Government department Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been unable to collect the dependable and timely information about fish catches that it needs to sustainably manage commercial marine fisheries and protect Canada’s fish stocks from overfishing, according to a new report released by Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Jerry DeMarco.
DeMarco’s report also states that Fisheries and Oceans Canada had yet to deliver on most of the corrective measures that it committed to seven years ago, when this area was last audited by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.
The audit found that the department created the Fishery Monitoring Policy but had yet to implement it and that the policy was not supported by action plans with dedicated resources. Also, progress in modernising information management systems has been very slow.
Furthermore, while the department has spent about CAD 31 million to move to a single system that integrates information across regions and provides ready access to catch data, it has delivered only the initial modules of this new system while extending the system’s timeline for delivery across regions by 10 years, from 2020 to 2030.
The audit also found significant weaknesses in Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s monitoring and oversight practices. The department uses a variety of monitoring tools to get the data it needs for a fishing season, including logbooks, electronic devices, and data collected by third‑party observers. But the audit found that the department’s oversight of the information it receives had not improved since it was flagged as being poor seven years ago.
This means that the department does not know whether the information it receives is dependable or timely or whether the information meets its monitoring requirements, offered the report.
“Without dependable and timely data on fish being caught, Fisheries and Oceans Canada does not know whether commercial stocks are being overfished,” DeMarco said. “The collapse of the Atlantic cod population in the 1990s – with its far‑reaching economic and social impacts – has shown that it is far more expensive and difficult to recover depleted stocks than it is to keep them healthy in the first place.”
Among the report’ key findings were:
- Approximately 72,000 Canadians make their living directly from fishing and related activities and in 2021, the country’s commercial marine fisheries were valued at CAD 4.6 billion
- As of 2022, there were 156 federally managed key commercial marine fish stocks on Canada’s east and west coasts and in the Arctic. None were being assessed to the full extent of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Fishery Monitoring Policy to determine whether the level of monitoring was adequate
- The department did not fully deliver on its 2016 commitment to modernise its fisheries information management systems by 2020, including creating an integrated system for all regions
- The department did not ensure that catch data collected by third-party observers was dependable and timely
Moving forward, it recommends:
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada should streamline the implementation of its Fishery Monitoring Policy
- To address long-standing issues, Fisheries and Oceans Canada should expedite the implementation of an integrated national fisheries information system
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada should complete its review of third-party observer programmes to incorporate measures with associated time frames to manage non‑compliance issues, such as the lack of disclosure of conflicts of interest and associated mitigation strategies, the insufficient coverage of fishing vessels, and the lack of quality and timely data
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada should develop and implement a nationally consistent procedure for systematically tracking whether third-party observers deliver fisheries catch monitoring information as required, in terms of coverage, timeliness and data quality
