Evidence of meeting #42 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 amendments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Mr. Etchegary, I hate to have to cut you off, but we are up against some pretty tight time constraints here.
5:10 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
If I might just give one quick answer to Gerry, for two seconds....
5:10 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
Gerry, the answer is they will continue to do what they've been doing historically, to export their problems onto the backs of Canadian citizens, pure and simple.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, gentlemen.
I would like to begin by thanking you for your wonderful frankness and, at the same time, for your committed statements, which seem to come from this commitment over the years.
I will be directing my questions more to Mr. Jim Winter, for several reasons. We had the opportunity to meet concerning the seal hunt file.
I fully understand your commitment on this matter. We have already had the opportunity to talk a little bit about it. I however wish to understand better. How is it that you are so passionate, so interested in the NAFO file?
Unfortunately, in the Maritimes, outside of statements made by you, by Danny Williams, by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, by Mr. Applebaum and others, there is no such passion. This passion cannot be found elsewhere, in Nova Scotia, in New Brunswick or even in Quebec.
I would like to have a better understanding. How is it that you are so interested in this matter and that you defend with such vigour the fact that what has been negotiated to date must absolutely not be ratified?
5:10 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
It is because I am a fellow who grew up in a village where I saw my friends' survival depend on the lifestyle that existed there and that was dependent on the fishery. When I was young, we joined Canada. That is when all sorts of new possibilities and new opportunities where presented to us. These were possibilities linked to education, to going to work on the mainland rather than on the island.
However, our culture and our villages remain deeply nestled in our hearts, even though many of us got an education and left these villages. That is the very raison d'être of Newfoundland. That has always been, and will also continue to be. We are not alone. The same thing goes for the North Shore, from the Maggies to Blanc-Sablon, to the coast of New Brunswick and of Nova Scotia.
It is difficult for us to understand these Canadians from elsewhere. When we talk to these Canadians who have never seen villages, we realize that they understand absolutely nothing about fishing. They do not understand when we talk to them about the work involved in the cod fishery, and when we tell them that in the shrimp fishery there is no work, just money. They ask themselves questions and say that there is money to be made in both fisheries. Yes, but there is work in one area. We are able to remain in our villages thanks to this work.
That is why I am so passionate. That is why I reject what is contained in these amendments that are presently before Parliament and that are somewhat opening the door to foreigners. My experience tells me that if you give the Europeans an inch, they will take a mile. That is why I hold these opinions, sir.
5:15 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
In passing, I would like to make a small comment: I have the impression that if you were in Quebec, you would quite easily be a sovereignist.
5:15 p.m.
Voices
Ah, ah, ah!
5:15 p.m.
Bloc
5:15 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
I'd like to be specific. You asked why there is not passion or strong feelings in some other provinces. As I said in the beginning, the centrepiece of all this is the groundfisheries. If you looked at the Nova Scotian records of export value before and after the collapse of the fisheries on the Grand Banks, for example, or the groundfisheries, you would see very little difference, largely because it's a different fishery. The concentration of fisheries in Nova Scotia, for example, is in the very valuable crustaceans, shell fisheries, and that's quite different. In our case, we have lost, as I said earlier, 80,000 people; 15% of our people have gone as a result of this collapse, so that brings a lot of passion.
The other thing is this. While you don't have the passion, let's say, out of New Brunswick or P.E.I., and I don't know about the Gaspé now, but at one time when we were there it was very strong, the fact is that the.... It's a matter of the loss of this huge fishery and the displacement of all those people, but more than all of that, there's a 19-year moratorium. Just remember. I ask you just to understand the importance of that. It's been 19 years and nothing has happened, and it's largely because there is no plan, there has never been a plan, in Ottawa to rebuild the fisheries. I can assure you our group and others have spent time, I can't tell you how much, trying to persuade the Government of Canada to rededicate itself and recommit itself to rebuilding the resource. Instead, what do we find? I can tell you that 19 years ago, when the moratorium was declared, custodial management was very important to us. About that time, Canada assumed or was given jurisdiction over the continental shelf, the sedentary species. There were arguments at the time about whether or not the flounder was a bottom species that could be included with the clams and the other shellfish.
