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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 OTTAWA 000333 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES AND WHA/CAN 
 
COMMERCE FOR NMFS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EFIS EWWT PHSA SENV CA
SUBJ:  INTERNATIONAL OCEANS POLICYMAKING IN CANADA: 
AMBITIOUS VISION, PAROCHIAL POLITICS 
 
REF:  OTTAWA 0094 (notal) 
 
¶1. (U) This message is sensitive, but unclassified.  Not for 
distribution outside USG channels. 
 
¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY/INTRODUCTION:  As they envision a global role, 
Canada's policymakers in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans 
(DFO) draw heavily upon Canadians' popular self-image as being 
active multilateralists, international consensus brokers, and (at 
least aspiring) leaders in resource stewardship.  DFO brings some 
important strengths to the international table, including 
respectable scientific and operating capabilities, many 
international linkages, and (more or less) a single federal 
government ministry overseeing policy in this area (which 
facilitates decisions, though it may reduce their quality). 
 
¶3. (SBU) At the same time, DFO suffers from some severe weaknesses 
as a policy-making department.  DFO has yet to live down the blame 
for the collapse of the once-immense Northwest Atlantic groundfish 
(cod) resource in the early 1990s, nor the blame for its leading 
role during the preceding decade in Canada's mismanagement of the 
labor and industries that relied on fisheries.  DFO's policy-making 
and fish management machinery appears to have remained largely 
unreformed since the cod collapse.  Bureaucratically, DFO is 
horizontally disintegrated, with weak links to other departments, 
and large, semi-autonomous regional branches. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Finally and most seriously, the political-electoral context 
in which DFO Ministers operate makes them highly responsive to 
parochial pressures in a few coastal regions (particularly 
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia), and leaves them with few or no 
incentives to consider the broad national interest, nor 
international matters (except possibly as a source of external 
enemies and scapegoats).  There may yet be good results from 
Canada's global oceans policy vision, but in our view, such results 
would have to be realized in spite of, rather than due to, DFO's 
Ministers, the DFO Department, and Canadians' own experience.  END 
SUMMARY/INTRODUCTION. 
 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
¶5. (SBU) Since the collapse of the Northwest Atlantic groundfish 
resource in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the bitterly 
reluctant cessation of cod fishing in 1993, Canada's Department of 
Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has been living down its role in that 
collapse.  Most outside experts view Canada's governments, led by 
DFO with the complicity of other federal and provincial departments, 
as having caused the destruction not only of the resource but also 
of the East Coast maritime economy. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The beginning of the end is generally held to have been 
1977, when the extension of Canada's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) 
to 200 nautical miles inaugurated a rush to exploit newly staked 
offshore resources.  As the story is usually told, DFO and other 
government agencies facilitated the overexpansion of the fishery for 
more than a decade through a complex of mistaken policies: 
Qmore than a decade through a complex of mistaken policies: 
subsidizing the acquisition of boats and gear, building fish 
processing infrastructure in as many locations as possible, 
enriching income support programs (notably unemployment insurance) 
that caused young workers to choose the fishery over schooling or 
alternate occupations, expanding fishing quotas while biasing or 
ignoring scientific advice, and under-investing in enforcement. 
 
¶7. (U) Groundfish catches fell steeply in the early 1990s until the 
government introduced a moratorium on cod fishing in 1993, with the 
hope that the stocks would begin to recover in a year or two.  This 
did not occur.  While federal and provincial government programs 
were adapted to suit the new circumstances, they continued to keep 
people attached to the fishery and to maintain capacity.  Some fish 
 
OTTAWA 00000333  002 OF 004 
 
 
catching and processing capacity was mothballed, but much effort was 
redirected to shellfish and previously "under-utilized" species. 
These have largely turned out to be high-value and have yielded good 
incomes.  So far these species seem to have avoided the fate of the 
cod, though observers suggest this is due to their shorter life 
cycles and higher reproductive rates, rather than to implementation 
of "lessons learned" in fish management. 
 
 
¶8. (U) DFO tried for some years to attribute the cod collapse to 
environmental or other factors (temperature change, seals), and one 
Minister (Brian Tobin) attained folk-hero status by dramatically 
highlighting the culpability of foreign long-distance fleets. 
However, most independent observers (and many within the GOC) saw 
GOC policies, and particularly DFO fish management practices over 
the long run, as having been primarily responsible, with strong 
encouragement from successive provincial governments, particularly 
in Newfoundland-Labrador. 
 
