FOPO meeting 9 · 2025-10-28 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

This House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans meeting was held to continue its study on the review of the Fisheries Act. The witnesses who appeared were Morley Knight, a fisheries management consultant appearing as an individual; Nico Prins, Executive Director of the BC Shellfish Growers Association; Deborah Carlson, Staff Lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law Association; Christina Burridge, Executive Director of the BC Seafood Alliance; Margot Venton, Director of the Nature Program at Ecojustice; and Emily Orr, Business Agent for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union – Unifor.

Morley Knight, drawing on 37 years with DFO, argued that the Fisheries Act has become overly prescriptive and lengthy, and he recommended against reopening it for revisions at this time, as the 2019 amendments have not been adequately assessed. He suggested that if revisions were made, the act should be simplified by moving detail into regulations, and he proposed two specific changes: revising section 7 to mandate that the minister issue licences to Indigenous communities for food, social and ceremonial purposes as a first right after conservation, and adding a requirement for the minister to consider adjacency when issuing licences or allocations, citing the inconsistent application of this principle in Labrador.

Nico Prins stated that the Fisheries Act, designed for wild fisheries, is a poor fit for shellfish aquaculture and creates regulatory confusion. He recommended that the act clearly define "aquaculture" as the cultivation of aquatic plants and animals for food, to recognize it as a form of farming, and that it clarify how the precautionary principle is applied, ensuring it is used as a disciplined, evidence-based tool rather than a default for closures, as he said has happened in British Columbia with harvest closures and infrastructure limits.

Deborah Carlson focused on the habitat protection provisions, arguing that the minister's legal duty to consider cumulative effects, added in 2019, has not been adequately implemented. She recommended that DFO develop a tool to assess and manage the risk of cumulative effects from new or updated regulations and from its own policies and procedures governing authorizations, and that DFO report back to the committee within one year on its progress, noting that small, unmanaged impacts from many projects likely match the harm from fewer large ones.

Christina Burridge, representing the BC Seafood Alliance, supported the 2019 habitat changes but proposed amending the act's purpose to enshrine "sustainable use," modelled on New Zealand's legislation. She supported the existing wording preserving ministerial discretion in fish stock provisions, opposing requirements for rebuilding plans to target the healthy zone, and she strongly opposed incorporating Atlantic-style owner-operator licensing policies into the act for the west coast, arguing that overcapacity still exists and that conservation should not be compromised for social ends, though she supported a provincial loans board and a licence and quota registry.

Margot Venton from Ecojustice emphasized that implementation of the 2019 provisions should be the priority, noting that several tools granted to DFO remain unused, including ecologically significant area designations, regulations for environmental flows, the public registry, and advisory panels. She recommended that DFO develop policies to include public knowledge in permitting, especially where species at risk are impacted, and expressed concern that opacity in permitting is a greater concern now as governments accelerate projects and avoid environmental assessments.

Emily Orr argued the act lacks a statement of whom it serves and should affirm that fish are a common property resource managed for all Canadians. She recommended changing "may" to "shall" in section 2.5 to require the minister to consider preserving the independence of licence holders in commercial inshore fisheries, and she said the word "opinion" in section 9 should be replaced with a requirement for factual or empirical justification for fisheries management orders. She also called for metrics to assess the effectiveness of marine protected areas and for a framework requiring mutual reporting of fishery effort and catch data, including from Indigenous fisheries, to improve stock assessment and governance.

During the question period, Knight disagreed with proposals to require fishing only in the healthy zone, arguing it would close many fisheries and that low-level fishing provides valuable scientific data. Burridge and Orr also opposed that proposal, with Burridge calling it a recipe for shutdowns and Orr citing a lack of robust data to support such a leap. On enforcement, Knight said fishery officers have adequate powers but face complex, tense situations where they may be directed to observe and report rather than intervene, while Orr reported that her members have experienced reluctance from officers to act on reports of illegal fishing, particularly when it involves Indigenous fishers. On licensing, Orr and Burridge disagreed on the need for owner-operator protections in the act, with Orr arguing for a consistent national approach and Burridge advocating for policy-level solutions. The committee also heard a brief exchange on foreign funding of environmental organizations, with Venton stating that fewer than 1% of Ecojustice's donors in 2024 were from the United States.

AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.

Witnesses · 6

Morley Knight

Fisheries Management Consultant, As an Individual

Opening remarks

Thank you very much. As the chair said, my name is Morley Knight, and I currently work as a fisheries management consultant. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee and contribute to your study reviewing the Fisheries Act. I worked with DFO for 37 years, mostly in the area of conservation and protection, with the responsibility of applying the Fisheries Act. This was first as a fishery officer, then as a supervisor and manager, and eventually as director of conservation and protection for the Newfoundland and Labrador region. Later I worked as a senior executive in fisheries management in St. John's and Ottawa, then as regional director general in the gulf and Maritimes region. I have lots of experience with the Fisheries Act and applying it. Since leaving DFO, I have worked as a fisheries management consultant and continue to monitor how the Fisheries Act is used. Over the years, there have been multiple attempts to revise the Fisheries Act to improve it and how it is used to manage fisheries in Canada. I have observed many criticisms of the act and perceived weaknesses of it, yet during the discussions with the public and interested stakeholders about…

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Nico Prins

Executive Director, BC Shellfish Growers Association

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Nico Prins, and I'm the executive director of the BC Shellfish Growers Association, representing hundreds of small and medium-sized shellfish farms on the B.C. coast. Shellfish aquaculture is one of the Canada's most sustainable food systems. Our farmers grow oysters, clams, mussels and scallops that clean the water, support rural and indigenous economies, and provide low-carbon protein. However, the laws that govern us were never designed for aquaculture. The Fisheries Act, written to manage wild harvests, has become the default framework for farming, and unfortunately, it doesn't fit. This legislative gap causes confusion, inconsistency and unnecessary economic harm. First, Canada needs to clearly define “aquaculture” in the Fisheries Act. Right now, the act doesn't actually say what aquaculture is, which means that we are treated as a fishery in one context, as a pollution source in another and as a farming activity in none. Defining aquaculture as the cultivation of aquatic plants and animals for food would provide a foundation for modern fit-for-purpose regulation. It would recognize aquaculture as what it is:…

Emily Orr

Business Agent, United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union – Unifor

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Emily Orr, the business agent for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union, joining you here today from the Pacific region. The Fisheries Act currently falls short in a number of specific ways that lead to unacceptably large voids and gaps in the department's ability to fulfill the purposes of the act, which, in section 2.1, are: (a) the proper management and control of fisheries; and (b) the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat, including by preventing pollution. Focusing on how the Fisheries Act can be amended to import the value, importance and consideration of working Canadian fish harvesters—who support families and communities and are the backbone of our fisheries economy—the themes I'd like to raise for review at committee are the absence of a statement to describe for whom or what the purposes of the act are meant to serve; the absence of a neutral, science-based rationale as a standard in decision-making; the absence of metrics by which MPAs and other conservation-based closures can be held to account of effectiveness; and the exemption of the reporting of fishery effort and catch landings…

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