Fisheries Committee on Nov. 30th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Calkins. You've gone well over, I'm afraid.

I'll leave the last couple of minutes of the committee to Mr. Cormier, please.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Oh, well thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thought we were over our time limit, but thank you very much.

Mr. Zscheile, you were talking about first nations wanting different things. What is your idea on how to reach consensus among all Mi'kmaq first nations? It seems like they all want different things. If you talk to some of the first nations in my area, we have had great collaboration throughout the years. For the last couple of years now they have owned a couple of fish plants. It's going well. They seem okay with what is going on right now in the fishing industry. They're part of it. They own fish plants.

Again, with your idea of coming to an agreement and some kind of consensus, they all want different things. How do you see that happening?

[Eric Zscheile]

The way I always describe it is, in governance, what's happening in the Mi'kmaq community, certainly, is what I call the fundamentals of federalism. We are starting to really understand, from the communities' perspectives, what are certain areas of concern that may be of a global nature. Everybody wants to come up with single ways of looking at them, the areas where they want to have more of a local aspect, and look at it in that way.

As I said, I'm working with Parks Canada on an RRA discussion. We're looking at it as a whole, so all 13 communities and a governance whole. I think what you're hearing on fishing is the communities are saying, at least for the time being, that they feel more comfortable in talking about access to the fisheries for community members as being something of a local nature.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

I just have a couple more minutes left.

Mr. Roman, you are a lawyer or a retired lawyer, and were talking about the first Marshall case's being a split decision of 5-2 or 7-2, and then the second Marshall case was all agreed by all judges. What do you think changed between the first and second decisions? What do you think happened there?

[Andrew Roman]

What usually happens in these cases is that if there's a split decision coming down and they want unanimity, everybody has to put a little bit of water in their wine and make a compromise.

There was a compromise when you look at the second set of reasons because the tone of it was somewhat different. To get Justice McLachlin on side, you had to give her something. I think what the second decision did was to repeat large parts of the first decision, but then it kind of watered it down a little bit, too. Then, at that time, Beverley McLachlin was just a judge. When the Stephen Marshall case came around, she was the chief justice and had much more influence and, I think, expressed her views much more strongly at that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Roman.

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We're completely out of time. We've gone a minute or so overboard—maybe two minutes.

I will close by reassuring the committee members that the witnesses who appeared earlier in the first panel are going to be rescheduled, and Mr. Belliveau, as well, has agreed to be rescheduled, so we will get to hear the full testimony of those witnesses.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, we will make sure that everybody is aware of the need for interpretation and that it has to be available for the meeting to continue on any grounds whatsoever.

Just on a point, I want to say to all committee members.... First, I want to apologize for a mistake I made earlier by allowing Mr. Bragdon to bring forward a motion on a point of order. It is my understanding that a motion cannot be made on a point of order. We've allowed it now and done it, but I ask all members to please refrain from doing that in the future. I don't want to have to call you out for making a mistake, as I'm admitting to doing myself tonight. As somebody once said, it's never nice to eat crow.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

My apologies, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Again, thank you to everybody.

Thank you to the staff.

Thank you, everybody, for your patience.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm sorry. I know you want to wrap up.

This is just for planning purposes. Do you expect that Wednesday's meeting will be with these witnesses? Is that your intention? I know that you need to do some planning, but is that what you are thinking?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

I leave that up to the clerk. If she hasn't already lined up the witnesses, yes, we'll try to line them up for Wednesday, but if we already have others lined up, the others have agreed to be rescheduled, so we can fit them in along the way.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Okay, I'll have my office reach out tomorrow.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Okay.

Thank you, one and all. Have a good evening.

The meeting is adjourned.