February 2, 2021
SAM WATERSTON & JOSH LAUGHREN: Loopholes in revised Fisheries Act invite disaster
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes
BY: Josh Laughren
Topics: Rebuild Ocean Abundance
Originally published on the Saltwire Network
In 2018, we had the privilege of meeting with several of Canada’s elected officials to urge for changes to the Fisheries Act to return abundance to Canada’s oceans and provide lasting benefits to Canada’s fishing industry.
It was a rare opportunity for Canada to correct the historic mistake of overfishing, made by so many nations, that continues to cause enormous hardship to coastal communities and deprive some of the world’s neediest of a healthy source of protein.
In 2019, we stood — literally and figuratively — with the federal government to celebrate the new Act, which for the first time included obligations to rebuild depleted fisheries and manage them sustainably.
Of course, there was a catch: the all-important details that would make rebuilding actually happen needed to be included in yet-to-be-developed regulations. In a leap of faith, borne by the goodwill generated by the Act’s new rebuilding provisions, Oceana lauded the new Act as a major step forward for Canada’s oceans and all who rely on them.
Unfortunately, it seems we celebrated too early. These long-awaited regulations have now been introduced for public comment. Rather than requiring clear, measurable actions to rebuild depleted populations to healthy levels, they go out of their way to avoid setting any enforceable standards.
We look forward to once again standing with the minister, this time to celebrate regulations that put down in black and white a path to rebuild ocean abundance for the benefit of Canadians and the world.
Fisheries managers will need to sort that out, stock by stock, thereby retrenching the non-binding, unenforceable management system that led to depleted fisheries in the first place.
For example, the regulations say that a plan must set a target for rebuilding the stock, but they are deliberately silent on what that target should be. It’s as if the authors have never read the existing (and non-binding) federal fishing policy, which already states that rebuilding to healthy levels — defined by well-established science measures — is the goal of fisheries management!
They require management objectives to have timelines, which sounds good until you realize that they include no direction on what those objectives should aim to achieve or any restriction on the timelines within which to meet them.
In other words, fisheries managers are required only to develop a plan. Will the plan set a goal with meaningful timelines to rebuild stocks to abundance? Or will it set low or vague targets with long timelines, slowing or even prohibiting meaningful recovery?
While department officials would like us to trust them, history provides precious little evidence that these regulations will deliver on rebuilding our oceans to abundance. To the contrary, decades of evidence indicate they will fail.
Case in point: the plan to rebuild northern cod was just released, 30 years after it first collapsed. Its target? To “rebuild” the stock to a level that is well below the so-called “critical zone” — the minimum that stocks are never supposed to dip below in the first place.
Instead of setting a course for recovery, the plan serves as a roadmap for increasing fishing on this still massively depleted stock, virtually guaranteeing it will never clear the danger zone. Nothing in the proposed regulations would require this plan to change, although it is clearly in violation of the Act.
But it is not too late to fix these regulations and honour the promise of the renewed Fisheries Act. The solution is clear. Nations with modern fishing laws all require science-based targets, with timelines, for rebuilding fisheries. The U.S., the EU, Japan, New Zealand, Chile and others all require action to rebuild stocks to levels capable of producing “maximum sustainable yield,” the globally accepted standard of fisheries management.
Why Fisheries and Oceans Canada still refuses to put in regulation a globally accepted standard, consistent with its own policy and in practice the world over, is mystifying. The cost, however, is all too clear: fewer fish, fewer jobs, and reduced benefits to coastal communities.
Since the U.S. introduced a strong law in 1996 to stop overfishing and require rebuilding, 47 stocks have been rebuilt, generating on average 54 per cent more revenue than when they were overfished. Canada can achieve similar results, and all who stand to benefit should expect no less.
The new Fisheries Act promised a brighter future for Canada’s fisheries. It’s time now to deliver on that promise. Bernadette Jordan, minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, must strengthen the regulations so Canada can join the league of nations with effective fisheries laws.
Abundant fisheries were the original foundation of the “Blue Economy” and rebuilding this potential should again be its centrepiece as Canada crafts a Blue Economy Strategy as part of a green recovery.
We look forward to once again standing with the minister, this time to celebrate regulations that put down in black and white a path to rebuild ocean abundance for the benefit of Canadians and the world.
Sam Waterston is an actor and chair of the Oceana board and Josh Laughren is executive director, Oceana Canada, an independent charity established to restore Canadian oceans to be as rich, healthy, and abundant as they once were.