Evidence of meeting #97 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 fisheries.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Chair  Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
Duncan Cameron  Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries
Tasha Sutcliffe  Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada
Colin Fraser  West Nova, Lib.
Churence Rogers  Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, Lib.
Margot Venton  Staff Lawyer and Director of Marine Program, Ecojustice Canada
Dan Gibson  Senior Environment Specialist, Ontario Power Generation Inc.

9:25 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

Thirty seconds of the dream is that when you transition to this, you have a way of.... There's not as much leasing revenue, but fishing revenue goes up. If the people who bought licences for their retirement are impacted, their revenue from fishing itself should go up enough to recoup that, hopefully. If not, you have to look further into that.

With regard to large corporations that are just leasing and don't get involved in fishing, well, I probably shouldn't share my opinion of that right here.

9:25 a.m.

Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada

Tasha Sutcliffe

I would add that the benefit of local fisheries—

9:25 a.m.

Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)

The Chair

I'm sorry, I have to cut you off. The time is up.

9:25 a.m.

Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada

Tasha Sutcliffe

Fair enough.

9:25 a.m.

Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. McDonald, you have seven minutes, please.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will be splitting my time with Mr. Fraser. Perhaps you could let me know when my time is up, or close to it.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here.

Mr. Cameron, I have a quick question, just because it was brought up here, about the surf clam issue on the east coast. I'm from Newfoundland, as far east as you can get, and from what I'm learning, the fishery there is quite different from the one on the west coast.

Do you think any one person or corporate entity involved in the fishery should own the total quota of any given resource?

9:25 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

I don't believe so, no.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL

Okay: that's part of the reason why the minister did what he did with the surf clam issue. One person controlled that entire quota. Nobody else was in on it.

I get the feeling from other witnesses who were here from the west coast that one person controls about 80% of the quota and just about all the resources on the west coast. Is that true, or...?

9:25 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

No. I think maybe on certain gear methods and certain fisheries that could be true. But take halibut, for instance; if you're referring to Jimmy Pattison, I think his quota holdings are actually only—where you can find them—around 3%. It sort of varies from fishery to fishery.

9:25 a.m.

Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada

Tasha Sutcliffe

It's concentrated in certain fisheries.

9:25 a.m.

Liberal

Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL

All right.

Do you think the minister should have the power to be able to put the quota back in the hands of the fishermen who are involved in any given fishery?

9:30 a.m.

Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada

9:30 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

Yes, but I don't think it should just be dictated overnight like the flick of a light-switch. Hopefully, it will be done in a principled way—

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL

Yes.

9:30 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

—where mitigation is dealt with.

April 26th, 2018 / 9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL

On the east coast, with regard to owner-operators—being from there, this is something I hear from fishermen and from the FFAW, the union that represents them—they want owner-operator entrenched in the act so that it would have some teeth. It was a policy that didn't seem to have any teeth for the officials and the government to be able to make it work. I'm delighted that it's there. It's odd to hear there are the same concerns on the west coast, because we didn't hear that when we were studying the Fisheries Act. I don't whether or not the people who presented from the west coast didn't bring it up. From listening to the people on Tuesday, and now you today, I think it's somewhere we have to move to, and probably as soon as possible.

You mentioned parity. It's very difficult in the fishery to get parity, I think. On the east coast there are rules and regulations in place that differ from province to province, let alone from one end of the country to the other end. It's difficult, but I think it's time we opened that envelope and started moving in that direction. I'm sure it won't happen overnight, but it is something that I think should be done. It should be more uniform. At the end of the day, it's the fishermen who should get the value of the resource that's in the water.

Is that my time, Madam Chair?

9:30 a.m.

Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)

The Chair

You have 20 seconds left.

9:30 a.m.

Liberal

Ken McDonald Liberal Avalon, NL

Over to you, Mr. Fraser.

9:30 a.m.

Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Fraser, you have three and a half minutes.

9:30 a.m.

Colin Fraser West Nova, Lib.

Thanks very much, Madam Chair. I got 20 seconds extra, which I've now just wasted.

Thank you very much to both of you for being here. We appreciate it.

Duncan, you talked a little bit about the differences in the fishing incomes between Pacific fishermen and Atlantic fishermen. I understand that obviously there are different species that are being fished. For example, on the Atlantic coast, I come from a riding where lobster fishing is doing extremely well, but there are some challenges there as well, which this bill addresses.

I wonder if you could comment a little bit about the different value of species. We've seen the demand for lobster increase as the market access opens up around the world. Can some of the differences in the amount of income fishermen are making on the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast be attributed to that?

9:30 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

I think it was Tasha who was reading from that report.

9:30 a.m.

West Nova, Lib.

Colin Fraser

I'd like to hear from both of you on that.

9:30 a.m.

Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries

Duncan Cameron

I'll comment on the fact that in the lobster fishery, the export price has certainly gone up, but as it has gone up, the fishermen have also captured a share amount of that value. I don't think the price of sockeye salmon in the world has stayed stagnant for the last 30 years, but somehow the dock price has. It's that share of the end value that I'm concerned about.

I think Tasha has more details on that.

9:30 a.m.

West Nova, Lib.

9:30 a.m.

Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada

Tasha Sutcliffe

The whole value chain is impacted by the policy in B.C. Sea urchin is going for a very high wholesale market price, and fish harvesters are not only not getting a share of that wholesale value; they're also not getting a share of the landed value. For the most part, they can't afford to lease the licence, so they're just being paid wages to fish at very low wages. They may be getting $2.50 a pound for sea urchin that may be going for.... We don't even know, because it's not transparent. It may be $20 a pound to the market.

I think the value of lobster in Atlantic Canada and the policies combined do speak to why there are greater earnings in Atlantic Canada. There's no reason we can't have that in B.C. There's no reason that we shouldn't be able to add value to our species, that halibut couldn't be as valuable or more valuable than lobster, and that fishermen couldn't get a share of that value.