Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to inform this committee on the status of the Canadian elver industry and the management—or mismanagement, I should say—that has caused it to spiral into the troubled industry you see today.
I'm here representing the Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery, which represents the majority of the commercial industry. With me today is Stanley King, CCSEF spokesperson, and Zachary Townsend, an elver fisherman with the Shelburne Elver co-operative.
Mr. Chair, as you know, this past week, the minister pre-emptively cancelled the 2024 elver fishery, putting more than 1,100 legal elver fishers out of work. This marks the third shutdown in five years, which only serves to highlight the incompetence of the department and the bad advice they continue to give successive ministers—six in eight years, if we're counting.
I want to be clear that the fishery today is identical to what it was 12 months ago. Nothing has changed. In fact, the problems that the minister cites have existed since 2020 without any meaningful action by DFO to improve the fishery, despite repeated pleas from stakeholders. DFO's solution to these problems has always been the same: Shut down the legal fishery, turn a blind eye to the poaching and hope the problem magically goes away.
The blatant mismanagement of this fishery is obvious to everyone, including the governments of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and even the minister's own Atlantic caucus colleagues. They've all voiced opposition to cancelling the fishery and requested that the minister meet with stakeholders before making any final decision, something she ultimately refused to do, despite the gravity of her choice.
Perhaps this is because the department, the deputy and the minister's office in general have made a concerted effort to paint the elver industry as greedy eel barons rather than 1,100 hard-working women and men, mostly indigenous, who make up this industry under commercial or communal licences. This disrespectful characterization forms part of a disinformation campaign of DFO talking points that are demonstrably false and designed to cover up mismanagement. The species is not at risk. Traceability projects don't take years to implement, and enforcement isn't impossible. These are just convenient excuses.
Cancelling the elver fishery has cost our rural economies more than $100 million since 2020. Not opening the fishery in 2024 to await long-overdue regulations that will ultimately be ignored by unlicensed fishers is nothing short of dereliction of duty by the minister. We have no confidence that the government will adequately address the industry's problems before next season, and history supports our skepticism.
I'd like to give Zach the opportunity to speak to the committee so that the members can learn how DFO's mismanagement is directly impacting their constituents.