Fisheries Committee on Oct. 7th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number five of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

As always, I want to start by acknowledging that we are gathered on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. I express gratitude that we are able to do the important work of this committee on lands they've stewarded since time immemorial.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is meeting to continue its study on the attribution of redfish quotas and exploratory lobster fishing licences.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Pursuant to the Standing Orders, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before we begin, I would like to ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, but particularly the interpreters. You will also notice a QR code on the card, which links to a short awareness video.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of both the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking.

For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I believe all members are attending in person today. For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your patience.

With that, I would like to welcome our participants today.

With us today is Kelly Tremblay, fisherwoman, attending remotely. In person, we have Ghislain Collin, president of the Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie.

Finally, we have Alain d'Entremont, president, Scotia Harvest Inc.

You will each have up to five minutes to deliver opening remarks.

Ms. Tremblay, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Kelly Tremblay, Fisherwoman, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.

Traditional snow crab fishers rarely have the opportunity to be consulted on issues that directly affect our work, and I sincerely appreciate this opportunity.

My husband has been a crab fisherman on the Côte‑Nord since 1998. His father was as well, and we bought the family business back in 2017. I have participated in the family business since I was 16, but since the buyout, I have been actively involved in managing the business and meeting all the requirements mandated by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO. At the same time, I have been a lawyer since 2012.

I will be testifying today on the impact of excluding category A snow crab licence holders, also known as traditional fishers, from the lobster exploratory fishing licence selection process on the Côte‑Nord. This exclusion, which is based solely on our administrative status as traditional fishers, prevents us from participating in new opportunities to diversify our fisheries and raises serious questions of fairness.

Over the years, crab fishers have been subject to numerous government decisions and requirements, including black boxes, dockside weighing, at-sea observers and records of all kinds to be kept, to name just a few. Obviously, all of this is done at our expense. A little over 20 years ago, the government went so far as to impose a forced sharing of category A fishing quotas to create new category B licences. As a result, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans reduced individual quotas for each traditional crab licence holder by about 10% to 20%, without even consulting the main stakeholders, who had taken all the financial risks to market this little-known seafood product.

These changes have changed the economy of our businesses, and now we feel like we are getting a double whammy. On the one hand, we have already lost a portion of our quota to new categories, and on the other hand, we are now being excluded from the selection process for exploratory lobster fishing, while category B fishers have been included.

We are therefore facing fishers who hold several category B licences and to whom we have been forced to give our permanent quota, without compensation for more than 20 years. They can apply for an exploratory permit, but we cannot. You would think that being a traditional fisher made us privileged or favoured fishers. However, the reality is quite different. We are facing a steady increase in operating costs and expenses and increasingly fragile revenues as a result of market fluctuations and declining quotas.

Given climate change, who can predict with certainty the evolution of crab stocks in the St. Lawrence River? This is evidenced by the fact that there was little lobster found but now we are talking about a possible commercial fishery. On top of that, our secondary fishery, which is the whelk fishery, was closed for over two months this season. We are not challenging this decision, which was made to protect the resource, but it has had major economic repercussions, and similar closures are expected in the coming years.

So we are facing a double pressure: on the one hand, there are increasing restrictions on our existing fisheries, and on the other, we are completely excluded from new fisheries. I am also wondering about the fact that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has not imposed any dockside weighing requirements for exploratory lobster fishing. Catch reporting is at the fishers' discretion. Given the need for transparency, sustainable management and scientific rigour, I think it is essential that, in an exploratory fishery, all catches are reliably and rigorously measured and documented in order to assess the resource, fishing efforts and the resulting distribution.

Also, why is there such a rush in granting exploratory permits without even issuing experimental permits? This decision gives the impression that the process was improvised and conducted on an urgent basis, without any real consultation. What we are asking for is not preferential treatment, it is simply fairness. We are asking that established fishers, who have proven their know-how and commitment to the resource, be given the same consideration as others.

For over 20 years, we have been carrying out, at our own expense, post-season testing of the status of snow crab stocks in area 17 to ensure the sustainability of the resource. We are already equipped, and we are well aware of the need for scientific data to be collected in order to ensure the sustainability of the fishery.

