Deputy Minister, I don't want to spend too much time on it, but the fishery opening date has not yet been announced for this year. Normally, the ice committee, as we call it, meets with officials and fleet delegates.
Once again, Minister, I'd like to thank you for the efforts that were made this year. If you would like to answer my next question, feel free to do so. Otherwise, the officials with you could answer it.
Crab and lobster fishing licences are becoming increasingly expensive. They can now cost between $10 million and $15 million. There are even rumours to the effect that it might reach $20 million. For comparison, when my father fished lobster, a licence cost $75,000 or $100,000. Now it has got to $1.5 million in most instances.
For a number of years now, more and more crabbing licences held by people in New Brunswick are repurchased by people from elsewhere. The department's officials appear to be turning a blind eye to it, and hiding behind policies and what are called residency criteria. Let me give you some context.
Someone in New Brunswick who wants to buy a crab fishing licence in Quebec must have been a resident of Quebec for two years. However, when someone from Quebec, Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia wants to buy a crab fishing licence in New Brunswick, they only need to have resided in New Brunswick for six months. This residency criteria disparity allows many people in other provinces to acquire fishing licences in our region, New Brunswick. These licences therefore now belong to people who live somewhere other than in our region, which is extremely harmful to the coastal communities.
The intent of the new Fisheries Act was to enable owner-operators to harvest within the terms of their licence, but the spirit of the act was also that these licences should remain in our communities. And yet there appear to be more and more licences leaving our communities, and it's that residency criterion that is making it so easy to sell these licences.
Minister, is your department prepared to change the residency criterion for New Brunswick? If so, when can we expect it?