Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to the committee members.
The Canadian Independent Fish Harvester's Federation represents more than 14,000 independent owner-operators across Canada. Our primary species are lobster, crab, wild salmon, shrimp and groundfish. We produce over $3 billion in landed value, which translates into $10 billion at retail, and much more to over a thousand coastal communities in our country. Including crew members, we employ over 40,000 workers, and we are the largest private employer in coastal communities in Canada.
My name is Melanie Sonnenberg, and I'm the president of the fish harvester's federation. Today I'm joined by our federation's Pacific vice-president, Jim McIsaac. Our wheelhouse is the Canadian fishery. We are here today to discuss independent harvesters' role in the future of the fishery, and why it is important for us to be part of the consultation processes regarding the fishery.
We are not here to challenge treaty rights, but to discuss sustainable fisheries as we see them.
The three core components of sustainable fisheries are legal access, rights or privileges; harvesters with their knowledge; and our technologies with vessels and gear. Harvesters as an important component of sustainable fisheries have formed important relationships with the ecosystem, our communities, our economy and our governance systems. All these relationships are important if we are to protect the resource and ensure benefits to our communities for future generations of harvesters.
The work to protect independent harvesters dates back over 100 years. On governance, we work closely with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in a symbiotic relationship that includes fisheries management, stock rebuilding, advisory committees, licensing issues, setting harvesting levels, and establishing harvesting as our controls. Our relationship is not perfect. Too often, the department is fixated on ecological objectives and has no resources to pay attention to socio-economic objectives. Over the last decade we have been working to drive this into the new Fisheries Act, and to ensure equitable distribution of benefits from our fisheries so that all harvesters in coastal communities are primary beneficiaries of our resource.
Without our driving socio-economic objectives, our fisheries would all be controlled by corporate and foreign entities. Our investment of putting knowledge into sustainable fisheries is significant. The net effect is tens of thousands of middle-class jobs that sustain over 1,000 coastal communities.
We are not part of any direct dialogue between the federal government and first nations around the term “moderate livelihood”. In the absence of that discussion, we would pose the following questions.
With multiple definitions and multiple parties, will limited entry be destroyed? If so, will fishing as a serious livelihood be destroyed? All legal fisheries are currently licensed, regulated, monitored by the federal government. Is this cornerstone to be replaced? How do we protect the resource when harvesters' plans are not consistent across all sectors of the industry.
Is it not important to monitor the catch to prevent overfishing in any fishery, including FSC, commercial or recreational fisheries? Won't the illegal sale of fish from any fishery undermine the sustainability of our legal fisheries?
Is it no longer important to protect our [Technical difficulty—Editor] our fisheries seasons and have conservation and protection rules that apply to all? As licence leasing reduces the net proceeds that go directly back to local communities, is this new objective in our Fisheries Act now irrelevant? Doesn't leasing to corporate entities undermine local ownership and erode net reach to all coastal communities?
We have been advised that we could see up to 35 separate management plans in Atlantic Canada alone. Is this workable? Will this make DFO's job of protecting our common resource more challenging and further complicate understaffing in many areas of the department?
We must find a way to manage the sector that doesn't cost more than the income from the sector. Can we afford both standards and enforcement? Should regulations apply to all harvesters equally in each fishery? If not, will we not have chaos?
Our members want positive working relationships with first nations in their geographic areas. Presently, we work with many in training, mentoring, marketing, species advisory committees, science and research; but by not being at fisheries consultation tables, we are left to speculate that we, the fishing industry, are on the menu.
In summation, we have proactive and productive options that could work in solving some of the current obvious concerns that our harvesters have. To achieve positive outcomes, we need a meaningful role for independent harvester organizations in fisheries' reconciliation negotiation. Existing consultation models that are used for international fisheries' negotiations like NAFTA and NAFO, where stakeholders provide advice and are sounding boards for the government, need to be adopted.
A common goal is that all harvesters participating in our fisheries be treated equally, so that enforcement applies to all. Alignment of seasons, regulations and fishing zones is [Technical difficulty--Editor] avoiding multiple management plans for one fishery.
In closing, on behalf of the Canadian Independent Fish Harvester's Federation, we would like to thank the standing committee for this opportunity to present. Mr. McIsaac and I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee members may have.
Thank you.