Thank you very much.
Good morning, honourable members. We would like to discuss today the 2009–2010 snow crab sharing arrangements for crab fishing areas 24 and 23. My name is Norma Richardson, and I'm president of the Eastern Shore Fishermen's Protective Association. With me is Nellie Baker Stevens, our coordinator and snow crab representative on the snow crab advisory board, along with two other members for CFA 24.
As I said, we represent the Eastern Shore Fishermen's Protective Association, and we're located along the eastern shore of Nova Scotia. Our membership consists of 230 fishermen from Canso and Guysborough County to Halifax Harbour. This area's considered region 3, and we are accredited under provincial legislation with the Fisheries Organizations Support Act. We also have local fish plants and buyers as associate members.
We are here today to speak on behalf of over 300 fishermen, who include us, Halifax West Commercial Fishermen's Association, Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen's Association, and Richmond County Inshore Fishermen's Association. These fishermen come from communities from Sambro, west of Halifax, to Cape Breton. There are over 300 more fishermen affected in Cape Breton, so basically it is 600 fishermen from all of eastern Nova Scotia.
With reference to past negotiations, for years we, the quota holders, and the traditional fleet could not agree on how to share the quota. DFO finally came up with thresholds to determine how to divide the quota. For example, for this year's total allowable catch we, the quota holders, would have had 269 tonnes per core company, or approximately $45,000 per fisherman. The traditional fleet would have had 55 tonnes each, not the 115 tonnes that they got this year. The threshold model gave us equal shares per fleet, 50:50, when the quota was 3,000 tonnes. At anything over that, we got 90%.
At this time we were considered temporary entrants. DFO did not expect the quota to remain at levels to support both the quota holders' fleet and the traditional fleet. As you are aware, because landings and science had proved continuing strength and sustainability of the stock, a permanent arrangement bringing all of the licence holders under one regime was sought through the establishment of an independent panel to adjudicate the settlement. Everything in place today is a result of those recommendations.
One recommendation made by the panel the minister deferred to a later date; that was the recommendation for 50:50 sharing between these two groups. A commitment was made at that time by the minister that when science supported a 9,700-tonne total allowable catch, then the permanent 50:50 sharing would be triggered, removing the last obstacle to becoming fully integrated. The 50:50 sharing arrangement would see the traditional fleet having 50% of the TAC and the quota holders the other 50%. This would bring the traditional fleet to their 2004 levels, or even above that amount, as recommended by the independent panel.
In 2006 DFO made the quota holders permanent, with a licence made up of the amount of individual quota per quota holder needed to meet or exceed the traditional fleet licence. In 2006 that meant 20 quota holders in CFA 24; therefore, we only made up 16 licences, not the 31 licences that the panel showed in their appendix B fishery statistics table for the future.
Today, this is the second year that the fishermen have been denied their rightful share of the snow crab quota. For just one year, 2009, we're talking about at least $6 million that has been handed to the traditional fleet to be divided among 74 traditional licence holders. Those are $80,000 bonuses, in our mind. This was on top of the $228,178 that they were supposed to get, so in 2009 the approximate gross revenue was $310,852 each, with an allocation of 94 tonnes for the traditional licence holder in the singular form. This same amount was divided among 20 individual core fishermen and a snow crab company, meaning $15,543 gross each, which is 4.7 tonnes.
The DFO management plan states on page 42, table 4, that the quota holders' core companies would each get 6.234 tonnes when the quota reached 9,700 tonnes. With the change that the minister made to the sharing arrangements, we now have less of the quota--30% versus 32%. This clearly was not the intent of the panel.
The independent panel had recognized the discrepancy between the two fleets and acknowledged that 40 to 60 tonnes is indeed viable and sustainable. That would mean $140,000 to $200,000 for one licence holder.
We are here today to try to figure out what happened. We clearly see lack of consultation and communication on the part of DFO.
This was not an agenda item at our snow crab advisory meeting, but after that meeting everything went backwards for the 600 fishermen and their communities that were affected. We have asked repeatedly to meet with the Minister of Fisheries, to no avail. Like a thief in the night, Minister Shea stole millions from the pockets of small inshore fishermen and their communities in eastern Nova Scotia. She announced on Friday, June 12, 2009, at 4:33 p.m. the change to the sharing arrangement, with the fisheries set to begin the next Monday morning. Does this sound like someone who is interested in consultation? There was no consultation with the quota holders before this announcement. We were not aware that DFO had even considered discounting the independent panel's recommendation. After all, we had many DFO correspondents just stating the opposite.
We have seen very low and unstable lobster prices due to the economic downturn in the last two years. Our lobster fishermen could have used the extra money from the snow crab to get by, but it was unfairly taken from them. The minister with this decision and others has hurt small inshore fishermen and their communities in many ways, not just in the snow crab fishery. If we have more time later we would like to identify some of these, such as scallop and so on. Just last year most of our fishermen were not eligible for the package on lobster that was announced, since the minister would not take advice from industry on the criteria.
We recommend that the minister consult directly with the quota holders to mitigate any further injustice due to her unfair and arbitrary decision made in 2009 negatively affecting over 600 inshore fishermen of eastern Nova Scotia. We would like to see you, the standing committee, speak directly with Minister Shea and DFO personnel who give her advice. We cannot understand her rationale for such a decision. In the past number of years we had a very good working relationship with DFO, but in the past two years communication and consultation have been lacking. They seem to have reverted to telling us what they will do, not asking for input and taking all views into consideration.
Again we ask, what happened?
Thank you for your time.