Fisheries Committee on May 28th, 2010

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

That's fine.

Okay.

I will try it in English.

[Rick Doucet]

Excuse me. I was trying to drink a little bit of water. I was over at Grand Manan this morning and I had some fresh Grand Manan dulse. It was a little salty.

Just a second. I've got to turn this creature on. It's just like a remote control.

Okay.

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

Thank you very much.

What you've said so far about responsibility is music to my ears. For some time now, I've been saying that, from the moment we accept a responsibility, such as responsibility for the resource, regardless of the resource, there comes a time when we also have to accept responsibility for the impact of our decisions.

As you know, and as we know as well, the effects are numerous. If we had to analyze them, we would probably see that there are horror stories that have an impact on health and social services. In Quebec, people were talking about the uncertainty over the crab fishery. It's true that there is an economic impact, but there is also a mental and psychological impact. That's not apparent. Unfortunately, job losses are apparent and hit hard, whereas the difficulties people may experience in mental health or other terms are less apparent. However, they ultimately catch up with us.

Apart from the economic impact, have you and your colleagues observed whether there has been any impact on health and social services?

[Rick Doucet]

Thank you to the member for the question.

You know, at this point in time we have our department, we're on the ground, we have the post-secondary education and the mobility program on the ground, so at this point in time, no. We're concerned about the socio-economic aspect of it presently. As far as seeing impacts, like some of the impacts we talked about, we haven't seen those on the ground as of yet. That could be something we could see later, because what happens is there are other fisheries that will be kicking in. We have the lobster industry, we have the herring, so there are going to be other processing factors that will be taking place.

I hope I'm answering the question a little bit, but on the socio-economic impact, yes. We're going to be seeing that because it's the number of weeks that people are looking to gain access to, to be able to get their unemployment insurance, to be able to survive. So if those people do not get their weeks, we'll probably see some of the social programs that may have to kick in there. But at this point in time, it's too early to tell. We're basically finishing up a season, but there are other seasons that have been kicking in.

At the same time, we've been doing our work with respect to some of the mobility programs, where we can actually move plant workers from one end of the province to the other. I'll just use a good example: southwest New Brunswick. If we had space to house the people, we could move the people to southwest New Brunswick in the salmon industry. We could move them into the sardine plant, because they're always looking for people; they're always looking for foreign workers or for workers to fill the gaps. Those are some of the challenges as we move forward. How can we move these people, to mobilize them to where there is work? We're going to continue down that road.

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

With regard to the discussions you've had with the minister or federal government people, have you been able to see any possibility for cooperation on costs? Every time we put the question directly to the minister, we're told that talks are underway. Everyone knows you can talk and hear nothing, just as you can talk and say nothing or do nothing.

I'd like you to tell us what kind of talks are in fact underway.

[Rick Doucet]

Thank you for that question.

It's kind of interesting because we can go back a couple of months. At the time, at the Boston Seafood Show, where I did have the opportunity to have some discussion with the minister and the regional minister for New Brunswick, who is the Honourable Keith Ashfield, one of the things.... Look, I'll tell you something. I take people at face value, to be perfectly honest with you. I'll work with anyone, but I take people at face value. One of the comments that was passed to me was, “We're concerned about the reduction in quota”, and we were all anticipating 40%. But the point is, the minister did express to me that her department was conducting an analysis of the impact that the quota drop was going to have on our industries. I said, “That's good, I understand that. I'm glad, because we have to work together. We have to come up with some solutions so that we can help mitigate the impact on the industry for the short term and look forward to the long term.”

But yes, there was that discussion that took place back in...when was the Boston Seafood Show? It was in March, so there was plenty of time in advance. Taking that at face value, as I said, I understood that collaboration was taking place and that we were going to be included in the loop. There was going to be some discussion on that.

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

With regard to responsibility, we'll eventually have to make some recommendations. I have a lot of them in mind. There are a number of recommendations that we will eventually discuss. I read and heard that you had recommendations to submit to us. In financial terms, there is a cost related to all this.

