Evidence of meeting #20 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 organization.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Yvon Lévesque Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
How would you compare to this institute, at least based upon what you know of it?
12:15 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
I don't know a great deal about the centre. What I will say is that two weeks ago I attended a meeting at NSERC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, on capture fisheries and some of the support they're providing to those fisheries. There was a gentleman there from Quebec, who was doing work on gear technology and energy efficiency in the industry. That expertise also exists at the Marine Institute in the flume tank. We had a lengthy discussion with those individuals—I forget their names now—about opportunities to form collaborative partnerships, because they're doing work that's very similar to what's going on in Newfoundland and Labrador, and there's no need to reinvent the wheel with some of this research. So if there were an opportunity to collaborate and to bring these institutions together and merge those partnership, we'd love to explore that, as it's something that CCFI has done and continues to do.
We had an initial discussion, and my comment to him was that if we were to have a life beyond the next few months and CCFI were to get a new mandate, we'd like to start some serious discussions with him as an institute to see if we could get some good partnerships up and running, with meaningful results both for the Atlantic industry and Quebec industry.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Yvon Lévesque Bloc Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC
If I understand correctly, it might be possible for you to take some time to negotiate with research centres such as this one in order to obtain funding from them and pursue your work within a collaborative partnership. There must also be in your area centres that could support you financially, and for which you could carry out research or whose research work you could complete. While you did that, the people in those centres could perhaps concentrate their efforts on something else.
12:15 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
Absolutely, that's something we would most definitely love to pursue, and it would certainly fit within our scope and mandate.
12:15 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Did you see ACOA's decision with regard to funding cuts coming?
12:15 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
I think it's important. Obviously, to be fair to ACOA, we've had a good working relationship with them—certainly at the officials level, and even at the senior management level. Of course, that relationship has been strained a bit in the last couple of months; but that's normal when these sorts of things happen. We met with ACOA officials on our proposal in June of last year, and most recently in December. We discussed the proposal, went through it in detail and had very productive discussions. Issues were cited in terms of funding availability and the points that have been made on third-party delivery and programming. We've addressed all those issues, as I've done here today, but they did cite funding challenges, as well as other things.
One of the points I made to ACOA in December when the stimulus package was being prepared was that there might be an opportunity there, if something were being prepared for the resource-based sectors, to support CCFI. I didn't get a yes, but I didn't get a no either. It was more, “We'll see.” We have been struggling, and we know it is a challenge, but we've had struggles like this before, going back in our 20-year history. Before my time, we've had issues where we've been close to the edge but never gone over.
I think it's good that an organization like ours has been kept accountable. So every four or five years, it's great to have to come to the table and justify your existence; it keeps you on your toes, so I don't mind that. But we didn't expect a “no” from the minister. No, we didn't expect that.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
People often wonder why this type of organizations exists, why such organizations have to come back year after year and why they are not self-sustainable, but people do come to the realization that the work that they accomplish could not be done otherwise, or at least it would be much more difficult. In those regions deemed remote, businesses have trouble making ends meet most of the time. There are not always large corporations able to fund research and development projects.
Indeed, even Bombardier, a large corporation, does R&D work for which, from what I know, it receives government funding.
Were the work accomplished by your organization not funded, it would never be done, especially not by the industry. Might that be a weighty argument in your favour?
12:20 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
If I understand your question correctly, there is a lot of work that would not get done if the centre doesn't continue. I think there's no doubt about it. There are certain things that will continue. I can't say that everything will fall, but there are significant portions.... If we do 60 to 70 projects a year and we're the catalyst for a good chunk.... We're not always the catalyst; in some cases we come in where others might be doing some management work, but in the majority of the cases we are the catalyst for that research and we bring the funding to the table. So if the funding is removed and the catalyst for that research and from a management standpoint is removed....
The comment was made I think by Minister Ashfield last night in the House of Commons that it won't affect the Fisheries and Marine Institute or Memorial University or any other academic institutes, and there's AIF funding. For example, in Newfoundland and Labrador, I can think of maybe two to three AIF contracts since 2002. If an Andrew Daley or a Dwight Spence, or another fisherman in the northern peninsula, wants an initiative related to challenges in his industry, AIF is not the answer to that sort of work. It's an organization like us, and without us that work doesn't proceed. I think that's clear.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I always thought that government would like to have peace on the water, if at all possible, regardless of the government. And any time Clearwater and Ashton Spinney can sing out of the same hymn book, that's a good day. You have a big corporate organization that's integrated and then you've got Ashton Spinney, and anyone who knows Ashton--if Greg Kerr was here, he'd be able to highlight a bit more--knows they don't see eye to eye on very much, but in this particular regard it appears that they do.
So instead of making it an expenditure, I think it would be a wise investment. If you can get those groups talking together, working together--let's face it, for the betterment of all of them, because you have to protect the resource, you have to protect the environment, you've got to improve markets and you've got to coordinate all of those efforts, and if your organization is willing to do it, I think that would be a good thing.
My question to you is, when is the drop dead day? When do you have to know for sure if funding is going to be rethought or they're going to say no, that's it, you're done?
12:20 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
We're rapidly running out of time in terms of our existing funding. We're still going through the final stages of all of our year-end funding and crunching numbers on a daily basis. Right now, we have operating funds for the next couple of weeks to a few weeks and that's it. So it's this spring, certainly not beyond the spring.
12:20 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
May would be a very accurate timeline, unless there's something forthcoming from the federal government or we find some other avenues. May would certainly be a very realistic timeline for us, and probably not the end of May as it stands right now.
12:20 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Have you planned a plan B in any way? I understand it's quite possible that what the government may be thinking is, why can't industry do this? If it's industry driven, if it benefits industry, shouldn't they be paying for all of it and let government out of there? As Mr. Kamp said, these are choices.
