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Politics vs. Science: The Troubling Future of Canada's Cod Fishery · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  Canadian federal politicians are getting in the way of
• 0:03
  the cod fishery. It's not as if we haven't seen this before. In
• 0:07
  1992, the Canadian government had to declare a moratorium on
• 0:10
  cod fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador because
• 0:14
  of increased fishing pressures and not lowering the
• 0:17
  quota As the DFO, the Department of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences
• 0:21
  said, hey, you know what? We're starting to see a decline in the cod
• 0:24
  fishery population. We should do something about it. Politicians said,
• 0:27
  you know what? It's OK. Fishermen want to fish more.
• 0:31
  So we're going to continue to fish these cods as if nothing's ever happening.
• 0:35
  What happens? Boom, 1992, moratorium. And
• 0:38
  we haven't been able to fish the cod fishery since.
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  Now, fast forward to 2016. The cod fishery started
• 0:46
  to come back just a little bit, not much, just a little bit.
• 0:49
  And then we started to notice that the population was stagnant in terms
• 0:52
  of growth. So what do we do? We start to
• 0:56
  make sure that the quota stays the same. We allow
• 0:59
  a very small quota number of fish, 15,000 tons per year
• 1:03
  allowed to be fished in Newfoundland and Labrador. But recently,
• 1:07
  as in this past spring, the fisheries unions
• 1:11
  and fisheries The fisheries unions and indigenous populations
• 1:15
  wanted to increase that
• 1:19
  quota so that they could
• 1:22
  fish more. And they want to increase it to 25,000 tons.
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  It didn't go to 25,000 tons, but it did increase, causing
• 1:29
  DFO scientists to say, hey, you know what? I don't think
• 1:33
  this is a good idea. Paul just said, you know what? It's OK. No worries. We'll
• 1:36
  be fine. We'll just increase it to 18,000 tons. That's
• 1:40
  what we have to deal with as scientists. And we wonder why fishery scientists
• 1:44
  get so frustrated sometimes when politicians get in the way. Well,
• 1:47
  we're going to talk about why this is happening, why this continues to happen, and
• 1:51
  why it needs to stop on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's
• 1:55
  start the show. Hey,
• 2:00
  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
• 2:03
  your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,
• 2:07
  how you could speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean
• 2:11
  by taking action. And today's episode, it's a frustrating one.
• 2:14
  I'm going to be honest here, because this is something that we've seen before.
• 2:19
  I've explained this many times, but for those of you who are new, I'm going to
• 2:22
  explain it again. The cod fishery in
• 2:25
  the 60s, 70s, actually, it was how fishery, commercial fisheries
• 2:29
  were defined in Canada with cod all the way back
• 2:32
  to the, before the 1800s. As soon as people
• 2:36
  landed, I mean, people before that, indigenous people were fishing cod because
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  it was plentiful. You could throw a bucket in the water and
• 2:43
  all of a sudden you get codfish filled in that bucket. fast
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  forward to the 50s where you started to see an industrialization of
• 2:51
  fisheries uh fisheries gear and you started to see
• 2:54
  more and more fish get fished and then you started to see the population just
• 2:57
  go slowly decline until finally
• 3:02
  the government of canada had to declare a moratorium on
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  the cod fishery well why did this happen why
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  did we why didn't somebody why didn't somebody speak up we
• 3:12
  have these stock assessment scientists that are doing work they collect
• 3:15
  data every each and every year And they're allowed, they
• 3:19
  analyze it, and they say, hey, you know what? The population is doing really well. You
• 3:22
  can continue to fish at this quota. Or the population is not doing
• 3:25
  so well. We should consider lowering the quota. This
• 3:29
  is our advice. Well, you know what? It actually happened. The
• 3:32
  DFO scientists for a decade were saying
• 3:36
  that the cod fishing was slowly declining, and it was starting to get faster
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  and steeper and steeper decline. But the politicians didn't listen. They
• 3:43
  just continued to set the quotas the same, or even increase some of the quotas at
• 3:46
  times, and then eventually what happens is there were no fish to
• 3:49
  fish, and it took longer to catch as many fish, and at
• 3:53
  one point you couldn't even catch any codfish. And so they declared
• 3:56
  a moratorium on The cod fishery, the government did, and
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  we haven't been fishing cod that much ever since. Now,
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  it doesn't mean we haven't been fishing cod. It doesn't mean you can't find Atlantic cod somewhere
• 4:08
  in Canada, because we still continue to fish in smaller doses
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  and smaller quotas. And recently, there was a
• 4:15
  meeting by the Federal Fisheries Commission said,
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  hey, you know what? We're going to have a meeting. We'll get all the stakeholders together. We'll get
• 4:22
  non-profit organizations, indigenous people over. We'll
• 4:26
  get commercial fishing over. And we'll get the government to come in and discuss. Let's
• 4:30
  discuss. Let's look at the data. Let's discuss what we need
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  to do. And the government, the scientists
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  said, hey, you know what? This is where we're at here. Since 2016, the population
• 4:41
  has not grown. Now, it's in a cautionary zone, meaning
• 4:45
  that it's not in a critical zone. I mean, it's still doing OK. But