In closing, even though Ms. Lemire, DFO's fisheries and aquaculture management regional director for the Quebec region, says that, generally speaking, exploratory licence holders will be granted the commercial licences in the future, I can tell you that it is not too late to make adjustments and correct the inequities. Exploratory licences are issued for one-year periods and are not renewable, so why not reduce the number of traps per fisher to allow more to get a small allocation? Why not identify sub-areas on the Côte‑Nord and thus give more fishers a chance?

If we really want to build a sustainable and equitable fishery, we must ensure that it is done in consultation with all stakeholders, not just in DFO's offices with the stakeholders it considers relevant.

I thank the committee for this opportunity and I sincerely hope that we will be consulted when future decisions are made and, above all, that our interest will be taken into account when commercial licences are granted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Ms. Tremblay.

Mr. Collin, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Ghislain Collin, President, Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the committee for inviting the Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie. Today, we are in Ottawa to talk about a discriminatory situation that our members experienced during the exploratory lobster fishing licence issuance process in areas 17 and 19, a situation that had a monumental impact on the present and future of some of them.

In January 2024, we asked, in a letter to former minister Lebouthillier, to include the Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie as a group in great difficulty in the process of awarding exploratory lobster fishing licences in areas 17 and 19. That might have helped, depending on the luck of the draw, to restore some dignity to a few members of the Regroupement who have been suffering seriously for six years now and to help them economically. The request was acknowledged, but it was never acted upon. In a last-ditch effort to be considered, to no longer be forgotten and to be heard by Ms. Lebouthillier, we sent a letter with some recommendations to DFO, but we received no response.

On December 5, former fisheries and oceans minister Diane Lebouthillier issued a press release announcing the primary criteria for the exploratory lobster fishery project in areas 17 and 19. We sent another letter to the minister. We congratulated Ms. Lebouthillier and said that we were delighted that she reaffirmed that this project was intended for fishers' associations in difficulty and that a possible reduction of the number of traps to 100 per fisher could be considered to make room for more fishers in need. We did not receive any response.

Fearing that we would once again be sidelined, we requested a meeting at the regional office in Gaspé. The officials who attended the meeting told us that they were listening to us in good faith, that DFO was considering the representativeness of the groups, that it was only consulting the groups it deemed representative and that our group had to redo the entire verification process. On January 6, 2025, the documents were all sent to DFO.

On December 19, 2024, all fishers received, in a notice, the main parameters of the lottery. Some of our members, including me, were excluded from the process, on the basis that we had sold a shellfish licence after 2014. We have always accepted this provision to have the option of helping other members of the Regroupement, even though some of the excluded have sold crab fishing licences in areas in difficulty, either because the quotas were low or because the fishery was not profitable. In some cases, the average is 10,000 pounds of crab per season.

We were very optimistic at the time that the remaining members of the Regroupement would be chosen through the lottery, which would have saved a few. Some members of the Regroupement had a wonderful holiday season filled with optimism and hope for the future.

In early January 2025, we realized that the criterion that DFO wanted to apply with respect to adjacency would have the effect of dividing the Gaspé Peninsula in two, between north and south, thereby affecting our members' last hope. Yet, our herring and mackerel licences allow us to fish on the north side, and some of our members have fished in area 19 of the project. It was therefore clear to us that the exploratory program, which was supposed to support groups of fishers in difficulty, had turned into a territorial socio-economic program aimed at electioneering.

A letter was sent to Ms. Lebouthillier asking her, once again, to help us out in the face of this discrimination and injustice to our members as only a few days were left before the draw. Having received no response from the minister's office on February 1, we wrote to the assistant deputy minister, Adam Burns, to draw his attention to the unfair and discriminatory situation that once again affected the Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie. We asked to meet with the regional director at the Gaspé office, Érick St‑Laurent, who agreed. This meeting was held in Gaspé on February 18, 2025, two weeks after exploratory fishing licences were issued.

During that meeting, the topic of the Regroupement's representativeness was at the forefront. After some arguments, Mr. St‑Laurent told us about a meeting with the directors on February 19, 2025—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Collin, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt you. Your time is up. Can you finish your speech very quickly? We'll have more time in questions later.

