Fisheries Committee on May 13th, 2019

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

If I might just clarify that, our official response time is 30 minutes away from the dock. We actually average about six minutes away from the dock, and that will continue.

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

That's impressive. Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers. You did mention you were going to share or split your time, but I guess you forgot that.

I'll go to Mr. Johns now, for three minutes or less, please.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

I have just a quick question around the main estimates for indigenous participation in commercial fisheries. Can you tell me how much of the $78.8 million is allocated for PICFI?

[Timothy Sargent]

Jen should have that.

[Jen O'Donoughue]

Do you want me to come back to it?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes, if you could get that to me, that would be fantastic.

[Timothy Sargent]

Yes, we'll do that.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Again, I didn't get an answer on this. How did you come up with $17.1 million for the British Columbia salmon restoration and innovation fund? The needs are serious. We're in this desperate situation. How did you determine that this was the amount you're going to roll out, of the funds that are committed, the $142 million? Why $17 million only, and especially at a time when people are out of work; fishers aren't able to get to work? This is an opportunity to mobilize people.

I just have to state that, literally, we have thousands of people in British Columbia—most of them sports fishers, recreation fishers or commercial fishers—who are doing that work, that restoration work. This is an opportunity to empower those people and mobilize people up and down the coast, who haven't been resourced for years. The $17 million isn't going to do it. Really, we need to get a lot of money out the door. There's a lot of damage that we need to catch up on fixing.

[Timothy Sargent]

We're working as hard as we can on the B.C. salmon restoration fund. As you said, there's a lot of activity in local communities. It is a way for local communities to participate in rebuilding healthy fish stocks in British Columbia.

This is a joint program with the Government of British Columbia. It's also an application-based program. We put out a call for projects, then we and the province have to go through them and decide which ones we want to do. There's always going to be a certain amount of time required to do that, but your question is very well taken, sir. We do want to move as fast as we can.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Yes.

I'm hoping I'll get another round. I think I have 45 seconds left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes, exactly.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I know that we closed.... Well, not “we”. I certainly wouldn't have closed the MCTS in Comox, Ucluelet or Vancouver. In fact, we were very much opposed to it. You did close the one in Ucluelet. I know that the community has lost those jobs. It lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. It would like to get that building as a compensation piece, if you want to call it that, that could be used for higher learning, to create jobs and support the local economy, working with first nations, working with education around a marine economy. Can you maybe provide an update? Is that going to go through? Is the government going to transfer that building to the community?

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

We'd be happy to come back with the plans for that building. I don't have them in front of me.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I just know it's costing a lot of money as an empty building right now.

[Jeffery Hutchinson]

While we're speaking about MCTS, to go back to your earlier question, we had the numbers in front of us. We didn't have the totals. The savings per year from the MCTS consolidation are running at $10 million to $11 million a year.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

There would be no problem—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns. You were trying to slip in another one there.

I'll say thank you to our witnesses for giving us two hours of their time today. It's greatly appreciated by the committee. The information you've provided I'm sure will be of great value.

I'm sure we'll see some of you back again in the near future.

[Timothy Sargent]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We have some motions on this that we have to get passed.

We're voting on the main estimates 2019-20. We have to do this first. We're not into committee business yet. We're still on the votes on the mains.

DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES AND OCEANS Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$1,727,118,371

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$801,787,391

Vote 10—Grants and contributions..........$293,046,191

Vote 15—Canada's Marine Safety Response..........$11,336,025

Vote 20—Fisheries and Oceans Canada-Advancing Reconciliation..........$5,069,400

(Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the main estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll suspend now to go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]