Fisheries Committee on Feb. 5th, 2019

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

But you own a licence?

[Peter de Greef]

No, it's my uncle's licence, and it's on his quota.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Then according to the comments that Mr. Thomson made, technically if you don't have the licence to fish that, you own a licence, but you don't have the licence for that quota. Is that correct?

[Peter de Greef]

That's correct.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay. I really appreciate the information we're getting, because not being fishers, we're trying to wrap our heads around this a little bit better.

With that, I'll cede the floor. Thank you very much.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

Now we go to the NDP and Mr. Donnelly for seven minutes or less.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for providing testimony here or by video conference.

I want to encourage everyone who made recommendations to provide those recommendations to the clerk of the committee in writing if they haven't done that so far. I heard recommendations in a number of presentations, and it would be very, very helpful for the committee to see those recommendations in writing. This goes for everyone who is providing a presentation, even if you send an email saying, “Here's my recommendation.”

Ms. Thorkelson, you gave us a very long recommendation and it was comprehensive, so if we could have that in writing—I'm sure it is if your presentation was submitted—that would be very helpful.

Mr. Nobels, you referred to a number of reports, the Ecotrust Canada reports, and the “Just Transactions, Just Transitions” report. You referenced Dr. Evelyn Pinkerton's “Fisheries that work”. If you wouldn't mind submitting those reports to this committee, those would also be really helpful to refer to. Then all the members of the committee would have access to those, and the clerk, the analysts and everyone could take a look at the work you're referring to.

I want to start with you, Mr. Edwards.

You referenced the fair share mechanism, and you were explaining the components of that to Mr. Hardie when he asked you about that. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more. You mentioned the idea of a transparent quota registry. Are there other specifics under what you call a fair share mechanism that you'd like to see not only this committee look at but the government implement?

[Dan Edwards]

What we found in the last eight or nine months is a growing realization, and I think a lot of it came out of this committee. You listened to a lot of young fishermen from B.C. who were saying that they are not able to get into the fishery. A lot of the fishermen, even the quota holders, are recognizing that with the way it's going, there will be no crew, no skippers and nobody else on the water in the future, so we have to figure out a way.

The sharing mechanism is just one idea that came up, which we explored and will continue to explore. We're saying that we need to sit down with those who own the quota, and we have to hammer out a fair sharing arrangement around that issue.

Every fishery that I've been attached to and worked with, and every active fisherman that I know in the groundfish fishery and other fisheries have said that's a great idea but that it requires the discretion of the minister to put a hammer into it. In other words, if people don't respect that negotiated settlement that we get prior to the season, then the minister has the power, just like he does with the civil agreements that were illegal on the east coast, to pull the licence and stop it from being able to trade.

There's a hammer there to say, “Okay, you guys sat down and hammered out an agreement, and now we're going to see it in the IFMP, and we're going to implement it. It has to be adhered to. Otherwise there will be an appeal process and there's a very real chance that the person will lose their ability to use that licence in the coming years.”

That's the core idea. There's a lot of work that needs to be done around how best to set up a process where people are actually being represented in a process like that. I mentioned the process we use for groundfish, where we worked for five years to build an integrative process. We in industry on the west coast are not strangers to doing hard work on the process side, and I know we can make it work.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Thorkelson, your recommendation was a large one as well. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that? The committee will take a look at what you've recommended and see how to break it down. Are there other things you'd like to add in the minute and a half or two minutes that I have left?

[Joy Thorkelson]

I think Peter de Greef said what I said in a much better and more succinct manner.

Every fishery is going to have its own plan on how to get out of the bind that we're in. I think it has to be active fishermen who sit down and decide what their futures are. I think the government of Canada needs to say that we want to have an industry where active fishermen and communities are our priority, not delivering benefits to investors.

Right now, the Pacific region's priority is to deliver benefits to investors, and it should be the other way around. It should be protecting active fishermen and coastal communities.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Would your system include the investors at the table?

