Non-transferrable?
Evidence of meeting #131 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 fishermen.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #131 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 fishermen.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Okay, so an individual vessel quota.
The individual vessel quota system is what was first brought in before they made everything transferable. Did that seem to make sense at the time, and of course, now looking back with 20/20 vision, going back to a non-transferrable quota, would that also make sense?
4 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
Yes, it makes really good sense to me, except for the exception of choke species, where you need to have a little bit of fluidity to make sure you can keep your boat in the water and not be taken out for catching 131 pounds of yelloweye, or something like that.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
One thing the quota system has done is that it's helped to rationalize, as in explain, what happens with bycatch. So if you catch a certain number of things you don't actually have quota for, you're able to find somebody with quota prepared to sell it to you so that you can actually land that fish, or bring it in.
Let's say you catch 100 pounds of something and you need quota in order to take it in and land it, what's the process for finding that quota?
4:05 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
To my knowledge, most of the time you have to go your processor, because they're the ones who are in the know of what quota is where, but I think Ryan might be better suited to answer this question.
4:05 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
Okay, I'll try to make it quick.
Our processors take care of us. They have all of the relationships with the quota holders; we have no relationships with any quota holders. Basically, I get a shopping list to go out fishing every week and they cover me off and everything, and they have all of the relationships. I pretty much don't have any relationships with any quota holders; it's all done by my processor.
My processor and I have to work hand-in-hand. Without my processor, I wouldn't be fishing.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Fair enough. Processors are the pivot point.
Ms. Goldsmith-Jones has a couple of questions. We'll turn some time over to her.
February 6th, 2019 / 4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Goldsmith-Jones Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you for inviting me.
In my riding, not a day goes by when a constituent doesn't raise an issue of commercial, recreational, indigenous ownership, habitat protection, ocean warming, open-net fish farms, or the threats to a sustainable fishery. I'm very privileged to be here.
I'd like to ask Arthur Sr. In your opinion, what is the way to transition to a better owner-operator balance? It certainly is a serious threat to the status quo. If we wished to go down that path, how would you advise we go about that?
4:05 p.m.
Owner, Marlson Industries Ltd.
If you're going to have owner-operators, there are people out there who would like to purchase. If you're competing per se—like with what PICFI did—the reason the licenses are where they're at is that they went on the open market with an open chequebook. What do you think is going to happen if you have two licenses to pick from and, basically, owners would know each other? The price is going to go up.
In the case where you would choose to do fleet separation and you give a reasonable time, and possibly give concessions—maybe from the government's point of view—if a company were going to voluntarily turn their licenses over to fishermen, there are other ways it could be looked at. It could possibly be a tax concession. There needs to be a time limit on it, otherwise there's no incentive for them to want to sell it to able parties.
I started off with the fish plant. They helped me out with my second boat—to get a better boat. They helped me with the whole thing. They're all but long gone. The present companies here are different. They're not the same.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Goldsmith-Jones Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Interesting.
My next question is for Mr. Lawson.
If we were able to get there, how do you think that approach would contribute to mitigating the threats or to strengthening the sustainability of fishing and fish stocks?
4:05 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
Fish stocks are kind of managed by the DFO, so it would stay the same for fishing effort. The ownership of who was holding the piece of paper would stay the same. We would be relying on the DFO to keep us in sustainable fisheries management.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
What did the Government of Canada pay for the quota that ended up in PICFI? Does anybody know?
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
We've asked the DFO and they have yet to get back to us on this one.
Are there too many licenses lurking around out there? I've heard an account of something like 6,000 licenses for the various fisheries.
Go ahead, Arthur.
4:05 p.m.
Owner, Marlson Industries Ltd.
Back when I first started running seine boats, there were in excess of 500 seiners. Last summer, in the north coast, there were approximately 80 active boats.
4:10 p.m.
Owner, Marlson Industries Ltd.
I don't know the exact number of licenses, but there are more licenses on stick boats than there are on actually active boats.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
If we wanted to start somewhere by getting rid of some of the excess licenses, we would start with the stick boats?
4:10 p.m.
Owner, Marlson Industries Ltd.
I believe so. I think that would be a good starting point.