Fisheries Committee on Feb. 29th, 2024

[Patrice Element]

In the long run, I firmly believe that there's going to be a market. With the increasing worldwide demand for redfish, and for fish and seafood, I firmly believe that this fish can be sold at a very fair price somewhere, once we have put it on the market, so the answer is yes, there is a market. There probably is one now, but it needs to be developed, because it's a new product.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Even the experimental quota that was allocated in the last couple of years wasn't caught, primarily because there didn't seem to be a market for it. Is that not the reason?

[Patrice Element]

One processor told me, last year or the year before, that he would need at least.... Maybe 100,000 tonnes might be too much this year, but what we had in the last few years was not even enough to send a couple of containers to Asia, or something like that, so it was not enough to develop a market. We need a minimal amount to develop a market. We need to prove to people that we can send them a significant amount of fish.

The other thing is that the scientific quota is just that. It's for projects and to advance science. It's not necessarily meant for commercial use. Well, the fish is sold, obviously, but it's not necessarily meant to develop a market. The quota is used to advance science. Those are the reasons that the quota is there.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you, Mr. Element.

We will move on now to Mr. Cormier again for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Element and Mr. Lanteigne, I want to review with you what we were talking about earlier, in other words, the types of assistance.

As we said, even if you get an allocation of 300,000 tonnes, in the context of the opening of the fishery, you don't know if you're going to be able to sell the fish, or at what price, and so on.

I want us to talk specifically about one aspect. Can you tell me whether or not you'll be able to provide numbers on what you think you need for your respective fishers? I'm talking specifically about the owners. Will you be able to provide these figures to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and to the redfish advisory committee that will be holding meetings soon?

Will you do that?

[Jean Lanteigne]

The answer is yes. As soon as we know what the tonnage is going to be, we can make that calculation.

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

That's perfect.

I would like to go even further.

Mr. Lanteigne, you're also part of an association of crab fishers. You cleaned up the seabed, so to speak, with a few crabbers, such as picking up lost traps, and so on.

Could shrimpers do the same? Could we send fishers out to sea to pick up this ghost gear? Could another type of assistance be included in a range of assistance measures?

[Jean Lanteigne]

Absolutely. The crabbers themselves will tell you that the shrimpers have boats that are better equipped to do that kind of work. The answer to your question is yes. It's entirely possible to do this type of work.

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

That's perfect, thank you.

Mr. Element, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development appeared before the committee, and he said that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had done a terrible job in terms of scientific surveys. I don't know if I used the right adjective, but he did a bad job in this area, particularly with respect to fish stocks in several types of fisheries.

Could scientific surveys also be part of the range of assistance measures? Could we send fishers out to sea to conduct these surveys with scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, for example? The purpose of producing these reports would be to provide you with a little help, on both sides. Would that be possible?

[Patrice Element]

Absolutely. For years now, we've been offering the help Fisheries and Oceans Canada with their scientific surveys, collecting data to help their scientists complete their surveys.

By their own admission, they lack information on when they are not at sea, that is, more or less 10 months a year. The answer is yes. We would be able to do it, we would like to do it, and it would be beneficial for science.

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

That's perfect.

Mr. Lanteigne, I'll come back to you.

Fishers want to be entitled to a certain number of pounds or tonnes of redfish. But there's a very big difference between an individual quota and a competitive quota, isn't there?

[Jean Lanteigne]

Yes.

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

Could you quickly explain to my colleagues and others attending the meeting what a competitive quota would mean instead of an individual quota? In the case of a competitive quota, it's quite a bit more complicated to establish a fishing area.

So I'll let you comment on that.

[Jean Lanteigne]

It will be very easy to answer your question.

I will lay out two situations.

In the first situation, say you want to get funding. You go to your financial institution and ask for $100,000 or $200,000 to run your fishing business. They ask you whether you have an allocation. You say no, because it's a competitive quota. You will be refused funding and told to come back later. This type of quota doesn't get financing.

In the second situation, your boat breaks down. This actually happened here last spring. A fisher launched his boat, went out to sea and the engine blew. If there is a competitive quota, the fisher can't wait two months for the motor to be repaired before they go back out fishing. The other fishers will have taken the quota, and the fishing will be over. Quotas for competitive fishing don't work. Fishers absolutely must have, at the very least, individual allocations. This is what we call individual quota fishery or IQ fisheries.

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

Okay.

I don't have much time left, but I would like to tell you this: I know that what happened is not what you wanted. I know it's not what you expected. Still, there is a 10% allocation and it can be increased. You heard what I said last time, when I asked officials about the additional quotas that could be given to shrimp harvesters.

I have something to ask of you: We need you at the table. We need you at the meetings of the Redfish Advisory Committee. We need your statistics and your ideas.

I think that the minister is willing to look at all these options. We need to have numbers, we need to propose a whole range of measures on how we can help owners.

However, Mr. Lanteigne and Mr. Element, we must not forget the men and women on deck, the plant workers and the plants that will depend on the shrimp and redfish fishery for years to come.

I'm counting on you to provide us with the information that the committee and the government need to make their recommendations, the information that the minister also needs to make her decisions.

[Jean Lanteigne]

Okay.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lanteigne and Mr. Element.

[Jean Lanteigne]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier. You're over your five minutes, actually.

We'll move now to MP Desbiens again for two and a half minutes, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

We have identified a number of solutions.

Last week, the Bloc Québécois organized a work table with a good many shrimp harvesters, many stakeholders from all over Quebec. We also highlighted certain problems with the way the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, operates, their failure to listen and lack of consideration.

Next week, at this consultation table, do you think you will be properly heard and that you have enough clout and influence to ensure that the quotes are revised in your favour and people stop considering historical shares?

[Jean Lanteigne]

Madame Desbiens, I'm going to make a comment on this subject that relates to the question Mr. Cormier asked earlier.

We ourselves suggested to the department that it set up a work table to study all the questions Mr. Cormier raised earlier, but we're still waiting for an answer. We have been asking for two years. That didn't start this morning. It's as if we were always talking to a wall. They listen to us and say they've heard us, but nothing ever happens.

To come back to your question, more specifically, we don't have that much confidence in advisory committees precisely because that is not an exchange, a real work table, where everyone agrees to make their contribution. Everyone has a position. DFO officials are there, but they don't say much. It's the person chairing the meeting who does the talking.

That's it. That's all.

A report is then produced, but we don't even see it, so we don't know what was presented in Ottawa. We're told that our ideas were presented, that our suggestions were submitted, but we have no proof of that.

On Tuesday of this week, we heard the DFO representatives you questioned. Personally, I've never heard so many lies over such a short time. I'll tell you what I think: I have never seen such a bunch of liars. We're being flat out lied to! If you wanted to rattle me, you pushed the right button.

[Patrice Element]

With regard to advisory committees—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Thank you. That is right on the time for MP Desbiens.

We'll move on to MP Barron for two and a half minutes, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm happy this round, and I'm going to be passing my time on to Madame Desbiens.

Thank you.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

I sincerely thank my colleague, Ms. Barron. I'm very grateful to her.

Mr. Element, I'll let you have your say, because we weren't able to hear you earlier.