Fisheries Committee on Nov. 25th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have about 20 seconds left, which is not much time get in a question or a comment.

I'll move on now to—

[Paul Lansbergen]

Mr. Chair, may I take those 20 seconds?

I think the most important thing to think about, as Ms. Zarrillo said earlier, is that a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I think that investing in adaptation proactively rather than reactively would be very valuable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that.

We'll now go to Mr. Hardie for six minutes or less, please.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses.

Mr. Lansbergen, I'm really curious about your comment that the facilities that were owned and operated by your members did very well. Were they just lucky, or did something take place that made them more resilient?

[Paul Lansbergen]

They weren't in the path of the storm. There may have been some processors that were damaged by the storm, but they weren't within our membership. In response to Fiona, things were very quiet in terms of my members calling me and discussing what the impact was on them directly.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In terms of insuring against these kinds of incidents, are your members able to get adequate insurance coverage? If so, what has the price been like over the last few years?

[Paul Lansbergen]

Yes, the insurance costs for business insurance and marine insurance to insure vessels and also the processing plants and all that are of great concern to our members. The price has been going up; premiums have been going up. There have been ever-increasing exclusions in the coverages.

This was before the pandemic and before climate change. The underwriters have even started to some degree to back away from the sector, so that makes it constantly challenging. As we look forward decades into the future, this is only going to be more of a problem. How we address it is a good question.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Generally speaking, if you can offer an opinion on this, for those who have suffered losses who may have had insurance, what would you think the deductibles would be, or how much of the loss would be covered by an insurance policy, leaving a gap that people would look to government to fill?

[Paul Lansbergen]

That's a good question. I'm not privy to the specifics of the individual policies of members. They just generally complain about the premiums and the deductibles.

I think there's probably a good question to be had on some comparables between the fishery sector and aquaculture and agriculture on land. They have insurance programs and business risk programs with these extreme events of the type we've seen with Fiona.

There's a discussion that needs to be had around a role for government to play in providing similar assurance for the fishery sector or seafood sector.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

I'll turn now to Mr. Ablett. I'm going to assume from your accent that you might be familiar with Europe. Having had a chance to visit a number of small fishing communities along the north shore of Scotland, I know that the North Sea can be particularly wicked, and yet those very old harbours seem to stand up very well.

Do you have any opinion or any thoughts as to why that's the case versus what we've experienced here?

[Dr. Richard Ablett]

I feel that the whole world is now being challenged by climate change. You see impacts here in the Atlantic region similar to what would be experienced, I think, over in Europe as well. [Technical difficulty—Editor] impacting situations like Prince Edward Island or the coast of Scotland or wherever. It's not going to go away.

We can reduce the amount of CO2 by taking SUVs off the road, but we cannot really change the irrevocable pathway that is now under way for the rise in sea levels and the storm surges that are coming with it.

I live on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. I can tell you that I've never seen anything like this last storm. It's a quantal event, relatively, and it's catastrophic.

The next one is coming next year, potentially, so we in the seafood industry have to be on the mark and on the ball to know what we're going to do into the future, and that's—

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you for that.

I'm going back to you, Mr. Lansbergen.

There are well over a thousand small craft harbours in Atlantic Canada, and a good chunk of them are there for the fishing fleet.

Does our experience now, and particularly the cost involved in having to repair quite a large number of them, start to speak to the need to rationalize the number of these ports?

[Paul Lansbergen]

I noted you had that discussion with the previous witnesses earlier this afternoon. I think they gave a very good response to that question.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

What was that, in your view?

[Paul Lansbergen]

They thought that perhaps there was value in having that discussion. I think I would be stretching beyond my mandate if I gave an answer on behalf of the independent harvesters.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We will 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.

Once again, thank you to all our witnesses.

Mr. Lansbergen, I thought your idea of imagining or implementing a plan similar to the one that supports farmers was very interesting. I have proposed that perspective several times in this committee.

How do you see structured assistance looking in fisheries, assistance that could be adapted, a bit like AgriRecovery and AgriInvest and all the assistance that starts with "Agri" that is available to farmers and agricultural products processors?

As was suggested in Mr. Cormier's plan, we could have financial predictability that could then keep the fisheries in Canada and Quebec competitive.

[Paul Lansbergen]

Thank you for your question. My French is not very good, so I'm going to answer in English.

It's a good question.

I haven't looked too closely at the agriculture programs, because I felt like they were an apples-and-oranges comparison to the wild capture fishery. Having looked at it in preparation for this appearance, I think there may be some more relevant aspects to the insurance programs that they have, which, even if they aren't exactly the same, may still be very helpful in the seafood sector.

I think the market impact.... The loss of income, whether it be for harvesters or processors.... The capacity can't be replaced immediately. You've heard the challenges of the delay in getting dredging, rebuilding the harbours and replacing the vessels.

I'd have to have a deeper look at it to see what that means, but I think there is some possibility there.

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

Earlier, Mr. Mallet and Mr. Cormier had a very interesting discussion. They were talking about a plan, and I used the word "foreseeability". They were discussing a long-term plan, or at least a medium-term plan, to address the labour shortage and the shortage of contractors, or the insecurity relating to rebuilding these wharves. It would involve adopting a three- or four-year plan for contractors to use that would identify the wharves to be rebuilt as the priority.

You talked a lot about upstream and downstream. Ultimately, would you see results in this for you as well, since the entire supply would be more secure? That process would provide some security.

Do you think so?

[Paul Lansbergen]

We do, without a doubt. We're always looking at things strategically and trying to have a plan in place, because without a plan, the plan is to fail.

One thing that comes to mind in the immediate term on the offshore harvesting side is that if there is a loss of a vessel, whether it be through a sinking at sea or an unplanned breakdown, there are opportunities for companies to have other companies harvest for them. I don't know if something similar exists in the inshore fleet, such that now that a number of harbours are not operational and vessels have been lost, others can still help to harvest the products so there's some income coming in. I don't know how that happens on the inshore and whether that would help.

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

In any event, everything relating to improvements in the chain can only have a positive effect for you. There is predictability and the assurance that infrastructure will be maintained and rebuilding will be done, all of which provides you with security and more stability.

[Paul Lansbergen]

Yes, definitely. For processors that rely on independent harvesters for the raw material, that would definitely benefit them, for sure.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Zarrillo for six minutes or less. Go ahead, please.