Fisheries Committee on May 25th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Merci.

Mr. Andrews.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll probably go in reverse order here and see how much time I can get in.

With regard to plant workers, have there been any discussions with the provincial or the federal governments about an early retirement package for plant workers, and is it applicable to your situation here?

[Mireille Langlois]

We asked for that, but it was refused.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Why?

[Mireille Langlois]

There is no plan for people aged 64 and 65, or even 62. There is no program whereby these individuals could retire.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Would removing some of the older plant workers from your plant alleviate that problem so that people could get their 420 hours?

[Mireille Langlois]

I am sure it would, but there would still be another problem. It would be very difficult to recruit replacements for the people who had left.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay.

Lorenzo, you mentioned transfer quotas to other boats. Could you just explain that a little bit more? Are there some DFO regulations that are restricting that? Would you like to see the ability to transfer quotas? Do you use the buddy-up system and the combining system with enterprises here in the Gaspé?

[Lorenzo Méthot]

In past years, we were not allowed to make transfers. This year, DFO authorized full transfers of boat quotas, so the boats stayed tied up at the dock. There are three in Paspébiac and one in Gascons, I believe. Those boats will probably never return to the fishery. Also, those quotas were transferred to other boats, and there were licence transfers as well, albeit not many. There was one in New Brunswick—in other words, two licences for the same boat. Since then, the crew has been dwindling and, over time, there will be no one left to replace them. That is the point we are at now.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Are there any DFO regulations you'd like to see changed to make the enterprises more financially stable?

[Lorenzo Méthot]

It is quite complicated. The problem is always the resource. The resource is no longer there, and everyone has done their share to get rid of it a little faster. DFO did not help matters; it did not make the right decisions. It did not stick with the decisions it had made. The fishing industry put in a great deal of money to help DFO, but the biologists made recommendations that the Minister did not see fit to consider. This year, he decided to do the exact opposite, by announcing major cuts. As far as we are concerned, the price of crab is important, but the important thing for dock hands is that there be crab. If there is, there will be work. It is really quite simple: there will be plants operating, but there has to be crab.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Do you see a decline in crabs, as scientists have suggested?

[Lorenzo Méthot]

I absolutely agree with them that there is less crab. However, there was less last year as well, and the same quotas remained in place. The Minister did not want to make a decision. I do not know what happened, but the Minister opted for the status quo. There had already been a decline last year and in previous years. The crab that was not fished then would be available now. There would be more crab, which would have resulted in new crab stocks being developed, but now it is gone. We do not know how much of it is gone, because it is not like trees that you can easily count; the crab is in the water. And the studies on where the crab is going are not very extensive. We saw this; we were harvesting the resource from our boats. There is clearly less crab. Everyone is aware of that, but it is impossible to say how much is left.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

What about the cod moratorium? Is that justified as well?

[Lorenzo Méthot]

Well, the problem is the cod moratorium. They waited too long. Once fish stocks have declined, it is easy to blame people, but the cod fishery completely disappeared. We do not know exactly what the problem was, but it is a consequence of the large ships that fished off the coast of Newfoundland. The draggers changed the fishery. The draggers were very effective 50 years ago. Then the cod nets scooped up all the large egg-bearing females. Everybody emptied their [Inaudible--Editor].

Now we are fishing crab, where we had some expertise, but everyone has let it go. We are facing the same problem as before. People do not learn from their mistakes; man will be the author of his own destruction, just as people have been saying forever. It is too bad.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Cloutier, welcome.

If you'd like to make any opening comments at this point in time—the others have all made opening comments—we try to keep our comments to around four minutes. You'll hear a beeper go off up here when you reach the four-minute mark. If you go over that, I'd appreciate it if you could bring your comments to a conclusion around that point in time.

Please proceed, Mr. Cloutier.

[O'neil Cloutier, Director, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie]

My name is O'neil Cloutier, and I am the Executive Director of the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie. Today I am representing some 200 multi-species inshore fishers holding primarily lobster licences, and for whom 30% to 40% of their income has been derived in the past from the cod fishery.

