Evidence of meeting #28 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was prawns.
A video is available from Parliament.
President, United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union – Unifor
It's extremely hard timing because we don't even know when we're going to start. They might delay the season for market reasons, which is really strange, considering that they're taking away the top market from us on the other hand.
Executive Director, Pacific Prawn Fishermen’s Association
The domestic market has been the saving grace during COVID. That is what has saved countless fishermen. To remove that would be.... How do you come back from that?
Lead Representative, Prawn Industry Caucus
It's entirely tone-deaf to what the challenges now facing industry participants are.
Liberal
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Just to clarify.... Is it one question, Mr. Chair, to everyone? Okay.
I'll go back to the remote and rural fisheries, the farthest fisheries away from the market. Can you talk about the impact on those fishers and those communities and what that will do to those vessels? Also, can you talk just a little bit more about COVID and how COVID has impacted these fishers straight up and down the coast already, and what this is going to do to them?
President, United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union – Unifor
I'm from the Heiltsuk Nation, and I fish out of Bella Bella, which is very remote. Last year, I sold them some tubbed prawns to help with food security in the region. If those are unavailable to me, I cannot sell them prawns because the dip I have to put my export prawns in is not food-grade for Canada. If I can't sell to my own nation in tubs, that's awful.
Managing Director, BC COVID-19 Active Fishermen’s Committee
In the remote areas of the coast, there's no readily available processing plant to handle this. That makes it impossible to fish a huge part of our coast and serve the domestic market that way. It really throws that disadvantage as well.
Lead Representative, Prawn Industry Caucus
I think it's maybe been said already, but if we cannot freeze prawn tails in tubs, it means that locals only have access to prawns during the roughly 40-day season. Many, many prawn buyers, back when I was fishing, would buy 40 or 50 pounds frozen in tubs at a time to last them throughout the year, and that was part of their food plans. Removing the ability for people to do that, whether in busy communities or in remote communities where they really rely on that provision of food just makes absolutely no sense.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Johns.
On the Conservative side, Mr. Calkins was due to be up next.
I don't know, Mr. Calkins, if you're going to be the one to take a couple of quick questions or if somebody else is going to do it.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Well, I can, Chair. Let me just turn on my video.
I want to go back to just a couple of questions in regard to the monitoring of the fishery. I know that in some cases on the coast there are cameras on boats. Are there cameras on any of these prawn boats at all?
Executive Director, Pacific Prawn Fishermen’s Association
No cameras—they use a vessel monitoring system. There's GPS functionality, but no video cameras at this point.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
My next question, then, is this. Is there any other product that would be taken commercially from the west coast that you would be allowed to freeze on board and put into a tub or a package, and that would require the same length measurement types of restrictions and would be as easy to identify as a two-and-a-half-minute thawing process for tubbed prawns? Is there any other species that would even come close to this type of ease of enforcement?
Managing Director, BC COVID-19 Active Fishermen’s Committee
Well, there are other fish that are tubbed that are much more difficult to defrost. It's like what we were talking about with hake, which is in a large tote, and there are other species of fish that are individually frozen at sea, but they would be very, very hard to discern unless you defrosted them.
Conservative
Lead Representative, Prawn Industry Caucus
Maybe I'll just quickly add to that. There are other species of prawns and shrimp that are retainable under the W licence, but there is not a size requirement associated with those shrimp.
Liberal
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to sort of lead this through. You can't tub, which means that your product would all go to the processor and you would end up with less money. The processor will probably freeze-dry it. I've seen some of that product at the fishmongers in Steveston, and it doesn't look nearly as good as what we've seen Mr. Atkins hold up in that tub.
Nonetheless, the fish processors freeze-dry it, and then it probably goes to export—I thought we heard that earlier—which means, then, that we're bringing in prawns from someplace else. Now, how do they arrive? Do they arrive in tubs or are they all freeze-dried as well? Does anybody know?
Lead Representative, Prawn Industry Caucus
The prawns that are processed at the seafood buyers can be tubbed. They are not under the requirements and regulations that the harvesters are. In fact, they could be selling them in the same tubs that the harvesters are selling them in now.
Yes, you're making an important point. What will replace the locally caught harvest of prawns here if it's not available to the public is most likely going to be an inferior product from overseas, as many people find at the pubs and in the restaurants.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
That's astounding. The processor can sell it in a tub and it's not subject to easy access for inspection?
Executive Director, Pacific Prawn Fishermen’s Association
Yes. It comes down to the wording of the fishery general regulations that it's the catcher, the fisher, who cannot modify the product, but a processing plant can absolutely tub them.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Hardie.
I know that our time has not quite run out. I'm going to offer Mr. Johns another question if he'd like to ask one, seeing as he's the one who put this study forward.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
First, I want to thank everybody for your really important testimony.
I want to thank my colleagues. They've asked excellent questions.
I'm like Mr. Hardie. We're all baffled by this. Have you heard from anyone on the coast who thinks this is a good idea? I haven't come across anyone who does. Nobody—not former DFO scientists, not environmentalists—can tell me this is a good idea.
I see Mr. McIsaac shaking his head. Do you want to start, Mr. McIsaac? Then we'll go to Ms. Orr.
Managing Director, BC COVID-19 Active Fishermen’s Committee
Nobody has come to me and said this is a good idea, that it needs to happen. I've heard nobody say that, nobody in any of the sectors, any of the fisheries, and even inside DFO people inside the department are saying this is bizarre.