Obviously, we would disagree with that choice, but it is a choice that at least they've made up to this point. Is there any plan B that you have in this regard?
12:20 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
I think the suggestion that industry could fund this is challenging. Industry, and all of the members probably know this, is under a tremendous crunch right now. We've got major viability issues in the harvesting and processing sector. Industry will contribute the projects, and you've seen those numbers, which is a great testament to the work they do, but to suggest they can fund the centre is not realistic.
The point I want to make, again, on the ACOA funding, is that we reduced the ask to ACOA from $2 million a year three years ago down to $1 million a year, which is a 50% reduction. We went from a request that had 100% of ACOA funding for most of the last 20 years to a request now that's a little over 50%. We looked at our sustainability review as an opportunity to reduce the burden on ACOA and to bring the request down, which we did. But to walk away from the centre cold turkey--and this is a discussion I've had with ACOA--when we're trying to reduce the burden on ACOA, to explore other options.... Stage one is to bring the provinces in. Stage two might be some sort of industry support down the road. You need time for these types of plans and programs to evolve.
In terms of other plan Bs, we've had general discussions, but there is no active plan B right now for this organization, because we're focused on an Atlantic-wide initiative. We've got great support throughout the Maritimes and in Newfoundland and Labrador, and our focus is to keep that. If what we did wasn't good work and it wasn't successful, and if we didn't have support, we'd be happy to walk away. Carey Bonnell will be fine and our staff would likely be all right at the end of the day. We've got a good group of people. But when you've got the support and endorsement that we have as an organization and the need and the merit--you can't debate it; somebody might say otherwise, but you can't debate the success of the centre. That's why we're so vehemently opposed to closing the centre and we've so assertively advocated for the need for the continuation. It's about industry and it's about the need for this industry.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Have you attended the Boston Seafood Show over the years?
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Do any other countries, states, or areas have a similar arrangement as yours, working with industry, individuals, scientists, and academics to promote their particular industry? You talked about shrimp, but do Scandinavian countries or the States have something?
12:25 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
That's a good question. The best example I can give you is the Sea Fish Industry Authority in the U.K. We've done a bit of work with Sea Fish. They actually wrote a letter of support for the centre--they support us that much. We partnered with them on some workshops recently, and they attended an energy efficiency workshop we hosted in October in St. John's, Newfoundland.
We do a lot of complementary work, and we've been talking about forming some level of collaboration in global energy efficiency in the harvesting sector. They have a model with a levy-based system. That system has been around for 30 to 40 years now, and the Canadian industry in some ways pays for it, because when we export product to the U.K. there's a levy on it. It's a very small amount, but it goes toward supporting the Sea Fish Industry Authority. It's a good model and something we'd love to consider down the road, but it's hard to implement or impose new levies. This was implemented in the early stages of the industry. It's a great model. It's very similar to ours.
12:25 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
There's a lot of government funding in the U.S. I'm not aware of a model that's parallel to ours, but a lot of public support, public funding, goes into research and development in the United States.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Mike Allen Conservative Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Carey, for being here today.
I'm trying to explore how this whole thing happened, and I'd like to get my head around this as well. I don't want to get into a “he said, she said”, but I can't help doing that a little in trying to figure this out.
It has been stated that in March 2008 the centre was informed that 2008-09 was going to be the last year. It's interesting if you don't agree, because it was said that it was “formally” advised, and you had to develop a self-sustainability plan that did not involve ACOA support. So the statement is that the plan never came in.
Did the centre take that seriously, or did it come back with a plan? When you put your proposal back to ACOA, did you talk about sustaining a million dollars for five years, as opposed to what a plan B would be, engaging the provinces over the next time? You said the industry is tight, and I understand that. So engaging the provinces...because they haven't done much in the centre for the last 20 years, and maybe they should be taking a bigger role.
Did you address plan B and say it was a non-starter, or did you throw the idea out and say, “We could probably do this, if you do this for three to five years”? I'm not hearing whether that plan ever came in, and I'd like to understand the background in those discussions from your perspective.
12:25 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation
That's a very good question, but there are two key points on that. Again it's the “he said, she said”, but it was never said to the CCFI. The talk is that there was a discussion between ACOA and the Marine Institute, where an ACOA official said this was it and there would be no further funding. A decision as significant as that should have been given in writing to the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation, or told to the centre or the executive verbally. If you're going to make such a strong decision about an organization that's been around for 20 years, it should be stated to the centre directly.
Second, at the same time that statement was made between ACOA and the Marine Institute--not CCFI--Minister Hearn was telling the provincial ministers and me to come on board in a new, future-renewed model for the centre. So we developed a plan, based on that recommendation, to bring the provinces to the table and reduce the burden on ACOA. I had discussions with ACOA and said we were committed to continuing to explore options over time to further reduce and, if possible at some point, completely eliminate the need for ACOA support. But you can't go from 100% one day to zero the next. It takes time to develop such a strategy. Going from 100% down to a little over 50% in terms of the request is a significant step in the right direction.
To be fair, we did explore other models and options for the centre--other scenarios. We brought our board and some of our industry together to go through some options. They're presented in the proposal we gave them. The clear direction from industry and our board members was that if you have a model that's not broken, why fix it? If you have a centre that's been so successful, industry-driven, and a tremendous model, it's hard to argue.
There has been some discussion lately on merit. But you can't debate the merit of this centre. Perhaps that's why we don't have ACOA here today--I wouldn't be here either, for that matter. You can argue about third-party delivery; there's a response for it. You can argue about available funds, but you can't argue about merit. I'd debate anybody on that point.
I hope I'm answering your question in that sense.
