquaculture stuff and that would be Greg's group. We have the Agriculture Services side, most of whom are employed in Truro and spread throughout the province.

So we have those two branches but we have two branches where the interests merge and those are in the Industry Development and Business Services branch. That's where our folks do marketing, development, trade work, our loan boards are there - Farm Loan Board, Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board - so that is servicing both sectors. As well, we have the Legislation and Compliance Services branch in the department. It serves both sectors as well and that is where Nadine is located. So those folks are involved in the food safety and licensing of everything from fish processing plants to provincially licensed abattoirs on the ag side. So that's where our fish inspectors and buying and processing licensing section is held. So we have the two primary sectors in a branch and then we have these two branches that serve both sides.

So without any further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Nadine and Greg. You have a little packet, I believe, in front of you. We are not going to do overheads but we do have the deck there for you. So we are going to start with Nadine who will give you just a quick rundown of how our licensing works on the processing and buyer side and then we will turn it over to Greg who will get into more detail about the various species and sectors and what's happening within them.

MS. MACAULAY: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning, to give you a quick overview of the two programs that I am responsible for: the fisheries licensing program, where we license buyers and processors of fish; and the second program of enforcement, investigations, compliance, a group of fisheries inspectors. I will just refer you to my packet in terms of the fish buyer licences. The province has been in the business of issuing licences, it's a legislated mandate under our Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act since 1986 and total numbers, as you see, as of June 17^th, are 422. Over the years, since 1986 to now, 1993 we topped out at 439. So there certainly has been an increase but it's a slow decline from 1993 to this year to date of 422.

Roman">[Page 4]

I wrote down the number again by lobster, snow crab, all species of groundfish, scallops, as to the number of licences represented in that 422 figure. When you look at the figures, one individual may have a licence to buy all of the species I have listed there, so of course they don't add up to the 422. Our biggest buyer licence holder, of course, is for lobster, 91 per cent. I have also added in that figure, a figure of 217. Those are individuals who are not only licensed to buy fish but would also be licensed to process that fish here in Nova Scotia.

As I said, it's a legislated mandate under Section 73 of our Act, where all persons who buy and sell and process fish in this province have to have a licence issued by our minister. They are also able to designate agents, representatives, on their behalf, to represent them and do the buying activity. We issue our licences subject to terms and conditions. For example, all of our buyers of lobster are required to keep daily records of who they are buying from, selling to, quantities.

[9:15 a.m.]

Other examples we might have in terms of times they could be buying. The licences are issued annually. They run a calendar year, January 1^st to December 31^st. Licence holders are required to renew their licence and apply for renewal, it's not an automatic renewal. Licence fees are set out by species. You'll see I've included a list of our fees in the package. A buyer licence could range anywhere from $106.50 to roughly $950, if they were buying all of the species listed.

Licences can be amended. Licence holders can, at any time throughout the year, apply to amend their licence, to add a species, drop a species. They could be suspended by the minister, or they could be terminated by the minister. At this point we have not suspended or terminated any licence. I'll speak further in terms of a proceeding that we have established, looking at suspension and termination.

An individual is required to hold only one licence, and it's valid anywhere throughout the province, unlike our processing licences, which are on a building. So an individual could in fact hold three processing licences, but only one buyer licence. I'll refer you to the processor licences. Again, as of June 17^th, we have issued 278 processor licences. Again, that's actual buildings, facilities that are licensed to process fish. In 1986 when we started licensing, we had 283. So a slight decline.

All of our licences for the past six years have been required to meet compliance with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That put everyone on an equal playing field in terms of being federally registered, and of course it's their decision whether they want to export the product out of the province or the country or to keep that product here in Nova Scotia. In terms of inspection, meeting equal standards, issues of health and safety, they're all subject to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

If a plant decides not to meet the federal requirements, they cannot operate in this province, but they choose to hang onto their processing licence with us, we have a status where we will put them into voluntary closure, and we have 15 of those. That means they are not processing, they cannot process, but they still maintain their provincial licence with us. In order for them to come back and be active processors, they must meet the federal registration again.

The breakdown of that 278 figure, in terms of lobster and snow crab, groundfish and scallops, the majority being in groundfish, I refer you to a map, which, by county, indicates the number in each county of registered processing facilities. I believe, in terms of the numbers, when you look at 83 in Shelburne County, a large majority would be for groundfish.

Our licensed processors, again, it's a legislated mandate that everyone who processes in this province must have a processing licence. They are subject to terms and conditions of licence. Again, they're an annual licence, expiring December 31^st. It's a privilege, not a right. There's one single licence fee in terms of processing, $213 I believe it is, not by species, one flat fee. Again, it is on a building.

The department has undertaken a seafood processing sector study. Industry is involved with this. It's a three-phase study. At this point, the tender has gone out, it's expected that a consultant will be appointed by mid-July. Phase I is to look at what the industry looks like today, sort of a snapshot picture of what it looks like, where they're at, what they're doing, number of employees, age of operations, what have you.

The second phase will look at a competitive analysis, kind of from a global perspective of where our processing facilities and operations should be to be competitive on the global market.

The results of those two phases, the report is due by mid-November. What follows from that will be recommendations. The final report is due in the Spring of 2006. This is a study that we are all looking forward to, to see what the outcomes will be and what recommendations will be made from that.

We also have a fish buyer/fish processor licence policy which really is our main document in terms of the administration of our licensing program. It's a policy that came into effect in 2004. It replaced an earlier policy of 1994.

The second program that I am responsible for is what I call our enforcement program. It is labelled, Investigations, but it is our work where we do inspections, compliance work with the legislation, it's investigations and, of course, enforcement. We're made up of eight Fisheries inspectors. Again, I have included a map in your package to show where we are located throughout the province.

Now, with eight people, of course it's a challenge to meet all the issues of the day. Three years ago we appointed the federal Fisheries officers, which numbered about 150, as provincial fish inspectors. We appointed 60 Canadian food inspectors and we appointed 30 Canada Revenue Agency auditors. They have the authority under our legislation as fishery inspectors to deal with matters of investigations, anything in violation under our legislation. In fact, our number eight is a bit larger but, typically, we have eight provincial Fisheries inspectors.

We are located in the offices that I have shown you. What we have tried to do is, certainly, locate ourselves where the fishing activity is going on. Some of the offices are in buildings with federal Fisheries and with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That is a plan to allow us to exchange information, to do joint enforcement work together, to do presence on the wharf and working together. Our legislative mandate, of course, is our Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act and Regulations. We have a Fisheries Organizations Support Act and the Wildlife Act.

We have three Memorandums of Understanding that we have signed with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and that is pertaining to sharing information on matters that we are investigating. That is, illegal fishing on both sides, matters that they are investigating, matters that we are investigating. We have an MOU with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That is more on product recall, if there is a problem and that product quickly has to be recalled, what role our people will play in that - with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police - and, again, it's the same information sharing that we have with DFO - on matters relating to the illegal fishing activities.

Canada Revenue Agency and our Department of Natural Resources, those MOUs are more on operation and procedures that will be followed when we would accompany a revenue agent in terms of doing an audit. With the Department of Natural Resources, our inspectors are sworn in under the Wildlife Act as conservation officers to assist those officers with the Department of Natural Resources in doing inland fisheries enforcement work. Again, that MOU speaks to operations and procedures.

Our areas of responsibility, in terms of the fish buying and processing activities, we are checking to see that people who are engaged in those activities are, in fact, licensed, that if they are licensed they are in compliance with the terms and conditions of the licence, or checking their records. We are verifying those records with Fisheries and Oceans.

In terms of aquaculture we are doing site inspections, ensuring compliance with the aquaculture regulations for markings, gear removal, if a gear becomes abandoned, marine plants and marine animals, we are looking at the inspection of harvest sites and ensuring that the harvested plant, again, meets the sea plant harvest regulations.

Marine plants are new for us. We are getting into checking the harvest of bloodworms. DFO has finally licensed a commercial fishery of bloodworms and, of course, when they move ahead and make a fishery commercial, we have to follow with ensuring that people who are licensed to buy the product.

Inland fisheries, I said we assist only conservation officers in doing licence checks for recreational fishing and water safety. On our joint forces operations, they can be as frequent as weekly, they are certainly seasonal, and there are some annual events we have taken part in for the last three or four years. With the different agencies we could be checking fishermen at the wharf with a DFO officer, checking their catches. We could be doing educational presentations with any of the groups that are presented.

In terms of our enforcement activities and results, we certainly have, as I have mentioned, terms and conditions on a licence. If a licence holder fails to comply with a term and condition of their licence, it could mean suspension or certainly termination of that licence. We issue letters of warning. We try to educate and issue a letter of warning and if not, we go to the next step which would be to issue a ministerial order. Short of that we could be dealing with information before the court, which is actually the laying of charges.

The show cause hearing on the list is what I had mentioned earlier in terms of the department's move to deal with suspensions and terminations of licences. It will result in a wrongdoer licence holder being advised that their licence is subject to being terminated and they have an opportunity to present themselves at a show cause hearing as to why it shouldn't be terminated or suspended. We haven't had one yet. They are subject to an individual being found guilty under federal DFO legislation or our own provincial legislation.

We are the first in Canada to reach out and say that if a licence holder is found guilty under federal legislation that we will deal with them provincially. B.C. is the closest and they have limited to going only in violation of provincial legislation. Certainly, we are engaged in investigations continually with DFO, the RCMP and Revenue Canada on matters of illegal fishing.