Do you intend to make a recommendation on that point? You could make one later, once we have the actual figures. However, if we had to make one now, I suppose you would already have some figures in mind. You referred to financial losses of $170 million.

[Rick Doucet]

We've had some discussions on that aspect, but I guess it's “don't close the door on us”. From our meetings in Ottawa, I was hoping we'd at least be able to establish a working group at the senior bureaucratic level at DFO, along with our group, to move forward. How do we move forward? How do we have these discussions?

No olive branch was extended. We extended the olive branch to say we'll work with them. We'll work with them on this.

Post-secondary education was discussed. Who was that discussion with?

[Jim McKay, Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries, Government of New Brunswick]

It was Human Resources Canada.

[Rick Doucet]

Yes, the name has changed, but it was Human Resources Development Canada, with respect to qualifying weeks for employees and whether some adjustments could be made to get these people over the hump during this crisis.

You can't throw this at us and then walk away from it. We all have an obligation here. If you're going to do something that's going to have an impact on communities, you then have a moral obligation to stand behind those decisions and say they're the right decisions, we're going to help the communities get through this, and we're going to work together, instead of downloading them and throwing them on the shoulders of the provinces.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for being here, Mr. Doucet. I appreciate your comments.

You actually touched on most of the questions I wanted to ask.

I should mention that I'm from the west coast. We have an issue with salmon right now, the wild salmon fishery and the fish farms. I have a real interest in going there, but we're here for snow crab. I'll leave it until after this meeting to chat with you.

In terms of consultation, David Bevan from the department mentioned earlier that the provinces were consulted, first nations were consulted, and industry was consulted, in terms of the TAC and the recent announcement. You mentioned that you had discussions with the department, but the outcome wasn't quite what you had anticipated. I think you've answered that question.

We had Mr. Basque, with the Mi’gmaq, earlier today. He said they didn't feel they were consulted at the level they would've liked in terms of consultation.

As I have only five minutes, I'm going to ask my three questions. Again, as I said, you've touched on most of these, but perhaps you could comment a little further.

On marketing and the importance of therefore looking at MSC and certification, how do you see that?

In terms of investment and value-added programs, or essentially any programs that would bump up the price of what you could get per pound from any product, perhaps you could comment on that.

In terms of programs that the feds or the provinces, in conjunction with the federal government, could work on or that you could recommend for times like this when there are decisions that affect workers, what types of programs would you like to see the federal government offer? Any specifics would be helpful.

Finally, could you recommend any long-term access management models or suggestions?

[Rick Doucet]

God, you've given me a buffet.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Unfortunately, you have only three minutes.

[Rick Doucet]

Okay. You kind of skipped on MSC certification. You talked about investment and value-added programs, the federal government in a crisis like this, and access management. So basically there are four things.

Look, I'll tell you something. I'm for certification. We've been working on the market side for ages, and its not great, but since I've come into it, for four years one of the things I've really been clear on is that the markets have changed and the world has changed. The wharf is no longer your marketplace; the world is. We have to be reactionary to what the world changes are and what's happening in the world.

MSC certification is that opportunity that separates us, that shows our fisheries have been certified. It's well managed, it's sustainable, and there are a lot of aspects to it. There are a lot of parameters to go into MSC certification.

Do I feel the models for MSC certification really work? I'd have to question it, because there are so many different models. There are so many certification brands out there. But MSC certification or certification of some kind is coming on very strongly, and every supermarket chain is coming out of the woodwork. There's Loblaws; there's Provigo. They're just lining right up, because they want to make sure whatever fishery products come into their retail operations are from a sustainable resource.

In New Brunswick most of our fisheries are from a sustainable resource. I really would like to see us come out with a made in New Brunswick solution for sustainable products, because I think we position ourselves in the world market to be a world leader, and we're recognized around the world.

If I can segue for just a moment, the lobster trust foundation that we've established is to protect lobsters for generations upon generations to come, and we've been recognized around the world. There's the Darden's restaurant chain that partnered with us on this a few years back, and we finally came to the realization that it's here.

