Fisheries Committee on June 9th, 2016

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

The other part of the testimony we heard was that on the 40% you hold, it is held jointly with fishermen or other companies. Is there an amount for licences that you hold jointly with other companies or with independent fishermen? What percentage would that be?

[Robert Morley]

Some of the seine licences, we do own in.... The licences here are on the vessel. Some of the vessels are multiple-licensed. There may be two licences on a seine vessel, and we might own the two licences fifty-fifty with a joint venture partner.

For example, in the salmon sector, we have a fleet of seine vessels that fish for us, about 43 vessels. Of those 43 vessels that are fishing for us in the seine side, we own the licences 100% for 15 of them. For another 13, we have a joint venture partnership with individual fishermen. Another 15 vessels that are fishing for us are 100% independently owned.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm going to go to some questions about the facility in Port Rupert specifically.

You said that you're now moving more towards fresh or frozen, as opposed to canned. How many jobs will change with that? Will there be the same number of jobs in the facility? Is it a different skill set? I'm just wondering what the workforce will look like in the facility. You said that last year you had 411 workers working less than 302 hours per year, roughly. Is there going to be roughly the same amount of people employed for the same amount of time? Or will it change?

[Robert Morley]

There will be fewer people employed, for sure, because what we will be doing is unloading, heading and gutting the fish, taking the roe out, processing the roe into market products right in Prince Rupert, and then putting the gutted fish on trucks and shipping that down to the Lower Mainland. If we can't sell it fresh on its way down, which will be our primary attempt, we'll then be freezing it and selling frozen products.

We'll be employing other people in Vancouver to do the freezing, but certainly, in the Prince Rupert plant—I can't tell you until we know, because the landings vary from year to year—we expect to hire at least 200 people this year.

As I said, we normally have a significant amount of turnover every year. We wouldn't expect that those same 411 workers actually would be available to work this year in any event, because we do often hire between 200 and 300 new people each year.

[Bernadette Jordan, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Do you have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Jordan.

We're into our second round with Mr. Sopuck, for five minutes, please.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thanks, Chair.

What are the employment trends in the commercial fishery in B.C. overall? That's for Mr. Morley, perhaps, or Ms. Burridge.

[Christina Burridge]

I can start on that. Broadly speaking, we have certainly seen fewer jobs in harvesting as a result of moving to a more year-round approach. There are fewer jobs because of technology and because of a less seasonal approach, but certainly, on the whole, they're better jobs.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Okay, but if we look at the entire industry from processing to harvesting and the management and all of that, is the number of jobs still declining somewhat? Or have they just been shifted around, with new jobs created while others have been eliminated?

[Christina Burridge]

Right now, we're looking at about 2,500 full-time jobs in terms of FTEs in fish harvesting and about 3,500 in processing. The processing number has generally been more stable than the harvesting number. The harvesting number has declined, as I say, because of changes in technology, as with so many other industries. Also, as I explained, with halibut, 25 years ago it was a six-day fishery. Now it's an eight-month fishery. Those are better jobs over a longer period of time than they were 25 years ago.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Morley, you spoke about the Alaska fishery. I know that they have some very effective conservation and fisheries enhancement programs in place. One of them that I've heard about is “ocean ranching”. Do you know what that concept is? Is it something that could be applied to our waters in B.C. to enhance our salmon populations?

[Robert Morley]

Alaska has a very extensive program in this regard. Some of the facilities are run by private non-profit community organizations that will own a series of pink and chum salmon hatcheries. They are very aggressively expanding production in those two species, to the point where, in much of their fishery—in Prince William Sound, for example, and in southeast Alaska—probably upwards of 50% of the pink salmon and a quarter of the chum salmon come from those facilities. They're very successful and very productive.

We could do a similar thing in British Columbia. The government has not allowed any people to get involved in the non-profit hatchery business in B.C. They've kept the salmon enhancement program to be 100%.... In fact, I spent five of my years in the government actually working as director of planning for the salmonid enhancement program, so I know about this extensively. A lot of groups wanted to get in, but the government said no.

One of the reasons was that they were concerned about the impacts of mixed-stock fisheries on enhanced fish and wild fish in B.C. In addition, the program in B.C. has really focused on being a rehabilitative program and a supplemental program, mainly for chinook and coho. We have not really taken any opportunity to expand production in pink and chum, which are there and could assist us in improving the.... I think there are spots where we could do it and where there wouldn't be impacts on wild populations.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Would you like to see Canada emulate the programs that Alaska has?