Our penalties, as you can appreciate, it's an education process to the courts. Our penalties have ranged as low as $250 to as high as $10,000, inclusive of forfeiture of product that has been seized.

That is pretty much my presentation of what I'm responsible for and what our inspectors are engaged in in the province. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Roach.

MR. ROACH: I'm going to quickly give an overview of the structure in our Fisheries and Aquaculture Services group so you'll have an idea of the type of services we provide here in the province, and then touch on some of the issues in each of the branches.

There are three divisions in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Services group. Aquaculture is responsible for the licensing and leasing of aquaculture sites; we do fish health services; we do technical services or support in the field; we do environmental monitoring in co-operation with the site holders. We have an MOU with DFO that identifies what we do and what the feds do. We have an Inland Fisheries division that's responsible for management of the non-migratory sport fish, things like trout, bass, where salmon, the migratory fish, would be DFO responsibility. We also have an MOU with DFO, so it lists the species that we manage and the species that the feds manage and it identifies that we do science, they do some habitat management and those sorts of things. We have a Marine Fisheries group and there are three sections in that group that I will explain a little bit about our roles and responsibilities there.

Firstly on aquaculture, we have 385 sites in Nova Scotia that are leased. Approximately one-half of those are actively farming fish. We provide a number of services to our industry. The technical extension services would be experts in mussel farming or salmon farming that would go out to the various sites and help our farmers with difficulties or help them get off the ground, with small farms particularly. We provide fish health services, so we have a veterinarian on staff and he would be the person the industry would call if they had a problem with their fish, some indication that the fish are not acting quite right, if there are some fish health issues. If there's any medication provided to the fish, which is very rare, it would have to be done under the supervision of our vet.

[9:30 a.m.]

We also provide a number of public consultation-type services. Every time there's to be a new site, there's a number of approaches that we could take. We have RADAC, Regional Aquaculture Development Advisory Committee, in some locations. Those committees would take the lead in consultations for new sites. If such a committee does not exist, we have public consultations. The proponent of a new site would hold open houses and then we would go down and have a public consultation to hear about the issues surrounding a particular site, a new site. A recent program that we have is environmental monitoring, where we go out and we actually do scientific studies on existing aquaculture farms to see what's going on, as far as impacts on the surroundings.

There are a number of challenges. Nova Scotia's aquaculture industry has grown from about $5 million to peaking at close to $50 million in the last 15 years. We've slipped back and we're now around the $30 million range. There are a number of challenges we have in Nova Scotia. Firstly, we have a very strict regulatory environment. There are a number of hurdles that each potential farmer has to get over before he can start a business in this

province. They have to do environmental assessments, they have to get navigable waters permits, and they have to get approval from our department and from DFO. So, first DFO, they put their concerns forward, and then ultimately our minister will issue a lease. There very well could be many conditions on this lease, if it is in fact issued. So, this could take quite a bit of time and could be quite an expense for potential aquaculture farms. It is a difficult area to get started.

We also have problems with public perception. I'm sure many of you are aware of that. There's the idea that the environment is going to be destroyed, there's a lot of people who don't want to have their environment disrupted by noise in the morning, by looking out and seeing buoys and that sort of thing, and then there's the perception that farm fish is not wholesome. There's a lot of scientific evidence that suggests that fish is in fact very wholesome, however, once the perception is out there that there's something wrong with this product, particularly with farm salmon, we have a battle on our hands to try to show that we have a healthy and sustainable industry.

Salmon, Atlantic salmon particularly, is facing some very serious problems. We have loss in production with some ice problems. You probably heard the news about that last Winter. We have a problem with the U.S. dollar, that's impacting all of our fisheries, that the value of the Canadian dollar has strengthened considerably in the last couple of years. So that's right-off-the-top profits that are lost by our fish companies. Chile is producing massive volumes of salmon, and they're putting those directly into our U.S. markets. So we have to compete with that front.

Then, as I mentioned, there's the food safety scare, stories about PCBs in salmon. Even though they may be just a fraction of what the accepted levels are from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or Health Canada, it sticks in people's minds when they hear this on the radio. They perceive that there are problems with it. Just by comparison, I remember hearing one speaker on food health, and he said, yes, the PCBs in salmon may be 1 in 10,000 people over 40 years who could be at a greater risk of cancer. But 4 in 10, if they ate the same dose would be prevented from having heart disease. That part of the balance was never out there in the media.

So you save 4 in 10 over 40 years, and you risk 1 in 10,000, somewhere in that order. The impacts of the benefits on health, heart health, far outweigh, by magnitudes, the impacts on potential PCB damages. But this is the kind of information that, unfortunately, is not out there, and these are the kinds of things we would have to address.

We have some opportunities. We have a diversified aquaculture industry in Nova Scotia. We don't have perfect salmon grounds. It's cold, most of our coast. You need to have relatively temperate waters, you can't have super-chill for salmon. So there's a lot of areas around Nova Scotia that are not suited for salmon, but they are suited for other species. There's a lot of opportunities for shellfish, and we have some great opportunities for alternate

finfish, things like cod, halibut and haddock. Halibut is particularly interesting. We are leading in Canada and possibly in the world in halibut aquaculture. We're doing that on land-based farms right now. There's potential for both sea cage sites and land-based sites. We have a land-based site down in Woods Harbour, and it has great potential. It's at the development stage. It's ready to move to the next stage of commercialization. And that's all self-contained, inside a building, and very little water exchange. The water that does go out has been treated, and it's environmentally sound. If it could be economically sound, we've got some great potential there.

The salmon problems that I mentioned earlier could cause problems for halibut. The salmon farmers were going to invest in diversification, and with their struggles just to stay alive, they don't have many resources for diversification. So that will be a challenge.

We have a new federal program, a national aquatic animal health. We've been asking for that for many years. With the last budget, that was introduced so we're optimistic we will have an animal health program. So if there's a disease on a farm and we have to force eradication, there will be a system that will immediately kick into place that will make this happen and will compensate the farmer, if it's a government-forced eradication. It will also be a situation where we can show other international countries that we have an animal health program, and our shellfish and farm salmon are safe. We know they're safe now, but with that national program we could have some guarantees or some assurances for international countries.

We have environmental monitoring, and that is something that we introduced in our department a couple of years ago. We've been telling industry, we have to have environmental monitoring. There's a lot of fears about the damage, particularly the finfish sites, to the environment. So we took the bull by the horns ourselves a couple of years ago. We worked with industry, initially, and then we established our own environmental monitoring program. So all of our major active aquaculture sites are monitored, where we send out a crew of biologists and technicians. We do sampling of the core, below the fish farms and adjacent to fish farms, and we look at the impact on the environment.

We're very pleased with the results in all the sites that we tested, all the major sites in Nova Scotia. There was only one area where the bottom sediments showed environmental conditions that were outside of the acceptable range. We have already implemented a mediation program for that particular site. So they've moved the cages, and we are going to monitor that very closely to see if we have the desired effect. It should be noted that as soon as we moved just metres away from that particular site, the bottom returned to very normal levels. The area down in Isle Madame, we had an intensive rainbow site, farms - we went to that area and did some sampling. We found no impacts whatsoever. That was three years since that last farmed fish. So it was very quick to go back to normal, even in a very intensive-type farm.

We decided to respond with the concerns of the environment with some facts. So we put that program together, because we do not want to have any industry that's going to jeopardize environment or jeopardize other industries. It has to be sustainable, so we put that program in place. As I mentioned, we have opportunities for halibut. There's char, the First Nations are doing char down in Millbrook. It's another dry land facility, totally land based. And even bloodworms, our lowly bloodworms, there's an experimental farm down on the South Shore where they're farming these animals, and there's some great potential for that particular option.

Finally, we're going to look with the federal government at a framework agreement on aquaculture that would be similar to the agriculture one. We hope to work on that over the next couple of years. I know you're not as interested, business-wise, in inland fisheries, but on the weekend we encourage you to get out and fish. We manage the trout and bass fisheries, and it's a very successful industry in Nova Scotia. We have about 60,000 licences that are sold. Then there are our seniors and youth as well. So when we put them all together, we estimate that close to 1 in 10 people is participating in our sport fishery in Nova Scotia. It generates about $85 million revenue for suppliers, for guides and for tourism business throughout the province. We're proud of that.

We get input on how to manage that through advisory meetings. We have six regions that we have set up regional advisory committees for sport fishing, and we have one provincial body where we get input on how to manage the fisheries. We do enhancement as well. We operate two hatcheries, one in Eastern Nova Scotia, in Fraser Mills, and one down in Queens County. We use those hatcheries to stock about a million trout throughout the province. A lot of these are put in tag fisheries. We go to waters that are publicly accessible so people can go for an afternoon, can walk close to communities. We have several lakes in Dartmouth, for example, that we stock, just to give people the opportunity for put-and-take fisheries.

We are also very active in international forums to address salmon and introductions in transfers-type policies. We have challenges, as we mentioned. Climate change. We are getting some warmer waters. Our habitat is not the best for trout. It's great for bass and pickerel. In warm waters, trout doesn't do very well against bass and pickerel. Bass and pickerel can be really good recreational fishing all through the summer, in the warm water months.

A lot of cottage owners and your bucket anglers do a lot of their illegal introductions so they move these fish around. Once you get bass and pickerel in the system, if it's warm water, that could be the end of the salmonid so that's a major concern for us. If it's cold enough the trout will do fine, but if it's warm water, marginal trout habitat, we've got some problems there.