[Joy Thorkelson]

I think that fishermen have a right to make up their own minds on what would work best for them. Then you have to bring the investors to the table to talk about a transition process, how you get from where we are now to where active fishermen feel that they would have a chance to make a decent living.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I have one minute.

Mr. de Greef, you mentioned that the ITQ system is working well for the fish, not for the fish harvesters, obviously. One thing we've heard is that many fish populations have gone down over the decades, so if it's not the management system, what do you attribute those downturns to?

[Peter de Greef]

There are many different species. I could speak specifically to halibut. I would say that it's similar for various salmon. Size at age is a big issue. The fish aren't growing as big as they used to. The same number of animals are around. I would say that this is an environmental thing, and I wouldn't necessarily say that it is due to fishing.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

We need to study it. Maybe we need to look at it.

[Peter de Greef]

Yes. I believe IPHC is doing work with that, specific to halibut. With DFO, I'm not sure.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Donnelly.

Back to the government side, we have Mr. Rogers, for seven minutes or less, please.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses today. I'm going to start with Mr. Edwards.

You used the term “common denominator” when you talked about the fishery. You were saying that active fishers are not profiting and that quota licence owners are reaping profits but that fishers struggle to make ends meet.

How do we fix what you call a broken system for harvesters?

[Dan Edwards]

That's what we've been putting some recommendations on the table for, trying to develop a way to share that revenue fairly. We've put forward recommendations like that. There are other potential ways to do it over time. You can, over time, develop an owner-operator kind of framework here in B.C. You can use tax incentives. There are a number of different ways you can start turning the ship around, so that the money is coming back to the active harvesters as opposed to where it is right now, which is at 80% to the quota holder—the situation I'm in—and 20% back to the boat.

I'm in a different situation than Peter in that I don't have a family quota. As the original people who got a quota, that's going to be more and more the situation where those who originally got the quota are no longer fishing. It's already very high. There needs to be a transition that works for the next generation. That's really why you guys are here, because you've heard that next generation say, “How the hell are we going to make a living in the future with this situation?” We need to find a solution to that.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Mr. Nobels, you said that ITQs are destructive. You talked about transferability versus buying in and other problems with the ITQs. From your perspective, how do you fix or modify the current ITQ model?

[Modestus Nobels]

As Dan pointed out, transferability is not necessarily the problem if you have checks and balances in the rest of the structure, which we presently do not have. That would allow for offshore investors and those outside the industry to begin to capitalize on the quota structures. That is really the telling issue in the end. It's the ability for investors to access quota and take that out of the hands of working fishermen. I agree with all the other speakers. The initiative here is to put the fish and the profit back into the hands of those who are actually fishing and the communities in which they live.

Dan pointed out several ways we could attempt to do that. There are examples worldwide that have been utilized to [Inaudible—Editor] quota structures out and make them more reasonable and balanced. We need to look at those examples and see what we can use here to drive our fishery in a more sustainable fashion.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

David, you made reference to married licences and that they should disappear. Do you think that's a simple solution? Can you elaborate a little on that?

[David MacKay]

It can be simple right now. If a fish harvester appeals a married licence to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, we should be able to allow them to divest in the industry and allow them to sell those licences off. It's too overwhelming for somebody getting into the industry and buying a set of licences. It's hard enough to buy one, let alone three. How do we separate those licences? I say it's a simple solution, because I think it is. The department might say otherwise, but why when somebody says, “Why can't I separate my northern troll licence and sell it to a kid in the community that wants to get his foot in the industry?”

We're seeing many of these licences going to PICFI. The PICFI program is great, and Ken Hardie made a point about it the other day saying PICFI was to provide more access to the first nation fishers. Some of these licences are being put back in PICFI.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Peter, you talked about ITQs and said they delivered on conservation objectives, but no real socio-economic value for fishers or communities. Should it be changed and if so, how?