Nineteen years is a big disconnect. Yet there is the potential on the fishing grounds of the Grand Banks and the Scotian Shelf and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and other places, in Labrador. Unless there is a major plan to rebuild, increasing efforts will be made in isolated areas, which will take away from the opportunity of rebuilding.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Mr. Etchegary, I hate to have to cut you off again. We are approaching time limits here and bells will be starting soon.
Mr. Stoffer.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Very quickly, sir, and then I'll pass my time to Mr. Harris from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Jim, you talked about this earlier--and thank you both, by the way, for coming today. Mr. Weston was talking about this when he was speaking to Mr. Wiseman previously. We're not talking about inviting another country to come into our waters; we're talking about inviting a foreign management authority, which is NAFO, to take over management governance within our waters, which would create a legal obligation for Canada to follow foreign rules inside the 200-mile limit. Am I correct?
5:20 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
That is exactly correct, and there's a huge distinction between the two.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Peter, and my thanks to you both for coming today.
I want to commend you both for your sustained advocacy. I would call it an extremely knowledgeable advocacy and well-placed passion. I know Mr. Blais has acknowledged that, but I guess it helped him understand.
From the time I was a boy, in the fifties, foreign overfishing was a threat to our fisheries. When there was a three-mile territorial limit, the ships were inside the three miles. When it moved to 12 miles, the foreign ships were inside the 12 miles. And when it moved to 200 miles, the ships moved inside the 200-mile limit, with impunity. So it is a matter of survival for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Despite the 20-year moratorium, people still see it as part of our obligation to help rebuild this fishery.
Mr. Etchegary, I recall the two of us being witnesses before the fisheries committee in St. John's at the Delta Hotel some years ago, when the issue was custodial management. You and I and many others gave evidence. The result of that committee's study was a unanimous report calling on the Government of Canada to pursue custodial management. Mr. Loyola Hearn was the member for St. John's West at the time and he later became fisheries minister. We all had some hope and expectation that the new government would seek to deliver on its promise of custodial management.
I'd like your reaction to the suggestion, which appears to have been adopted by the government, that these new amendments achieve custodial management. Have you heard that used, and what is your reaction?
5:20 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
It's been used, and it is, in a word of more than one syllable, poppycock.
5:20 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
Before the previous fisheries minister was elected, he was briefed many times. As a matter of fact, the man who later became minister came to our association 10 or 15 times and was given full information on our definition of custodial management, going back to 1992. He was positively committed to the concept of custodial management that we had defined. Then he was elected. But I'm positive that this was put forward as a concept for improved management of the Canadian groundfishery.
The first attempt to put that forward was made at the NAFO meeting in Spain. There was objection to it, which we expected. You don't expect those countries to accept it offhand. It's a process that's going to take time, like the evolution of marine law. What happened was that having recorded commitments, both the Prime Minister and the future fisheries minister committed to extending jurisdiction and to custodial management. They found themselves in a position where NAFO was becoming very aggressive, taking aggressive actions through the new NAFO Convention.
The result was that, some way or another, they had to find a way to come up with what could be described as custodial management. One of the commissioners who was at the meeting in Spain two weeks ago said that the former fisheries minister had clouded the issue and misled the public by suggesting that there was custodial management.
5:25 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
The present minister, of course, has said the same thing. Again, I mean it has been—
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you, Mr. Etchegary. We have to move on.
Mr. Kamp, you have the floor.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen, for coming.
Mr. Etchegary, we did have a chance to meet in Newfoundland a few years ago. I imagine that was more memorable for me than for you. So we have met.
I think I understand your position on these amendments to the NAFO Convention. I'm not going to talk too much about that. I think I understand your position, but we don't agree on everything you say.
