We fish elvers and ship them live. We export them out of the country for growth in aquaculture facilities. Now, 100% of our fish, whether they're legally caught or illegally caught, are shipped to China. That's where they're grown out to market size.
They have an insatiable appetite for this protein source. They will buy as much as they can, and they want to protect this commodity. They need fresh elvers to come every year to make sure that they have enough for their population, and they don't really care how they do it.
They have partnered with organized crime and criminals. They will show up with bags of cash for black-market transactions, and they have basically undermined our fishery and our local economy. They're stealing tax dollars. They're stealing jobs. Our fisheries are getting shut down. The criminal element has basically threatened and intimidated a lot of the legal fishers to quit. We've had employees quit over this.
One employee in particular.... The industry, as a whole, employs a lot of women who have families. One fisher for us, who has been fishing for 15 years, has two small children under five. She makes her yearly salary in this industry, and has for 15 years, but she will not return to work this year, because she said it's too dangerous and she has to keep her kids in mind.
We have this transnational organization. It's global crime, and nobody will pay attention to it. We call the RCMP; we give tips and we call DFO's C and P—the enforcement wing of DFO—and nobody will do anything. It's costing Canadians jobs and tax dollars, and it's going to cost them this industry if DFO doesn't get its act together soon.