A lot of people will argue, well, we still have a really good bass fishery, what's the big deal. Others will argue that the native species for Nova Scotia trout is being pushed out of its traditional habitat. So that is a problem for us.

Another problem is consistent with all of us. There's an aging angler population and as people get older, we need to get the youth back into the sport fishing game. So we're looking at some programs to get more young people fishing and continue to participate in the sport.

Salmon fishing has been on a decline, big time. The decline is in the population of most of our rivers, our major concerns. We have recently - as you folks are aware - introduced some extra money in our budget to try to enhance and work with the federal government to address the salmon populations and salmon fishing in Nova Scotia.

We have put in a new habitat stamp this year. That money will be $5 per licence, going directly to volunteer groups who do habitat improvement. This would be like the river Adopt-a-Stream programs, where volunteer groups will actually try to improve their local fisheries. We look for new opportunities. The winter fisheries for rainbow trout, in some areas, winter fisheries for bass, other opportunities to spread the fishing through the year.

Now, I will get into the meat of the stuff. I'm sure you fellows will want to talk about the marine fisheries. In our marine fisheries group we have three basic groups. We have the innovations folks who help people with development, things like a new gear technology, new species development. We also work with small-craft harbours to help with the floating docks, or any other improvements to small crafts. We work with the boat-building industry to grow our boat-building industry.

We have our field service which includes Fisheries representatives located at eight sites around the province. They are the front-line service delivery for our department.

Finally, we have our marine advisor program. These are basically the experts in the various fields, vertebrates, groundfish and pelagic. These folks are the ones that will go to all of our advisory meetings and work with DFO. DFO has the mandate to manage commercial marine fisheries but all provinces, particularly Nova Scotia, has a vested interest in how all these fisheries are managed. We are at the table to ensure that the province's interests are heard, particularly when there are quota issues among provinces, between Quebec, Nova Scotia, or among all Atlantic Provinces. We are at the table to ensure that our interests are protected. That particular group - we also sit on the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council. We sit on all the fisheries - what they call RAP processes - scientific process to assess each of the fisheries stocks.

We manage the Fisheries Organizations Support Act. That is, mandatory dues legislation for fishermen. It's in place on the Eastern Shore and it's in place down in Gulf Nova Scotia. Of course, that group also works on the Native issues, First Nations issues, the Oceans Group and with things like the oil and gas discussions. We sit on the Fisheries Environmental Assessment Group for oil and gas development.

In the marine fisheries, we are also responsible for management of the marine plants and other coastal zones issues. We have one person that spends basically all their time addressing integrated coastal zone management and marine plant management. The Gulf of Maine Council is part of that.

Now, some of the challenges that we face in the marine fisheries. Well, there was recently the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. In that, a number of things came forward. The succession planning in the aging commercial fishery - fishermen, is an issue. In that are questions like owner/operator. Now, that has been a big one all through Atlantic Canada. Are fishermen able to buy their own rigs, and actually be the owners and the licence holders who would go out and fish, or do they have to get capital from someone who will actually control the licence and they will become an employee instead of the owner of the rig? That has become a very topical issue.

[9:45 a.m.]

It's complicated in Nova Scotia because there are a number of fleets, particularly in the 45-to-65 foot range, like the Bay of Fundy scallop fleet, or the mobile groundfish fleet, the eastern Nova Scotia shrimp and South West Nova herring seiners that, in theory, they are owner/operator, but in practicality, they haven't been owner/operator in many years. Now, other fleets like our lobster fisheries, there's a lot of concern that the owner/operator is eroding in that particular fishery. It's a very topical issue and I know you folks have heard this from other witnesses before this particular committee.

Other issues that we deal with would be things like the snow crab sharing and buyer processing challenges, and always stock fluctuations. We've got that all the time. We've got stocks going up and stocks going down. People often anticipate the peaks to be sustainable. They simply aren't and that has been a challenge.

We do a lot of consultations with the federal government. We do federal-provincial consultations at the local, regional and national level. There is an Atlantic Council, as well as a Canadian Council of Fisheries Ministers. The department is active on those particular councils.

We have an Industry Council, a Ministerial Council. Mr. Colwell introduced that many years ago. We still have two meetings per year with all our industry leaders to talk about the issues in the fishing industry. We have about 70 different advisory committees that

members of our department participate on, each one for different fisheries, different areas, and sometimes different gear sectors. You know how complex and diversified the industry is in Nova Scotia. We often run to many of these meetings.

I have a number of graphs that I put in your package just for reference. You're going to need it. I put them three per page so you're going to need some pretty strong glasses to have a look at them. What you might find, the initial one, if you look at the landed value, you can see how the shellfish are the first bottom four areas on the graph. You can see the tremendous growth. Now, prior to 1990, groundfish was much larger and groundfish - you can see the end of the shrinking and then sort of a stable, about a $90 million total groundfish industry.

You see tremendous growth in our shellfish sectors. Lobster, particularly, is the leader. In the next couple of graphs it shows the landings and the landed value. Now, the landings, particularly, in lobster have been hovering between 20,000 and 25,000 metric tonnes. Now, to put that in comparison, the tough times in the mid-1970s, Nova Scotia had landings of somewhere in the order of 5,000 and 6,000 metric tonnes. So we're about four to five times what we were 30 years ago in the lobster.

The landed value is even more striking because, of course, the price per pound increased dramatically. You see the huge landings up in the $350 million range. You see a dip in 2004. There is a slight dip but, also, the 2004 landings are preliminary so I suspect when we have all the numbers in, that it won't be quite as extreme as we have right now.

Some of the issues we are looking at in lobster, of course, is the owner/operator, as I mentioned. Prices for lobster licences have gone very high and it's very difficult for a stern man to actually take over a rig. Even if it's passed on through generations, there's a capital gains issue. If a fisherman wanted to pass his licence on to his son or daughter, it would be considered an asset, it would be assigned a value and he would have to pay capital gains tax on that. It could cost a fisherman a couple of thousand dollars, or several hundred thousand, depending on the area, just to pass his licence on to a family member.

There are some local declines. Northumberland Strait, for example, this particular year and over the last couple of years, we have seen a sharp decline. This is a real problem locally. Although across the province our resource is very strong, where it is declining, for those fishermen, it doesn't matter how it is on the Eastern Shore, down in South West Nova. If it's declining in their area, it's a very serious issue.

The science needs. DFO is having some challenges with their science budget. There is not as much work being done on this valuable resource as fishermen believe should be done. We're looking for some opportunities there.

In Southwest Nova Scotia, there were some issues, well, Winter before last, with lobster quality. There were a lot of concerns that the soft lobsters that were coming in were causing problems in the marketplace and we have worked with the fishermen and DFO to do a sampling program down there and that continues in 2005 to look at the issue.

Capitalization. I consider this a big problem. There are a lot of new vessels that have been deployed to the lobster fishery, particularly in southwest Nova Scotia. We invest on a very high time, if the stock declines or the fishery declines even 25 per cent, it will be well above the long-term average, but will that level of landing support the capitalization of fishermen buying new rigs with the increased cost of fuel, the increased cost of bait? We could be in economic trouble with still a very healthy lobster fishery and we have some international issues with the country of origin labelling into the U.S. and with some of the restrictions with the border security with tighter requirements at the border as we ship there.

Our second most important shellfish fishery over the years has been the scallop fishery. Largely, this is an offshore fishery and it's been ticking along in the order, in the last few years, of $100 million, very strong, very healthy fishery. It's largely offshore-based, as I mentioned. We have a bit of an issue with sharing the resource on St. Pierre Bank, that's a Newfoundland/Nova Scotia-type dispute, and there is a very small area that has a very hot dispute that is ongoing now down in what they call Area 29. It used to be called No Man's Land, inshore in southwest Nova Scotia, just around the corner on Baccaro Point in the Shelburne County area. There is a new area that hasn't been fished for a number of years, a small scallop resource. It has been shared now between the Bay of Fundy scallop fishermen and some local inshore fishermen but the local lobster fishermen, even though it's a very short, small fishery, are very concerned about the impacts it will have so that's an ongoing dispute that we are seeing today.

On the snow crab front, you will see the graph and that top bar, just to make it easy for you, is $100 million, and the fishery for about 15 years to 20 years averaged between $5 million and $30 million. Since about 2000, we have a dramatic increase in the landings and a dramatic increase in the value. The increase is largely in the eastern Nova Scotia area, Guysborough County, Richmond County and Cape Breton County. Those are the major areas where we saw the huge increase and that fishery now is the most important or largest fishery in eastern Nova Scotia. Now it is pulsing very high and the question is how long will it stay up at that level. It may go down and it's completely normal. It may be a crisis but it's not an environmental crisis or a stock collapse. It may be a normal, cyclical thing but that's one of the issues we have to deal with.

We have a new management plan for the eastern Nova Scotia fishery and there are some conflicts over who gets what share. We expect that stock eventually to start coming down. There are some signs that it will come down and that will cause concern for those who now rely on that fishery for a major part of their income. A big problem we have this year is the price is down about one-third. Last year the price in the market was about $3 a pound

to the fishermen. This year we're talking about $2 a pound or a little less and right off the top, if your income is cut by one-third, it's going to have a dramatic impact. You put that next to our slight decline in 2005 and so our fishery for snow crab is anticipated to be about half its value of last year and it's still well above historical levels, but that reduction in half is going to have a major impact on a lot of fishermen.

