Thank you, Mr. Chair, and committee members.
This all came on very short notice for me. I actually heard about the standing committee's work on Saturday at meetings in Moncton, so I don't have a formal presentation. I didn't even know this morning that I might even get on. Pardon me for that. I hope I'm a little bit coherent as I start to piece together two or three things. I'll try to do it as quickly as I can without speaking too fast.
It's been a very interesting day. I thought the topic would be a little more restricted, but I see that it's very broad-based and I know that there are many connecting dots. We're here to talk about the northern cod stock. In the process, we're talking about education, quality, innovation, science, and a range of things, so it's an issue of connecting the dots.
I want to specifically speak about fishing vessel safety today. Before I get to that, there are a couple of points that I want to make with regard to the principle of adjacency and also with regard to a framework structure for working within an environment of shared jurisdiction, as we talked about.
On the principle of adjacency, I know it was talked about this morning, but I feel that it's worth reiterating. For the sake of full disclosure of who I represent, aside from my biosketch that I gave you, I am the policy chair for a party in this country. In the process this year, at one of the national conventions I coordinated the issue around adjacency, and a resolution was passed at a national convention on the declaration of adjacency and what all that means. I bring that up because in the process of doing that, there was a lot of collaboration and consultation in bringing all that together.
In getting it through an assembly of about 3,000 people, I thought it was a monumental idea coming from a specific province and a region and so on. To navigate this through, I needed to talk to aboriginals in British Columbia. I needed to talk to aboriginals in the north and other places in the Maritimes, and so on. What I thought would be a hard job was grabbed onto very quickly. It was something that resonated right across this country, and especially with the aboriginals, who talked about their communities and the social and economic tethers to the community that having the resources available to them should bring.
When it did reach the floor, it got unanimous consent. I wanted to mention that because of its national scope and the way that it resonates nationally. It's not just something out of Newfoundland and Labrador. There was recognition of this declaration of adjacency. Not only that, but it also pointed to the fact that it has been absent for a long time, and that maybe we should put the lens on some things that have happened over the last few years to make some adjustments against that particular backdrop.
In talking about structure in an area of shared jurisdiction, maybe we should say shared relationships. There was mention this morning of the C-NLOPB. As we begin to navigate down the road of shared responsibility, whether it's in harvesting or processing, we need to put some structure around it.
I also have an agriculture background. I was federation of agriculture president here in the province for about six years. My good friend Patrice would know all about this; we've been colleagues in the past on projects. Within the scope of agriculture, it started out to be an agriculture policy framework agreement. In the scope of that agreement, it considered the issue of a shared mandate, including the issues of quality, food safety, food security, innovation and science, and business risk management. It was, in fact, more than a federal-provincial-territorial agreement, more than a bilateral agreement. It was actually a tripartite agreement whereby the producers themselves all became part of a very comprehensive, structured approach on a five-year basis, with proper funding in place and proper bilateral structures. I think it's a great model to consider—fed-prov-territory in collaboration with all the stakeholders—for a framework agreement for fisheries.
Third, one of my key objectives in being here today is to talk about the issue of fishing vessel safety. I have 35 years with the Canadian Coast Guard, most of it in the area of search and rescue. We've had some serious mishaps, fatalities, incidents, and so on, in the fishery. In fact, over 70% of the maritime search and rescue incidents are related to the fishery. I was given the fishing vessel safety file as part of my rescue coordination duties, and I dealt with that for about 10 years, regionally as well as nationally.
A lot of the roots of the issue around fishing vessel safety go right back to DFO management, especially the issue of size restrictions. There's a management tool that's being used extensively—probably more than any other management tool that I'm aware of—around how we manage the fishery, and it has to do with size restrictions.
We had a serious fatality last year in Placentia Bay. The Transportation Safety Board just finished its report about a month and a half ago. It tied the activities of the three fishermen who were lost to the fact that they were in a small vessel. While they were fishing in a 22-foot speedboat, tied up at their dock was a 45-foot longliner that they weren't allowed to use. A lot of contortions have gone on to try to remove this. In fact, the old tool of using size restrictions as a fish management tool is in full contradiction with Transport Canada safety rules and regulations.
We had another fatality almost three weeks ago, and again we're dealing with the issue of size restrictions. Regarding vessel modifications, some vessels are being instructed to remove as much as two inches off the bow of the vessel, off the stern of the vessel. The buoyancy of the vessel is affected, and the whole process costs literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. The full scope of it is more than I can talk about here in these 10 minutes.
I'll just leave it here for your consideration.
Thank you.