Fisheries Committee on Dec. 11th, 2024

[Carl Allen]

Yes. There are provisions there for substitute operators. I think we really have to take a deep dive and look into those. Where can we create some flexibilities? I see that recently we've added some for maternity leave. Also, there are short-term ones, short-notice ones. You know, we'd like to see something, whether it's in NOLS or elsewhere, for what happens to me on Sunday evening if I slip and break my leg and can't go Monday morning. Right now, I have to find a fisheries officer on Sunday night who might grant me permission to let somebody take over.

I think we need to really maybe take a deeper dive into how we can look at the system as it is and create some flexibilities that do not put into jeopardy the owner-operator principle.

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

Okay.

On fines, quickly, I met with a couple of wharf representatives during the past couple of weeks. They were saying that some of their own fishermen at their own wharf were poaching once in a while. They got caught. Fines are so low that they just did it again.

Do you think those fines should be increased, and increased very drastically, so that we can prevent this kind of poaching?

[Carl Allen]

Not to put my neck on the line, but yes.

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

Do it. That's what we want.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Carl Allen]

Yes, I do.

It comes down to the judiciary. It's up to the judge and the Crown prosecutor. The problem is that it's different from province to province.

I think the fines should be very stringent. Once upon a time, if you got caught, you lost time off your next season. When the poacher does the cost-benefit analysis, the cost of poaching has to be way more than the benefit, so that he says, “No, I am not going to do this.” Right now, it's the opposite. The cost-benefit analysis says, “Yup, it's a slap on the wrist,” and that's if you get caught in the first place.

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

Quickly, Mr. Wareham, in the previous panel, we talked about collaboration.

When it comes to discussing all of those changes, we have the reconciliation piece, and we want to make sure we involve everybody, but don't you think that, as part of reconciliation, if first nations and commercial fishers talk to each other around the table, we will get to a better result in the end on what we want to accomplish? Instead of having nation to nation, just have a whole group focus on what comes next.

[Alberto Wareham]

It's always better to have everybody in the room. Then you hear what their concerns are, and you have an opportunity to work with them. It would be better for everyone if we collaborated as an industry, across all sectors.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Cormier.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We took exactly the same approach not so long ago when we tried to bring together all stakeholders in the issues relating to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Maritimes. Several points you raised today also came up at that meeting.

I'm going to elaborate on the next generation. I'm very concerned to see that succession is far from guaranteed because people are facing such stark realities in the fishing world. I'm thinking in particular of the industry shifting to a model that benefits large commercial enterprises. I won't go through the list of realities experienced by harvesters, because you've already mentioned them.

What can we do in our review of the Fisheries Act to encourage young people to stay in the fishery? What can we do to encourage them to remain harvesters like their fathers or to attract young people who would like to become harvesters?

The issue of succession is certainly a major concern for you, Mr. Allen and Mr. Wareham, as well as for you, Ms. Street, because you all represent fisheries workers. I'd therefore like to hear your opinion on what could be added to the Fisheries Act as a mechanism to attract a significant number of young harvesters.

[Carl Allen]

I'll go first.

Thank you for the question.

I think that in the act itself, if it's applied strictly as it's written, we'd add provisions for the west coast that we do not have corporate money trying to buy inshore licences. This jacks up the price of licences beyond where new entrants can access them, even if they have access to capital. The other part is access to financing as well.

We at the Maritime Fishermen's Union worked very hard over a number of years, and we have a program in place now with the province and with Unifor whereby new entrants have access to a very reasonable amount of money to purchase an enterprise with very favourable terms.

We've talked at the federation about the possibility of there being a national fisheries loan board, the same as the farmers have, to give independent owner-operators access to capital to be able to buy those and, in the meantime, exit the big players, who will bid up the price of a licence way beyond what even a bank may be willing to give for it.

[Alberto Wareham]

From our side, it's stability of access, as I said in my opening remarks. As Mr. Allen said earlier, if you know you have, whether it's inshore, midshore or offshore stability of access, you can plan your business, and you can finance the business. You can then also provide workers in plants like we have when you know that you have the allocation coming.

