Fisheries Committee on June 7th, 2016

[David Boyes]

Well, I don't know. That would depend on what the rule was or what the regulations were.

I think for halibut, Prince Rupert is still a pretty big port. Port Hardy is probably just as big or bigger, and then a fair amount of fish goes into Ladner, and not too much to anywhere else.

Halibut is landed, gutted, and head-off—better than head-on—and then traditionally and for the most part, it's entered on the dock and then repacked, and away it goes. It's primarily an I-5 corridor market down into the States. Most of the fletching takes place closer to the retail end of things. At least, that's my understanding. That's what I've heard. It's almost never canned.

If I can just make one other comment, though, on adjacency, it's not just where you land the fish. At least as I understand it, this is a possible extension.... Maybe I'm wrong.

Groundfish is managed on this coast through a bunch of statistical areas. Salmon is managed by a bunch of other statistical areas. The two systems don't really mate up, but the allocation of groundfish is by that statistical area. Some allocations are coast-wide, and many are for one or two or four statistical areas combined for biological reasons. The TACs are allocated by the statistical area, especially for the relatively non-migratory species, so that becomes an issue too, because the statistical areas that might be adjacent to this community or that community are going to have a certain amount of TAC available to them for species like rockfish or ling cod.

Right now the system is the ITQ holdings by statistical area by species for these kinds of fish, and when a fisherman goes out on a fishing trip, he may fish in a particular statistical area until he bumps up against a critical bottleneck species for him in terms of his quota holdings of that species. Although he may still be able to catch plenty of fish of other species, he's got to move on because he doesn't have that critical bycatch, so then he moves on to another statistical area and tries to catch some of his other fish out of that area. It's a complex system, and we're always moving fish between vessels, between areas, and trading and lending and leasing fish in order to stay within the TAC by area.

The way it's done today is not a system that's really amenable to just saying, “Okay, this area is off of this community, so that's where you've got to do all this.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

Mr. Finnigan, you have five minutes, please.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today. I'm from the east coast, and I'm still trying to learn how fishing works in my end of the country.

I'll ask the first question to Mr. Boyes.

In 2004, Ecotrust Canada released a study estimating that by 2003 the market value of licence and quotas would be more than six times the capital invested in vessels and equipment.

Could you tell us what a licence is worth today, Mr. Boyes?

[David Boyes]

It varies by species. I can give you some guesses that are going to be in the ballpark, although there are not a lot of transactions going on right now that I've heard about.

I'll start with halibut. I know it's at least $85 a pound to purchase ITQ.

With black cod, I know of some that went recently for $65, but it may have been gone up a bit since then.

Ling cod seems to trade in the neighbourhood of $8 to $10 a pound.

Rockfish sells more or less in terms of a ZN licence, which is an outside rockfish licence. You buy the whole licence with the associated eight or 10 species for varying amounts in varying areas. That licence is about $150,000.

On the trawl side of things, I don't have much expertise as to what they pay for their boat, but it's, you know....

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

If a young person wanted to get into the trade, how much would it cost for an average licence and rigs and equipment? Could they bring that to the bank and be able to finance that?

[David Boyes]

You can't bring it to the bank because there's no security in licences. I explained a little earlier how you'd have to go to the minister and petition the minister to cancel the licence in your name and reinstate it in somebody else's name.

We find also there are leakages of quotas. For instance, with the halibut quota, the sports sector was granted an additional 3% out of the commercial share about two or three years ago. It was during the election. That took $14 million out of the pockets of the halibut fishermen and transferred it to the sports fishery with no compensation.

When banks see no security, no attachment, and the ability of government to move the fish around at will, they're not willing to lend any money. If you're a beginning fisherman and you want to get going in this business, then you have to start out on a lease quota. That's the way I started out, by leasing quota.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you.

My next question would be to either Mr. Nagy or Mr. Lewis.

In our part of Canada—and maybe the parliamentary secretary can correct me on this, or Mr. Morrissey, who has more experience than I do—first nations have been allocated quotas, and those quotas, as far as I know, have to stay within first nations.

Can you tell me what percentage the first nations would own in the quota for the rights to fish on the B.C. coast?

