Fisheries Committee on May 29th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Kristjanson, it would be an honour to be in the “Republic of Gimli”, I'll tell you that.

[Robert Kristjanson]

Thank you very much.

I hope you signed in on the way in, because I don't know about your passport.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Robert Kristjanson]

You know what it's like when you get on an airplane. We want a passport here to make sure you're in good standing.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Yes, sir, thank you.

I have a couple of questions.

Mr. Gaudry, what is the ratio of first nations and Métis fishers to non-aboriginal fishers?

[Allan Gaudry]

According to the 2006 study from FFMC, 75% are aboriginal fishers in the province of Manitoba.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Would that be similar to what it is, say, in Saskatchewan?

FFMC includes the catchment area of Alberta, the Northwest Territories, a bit in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Would that be similar to the other provinces as well?

[Allan Gaudry]

Yes, aboriginals are predominantly the majority in the fishing industry.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

In regard to some of the harbours that are in first nations reserves, has there been a formal request by your organization, or any organization you're aware of, to the Minster of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for funding for strategic harbour infrastructure?

[Allan Gaudry]

From what I understand in talking to some of our members from first nations, when they go for funding initiatives, their priority is health, housing, and education, but funding for a harbour is not a very high priority for them.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

But has a formal ask been presented to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for specific funding for harbour infrastructure?

[Allan Gaudry]

I'm not aware of it. If there is funding available, I would certainly do the research and find out. That's another branch of funding we tap into, especially for those communities.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

It seems fairly straightforward. You have a small craft harbour. You assume the small craft harbours branch should be responsible for maintaining and fixing it. However, there are jurisdictional concerns that the small craft harbours branch has, and they have a certain mandate that says they only work on whatever resources they have for small craft harbours over which they have jurisdiction.

When there's a harbour on a first nations reserve, they don't have any jurisdiction over it. It's understandable that the people here would say they'd love to help but it's not their theatre of responsibility. That's why I'm just questioning you again regarding the formal request. If the formal request has not happened, I would make a suggestion that your organization draft correspondence to the Minister of Indian Affairs and ask that person specifically for specific funding for these harbours, especially the new ones you're looking at.

You're absolutely correct. Economic opportunities for some of the more remote areas are very hard done by. As is the case in some places on the east and west coasts, and now in Nunavut, of course, fishing is an opportunity for people to be able to stay in their communities and earn their livelihood from the resources there.

Mr. Kristjanson, we heard earlier that the pickerel catches in Manitoba are increasing. Some fishermen have not seen pickerel of this nature in a long time, in terms of its abundance, which of course assists some fishermen with opportunities, and it may encourage young people to get into the fishery as well.

Sir, with your long history of fishing in this area, can you give me some examples as to why the fishing is so good right now in Lake Winnipeg, especially when it comes to the species of pickerel?

[Robert Kristjanson]

We took 5,000 so-called fishermen off the lake. In 1969, fishermen had a quota to fish. If you didn't have a quota before that, you didn't fish on Lake Winnipeg. I was in Newfoundland, speaking on a radio show there, and I said to them, “You have a pond. We have a pond. The only difference from your pond is that ours is a little smaller.”

You have to regulate what you are fishing. They've done it all over the world. By doing it here, it might be small.... I am not here to decide about fishing quotas, but the reason for putting a quota entitlement in was to give the fishing industry what we have right now. That is why we have fish in Lake Winnipeg.

I think it's the same old story. It doesn't matter. In Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipegosis, I can't speak for them, but they have a problem. It is not the fishermen there. That is not their problem. That's not being overfished. That has to go back to science and go into the rest of it. Lake Winnipeg was.... Now you put the fishermen back on the lake. Maybe the quotas are too small. I am not here on that, as I said before, but the abundance is there.

Isn't this fantastic, gentlemen? You came from the west coast and you came from the east coast. You flew across this great nation and you came to a place called Gimli, where they're talking about having too many fish in the lake. You came from a place in Vancouver where they have no salmon. They have nothing left. If you go to Newfoundland, they can't find cod. But here we want to raise the quotas. Is there something being done right here? Is that hard to answer? There must be something right.

Maybe we should be taking more, but managing the resource is no different from the geese. We quit shooting geese and what do we have? We have geese in our bathtub in the back of the yard because we quit shooting them. Is it that hard to figure out why? Isn't it something to go back from here and say, “We were at a lake where they have all kinds of fish. What are they doing wrong?”

