Evidence of meeting #130 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was licence.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
February 5th, 2019 / 6:05 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
Not to be rude, but I'd put forward an idea that could withstand any political view, that I think we can all agree on and that could be unanimous. Hopefully, we'd have a better chance of gaining traction.
Mr. Ken McDonald (Avalon, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.
Now, back to the government side with Mr. Hardie, for seven minutes or less, please.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to everybody for being here.
Mr. MacDonald, do you buy quota or lease it?
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
You lease quota.
Do the people who are offering quota for lease compete for your business?
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
That's really weird.
You have the money, or you would have the money, yet they set the price and you have to take it.
What's wrong here? What has to change?
Fisher, As an Individual
The whole quota ownership is so opaque, with who holds it and who leases it, and a lot of it is done through buyers. Most of the time, I don't actually know whose licence or quota I'm fishing because it comes from a pool of stuff that different buyers control.
Liberal
Fisher, As an Individual
No. You try to work with a buyer, like the one I work with now, with whom you have a good faith agreement, but you don't know.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Of course, there's a suspicion that there is foreign ownership moving in. I've made reference to what I've, probably unfairly, called stupid money, but money that's just looking to hide somewhere, as in B.C. real estate money also ending up in quotas.
Is there a suspicion, or more than a suspicion, in fact, that if there is foreign ownership, does this also mean that product is being directed away from our market? Are we losing sovereignty over what we're pulling out of the sea?
Fisher, As an Individual
I'll comment quickly on that and let the other guys comment as well.
I had a lunch in 2014 with a Chinese corporation that operates a line of grocery stores. Basically, they came to me offering to buy a prawn licence and boat for me because prawns and shrimp are in huge demand and they needed more access. They saw Canada as having quite a large, valuable stock. They also commented to me that over the past 12 months, they had bought 10 shrimp trawl licences in Canada.
I can't speak on any other specifics, but that is one specific. I actually had lunch with the people and that's what they told me.
Fisher, As an Individual
Yes. Their specific purpose was to get product so they could supply their grocery stores.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
My first career was in radio. The stations I worked for basically were given a licence to use a frequency. The frequency belonged to Canadians, just as the fish belong to Canadians. However, we had a rule. The rule said that there was only a certain level of foreign ownership allowed in any of those licences.
Should we be thinking about something such as that? In other words, just as with a broadcast licence you're not allowed to have more than a certain percentage of foreign ownership, or with an airline as well. Should that rule or a similar rule apply in the ownership of licences and quotas?
Anybody can chime in.
Fisher, As an Individual
Only Canadian citizens should be able to own access to fishing quota and licences. That's very straightforward.
Associate Professor, University of Guelph, As an Individual
Yes, it's a really important thing to be considering.
I'll put my answer in the context of a global situation where basically global fish catch has flatlined. It's not going to get much higher, so we're going to have companies and countries looking to secure supply.
As we've heard, we have great resource on the west coast. We have great fishery resources on all of our coasts, so it's an important question to be asking and eyes to be open as to how companies and investors take the opportunity to secure supply.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Has anybody assembled enough information to determine what return on investment a quota owner is getting under the current arrangement? Does anybody know?
Fisher, As an Individual
It depends on year to year. It could be somewhere around 8%, but then you also have the valuation of that quota going up quite rapidly, until the last year or two.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Of course, it's what you bought it for; that's your original investment. Then if the valuation is going up, I guess you could say that on paper the return on investment is going up, but you don't realize that until you sell it.
I'm just looking at the year-over-year cash flow.
Fisher, As an Individual
If you were to refer to it as an asset and that asset being evaluated every year, I would say the ROA would be somewhere around the 8%.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
It seems that the way things are shaping up right now, the processors play a pivotal role. They have a material interest in making sure they have enough fish to operate. They obviously then take on the risk of selling it into the marketplace.
Are we coming to the point where perhaps the most viable arrangement is basically for fishers to become employees of processors?
Fisher, As an Individual
Yesterday, one of your witnesses actually used the terminology “find a better boss”. The last time I checked, they don't pay our CPP contributions; we do. Therefore, I was quite interested to see that.
We're not their employees. Technically, we're supposed to be independent fishers who are part of a transaction: We're catching fish and selling it to them and they are buying it.
