What about your action with any American commercial fishermen?
Evidence of meeting #34 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was harbour.
Evidence of meeting #34 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was harbour.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
What about your action with any American commercial fishermen?
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
It used to be that Roxy's father and my grandfather, and my dad, were quite good friends with commercial fishermen on the other side. There are not a lot over there now. It's the same with them. A lot of them have been put out of business because they didn't want commercial fishermen coming in. They wanted the anglers, the trout charters, and things like that.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
You indicated privately that you're using gillnets now to fish here, and that's obviously something new.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
We've been using them for whitefish and perch, but for pickerel it's something new.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
What about invasive species? It's always been an issue in the Great Lakes with some of the concerns over sea lamprey, Asian carp, goby, and so on. Have you caught many of those invasive species? There is also the zebra mussel concern.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
The sea lamprey hasn't been as bad...probably in 30 or 40 years. It was probably worse when I was a kid than it is now.
The zebra mussels have been a big problem ever since they came, but the fish are starting to eat zebra mussels. I think in just the last two or three years, some of the whitefish have gone from having very little zebra mussel tissue found in their gullets to now where it's half of what they're eating.
We thought the gobies were going to be a real problem. If the fish is bigger than a goby, it eats the goby. If the goby is bigger than the other fish, the goby eats it. You can cut walleyes open and what you'll find in them are gobies. The bigger the walleye, the bigger the goby inside.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
Actually, one of our worst problems is the smallest of the invasive species, spiny water flea. It will actually get in the fishes' gills and basically drown them. They get in the nets, and they will spoil almost instantly.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
The spiny water flea is a really bad thing. You have to try to clean your nets. Most of us use soap and water or put chlorine on them. Even fishing with a downrigger, if you get spiny water flea on your line reeling it up, you might as well throw the downrigger away. Your line is no good. It will bundle it up so hard.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
It coats plastic. It's small, but it gets caught on the plastic, and of course we're using monofilament nets as well, and it totally spoils the net for fishing.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
I have one fairly short question and Mr. Calkins has one.
My understanding is that Environment Canada assumed ownership in May 2000. Prior to that, was it owned and managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans? The follow-up to that is, when Environment Canada took it over, were there discussions with the users--you and others--about what their responsibility would be in terms of maintenance and so on?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
There was no discussion with us whatsoever when they took it over. One day it was theirs.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
The harbour and dock, which was of course maintained by the small boats and harbours program.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Thank you, Randy.
I guess I'm going to pose the same question to you that I posed to the previous witnesses that were here, insofar as competing interests in the small craft harbours program.
The small craft harbours program, as you know, designates two different classes, recreational and commercial fishing harbours. I believe most of the harbours we see here have been designated as sport fishing harbours or recreational harbours, whatever you want to call them, slated for divestiture.
However, we do have a mandate, and Mr. Byrne is completely right, commercial fishing is taken very seriously by this committee. I think you brought up earlier the fact that insofar as competing interests are concerned, sometimes sport fishermen and commercial fishermen don't necessarily agree on certain things.
Mr. Lancaster, I believe you said there was a good relationship, and then I heard Mr. Vancott say that you might not feel particularly welcome with your vessels in particular harbours. That's the perspective of my question. Can you elaborate on how that would work? It would seem to me that if you're going to continue to pursue this Point Traverse matter, it might not work out for you because of the way Environment Canada does things. That means you'd have to look for someplace else to berth. I'm wondering what that future would mean for you insofar as trying to compete with the other interests at those harbours.
12:45 p.m.
As an Individual
Talking about harbours, we've had fishermen who have literally had to more or less make their own harbours.
Mr. Kramp might know the Harrisons at Indian Point--Dave, Harold, and John. They got to the point where the harbour they normally fished out of was bought privately. The gentleman didn't want commercial fishermen in there any more. They had to literally make their own harbour.
To try to get a harbour and build a harbour now...where Roxy lives, he has a roadway that goes down to the bay, but for him to build a breakwall out there would be a lot more money than what either one of us could ever afford. So to build their own harbour is kind of out of the question. I can run equipment, but bulldozers don't work well under water.
As far as getting along with anglers, most times we get along really well with them. When we got in trouble at the point and needed to open up the harbour in a big hurry, we've had a few anglers who'd do whatever they could. They'd buy a can of diesel fuel to throw in the excavator.
A lot of the anglers who fish out of our harbour down there know us. They know, too, that if they get in trouble out there, we're probably the guys they can count on to come out and get them, where with the OPP or the coast guard you're going to take your chances.
Anybody who knows fishermen knows we're not really sane sometimes in regard to what kind of weather we'll go out in.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Fabian Manning
Thank you very much, Mr. Calkins. We were scheduled to finish at 12:45 p.m. and it's 12:47 p.m., so I think we did very well.
Thank you to our witnesses again. It was on such short notice. Thank you to committee members.
The meeting is adjourned.