Integrated Fisheries Management Plans outline the objectives for fisheries and how fisheries should be managed to meet these targets. Today, 91 per cent of Canada’s stocks are included in IFMPs — a significant jump from 71 per cent five years ago. But it’s a different story for rebuilding plans. Although they are required for all critically depleted stocks, the plans developed to date cover a mere 21 per cent of them.

In 2017, DFO committed to completing 19 rebuilding plans by the end of March 2021. They’ve fallen far short of that goal, publishing less than half. Two of those were released this year: one was for Atlantic mackerel, a stock that has spent nearly a decade in the critical zone, while the other was a long-awaited rebuilding plan for critically depleted northern cod, which has been under a fishing moratorium since 1992. But these plans have significant flaws.

These plans — like all rebuilding plans released to date — fail to establish adequate timelines. Moreover, the rebuilding target established for northern cod is set well below the critical zone boundary. As a result, even if the rebuilding plan is successful, at some undetermined date, in meeting this rebuilding target, the stock will remain dangerously depleted.

Strong regulations to support the new Fisheries Act should include requirements to improve the timeliness and quality of rebuilding plans. Unfortunately, the draft regulations released for public comment don’t require clear, measurable actions to rebuild depleted populations to healthy levels — the globally accepted standard of fisheries management. Instead, they go out of their way to avoid setting any enforceable standards. DFO has committed to developing and implementing eight more rebuilding plans by the end of March 2022.