Fisheries Committee on Feb. 6th, 2019

[Melanie Sonnenberg]

Well, being a small business owner, Mr. Arnold, there are a million challenges. Obviously—well, maybe not obviously—I'm not a harvester; I'm a “fishercrat”, for lack of a better word.

I can tell you that when I go down to the wharf—and I work on the end of a wharf—there are challenges every day about everything, starting with your human resources, mechanical issues on your boat, the costs and so on. It goes on and on.

That is no different on the east coast from the independents who are on the west coast. The trouble is that being marginalized on the west coast makes those challenges insurmountable.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

Yesterday, we heard testimony referring to the married licences, basically licences that come attached together on a vessel, and the inability to split those up.

Do any of you have any comments on the issues of a vessel owner being unable to sell one of his licences without having to sell the whole lot at once?

[Carl Allen]

It's hard for me to speak to the exact situation in British Columbia because I'm not aware of exactly how it works. To put it in perspective, I'm a multispecies licence-holder. I currently have a lobster, mackerel, herring, scallop and groundfish licence. I can divest any one of those to another harvester. If somebody doesn't have a scallop licence and he wants to buy a scallop licence, I can allow that to go. I'm not in that situation, but I can see how it would put somebody in a tight spot, if, for whatever reason, they wanted to switch from one fishery to another, allow one licence to go to bring another one in. It would hamper them in a way, yes.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Fin Donnelly]

Thank you very much, Mr. Allen and Mr. Arnold.

I have one question I'll ask Ms. Sonnenberg.

I think you gave a recommendation to the committee about moving forward, and the benefits of owner-operator policies, looking at the east coast. If the government were to make that claim or try that proposition on the west coast, what would be the first steps or the best process to move the west coast in the direction of the owner-operator system?

[Melanie Sonnenberg]

I think it's far from me to make a prescriptive suggestion, but I would say this. I think the people who are invited to the table are going to be critical to the discussion and the success of how it goes forward. Currently, under the advisory systems there today, I'm told by the stakeholders in British Columbia that that's not going to be the venue and is not going to give these independent people the proper voice they deserve. I think for transparency's sake on the east coast, we would see a wide number of people coming into a room to talk about issues that are really critical to the industry. I think getting the right people to the table—and maybe they're not the people who are there today—is what needs to happen. From the feedback we're getting, I think that's the place to start. From there, obviously, there will be a system that will have to unfold, but the people at the table will determine the success of the outcomes.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Fin Donnelly]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

The meeting is adjourned.