Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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.
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.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our guests.
I realize that you can't answer for all the presentations, but we have a lot of ground to cover, and I'm not going to repeat some of the questions. I'd also like to acknowledge Lawrence's work in this field. And on that marketing strategy, I agree it's a small start on a huge problem, but I would like to give credit to Minister Shea for saying we have to get on and get some things started. I think we have to see a lot more of that type of thing, and I know she's quite keen to hear what comes out of here.
What I want to do is quickly separate what's immediate from what's long term, because we've been hearing, and we'll continue to hear tomorrow--I'm from Southwest Nova and I know we'll get an earful tomorrow--from the harvesters. We talked about dialogue this morning, and in the long term, yes, I think everybody agrees when times are tough it's not a time to throw darts; it's a time to sit down and figure out what we are going to do in a strategic way so that we do all make money. That's the bottom line here.
Can I ask you, though, first, from your industry's perspective, what do you see as the most critical immediate steps that have to be taken? I'm including government and industry alike in that response. What do we have to do that's both different and immediate that would help in the short term?
President, Mariner Seafoods
Our industry is like the cow that's down. She's down and we have to get her back up on her feet before we can start milking again.
We have to be able to finance this operation and we have to be able to hold inventory until people are ready to eat lobster again. If we don't, lobster landings are going to come in at very low values, because that's the only way lobster is going to sell. If you want $2 lobsters, do nothing. If there's not financing available for people to hold lobsters, then fishermen will have to go without any pay, maybe. They can't stop fishing. They have to do something.
Conservative
President, Mariner Seafoods
I think credit is the most important thing in this industry right now.
Conservative
President, Mariner Seafoods
In the short term, we need to develop some markets that will handle lobster and move inventory. We need to get the industry back and moving as much as we can. I know we're not going to be able to sell all of the product that comes ashore within the next two months. There's going to be heavy fishing. Southwest Nova still fishes until the end of May. Cape Breton will be going until the end of July. A lot of lobsters are going to come ashore. Where will they go, and who's going to eat them?
We need some promotion, and there's no doubt that we need it, but the long term hasn't been looked at within this industry. Everything's been good. Everybody's been selling product. Everybody's been doing his or her own thing and hasn't had the money to spend on research and development. If we go to our province here in P.E.I., they don't even want to talk to us. They're handcuffed. They can't do anything. If they wanted to, they couldn't do it, but this needs to be done.
Research needs to be done. It not only benefits the processor, but it benefits the fishermen. It creates a higher value for what's being produced and it returns more money to the fishermen. But if we remain stagnant, as we are now, with no new products, it's going to be the same thing over and over again.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
In the short term, of course, the credit and the market efforts are key. I assume that you mean all the players together, both levels of government, harvesters, and processors should be at the same table.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Okay. Moving to the longer term, which you just did, we've heard here and elsewhere about the need to reduce effort, however that's described. One of the things that harvesters are obviously very concerned about and government has to be up front about, as a part of that, is that if you reduce effort, it means finding a graceful and dignified way to have fewer people out there on the water. No matter how we describe it, we end up talking about fewer boats and less effort. How would the processing side of the equation react to the fact that there'd be less harvesting going on in the industry?
President, Mariner Seafoods
We don't have enough processing capacity in Prince Edward Island. The effect is such that if the catch goes down by 20%, we're still going to be busy.
I don't think that side of it is as broke as we let on. It's broke this year because we have a recession. The reason that product isn't moving is because we have a recession. The reason there's a problem going into the new season is because we have a recession.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
You and I aren't going to fix the recession, but we have to do the long-term planning.
President, Mariner Seafoods
You and I aren't going to fix that, but we have to live through it. This industry is as important to Prince Edward Island as the car industry is to Ontario.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
What would you think if the government worked with the harvesting side even after the recession was over? If there was still a need to reduce capacity and effort and if it actually meant retiring licences, is it something the processing side would be concerned about?
President, Mariner Seafoods
I think if you reduce licences, you're possibly going to have the same number of landings. We've traditionally landed around 20 million pounds of lobster for a number of years in Prince Edward Island, no matter whether we used 1,000 traps or whether we used 300 traps.
The effort would be less, but the landings would be better and the fishers who remained would be financially better off through landing more poundage. I don't think you're going to reduce the number of pounds by reducing the number of participating vessels, but that's my own personal opinion.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
That's fair. I know a lot of discussion takes place, but it is an item that we run into, and I'm sure we'll run into it tomorrow down in Southwest Nova as well.
President, Mariner Seafoods
The problem we've had in the past is that we've increased in size. By increasing in size over the years we've taken the smaller lobsters out of the picture for Prince Edward Island. Our industry is unique in Prince Edward Island because we have the kind of lobster that has been processed here and we've developed a market for the smaller size over the years.
The 250-gram lobster used to be a big seller in Europe. We used the 250-gram lobster to sell the 400-gram lobster. The supermarkets in France used to buy the 250-gram lobster and use it for promotion. We've sold all kinds of that. The 250-gram lobsters are not being landed now. They've had to move to 300-gram lobsters, which puts the price up a little higher. They're not as anxious to promote it. It hurts sales because there are sales for smaller lobsters and the smaller lobsters are used to sell the bigger ones.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Hard times should bring out good resolution. That's the history of mankind. Usually you get through it, and you see what you're going to do about it when you get together. We have to get together—all levels of government, all parts of the industry.
I don't want to get into the marketing board issue, which is separate from marketing. But when you talk new product, do you have a sense of what a new product could look like in the near future?
President, Mariner Seafoods
It could be as simple as a microwavable product—something easy for the housewife to pop in the microwave. It could be microwavable bags, microwavable lobster. In the U.S. a couple of years ago, a gentleman invented a casket type of thing for putting one lobster in the microwave. I think we need to take that in a couple of steps.
President, Mariner Seafoods
He called it a coffin. We'd have to change the name for the market. But it's the same idea—you put it in the microwave and come out with a product ready to serve.
Conservative
Greg Kerr Conservative West Nova, NS
Let's concentrate on the various levels of government. Marketing and the research that goes with it, we get in the short term. In the long term, we prepare ourselves so that we're better off facing the next economic downturn, whenever that comes. New markets with new product—that's probably the best opportunity we have in this downturn.
President, Mariner Seafoods
We need new markets. We've overturned every stone we could in the last year. To try to solve these problems, we've been working to develop every customer and every market we ever had. There are developing markets out there that we need to work on. The federal government needs to spend money on this. It can't all be the responsibility of the processor.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you.
On behalf of the committee, I'd like to thank both of you for coming today and providing us with your feedback and advice.
Gentlemen, we will take a short break until we set up for our next presenter.
Thank you, Mr. Bonnell.