Evidence of meeting #70 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fishers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Hanley and Mr. Chair.
I'll go back to you, Dr. German.
We talked about the use of civil forfeiture. Is it fair to say that it should target licences, quotas and boats? I guess that's pretty much it, isn't it?
Chair of the Advisory Committee, Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute
Yes, civil forfeiture is really a way of taking back money that individuals should not have in the first place, but there is no criminal charge involved. We do have the Criminal Code. We do have provisions in the Criminal Code dealing with money laundering. Those should be enforced. Unfortunately, we're seeing spotty enforcement under our Criminal Code. As a result, the provinces have deferred to civil forfeiture. If you can show that people obtained licences through unlawful means, yes, you can use civil forfeiture.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Ms. Collier, I want you to picture yourself as being 60 years old. I know that's forever from now for you, but let's say you're 60 years old today. You have those licences. You have that quota. How would you feel about a transition to owner-operator who could see the value of their assets decreased quite significantly? Do you think that would happen?
Fish Harvester, West Coast Wild Scallops
If I were 60 years old and an owner-operator, I would be looking at having my children take over the business. For the price difference in it, I wouldn't be looking to sell. I'd be looking at having my children continue on in this lifestyle. The value of being able to sell wouldn't be on my mind necessarily.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Your time is up, Mr. Hardie. It's gone a little bit over, actually. I'll catch you before you get a word out.
We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes.
Go ahead, please.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bourgault-Faucher, let's come back to community fishing licences. In what proportion would these licences have to be issued for them to have a real impact on communities? Would those with a concentration of licences be opposed to it? How do you see it?
Researcher, Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine
Those licence owners may be opposed to it.
I'd like to clarify what I mean by that. I'm proposing that there be a pilot project. It would be exploratory, and the issue would need to be explored in greater depth. I don't claim to be an expert on this issue. In any case, it's a project that's never been done outside indigenous communities. However, what we do know about community fishing licences is that they put aquatic resources in the hands of the communities, which are then responsible for managing fishing activities and making business decisions in the public interest.
The fishing licences cannot be sold or acquired by individuals. These fishing licences are the property of the community. In this case, the fishers would be hired by contract by the community. The profits would be shared fairly according to the terms of the contract between the two parties, that is, the community and the fishers. The community would then decide where to invest its share of the profits. It could be in the development of its fishing activities or in another area, such as health, education, public services, transportation infrastructure, or housing.
So, the pilot project—
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
This applies more to indigenous communities, but non-indigenous communities already have health care and services.
Researcher, Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine
Yes, but the profits can also be invested in transportation infrastructure, housing or elsewhere in the community, for example. Existing local health services could also be improved.
In this pilot project, new licences should ideally be issued for emerging species or species on the move, such as lobster in Quebec, rather than targeting existing licences. This would avoid too much disruption to existing fleets.
Also, the management of these community licences should be strictly regulated to avoid abuses, whether in terms of awarding contracts between fishers or marketing catches. Sound management must be ensured if the system is to function properly.
Bloc
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Madame Desbiens. You snuck in almost an extra minute out of it that time.
We'll now go to Ms. Barron for two and a half minutes, please.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. German. Thank you for being here.
I have a couple of questions and I'll try to get to them quickly. We had a previous witness talk about similarities between what we're seeing in the housing market, in particular in British Columbia, and what we're seeing in the fishing industry, in particular with seeing costs being driven up by speculation and foreign investments in the housing market. What are your thoughts on those similarities?
Chair of the Advisory Committee, Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute
I see it as a similarity, quite frankly.
We've imposed certain requirements on foreign purchases of real estate in British Columbia, and now federally. Why not do that with fisheries, as well—at least for a period of time—to see if that is a significant issue?
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you.
You also spoke about the importance of transparency and understanding who the owners are and so on, in fishing.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with the survey that has come up quite a few times in this committee, but the survey went out to licence-holders. We know there's a difference between the licence-holder and the licence owner. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts around that and how it might impact the information that we're receiving and the efficiency of the information that we're receiving.
Chair of the Advisory Committee, Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute
I'm not familiar with the survey.
