Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Please raise your hand if you've ever gone softshell clam harvesting. I see that only two people out of about 20 have. I brought you a real specimen of a softshell clam that was caught on Sunday morning. I can pass it around so you can see what it looks like. The softshell clam is a mollusc with a pallial sinus protected by a flattened bivalve shell that is very delicate. They can be found burrowed in mudflats at depths of up to 90 centimetres. They are harvested with shovels or rakes. Some people use siphons. This species lives in the sandy sediments of tidal coastlines from the southern United States to Canada and along certain European coastlines, including the Wadden Sea.
The Répertoire du patrimoine culturel du Québec provided a summary: Some 350 clam harvesting areas were listed in 2016 and softshell clam fishing was open at only 87 sites. In the area that my neighbour and I are talking about in Chaleur Bay, we have 48 potential harvesting areas, and 41 of them are closed. That means that softshell clam harvesting is only allowed in seven areas. A La Presse article entitled “Des coques qui ont la cote” compared softshell clams to maple syrup, blueberries and cranberries as regional delicacies. If you ban caribou hunting for indigenous peoples in the Far North or harvesting blueberries and cranberries in Lac-Saint-Jean, there will be an uproar. However, when it comes to softshell clam fishing, there's been no uproar so far.
Let's now turn to water treatment. There were no restrictions on softshell clam harvesting over 35 years ago and all areas were accessible, even though some cities and municipalities didn't have waste water treatment then. I don't get it now, because they all have waste water treatment systems, and yet 41 of the 48 fishing areas are closed. I used to be an engineer and was involved in at least 80% of the water treatment south of the Gaspésie. My map shows Chaleur Bay in blue, and New Brunswick. All municipalities, with the exception of Caplan, have had sewer systems put in.
Magazine Gaspésie had a three-page article entitled “Effervescence printanière” and I'll read an excerpt from what one of my neighbours André Babin wrote in the magazine:
We fish softshell clams—we call them clams in French too—in early April on Easter weekend. My family lives at the tip of Les Pirates in Bonaventure. Once the ice has melted on the mudflats, my father, my brothers and I go out with a small sled, buckets and shovels and cross the barachois, which is still covered in ice. We bring along wicker baskets, which we call potato baskets here, that are made by the Mi’gmaq people of Gesgapegiag. The baskets are very practical because the water can drain out.
So it's a family tradition, and it's still going strong.
Now, let's talk about commercial fishing. One of my colleagues was the provincial minister of regional development. He did a study to develop a project that would build a factory capable of harvesting 150 tonnes of softshell clams and create 110 jobs with an investment of $4 million. That was in 2004 and 2005, and unfortunately, he wasn't re‑elected and the project got shelved.
I had noted the techniques of CIRADD, the Centre for Research Initiation and Sustainable Development Assistance, which will be giving a presentation.
The Comité ZIP de la baie des Chaleurs, which conducts various environmental assessments, did a study in 2007, 2008 and 2009. In 2007, the Bonaventure area had 120 harvesters who caught 168,000 softshell clams, compared to 112,000 in 2008 and 69,000 in 2009. The study's purpose was to verify the feasibility of opening the fishing area.
A document was drafted, and its conclusion stated that the area could open for softshell clam harvesting, with a committee overseen by Fisheries and Oceans Canada; however, the department never formed this committee. It's now 2026 and we could have been harvesting shellfish clams in this area since 2012 had this document been followed.
Now, the comparison to the Côte‑Nord—