2023 Reports 6 to 10 of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to the Parliament of CanadaFisheries and Oceans Canada lacks dependable data to sustainably manage commercial fisheries

Ottawa, 7 November 2023—A report released today by Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Jerry V. DeMarco found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada was unable to collect the dependable and timely information about fish catch that it needs to sustainably manage commercial marine fisheries and protect Canada’s fish stocks from overfishing. Fisheries and Oceans Canada had yet to deliver on most of the corrective measures that it committed to 7 years ago, when this area was last audited by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

This 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. Progress in modernizing information management systems has been very slow. While the department has spent about $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. The audit found that the department’s oversight of the information it receives had not improved since it was flagged as being poor 7 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.

“Without dependable and timely data on fish being caught, Fisheries and Oceans Canada does not know whether commercial stocks are being overfished,” said Mr. DeMarco. “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.”

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The 2023 Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Report 9—Monitoring Marine Fisheries Catch—Fisheries and Oceans Canada, is available on the Office of the Auditor General of Canada website.

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