[Robert Morley]

I think it's an opportunity that should be discussed and pursued with communities up and down the coast, yes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I think one of you mentioned aquaculture. I'm curious about the relationship between the wild salmon fishery and the fish produced by aquaculture in B.C. I think one of you said that aquaculture production worldwide has depressed salmon prices. Is that correct?

[Christina Burridge]

Yes, broadly speaking, that is definitely true. Mr. Morley spoke about how B.C. represents 5% of North American wild salmon production, but in terms of total global salmon production we are at less than 1%, so we are very much a price-taker.

That said, what we have seen, particularly over the last few years, is increased demand for wild fish, and that has tended to move prices upward in comparison, say, to the situation in the 1990s, when farmed salmon were widely thought to be superior in terms of global markets in just about every respect.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Where are the salmon produced by aquaculture in B.C. processed? How is that done? Is there any kind of cross-processing between wild fish and aquaculture fish? I know they'd have to be on different lines in a plant, but how does that work?

[Christina Burridge]

Aquaculture fish are largely processed on Vancouver Island. There are one or two small plants that would do both, but generally speaking, wild salmon, because it's such a seasonal fishery, is concentrated in plants that deal primarily with wild salmon.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Sopuck.

Mr. Finnigan, go ahead for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to witnesses for appearing and for giving us all that information today.

I'm going to ask a question that I asked Mr. Boyes from the Halibut Management Association of B.C. last Tuesday. I'll direct my question to Monsieur Allain.

In 2004, Ecotrust Canada released a study estimating that by 2003 the market value of licences and quotas might be more than six times the capital invested in vessels and equipment. Is the value of commercial fishing licences and quotas within reach for younger new entrants and coastal rural fishers if they're able to buy them? I will have a follow-up question on that.

[Marc Allain]

Most of my expertise is in Atlantic Canada, and the whole question of intergenerational transfer is an issue, but what we're seeing—and this is where the importance of fleet separation comes in—is that surreptitiously processors can outbid fishermen. When a fisherman is retiring and the licence becomes available, there might be a young fellow who negotiates a price and all of a sudden a processor will come in and offer more. It's done under the table. That's a serious issue, but we're trying to deal with the department on that in terms of closing up some of the loopholes.

In B.C., I attended a meeting of the BC Hook and Line Fishermen's Association last year. There were two young fellows there, who were very well educated and who grew up fishing. They were sons of fishermen, and they could not buy in. Basically, it was inaccessible for them. That's my limited perspective. My colleagues from B.C. might have more to add.

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

Thank you, Mr. Allain.

Mr. Morley, how does that not I guess concentrate.... In other words, who can afford that, other than maybe people or corporations that are already in?

[Robert Morley]

It's interesting that you should ask, because I mentioned that Canfisco owns 2% of the halibut quota. That is halibut quota that we were grandfathered into by the ownership of vessels we had at the time the system came into effect. We have not bought a single pound of halibut quota since then.

If you really want to look at who is buying, it is largely individual fishermen who might be investing their earnings from other fisheries, but they are buying halibut quota. The biggest buyer of halibut quota right now is the federal Government of Canada through the PICFI program in order to reallocate fish to first nations communities. So for the actual prices and the transactions, the reason they're increasing so rapidly is in fact due to the injection of money from the federal government, which is providing the quota to first nations communities at no cost. They really have no capital costs to get in.

If you compare the situation to Alaska, where they have a quota system as well, and you look at the prices there, they're far lower than the prices in B.C. The numbers aren't justified, really, on what you can make as a return. They're really being pushed by an injection of outside capital from the Government of Canada.

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

I'm from the east coast also. On the east coast, since the Marshall and the Sparrow decisions, a lot of the first nations have been able to purchase fishing licences. Specifically, in my riding, they bought a processing plant to get people working. What we've been hearing from some of the first nations is that traditionally they have been working in fish plants or fishing themselves.

Do you think that model could work? If so, why? Or why not? Could that model work in B.C.? Could they operate a fish plant to get people in their communities working? I would ask Mr. Morley that question.