Fisheries Committee on May 18th, 2023

[Brad Mirau]

It's on English, but it's coming across as French.

Okay, I have it now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Try it again, Madame Desbiens. That's take three.

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

I hope you stopped the timer, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mirau, I'd like you to comment on the fact that at this committee recently we had witnesses who wanted to testify anonymously. Why do you think that is?

[Brad Mirau]

I couldn't imagine. Within my company, I would invite anyone to come. I'm a fully open book.

If some people feel they need to come and testify anonymously, then you should grant it.

From my experience, I would not have anybody in my fleet who would be afraid to speak. I invite them to be open. I'm a total open book as a company.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Christensen, it is the small fishermen who are taking the greatest risks. They also bear the greatest financial burden and are often beholden to the companies that fund them.

Are the economics of the fisheries sector sustainable under such a system in the medium term?

[Dr. Villy Christensen]

Yes, the fisheries on the west coast, to a very large degree, have become.... I'm sorry, but I can't find the word. It's not possible for fishers on the west coast who rely on leasing quotas to make a living. It's not possible to make enough to maintain the fisheries and pay living wages to their crews. It is simply not possible.

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

What will happen to the resource?

At another meeting, we were told that local knowledge is fundamental to protecting the resource. We saw this in the case of lobster, for example. There is no one better than lobster fishermen to know how to manage and protect the resource.

In your opinion, what will happen to the resource if the status quo remains?

[Dr. Villy Christensen]

I can give you one example. That's for species that do not have quota licences. On the west coast, that's the shrimp trawl fishery, where the effort is very low compared to what it could be. The reason for this is that DFO, in the name of conservation, has a bycatch level for species of eulachon of four tonnes, which corresponds to less than 0.01% of that important species. DFO does not want to discuss changing that arbitrary level.

DFO, in this case, has strongly erred on the side of conservation. It does not take any consideration for socio-economic aspects in such a fishery. I think that on the west coast DFO has really gone too far on the conservation. It's much more balanced on the east coast.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

I allowed you an extra two minutes there to make up for the interruption and having the translation done.

We'll now welcome to the committee Mr. MacGregor, who is substituting for his colleague, Ms. Barron.

You're up next, sir, for six minutes or less.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm used to being on the agriculture committee, and I am going to try my best not to feel like a fish out of water here at the fisheries committee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I am proud to call Vancouver Island home. It's a beautiful coastline, and I am here filling in for my lovely colleague, Lisa Marie Barron.

Ms. Strobel, I appreciated that you outlined that example in your opening remarks and in subsequent questions. You did state in your opening comments that, like many fishing families, you can't afford to purchase the licences and, like many other families, unfortunately have to lease. You gave the example of how a family may own 5,000 pounds through quota, which is not enough to support them through the year, and they have to lease an additional 5,000 pounds. Through that system, corporations can exert control over both licences and saying that they're going to buy you out at x amount.

Can you give us a sense of what the earnings differential is? Has that been quantified for what fishing families are missing out on through the leasing system versus if they had enough money to actually afford enough quota to support themselves through the year?

[Sonia Strobel]

I don't have quantifiable numbers. I wish I did. I wish I could have it on a chart that I could easily show. I can say that for the fishing families I know who persist in the fishery through multiple generations and who are able to make a living from fishing and to do well and put their kids through university and things like that, they own their quota.

When we look at the example of 75% or more of the landed value going to the quota owner, 25% is coming back to the harvesting family. Out of that, they have to pay for the boat and the licence, the fuel, their operations and their crew. We're hearing from harvesters who simply don't fish. Maybe they have a quota in their family and they just don't fish it because it would be money-losing, as Villy just explained.

The difference is stark between families that own quota and those that don't. This is the kind of study that I'm disappointed to find DFO not putting efforts into understanding. Again, this is why I say that the beneficial ownership survey is barking up the wrong tree. We're not getting to the core of the question, because we're not asking the right question.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

On the terms imposed for leasing, are they generally the same no matter where you go?

[Sonia Strobel]

They vary. Some of our harvesters lease quota from their nation, so the nation will have an agreement with them about what percentage of the catch goes to them or what dollar amount. My husband leased from a family friend. They just negotiated between them because the family friend still owned the licence.

There are many different versions, but it is very common that when.... Again, this is why fleet separation is so important, because when the processor owns the licence, of course they're controlling the access to the resource and they're controlling the price that's being set. There is a conflict there.

When you're leasing it from a band that isn't buying the fish back or you're leasing from another family that isn't trying to buy the fish, they're not setting the price of the fish and you still have the independence to sell that fish to whoever the highest bidder may be for you as a harvester.

When your quota comes from the company that owns it and you must sell back to them at that price, to me that's a conflict, and that's the source of a lot of the problem for many fishing families.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for adding more detail to that for the committee.

You did mention that you had recently participated in the Fisheries for Communities event in Victoria. I think you did touch on that in an earlier answer. Can you elaborate a bit and describe the policy position that was the goal of the event and how much work had gone into it?

[Sonia Strobel]

Yes. Fisheries for Communities is a network of harvesters, researchers, academics and NGOs—small businesses as well—that are advocating for a policy reform in the Pacific region that would ensure more of the value of the fishery stays in the hands of coastal communities.

I'm very proud of that network. This is the third time that we've had a gathering and have brought in folks from around Canada but also from around the world, from other jurisdictions. They've come and told us how owner-operator policy and fleet separation exist in Alaska or in Europe, for example, in those parts of the world.

I was disappointed that we didn't have a lot of attendance from DFO, although we did have attendance from members of this committee. I was very proud to see that MPs attended the full two-day conference, listened and provided feedback. We didn't have feedback from DFO itself. I was hoping that they would be there to listen to more of that, because we worked so hard to bring voices from around the world, to bring solutions and to bring different ideas.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

In my final 30 seconds, can you explain the difference between licence-holders and licence owners and why this distinction is important for the reliability of DFO's beneficial ownership survey?

[Sonia Strobel]

There is confusion around that language in the beneficial ownership survey. It asks for the licence-holder, and the licence-holder may be a person who is operating that lease, who may be leasing it. Licence-holder is not the same as licence owner.

If a large company, for example, owns a lot of licences, they may not report that way and they might not be forced to report that way because they're not holding the licence. When someone is fishing, it's transferred to their boat and if it's transferred to their boat, then they're holding that licence.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We'll now go to Mr. Arnold, for five minutes or less, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start with Mr. Christensen, if I could.

Mr. Christensen, you talked about the shrimp trawlers with the bycatch situation. Are there other impediments to small-scale harvesters that are easier for the bigger operators to get around? We've heard something around observers on board. Could you provide anything on that?

[Dr. Villy Christensen]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

Yes, I did mention that for the shrimp trawl fishery in B.C., there is a very low, arbitrary bycatch level. Because of that low bycatch level, there's also a requirement of 100% observers in these fisheries. Only the big boats can afford that. This is an impediment where you have a policy that favours the large-scale fisheries at the cost of the small-scale fisheries.

To illustrate how arbitrary that level is, I mentioned that the bycatch level is less than 0.01% of the eulachon stock. The DFO shrimp survey has, in 12 of the last 20 years, caught more than what the entire industry is allowed to catch. Four tonnes was the bycatch, and they caught up to 15 tonnes, so this level is without reason, without any scientific background.

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

Thank you.

You mentioned that following the recommendations of the previous FOPO report would be a step in correcting the situation that's taking place. Would this be enough, or are there other steps that weren't covered in the earlier report?

[Dr. Villy Christensen]

I think this was a really important report, and if those 20 recommendations were followed, it would change the situation drastically.