Evidence of meeting #96 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 fishermen.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Do you see the perception of commercial fishermen as trying to be sneaky and trying to push the law?
As an Individual
The comment I hear so much is, “Oh, you can't put the fox in the hen house.” I don't know how many times I've heard that being said or, “Oh well, people have a vested interest.” Everyone has vested interests.
In my experience working with commercial fishers in all different aspects, they have a vested interest in their lifestyle and in continuing to protect and work on the ocean.
Conservative
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
We'll go to Mr. Donnelly now for his seven minutes.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Madam Chair, I'd like to start off by thanking our witnesses. I thought your testimony was very impressive. I loved all three of your stories. I thank you for your enthusiasm, your passion, your knowledge, and your experience. Having that come to this table and to this committee is really important when we're talking about Bill C-68, which is probably the strongest piece of legislation to protect the fishery and ensure that it succeeds into the future.
Mr. Lawson, you painted a picture for us. You talked about foreign entities. You used the term “serfs upon the sea”, which is pretty strong. You talked about the common resource and concentrating wealth to a few. You talked about the settlers fleet, price-fixing, owner-operators, and then your main points about control over your own destiny and encouraging others in coastal communities and nations like yours to actually engage in the fishery.
All three of you have painted very strong pictures of the work you're doing and the work we need to do on this committee to ensure that you can keep doing what you do. The future, we hope, will look strong.
Getting into the specifics, earlier we had the minister at a separate committee meeting. He welcomed recommendations on bringing owner-operator policy to the west coast. He legitimately is open to that. He is also legitimately struggling to figure out how we do that. It's on the east coast. The policy is strong there. Fishers want it on the east coast, and they're protecting it. On the west coast, we have an ITQ system, so it's slightly different and very hard to change.
Ms. Ellis, you talked about two specific recommendations. On that note, I haven't seen your submission yet, but if any of the three of you have recommendations, I would encourage you to supply those recommendations in writing to the committee, because that would be extremely helpful. When we go to look at amending Bill C-68, we specifically look at those written submissions, and they are really helpful, especially coming from folks like you who are on the front line.
As I was saying, Ms. Ellis, you've given two specific ones. The first was about the knowledge of fishers, and I agree with Mr. Hardie's point that the act is now going to include first nation traditional knowledge and the knowledge of fishers and others, which is great. Input is important, but I would say more important is actually listening to that input and then enacting it in law. You need to be diligent about following up with the government to ensure that they listen to input.
The same applies to this committee. We can hear all the testimony we like, but if we don't make recommendations to the government, it's not going to change anything. I just wanted to emphasize that you need to continue to be diligent about following up and doing what you're doing, which is already great.
Getting into owner-operator and how we support active fish harvesters, you painted a picture of transferring power to investors who are essentially slipper skippers. We hear them being called slipper skippers—armchair skippers, right? They're the ones who are investing in licences while you actually go out there and fish, but they take a big chunk of your paycheque, essentially. There's a role for investors, absolutely, but how do we make it so there's also a larger role for fish harvesters? That's what the minister is asking you to be specific about, given our system and our context on the west coast, which is very heavily ITQ, individual transferable quota.
In the remaining time I have, I'm wondering if any or all three of you would like to elaborate on that.
As an Individual
It's not going to be a short-term solution. It's very long-term, beginning with taking a really hard look at what the policy is. It means doing an independent review and really getting a good understanding of this web that's been created, I guess. Lots of those people who are armchair fishermen are people who were fishermen before. This is their retirement. There are so many people involved in how it should piece out and over the long term go towards promoting independent owner-operators. It will be very long, with steps taken over 20 or 30 years, so that people who want to divest from the fishery and who aren't going to be involved with the fishery have a really good opportunity, and so that people who are fishermen and want to retire can do so with dignity.
I don't have solutions, but I think the first step is this independent review.
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
That's a couple they have: an independent review looking at other things, like our east coast. How do we apply that here on the west coast? Looking at how we can transition, you're being very reasonable in saying that we should look at a long period of time. I think that's helpful.
As an Individual
I'd like to echo Chelsey in saying that it needs to be a long and very intentional process that's very careful and very community-centred and community-based, with a lot of community engagement, because we don't want to hurt people. We don't want to hurt someone's retirement plan, someone who did spend most of their life on the water.
It has to be very intentional. It has to be careful and well-thought-out, and that's where that community engagement comes into play.
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
Thank you very much.
I'm going to have to cut you off there, Mr. Donnelly.
For the next seven minutes—and I won't say “finally”, as we're going to keep an eye on the clock—we'll go to Mr. Morrissey, please.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to compliment you on an excellent brief. You demonstrate the demographic of what is changing on the east coast: a fishing industry that is made up of young people who are educated, articulate, and know where they want to go.
For my question, what we hear so much is that I don't think the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has caught up to the changing face of the fishery. They still maintain what I call a paternalistic approach to micromanaging people who today are well-educated and know where they're going.
Madam Chair, I want to acknowledge that Miss Ellis's grandfather was a colleague of mine for a decade, and he was one of the people who mentored me into public life and advised me for some time.
I'm very impressed with your presentation. I want to follow up on my colleague Mr. Donnelly's comment. I know that the minister understands your frustration, because he grew up on the east coast in sight of the east coast fishery and the owner-operators. That's why he led the discussion on enshrining this in legislation. On the east coast, we've talked about owner-operator for a long while, but it's only through this piece of legislation that it will actually be enshrined in legislation, and that's key.
How do you, this new face of the industry, help him make the changes to begin to enshrine owner-operator on the west coast?
As an Individual
Personally, I would love to have people involved in stakeholder community meetings and just really pounding the pavement and understanding what.... There's such a wealth of information that pounding the pavement and understanding what to do—
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
How many people do you represent? What's the percentage of the industry that shares and articulates the point of view that all three of you—
As an Individual
I've never met anybody in the west coast industry who doesn't have the same feelings, but I know there are other people out there.
What about you, Cailyn?
As an Individual
That would be very difficult to gauge. I think that's a very important question, because we don't represent every single fisher man and woman on the west coast. That's an important question.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
But you are the face of the next generation growing and you speak to.... I agree with you totally that government, in this legislation, must be such that it will recognize and take into account the knowledge of the commercial fish harvester. We heard that during the earlier consultation. That's extremely important, but I'm curious as to how you can better mobilize your position.
You pointed out, Chelsey—accurately—that this will not change overnight, but if somebody doesn't begin the process, then somebody will be sitting here 20 years from now articulating the same problem.
As an Individual
I think there are people who are mobilizing to articulate this some.... The BC Young Fishermen's Network is newly formed.
As an Individual
Oh, I'd say a couple of months.
We've just started. I think it came from talks over the last year. They had their first gathering this year. We've been getting help from the Alaska Young Fishermen's Network about how to come at it. We're starting it. It's going to have chapters in each community and hopefully we'll be able to come together at least monthly and then for a big gathering once a year.
We have friends with Ecotrust Canada and T. Buck Suzuki, as well as the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters.
As an Individual
There's also the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union.
Liberal
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
You have two and a half minutes.
Liberal