Evidence of meeting #13 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fishermen.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Thank you.
Just before I get cut off, I have one other question to ask.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
On the buddy-up system, we've heard that sometimes DFO is working with fishermen, in terms of having two skippers on the boat. So instead of, say, 600 traps, you had 450 traps. If there were 300 on each boat, you put 300 on one, 150 on the same one, so you have two skippers and 450 traps. Is this something your LFA or the PEIFA would be looking at in terms of reducing the input costs for the fishermen in the future?
President, Western Gulf Fishermen's Association
That's been in place for a long time. I think DFO has made that a little more flexible. Again, I have never seen that happen in our area. Last spring, I understand, in New Brunswick area 25, there had been some people who buddied up like that and reduced 150 traps, but I haven't seen that happen in our area yet.
The catches in area 24 were over $12 million last year. It was a pretty good average; the price was low. We got through last year, but any time catches drop or if the price goes down any more, we're going to be at a break-even basis again. You say in our area, and that's what we're speaking on for you here today. We didn't see that last year, but it could be helpful down the road.
You're going to start putting kids out of work, at the back of the boats and stuff like that. It's a problem, but I don't think that's really the way to do it. I think rationalization in the fishery would be a better way to go. We have a lot of older fishermen going out. As Francis pointed out, there's not enough of the younger generation coming into the fishery.
I'm 46 years old. I have two sons. Both of them made it quite clear, “Dad, do whatever you want with it because we're not going fishing”, so neither one of them wants to. I have one boy who's real good in the boat, who fishes with me some. I don't like pushing kids into anything, but he could change at some point. As of now, both of them told me, “If you want to get out of it, you do whatever you want to do; you do it. We're not going fishing.” That's the attitude of a lot of kids today. They don't want to go out in the back of a boat. They don't want to be dealing with this kind of stuff. That's the way the world turns today.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you.
Mr. Calkins, I believe you're going to share your time with Mr. Allen.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Well, if I have any, Chair, I'd be happy to do so.
I'm certainly appreciative of your testimony here. As well, it's my first opportunity to speak this morning in Prince Edward Island. I certainly want to thank everybody who's come out from around the province to be here today. I've been an MP for a while now, and I've never seen so many people at a public gathering for a committee meeting. I think that just speaks volumes about the situation the industry is facing. Let me say I'm very empathetic.
I come from Alberta, where we don't profess to trap a whole lot of lobsters, but we do eat some and we like to have it with our steak. One of the things I wanted to have last night right here...and it was brought up—whether it's the frozen ones or whatever—that there's lobster here on the Island. We went out last night for dinner and I wanted surf and turf, and the reality was I couldn't get a lobster in Charlottetown this time of the year. Maybe this is just indicative of one particular restaurant, but to me the math doesn't add up there. I'm just wondering what's going on.
Before I go down that tack, I just want to ask you this very quickly. Are you satisfied with DFO's handling of stock management? If I look at the FRCC report, it seems to me that landings have stabilized now, but we have record landings or close to record landings every year. Are you satisfied with the carapace length and all the other types of stock management measures? Roughly, without going into too much detail, are you satisfied that we've hit a pretty good sweet spot for managing the stocks?
Chairman, LFA 24 Lobster Advisory Board
I can speak on behalf of the lobster fishery. We've been very fortunate in our area, which is called area 24. We're at record catches.
Some of the mechanisms that DFO put in over the last 20 years are responsible for it. Did we agree with it at the time? No. We fought tooth and nail with some of it. Some of the stuff that we fought tooth and nail with, some of the measures they implemented, today I'd fight tooth and nail to see them not implemented.
Probably a large part of the reason why the stocks are good in the lobster fishery is because the groundfishery is depleted. Basically, it doesn't exist anymore. I'm not a scientist, but my father and his father before him always said that when the groundfisheries went down, the lobster stock and crab came up because groundfish used to eat it.
I'll not speak on any other fisheries, but in the lobster fishery we have a pretty good working relationship with DFO.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Okay, good.
I see a lot of similarities between agriculture and fisheries. At the end of the day, you spend a bunch of money. You have a whole bunch of money going into input costs, whether it's fuel or fertilizer for the farmer or fuel and bait for you. We buy tractors; you guys buy boats.
At the end of the day, you're a price taker. You take your product into the market to whoever the buyer happens to be. In some cases we have boards. For example, in western Canada we have wheat and barley that has to be marketed through a government-made monopoly, and so on. We have supply management in certain areas. We have a whole hodgepodge of things there. Some things work well and some things don't work well.
What I'm getting at here with you guys, though, is that in agriculture we have income stabilization programs, because sometimes you have a good year, but you don't know what you're going to get when you're farming. It's no different when you're fishing. You don't know what you're going to get.
Do you have any recommendations for the committee insofar as any type of income stabilization?
In the Maggies we heard the fishermen there lobbying or pressing us to basically harmonize or merge agriculture and fisheries together for access to the income stabilization program.
Chairman, LFA 24 Lobster Advisory Board
I don't really understand the stabilization program in agriculture. I don't know how it works, so I really couldn't comment on it.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
If a farmer has a really good year, rather than paying tax on their profit, they can put some money into an account in a tax-deferred situation so that when they have a bad year in the future, they can take that money out and apply it to their operating costs for that particular year. That's one example of an income stabilization opportunity.
Is that something that would be beneficial, or do you guys even make enough...? My understanding is that some boats don't even make money to the point where they're paying taxes.
President, Western Gulf Fishermen's Association
I can tell you something. I've been fishing--as young as I may look--for probably 33 years, believe it or not, and at the end of the day I've never seen a year.... I've had a few years where I've put a few dollars into RRSPs and before the next year was up the tax man was tapping me on the fingers; I told him it was either that or I'd have to borrow more money. Most of the time when I put money into RRSPs, I borrowed the money to put it in there. I didn't find that worked all that well either.