Let me start with a quote from our fisheries minister in 1978. It sounds like you're making the case that all of our troubles are due to foreign overfishing. I certainly acknowledge that they're a big part of the problem, don't get me wrong on that, but in 1978 one of our most respected fisheries ministers, Romeo LeBlanc, when he was addressing the Fisheries Council of Canada, said this, quite eloquently, I think:
The present groundfish fleet of larger vessels has the capacity to take half again its present catch and provide better incomes—if we increase the fish...and catch rates. If we do it the other way around—increase the fleet first—we are like a man with an exhausted woodlot, who instead of planting more trees...spends all his money on more chain saws.
He went on to say, speaking to the fisheries industry in Newfoundland at the time:
I would like to see you join me in resisting suggestions that fleets should be vastly expanded, that plants be vastly enlarged—in other words, to resist the temptation of exaggerated expectations. I see no faster road to disaster than forgetting the very simple lesson that biology cannot keep up with the technology—that the wealth of the oceans cannot yet match the greed of man.
Those were pretty poignant statements, I think. Isn't there some truth to the fact that in fact the industry of the day ignored the plea of the fisheries minister and did expand their fleets? Instead of rationalizing, they expanded their capacity.
At the time that you were involved, Mr. Etchegary, in FPI, I would imagine your company expanded at the same rate that others did at that time, and that we have some involvement as Canadians in the collapse of the cod fishery as well. Could we have just your comments on that, please?
5:25 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
When the extension of jurisdiction took place in 1978 and the foreign fishers were moved out, the Canadian fleet represented about one-twentieth of the size of the fleet that was moved out from the northern cod, for example. At that time, with the heavy investment across the board by many people in eastern Canada, it was certainly our hope that there was going to be an increase in the resource as a result of the extension of jurisdiction.
We did not want to fish the northern cod after the foreigners were moved outside, for the simple reason that we were looking down the road and at the investments that had been made. We could not maintain viability with the catch rates as they were, so we were looking for an increase. But the same minister whom you are mentioning, Mr. Kamp, provided a subsidy of $23,800 for the Canadian fleet that existed to go to the northern cod and fish it. I can assure you that I and two others who were heavily involved in the fishery went and sat with him for four hours to try to dissuade him from offering this $23,800 subsidy for a trawler from Nova Scotia to go to Hamilton Inlet banks.
That was the beginning. The foreigners had done an enormous job on it already, but this effort certainly did not help; I agree with you on that one. But I can assure you that this is how it came about.
Let me read for you, Mr. Kamp, since you brought this up, from the policy for Canada's commercial fisheries, from 1976. We're talking about the same minister. Here is the piece of work. I have it in a yellowed copy because I've had it for 20 years. I'll read it for you:
The strategies adopted [for fisheries policies] reflect a fundamental redirection in the government's policy for fishery management and development. Although commercial fishing has long been a highly regulated activity in Canada, the object of regulation has, with rare exception, been protection of the renewable resource. In other words, fishing has been regulated in the interest of the fish. In the future it is to be regulated in the interest of the people who depend on the [fishery].
That, sir, was a turning point, I can assure you, in the policy of the federal government. How it came about, why it came about, I'll never know. But I can assure you that from that date, you can measure the change that took place in fisheries management by the Canadian government.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Your Fisheries Community Alliance website says that your goal is this:
To rebuild fish stocks Canada must leave NAFO, extend jurisdiction to the slopes of the Continental Shelf and implement science based rebuilding programs for the benefit of future legitimate participants.
I'm wondering where you get your legal background to say how that would work. We've had experts on international law before us tell us that this kind of approach is not possible under current international law and is not going to work. I'm curious how you can think that is the solution.
5:30 p.m.
Representative, Community Fisheries Alliance, As an Individual
I can only tell you that the commitment by the Government of Canada was made by the minister of fisheries for Canada in October of 1971, by a gentleman named Mr. Jack Davis. I have a copy, incidentally, of his telex with me if you'd like to see it, in which he made a commitment that the Government of Canada would extend jurisdiction to the slopes of the continental shelf. Obviously they reneged, and the same.... Well, I won't go any farther.