Fisheries Committee on June 18th, 2009

[Rick Doucet]

He's going to work it in--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Very briefly, please. We're under some time restraints here.

[Rick Doucet]

I'll just very quickly answer. This is a problem for all of us. We've come out of the box and said, “Look, we've got to work together here, we've got to look for the long term.” By having provinces work against each other it's definitely not going to work, so we have to look at the long term.

If we're talking about a size increase for the lobster, we have to take what the market is demanding. What is it that the market demands? Fundamentally, if it had been five years ago that we were floating this around, no one would have looked at it. I truly feel now, with this recession, with what's happening in the marketplace, with what the fishermen are going through, there is a strong willingness to look at it, and look at it strongly.

Maybe the minister for Newfoundland would like to comment.

[Tom Hedderson]

When we went to Moncton a couple of weeks ago, we as a jurisdiction put forth that there have been any number of work studies done on how we can make the lobster industry sustainable. This is where we would have liked to see some of the funding go. With respect to funding, there is an opportunity for any jurisdiction to come forward with a plan. It's not only about income support or marketing. It's also about sustainability and rationalization. In our jurisdiction, there have been a lot of efforts on behalf of fishers to do as the honourable member just said. Our jurisdiction would be open to putting forth a plan to government that would ensure sustainability.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Minister LeClair.

[Neil LeClair]

That's where we're coming from, too. There has to be sustainability. Whatever way we look at it, we have to talk with industry as well. There could be more money put in at the DFO level to get more science on lobster. I've talked to a number of fishermen and people in the industry since I've been minister, and the science we have on what goes on with the lobster at the bottom of the ocean is not enough. We have to push that forward. We will definitely be talking with industry, and we will do whatever is necessary to sustain the industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Does Nova Scotia have a position on this?

[Greg Roach]

Nova Scotia has been involved in cage-increase programs for the last 15 years or longer. There are active programs under way in Nova Scotia. We have many different sizes, depending on the area. Virtually all of them have moved their carapace size up, and there are some active programs under way today. It's a good biological, marketing, and economic approach. They're under way in Nova Scotia, and we continue to work with harvesters to move in that direction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you.

Welcome to all the gentlemen here today. I appreciate your contribution to the event last night. It was a good one. To coin a phrase that's being used in the chamber these days, I want to welcome my fisheries minister from New Brunswick. Rick Doucet, I'm glad you're here.

I want to focus on three major areas: working together as governments, industry involvement, and rationalization. With respect to the first area, Rick talked about changing from processing for inventory to processing for markets. Given the $75 million that is now out there, can you talk about some of the key initiatives that will allow your province to transform the industry from processing for inventory? What do we need to do to get the industry involved so that we can move ahead together? I'm particularly interested in the latent licensing you talked about for Quebec and Newfoundland. Do we have the same type of latent licensing in P.E.I. and New Brunswick? How many of them are out there? How long have they been latent licensed? What's going to happen with those?

[Rick Doucet]

There are some loaded questions there. As far as licences, all of our licences in the province of New Brunswick are active. They're working. You were talking about the $75 million, Mike—I hope you don't mind if I call you Mike. Basically we've gone in three or four weeks from zero to $75 million. Personally, I think that's a very good start. It points us in the right direction. This activity that's been happening, and I discussed it with the previous minister of fisheries along with the current minister of fisheries, talking about the ocean-to-plate concept, bodes extremely well for the direction we're trying to take the industry in, where we have to be.

We have to be innovative. We have to be preparing product that meets the marketplace and get away from processing the whole inventory. We have to process to get it into the marketplace. There are many companies that we deal with in the States, the Dardens and the Outbacks, with the frozen tail products and the frozen lobster products. A lot of the companies do not have the financing to hold inventory. Neither do our processors. These are things that we're looking at. What is it that we can do to change some of the regulatory environment so that we're processing more in tune with the marketplace?

We have to go through some transformational change in all of our provinces to meet what the marketplace needs. I really feel we're going in the right direction in our own province, especially with the innovations that are in the fisheries renewal framework, where we're pointing the industry and the priorities we take on market and how we need to move and prepare ourselves for the marketplace.

[Neil LeClair]

With regard to processing for the market, we took on a program here with short-term storage this spring. Our government found some storage on P.E.I., and we bought the excess lobster that couldn't be processed at a certain point, as it came in because of high landings, and we held it back for a while. This was kind of a pilot project, but it worked. We held the lobster to a point where the processor could then take that lobster, bring it back to his plant, process it for the market that existed, and then sell it in the marketplace. That's something we're looking at, and we're doing tests with the AVC to see how lobster are held in those pounds and things like that, and how they can hold. That's something we're looking at probably for the long term, if that's the way the industry has to go.

The problem we have now is that we get too much product coming in a short period of time. If you can hold it for even up to three or four weeks in a holding facility on land, or whatever the case may be, and then get it back to the processor, instead of freezing it and putting it into a lower-value pack, he can put it into a product that the market is looking for. We've already touched on that this spring here. It worked relatively well, and we're looking at that for the long term too.