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  the population hasn't grown above the cautionary zone. and
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  it's very close to dipping to the critical zone if we aren't careful.
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  So if we're not careful, it's gonna dip into the
• 4:59
  critical zone. Remember that. So what do we do? DFO
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  scientists say, you know what? We're a little concerned. So maybe we
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  shouldn't increase the quota. We should keep the quota at 13,000 tons,
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  the same level announced in 2022 and 2023. They also
• 5:15
  recommended that the minister of fisheries and ocean science
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  maintain a stewardship fishery cod for cod, meaning a
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  limited fishery practice solely by inshore harvesters, which basically mean
• 5:27
  indigenous and small commercial fishing. fishing,
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  so basically artisanal fishing. So according
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  to some of the news, certainly this option is based on the
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  scientific advice, reads a briefing note.
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  However, the minister, the minister Diane LeBoutier,
• 5:47
  ignored that advice of the staff within her own department.
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  and said she'll reopen the commercial cod
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  fishery off Newfoundland and Labrador in June. So
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  she allowed, not only did she allow the fishery to start, but
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  they allowed it to open it up to people beyond
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  the, to the offshore commercial fishing, which can
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  get dangerous because it's harder to monitor, it's harder
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  to enforce that quota right and
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  so the quota has actually increased to i believe
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  it was so the according to the briefing note dfo presented
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  two other options to the minister other than keeping it the same
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  reopening a commercial fishery with a total allowable catch of 15 000 tons
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  with quotas distributed solely among inshore and indigenous fish
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  harvesters or reopening a commercial fishery with
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  a total allowable catch of 18,000 tons, allowing the return
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  of offshore vessels more than 100 feet long. Now we're
• 6:45
  talking about some big vessels here. So DFO staff
• 6:48
  warned, however, that both options presented a higher risk
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  of northern cod stock returning to what the
• 6:55
  department considers the critical zone, And while DFO
• 6:59
  announced last year that after rejigging its stock assessment framework that
• 7:02
  Northern Cod has been in the cautious zone since 2016, population
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  growth have stalled, may have stalled, worrying government scientists. So
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  what was happening is they actually, since 2016, they're
• 7:13
  saying that the population was in the critical zone, but they rejigged and they added in
• 7:17
  more information. They said, you know what? It's actually in the cautious zone,
• 7:20
  which is one level higher. still not as the name
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  says cautionary it's not in the zone where you're like hey
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  we can go and we can go ham on these on these fish and we can uh
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  we could have a lot of a lot of fish here so the briefing note
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  indicates that the fed that the federal liberals newfoundland and
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  labrador caucus composed of provincials the prevent provoke ah
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  Sorry composed of the province's six liberals MPs will
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  only support option three the 18,000 tons So
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  not just keeping it the same not just reopening at 15,000 but at
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  the 18,000 level so you should consider 20,000 which
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  would be politically which would be a political victory for Newfoundland the
• 8:00
  document continues note that the NL caucus Newfoundland caucus is
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  united on going ahead with a commercial fishery So
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  they're going ahead now. What are they doing this for? What are they
• 8:10
  doing this for? They're not doing it for the cod. They're not
• 8:13
  doing it for the cod. Because DFO Science says, hey, you know what? We're still in
• 8:17
  the caution zone. We still have to be careful. Just because we're out of the
• 8:20
  critical zone, and we have been since 2016, doesn't mean that
• 8:23
  a larger fishery can happen. And so you're not doing
• 8:27
  it based on science, which is what the government should
• 8:30
  be doing. Now, yes, you have to consider other stakeholders at play here,
• 8:34
  but you're increasing it a little bit. and meeting in the middle, but
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  not going all out and doing it at the 18,000 ton level.