I have a bar graph on haddock and we have a fishery of about $30 million. I mention haddock because we have a very strong pulse coming on Georges Bank and we have some opportunities there. So we are going to address these opportunities. We'll still have the challenges of the gear sectors, fixed gear, mobile, fighting inshore-offshore, but there are opportunities and we have to address prices, the various processing options, quality and the markets we may be able to attack.

I mentioned herring. The herring fishery has been very high, around 90,000 tons. There are some issues with the stock in southwest Nova Scotia. It's going to decline and with that, the plants that rely on herring could very well be looking at some slowdowns and there will be plant employment that would be impacted. In the Northumberland Strait, the herring fishery is quite strong, the Fall fishery, but the price has been very low so we want to look at opportunities for maybe food fishery or to increase the price paid to the fishermen.

There are great opportunities in mackerel. The stock is very strong but a lot of it is not fully utilized in Nova Scotia. So we hope to see some future development in mackerel. There are some opportunities there.

The tuna landings have been stable. The prices have been up and down. If the price is strong, we have a very good year. If the price is low, it's a bit smaller.

Swordfish. Nova Scotia is the leading swordfish province. About 90 per cent of the swordfish industry is based in our province. The stock is very strong, but there are some challenges there with markets and some image problems because of bycatch with the swordfish longline; there are perceptions that they do damage to turtles, do damage to seals, do damage to shark and other species. So that is a concern with that industry and often a protest on the industry, but we have a very strictly-managed swordfish industry in Canada and they are addressing some of these challenges.

So there are many other fisheries than what I've mentioned, lots of other groundfish fisheries: halibut, silver hake, we still have cod and various flatfish fisheries in Nova Scotia, several fleets that fish shrimp. We have hard-shell clam fisheries, we have sea urchin fisheries, we fish shark, eels, hagfish, various cancer crabs, gaspereau, and each one of these fisheries employs a number of fishermen who look at it as their sole or primary income. So we do have a diversified industry, we are fortunate for that. As one area goes down, other areas will sort of carry the weight. It has individual hardships, or local hardships but as a province we have been very fortunate to have a very productive fishery and on a real run

since the collapse of the groundfish around 1990. So that's it for now. I'm sure you guys want to get at some questions.

MS. PENFOUND: That's our presentation. We would be happy to answer any questions or engage in any discussion you may wish.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. First on the list is Mr. Langille.

MR. WILLIAM LANGILLE: A bit of background there. I'm going to go through this fairly fast, John, because I know we're strapped for time. I'm a conservationist and I raise fish, as a hobby. I raise rainbow and speckle. I have rainbow up to 10 pounds. I have almost three acres underwater. Anyway, there are some concerns with me in the fisheries.

One is duplicity with the federal government, DFO. I know from experience, looking at permits and so on, DFO comes into play and I don't know where you people come into play and I'm looking at the environment and that to get a permit when the watercourse has changed and try to get that back into the right place. Environment gives a permit and then DFO shuts them down. I always believed that DFO should be responsible for high-tide waters and the rest of it should belong to the province. I find that there is a lot of duplicity between the provincial and DFO. You were talking about regulations, a lot of places, I think, were overly regulated. I'm not going to dwell on that. I could but I'm not going to dwell.

I know when I was first elected, I went down to Five Islands to the restaurant there that's owned by a plant, they process clams, and I ordered a fisherman's platter. I was just saying, isn't it nice to get fresh flounder, because off Five Islands there is all kinds of flounder and people go out and set their jigs and when high tide goes out, of course, they go out and get their flounder. The waitress kind of laughed and she said our flounder comes from Cape Breton. I said, what do you mean, there's all kinds of flounder here. She said, we can't get a licence to process flounder here and I thought that is ridiculous. You have flounder here, you have your clams and that and you can't get a licence? We've tried and tried but we can't get a licence to process flounder, and I have no idea why they can't get a licence because there is all kinds of flounder there and for that little plant to operate and they have tried and they have a beautiful plant.

Anyway, that's just one thing and when you talk about regulations, I look at that and I look at what we have as resources in that area and yet the restaurant has to import flounder from Cape Breton.

[10:00 a.m.]

I'm not going to dwell on that right now but I realize that our aquaculture industry is having problems right now. Having said that, we understand what the problems are. One of you just mentioned about negative statements which impacted, the other is Chile which now supercedes Norway as the number one supplier. I bet they don't have the regulations in Chile that we have here. I know this is a big concern and I don't know where the federal Fisheries are coming in with money for aquaculture, or if they are there seems to be a controversy - from what I read in the paper - between our minister and their minister; one has said they have the money, the other said they don't and so on. I imagine you people are up to speed on that.

Just one more thing - because I'm not asking questions, I'm just making statements - and that is the introduction that has taken away from our natural species. Back in the early 1960s - I don't know who was responsible, Natural Resources or the provincial Department of Fisheries - in our lake, Earltown Lake - it comes down in the Waughs River and runs out into the Northumberland Strait - somebody in their wisdom decided to introduce brown trout from Germany. These brown trout are nothing but cannibals. We had beautiful speckled trout fishing and they went from Earltown Lake right down the chain and now you cannot catch a speckled. Almost 1,600 feet on the Waughs River, I used to fish there all the time, and we had no speckles because the brown trout had eaten them. As I say, somebody introduced them back around 1962 and these are people who are supposed to know what they are doing and back then they appeared to, and I carry that over to now.

I know that the bass fishing, which is a non-native species, you have these clubs that are introducing bass - and I've fished a lot of bass in other regions of Canada. I look at those bass and they thrive in warmer waters, of taking over, and especially what you refer to as the chain pickerel. Pickerel to me is a walleye because when I was stationed up north we called walleye pickerel up there; the Americans called them walleye. A chain pickerel is a grass pike which we refer to as "snakes" because that's what they are, they'll take over a food chain. I know that you're not responsible for that and I know someone has gone around and done that. I have no idea why they have never been caught and charged yet. We all know when they started doing it and I'm pretty sure they know who did it.

I look at the introduction of bass and bass is a great sport fishery, I realize that, but when you start introducing foreign species, especially in your waterways, you're looking for problems. I know you say you raise 1 million fish a year, which doesn't seem that much to me, that's not a lot of fish, but I look at what is happening. I know we used to have great fishing but I know what we have now and I think people around will tell you the fishing is not like it used to be for speckled trout which is our natural species. That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. If you want to reply, go ahead.

MS. PENFOUND: I might start and then I'll turn it over to Greg who has the detail. I guess first I would make a comment on your duplicity issue. I think that's a theme that you'll hear from people in any number of businesses, the number of hoops they have to jump through, what the federal government requires of them, what the provincial government requires of them. We certainly wouldn't argue with the fact that that sometimes can be oppressive.

What I would point to is that we have - in an attempt to address some of those concerns - an MOU with the feds on aquaculture and recently signed one on inland fisheries issues, to help us alleviate any overlap and be sure that we are speaking with one voice and being as helpful to the industry as possible. I'm sure it won't solve all of the problems but at least it's a step in the right direction.

The other point I would make before I ask Greg to perhaps speak to some of the specific things that you have raised, is your comment about the issue with whether or not there will be federal monies to assist the aquaculture industry.

Beginning in the early part of this year there was a recognition that there's a growing problem facing aquaculture in the Atlantic Region, for all of those things that Greg mentioned and you said, Chile, the American dollar, disease, a number of things, and a recognition that if the aquaculture industry is going to survive and be successful, the government is going to have to do something to help. In an effort to get a handle on exactly what the issues were and what might be needed, a task force was struck that was chaired by a federal employee, Neil Bellefontaine, Regional Director General for DFO. It has representatives from provincial Governments of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as industry folks who had a good hard look at this and talked to lots of folks and issued a report.

The report recommended a number of things, including immediate assistance to help with the salmon industry in New Brunswick but also noted that the industry was really very integrated. As Greg mentioned, success for salmon means you can diversify, it helps the halibut folks, and it's all part of one big package. That task force recommended to send immediate support to address the salmon issue but also investment to help the industry diversify.

A month or two ago our minister hosted the Atlantic Ministers here, who discussed and reviewed that report and urged Minister Regan to respond. We understand that is still under consideration and we continue to press for the federal government to respond and hopefully accept the recommendations of that task force. We know that's a very pressing issue for our industry and we're hopeful that we can find some success there.

In the bigger picture, as Greg mentioned, there's also starting to be agreement among provinces that have aquaculture industries, which is most of them, that we need to have some kind of aquaculture policy framework. So we have an industry out there that is building but might need some organized support from government, in other words, some business risk management programming, so they can look to government support when they have up and down years to guide them through those times. We continue to work on that with our federal and provincial counterparts, but it's a little bit of a longer term strategy, in terms of getting something in place.

The task force was meant to look at and address solutions to the immediate issues that are facing the industry. With that, I will turn it over to Greg to have a go at some of the more specific questions that you've raised.

MR. ROACH: Just briefly, the habitat that you mentioned has been a concern for many stakeholders. The question is, who do they have to get permits for and for what and all sorts of things? The MOUs that Rosalind mentioned are hopefully going to help that, where it will identify who is responsible for what and the habitat as well. The federal government is embarking on what they call a risk assessment type approach, a risk management, so they will look at the various works or activities out there and look at the ones that are potentially causing serious concerns to the environment. Those are the ones they will focus on and then you will get a code of practice or more of a routine permitting process for culverts or other minor alternations to the waterway. We're hoping that that may go to alleviate some of those concerns and everyone shares those concerns, certainly, on our side.

