They're very good questions. The system we have in British Columbia is not simple.
On the issue of the average income for a fisherman in British Columbia, it's pretty low. What's happening with the landed value? If you look at the landed value in British Columbia, you'll see that it's been averaging somewhere around $300 million a year. Almost a third of that is being taken out in the costs of licence leasing and quota leasing. Those come directly out of the dollars available for fishermen for their income and for reinvestment in vessels, gear, crew, and all that.
It's impacting the recruitment into the fishery across the spectrum. Less and less new-generation folks are coming into the fishery in British Columbia, because there's less opportunity. When you look at that kind of income level, you ask yourself why you would get involved in something like that to earn a poverty-level wage when there are all these other opportunities out there. That's the scenario.
There are a few fisheries from which folks are able to make a decent living. They have licences either from family passing them down or because they attained them before they went to ITQs. Look at the difference between Alaska and British Columbia. Alaska went to quota shortly after British Columbia did, but they made the move there realizing that there's this impact of the transferability and the connection to the fishermen that needs to happen, so they put that in as a requirement. We haven't done the same in our fisheries here.
If we want to have viable fishing enterprises, small boat enterprises, on our coast in the long term, in the future, then we have to make that connection. As to the kind of timeline to do that, I would never suggest—and I don't think anybody is suggesting it—that we do this tomorrow. You need to have some kind of process to move this forward over a time period. It's not like fishermen are not going to produce fish for processors; there would always be opportunities for processors to buy fish. With regard to Canfisco having an opportunity, I'm certain there would be an opportunity to buy fish in the future from independent fishermen.