Fisheries Committee on May 29th, 2023

[Richard Williams]

In our ACOA report, we recommended a study of the federal government getting involved, in a parallel to the farm loan board, by doing it in partnership with the provinces that already have their....

By the way, in answer to an earlier question, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick do loan for the licences and quota, not just for the fixed material assets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Small.

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

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I get into my questions, I just wanted to give a shout-out to the people of Nova Scotia. The ridings of MP Perkins and Lena Diab are being hit hard by fires out there. I want to give a special shout-out to the volunteer firefighters, who happen to be fishers, by the way, who are doing double duty.

Mr. Williams, you said there is no easy or cheap way to fix the issue. You highlighted PIIFCAF and the main examples in terms of approaches and systems. I wonder if you could take some time to unpack how this looks from your perspective. You talked about loan boards, and other people here have talked about them. Can we get to some ballpark in terms of money and where it would be best directed if the federal government, working with the provinces, looking to tighten things up, provided more clarity to fishers and provided more flexibility and adaptability in terms of fixing this issue, but at the same time provided more community wealth for fishers on the west coast and on the east coast?

[Richard Williams]

For clarification, are you asking where to invest?

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Yes. You talked about a couple of examples to follow on the west coast. I guess what I'm looking at is that we have a multi-layered problem. We've talked about it here. We'll talk about it in subsequent committee meetings. In terms of where those problem areas are—some of which you've highlighted—can you unpack those a bit more and talk a little about what type of investment...? I know there are no specifics, but what specific investments would be focused on tightening things up, if you will?

[Richard Williams]

Well, I can take one example. Questions have been raised about the idea of a transition process or a fair transition. I did look at the halibut fishery in British Columbia. At the moment, at the inflated rates driven by speculative investors, to buy halibut quota you pay from $100 to $125 a pound to get access to the quota. That would be lower if there was less speculative pressure.

There were seven million pounds of halibut landed in 2021, for a total quota value of $700 million to $870 million. That's what it would cost to buy, to own, all that quota. About 85% of that quota, according to recent research, is owned by non-fish harvesters, people who are not working fish harvesters—retired harvesters, companies or speculative investors. Basically, it would take $600 million to $700 million to buy that quota and take it out of the hands of non-working harvesters.

Who's going to pay for that? If we were to go through a PIIFCAF process, fish harvesters somehow or other would have to finance that purchase. That's why I tend to think more along the lines of government having the capacity to make a purchase like that. If they then establish community-based licence banks, or a provincial licence bank, or some other system like that, then fish harvesters, by my financial analysis, could access quota for about 30% of landed value, as opposed to the current 70% to 75% that they're paying from the current owners of that 85% of the quota.

Yes, I think it's a justifiable investment. It's a manageable investment for government to undertake. That's just halibut, which is the most lucrative fishery in British Columbia, but there are others as well.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I appreciate the example.

You know, when we look across this country, we look at the fishery, but we also look at things like car manufacturing in southern Ontario, oil and gas in the Prairies and renewables elsewhere, where we make a lot of investments. A lot of the time we don't think about the fishery in the same way, but I always say back home that for every small craft harbour in Atlantic Canada, that's a car manufacturing centre for that particular community. The wealth that it produces is insurmountable.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have one minute and 15 seconds.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Hardie, would you like to take my time, since you seem to be a popular fellow here today?

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

I have lots of questions.

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway, and thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Williams, would we be able to avoid all of the machinations with a system that basically regulates the share of revenue from a fishery among the players?

[Richard Williams]

I'm not sure how that would be done. I know there have been proposals for a fair sharing arrangement around leasing costs to try to bring leasing costs within.... They don't seem to have gotten anywhere.

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

I'll leave that with you to think about. Maybe you can follow up with us as to how something like that might work.

The concentration of ownership of processors, through whom a lot of fishers actually lease their licence or their quota, must also be problematic. Should there be regulations that lessen that concentration?

[Richard Williams]

In my mind, the most meaningful and straightforward solution is simply fleet separation. Take ownership of licence quotas away from processors and not be involved in what proportion of the total fishery particular companies should have or could have, etc. Again, in the Atlantic region, we have big companies and we have little companies. Little companies are able to do quite well there because they can have their corner of the fishery and their fish harvesters, etc.