MR. LANGILLE: If I could interrupt you just for a minute, I believe the problems with DFO and the overlapping of the provincial could be resolved easily in one area and that is if DFO is just responsible for high-water tide areas and then the province takes over all freshwater, inland fisheries. I know it is regulated from Ottawa but that's where I see a big problem and whether we want to take it over or not, I don't know. That would sure save a lot of problems in a lot of different ministries.

MR. ROACH: I don't disagree with those comments, the legal Fisheries Act and the Constitution sets that out as a federal mandate and that's something that we just can't change. We are trying the MOUs to do some order powers and that's what we're moving towards, but I don't disagree with that.

MR. LANGILLE: I think it could be changed, we just don't have the will to change it. Anyway, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Langille. Mr. Sampson.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: I hope we're here until 2:00 p.m. by the time we get through everything that we're all interested in. I have questions on the fishing side, on the sport side and also on the industry side.

The negative media impact, I have down here and it seems just a little blurb for the media, nothing is ever presented in a positive light, I guess positive things don't sell. If there's a little bit of a scare or a little bit of something it gets all blown out of proportion. I'm referring to the aquaculture industry first. You know what I'm referring to, the mussel farm that we had down in St. Anne's Bay and the four-year fight for that. Still today you're talking about aquaculture sites and whatnot.

But aren't we growing food in the water? That was the approach that I took. If you can't grow food in the water that you live next to, yet you can run straight pipes in it for sewage, there's something drastically wrong with that picture. I bluntly told some of the people, so long as they can flush for free, you're an environmentalist. But if it comes to putting in a proper septic system and allowing someone to grow food, oh, you can't do that. So I was glad to hear you say that there's a very negligible impact from the results of mussel farms and fish farms. When I think of fish farms, there's a lot of excrement from large fish farms, the same with cow or pig or animals. Couldn't that eventually be used as a fertilizer or something like that, rather than being looked upon as a pollutant? I'm asking that as a question, because we recycle animal manure and use it as a fertilizer. I hear this as a negative all the time.

On the mussel farm, is there any research being done? I know, on valued-added products, and I'll say, I'll focus mainly on the waste of shells. I know the shells can be ground and pulverized and whatnot like that, but is anybody doing anything on it? That's a real resource. There's more shell than there is meat. Those being utilized for composting or being ground up, do you know if there's anything along that line?

MR. ROACH: The mussel shells, I'm not aware of any activity on mussel shells. As you know the mussels are marketed whole, for the most part. They're shipped to the U.S. shell and all, and shipped to our various destinations and restaurants. I know that for some other shellfish, like crab, lobster, there are products from the shell, like chitin-based products that are valuable and have potential. There has been some work on that. We haven't quite gotten it down. I spoke with some people about what the drawbacks are, and they related some issues about treatments, like chemical treatments, to get the chitin out of the shell. Some of those things then cause some other environmental issues.

We have shipped some of these products to China, for example, for extraction, but to value-add, use the shells, we haven't quite established a chitin-based product. The crab shells have been used, for example, in compost and to make fertilizer-type products.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Let me go back and forth, because then there'll be lots of other questions. I understand that what we always called sea worms, digging them along the shore and along the coast of rivers and whatnot, they're used for fishing through the ice, is that what you call bloodworms?

MR. ROACH: In Eastern Nova Scotia, they're sand worms. They're kind of a yellow type. It's a similar animal only they're red. They can get to be a bit longer, and they're very popular for the bait-fish fisheries, or as bait for fisheries.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: These sand worms, these yellowish ones, can I still dig those and fish through the ice in the wintertime. Guys that I smelted with years ago they tell me now we can't even dig sea worms anymore. You're trying to entice me to fish or maybe take my grandchildren fishing, and I'll tell you some of the things that I am hearing. I haven't fished in years, I have all the smelt gear and all that stuff home. I'd like to take the grandkids out to jig mackerel, but they tell me I can't jig mackerel anymore because I'm not a commercial fisherman. If I take them out off the Bird Islands or somewhere, I can only fish with the grandkids on a rod, I'm not allowed to jig. I don't know if that's true or not.

Number two, guys tell me, when I catch a salmon off Black Rock or it's going up to the entrance to the Great Bras d'Or where I live, I don't care if the salmon is 40 feet long, I can't be bothered fishing it anymore, because there's no fun in it. From what the guys are telling me, they land the salmon, it's too big to keep, they have to let it go, so it can swim up the lake and be caught in the net by a First Nations guy. So they tell me, what the heck is the good of going down fishing, if I catch that fish and try to sneak it home, I'm caught, I'm fined, I'm this, I'm that.

[10:15 a.m.]

Former guys that I fished with were caught with more than three dozen smelt. One guy had 20 eels instead of 10, went to court and paid a $750 fine. He didn't know that he couldn't - I mean we used to spear eels all day until we caught what we could catch, and when we got tired we went home. Now somebody else can get a licence and trap as many. So you try to entice somebody to go out for enjoyment at the risk of being fined. I don't intend to even do that.

Those are some of the things. On the other side of the coin, what does Transportation or roads have to do with Fisheries? Well, I'm the Transportation Critic, I tried to get a culvert put in place, and a DFO guy came along and he was sure that in 1960 a minnow swam up there in that little trickle of water. He forced the guys to shut down and put in a stainless steel culvert, which was $13,000. Therefore, I couldn't get two more shovelfuls of asphalt for a pothole.

The pendulum has gone over, not to the ridiculous stage but almost to where it's a mish-mash. And you're signing MOUs to find out who is responsible for what. Now, how long has this been going on before we know who's responsible for what? People should know what they're responsible for, and what jurisdictions they have. We're still, in this day and age - I wouldn't go into that if he gave me his boat and licence, because I wouldn't know which way to steer or which way to turn. He could say, well, Gerald, if you do it right, you could make millions of dollars. Keep it, Junior, because I don't want it. Bill Langille put it in simple terms, but like I said that's what seems to me to be right. So, I get involved with this stuff and try to help people and, like I say, the only thing I can do is bring people like yourselves down to resolve it.

The middle shoal dredging, down my way, in Big Bras d'Or, that was done. First off it was going to ruin all the fishery in the area. Then when people were hired and employed, they utilized their boats and whatnot, it became a valuable resource, and they dumped all the dredging out in a spot off Bird Island, and they said it would make a good lobster ground. Well, that's four or five years ago. Do you know if that ever became a good resource for lobsters, for the breeding of lobsters, or has it become a good area to catch lobsters?

These things, when people oppose when you want to do something, you can use these as examples, and say, well, they dredged all this material from here, and it's the same bottom, they dredged it from here and they took it out and dumped it out here. I'm just wondering if those things are done.

MR. ROACH: I'm not sure whether there are improved catches in the area where they dropped those rocks. I could find that out, to see if there's a difference. Historically, the artificial reef concept has been tried in a number of places. Generally you get a local accumulation of lobster. Now the question is, do they just move from an area that wasn't quite as favourable and go over to that area, or did it increase the lobster population. I don't know if you're going to get that answer, but I can try to find out if they actually inhabit that area for you.

I can find out, too, about the regulations around sand worms. The bloodworm industry is regulated. I really have not heard of any attempts to regulate the sand worm industry. It's DFO's mandate, and I will attempt to find that out for you. The species that you mentioned, as I mentioned, those are all federal, the eels, salmon, those are federally managed. Salmon are in tough shape, as I mentioned, and there are very strict conservation rules. There's only a few rivers left in Nova Scotia where you can keep two grills a day, and only eight a year. All the large salmon have to be returned. Each river almost has its own rules. It's very strict conservation for salmon.

Eels, again, it's a relatively new management regime for eels. Eels are considered a species that people are concerned about. The population in the Upper Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River has declined substantially. It's not so bad in Nova Scotia, but it's the same

species, the same population. They spawn in the Atlantic and the Sargasso Sea, and south of Bermuda. Then the whole population drifts up as small larvae and then, eventually, glass eels, and inhabits all the rivers in Eastern North America. Nova Scotia's population is not so bad but the others are in kind of tough shape, so they are becoming very strict on eels, believe it or not. Again, it's not a provincial mandate, I'm just sort of passing on some information for you.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Crab is something that I'm sure will come up with Mr. Theriault or somebody else. If not, I will ask it later. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, Mr. Parker.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Lots of fish stories being told here today. I have - maybe on the sport fishery then - a couple of questions. I heard, Greg, you mentioned earlier, encouraging us to get out this weekend. Is there a free weekend for sport fishery? Is it this weekend coming?

MR. ROACH: I encourage you to get out and buy a licence this weekend. (Laughter) The sport fishery weekend is over. That was not last weekend, the previous one.

MR. PARKER: Oh, okay.

MR. ROACH: We have it once a year where we basically give a licence holiday for adults, it's only adults; seniors, it's five bucks, just a minimal fee, but between 16 and 65, you have to buy a licence. There's one free weekend a year where we encourage people to take their kids out or go and try fishing.

MR. PARKER: It was a couple of weekends ago.

MR. ROACH: Yes.

MR. PARKER: I guess I didn't hear about it. Was it advertised? Other years I have always heard about it and I know it was used in my County of Pictou, but it has come and gone.

MR. ROACH: Yes.

MR. PARKER: Was it advertised?

MR. ROACH: Oh. yes. It was advertised. I heard it, myself, several times on the radio.

MR. PARKER: Well, that's good. Glad to hear it's still ongoing.

