Fisheries Committee on May 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Sir, thank you very much for coming today. Sir, how many people work for ACOA?

[Richard Comerford]

Throughout Atlantic Canada?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

The whole kit and caboodle, sir, from the minister on down.

[Richard Comerford]

About 700.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

How many would have an extensive fisheries background?

[Richard Comerford]

I would have to guess or speculate. I don't know. A number of us have had some experience in and around the fishing industry. If I had to make a guess, it would be 10 to 20.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Your testimony is based on the fact that your agency believes this work can be done elsewhere or it doesn't need to be done at all. So I'm asking about what premise or experience ACOA has to make that particular judgment. I'll argue the same, that a few years ago somebody at the Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, which is an offshoot of ACOA, searched out a private golf developer in Cape Breton and gave them a million dollars. Now, I don't know why ACOA would be looking for private golf developers to give them a million dollars, but I question the agency's role in what they pick and choose.

This is the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. You have four premiers. You have Minister Shea, who is from the province of Prince Edward Island. We heard expert testimony from industry and individuals representing thousands of fishing harvesters that the CCFI is something that should be clearly supported by government. You have the Department of Fisheries onside. You have four premiers, plus everybody else. The funding went from $2 million down to $1 million.

What is the real reason that this agency would be cut off from its funding? And Mr. Bonnell indicated to us that they were never directly told the funding would be terminated. Is that true?

[Richard Comerford]

There's a fairly complex answer to the issue around who informs what or whom.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Okay, let me make it easier for you.

[Richard Comerford]

I certainly told the chairman and Mr. Bonnell, on two occasions, that we were unable to continue the funding.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

CCFI was supported by ACOA for several years. Is that correct?

[Richard Comerford]

Yes.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Obviously ACOA made, for whatever reasons, its decision to cut that funding. Were they given, in writing, a termination notice that said that on this particular day this funding would be terminated, stopped? Were they ever given that?

[Richard Comerford]

Yes and no. In our letters of offer when we make a contract with somebody, we will say, “Here is a certain amount of money, which you can spend on certain things over a period of time.” When the period of time is over, the contract is over. So it just stops. It would be unusual and unnecessary to really say that then and forever more we're not going to provide funding. It would almost be redundant. If we were going to provide more funding, we'd put out another letter of offer and go again.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Sir, a couple of years ago a report was done by the four lending agencies--the Western Diversification Fund, FedNor, the Quebec fund, and ACOA. It showed that ACOA had a worse return on their money than the other three. In terms of money that went out and money that came back in, ACOA had the worst returns. Yet here we have an organization that is widely supported. It states very clearly that for one dollar given, they could get up to five dollars back on leverage.

I'm just looking at this objectively. This seems to be a success story, something that ACOA should be very proud about. There is just something here that either you're not able to say or you may not comprehend. I simply don't understand why a successful agency of this nature, ACOA, which is supported through the academic level, the political level, and the industry level, wouldn't want to grab that and run with it.

[Richard Comerford]

I guess we grabbed it and ran with it for quite a while.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Yes, you did.

[Richard Comerford]

A couple of things have happened. The CCFI was established to link the fishing industry with the academic community, and over the years, that has happened. There has been quite a high degree of uptake between the industry and the academic community. They've done a number of projects. So that's all working together. It's all well networked. At the same time, ACOA is probably more committed to innovation now than it was 20 years ago. From a budget perspective, we're putting more money into innovation. But we made the conscious policy decision to do innovation in a way that is representative of the Atlantic Innovation Fund, which is the commercialization of projects. We do this through a competitive process. We put out a call for proposals, and we get proposals from all sectors. We evaluate them, make judgments, and provide the money accordingly.

But we can't do everything. So that's the direction we've taken.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

I agree with you. There's no way ACOA can fund everything. But funding golf courses, especially a private one, is something I find objectionable. Yet ACOA can't fund the CCFI, which by all accounts is a great success story. They have done many things that you've asked them to do. They've sought other funding from the Atlantic provinces. They have funding from academia and industry, as well as $300,000 from DFO. I ask, respectfully, that you to go back to your superiors and ask them to rethink this decision before you actually close the door on it.

[Richard Comerford]

Thank you.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

You're a quality fellow—St. John's spawn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks for coming to help us to deal with this issue.

I'll start by asking you about the relationship between CCFI and DFO. What role did they play over these 20 years?

[Richard Comerford]

CCFI would have a relationship with DFO that does not involve financing. For the most part, the financing for CCFI came from ACOA. CCFI would have worked with DFO on specific projects. It may be that there is expertise at DFO that could be brought to bear on a project, as good as the expertise identified by CCFI. So there would be a degree of mutual collaboration. Some of the projects CCFI would have been involved in might have had sources of funding from DFO programs. They had a general working relationship. Newfoundland is a fairly small place. People who are involved in a particular area of interest would all know one another and collaborate with one another. So the relationship with DFO would be quite cordial and for the most part financially separated. They both might contribute to projects, but that would be the extent of it.