For us, stability of access is key. Including the fisheries sector needs to remain as a cornerstone of fisheries management in Canada.

[Dwan Street]

I agree with Carl. What's really prohibitive right now for young people is access to licences and the finances.

Our province introduced an initiative this year that was a loan program. It seems to be working in some instances. It definitely needs some improvements, but it is a good first step.

What we are seeing is that lack of enforcement by DFO when it comes to controlling agreements and companies buying up licences.

In my previous life as a staff rep in 3Ps, I couldn't count the number of people, young harvesters, who would call me and say, “Look, I had this licence lined up; I had financing lined up through the bank, and this company just outbid me by $50,000.”

It's so disheartening for a young harvester to try to get into the industry. That just keeps happening, because, at the end of the day, somebody in their twenties or early thirties trying to get their footing in this industry cannot compete with a corporation worth millions of dollars.

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

Mr. Allen, you were saying that permits should be issued primarily to people who are fishing, with boots on their feet, not to big corporations that have never seen water rise above their overshoes, as my father used to say. That way, we could build young people's confidence as well.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada doesn't listen very closely to people in the field, they work in silos, they don't have an open and transparent approach to managing the ecosystem, and they lack predictability. These are things that should be corrected to attract the next generation of fishers.

Is that a fair statement?

[Carl Allen]

Yes, that's exactly correct.

To Dwan's point about.... When we talk about inshore licences, what happens in a situation with that individual who may have been outbid by corporate entity X is that at a certain point in time, he may say, “Well, I guess I'll do the deal with the devil.” He becomes a Jimmy Lee Foss who says, “I'll do the deal with the devil, because that's the only option I have. I just want to fish.”

I tell a lot of people that fishing is something you are; it's not something you do. Therefore, you put these kids and young people.... Now the average entrants are in their thirties, so I guess they're not really kids, but you put them in this situation where they say, “The only deal that I can do is the one with the devil,” and that's not a good situation to be in. It's a modern feudal system. It's like the days of the merchants of the 1800s, when they were just subsisting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses who are here. Lots of good information has come out.

Mr. Allen, you were talking about the identity of people who fish, and I was reflecting on how, in Newfoundland, it's standard to get people to kiss a cod when they come to visit and get married into families. I think that's a good example of how entrenched that identity is and how important fishing is to people in these coastal communities.

I have questions for Ms. Street, and others, of course.

Ms. Street, you talked about enshrining the principle of adjacency. You had said that this is something you think would be a given. Can you expand on this and, perhaps, give us some thoughts on how this could be better enshrined in the act?

[Dwan Street]

Absolutely.

We've preached for a long time that the resources on our shores should benefit our province—and that goes for any province, really—and the value of those resources shouldn't be shared, whether it be with a Crown corporation of Denmark.... We've been dealing with that here in Newfoundland and Labrador; we are certainly having our troubles with that company that moved in and completely tried to monopolize the processing industry as well as the harvesting side. If we enshrine these principles, whether it be historical dependence or adjacency, then we're going to make sure that value is supporting our coastal communities.

In the 3Ps I represented, we had issues with controlling agreements and vessels from Nova Scotia coming over. Harvesters were very upset about what that was doing to their resource, because, at the end of the day, that's all they have. When they see vessels and harvesters owned by corporations coming from other provinces to harvest that resource, it's obviously going to have an impact on their future.

I think we need to be clearer about who benefits from what resource and where that goes.

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

Thank you, Ms. Street.

When I was last in Newfoundland, representatives from FFAW actually introduced me to some fishers who were experiencing much of what you were talking about. You were talking about the corporatization of fishing and about the large corporations that are taking control, one small vessel at a time.