In relation to that - and perhaps you are familiar with the Landsdowne Park, LORDA Park at Lansdowne in Pictou County. It's in my particular riding. That is stocked by your department. I think Murray Hill from Pictou is responsible for looking after that and does a great job there. There are approximately 16,000 seniors and disabled people from all over the province, really - from all over the world who use the Lansdowne Park. It is just a wonderful facility for people to go and catch a fish that probably otherwise they never could.

I guess I have encouraged Minister d'Entremont to come out and have a look at the park there, and previous ministers. I don't know if your present minister has been out or not, but certainly I would encourage him, and the deputy and yourselves to come out any time. I could arrange that if you wanted, or you could arrange it through the curator, Dave Leese. It's just a great facility for sport fishery for people that, really, otherwise would not get out on the brooks, rivers or lakes. The invitation is open. If you would like to come out I will set that up if you so wish.

I've got a couple of other issues here. Coming from the North Shore - and you mentioned the herring food fishery. I know we have had a couple of meetings in regard to that in Caribou and Toney River. My understanding is, there is a pilot project that is being set up involving the potential there. I wonder if you might be able to give us an update on where that's at or just - is it getting off the ground, or just where it's heading?

MR. ROACH: We are working with interested processors and fishermen to do the pilot for a food fishery. It's in a sort of conceptual project stage. We are hoping to have an actual pilot with core food fishery this Fall, the Fall fishery. The guy in my group who is working on that - I haven't chatted with him in the last couple of weeks but it's still ongoing and it's a combination of - as I mentioned - getting the fishermen lined up who want to attempt to do this, to get the proper boxing equipment ready, to get some ice supplies ready and get the offloading and the processing end ready.

The whole goal is to take, perhaps, smaller volumes but take excellent care of the fish, get it to the processing plant in top quality, have larger fish, so they're going to use mesh sizes that are somewhat different than the traditional herring nets, so they will only catch the bigger herring, bring them into the plant in top quality condition, and then we can fillet them and explore the food markets.

There are strong markets for herring in Europe, particularly. There have been challenges in the past. One buyer may pay a premium for top quality fish, and to keep the buy, others will pay the same for traditionally-cut fish. We have lost these pilots in the past so we will see how this one goes. That's what our plan is.

MR. PARKER: There is certainly strong interest from different fishermen that I've talked with. They would like to proceed with it. I think North Nova Seafoods is interested as a processor, perhaps others. I guess the key is the market there. Everything we understand

is that, yes, there is, and scientists are telling us there is lots of herring in the Northumberland Strait, so it seems like a win-win and I encourage you to continue with it. It will just be another economic driver in our area that would be helpful.

The other difficulties you mentioned, too, is the lobster fishery in the Northumberland Strait. It seems like the further you go west, the lower the catches are. I know in Skinners Cove, Cape John, Toney River and some of these areas, Barrachois, it's just dropping every year, the number of pounds they are catching, to the point where some of the fishermen are - you know, it's difficult. The price they are paying for their bait, their helper and their insurance, there is really nothing left over. Some of those fishermen are pretty well set. They've been fishing for years and they don't have a lot of debts that they have to pay out of their so-called profit. Yet there are some younger fishermen who are really struggling. They have a large debt, maybe, through the Fisheries Loan Board, or wherever, and it's particularly tough for them.

I know science is - I think there's some initiative to study why this is happening. Is there a scientific reason or is it the scallop fishery, or is it the carapace size? There are different theories on why those catches are down. Is there anything your department could do to assist, in particular, the young fishermen who are financially struggling here? I'm thinking around the Fisheries Loan Board, in particular. Is there any forgiveness or moratorium on payback, or anything, that possibly could help in a very difficult situation for them?

MS. PENFOUND: I guess before asking Greg to comment on the specific issues around the stock, I might respond on the Fisheries Loan Board issue. As you know, the loan board has the mandate for making those decisions, so the minister can't direct the loan board. However, one of the reasons why fishermen, and farmers with the Farm Loan Board, would choose to deal with our loan board is because those folks understand the industry, understand the ups and downs and can be more flexible.

Any individual person who is experiencing difficulty certainly can negotiate some relief or consideration in terms of their particular financial situation. In terms of a blanket moratorium on interest or something like that, I don't think the board is considering anything like that because this would be a specific area that you are referring to. They probably would look at individual borrowers, determine what their needs were and see if they could accommodate them.

I guess that would be my comment on the loan board thing. Greg, you may have some comment on the stock issue.

MR. ROACH: We are working with the local fishermen's associations, even with Prince Edward Island, to see what they're doing because the problem is on both sides of the Strait. The Northumberland Strait has been very cyclical. Over its history it has gone up and

down like a yo-yo. It would have four or five really good years, some average years and then some very poor years. I think the first thing we have to do is kind of take stock of how bad it is now, relative to its history. As far as finding a smoking gun, is it scallops, is it warmer waters, is it something else? That will be a really difficult thing to try to put a handle on.

Again, I'm very interested in seeing how we end up this season, relative to past history. We've got historical records by county for the Northumberland Strait, going back over 100 years. The stuff on it years ago is a little bit sketchy but, certainly, in the last 50 years, it's good data to compare to today's landings to see where we are.

The unfortunate thing with a number of these species, sometimes it's the natural cycles, we just have to weather the storm. If there's something else going on out there, hopefully science will try to get to the bottom of that. The reality is that maybe it's a situation we have to live with.

MR. PARKER: Okay, thanks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't think we're going to have time to get back to you, Mr. Parker, but, if possible. Mr. Colwell.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: I've got all kinds of questions. I'm going to start with the enforcement. There has been illegal lobster fishing going on in the St. Marys Bay area, as you are well aware, for a long time. I just want to know - I'm going to ask a series of quick questions, hopefully the answers will be quick - have you made any arrests and convictions in that area in the last several years?

MS. MACAULAY: In the St. Marys Bay area . . .

MR. COLWELL: The illegal lobster fishing in South West Nova.

MS. MACAULAY: DFO, last year, I believe there were vessels seized and there were charges laid. I don't know if they've come before the courts yet. There were no buyers identified with that activity, but certainly charges went forward on activity in St. Marys Bay.

[10:30 a.m.]

MR. COLWELL: I know that Revenue Canada is involved, which I think is a really good idea with this. You indicated before that all the lobsters landed have to be identified by the particular buyer to the person who brings them in, so that there should be checks and balances in place. Do you have a running total of who catches what and to make sure that it all balances so if, all of a sudden, a processor is shipping off 1 million tons of lobster and is only accounting for 500,000 pounds of lobster, what's going on here, there's something weird? If they are shipping 1 million they record 1 million and then the fishermen aren't

reporting 1 million pounds of lobster to Revenue Canada for income. Do you audit those on a regular basis in all fish plants, with all fishermen?

MS. MACAULAY: The record keeping is on a buyer and we do go in and check their records as to the quantities that they're buying. We would verify that with DFO, or go to the fishermen ourselves to see what they are selling. Revenue Canada is doing the same thing.

For two years we have asked buyers to report to us what they have bought in a year for lobster, so we are running checks and balances. Just recently we've started looking at a weekly reporting perhaps by lobster buyers so we can get a detailed weekly report on what they are buying and selling. Right now it is dependent on inspectors going in and checking the records.

MR. COLWELL: What penalties do you have if a buyer claims they bought a certain amount and you may deem it to be fraudulent? What do you do then?

MS. MACAULAY: I guess that would come under false record keeping, certainly, that is an offence under the Fisheries and Coastal Resources Act. It could be a case of breach of a term and condition on their licence, which we could proceed with in terms of a show cause hearing, which would be a suspension, a termination. We could proceed with laying a charge. We did have false record keeping in that they failed to keep a record and we charged a person. We seized his product and I think he got around a $1,500 fine out of that.

MR. COLWELL: How much is the illegal lobster fishery worth in Nova Scotia now?

MS. MACAULAY: The last figure, which is probably a three-year-old figure, was around $20 million - this is Revenue Canada's figure in terms of unrecorded, undeclared income to a fisherman.

MR. COLWELL: That's substantially less than it had been, or was it that Revenue Canada never kept track of it prior to that?

MS. MACAULAY: They are always operating a year behind us because, of course, of the personal income tax filing date. A task force that was originated when you were minister, there is going to be a meeting this week in terms of that being brought back on. In terms of what their actual figures are, I haven't heard, in terms of what audits they've been doing and what the total figures are in terms of lost income to this province.

MR. COLWELL: At the time when I was minister, I believe it was around $350 million a year, a huge number.

MS. MACAULAY: For total fisheries, a huge number.

MR. COLWELL: Did you say the task force hasn't been active now?

MS. MACAULAY: It has but in terms of a concentrated effort, quarterly meetings, what have you, it waned on that point. We are going to regroup and try to focus more on particular issues. With Revenue Canada, they would target an area, they'd target a species. DFO would target an issue and we would target an issue. We are trying to focus on picking a group issue where all three can concentrate and work on.

MR. COLWELL: It seems it's a tremendous loss to the Canadian economy overall, particularly in Nova Scotia. It affects the inshore lobster fishery, it affects the income the province gets, the federal government gets from the revenue. In the meantime, people are making a lot of money illegally in an industry that is doing very well now but if we keep depleting the stocks at the rate that they are in those particular areas, that industry could be gone as far as good revenue for individuals. What other steps are you taking to prevent this from perpetuating and to actually get it stopped?