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

If I could, I just want to recognize Mr. Alan Kathan, regional director of small craft harbours. Alan was with us yesterday and is here for the hearings today. We certainly welcome his presence. I'm sure he's no stranger to the people who are making presentations here, and certainly we welcome his positive comments toward the relationship with small craft harbours.

With that, I'll hand the floor over to Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing before us. We certainly appreciate seeing what you have here. I just have a couple of comments or questions, and then I'll pass it over to my colleague Mr. Calkins, who's actually from the central region. I'm from British Columbia.

Mr. Kristjanson, I'm glad you clarified a bit further. I appreciate your forthright comments in response to Mr. Byrne's questions. When you were talking at first, I thought you were kind of saying that if we build them, they will come. If we build some docks, fishermen will come and we'll expand this industry, and it'll be good for the area and good for the province. In your response to Mr. Byrne's questions, I wasn't hearing that quite so clearly. Perhaps you could comment on that again.

You did say, though, that if there are some fish harvesters, we should build them a dock. I thought I heard you saying something along that line. So how many harvesters do there need to be in a particular location before you think the Government of Canada should be investing in a harbour?

[Robert Kristjanson]

There are harbours around the lake that the small craft harbours branch is not involved with. And there are an awful lot of fishermen, still, who are doing that. If I give you a name, it won't mean anything to you anyway. One of them is Frog Bay. There is one. There are a lot of fishermen in there with no funding at all from the federal government.

I am not saying to go anywhere and build docks, as I just said. I don't want a dock two miles down just because I'm fishing there. There has to be common sense put into the docks. But upgrades of harbours are needed. Dredging of harbours is needed. And there are wharfs in harbours that have to be refitted in one way. If there is, in a location where there are fishermen.... I don't mean to go and build a dock someplace around the corner because I might want to go there one day. Of course not. That's nonsense. But there is a need to refit and rebuild and help fishing harbours that are here right now.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Certainly we've heard that message across the country as well.

Mr. Gaudry, you say that where you live there isn't a harbour. How far away is the harbour you use?

[Allan Gaudry]

In our community, we don't have a harbour. We just have boat launches that are made by the locals. Any time there's a strong wind or high lake levels or low lake levels, they are affected. We don't have a harbour in our community, but we do have some boat launches. It doesn't do justice to the community.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

But you fish out of your community from those boat launches. You don't drive to another harbour.

[Allan Gaudry]

No, our community fishes the winter fishery. We're in the middle of lobbying for a fall fishery. We want to change our fishery, because we face so many challenges in the winter months in commercial fishing. We're lobbying the province to make some changes and allow us the fall fishery so we can harvest fish during the fall. I think they're more active in the fall than they are in the winter. In the winter they're dormant. In the past, it was challenging for the commercial fisherman who worked seasonally to really go out there and make their primary living from this, because we only have one season.

So fishermen are coming around and saying they need to change. They can't just fish the way they have for the last 40 or 50 years. There has to be change. The challenge is to also get the management in the province to agree to these changes. Right away they're concerned with sustainability. That's what they throw at you every time.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Finally, could you expand a bit on your comment about harbour fees and berthage fees and that sort of issue across the country? How much could be charged or should be charged and so on? Obviously, in your case, you don't have a small craft harbour as such.

In that context, you said, with respect to the fishery, that the money is not there. At least that's the way I wrote it down. We've also heard that there are record catches in Lake Winnipeg and so on, that it's a thriving fishery and so on. So is the money there? Is the fishery doing well? If it's doing well and it's not producing the money it should.... What did you mean by that comment?

[Allan Gaudry]

What I mean is, the low prices we're getting for our fish nowadays and the rising costs of operating are challenges we've faced in the last four years, since the price of our highest-value fish, which is pickerel, has dropped. All the other species are not a high priority to FFMC, so our bycatch is pretty much bushed. What we need here is a market for that low-value fish and also a priority with FFMC to handle it. If not, then allow dual marketing. Let the small communities come up with their own market and their own processing and they'll handle that fish. Those are changes that we're also looking at making.

So hopefully in the next few years we're going to have some changes that will bring back the youth. We have an aging workforce out there. If we don't have the youth, five to seven years from now who's going to be out there harvesting? That's a big challenge. That's the next big issue we're going to be dealing with: who's going to be left to harvest fish in the next five to seven years? There are no youth out there coming into the industry.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thanks very much.