BOLD VISION 
----------- 
¶9. (U) In 1997 Canada passed a law called the "Oceans Act" which it 
presented as a model for the future. DFO created a new Oceans 
Directorate, and the Act mandated DFO to develop an "overall 
strategic approach to oceans management" based on sustainable 
development, integrated management, and the precautionary approach. 
This led DFO into a decade of policy and "strategy" development 
exercises.  In 2005, funds were allocated to implement the first 
phase of an Oceans Action Plan, and significant progress has been 
made toward creating Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). 
 
¶10. (U) Cynics could say that DFO eventually came to terms with the 
cod collapse by describing it as part of a "global problem with many 
underlying causes."  DFO's approach to overfishing is now expressed 
in its "International Fisheries and Oceans Governance Strategy," or 
IFOGS.  According to IFOGS, a "holistic approach" is needed to 
combat global overfishing, including monitoring and surveillance, 
diplomacy, better governance of regional fisheries management 
organizations, and greater scientific understanding (particularly of 
straddling and highly migratory stocks). 
 
¶11. (SBU) While these "strategic policy" exercises no doubt reflect 
a sincere effort by DFO to learn from the past and broaden its view, 
there is no perception among Canadians that the system that 
mismanaged the cod through the 1980s has been reformed, or that DFO 
has admitted the magnitude of its responsibility.  DFO remains more 
or less solely responsible for managing Canada's marine fisheries, 
under the same political calculus and using more or less the same 
systems that have prevailed for decades.  An update to the 
140-year-old fisheries law is currently before Parliament, and this 
partly reflects an effort to de-politicize fish management. 
Nevertheless, DFO officials downplay the legislation - billing it as 
"just trying to catch up and codify what present practice is" 
Q"just trying to catch up and codify what present practice is" 
(reftel) - reinforcing the impression that little has really 
changed. 
 
IMPORTANT STRENGTHS - AND WEAKNESSES 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶12. (U)  As a policy-making organization, DFO has some important 
real or at least potential strengths, yet on examination, these tend 
not to be utilized.  Examples include the following: 
 
¶13. (U) SCIENCE - DFO has a large, diverse scientific establishment 
which is relatively autonomous and is located in institutes and 
field offices far from Ottawa.  The problems of managing this 
establishment are not unique to DFO, rather they are common to most 
research organizations (succession planning, knowledge management, 
long-term budgeting).  More problematic is whether and how DFO 
 
OTTAWA 00000333  003 OF 004 
 
 
policymakers have based their decisions on the knowledge generated 
by this establishment.  It is now widely believed that, at least in 
the years around the collapse of the cod stocks, much scientific 
advice about fish management was distorted and/or ignored, and 
scientists were pressured not to complain publicly about this. 
While these practices may have been reformed, there is no such 
perception among other stakeholders.  As a result, while DFO has 
strong scientific assets, its credibility does not benefit 
accordingly. 
 
¶14. (U) INTERNATIONAL LINKAGES - DFO offices, and particularly its 
operational and scientific staff, have strong and diverse 
international connections.  A study at the end of 2006 found the 
department's employees had some 400 recent or ongoing international 
activities, which could be classed into navigation/safety/security 
(30%), science and hydrography (28%), policy, trade and development 
(22%) and fisheries and conservation (20%).  (More than half of 
these 400 international activities involved the United States, and 
this measurement did not capture a significant amount of additional 
informal contact).  As with operational and scientific knowledge, 
these international linkages appear to offer rich source data for 
DFO to develop international policy, but this data was scattered, 
hard to collect, and not being utilized. 
 
¶15. (U) SINGLE POLICY SHOP - DFO international policy staff proudly 
note that they run Canada's "single policy shop" on international 
fisheries and oceans issues, in that the Department shares very 
little of its jurisdiction with provincial governments or other 
federal departments.  (The Department of Foreign Affairs and 
International Trade (DFAIT) substantially cedes international 
fisheries and oceans policy to DFO).  Unfortunately, there is a flip 
side to this coin:  policy may lack the robustness that can be 
conferred by inter-agency process.  DFO's links to other departments 
and agencies appear to be surprisingly weak (in the case of Foreign 
Affairs or Environment Canada) or non-existent (in the case of the 
Canadian International Development Agency).  Even the Canadian Coast 
Guard and the Canadian Hydrographic Service - two significant 
agencies which formally report to the Minister of Fisheries and 
Oceans - are protective of their separate identities, and seem to 
play down their links to the department. 
 
