DFO enacts new regulations aimed at depleted fish stocks

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has enacted new regulations that bind its minister to rebuilding Canada's depleted fish stocks and ensuring healthy ones stay that way, a move that comes weeks after it closed down two East Coast fisheries in the name of sustainability.

The regulations are the teeth behind amendments to the Fisheries Act passed in 2019 and have been closely watched by the commercial fishing industry and environmentalists. The changes were posted Wednesday in the Canada Gazette.

It identified 30 major fish stocks that will require a rebuilding plan if they fall below what is called the "limit reference point" — where there is a high probability that its productivity will be so impaired that serious harm will occur.

DFO said 16 major fish stocks are in this situation. Rebuilding plans for five have already been developed and the remaining 11 stocks are in varying stages of plan development.

The minister for the department will have up to three years to produce a rebuilding plan once the stock has hit the limit reference point.

Publicly explained plans

The publicly posted plans must explain why the stock is in trouble, measurable objectives, and timelines for rebuilding and how it is to be achieved.

If a stock cannot be rebuilt, the minister must publicly explain why.

The regulations say fishing is permitted while a plan is being developed, provided "the level of fishing of the stock during that time is consistent with the rebuilding of the stock above the limit reference point."

"The regulations will result in the increased transparency and accountability that accompanies regulatory oversight as compared with policy approaches," DFO said in a statement accompanying the regulations.

The regulations follow recent decisions by DFO to close fisheries on both coasts on the grounds the stocks were depleted by overfishing.

Late last year, DFO shut down a Pacific herring fishery. At the end of March, it closed the spring spawner herring fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the entire Atlantic mackerel fishery.

Fishermen frustrated

On the East Coast, the decision produced an outcry from an industry whose livelihoods were shut down.

Martin Mallet, executive director of the Maritime Fishermen's Union, is frustrated because the moratorium on spring spawner herring was imposed when his organization had been asking DFO for a rebuilding plan for years. It's one of those still in development.

"If you look at the success stories that we have in other resources like lobster or snow crab, they've all been successfully managed because, from the get go, we have really good collaboration from both fishermen and science," Mallet said. 

"And right now, in many of these stocks that we are seeing in this list, we do not have this collaboration with DFO and the minister."

Mallett said DFO science assessments need to better reflect the impact of predators like seals on stocks and climate change that can move fish to areas where they may not be captured in surveys.

Mallet added, "I think there are some positive things in there in terms of a roadmap towards getting these stock rebuilding plans in place."

Environmentalists support regulations

Josh Laughren, executive director of environmental group Oceana, said he fully supports the regulations and said it's about time DFO acted to protect depleted stocks.

"I think it is a sign that they're having the courage of their convictions here. The stocks like herring and mackerel, herring on both coasts, mackerel [on the] Atlantic, were clearly depleted, clearly through overfishing," said Laughren.

Laughren said the regulations put into law "what has been supposed to have been the policy and the way fisheries have been supposed to be managed for a long time. Implementation matters, of course, but this is a good, strong step that puts into place proper fisheries management that has been on the books for some time."

In Atlantic Canada, rebuilding plans are in place for depleted cod stocks off much of Newfoundland and Labrador, and all Atlantic mackerel and northern shrimp off the northern part of the province.

In the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, rebuilding plans are in the works for winter flounder, white hake, American plaice, spring spawner herring and cod. Atlantic cod off southern Nova Scotia and southern Newfoundland and Labrador are in development

In British Columbia, bocaccio rockfish, Chinook salmon west coast Vancouver Island, Chinook salmon Okanagan, Coho Salmon interior Fraser, Pacific herring Haida Gwaii and yelloweye rockfish inside waters are major stocks below the limit reference point.

Claire Teichman, press secretary to Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray, said the regulations were the result of consultations with industry, Indigenous and environmental groups.

"Minister Murray's priority is to grow Canada's fish and seafood sector sustainably," Teichman said in a statement to CBC News after this story was published.

"The new amendments modernizing the Fisheries Act are key to strengthening our management framework, as they place binding obligations on DFO to manage prescribed fish stocks sustainably and implement timely rebuilding plans if they become depleted."