Honourable Chair and committee members, I'm honoured to be invited to speak to you today.
This topic is critically important for the future of B.C. fisheries and our coast. If the government wants to ensure that the benefits from our fisheries and fishing licences go to harvesters on the coastal communities, you must articulate these objectives and fund the department to make it so.
I've been involved in commercial fisheries for over 40 years, with 25 years as a fisherman. Currently, I'm the executive director of a fisheries foundation. I chair the BC Commercial Fishing Caucus, and I sit on the executive for the Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters' Federation. I'm involved in herring and groundfish IFMP processes and track a few others. I sit in many MPA processes, and I participate in multiple integrated marine planning processes along our coast, led by B.C. first nations and regional governments.
Interestingly, all of the endorsed integrated marine plans on our coast call for community-based fisheries. DFO has all but left the integrated marine planning field in B.C. This is a story for another day.
Unlike some of my colleagues on the east coast, I can speak to the history of the fisheries on the B.C. coast. I've had the privilege of fishing from Portland Canal to Juan de Fuca Strait, and from Knight Inlet to Rennell Sound. I have spent time in almost every community along our coast. It hurts me to tell you that the community connection to fisheries is dying, just like fishermen's connections to licences are dying.
Most rural communities along our coast are in decline. Health, education, population, incomes, youth retention, infrastructure, the number of vessels, new vessels, and connection to fisheries are all in decline. Yet these communities all want to strengthen the connection to fisheries. Why? We studied this exact question. Simply put, along with the tangible economic values, commercial fisheries bring intangible values to our coastal communities. These intangible values form the cultural fabric connecting communities to ecosystems, building on the economic values.
Two years ago, the Minister of Fisheries asked the department to undertake a study similar to yours. The department drafted a two-stage approach and started stage one, the background research, last June. When this committee passed the motion to undertake this study, the minister instructed the department to down tools. The department identified that they would finish the background piece in time for your study. Hopefully you've seen that.
There are some 65 gear, species, labour, area, and producer organizations in the B.C. fisheries. No one organization represents a majority of fish harvesters. Many of these associations are controlled by licence and quota holders, including processors, and not active fishermen. Just as with producer and processor associations on land, the interests are vastly different.
I want to talk to you about two research initiatives that are relevant to your study. The first compares the northern B.C. herring fishery with southeast Alaska's. It is very interesting, given the relatively similar ecosystems, to see the vastly different socio-economic systems we've created. In northern B.C. there are no communities with a fisheries economy, yet in southeast Alaska, multiple communities have robust fisheries economies.
I would point you to three differences that are relevant to your study. First, in southeast Alaska there are clear overarching social objectives supporting a coastal fisheries economy that go along with the conservation objectives. Second, the decision-making and governance system rotates through and is connected with the coastal communities. Third, they strictly enforce boots-on-the-deck access: If you have a licence, you'd better fish it.
The second research initiative I wanted to speak about is the Canadian Fisheries Research Network. It involves a nationwide industry, academic and government collaboration to draft a comprehensive, sustainable fisheries evaluation framework. Last year, the network reported on a major paper. We compared every major sustainability framework on the planet, including DFO's own sustainable fisheries framework, and crafted a comprehensive version.
Most sustainable frameworks crafted prior to 2012 are now called sustainable fisheries 1.0. They focused almost exclusively on ecological sustainability—the yellow circle in the graphic that I circulated. They all lack human dimensions of sustainability. This sustainable fisheries 1.0 formed a basis for MSC—marine stewardship certification. They were raked over the coals in 2012 for certifying fisheries that employed slave labour. The point is that both ecological and human dimensions are needed for sustainable fisheries.
In the middle of my graphic, you'll see a fisheries enterprise. There are three core components for a fisheries enterprise—harvester knowledge, technology and legal access. At the core, legal access is what your study is about. Legal access is the government's main tool for managing harvesters. Governments create and issue licences and quotas, set input and output controls, identify who can use them and whether they can be sold, transferred, traded or leased. In reality, government policy—or lack thereof—frames the market for licences.
We have examples where policy prohibits the transfer, effectively setting the market value at zero. Of course, there are creative ways around policy, as you have seen with PIIFCAF and control agreements in Atlantic Canada.
If fisheries are a public resource to be managed for the public good, is there an obligation for governments to create a market so that investors make a profit from trading in licences? Some would say yes: Under the guise of certainty and stability, there is a right to profit from trading in licences. However, Rob Walton told the 2017 World Ocean Summit that corporations are not entitled to exist; they must earn it. Similarly, profit is not a right; it must be earned.
As one fisherman told the committee, he couldn't sleep in and catch his fish. Why should a licence holder, without boat, gear, crew, electronic monitoring, or knowledge of fish or tides be entitled to profit without fishing? Neither investor, nor processor, nor fisherman should be entitled to profit from our public resource. They should earn it.
My second slide shows the increased licence and quota value, pegged at $2.3 billion at the start of last year. This increasing valuation stands in stark contrast to the decreasing incomes for fishermen. Why? Simply put, the benefits from the fishery have been stripped from the risks. The cream—over a third of the landed value, $130 million last year—is taken off the top in licence and quota fees. Over $1 billion has been lost by harvesters in coastal communities over the last decade.
This is why fishermen have no money to build new boats. This is why our communities are in decline. This has deepened the government conflict with first nations along our coast. If the government wants to ensure that the benefits of fishing licences go to harvesters and coastal communities, it is imperative for you to clearly articulate these objectives, fund the department to make it so, and require annual progress reports on these objectives. In the meantime, support the call for a minimum standard: a shared benefit-risk agreement for all fisheries where licences and quotas are leased.
In closing, Canada's fish vendors, processors and distributors have access to domestic markets that are hungry for fish. Governments have opened up international markets that are similarly hungry for fish. With this unprecedented access, there is no need for fleecing local harvesters and coastal communities. Let's get this corrected, so that future generations benefit from our abundant resources.
Thank you.