[Ghislain Collin]

Okay.

Mr. St‑Laurent told us about a meeting with the directors on February 19, 2025, to discuss the subject, and he told us that we would receive an answer around February 23. We pointed out a number of dubious points about the process and the selection of certain fishers, but we got nothing but evasive answers and annoyed, uncomfortable looks.

The response letter from the assistant deputy minister, Adam Burns, drafted on his behalf by the associate regional director general for Quebec, Sylvain Vézina, was received on February 20, the day after the meeting of directors in Quebec City where the Regroupement's representativeness was discussed. Mr. Vézina begins his letter in a paternalistic, protective tone—

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Collin, I have to stop you there. We are almost a minute over already. You will have time later.

With that, I'm going to our next witness.

Mr. d'Entremont, you have five minutes or less.

[Alain d'Entremont, President, Scotia Harvest Inc.]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Alain d'Entremont, and I'm an owner and president of Scotia Harvest, a vertically integrated seafood company based just outside of Digby, Nova Scotia. I've worked in the fishing industry most of my life, combining an understanding of harvesting, processing, fisheries science and fisheries management with business development. I currently serve on several advisory and management committees, and I actively participate in many fishery science processes.

Scotia Harvest operates company-owned vessels and a state-of-the-art processing facility, and holds various licences and quotas to support our operations. We're part of the Mersey group of companies, and I manage Mersey's groundfish licences, quotas and vessels to ensure consistent raw material access for our facility to products like redfish from throughout Atlantic Canada. We also regularly purchase seafood from other harvesters both inshore and offshore, and often partner with them to provide them with quota, access and a reliable buyer for their catch.

Our integrated model and year-round operations allow us to maintain consistent quality, to innovate and to invest in long-term sustainability, which is especially critical as we expand our redfish business. Redfish represents a major growth opportunity for our company and was a key factor in our decision to invest tens of millions of dollars in a new processing facility, additional vessels and specialized equipment. It's not an easy fishery, particularly with the small size of redfish in many areas. It requires thoughtful market development, product innovation and strategic partnerships. We're not just looking to catch and sell fish; we're building a business that supports jobs, communities and long-term value creation.

To meet diverse market demands, we need to produce various product forms, from whole fish to fillets to value-added items tailored to different regions and customer preferences. This flexibility is essential to maximizing value and ensuring long-term viability. The redfish fishery relies on multiple different stocks that fluctuate in biomass over generational time periods. This is not a new fishery; Canada has a long history of involvement in redfish, and our industry has decades of experience adapting to changing environmental conditions.

The specific challenge in unit 1 today is the size of the fish, which seems to be driven by environmental factors. There are other factors, such as fish colour and bycatch, that require constant monitoring and changes, but we are confident in our ability to adapt to environmental change; it's what we've always done, but, to do so, we need regulatory certainty to make the necessary investments and commit the time and resources required to develop this fishery responsibly. To do that, we need to find the right markets, ones that value quality, consistency and sustainability. We need to grow the business the right way, with a focus on investment, infrastructure and workforce development. We need policy and regulatory support that recognizes the importance of our integrated operations and the role they play in maximizing value from our fisheries.

The uncertainty and prolonged debate across multiple ministerial terms around allocation and access have delayed the development of this fishery and risk constraining its ability to realize the full TAC and its market potential.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. d'Entremont.

With that, we're going to the first round of questioning, which is the six-minute round. We'll be starting with the Conservative Party and Mr. d'Entremont.

You have the floor for six minutes or less.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

Thank you so much for the presentations.

Ultimately, I did hear a common thread through the three presentations, which was the lack of consultation, or taking quota away under the guise of consultation.

My first question is for Mr. d'Entremont.

How much of the TAC did you catch, or how much was caught throughout this discussion of the last year or so?

[Alain d'Entremont]

Over the period of consultations—over multiple ministerial terms, as I outlined—we had an index fishery in unit 1, and there was a small amount of quota being caught. However, the commercial fishery was declared open last year, and it had a bunch of management measures that emerged from the consultation process. I'm not sure. They came from the harvesting sector and really limited our ability to catch the quota.