I don't know. I'm not knocking people in western Canada or in central Canada, but I want to tell you something. On Prince Edward Island, the recession doesn't really bother us a lot right now, other than the price of lobsters. We've been in a recession here all our life. That's just the way we live here and that's what we're used to. I don't think we have a lot of money here. Any fisherman I know or talk to.... There are certain fisheries that are fairly lucrative, but for anybody who is fishing like me over the years--lobster, tuna, herring, mackerel, and a few things like that--there has been no money to put into stabilization. At the end of the day, when we file for EI, we need the cheque that comes out every two weeks. If we didn't have it, we'd be in bad shape. So I don't really think that type of stabilization program would work for us.
President, Western Gulf Fishermen's Association
If we had some type of a low-interest loan to get us through from one year to the next, so that come January or February, when we run into our 19% and 20% and 22% Visas that we all love to use so much--none of us is any different--then something like that might help, but I don't think the stabilization program would work for us.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
One of the other things I see happening now is in Alberta we have basically two packing plants, two processors, left. We're talking about millions of dollars' worth of beef. The analysis I hear is about the same. You guys are talking about having a pound or a co-op, or whatever it is--a place to store the lobsters--so you don't have a glut on the market, because the initial glut, I'm assuming, creates a low price, a price depression, for you.
One of the models that I'm quite excited about is one in which the processors never actually own the fish. The deal is made between the farmer or the producer and the buyer, and the processing company or the packing plant simply charges a flat fee to process the animal. Are there any models like this that exist here as far as fishermen...? Do we have fishermen selling directly to a buyer and simply paying processors a fee? Do we have situations where we have processors or whatever cornering the market when the market is low, buying stuff up so they can increase their margin? You don't blame them for doing that. But is that a saleable solution or a workaround to some of those kinds of issues, given the fact that lobster has such a short shelf life?
President, Western Gulf Fishermen's Association
I was hoping Francis would take this question. He has a lot more experience in the processing and buying sector.
Chairman, LFA 24 Lobster Advisory Board
We have a processing plant at home that's a cooperative. We have 180 members that sell all their product to us. Basically, you're relying on what we call the brokers in the industry. We don't sell directly to the consumer. We sell to a brokerage firm. Then they sell to people.
The way the world is now, some of the major brokers we sell to have to guarantee cruise ship lines and restaurants like Red Lobster and everything else a continuous 12-month supply. You have to be very large to be able to do that. When they go to these brokers to buy lobster, they don't want only lobster; they want shrimp, they want scallops, they want all different species. We can't offer that, really.
Are the brokers gouging us? I don't know. Everybody has to make a few dollars at the end of the day.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Is the price on the shelf in your typical markets different this year from what it was last year, or different from the year before?
Chairman, LFA 24 Lobster Advisory Board
From the information I receive out of Florida, from talking to a few individuals down there, the price is probably on par with last year.
Actually, in our own operation at home, we're receiving more money right today for a pound of lobster meat or a pound of raw tails than what we received last year, even though the price in the marketplace is down. That's because the fishing industry lives and dies on the exchange rate. Basically, product that was selling for $16 a pound last year would be returning back to the plant, when the dollar was on par--$16 a pound. The same product would be selling right now for $14 U.S. a pound but returning to the plant about $17.25 a pound.
The important thing for the fishery, for us to get out of this crisis, is for the processors and the brokers to have a larger line of credit. I'm not a processor, but I know where Mr. Bonnell is coming from on this. If they all could have enough line of credit this year to be able to buy the product, process it, keep the people working in the plant, and sell it out in an orderly fashion, within 14 months to 16 months we'd all gradually start to get out of this mess we are in.
If they don't have a line of credit large enough to be able to operate this year, what's going to happen is that either boats will be tied to the wharves--in other words, once the plant has no more money, it can't purchase any more lobster, which means the workers have gone home, which means the crew on my vessel has gone home too--or else someone will start dumping product onto the market at an unrealistically low price. When we hit that, we're all doomed. It's a crisis then.
How are these processing plants going to get the line of credit? Provincially they can't do anything, but federally? Maybe you fellows could help. Basically, they'd be asking for someone to guarantee the line of credit they'd be getting from the bank or credit union facility.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Mr. Chair, I know I'm out of time, and I don't know if this is the appropriate place to do this or not, but given the fact that some of the lending institutions were actually named by some of the witnesses who appeared today, it might be very good for the committee, at some point in time during the study, to talk to some of the people from the financial institutions. We could bring them in here and just ask them some very pointed questions about why they're not willing to lend to the seafood industry.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you, Mr. Calkins. That's a point well taken.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today.
I would just ask everyone for their patience for a moment. If you could please stay seated, I would appreciate that. The CBC would like to get a few shots of us at the table. As members know, there are rules that constrain when the cameras can roll--yes, your hair looks good, Peter--and when they can't. Now that our meeting has concluded, they can get a few shots of all of us around the table.
Mr. Morrissey, go ahead.
Chairman, LFA 24 Lobster Advisory Board
On behalf of all the fishermen of P.E.I., I'd like to thank the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Government of Canada, and all you people, as MPs, for bringing in and putting through legislation--I know Lawrence championed it--on the capital gains exemptions for all fishermen.
On behalf of all the fishermen, I want to thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you, Mr. Morrissey. I do appreciate that.
Once again, on behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank you gentlemen very much for coming today, for making your presentation, for bearing with us as we asked our questions, and for being so forthright with your comments. It certainly is appreciated by all members of the committee.
We are going to break for one hour for lunch. We hope we will have a chance to chat there as well.
The meeting is adjourned.