Evidence of meeting #92 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 dfo.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Mel Arnold
Thank you Mr. Perkins and Mr. King.
We'll move on now to Mr. Morrissey for five minutes, please.
December 7th, 2023 / 11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Chair.
My question is for Mr. King, through you, Chair.
Mr. King, your testimony before the committee is alarming, but I take you at your word.
You referenced bags of cash. Did you see that?
11:50 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
We know that they deal in cash. Prior to all of this, we know that Chinese buyers, who we have dealt with, are prone to coming with briefcases full of cash, so I know that is how they operate.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
I don't disagree, because we've heard this quite a bit. It's a growing situation, not only in the elver fishery.
Was there any record of that? A simple transaction of cash itself is not illegal if it's documented and reported. That becomes the illegal part. What records, if any...?
You referenced a local buyer. Was the buyer a licensed buyer?
11:50 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
The licensed buyers sometimes skirt the law and sometimes play on both sides of the fence. Sometimes these guys don't have a licence at all, and they're just running afoul of the law.
As far as proof is concerned, we have a roughly 10-tonne total allowable catch—a TAC. We were unable to harvest 45% of that because of a premature closure by ministerial order—
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Of that 10-tonne quota that was assigned, what portion were you not able to catch?
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Licensed harvesters harvested 55%, and—
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Yes, and unlicensed harvesters did 45%, or four and a half tonnes. That's by DFO's own account.
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Yes, sure. We've pieced together the way they figure this. Instead of going down to the river when the actual fishing is happening, they're using drones—they've told us this—and other measures to count how many illegal fishers are on the river. Then they sort of back-calculate by how much we catch, because we report our catch in real time.
If I go out one night and catch one kilo of fish and there are 50 other non-licensed fishers with me, they assume that those guys caught one each too, so that's 50 kilos that they take off the TAC. That then leaves the TAC short from us.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Absolutely.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Okay.
You said that quota was stolen. Is that how you define that?
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
It's a contentious term, but that's how I would define it. We have—
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Absolutely.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
For my next question, when you say that DFO is mismanaging the fishery, you use flight information for shipments. Did you provide that to DFO?
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Yes. We have provided a lot of information to DFO, including that. As you can well imagine, the pots mix. We have 200 fishing families, and they have fishermen friends and relatives, so we get some intel back to us. We pass that along promptly.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Is that information about Canada? Halifax or Moncton, I take it, are—
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
Yes, it's export flights out of the country with live fish.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
You said that it's primarily to China.
You made 30 recommendations. One is for a traceability system.
Could you explain a bit more? I'm not sure how a traceability system would work within the elver fishery. We're just referring to the elver fishery.
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
A traceability system documents the chain of custody of illegally caught fish. We can document where they're caught, who they're sold to, who bought them to export them and where their final destination is.
It's no silver bullet, but it will help identify unlawfully caught fish more easily.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
In my remaining time, for the elver licence, you referenced the willing buyer and willing seller, which has been a principle that successive governments have used in trying to get access to existing fisheries for first nations. It's one I agree with.
What would it cost for an elver licence?
11:55 a.m.
Acting President, Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery Inc.
According to DFO, it's not worth that much, because they've made shockingly low valuations on it, we think, to sort of undermine us, to create greater indigenous access, and to skirt the willing buyer-willing seller process, which was the state of the path forward of the previous two ministers.
What is a licence worth today, after the fishery has been undermined by poaching and nobody else will invest in it, because it's basically a mess? That is anyone's guess.