This year, I'd say we're doing a better job. We're catching more redfish and are able to produce samples for markets and expand harvests. This year, it's going better than it has gone. There's no question about that. A lot of that is because the department was willing to relax some of the restrictive management measures and give us the opportunity to catch the fish.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

You also talked about the vessels you have. You are a vertically integrated company. How many vessels do you have? How many people are you employing at this point?

Where does the raw product end up? I'm sure it doesn't end up just in your plant. It ends up in other plants across the Maritimes.

[Alain d'Entremont]

We have a bunch of our own vessels. We have three mobile gear groundfish vessels at Scotia Harvest. We have five scallop fishing vessels as well, to fish a range of species. Redfish, haddock and scallops are the main ones.

For employment throughout the processing plant and the harvesting, we have around 200 employees. Expanded across the Mersey group of companies, I'm not sure but I guess it would be over 1,000 the last time I saw the numbers all around Nova Scotia, in various forms and parts of the operation.

The redfish we're getting are landing in our own plant and other plants that we work with. We also buy from a bunch of harvesters. When you land a large redfish trip, it makes a lot of sense to split that up between plants, so you can access the fish when it's the freshest. Our end-users are all over the world. They're domestic, in Canada and the U.S., but they're also in China, Korea and Japan, and there are some efforts into growing into that market in Europe right now.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

Mr. Collin, with regard to the discussion you had with the minister, or rather the one you did not have, why do you think she did not at least respond to the letters you had written?

[Ghislain Collin]

I do not see any reason.

For years, we tried to meet with her. When she was appointed, we told ourselves that she was a local woman and that she knew the pelagic fishery file. We saw that as an opening and we were optimistic. In the end, in her entire term, I was never able to meet with the minister of fisheries or even speak with her. We do not know why.

Maybe she thought we were a partisan electioneering group. However, the members of the association for which I am president vote as much for the Conservative Party as for the Liberal Party or the Bloc Québécois. Certainly, at the time the problems occurred, the members elected on the territory came from the Parti Québécois and the Bloc Québécois. Since they were our members, it is normal for us to have had them participate. Maybe the minister thought we were a separatist group.

I actually have no idea. It is a mystery. We have doubts, but—

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

You tried to contact the minister directly. Have you had a chance to speak with anyone from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, like any association?

[Ghislain Collin]

Yes, but every time departmental representatives met with us, they told us they were doing us a favour.

When we formed our group six years ago, we were representative of our resource. However, from one day to the next—we still do not know why—they said they had to do studies to find out whether we were still representative of our resource.

So they were no longer required to talk to us. Throughout this process, about three years, they ignored us and told us, when they met with us, that they were doing us a little favour.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

To your knowledge, have other groups in the region had the same experience with the minister?

[Ghislain Collin]

No, not at all. As far as I know, all the other groups have had the opportunity, at some point or another, to meet at least once, or even a few times, with the minister of fisheries in the region.

We were the only ones who were not so lucky, and we still do not know why today. We have never messed around, and we have always been good fishers.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, Acadie—Annapolis, NS]

I think Mr. d'Entremont, Mr. Collin and Ms. Tremblay just told us the same thing. It seems that they have not had a chance to present the facts as representatives of the fisheries in those areas.

My next question is for you, Ms. Tremblay. In terms of exploratory fisheries, where does the data come from to make the change from one fishery to another? It seems that we have gone from one fishery to another without having the data the department needs to make such decisions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Ms. Tremblay, please give a short answer.

[Kelly Tremblay]

Yes.

From what we understand, there was no science. So why did we immediately switch to exploratory permits? We also wonder because, for crab, we are monitored closely. We need to do our collections and have data.

Why was that not done for lobster? We do not know and we wonder.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. d'Entremont.

Next we have Mr. Cormier.

Mr. Cormier, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Serge Cormier, Liberal, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Collin, I would like to ask you for clarification, since there are new members in the room. You primarily fish mackerel and herring. Is that correct?

[Ghislain Collin]

That is correct.

That is the group I represent.