Fisheries Committee on March 19th, 2024

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

Okay.

Regarding the question I asked the RCMP, I understand their responsibility also, but are you aware of any arrests made on the rivers lately? Was anybody caught?

[Genna Carey]

I can only speak to my personal experience on that. I can tell you that I personally have phoned the RCMP for assistance on the river when I've been threatened. I have been told that they don't respond to elver calls. Nobody has shown up. At that point, the response for me, for safety in my workplace, is that I have to leave.

As a landowner who reports trespassing, I can also assure you that there's no response there either. I find it very hard to believe that there were only six reports for the year. I know landowners on rivers that we fish, and I can speak to their calling more than six times.

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

This is for Ms. Carey or Mr. King.

You said there was bad advice given by a DFO official. Let's put you in the position of the deputy minister of DFO right now. You are the deputy minister. What advice would you give the minister?

[Genna Carey]

I would start by advising her to speak with the industry.

We know this industry better than anyone. I grew up in it. My dad started our company when I was 11. This has been what I've done my whole life. We pioneered this industry and built it from the ground up. Obviously, it's coming to a change. There needs to be a change happening. There is nobody better to give advice to the minister than us.

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

What kind of advice would you give the minister, Mr. King? Would you say, “We are ready to open the fishery, and here's the reason why”?

[Stanley King]

If I were the deputy minister today, I would say, “Minister, you need to meet with industry. They've put forward a concrete plan to improve the safety, traceability and overall conditions of the fishery. You need to do that within the next two weeks, because the fishery can still be saved. We can still save 1,100 jobs.”

We have legal opinions. We have concrete ways DFO can use their rules and their set of already existing regulations to save this fishery. They don't need new regulations. They just need to enforce the regulations they already have.

Anything else from the minister's office is misdirection. She's refused to meet with us. The deputy met with us in January before this decision to close. We got half an hour of her time. She showed up 10 minutes late and cut us off at the stroke of the hour. First nations have not been consulted. Industry has not been consulted. She just has to listen.

I would like to be the deputy minister for a day, if I could.

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

My time is up, I think.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have 28 seconds.

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

I ran out of questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I could have let Mr. Cormier continue as well, but my questions will be along the same lines as his comments.

Mr. King, I know you came to see us very recently. The situations you exposed and the facts you presented were absolutely shocking.

You're saying that you now have a plan for security, traceability and fishing conditions, that the regulations are in place and that they just need to be enforced.

Why are these regulations not being enforced?

[Stanley King]

Thank you for your question.

It's not being considered, because nobody will listen to our plan. The minister will not listen to our plan. We forwarded it. We don't think there was a genuine consultation period. We've repeatedly asked to meet with the minister. We think it's easier for the government to wash its hands of this industry for this year and just get by it and hope for next year. That's sort of always their answer. They've had two previous closures. They could have worked on this. They know their two previous closures didn't work. We're at the same crossroads now.

To put the legal fishermen aside is callous. I think it's a cowardly act. They've bent to the criminals and said, “Listen, you can have the fishery this year. We are going to stand on the sideline.”

I would like to tell you that our plan also included a lot of activity with the CBSA to designate airports so that only one airport could be an export point. That was a suggestion by the CBSA.

Deputy Minister Gibbons said, when she testified in front of you, that there were a lot of illegal eels mixing with legal eels. Well, that may be the case for a second-party buyer. If you are an exporter and you buy from fishermen, you can buy from legal fishermen and illegal fishermen, and then put them together. We said we would ship our eels directly out of the country so they wouldn't have the opportunity to do that.

We've come up with serious, concrete solutions, and nobody will listen.

Thank you again for your question.

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

Earlier, the Canada Border Services Agency representatives talked to us about issuing export permits to facilitate traceability.

Do you see that as an improvement?

[Stanley King]

I think that solution will help CBSA. We found that last year, CBSA seized zero kilograms of elvers, despite DFO telling us that they were working very closely with CBSA. We saw testimony at this committee that refuted that fact. We contacted the CBSA ourselves—the director general. He was happy to meet with us and he more or less told us that they don't really hear from DFO. He said that they're not working with them.

We had to educate CBSA and they were happy to do that. They set up multiple meetings. They were very happy to get the information. I believe that we'll see increased enforcement and seizure of shipments this year, but it will not be because of the efforts of DFO. It will be because of the efforts of industry to educate CBSA.

Thank you.

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

If that's the case, would closing the fishery, even to legal, honest fishers, make any movement of elvers illegal and easier to identify? Is that really the best choice, or could people continue to fish? Would greater security allow you to continue fishing and gradually eliminate oppression, if I can call it that?

[Stanley King]

I think you're absolutely right. We are willing to fish and take care of our own security. We're willing to adopt any suggestions from CBSA or DFO to ensure that poached and black market eels are not leaving the country.

