I think it just goes to show that, when PIIFCAF was introduced in 2007, it was a policy, and it didn't really have any teeth. I remember because, in my home community back then, we were starting to see corporations buying up fishing licences. I remember seeing the seven-year time limit that folks were going to have to get out from underneath these agreements, but there was really no mechanism there to do so. That's why it was so important to us.
We worked with the federation and served the federation to ensure that Bill C-68 became a reality. We were very hopeful that, when it did, we were going to see some enforcement and action that were finally going to hold some people accountable, and we'd start seeing some of this ridiculous implementation, when it came to the price of fishing licences, start to come down. We just haven't seen that, for many of the reasons that I and Mr. Allen just discussed. There just hasn't been the attention on it that we feel is necessary.
The department is definitely under-resourced as well. We hear that when we talk to our department here. They have only so many people who can focus on so many files, and it just doesn't seem like the mechanisms are there to really do what needs to be done, because people are being given time to go to lawyers, get crafty with these arrangements, come back and say, “No, look,” and the department can't do anything about it. I dealt with one personally, in 3Ps, that I and everybody in the community know is a controlling agreement. At the end of the day, the licensing officer at DFO—I mean, she's fabulous, and she did her job—had to throw up her hands and say, “There's nothing else I can do.” The lawyers were just too good, so there's clearly something not working.
I don't think that the owner-operator principle is the issue. I think, again, it's the application and enforcement of it, and when somebody can't access the capital because, realistically, a bank is going to look at an enterprise and lend you the money that the vessel and the enterprise are worth, and that's not some overinflated amount that only a corporation can front.... There's no business plan in the world that's ever going to show that you can actually pay this off, but that's what's happening. It's very unfortunate, because, for those corporations, it's the cost of doing business, and, for a lot of young harvesters, the only way to do that is to become hamstrung to one of these corporations.