In British Columbia, we've just completed a research project in which we interviewed multiple working fish harvesters and also some small processors. What we found was that it's a jungle out there. The small processors are competing just as.... There's a level of competition just to have access to fish for harvesters and fish to process for processors. They're competing against the bigger companies that own more licences.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Williams. We've gone over time.

We'll 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 are allowed to question the witnesses from the first hour again, is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes.

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

That's right.

Mr. Bourgault-Faucher, in terms of timelines, if we don't act quickly, what impact could the status quo have on food sovereignty and coastal communities?

[Gabriel Bourgault-Faucher]

Thank you for your question.

I'm glad there's an interest in food sovereignty or, as it's more recently called in Quebec, food autonomy. In fact, it's a direction the Government of Quebec wants to take in terms of food more generally. Food autonomy includes food security.

I think Ms. Collier, the shrimp fisher, also stressed the importance of considering the aquatic resources of Quebec and Canada as food, not just as commodities. This could have an impact, among other things, on limiting the voracity of speculators, particularly abroad, with regard to these commodities. Considering the aquatic resources of Quebec and Canada as food to feed local populations is a key direction that should be taken by our governments.

This requires a completely different development model from the one we've been seeing in Canada for centuries and that we at the institute call the "extractivist" model. It corresponds to the raw materials economy referred to by Harold Innis, who passed away today and was very active in the 20th century. It was a seminal theory in Canadian economics. This model has been around for centuries in Canada, as we've seen with cod and now with shellfish, at least in Atlantic Canada. It involves the massive exploitation of one, two or three species that are then minimally processed before being exported.

Moving toward food sovereignty or autonomy therefore requires a complete review of this development model.

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

What do you think would be a reasonable amount of time to do that and save the day?

[Gabriel Bourgault-Faucher]

Both from a socio-economic point of view, for community development, and from an environmental point of view, given the disruption to ecosystems, continuing to massively extract one or two species isn't sustainable, so the development model needs to be reviewed as soon as possible. Actually, if it could be done tomorrow, that would be best. If food autonomy could be achieved within 10 years, that would already be a great achievement.

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

Mr. Williams, you mentioned community licences. From what you know and what you've told us, we need to focus more on buying back all the licences. Do you think this is feasible? Would the fishing industry accept this?

I would then like to hear your opinion, Mr. Bourgault-Faucher.

[Richard Williams]

No, it's not being accepted. On the Atlantic coast, there would be tremendous resistance to the idea of the licence not being an asset. I think it could be considered in British Columbia in the short term as a transition or as a strategy in a much smaller fishery that is not in as strong a position as the Atlantic fishery is right now. In a perfect world, I would see the Atlantic industry also considering this transition on a long-term basis.

I'm very concerned, with the continuing growth in the value of the licence, about how it will be possible in the future to maintain an owner-operator fishery on the Atlantic coast. That's in terms of the cost, the value of the enterprise and the ability of the people who grow up in the community as working crew to ever own an enterprise. We've seen fisheries in the United States where it's long past the point where a working fish harvester could ever become an enterprise owner, just because of the value of the enterprise. I would like to see a consideration of—

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

I'm sorry for interrupting you, Mr. Williams, but I want to save a bit of time for Mr. Bourgault-Faucher and so he can tell us whether it could be gradually done in Quebec or if some of the licences could be converted to community licences.

[Gabriel Bourgault-Faucher]

That's what I'm proposing: to test the model, while avoiding a disruption of the current order of things, start issuing the new licences that are likely to be issued in the next few years in the form of community licences.

That would anchor the fisheries in the communities, since the management of these resources is community-based. That would maximize and maintain the benefits in the communities. It could be an important driver for community development, which would improve the redistribution of wealth, since the community, rather than the fishers themselves, would be responsible for redistribution. That would also help establish the next generation because they would no longer need to buy licences, as the licences are held by the community. That would remove the barrier to acquiring a first fishing enterprise and make it easier for fishers to establish their fishing enterprise.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

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