Evidence of meeting #73 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
That's similar to the case in Saskatchewan.
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Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
What are their alternatives? Where can they go if they are not processing through your plants and not selling to you?
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Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
I have to confess that in most of the communities we buy from, there is nobody on the wharf trying to push us out of the way.
There is a potential if you have access to roads and if there are potential buyers, or depending on your species mix, you might be able to sell privately. There are people from Ontario and from the United States who might be prepared to move in and take some of that product.
The difficulty for the fishermen, though, is that if you land more than one species, if you're looking at a species mix and you want to sell whitefish and you want to sell carp or whatever, you're probably not going to have a lot of alternative buyers for those products.
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Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
If you're outside the corporation, you won't share the profits anymore?
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Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
I understand that right now the profits would be shared according to how much business you do with the corporation.
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Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
That's correct, but if you're not signing a contract, that's not going to be part of the remuneration for your fish.
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Liberal
Pat Finnigan Liberal Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB
You're still king of the hill, I guess you could say, in that area for the freshwater market.
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Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
At the moment, we are.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Thank you, Mr. Finnigan.
Mr. Miller and Mr. Arnold, you're sharing your time. I'll give you two and a half minutes each. Do you want me to do it that way?
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Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
I'll try to finish up in less than two and a half minutes.
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Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Is part of the marketing corporation's agenda to assist remote harvesters?
10:10 a.m.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
That's absolutely correct, yes.
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Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Okay, thank you.
Who eventually benefits from the retained earnings, not just the profits that are paid to the harvesters?
10:10 a.m.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
It's just good business practice. The retained earnings are there to deal with economic shocks or the need to reinvest in equipment, etc., and we have done a lot of reinvestment over the period of 2010 to 2017, millions of dollars' worth—maybe $13 million.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Do they stay within the corporation, which is a government entity?
10:10 a.m.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
That's correct. The decision was made, in response to the 2010 audit, that we should have retained earnings equivalent to about 20% of our gross sales.
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Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
Does the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation compete with private enterprise that may want to get into fish marketing?
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Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
We do in Saskatchewan, and we will in Manitoba.
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Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
I'll pass the rest of my time to Mr. Miller.
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Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
Over my time in Ottawa since 2004 I've heard a number of times from Manitoba MPs who have heard from commercial fishermen in or near their ridings their dissatisfaction with the freshwater marketing board.
I want to try to tie in my question, if applicable, with your opinion on what the wheat board was. At the time the criticism of a lot of Manitoba and other western farmers was that there was too much bureaucracy, if I can use that word, within the wheat board, and that at the end of the day for the people producing the wheat or barley or whatever the product was, their share of that product was diminishing constantly.
Could the same thing be said about the freshwater marketing board in that ultimately there has to be a reason why Manitoba fishermen want to pull out? In your opinion, is that the reason, that they don't feel they're getting as big a bang for their buck?
10:10 a.m.
Chairperson, Board of Directors, Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation
There are some who feel that way. There is some expense to being a crown corporation. You have the need to provide all the plans. You have the need to adhere to ATIP and all of the other policies of the Government of Canada, and that's not free. It comes at an expense.
That being said, the choice of 80% of the fishermen in Manitoba, thus far, is to stay with the corporation. There are those who have always looked at the returns of fishers and said, “Look, they have gross sales of $73.5 million and I'm only getting this, and I should be able to do better.”
I understand that, because when it was a monopoly, that was the only show in town and they would judge very harshly on any expenditures. Now that the reality of choice is coming, they've made their choices and many have chosen to stay with us.