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  So in the end, though, on June 26, the minister
• 8:47
  announced the reopening of the commercial fishery and the total allowable
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  catch of 18,000, the course of action supported by her liberal
• 8:54
  colleagues. She said, I did not, and I do not believe
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  that DFO science would recommend the policy put forth by the minister. There
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  is a long history with this and other Canadian fisheries
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  of politics trumping science. And this is George
• 9:10
  Rose, a longtime fisheries-based scientist in British Columbia, who spent
• 9:13
  40 years studying cod. Our fisheries continue to suffer. And
• 9:17
  this is what happens. right, is you get politics that
• 9:20
  are injected into the system. And I get it,
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  right. This is a human centric type of decision making process.
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  You have stakeholders that come in, you have, you know, the commercial
• 9:31
  fisheries, you have inshore fisheries, you have indigenous fishers, you
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  have nonprofit organizations that are representing the environment
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  and representing protection of the actual fish and the fishery. And
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  you get the government, And the politicians have to
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  please the people, because if they want to get voted in, they want to get support for
• 9:49
  the next election, then they have to appease that at some point.
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  Now, I'm sure they're going to say it's for different other reasons. They
• 9:58
  say, hey, you know what? We're actually out of the critical zone, and
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  we actually have more fish available to us, so we should increase it.
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  But science is very conservative. Because the
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  reason why science is very conservative is because it just tells it how it is. And
• 10:11
  as a scientist, I I agree with
• 10:15
  what the department scientists are saying, the fisheries and ocean scientists
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  are saying. We should be careful. There's really
• 10:22
  no reason to rush the increase in
• 10:26
  fisheries. What happens if you rush it and it happens too
• 10:29
  soon and you go back to the critical zone, it'll be really difficult to
• 10:33
  get back to normal. Just note that after the moratorium in
• 10:38
  1992, we are still not to the levels that we
• 10:42
  need in the future, like that we had back in the
• 10:45
  70s and 80s or even before that. That's
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  how bad it is. That's where we're at right now. We are at
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  a point where if we screw this
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  up the second time, even though we know better, we
• 10:59
  are at a point right now where we're just like, this is our fault. It
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  was our fault the first time, but this is even more on us because
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  we can't make the proper decision. We rush things too much. And
• 11:11
  let's be honest, this fishery is sensitive. It's
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  going to be sensitive. Now, not only are you bringing in an
• 11:18
  increase in the quota, but
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  you're also bringing in offshore fishers, fishing vessels over
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  a hundred feet. That's a lot. That's
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  something that we have to really start
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  to look at and say, is this really what we're coming to?
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  Are we really at this point where we can start to include offshore fishers? I
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  just don't think it is. I think we're screwing up here. And
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  I'm a conservative person. Especially when it comes to listening
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  to scientists, it's like you have to listen to science. I'm not one
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  to take a lot of leaps of faith when it comes to
• 11:56
  this, when it comes to anything really. But it's something that I'm
• 12:00
  very cautious of. And it feels like, you know, sometimes
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  it feels like the liberals are really, you know, for the environment. You
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  know, when they first came into power in 2015, they
• 12:11
  started to bring back better marine protected areas, better
• 12:15
  protections. They brought fish habitat back into the Fisheries Act.
