Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I strongly support this motion. From the studies I've read, I think that if the owner-operator and fleet separation policies are removed, the big concern will be about where we move and what system we implement. If we implement the system that B.C. has right now for the B.C. herring fishery in terms of individual transferable quotas, one big fear and concern that I've seen expressed in studies from the west coast is that big companies or processors can accumulate ITQs to the extent that fishermen and crewmen lose their independence and make less. Their incomes are lower because of the resource rent they would have to pay for the lease.
That is probably the number one concern. Then if you look at what happened in New Zealand, for example, where you have foreign vessels and foreign companies hired to come in and fish the quotas because it's the cheapest alternative, that's a real concern as well.
On the one end of this country you have a system of ITQs, and we think that if they remove the policy, they're going to implement ITQs on the east coast. If they do that, we'd end up with a system of more or less slipper skippers: people or companies would own multiple licences but wouldn't have to fish them, and our fishermen and our crewmen would end up a hell of a lot worse than they are now.
Our rural communities in eastern Canada, specifically Newfoundland and Labrador, are already suffering. They are already desperate. As the fishery minister has said before, the fishery is broken. It is broken and it has to change in a whole bunch of ways. I'm not personally against change, but the change has to work for our coastal communities, it has to work for our culture and what we're based on, and it has to work for the people. It can't just work for one side, in this case big processors or big companies. It can't just work for them. It has to work on an economic basis, but it has to work for everybody.
That's why I strongly support this motion and I encourage the members opposite to support it as well.
Thank you.