I'm a bit of a broken record. I would just emphasize again that shedding sunlight on an issue is the best way to deal with it, and that's the transparency issue. In order to ensure transparency, you have to know who ultimately owns what. That's really all I could say in response.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Could you elaborate a little bit on what happens when we don't know who the owners are, and perhaps some solutions? I know you're going to be reiterating what you've already said, but reiterate what needs to be done.
Chair of the Advisory Committee, Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute
That's precisely the issue we had with the casinos in British Columbia. People were filling out forms and it just became rote after a while and no one was really looking past the paper and saying, let's delve into this. Where exactly did this money come from? What bank account? Can we trace this? Where is the ultimate ownership? Once we started doing that, all of a sudden the suspicious transactions plummeted.
I don't really see it any differently. That's why the Attorney General at the time said, let's take a look at other sectors of the economy, because we also know that if you clean up one area, people are going to move into another, particularly if you're talking about investors. These don't necessarily have to be the organized criminals themselves; these can be people somewhere in that chain.
It's not just organized crime money; it's also, as I mentioned, capital outflow. Lots of countries have currency controls. You can't bring money out of those countries, so people try to bring it out through different investment means, and you also have tax evasion money.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Ms. Barron.
We have a little bit of time because we're trying to contact one of the witnesses for the next hour, so I'll go to Mr. Calkins for five minutes or less, please.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you, Chair.
It's great to be back at fish committee.
Mr. German, I saw you at the procedure and House affairs committee not that long ago. I'm a bit surprised to see you here under the same kind of conversation when it comes to foreign interference, even though the procedure and House affairs committee is dealing with it from the perspective of elections.
You mentioned boat sales and FINTRAC. Could you elaborate a bit more and give us an indication, and any examples that you might have, about people actually laundering money through the purchase or sale of boats? These are large fishing vessels and they're worth a lot of money. It would be quite the feat to pull that off. How does that happen?
Chair of the Advisory Committee, Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute
Yes, I was at the electoral interference committee. I'm just responding to notices that I receive. I was actually pleasantly surprised to receive one from fisheries.
The Attorney General and I have both referred to our system as really one of whack-a-mole. You try to regulate one industry to deal with the money-laundering issue, and then it moves somewhere else. That's why a universal system, such as the one they have in the United States, where all cash transactions over a certain amount have to be reported to their financial intelligence agency, to my mind makes sense. We don't have that in Canada. You have this whack-a-mole phenomenon where organized crime will move to luxury goods, say, if things are difficult in casinos, or to cannabis sales. They keep on going.
With regard to boat sales, people laughed to a certain extent when we talked about money laundering through luxury cars, but then in our report, “Dirty Money—Part 2”, we looked at that phenomenon. I think we convincingly showed that organized crime was using luxury car sales to launder money. It was during that examination that we realized there were very similar parts of the economy where there was no reporting, one of them being boat sales. There's a lot of money tied up in boat purchases.
I can't speak specifically about fisheries vessels versus pleasure craft. We simply don't know. We don't know whose money is going into the purchase of boats, because it's not reportable. That's why I also noted earlier auction houses and so forth.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
I would imagine that the same thing is true for aircraft and other types of large-ticket items. Is that correct?
Chair of the Advisory Committee, Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute
That's correct. Aircraft are not, as far as I can recall, reportable either.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Ms. Collier, you talked a little bit about what you're seeing on the ground in your community. It's beautiful out there on Vancouver Island. When you hear about a quota being purchased.... I've been out there many times, and I've met folks; there are first nations groups that are fishing their quotas and there are first nations groups that are not fishing their quotas.
What has your experience been lately? It's been a few years since I've been up there meeting with folks. When a first nation is buying a quota these days, are they typically fishing it or are they basically leasing that quota out to folks like you?
Fish Harvester, West Coast Wild Scallops
I don't have a lot of knowledge in that area. The knowledge I do have is that it depends on the band, but yes, in lots of cases you see those licences being leased out to non-indigenous fishers.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
When you go into the process of leasing quota that's available, you sometimes don't know who the ultimate owner of that quota is, do you?