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  They rejigged the Fisheries Act to be tougher. And
• 12:22
  they had all the dealings of what they wanted to come out as
• 12:25
  being more environmentally friendly. They had a climate change plan, even
• 12:29
  though it was not as aggressive as we wanted it to be. But
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  they had something, right? The opposition, the conservatives
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  didn't have anything like that. In fact, they were opposite of
• 12:39
  what was an environmental plan, right? They
• 12:42
  doubled down on fossil fuels. So like any plan at this point was
• 12:46
  good. But now it seems like even though they came out
• 12:49
  with the protections, they came out with the Fish Habitat and Better Fish Habitat and
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  Better Fisheries Act, more marine protected areas
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  than we've ever had, then all of a sudden, when it comes down
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  to calling fisheries quotas and making sure that we're protecting the
• 13:03
  fishery and protecting the people as well, you have to remember that when,
• 13:07
  and for those of you who don't know, that when the moratorium came
• 13:10
  into place for cod, it
• 13:14
  changed Newfoundland. It
• 13:17
  changed Newfoundland like it's never been changed before. Because the big
• 13:21
  industry was fishing. Everybody had someone and
• 13:24
  knew someone who was a fisher. They would go out
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  and they would catch cod, they would catch lobster, they would go out and catch fish.
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  They would come back. But then it changed. It
• 13:35
  all changed in one day. Now it happened over time, but
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  that one moratorium killed the fishery. And
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  what happened, a lot of those fishers couldn't fish anymore and
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  they had to go into another industry, the fossil fuel industry,
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  the oil and gas industry, which they hated it to leave Newfoundland
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  and go to, a lot of them had to leave Newfoundland and go to Alberta to work and
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  they would go back and forth between Newfoundland and Alberta. They hated it. Many
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  of the people hated it. They were taking
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  from what they were supposed to be doing as a generational job. and
• 14:08
  practice, and they had to be taken out. And it wasn't necessarily
• 14:12
  their fault. Yes, they pushed and pushed and pushed. Like the unions pushed,
• 14:15
  the fisheries, commercial fisheries pushed, and the companies pushed, and
• 14:19
  the processors pushed. But the science wasn't saying
• 14:22
  the same thing. It was saying, no, we cannot do this. This is not what
• 14:25
  we would need to do. And then what happened? Boom,
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  moratorium. Can't fish anymore. And
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  now the fishery is starting to come back. You started to see people go back to fishing. And
• 14:37
  slowly coming back, creeping and creeping, because the population didn't
• 14:40
  rebound like we thought they did. Some people blame
• 14:44
  seals, right? Other people blame
• 14:48
  climate change, as it is, and it's probably a little bit of both. And
• 14:52
  then there's still, we were still fishing, you know, 13,000 tons per
• 14:55
  year in Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't know how long that was going on
• 14:58
  for, but at least since 2016. And now it's 18,000 tons
• 15:02
  and people want it to even push it even more. And it's opening
• 15:05
  up to offshore fishing. It's not just inshore, it's offshore fishing as well, which
• 15:10
  is harder to enforce. When you start to get to offshore fishing and
• 15:13
  bigger boats, it's harder to enforce. You can't get the boats all out there. It's
• 15:17
  really difficult. So now we're depending on a,
• 15:20
  on a, an industry that's already failed us in the past. And
• 15:24
  the government just seems to forget that. And it decides that,
• 15:27
  hey, you know what? We're going to help you with that. And we're going to help
• 15:31
  you fail faster by giving you what you want. And
• 15:35
  I don't know if the fishing groups feel like this and
• 15:38
  the indigenous groups feel like this is a compromise. And it's not what
• 15:42
  they want. They want 20,000 tons. But I feel
• 15:45
  like this is a failure on the scientists and on
• 15:48
  the conservationists, like the environmental groups, to get this done. It's
• 15:51
  a failure on the government to not put this into
• 15:54
  place, to not heed the warnings of
• 15:58
  the scientists, like they should have heeded it back in the 90s,
• 16:01
  in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But
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  it seems like we're doomed to repeat ourselves here in Canada. And
• 16:07
  this is the problem when it comes to fishery. We could have a sustainable fishery
• 16:11
  here, but we keep pushing and pushing and pushing until we're like, oh,
• 16:14
  no, we screwed up. Now we got to back up a little bit. And that would be fine if
• 16:18
  we could say, hey, you know what? We're going to increase it by 5,000 tons. We're
• 16:22
  going to open it up a little later and then we're going to monitor it. And we're going
• 16:25
  to use like adaptive management to like, hey, let's see what happened
• 16:28
  next year. And if we have to, we'll curtail it back just in case. But
• 16:33
  it's so hard to go back. It's easy to push forward.