MS. MACAULAY: From our position, we have taken a stronger role in doing enforcement and investigations. Primarily, we were compliance officers and so recruitment, we're focusing on people who are trained law enforcement people, it brings a different set of skills to the table to do the work. We are working more with DFO and trying to focus on issues and areas. The sharing of information that I speak of, that has greatly improved. Each agency was reluctant to share information but that has gone greatly by the wayside in terms of sharing information about illegal activity, giving heads-up, so at least we have some warning. Even people in the industry were reluctant to give us information and leads. It's hard to deal on an enforcement level three days after the fact or when people don't want to give you a lead or a tip, that has greatly improved.

MR. COLWELL: With the revenue the province is losing in taxes and legitimate income from people in the fishing industry, I see you still only have eight enforcement officers. Do you have any plans to improve the enforcement through provincial Fisheries? There's a whole series of things the provincial Fisheries can do that the other agencies can't. I would think it would make sense - and I see where they're located here, I don't know, you have one in Musquodoboit Harbour, I don't know what you would ever do with one in Truro. It doesn't seem that they are located in the key areas. Maybe there should be one in Shelburne or Queens and, indeed, improve the officers, give them an opportunity to at least get out. Eight officers just simply are not enough for enforcement in all of Nova Scotia.

MS. MACAULAY: Our locations, we have tried to put them in the areas where they're linked with DFO offices. The one in Musquodoboit is new, our one in Truro is more an assistant manager position because we are doing some enforcement-related work with our agriculture side. Certainly, our challenge is we have a vast area to cover, so our officers are out from their locations. My person in Halifax covers as far down as Queens County.

Thinking along the way, there are five DFO offices along there where we are working with their conservation and protection officers.

Again, are there any signs of increasing our numbers? My eight are three as of December so I think, probably, when you were minister we had four. So we have doubled in a fairly short time frame and there are no signs to increase but what we have done is appointed those other officers. So they can go into a situation and if a tool of enforcement for them is to approach it as a provincial inspection officer, then they are appointed to carry out our enforcement work, and they do. If there is a matter to lay a charge or to proceed, it would be turned back to us and we would lay it in the courts, and that does happen.

MR. COLWELL: I have many more but I guess my time is up.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Massey.

MS. JOAN MASSEY: I'd like to talk a bit about the inshore fishery and the job that the advisory boards do and specifically the Regional Aquaculture Development Advisory Committee - which you did mention this morning - and the role that they play in looking at new aquaculture sites and either approving applications or turning applications down. Number one, I'm just wondering, is the committee together now?

MR. ROACH: Our regional committees, there are some regions that have them and some regions that don't have them. The committees are relatively inactive because there haven't been any recent applications for aquaculture in Nova Scotia. It has been a bit of a tough period. There was an expansion down in Long Island, and other than that, it has been very slow. There is one application that's active down in the Port Mouton area.

For example, the St. Anns one that Mr. Sampson referred to, there wasn't a RADAC in that area. We did the public hearing approach. The RADAC was a concept when aquaculture was developing in the early 1990s to set up these regional boards that would have multiple interests there. You would have local businesses, you would have other stakeholders - fishermen, perhaps fish plants, environmental issues, just general public - that would sit down and kind of do a review. That was the idea, as aquaculture was developing in different regions. But the development has slowed down dramatically. There are some regions that we could reactivate these RADACs but you need some applications to do that, so there's not much going on.

MS. MASSEY: So it's really not so much of a proactive committee but almost a reactive committee that's set up when some proponent does put forward an application, and then you go out looking for volunteers to get on these committees. Is that the way it works?

MR. ROACH: Yes. It was the development advisory committee. As the industry was developing in different regions, we had the multi-stakeholder, multi-interest representatives that would sit and provide advice.

MS. MASSEY: How many regional committees are there right now that sort of - I know they don't have to meet on a regular basis, I guess, but they're ready to go?

MR. ROACH: I'm not sure how many we have in the province that have worked in the past. I wouldn't call any of them ready to go. We would have to approach the members that sat previously and see if they're ready to participate. As I mentioned, the last couple of applications we have had - and that's in the last several years - have been the public hearing approach.

We have established a couple of community-based groups to monitor new sites. For example, there is one down in St. Anns. We have a community committee that will meet to talk about how that particular site is expanding and developing to fill the lease that was granted, and to just keep, sort of, communications open between the proponent and the lease holder. That is not a development to review a lot of new applicants as such, which was the idea of the RADACs originally. This is more of the community interests in a site that has been granted and that there were some community concerns around that site. So we have that committee that's active.

As I mentioned, the RADAC model was established in the times when we were anticipating more development in the various regions. It has been very slow for new applications so there are no development committees active.

MS. MASSEY: You mentioned - or somebody did here this morning - your new animal health program in relation to farm diseases. I guess what I'm looking for is, what kind of information has come out of that? It's new so have there been any problems that have shown up so far that you've recognized and, if so, what has been done to alleviate those problems in the industry, as far as your new program goes?

MR. ROACH: This is a federal program and it's new as in the 2005 budget. There was money allocated to the National Aquatic Animal Health Program. The money will be distributed or shared largely between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and CFIA, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Each would have a role or various roles in fish health.

[10:45 a.m.]

The concept behind the national aquatic animal health program is to have a mechanism in place to address situations where a particular farm - let's say a salmon farm - had an exotic disease with some of its animals. The program would then call for various

procedures to take place. If it's forced eradication, for example - and that would be the extreme example - then there would be some opportunity for the farmer to get some payback.

MS. MASSEY: Okay, I'm going to stop you there because what I was really looking for was, has it started and, if so, what has happened? I'm going to move right on to. . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: This will be your last one.

MS. MASSEY: Okay, my last question. Environmental monitoring - and that was introduced just a few years ago, also, as far as aquaculture goes. I know the industry was looking for that. I know, with eight inspectors, that's got to be - you have to wonder how many places they get around to. I believe there are 385 leased sites across the province and only half of those are actually in the process of farming right now. It was mentioned here this morning that all the active major sites are monitored, exactly how many sites are considered major versus the non-major sites? What I'm looking for is, how many sites have been monitored and how recently have they been monitored, those major sites?

MR. ROACH: Firstly, the people who are involved in this monitoring program are biologists and technicians. We have a program in our aquaculture division where they have gone out to these sites and actually have taken water samples, did video of the bottom, below the various fish cages.

MS. PENFOUND: It's not the eight.

MR. ROACH: No, it's not the eight fish inspectors. The samples are then sent to the labs at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and they have accepted the program that we have established. They do chemical analysis of the sediments that are taken from the grab samples from below the sites.

Now the exact numbers - I can see the graphs there - I guess I can tell you all the major sites that have fish farming activity on them were sampled as part of this environmental sampling program. (Interruptions) I can't think of the number, exactly.

MS. MASSEY: Can you give me a guesstimate on how many major sites there are?

MR. ROACH: Well, I don't want to guess a number that may not be correct. I can find that out. We can tell you exactly how many sites. We've got a map of where they were.

MS. MASSEY: So can I get that information given to us?

MR. ROACH: Sure, yes. That's information that we're glad to share. It was very recent. This was 2004. It started as a pilot in 2003 and we did a full-blown monitoring program in 2004. We're gearing up for the 2005 season now.

MS. PENFOUND: That is a program that we are very proud of. It's an innovative thing that our staff has come up with. We will undertake to get you any information and we will be happy to even do a presentation for anybody who wants - on that program. If you have any interest, probably an hour of your time, we could give you a display, complete with videos of what the activity is, what it looks like, what the program is, how many sites, the

full-meal deal.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: You'll have to come back again, Greg (Laughter) we're pretty near out of time. Anyway, I'm not going to go on too much today about the fishery. I will say, though, that the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries is underfunded and the Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage is underfunded in this province, two of our biggest economic generators of this province, with the least amount of money spent into them.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Department of Transportation and Public Works.

MR. THERIAULT: The Department of Transportation and Public Works has five times more money than the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries does, but it's our biggest economic generator of this province. The rural areas are 70 per cent of the economic generation of this province. If we don't take care of it we're not going to have that.

We have two inspectors down in western Nova Scotia, 170 fish plants down there, quite a few of them working illegally. You could put 10 or 12 more inspectors down there and they would pay for themselves easily, guaranteed. So until we open our eyes up to that stuff - anyway, I'm not going to go on.

I want to touch on salmon a minute. I keep hearing all the time, and I hear it day in and day out, that the federation of wild salmon people keep saying that aquaculture is harming the wild salmon fishery. Does the department have any proof of this, Greg, or is there any proof of this, that they do harm the wild fishery?

MR. ROACH: I've not seen any hard science. The interest groups have very different opinions. The folks that are proponents of the Atlantic salmon recreational fishery and the wild resource, I guess, are very concerned about aquaculture. The aquaculture proponents defend their industry selling that there are no impacts that can be identified. There are talks about connection with sea lice and escapees watering down the natural population but from a science perspective, the wild population, there are a lot of concerns about what is happening in the high seas, why the fish aren't returning in the numbers that they are expected to come back when the smoke comes out. I think the bottom line is that there really isn't a good, scientific answer as to what is going on, so people then start pointing at various possibilities: maybe the fishery off Greenland, the warming waters and aquaculture has been

put in the mix. As kind of a compromise, there are some guidelines that are being addressed to have salmon farms established at least a certain distance away from traditional salmon rivers. In Nova Scotia the few salmon sites that we do have are not going to be in conflict with that so we won't have that problem in Nova Scotia.

