Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon.
Thank you on behalf of the Maritime Fishermen's Union for giving us the opportunity to speak today. Our organization represents over 1,300 independent inshore owner-operator fishermen in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
We are grateful that all parties supported changes to the Fisheries Act, protecting owner-operators and fleet separation in legislation with the purpose of keeping Atlantic Canada's public resources in the hands of fishers in their communities, and protecting the inshore fisheries from corporate control and influence.
However, we are still very much at risk of losing our fisheries from other angles.
In recent years, mom-and-pop and family-run and community-based fishing and processing enterprises have been on the international menu to be bought and agglomerated by large corporate interests owned by foreign nationals or out-of-province investors. Whereas locally run enterprises would reinvest most of their business revenues within their community and province of origin, large-scale corporations are interested in profits for shareholders, not sustainable rural communities that depend on a local fishery's resources.
There are more and more examples of foreign ownership takeovers of our marine resources and benefits across Canada. On the east coast, we can cite, for example, Royal Greenland in Newfoundland and Quebec, Thai Union in New Brunswick, Clearwater in Nova Scotia with the recent involvement of the Premium Brands Holdings component and, as was mentioned earlier by Monsieur Cormier, Champlain Investment in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—and the list goes on.
For today's presentation, I'll use the example of the Champlain Capital company, based out of the U.S., but with an affiliate company, which is the Champlain Financial Corporation out of Montreal, to illustrate the concerns since 2017.
Champlain has taken control of eight processing plants in small rural communities across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Officially, this investment group has tried to promote the positive impact of this merger for the regions by stating the creation of more opportunities for synergies and reduction of costs, as well as the development of new products.
However, it is also the creation of a monopoly, with the potential of creating an uneven business environment for the remaining local processing plants, potentially driving them out business to remove competition, and opening the door to fix the price of fish for local fishermen. Furthermore, dividends from local businesses that would have generally remained in the communities to the benefit of other supporting businesses and community members now go to out-of-province and international shareholders.
Also, will they shut down some of the less efficient plants in order to improve profits to further consolidate and improve bottom lines? To this question, the answer is “yes”. For example, back in 2020, one of their recently bought plants in eastern New Brunswick burned down and was never rebuilt. Instead, they reinvested in their other processing facilities, thus consolidating and improving company profits at the expense of the community that lost their plant. Most of the 150 plant workers when the plant burned that day lost their jobs—in a small coastal community where the fisheries sector is the main employer.
In closing, our organization supports the need in our industry for appropriate access to capital for continued maintenance and growth of the fishing and processing sectors. However, there is an urgent need, number one, for an effective set of strategies for the monitoring and hedging of foreign national interests in our public marine resources. Maybe a working group of federal and provincial governments, industry and economic, financial and legal experts could be struck to do a thorough study of the situation and develop strategy options to address the issues. Currently, and as stated in the presentation by DFO just before mine, the present DFO and provincial management fisheries structures do not have the tools necessary to address foreign ownership control issues of our Canadian fisheries resources and benefits.
The second point I want to raise is the need for appropriate financial aid programs to support intergenerational transfers of owner-operator fishing licences to new entrants, but also, incentives to support processing sector businesses so that they can remain locally owned and operated. However, even the best programs here will not be able to compete with the deep pockets of international corporations.
Finally, our public fisheries resources must be considered as part of our Canadian national interest and food security priorities. Currently, they are being taken away from Canadians at an alarming rate. This issue has to become a priority for our elected officials and policy makers.
Thank you. I'm looking forward to your questions.