[Joy Thorkelson]

I can tell you that.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Either Mr. Nagy, or Mr. Boyes, or I think Ms. Thorkelson.

[Joy Thorkelson]

PICFI bought up 15% of the salmon licences on the north coast. On halibut, I think it has less than 15% on the north coast. Our areas are different, so maybe Mr. Boyes knows what the PICFI transfer to first nations is.

[David Boyes]

As I think I said earlier, the overall number for halibut is 21%. I don't know what it is on black cod, ling cod, prawn, or geoduck, but there have been PICFI purchases of all of those. The ATP process was doing that before PICFI started up, but I don't know what the total numbers are by species. It's available, though.

[Pat Finnigan, Liberal, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

On the east coast, we're having a major labour problem. Would you say there's the same thing in B.C.? We're having a hard time to get workers. We have to bring in people from outside. Is that the same issue some of the processing plants are facing on the west coast?

Maybe Ms. Thorkelson could answer.

[Joy Thorkelson]

I see Conrad has his finger on the button.

[Conrad Lewis]

I don't know how many times I have to reiterate this, but we were transient workers at one point. We had become skilled workers. We're still there. Every other industry has come and gone. We are still there, but the problem is one man is controlling all of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

For the next five minutes we're going to go to Mr. Strahl.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe, Ms. Thorkelson, you could give us some information. Certainly we have Canfisco representatives coming later this week to talk about this issue, so maybe we'll ask them as well.

Is it your understanding that the worldwide market for salmon products has changed over the years and that there's less demand for canned salmon overall than for fresh salmon or fillets or other fresh salmon products?

[Joy Thorkelson]

Canadian Fishing gave us the statistic that worldwide demand for canned salmon is decreasing by 1% every year. What I would like to say, though, is that Canadian Fishing is the largest importer of canned salmon from Alaska. From Bristol Bay itself, Canadian Fishing imports 12% of the Bristol Bay pack into Canada, so yes, there is a worldwide decline, but not a Canadian one.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

You mentioned that you didn't want to talk about last year because it was the worst year on record in terms of landed salmon for canning purposes. Was it the same in Alaska, or did they have a more reliable fishery? In terms of landing weight, do they historically have a more robust salmon fishery than the north coast of British Columbia?

[Joy Thorkelson]

British Columbia's pounds landed have gone down and the pounds that we're putting on the spawning grounds have increased, so those fishery demands have changed. Certainly we land less commercial product than we used to.

In Alaska they have what they call regional settlement development, which is community-owned ocean ranching. We don't have that in Canada. We have production hatcheries that the DFO has been closing. They closed commercial production hatcheries or lowered the number of fish going to the ocean through commercial hatcheries, so yes, by policy we have fewer fish on this coast.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Right, and you mentioned that when there has been a shortage of Canadian fish or when fish have been moved around, the Canfisco plant in Prince Rupert has in the past certainly been processing Alaskan salmon.

I think it's a little inconsistent. I think that if we were to change the policy, we'd have to grapple with why we would allow Alaskan fish to be processed in British Columbia but we don't want British Columbia fish to be processed in Alaska. Maybe you could walk me through that. It appears to me to be a bit of a contradiction.

[Joy Thorkelson]

Alaska has an act called the Magnuson-Stevens Act. It basically only allows fish surplus to Alaskan needs to be exported out of Alaska. You can either export it to China or you can put it on foreign factory ships or you can export it to Canada.

The fact is that their plants never go wanting. In fact, they have so much fish that they have to put forward a plan showing how much each company is going to process to the Alaska government prior to the season.

Yes, we could say that we're not going to bring any Alaska fish down. We only bring fish that are surplus to Alaska processing needs to Canada.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Saying that they are never wanting certainly speaks to their having a much more reliable source of fisheries compared to the wide variations that might occur in B.C.

I think Mr. Finnigan touched on the final question I had. So that I'm clear, are there zero temporary foreign workers at the Prince Rupert plant? Is that my understanding?

[Joy Thorkelson]

Yes. As far as I know there are no foreign workers in the commercial fish industry in British Columbia.

[Mark Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Hope, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Strahl.

Mr. McDonald, you have five minutes, please.