Fisheries Committee on May 28th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

My thanks to you, Minister, and to Mr. McKay.

Could you describe for the committee the economic impact of the recent quota reductions on the crab stock in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence?

[Rick Doucet]

It's significant. I mentioned $170 million. Whenever you throw a rock in the water, you think of the first splash, the multiple splashes, and the waves that come out from it. The first splash is the community, what's being impacted in the community, and there's your $170 million. Then you go to the next. What is it doing to the outer community? What is it doing to the spin-offs? What is it doing to the markets?

You talk about impact. Impact is the number of employees for the plants, the plants to stabilize the industry. How many people are we going to need to come in to work tomorrow or the next day? What are they going to need? What type of threshold are they going to need for employees?

Just think of the packaging aspects. This goes beyond the local economy—it goes to places like Moncton that handle the packaging. How much packaging are they going to need? How much packaging do they have sitting in their own warehouses?

There are orders to fill. We talk about destabilization of the marketplace. You lose space from your grocer, you lose an in-counter, you lose refrigeration space, you lose a space that's being taken up in the freezer counters. I'll use the example of snow crab in the Japanese market. They're going to fill that gap with something else. If there's not a supply they can count on, they're going to find another supplier.

The impact is long lasting. It's not just today; it's tomorrow and all the tomorrows afterwards. How are we going to fill that gap? The impact is significant, and I just can't help but go back to the underlying parts of this. Do we want to fix it with a band-aid or do we want to do it properly? It's long term. Let's go to the root of the problem. The root of the problem is stability and access to allocations. The markets will react to instability, and we need to make sure that this void is filled at all times.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

You have clear and unequivocal positions on the fiduciary responsibility of the federal minister. We all recognize that the provincial governments do not have any specified right to manage the resource itself. However, for quite some time, co-management has been a key tenet to proper fisheries management. Can you describe to the committee the role that the Province of New Brunswick, your department in particular, has had during the last several years in the management of this stock? Would you categorize it as being interactive, positive, or negative?

[Rick Doucet]

Does that answer your question?

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Okay. The minister is not replying.

[Rick Doucet]

No, I'll reply. I just wanted to leave a little void there.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Absolutely. Understood.

[Rick Doucet]

Do you know something? There has been no activity, collaboration-wise, and I think over the years we've had the ministers' round table. We've been working with all the industry stakeholders, the harvesters, the processors, the market, government, and we've had DFO at the table to be a partner. And here we are, we're back to square one.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

You're describing for me that you had serious consequences from these decisions to the economy of your province, to the well-being of your fishing communities. Who's going to clean up the mess?

[Rick Doucet]

When those decisions are made, it's us. It's the province that is stuck with the decisions, the impact of the decisions, and frankly, that has got to end. We're responsible from the wharf in. We're responsible for monitoring the seafood processing, for making sure that our plants are working within the parameters of health, for making sure they're working within the parameters of CFIA. We also have to manage the process to the market, and we're extensively working on the marketing side. So whenever decisions are made that negatively impact the resource, we're basically the ones left holding the bag. Frankly, I'm sick of it. For the past four years...this just brings it out again, to the height of it.

Yes, we're responsible, basically, from the wharf in, but when there are decisions that are made that negatively impact...then we look to the federal government to be supportive.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Describe for me the dialogue, the conversation, that has occurred with the federal government in terms of providing the specific short meeting and/or long-term assistance to the industry between yourselves, the Province of New Brunswick, and the Government of Canada.

We heard directly from the Assistant Deputy Minister, Mr. David Bevan, this morning that there is no contemplation of a federal assistance program whatsoever. In fact, what we heard is that there are fellows in this industry who make $800,000 in the good years. They're only making $200,000 this year, in the leaner years. So why would we assist where it rounds itself out?

[Rick Doucet]

I'm glad you pointed that out, because there is a lack of consultation with the total industry.

You just pointed to a fact. DFO made a comment about fishermen. Did he say anything about a promise? Did he say anything about the impact on the plant workers? Did he say anything about the impact on the deck hands? Did he say anything about the impact to the market? No, because DFO's responsibility lies with the ocean on. There's no connect. There's no consultation that takes place.

Basically what's happening is we're just creating silos. The silos have to work together. We have to have the harvesters, the processors, and the market all working together so we have a better integration, a better vertical integration from the sea to the plate. Without those pieces of the puzzle in place, we're stuck with the systemic issue of what you just brought up. All they can talk about is the fishermen. Well, guess what? There's a heck of a lot more people than just the fishermen who are involved in this industry.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Can you describe some of those people? What would be the numbers in New Brunswick in terms of plant workers and those indirectly impacted by this?

[Rick Doucet]

You're looking at about 1,900 plant workers.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

How many plants?

[Rick Doucet]

The number of crab plants.... About three or four of the plants are operating, and what's happening is you've cut their season. So the rug has been completely pulled out from underneath the plant workers.

Look, we all get it. We all get it. We understand the biomass has gone down, but I just can't help but think, had we started three years ago making some adjustments in the harvest, in synchronization with that biomass, instead of holding on, today we could have had a situation where, yes, it would have been very difficult; it would have been tight, yet the industry could have been viable. There could have been some viability, some stronger viability than what's presently taking place.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Allow me to ask a pointed question then.

We've seen evidence that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans science branch has indeed provided some warning signals. Has the department in New Brunswick, in the past, and in particular in the past two to three years, provided advice that the status quo should be maintained in terms of quotas, or have you advised the department, where you could, that caution or the precautionary principle should be applied? How would you reply to that?

[Rick Doucet]

We've always maintained cautionary advice, because we're interested in the long-term viability of the industry. For years, snow crab has been cyclical; it's cyclical in nature. When the biomass goes down, we've got to ease back pressure on the resource, and we understand that, but it shouldn't just be ripped out.

Frankly, the industry was bracing itself for about a 40% decline, and that's what we were expecting. From conversations that I'd had with the federal minister months before that point in time, I was expecting a degree of drop in the quota, but nowhere near what it was. And on the consultation side of it, I found out on the day, at the same time industry find out.

Is that working in synchronization with your provincial government? Is that working in synchronization with the industry? No, it's not.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Let's get to that, the 63% versus what some in the industry anticipated as 40%. Are you surprised at that? I know the provincial department of fisheries has some scientific analysis capacity within it, but it's not the primary source of scientific advice; it's the federal government that is. Could you just sort of relate to us your impressions about a 63% cut in one season?

[Rick Doucet]

Look, I'll tell you something. Had I known the 63% was coming, I think we would probably have been bracing the industry. We didn't know the 63% was coming. We were anticipating 40%. We were averaging in the area of about 40%.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Monsieur Blais.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon, Minister.

[Rick Doucet]

One moment, please.