I think it's cruel to take 1,100 jobs from 1,100 families in one of the worst economies we've seen in decades. These are rural communities. We need these jobs. The minister has put us in a tough position. I would just like to point out that she refuses to even meet with us. She will not look us in the face.

We all had to talk to our employees—50 employees, 25 employees—and tell them. There were a lot of tears. There was a lot of “What am I going to do? I'll have to sell my house. I'll have to sell my car.”

We had to look at them. I want the minister to look at me. That's what I would request from this committee.

Thank you.

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

The same thing is happening to shrimpers and mackerel fishers in Quebec, though that's a different story.

The fishery economy is collapsing even though it's a flourishing economy that helps feed the regions and develop regional economies. For the fishing community, losing 1,100 jobs is not trivial.

What can we add to our recommendations? What would you like to see in there? Answer briefly, please.

[Stanley King]

That's a very good question. What could we tell you that you could bring to the minister?

This has been a 10-year problem. I can tell you that over and over again. The mismanagement of this fishery is nothing short of criminal.

What I would like to tell this minister, the past minister and the minister before that is that they cannot blindly take the advice of the regional bureaucrats and take it as an honest assessment of the situation. They need to listen to the stakeholders. We are subject matter experts. Nobody knows this fishery better than us—certainly not somebody who has never held an elver in their hand. They are quick to shoot down our ideas at the regional level and not bring them up to the minister. That's been one of our complaints for a long time.

I would like to tell you that we have been working very diligently with first nation fishers, the new entrants and the other entrants who would like to get into it. We can all agree that this fishery is mismanaged. We're trying to solve it on our own. Even for that, DFO does not like us communicating. They would like to put a roadblock in between the two parties. Ultimately, they create the rules, they hold the quota and they will not let us save our own fishery.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

I will now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm glad it's come to me. My list of questions is getting longer.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

Maybe I'll just pick up where you left off, Mr. King.

If you can, please expand on and share a little bit more about your point around—I don't want to misquote you here—a roadblock that you feel is being placed between indigenous and non-indigenous elver fishers. Can you expand on that a little bit and share what your experience has been?

[Stanley King]

Sure. Thank you for the question.

We've been requesting for a long time, and we've always been proponents of, greater indigenous access in the fishery—for many, many years. We realized the easiest way to implement something like this, which may actually help the fishery as a whole, is to be in the same room as first nations leaders, especially the ones who would like to co-operate with DFO. We can really work this out.

The last time I appeared here, Mr. Cormier suggested just that. I don't know why DFO hasn't brought the two groups together. It was an excellent idea, and this is how it should be. DFO, despite our many requests, is unwilling to do that. It likes to work in silos. It doesn't want the left hand to know what the right hand is doing.

We have tried to circumvent DFO by contacting the Assembly of First Nations chiefs ourselves. We've met with them and we've had really great discussions, but ultimately, we can't do anything without DFO's approval. DFO is the governing body, so although we've tried—the first nations are willing to try and the licence-holders are willing to try—DFO is not willing to put us in a room together because it might just reveal too much of what it's been doing, or what it hasn't been doing.

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

I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer this or not, but what's your sense on this disconnect between indigenous and non-indigenous harvesters? Do you have anything you can share around the implications or impacts of these fishers being separated and not having the opportunity to have these really important discussions?

[Stanley King]

DFO has essentially pitted our two camps against each other, when we're basically on the same side. We're all fishermen. We all want to make a living from this resource. We all want to pay tax. We all want to create jobs for our communities. Instead of bringing us together under one umbrella, DFO has separated us, and that causes animosity. That causes strife in the industry and a lack of understanding, because nobody knows what the other side is thinking.

There's a real bone to pick with DFO, and this is part of the mismanagement. I want to tell you that this is getting major news. We recently had a university professor contact our industry group, saying, “We would like to make a case study out of the DFO mismanagement in this fishery.” When it gets to that point and when they're making political cartoons about it, something has gone awry and we need serious help, because the help we're getting from DFO is like a lead weight being thrown over a boat.

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

Thank you, Mr. King. I have many other questions, but thank you for your insight on that.

Mr. Townsend, first and foremost, I want to offer my condolences for the loss of your partner. Thank you for sharing with us the stress and hardship that the closure of this industry has created in your life. Those stories are very important in our work, so I want to thank you.

I'm wondering if you can share whether you had any consultation at all. Did anybody reach out to you? Were there any opportunities for you to be able to provide input or feedback through this process prior to the closure of the elver fishery?

[Zachary Townsend]

Thank you for your question and for your condolences. I really appreciate that.

Really, other than being able to write a letter to the minister, which I'm not even sure she read, I was able to talk to my local MP, who was very sympathetic. I heard from a lot of my co-workers that they've been reaching out to their MPs.

Many MPs in the Liberal caucus are very sympathetic to what is happening. I had my MP reach out by phone because he was so affected by what I read to him, so thank you.