Again, to answer that question, I would almost have to take sides. One side says maybe, the other side says no and scientifically, I haven't seen anything myself that would cause me to say we have a real problem here and I can't claim to be a salmon scientist, I'm not but I have everything I've read on it. There are concerns but I haven't read anything scientifically that says there is a problem but I will be perfectly honest, there is a lot out there that I haven't read. I think there are just different interest groups that have different positions on that.

MR. THERIAULT: I can bring 1,000 fishermen off the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia into this city who have no interest in salmon at all, who can tell you exactly where the salmon are going. I don't want to get into that today.

MS. MASSEY: Where are they going? Tell us, we want to know.

MR. THERIAULT: Four hundred thousand, 800-pound grey seals out there, when they come across from Iceland, that herd of salmon, they are gone, devoured. Now you can like it or lump it. They are eating 25 pounds of fish a day each, over 2 billion pounds a year and salmon is the best on the menu. Go ask the fishermen out on the shore, any one of them, who has no interest in the salmon. Anyway, we won't go there today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If you have another one . . .

MR. THERIAULT: Just one more on crab for Greg. Does the department realize the crabs from the gulf, and off Newfoundland and Labrador, are coming to the westward, migrating to the westward, evolving that way year after year? Do they realize that?

MR. ROACH: Yes, actually there is a 4X snow crab fishery now and the snow crab - I assume you are talking about snow crabs - fishery originated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There was a small fishery on the outer coast of Cape Breton and into Guysborough County. The water conditions on the bottom, in some areas, the deep water has gotten colder in cycles and the snow crab like cold water. They like it below four degrees, preferably below two degrees. So when there is this influx of cold water on the bottom in different gullies and basins, the environmental conditions were created that were somewhat acceptable to snow crab and if you have that, you will get some isolated populations.

Nova Scotia is at the southern edge of the range. There actually have been snow crabs in the Gulf of Maine but that is about as far south as you are going to find them because the bottom temperatures then start to get warmer in the basins and gullies and you have other

species. You will get lobster down in South West Nova, where you go in the deep water off the Eastern Shore and off Cape Breton and you get into snow crab. So it's mostly the water temperature that is a big trigger and if you get colder water a little bit further south in the deep water, you will get the odd show of snow crab, if it changes back you will get fewer snow crab and maybe you will get situations that are a little better for other fish, a little better for groundfish, for example.

The seal issue, that view is shared about the impacts they have on many finfish species, many harbours, estuaries, you will see seals hanging out and one would question, they are doing some serious fishing there, not like Mr. Sampson's fishing. They keep their salmon when they catch them.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hines.

MR. GARY HINES: Yes, a comment, first of all. I think that the best suggestion made at the table today was to have the Act changed that would allow the federal government to stay out of the inland waterways and let the provincial governments do the regulations regarding those issues because I think that's where a lot of the problems come in. I know when I worked in the north several years ago, if you were putting in culverts in Alberta, naturally they silted in and became a part of the environment. In the Northwest Territories, you had to put the silt in the culverts and then when you got to the Yukon, you not only had to put silt in the culverts but had to paint them. Now somebody was making stupid decisions because what worked in Alberta should have worked in the rest of the country and I think with that interlocking of two or three governments interfering and making decisions that you would get a lot of that and you could eliminate a lot of foolishness.

The other thing that I would like to comment on is the Chileans seem to be the competitor that we have. Have you studied the regulatory process in Chili to see what impact it does have on pricing when it finally goes to the market that would make the competitiveness there?

MR. ROACH: I don't have anything on the regulatory system in Chili but there have just been general reports that the regulatory environment is more business friendly and the labour costs are cheaper and basically they can produce cheaper fish. I don't have the details on that. I can attempt to try to see if we can get any but I have not seen any report or paper as such.

MR. HINES: It will be interesting to see because the regulatory process can be sometimes, all the regulation costs you money and it will be interesting to make a comparison.

The other thing I wanted to comment on is markets developed that you can handle the waste from the fish and so on. We had a presentation some time ago regarding the shrimp shells being used and being processed locally, actually, and a gel-type product that is used when you are doing operations. (Interruptions) So there is development taking place but not probably at the speed that we should have. So if something could generate the interest of other segments to do, that would be a good suggestion as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to have a short snapper here myself. I'm curious about the eight inspectors. Now I'm assuming that they are also enforcement officers as well as inspectors so there are a number of officers now who have been appointed, who it sounds like they are federal people, I think, if I understood you right.

MS. MACAULAY: That is correct.

MR. MACDONELL: I'm curious, do you have any information that shows that those other appointed officers actually have done anything in the line of enforcement? It would strike me that this would be an additional responsibility that they have taken on when they were appointed but they also have a day job, I'm thinking, so I'm curious as to what their ability is.

[11:00 a.m.]

I guess what I'm saying is, this just looks like bigger numbers that can't be effective in doing anything, whereas the eight is too few, and the other people don't really have the time to do the job, but they're appointed, and if circumstances brought themselves forward, that they might actually be able to intervene and do some enforcement, but the bottom line for them is it's a tag-on that they don't have time to pursue. Can you fill me in on that?

MS. MACAULAY: I mentioned that the appointments were looked upon as being a tool in terms of enforcement. Keep in mind that the federal conservation officer is operating under the authority of the Fisheries Act of Canada. When they do enforcement work or inspections, or what have you, they have to follow certain procedures that their Act addresses. For helping, in terms of their enforcement efforts, maybe having access to records would assist them in their work, perhaps leading to determine whether or not activity was illegal. So their appointment, under our legislation, as a provincial inspector to go in and look at the record of buying and selling was a tool for them. It did increase our numbers in terms of our work being done in terms of record keeping.

We received the benefit of that because, yes, there are only eight to go out and visit the offices and the businesses of these buyers, but there are also federal inspectors going in and doing the same thing. Now maybe the information they would glean from that exercise would be used to assist them in laying a charge under the Fisheries Act of Canada. So, collectively, at the end of the day, whether our department lays the charge for illegal activity

or DFO lays the charge or Revenue Canada, I don't think it matters who lays the charge, as long as the illegal activity is identified, it's dealt with, and a message is sent to others thinking about doing it. That's what we're trying to achieve.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Wouldn't they have had that power to do that before they were appointed?

MS. MACAULAY: They would have had a broader authority, but certain activity under our legislation narrowed it right down, so they could go in and ask for records. Our condition on the licence specifically would say to a buyer, you must record, daily, the names of the fishermen you're buying from, the quantity that you're buying, the date that you're selling, the quantity that you're selling, and who you're selling to. All that body of information that's being collected is useful to us, it's useful to DFO, because perhaps they're looking at the fishermen who are selling and not declaring, or perhaps they're fishing illegally or fishing out of season. We are looking at the buyer, are they licenced. Then, perhaps Revenue Canada, with that same body of information, is looking at it in terms of the fishermen, are you declaring your income off that, to the buyer, are you declaring all of your income or are you putting in extra expenses against your operation.

Collectively, the information is there. They are all appointed under our legislation and have the authority to go get it in the first place. Is it there in their own legislation? In a broader context.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think you answered my question. I want to say, on behalf of the committee, thanks very much. I really appreciate your input, and actually could maybe have used a little less presentation and little more time for questions. Anyway, we know where you're at, and we know that if we want you again, the department has always been very helpful in providing us with information.

Mr. Langille, did you want to make a recommendation?

MR. LANGILLE: I'd like to make a motion that this Committee on Resources invite scientists from the provincial Department of Fisheries and DFO to ascertain their theory on the declining salmon, cod and other species of fish in Atlantic Canada.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Did you want to be more pointed in terms, in relation to seals in the province, or did you want to just leave it?

MR. LANGILLE: In relation to, well, the food chain.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Did you want to just limit yourself to DFO and the Department of Fisheries?

MR. LANGILLE: Not necessarily. Whatever the committee thinks. (Interruptions)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Is the committee fine with that? I think that's a good idea. (Interruptions) Agreed.

MR. GERALD SAMPSON: Mr. Chairman, just before we break, when we have a meeting like this with a group as important as the fishery, I think it would be a good policy if we were to send out invitations to the different fisher groups around the province to send a representative to sit in and listen to what goes on, so they can put a face with the name, and they can receive the information that we're receiving. I'm going to take an extra kit, but I wish I had two or three because my area is so large. I have contact fishers in different places, and I would like to give them this kit so they can take a look. They'll have your phone numbers, they'll have the information that was shared here. I'm going to wait until I get the information back from Hansard and probably copy it to them.

The same if this was the lumber industry, I think we should send out invitations. They must have contacts, union representatives or representatives of the different organizations. And I think . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: Some have communications people and someone who could come. The people who have come before us, who actually kind of led us down that road, they're all going to receive copies anyway, so you won't have to worry about sending that out, this office will do that. It's not a bad idea, but it's a question of the venue. If enough people took us up on the offer I'm not sure where we would put them.

MS. MORA STEVENS (Legislative Committee Coordinator): What we do is Communications Nova Scotia puts out news releases and they go out a couple of times prior to the meetings with the topics. So any of the newspapers across Nova Scotia get all of that information, as well as all the communications directors within each of the departments. We send, as John said, transcripts to all of those who have come before on this specific topic; as well, they're informed a week before when the notice goes out that the meeting is taking place. They knew - Wayne Spinney and all of those people - that this meeting was taking place, who was coming, and what the topic was going to be, as well as the Gulf fishery, Guysborough and all of those counties.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I guess we probably won't meet until September anyway, so members of the committee, have a good Summer. I know I hear all kinds of good things about your work out there and as far as the representation from the department, thanks very much.

The meeting is now adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 11:07 a.m.]