My objective is to have anywhere between $30 million and $40 million in this trust fund, so that when we start doing lobster habitat restoration or lobster enhancement, then we're in the game.

Just quickly on that topic, on the sustainability side with the trust foundation, we're recognized around the world as being a contributor on the sustainable side. Can this model be moved into Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and possibly Newfoundland? I really think it can. I think there's an opportunity here, and just on the lobster side, with that aspect of certification, I think we can move forward with our own plan in Atlantic Canada with this sustainability. We're not only doing the talk; we're actually doing the walk.

Quickly, I'll turn to investments on value-added.

I heard the little beeper going. I don't know if that's a signal that I was supposed to kind of quieten down there. I think at the last committee you said my time ran out, so I'll just....

You talk about investment in value-added. For years we get into this thing of packing and shipping commodities: let's pack and ship, pack and ship. Well, why don't we add the value that's needed right here in Canada, so we provide a product to the marketplace that's suitable for that market? It's not rocket science; it's just a matter of going to the market and finding out what their demands are, what it is they truly need, and let's process it right here.

Just as an example, in the Acadian Peninsula we're used to packing and shipping herring roe—pack and ship, pack and ship. I've got to tell you that the seafood processing plants in New Brunswick are extremely innovative. They've gone to the Japanese and worked with them and asked how they could provide a product for them that's market ready. So they've started that process where they're actually doing the packaging of the herring roe in New Brunswick and getting it to the marketplace, and it is exactly what they're looking for, exactly to their specifications, and a very high standard at the same time.

So yes, value-added is tremendous, because if you're shipping commodities, you're not maximizing your price. Let's find the mechanisms that you can further outweigh and get a better price on yield instead of just getting that commodity out the door.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Do you have another one?

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Just a quick comment on the worker programs, and then maybe if there could be a submission of your comments for management in writing, that would be helpful.

[Rick Doucet]

Access management...we talk about resource management. Right across the line we've been dealing with a capacity issue: too many fishers chasing too few fish. Fleet rationalization, I think, is an area that we really have to get serious about, start talking about. Why are the resources overfished? If we continue down that road of maintaining the pressure we have on the resource, it's not going to last for very long. We have to have some very serious conversations about rationalization and how we move that forward.

In the lobster industry, 10,000 fishermen are on the water in Atlantic Canada. What's the real number to strategically rationalize this industry? Probably 4,500 or 5,000 people. How do we get to that level?

I can submit the information on the programs at another time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

You can send that to the clerk, Mr. Doucet.

[Rick Doucet]

Sure. Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

We'll make sure that members all receive copies.

Mr. Allen.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

Minister, I would just like to start with the report done by Gilles Thériault, from GTA Fisheries Consultants, in November 2007, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Some of the comments you chose to make in your opening statement are a little surprising, given some of the statements that are in the report. There are a couple of things I'd like to read into the record.

In section 3.3.1. it says:

We know that the abundance of snow crab will be declining for the next few years, possibly bottoming out towards 2011. This will require significant adjustments on the part of the fleets. Once again, it may become difficult for the fleets to agree on changes to be implemented. This could once again constitute a source of conflict.

Further on, it talks about “Absolute uncertainty from one season to the next”. It reads:

Uncertainty regarding the quantities of crab that a processing plant will receive each season and each year means that workers never know what to expect from one year to the next. It is not known whether any one plant will hire 50, 100 or over 200 workers in the spring, because this decision depends on the number of fishers who agree to sell their catches to that plant that year. Hence there is perpetual uncertainty....

Then it goes on further, talking about the wide swings in variations in TAC.

I'd like to ask a question. There were several recommendations in that report with respect to rationalization processing, updating it, and that type of thing. I'd like to know what the province is undertaking with respect to the recommendations in that report.

[Rick Doucet]

If I recall, when working with that report and when working with Gilles Thériault on that report, yes, there was some discussion with respect to what was happening with the resource and the cyclical decline. By the same token, at that time there was crab going every which way. They were talking about how many plant workers should be coming into the plants, where the plant workers were going to be going.