I spoke to a father who had been quite happily fishing for many years and was training his son to take over the business. He was in the position, when I spoke to him, of it not even being a possibility that his son could take over. Despite having the willingness and despite wanting to, he just couldn't afford to do so. Instead, they were having pressure applied to them to sell their business to one of these large corporations.

You talked about the importance of protecting the owner-operator policy and this being the backbone of coastal communities, and I totally agree with you, but examples like the one you just shared are being used in discussions with me about why the owner-operator model doesn't work, in particular on the west coast.

I'm wondering if you can share some insights as to how, when there is an owner-operator policy on the east coast, we're still seeing the corporatization of the fishing industry and small fishers being pushed out of the industry. What can we do differently?

[Dwan Street]

I think it just goes to show that, when PIIFCAF was introduced in 2007, it was a policy, and it didn't really have any teeth. I remember because, in my home community back then, we were starting to see corporations buying up fishing licences. I remember seeing the seven-year time limit that folks were going to have to get out from underneath these agreements, but there was really no mechanism there to do so. That's why it was so important to us.

We worked with the federation and served the federation to ensure that Bill C-68 became a reality. We were very hopeful that, when it did, we were going to see some enforcement and action that were finally going to hold some people accountable, and we'd start seeing some of this ridiculous implementation, when it came to the price of fishing licences, start to come down. We just haven't seen that, for many of the reasons that I and Mr. Allen just discussed. There just hasn't been the attention on it that we feel is necessary.

The department is definitely under-resourced as well. We hear that when we talk to our department here. They have only so many people who can focus on so many files, and it just doesn't seem like the mechanisms are there to really do what needs to be done, because people are being given time to go to lawyers, get crafty with these arrangements, come back and say, “No, look,” and the department can't do anything about it. I dealt with one personally, in 3Ps, that I and everybody in the community know is a controlling agreement. At the end of the day, the licensing officer at DFO—I mean, she's fabulous, and she did her job—had to throw up her hands and say, “There's nothing else I can do.” The lawyers were just too good, so there's clearly something not working.

I don't think that the owner-operator principle is the issue. I think, again, it's the application and enforcement of it, and when somebody can't access the capital because, realistically, a bank is going to look at an enterprise and lend you the money that the vessel and the enterprise are worth, and that's not some overinflated amount that only a corporation can front.... There's no business plan in the world that's ever going to show that you can actually pay this off, but that's what's happening. It's very unfortunate, because, for those corporations, it's the cost of doing business, and, for a lot of young harvesters, the only way to do that is to become hamstrung to one of these corporations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron. You have six seconds left. You're not even going to get out a question.

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

Well, if I could use those six seconds, just very quickly, Chair, I would appreciate it.

I was just going to say thank you very much to the witnesses. I agree with everything that you're saying. I think this is what happens when we see a government bending to lobby groups and corporate interests.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

All right.

We now go to Mr. Arnold for five minutes or less, please. He's giving me the stink eye.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I run a clock here as well, to keep track of my own time more than anything else.

Thank you all for being here and online today for testimony.

What we're doing for this committee study is reviewing the Fisheries Act of 2019—the act, not the regulations and the pieces that should have flowed out of the act—but what we're hearing consistently, again and again, is that there were things in the act that were enabled by the act, but after five years they're yet to be rolled out.

We heard from the previous group about how, after five years, they're still waiting for standards of practice, codes of operation and so on. We heard from you three today about the owner-operator issues, the adjustment of appropriate fines, the lack of enforcement and the stock assessments that are not complete. These are core responsibilities of this department. For each of you, just quickly, would you say that the department has been able to fulfill its core responsibilities?

I'll start with Mr. Allen and then go to Mr. Wareham and Ms. Street.

[Carl Allen]

Not holistically, no, I don't think so. I don't know whether the issues that are being thrust upon them, with the rapidly changing environment, are too much for them to grasp, but we have this running gag in the industry that, if you want something from the department, then you'd better figure out what it is, draft it up and present it to them, because if you wait for them to design it, that's not going to happen. I don't know why that is, but that's just the perception that, I think, is reality.