That's an interesting question.
Fisheries are a public resource to be managed to the benefit of Canadians. In preparation for today, I dug up the way that a country like New Zealand looks at this. They have very valuable fisheries resources. They actually have an overseas investment office, in addition to a fisheries minister, looking at any foreign interest that wants to buy quota or become partial owners of fishing entities and processing entities.
I'll just quote something to you. This is a briefing document produced by the U.S. State Department. This
[investment oversight] legislation, together with the Fisheries Act [in New Zealand], requires consent from the relevant Ministers in order for an overseas person to obtain an interest in a fishing quota, or an interest of 25 percent or more in a business that owns or controls a fishing quota.
I don't think anybody is arguing that there should be no foreign investment, no element of foreign ownership in the fisheries. As a researcher, I find that it's just not as transparent as one might want, even to be able to come to a committee like this and answer questions and bring evidence.
We know that other countries that have valuable fisheries resources treat them as strategic resources, because they're valuable. There are also these questions related to food sovereignty and that sort of stuff that come up as well.
I think there are lessons to be learned from legislation and approaches in other countries that see fisheries as a public resource more than as a strategic one