• 16:36
  It's so hard to go back and reduce the amount. And
• 16:39
  now we're in another we're in that problem right now. We're in that situation. And
• 16:44
  it's frustrating. You can hear the frustration on it. And it's just, I
• 16:47
  don't even know what to say anymore. I'm very disappointed in this decision. I
• 16:51
  don't want to see this. You know, DFO scientists are great scientists. They've
• 16:56
  been doing this for decades. And we continue
• 17:00
  to ignore them. And we let politics win. Sometimes
• 17:04
  we just don't know what's good for us. And we just continue
• 17:08
  to go and make these bad decisions. And this is, I feel, is a bad decision.
• 17:12
  I hope it's not. I hope it's not. I want fishers to
• 17:15
  get their money. I want fishers to be able to do their thing. But
• 17:18
  I feel like this is not just about fishers, it's about companies getting
• 17:22
  involved, getting greedy, and that we know what happens when it comes down to that.
• 17:26
  And it disappoints me, really, really disappoints me. But
• 17:30
  I'd love to hear what you think. Do you think this is a good decision on the government? Do
• 17:34
  you think this is what we need? Do we need to push it a little bit, see
• 17:37
  what happens to the population? even though
• 17:40
  we're in the cautionary zone, we're not out of that cautionary zone
• 17:44
  yet, it's easy to go back to the critical zone, or do
• 17:47
  you think we just need to push it? Or do you think it's a bad decision and
• 17:51
  we need to come back on it? I would love to hear your opinions.
• 17:54
  If you go to Spotify and you watch this or listen to
• 17:57
  this, however you want to do it, You
• 18:01
  can go and you can answer a poll. Do you think this is a good decision by
• 18:04
  the government to open up this fisheries to more of
• 18:08
  a higher quota and to more fishers and open it up offshore? Or do
• 18:11
  you think this is a bad decision? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Also, you can put
• 18:14
  your comments on the YouTube video that's going
• 18:18
  to be up on this. And of course, you can contact me on
• 18:21
  Instagram at howtoprotecttheocean. That's at how
• 18:24
  to protect the ocean. Just DM me. I'd love to hear your thoughts. And
• 18:28
  I want to thank you for joining me and continuing to support
• 18:32
  this podcast. If you know someone who's into fisheries or if
• 18:35
  you know someone who wants to know more about the ocean and you think this podcast would
• 18:39
  serve them well, please feel free to share it. I give you permission. It's
• 18:42
  free to share. It's free to say, hey, you know what? I was thinking about you, my friend. or
• 18:46
  my family member, and I think that you might benefit from
• 18:49
  knowing more about the ocean because you've been asking about it. So
• 18:52
  just hit them up. If they want to be a marine biologist, send them this. If
• 18:56
  they are a marine biologist, send this. I'd love to hear what they think. But that's it
• 18:59
  for today's episode. I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of
• 19:03
  the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and