Good evening.
My thanks to all the witnesses for joining us today.
I am going to turn to Mr. Burns and continue along the same lines as my colleagues, on the subject of foreign interests, which have an ever greater presence in our country.
Mr. Burns, you are probably aware that the fishery is going well in our regions. Quotas are up. The resources are there, both lobster and crab, and the prices are currently extremely good. The concern is that more and more companies are coming into our regions and offering fishers ridiculous prices. They are sometimes offering two or three dollars per pound more for crab or lobster.
I fully understand that the provinces are responsible for processing those products. However, before they arrive at the wharf, they are still a resource that belongs to Canadians, for which the Government of Canada is responsible.
Do you know a company called Royal Greenland, which has an ever greater presence in our region? It has made some offers for shrimp, in Quebec and in Newfoundland, if I'm not mistaken. On the wharf this year, it was even paying two dollars to four dollars more per pound for both lobster and crab.
I don't need to spell out the consequences of that practice for you. Our fishers are going to sell their product to those companies, including Royal Greenland, which is subsidized by the government of Denmark. If those companies operate in our region and are offering prices like that, our fishers are going to sell their products to them. We will then have problems when they take control of the market.
I could name a number of other companies, such as Champlain Financial Corporation, which is buying up more and more plants in our region.
Are you aware of those investments and of the presence of those companies that are also subsidized by the government of Denmark?
What are you doing to make sure that our fishing industry stays in our coastal communities, as you said earlier?