Thank you very much, everyone, for allowing us to present our point of view on this issue.
I will need to switch to French.
In allocating redfish quotas, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has chosen to rely on the historical shares principle, whereas, based on the criteria of the department's emerging fisheries policy, redfish may, and clearly should be, considered an emerging fishery.
The resulting allocation is inconsistent with the decision-making framework principles and criteria for granting new access, another Fisheries and Oceans Canada directive.
Could Fisheries and Oceans Canada lawfully contravene its own policy? I don't have the legal expertise to say, but the question does arise.
Now let's discuss the offshore sector, which has received the largest share of allocated quotas.
When we discuss the offshore fishery, we're talking about enormous ships that consume phenomenal quantities of fuel both to propel their vessels and to operate their onboard factories. On the other hand, the fish that our fishers catch is processed at plants powered by hydroelectricity and wind energy.
Furthermore, compared to our fishers' operations, the vessels used in the offshore fishery potentially have a far greater impact on sea bottoms and other fish species, such as Greenland halibut, white hake, cod and, perhaps to a certain degree, Atlantic halibut.
These factory ships process and freeze their fish relying solely on fossil fuels. However, all the fish caught by our fishermen is processed using energy from nearly 100% renewable sources at plants in Quebec and more than 70% at others in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.
In the circumstances, the decision by the minister will contravene the departmental sustainable development strategy 2023–2027. It will also run counter to the part of the minister's mandate letter concerning the reduction of greenhouse gases. One could even say, without exaggeration, that the decision will run afoul of the Fisheries Act's requirement that the environment must be protected.
We all know that the shrimp biomass in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is not what it has been in recent decades and that, in its present state, can no longer support the industry and communities.
The possibility of partially replacing the shrimp fishery with the redfish fishery would give people, meaning first nations peoples and fishers from Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and New Brunswick, some hope for better days once that emerging fishery reaches cruising speed and processors have developed or recovered lucrative markets for that new fish.
However, the announcement the minister made on January 26 confirmed what we all expected regarding the shrimp fishery. She virtually sounded the death knell of the Gulf of St. Lawrence shrimping fleet by allocating the largest share of present and future redfish quotas to the offshore fleet. However, offshore fishers can still prosper without those quotas, not to mention the fact that they have little or no economic impact on maritime communities in eastern Canada. I'm thinking here of communities such as Rivière-du-Nord, in Quebec, St. Anthony and Port au Choix, in Newfoundland and Labrador, and communities in New Brunswick where northern shrimp fishing and processing are the main economic drivers. All those communities needed that redfish to avoid the inevitable socioeconomic downturn to which the minister's decision condemns them.
Thank you.