Evidence of meeting #52 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fishery.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Salmon Gillnetters Association, Area E; Member, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
We can't fish without a DFO licence. DFO issued the licences.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Right. Now, you say it went from processors, association to association.
Director, Salmon Gillnetters Association, Area E; Member, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
Yes. There were scientific permits issued to catch roughly $1 million worth of sockeye salmon. Scientific permits were issued to the vessels. The fish were delivered to the processor. The processor paid the fishermen for catching them, deducted its processing fee, and forwarded the money to one association. The money was then transferred to a second association, and it was supposed to be transferred to DFO somehow, I'm unsure how, for use in this particular “enhancement project”. The threat of litigation has resulted in that money not being spent. It's held in the association, reportedly. I'm not a signatory to the association, so I don't know, but reportedly the money is still in the association and has not been spent.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
And currently it's frozen, you could describe it as.
Director, Salmon Gillnetters Association, Area E; Member, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
Yes, you could say it's frozen, according to what I've been told by one of the directors in the association.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
By one of the directors. Did you say this was a court order?
Director, Salmon Gillnetters Association, Area E; Member, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
No, it was simply the threat of litigation because everybody pretty well—
Director, Salmon Gillnetters Association, Area E; Member, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
My association that I represent, because we were involved in the decision initially and we were concerned about liability for the association and for the people involved with the money, that it was possibly criminal. Certainly there was the risk of civil litigation by people who lost fishing opportunity to fund that fishery.
Member, Executive Director, Association des crabiers acadiens, Nova Scotia, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
Yes. I have an example too.
In area 12 in 2006 an allocation of 1,000 tonnes of crab was given to APPFA, a fishermen's organization, in exchange for $1.9 million that would go to pay for science. Following the Larocque decision on June 23, a lot of that money had not been spent yet. I assume there is close to $1 million that has not been spent. We had asked DFO to give that money back to the licence-holders, because in the Martineau judgment, the judge said clearly that the quota that was taken away for science purposes, in all reasonable fashion, is quota that should go back to the fishermen. We have asked the department to give that money back to the fishermen, to the licence-holders.
Liberal
Member, Executive Director, Association des crabiers acadiens, Nova Scotia, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
They are holding the money.
Liberal
Member, Executive Director, Association des crabiers acadiens, Nova Scotia, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
We don't know. We're going to court.
We have applied for mandamus
to force the department to pay that money out. It is in a legal proceeding right now, but that is another example that goes to show this chaotic situation.
Senior Director of Fishing Operations, Canadian Fishing Company; B.C. Seafood Alliance
Just for clarification on what Phil's talking about, I managed that fishery in August for salmon. It was a fishery that was set up way prior to Larocque and agreed upon by all the salmon organizations in B.C. We went ahead with it, and we did it with DFO's blessing. Yes, there is money, and it's done by the CSAB, the Commercial Salmon Advisory Board. It is in their association, and it's not going to be spent until we get a legal ruling on how to use that money. It was supposed to go to enhance our ability in Cultus Lake to do a little bit to improve the smolts output in our lake and do a few other things on milfoil removal and other stuff. But it was supposed to go toward habitat enhancement on Cultus Lake.
Bloc
Bloc
Gérard Asselin Bloc Manicouagan, QC
I have been listening to you. I must say that I find this quite shocking, because it does not sound like governing a rich country like Canada, but rather a country like Bangladesh or Ethiopia.
The government is taking the assets of fishers, and we know that they are not necessarily rich people, particularly those in the groundfish industry. There have been moratoriums that have been very difficult for them. They have to pay for fuel, labour, insurance—everything. And here, the government is taking their assets to fund an activity that is the responsibility of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Moreover, we hear that their equipment, their boats and staff were used and they volunteered to do research, otherwise, the whole season would have been jeopardized.
How do you feel when you hear that once again this year the federal government has a $15-billion surplus?
Bloc
Executive Director, B.C. Seafood Alliance
Canada is the sixth-largest seafood exporter in the world. Demand for seafood is growing. On the whole, though, in capture fisheries we don't have much opportunity to grow in volume because we're probably close to the limits of the exploitation levels. So what we have to do is improve the value that we get from those fisheries products in order to succeed. We can't do that without solid science and research.
I would hate to see us spending a lot of time arguing over what happened in the past. I think to be fair to DFO, the Larocque and subsequent decisions threw them into just as much chaos as it did us, but we are urgently in need of long-term solutions. And as you say, Canada is a rich country and we should be able to come up with a cooperative, collaborative approach to fix the problem.
Executive Director, Canadian Sablefish Association; Chair, Canadian Fisheries Working Group
Mr. Asselin, I guess I come at this from a number of perspectives. I was here ten years, so I understand, or I hope I would understand from being here, what the public interest is and the role of Parliament in appropriating funds to support broad public objectives and also execute its constitutional responsibilities.
Working in the fisheries in British Columbia, it's astounding that an industry that has built Canada on both coasts seems to have such low priority. I'm not saying just with this government, but by successive governments, even the government I was in, that somehow fish isn't so sexy.
If you're the man or woman or family or coastal community that relies on that resource for your livelihood, for your future, it's rather sad that governments generally don't put a high priority on it. This government and previous governments have had billions of dollars in surplus. They reinvest it. There was a farm aid program of a few days ago that was over $1 billion—a good investment for farming communities, and it's required.
We're talking about small investments in order to have a sustainable resource that every year can continue to generate or increase the generation of revenues in those communities for those families and to this government.
So it's hard to get the attention. I sat where Mr. Chairman is sitting, and I know how hard it is for this committee to get the broader attention of government. You have to get the attention of government on this. We are under, as Christina said, a microscope about how we manage our resources. We can lose a market in the snap of a finger, and when it's gone, good luck. Where are you going to find the money to get it back?
We have fought hard globally to show that we are sustainable producers. We've done that in spite of the fact that every single year government retrenches on what I believe is its legal responsibility to manage the public resource. And industry, because they're not very good at interacting with government, increasingly says it's okay if it's only a few more dollars.
The well is dry for some of these sectors. I cannot believe that $30 million, which is not a large appropriation by the Parliament of Canada to sustain this sustainable, renewable resource, is such a big deal. I can't believe it has taken so much time to get people's attention.
In answer to your question, I am saddened that it takes so much effort to get so little resource, coupled with the resource that comes from our fisheries, so that we can continue to contribute to those communities, to those families, and to Canada.
It's a small request, but very necessary.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Merci, monsieur le président.
Madame, you mentioned hundreds of thousands of dollars going to a certain particular area. Where did that money come from? I think you mentioned $300,000 or $900,000 as the figure.
Executive Director, B.C. Seafood Alliance
Are you talking about the roe herring?
