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.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
When we talk about reconciliation and about fisheries, would it be safe to say that there are non-first nation families that perhaps have been fishing for generations as well?
Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries
Absolutely. Now we're talking about reconciliation with first nations and fisheries, but I think it's really important to talk about the same policies and the Mifflin plan. This policy on the Pacific coast is really one of the biggest factors in pushing indigenous people out of their traditional livelihood, and it's still happening right now.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
There is a quota that can be given to different groups for testing a fishery on the Pacific coast. What's that name?
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
A pilot fishery or a pilot quota. Is that what it is? It can be awarded to different groups, and there is no time frame. Is that correct?
Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada
I'm not sure of the time frame question.
Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries
I'm not familiar with any program like that.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I'll move forward.
I want to ask further about some of the challenges you face on the Pacific coast. I'm a B.C. member of Parliament. I'm landlocked, but I am the shadow minister of fisheries, oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard. I'm very well aware of the issues and challenges that we face on our Pacific coast. It has been fairly frustrating for us as British Columbians to see some of the policy that has come forth.
In your testimony today, you said there have been very important pieces of legislation that, by all accounts, have been rushed through by the government to get its legislative agenda through. Your two groups have not been consulted, and that's very frustrating to me. It's one of the things that we've been asking for along the way.
Mr. Cameron, if you can, talk about some of the other challenges you face on the west coast. I think you've been very articulate in some of the things you've said, but are there any other challenges or policies that worry you as we move forward?
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
In 10 seconds or less, I'm afraid.
Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries
How about you book a whole day?
That said, I'd still like to see the bill passed.
Mrs. Bernadette Jordan (South Shore—St. Margarets, Lib.)
We now go to Mr. Stewart for seven minutes, please.
NDP
Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses coming forward.
I grew up on the east coast, and I know fisheries are a big part of our culture there, and then of course coming to the west coast, it's the same. The difference between the two fisheries is confusing to me, so I really thank you for your stories here today.
I know you have your main points that you've been trying to make all the way through, but if there are peripheral or minor points that you feel you want to add, please consider mentioning them because they can sometimes be just as important when we're writing legislation.
The first question I have is for both of you. We've talked quite a lot about this, but I'll just allow you some time to elaborate. How would you like to see the principle of owner-operator and fleet separation applied on the Pacific coast? We have talked a little bit about that as we go through, but could you elaborate a bit more?
Maybe we could start with Mr. Cameron.
Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries
I heard that at the Tuesday meeting it was asked of a few of the witnesses how this should be done.
First of all, not to be rude, I look to your expertise as policy-makers to help draft that sort of legislation. Second, I've spent my whole life with one or two fisheries managers or ministers deciding what management plans will look like based on someone's thoughts that roll through their heads, and I don't want to be one of those people.
This needs to take place where you are consulting both the people who don't want this and those who want it. The welder in the community, the former boat builder, everyone needs to be consulted. That's how I'd like to see it take place, with an independent review.
Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada
I would agree with Duncan.
I will add that I think there are some very strong principles around how this can be applied in policy reform in that report I referenced. I don't have them all listed in my head right now, so I won't try to repeat them. I will emphasize the need for a fair and transparent process and the need for that responsible and respectful transition. We definitely don't want to harm the people who are already entangled and stuck in the current system despite their own potential advice against it originally. People have become quite entangled in it.
I will also say, in addition to the comments I made on the bill, that it's also about ensuring that the language is applicable to other coasts and not just Atlantic Canada. Really, the language doesn't necessarily explicitly exclude B.C., as it is permissive, but terms like “ensure” and “licence-holders” are problematic for B.C. That really needs to be thoughtfully reconsidered.
There are other things that I think can be done, such as looking at potentially establishing some transparency around licence ownership—who owns the licence and how much they purchased it for. There is no transparency right now. We're doing a lot of work trying to figure out and get to the root of ownership, and also to determine what's owned by non-Canadian interests. It's very, very, very hard to get to that information. There is very little transparency.
So I guess “transparency” is a pretty key word, and listening to the people on the coast who really do have, and are talking a lot about, good ideas about how to get out of this situation. I think the minister's expression was “unscrambling the omelet”. Well, there are people on the coast who have very good ideas about how to unscramble the omelet, and we're hoping to contribute our time and research to that as well.
NDP
Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC
Okay. Thanks.
I'm just on this committee for one day—we usually have Fin Donnelly here, who is, of course, very knowledgeable about this—but it strikes me as strange that we have this public resource, which all Canadians own, and then we sell the management of it to a very small group of people and kind of lease it back. It would be very strange if it were like that on land. It's weird that we apply it to the water, in the same way, so I really thank you for helping me understand how this is working and how deep these problems are, specifically applied to the Pacific coast.
Going back to the owner-operator and fleet separation issue, can you think of the greatest barrier to moving this over? We talked about perhaps a lack of consultation. Do you see other barriers to applying this?
Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada
I think the barrier felt by a lot of the people we work with on the coast is the very large corporate lobby. There is another opinion out there, and I'm sure you will hear about it at some point during the hearings. I hope you remember these testimonies, because you will probably hear people say, and probably have heard people say, that things are fine.
We're saying that if you are actually in the community, if you go out to the community, if you actually hit the docks in Prince Rupert, Ucluelet, Bella Bella, and you go into Ahousat, the conditions are not good for harvesters. Docks are crumbling. Boats are crumbling. That sounds like an anecdote, but you just have to go there to see it. That's where we both are, and we know that to be true.
Skipper, Save Our BC Fisheries
To add to Tasha's point, if you have someone testifying here from that lobby group, I encourage you to just look at the facts. Bring in an economist. Don't look at us. I mean, it's easy to get locked into rhetoric, trying to present such a vast amount of information in 10 minutes. I encourage you to not listen to a bunch of fishermen about economics but to bring in economic analysis.
Then go to these places. I think you'll see the truth quite clearly. You can drive south of the border to Washington if you want to see what a boatbuilding industry looks like. It's not dissolved down there. One of the oil spill response boats that the oceans protection plan just spent money on was built by Rozema Boat Works, which used to build gillnetters and grew out of the lack of boatbuilding in B.C. in the 1990s.
Vice-President, Programs, Ecotrust Canada
That's also why I think both Duncan and I tried to bring some numbers here today. We do have numbers that show through statistics, not just stories, that incomes are declining and jobs are declining.
NDP
Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC
I'm just trying to think of the ideal. When you're writing legislation, there are lines of text with all kinds of punctuation marks. I'm wondering if both of you, perhaps, could paint a vision of where you would like to see this go ideally. If you woke up in the morning said, “This is the perfect fishery”, what would that look like on the west coast?
Kennedy Stewart NDP Burnaby South, BC
Just give us your dream scenario for the fishery on the west coast.