[Tom Hedderson]

I have just a couple of things. One, you'll realize that in Newfoundland and Labrador we send out live lobsters, so processing is not—although for markets, we're close to Europe and we have toyed with flying them across, but tariffs and that are very restrictive. We're hoping in negotiations that those tariffs will go and allow us to look at diversifying the market.

We're looking at the rationalization as key to moving forward, with the funding that's come available. Of course, again I reiterate 5% of the value, 30% of the licences, of which probably 30% are latent. I'm not interested in rationalizing those in the sense of buying them out. I think we should be looking at those that are active and going in and trying to—and you know the challenges we have with the lobster, that the value of the lobster licence is not the same as others. With those latent ones, my view on that is that if you don't use them, you lose them. The thing is that you can't take out the actives without doing something with the inactives, because then they'll just resurface. Then you have the same problem all over again.

So in working with our federal counterparts, we could find a way in order to ensure that the rationalization we're doing is pointing towards viability of the industry.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

You have three minutes.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay. I have a couple of quick questions left.

Neil, I'm glad you brought up the new entrants thing again. I guess I'm just concerned as we're starting to rationalize and trying to get the number of traps out of the water, and I agree, if we're going to have fishing in the future, we're going to have to bring in new entrants. A lot of our industries are facing the 55-year-old crunch right now. So how do you make that program complementary with rationalizing getting the new entrants in? You don't want to pancake a whole bunch of these new people in as you're trying to take traps out of the water.

That's my first concern. How do you do that effectively so you don't end up increasing the fishing effort?

I guess my last question is for Rick. In the slides where it talks about New Brunswick, where it talks about not wanting any changes to the EI, that might be because of processing, Rick. Perhaps you could just clarify that, because you were in a consensus across the board with Mr. Byrne's question on the EI changes. But that's a little different, I guess, on the New Brunswick slide, where it says “It is important that this not be aggravated by flexibility in EI rules.” So if you could just clarify that for me as well, that would be great.

[Tom Hedderson]

I don't think he asked me.

[Neil LeClair]

No, he asked me.

Well, the problem is that where we need rationalization is in areas where there's not enough lobster to sustain the effort in the fishery. If those gears go out, their licence is destroyed, and it'll have to close down LFAs. You're not going to take 20 fishing fleets or gears out of a certain LFA and then open it up so some other port can bring in more gear. It's going to have to be worked out around the island, where you don't allow gears to be transferred into LFAs that were hurting already, because you're wasting your time. So once those gears come out of the water, the licence is destroyed, they no longer exist, and it'll leave fewer gears in that certain LFA.

If a young fellow wants to get into the fishery, that's a viable gear he can buy, then, if he wants, with the ones that are left. That's fine. That's not an issue. He can take it from an older fisherman. It makes it worthwhile for that young fellow to want to get in, because there's less stress on the fishery there. He should catch more product and be able to pay for his gear and his licence.

It's not that the concept looks like we're trying to put new fellows into a fishery that can't exist anyway. That's not the point. We want to get so many gears out of the water. If a young fellow wants to come in and he's looking to buy a gear, he's not going to buy one of those that are not viable. It's impossible to do, so he's not going to buy it. He's not going to be looking for that.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

[Inaudible--Editor]...strategy.

[Neil LeClair]

Exactly, and until they get a point--

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Minister Doucet.

[Rick Doucet]

Mike, in answer to your question, we want to see some flexibility with EI, to make some EI changes as part of the pilot project, and that's why there's consensus.

But we have some particular instances where fish plants have a hard time getting workers and we want to make sure that does not discourage that process. Some of our plants run from May until December, so we want to make sure our plants have the ability to reach out to get workers, because of our manpower shortages in a lot of cases.

The pilot project is for the boats, but at the same time we want to be cognizant that we want to be able to get workers into our plants.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Gallant.

[Richard Gallant]

Yes. I just have a follow-up comment on the minister's comments. The other component of our future fisher program will be to work with the young fishers--and they don't necessarily have to buy a gear today to be eligible, but they may be buying it in the future--in education and training around some of the key things that we think they need to know to be successful in this industry, like understanding the marketplace. For too many fishermen now their market is the buyer at the end of the dock, and they don't understand the value chain.

Financing.... This is a tough business. They have to learn that they're just not buying into success. They have to be sharp on the financing, the science, the details around success and some of the work there, and the management that goes on in the fishery. We think if we work with them, they could be better prepared for success.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

Ministers and those in the delegation, on behalf of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, I want to thank you for taking the time to come today to meet with us and provide us with your presentation. I also want to bring to your attention that I had the honour earlier today to present in the House of Commons the standing committee's report on the lobster fishery. I would like to make sure that each of you have a copy of that to take back with you to your respective provinces. The clerk will provide those copies to you.

Once again, thank you very much for coming today and taking the time to bring the situation in the lobster fishery to the attention of the committee, and to Ottawa, as Minister Doucet said earlier.

Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.