At the same time, there was an abundance of crab coming into the wharf, and we didn't know where the crab was going. This report was to find out how we could work together to collaborate not only with the harvesters but also with the processors in the market, so we could maximize the values and optimize the values to New Brunswick plants. I made reference to three plants. Sorry, there are 12 processing plants. The objective was to bring the product in and process it in a regulated manner so that each of the plants would be able to maintain its viability, instead of being completely destabilized with not knowing how much crab would be coming in at any given time. There were times when the crab would hit the wharf and be picked up by a truck and be going to a neighbouring province for processing. It was an uncertainty.

The objective there was not so much to talk about biomass but how it is that we can maximize the value of that crab that is coming onshore to the value of the New Brunswick industry. That was the utmost importance at that time. At that point in time we were dealing with surpluses of crab that were coming onshore, that were landing at the wharves. They couldn't process it fast enough. What we were trying to do, as I say, was maximize the value of the crab coming onshore so that all plants could have a stabilized access, so that the crab wouldn't be wasted, so that the plant workers were getting their proper hours. How do we find mechanisms so that there's not that glut of crab coming in where we have to have people working for 24 hours in a plant to make it happen? How can we spread it out, pace it a little bit throughout the season?

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

As you're aware, there's obviously been quite a reduction in the number of people working in those crab plants as well since 2000. One of the recommendations, considering that many of the New Brunswick food processing plants are in a precarious state, in view of their advanced age, and even obsolescence, was that the Government of New Brunswick develop an industry rationalization program. Has there been any thought given to that, and what progress has been made since this was recognized in 2007—including the impact on the employees?

Let me take that one step further. I'm a little bit surprised by your comments with respect to the lack of working together, given that for the two years, 2009-10 and 2010-11, significant HRSDC dollars have come into each province, with some flexibility, as you are well aware, including for labour market development. There's $120 million this year.

Can you let us know where that might be going and if any of that could be tagged for assisting some of the employees and for some potential creative solutions to the processing situation in New Brunswick?

[Rick Doucet]

You talk about the number of plants. In New Brunswick there are no new licensed plants, and there's a degree of self-rationalization that's taking place. There's only so much capacity that a province can handle. We're not facing the outlook of licensing new plants. The plants that are presently operating could be doing their own rationalization process as they move forward.

Today, we look at the viability of what has transpired and what's been taking place this year. Some plants just won't be able to make it, because they're going to lose their base of employees. In some cases, some of their employees are going to say, “I'm going to find something else”, or “I'm going to move elsewhere”, because we've taken the stability away from them. We've taken away their ground rules of being able to continue their life earnings in these plants.

When I go into the plants and have the opportunity to talk to the plant employees, all they're looking for is work. They would just like it to be structured in such a way that they can work their weeks. We understand that the biomass is going to change; we all get that. But if there had been a way that we could have structured the quotas to match the biomass going back a couple of years ago, we wouldn't be sitting here today; we would have viable industries.

I'm sorry, but I just can't help it. Working with the plants and talking to the employees about the impact and what's happening....

You mentioned the $120 million. We didn't know it was going to have to be used for crab; we didn't know this was the direction the situation was going in. We could probably have tailored some of the programs, or we could have had an earlier ask for maybe more. But for me to provide that answer today, I'd have to get some more background information on that to say how these funds were handled and where exactly they went. Frankly, we didn't know that we were going to have to earmark so much of that money that was coming in to the crab industry. Had we known, had we been better prepared for this, then we could have worked collaboratively on it and asked, “Okay, what are the answers here? What are the solutions?”

I know maybe it's not for me to ask a question, but I have to ask: did you folks have conversations with your federal minister before this allocation of the TAC was presented to New Brunswick? Were there any conversations or any consultation with you guys? I ask because I didn't hear about it. As the minister of the province, I didn't hear about it until 11:35 on the day of—11:35 on the day of—the announcement. I was broadsided.

So I'm hoping that maybe you folks were given a heads-up a little sooner and at least were able to have some discussions as to what the impact would be, because this is your province also.