¶16. (U) OPERATIONAL CAPACITY - For a Canadian government 
organization, a remarkably high proportion of DFO's personnel are 
"boots on the ground" (or on the wharf, on deck, or in the chart 
room) who work out of regional and local offices and serve in 
operational roles such as the Coast Guard, the Hydrographic Service, 
small harbor management and construction, navigational systems, 
fisheries management and enforcement, and fish habitat protection - 
not to mention science (below). 
 
¶17. (SBU) Though the policymaking function must compete against all 
Q17. (SBU) Though the policymaking function must compete against all 
these operational concerns for the attention of the Minister and 
Deputy Minister, policymaking can also draw upon a very large number 
of contacts with reality, and the Department has a direct and 
visible role in stakeholder communities which should give it a 
useful "voter constituency."  Unfortunately, these potential 
strengths are not fully realized; too many of those in policy 
development roles have virtually never been on a ship and are 
unlikely to stay long in the Department, while DFO's presence in 
communities can merely cause its decisions to be skewed by local 
electoral concerns. 
 
THE FATAL FLAW:  REGIONAL POLITICS 
---------------------------------- 
 
 
¶18. (SBU) Which brings us to what, in Embassy Ottawa's view, is the 
most serious challenge to Canadian fisheries and oceans 
policymaking:  regional electoral politics.  All of the weaknesses 
 
OTTAWA 00000333  004 OF 004 
 
 
mentioned so far could arguably be overcome or mitigated by reform. 
It is much harder to see what can be done about the decisive 
concentration of fishery-related votes in certain provinces of 
Canada. 
 
¶19.  (SBU) In Newfoundland-Labrador, Prince Edward Island (PEI), the 
territory of Nunavut, and parts of Nova Scotia (NS), New Brunswick 
(NB), Quebec and British Columbia (BC), marine-based economic 
activity is a principal economic driver, so that fishery votes 
really matter to electoral outcomes.  (This contrasts sharply with, 
for example, the States of Washington, Massachusetts, Florida and 
California, where fishery-related issues are tiny compared with 
other industries and concerns in those diverse, wealthy regional 
economies).  Indeed, in Newfoundland and Labrador, issues like the 
governance/reform of a regional fishery management organization like 
the North Atlantic Fishery Organization (NAFO), or the denial of 
port privileges to foreign long-distance fishing fleets - questions 
which might seem obscure in other jurisdictions - draw intense voter 
attention. 
 
¶20. (SBU) In Canadian general elections, where it takes as little as 
100-120 seats to win federal power, ten or more seats in Atlantic 
Canada can easily tilt on fishing issues:  three to seven in 
Newfoundland-Labrador, and two or three in each of NS, NB, PEI and 
Quebec.  Normally, the top political concern of Canada's Minister of 
Fisheries and Oceans, a mid-level cabinet minister who more often 
than not holds one of these seats, is to deliver as many of them as 
possible to candidates for his/her political party. (The current 
Minister, Loyola Hearn, represents a riding in 
Newfoundland-Labrador.)  International policymaking is guaranteed to 
be subordinate in the Minister's calculations, if it figures at all. 
 This narrow focus is likely to tighten even further in the next 
federal election as the Minister will have to overcome regional 
hostility over an ongoing dispute between Ottawa and the Atlantic 
provinces concerning Ottawa's treatment of natural resource 
revenue. 
 
CONCLUSION/COMMENT 
------------------ 
 
¶21. (SBU) Our conclusion is that too much of the crafting of 
Canada's international fisheries and oceans policy positions, and 
too much of the diplomatic work, falls to a few senior DFO officials 
without the benefit of an interagency process or ministerial 
engagement.  But solution of these institutional-bureaucratic 
problems is at least a possibility (though the companies and fishers 
that currently influence DFO would likely resist).  Even so, that 
would leave policymakers with the constraints of regional electoral 
politics.  While offshore oil development has wrought some change in 
eastern Newfoundland, and economic growth and resource developments 
have amazing power to transform "have-nots" into "haves," there 
seems little current prospect that such fishing-reliant 
constituencies will develop enough dramatic new economic drivers to 
Qconstituencies will develop enough dramatic new economic drivers to 
dilute the power of the "fish vote." 
 
WILKINS