Before I begin, it is important to know why you are here today. I understand that you wanted to hear from all the stakeholders in the fishing industry with respect to problems in the crab fishery. However, I am wondering what has prompted you to leave Ottawa and come here in a hurry, hold meetings and hear our representations regarding the crab fishery. I would really like to know what you do not know. I am very surprised to see you arriving here in the region by bus and by plane, to meet to us and talk about this problem. I would like you to explain your reasons, because I did not find them in the agenda or in the notice of meeting. I found nothing about that. What can we tell you that you do not already know? That is what we want to know. Do you have special reasons? Do you want to close the crab fishery? Do you want to disrupt the crab fishery or transform it? What do you want to do, and what do you want to know?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Cloutier.

Mr. Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am going to try to answer O'neil's question. We, the members of this Committee—myself or the others—will not necessarily be learning something new. We did not come here with that in mind. As a general rule, the Committee holds its hearings in Ottawa, which means that we do not have an opportunity to meet with people on the ground and visit them. That is one of the reasons.

What will that change? Well, I would like to be able to say that, with the report and recommendations that Committee members will be tabling, a solution can perhaps be found for the problems you are currently facing. But I am not one to be taken in. You know that, and you are living through this. This is not the first time we have examined different issues. We did so for the lobster fishery, for the seal hunt and for small craft harbours. I do not know what other Committee members think, but it seems to me that, without the work of this Committee, it would not have been possible to move forward, if only slightly, as regards the seal hunt and small craft harbours. I do think we have made some progress, even though I do not believe it is enough.

Now, what will come of all this? Well, I think we can exert additional pressure. I think it is important to meet with you on your home turf, rather than waiting for you to come to Ottawa and running the risk of hearing from only a few people. That is why we are here.

Mr. Hunt, let us talk about your experience. You had a feeling this decision was coming, since everyone was saying that 40% to 50% would be laid off. You were somewhat apprehensive, but you thought that, if that did happen, you would be taken care of. But the announcement came suddenly, and you did not feel the Department was there for you.

[Ronald Hunt]

What we did was get together. We had a meeting with people from Paspébiac to Sainte-Thérèse. There were more than 150 of us in the room, and we had no idea what was going to happen to us. We knew we would not be receiving employment insurance this year. However, we did want to know what the process was to qualify for it, before going out to sea and working for four weeks to fill the fish plants and supply the global fish market. Personally, I ended up with nothing. That was all we were interested in. We wanted to ensure there would be someone behind us giving us some support.

Personally, I did not have time to find another job. My work was seasonal. Like all the others, I waited for the fishery to open in April. When the quota cut was announced, we were not expecting to work much. At that point, I wondered whether I should leave my boat and the crew and go away immediately, or whether I should try to work in my region and qualify for employment insurance.

Today we are being told we will receive training at the École des pêches. Training is not something new for me. Since I lost my job at the Gaspésia plant ten years ago, I have spent five years in school. I am not afraid to either go to school or work. That is what we need: a little help.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

And the help you have received so far was from the Quebec provincial government.

[Ronald Hunt]

The first contacts I had were with provincial government officials. I do not know who is looking after us, but I know a meeting is scheduled for today. This afternoon, the captains will be meeting with some people, and I believe they are from the local employment centre. The Quebec government will probably be providing the training.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mireille, I assume the atmosphere in the plant was not great.

[Mireille Langlois]

No, because people are wondering whether they will have work for four weeks. Those four weeks are mandatory to qualify for Quebec government programs. This week was the fourth week for people. Last week, some people were saying they had worked six hours in the plant, which is not very reassuring, since we all know that, in order to receive government assistance, you must have worked four 40-hour weeks in the plant. If you only worked six hours last week, that means you are a week behind.

Of course, the fisheries are diversified, with the addition of lobster and whelk. However, there is no guarantee that everyone will be processing the lobster and whelk. At Unipêche M.D.M. in Paspébiac, people were transferred from Port-Daniel—Gascons to Grande-Rivière, while others remained in Paspébiac. On the other hand, we never really know how many weeks we will be working. To qualify for Employment Insurance, you have to have worked 620 hours, which is not easy to do when you do not even have 420 guaranteed work hours.

So, a lot of people were worried. This year alone, 12 landing jobs were lost in Port-Daniel—Gascons because of boat mergers; some boats have decided to deal with other plants.