Fisheries Committee on Oct. 7th, 2025

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

The department gave you no answer as to why your group was excluded and another group was included.

[Kelly Tremblay]

No.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Mr. Collin, you ran out of time during your presentation. I will give you a chance to finish your thought, if you want.

[Ghislain Collin]

That is perfect. Thank you, Mr. Deschênes.

I was talking about the letter written by the associate regional director general for the Quebec region, Sylvain Vézina, to which the assistant deputy minister, Adam Burns, responded on February 20, the day after the meeting with the directors in Quebec City, regarding the Regroupement's representativeness.

Mr. Vézina began his letter on a paternalistic and protective tone by telling us that fishing is not easy, that it will result in costs without guaranteed profitability, and so on. He also told us that we are not a representative group, that the situation is difficult and that there are not enough licences for everyone.

Since we know for a fact that we are representative and that we have experienced discrimination, we contacted the media to ask for an investigation into the questionable, discriminatory and deeply flawed process we observed. When asked about the request for an investigation and the licensing process, the former minister of fisheries and oceans, Diane Lebouthillier, said that the process was very honest, that the rules had been applied, that she personally participated in the process by agreeing to the criteria, and that all representative groups had been consulted.

Last July, we met with the new acting director of the Gaspé regional office. We agreed at the time to meet again. However, we are still waiting for her office to give us a date to meet with her.

I have always argued that our group is representative, and sure enough we were recently recognized as representative for the spring herring and mackerel fisheries. This recognition by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is not surprising, but it comes a little late. The fisheries fund has since been exhausted, and the licences have all been granted.

On behalf of my group, I hope that my testimony before the committee today will help further the investigation and shed light on the licensing process and the discrimination we have been experiencing for the past six years. The Regroupement des pêcheurs pélagiques professionnels du sud de la Gaspésie will continue to move forward, to retain its know-how and expertise, while taking its rightful place in a diversified Canadian fishing industry.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for listening.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Collin.

So, if I understand correctly, your group was not deemed representative. DFO refused to engage in discussions with you until this summer, when there was a change. You were then told that, in the end, you were representative.

[Ghislain Collin]

Exactly. We received a call, which came out of nowhere, telling us that, in the end, we were representative. I knew that all along, because we have always been representative.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

How did they explain to you this change in DFO's position?

[Ghislain Collin]

No explanation was given. It seems like somebody is trying to right a wrong. There is something going on.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

If I ask you to speculate, do you have any idea as to why that change was made?

[Ghislain Collin]

As the recognition of our representativeness was delayed, we had never been consulted. DFO shut us out of the process. It did not need us. Basically, it was a way to easily sideline us and get rid of us. However, the history of the members cannot be erased.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

I am trying to understand the situation, and I want to hear what you have to say about why they would have wanted to get rid of you. The situation is that you have 15 members, as you said, and you're under a moratorium. As of April 2022—you were informed at the last minute—herring and mackerel fishing is not allowed. So, those of your members who, for example, did not have lobster fishing licences are in trouble. In the exploratory licence process that took place, you were completely ignored and disregarded, because you were not able to submit your names. You were not even able to participate in the lottery.

Why were you dismissed by DFO?

[Ghislain Collin]

Again, the question must be asked to try to find out why. Who took steps to ensure that the Regroupement was not considered representative? I have no idea, really. It is strange. An audit could have taken two days, but it took three years for DFO to tell us that, in the end, we were truly representative.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

An argument that was made at the last meeting by DFO was the residence criterion, adjacency, that is to say that they want to try to give preference to fishers who are close to fishing areas.

What is the situation for your fishers? You mentioned it briefly, but not much. Your herring and mackerel fishing area goes from where to where?

[Ghislain Collin]

It is the entire Chaleur Bay, and as far away as Rimouski. It is the entire Gaspé region. Between the Côte‑Nord and the Gaspé, the boundary is in the middle of the river.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

So you were fishing in the area covered by the exploratory licences.

[Ghislain Collin]

Exactly. Some of our fishers have been there. Unfortunately, there have not been a lot of landings. The infrastructure on that side could not take large volumes of herring and mackerel. The fishers were going down south to land their herring and mackerel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Deschênes.

That completes our first round, which will take us into our second round.

First up, I have Mr. Small, for five minutes or less.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Central Newfoundland, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Never has there been so much excitement and hype for a fishery reopening as for unit 1 redfish. Liberals hyped the potential for a fishery of 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes. There was lots of jockeying for a quota share.

Mr. d'Entremont, you and your organization, no doubt, lobbied hard for a good share of that quota. Have you ever seen a fishery that had such a lead-up, with so much promise, that had such a low amount of the TAC landed? Do you know of another fishery in Canada that has such a low amount of the overall quota being landed?

[Alain d'Entremont]

No, I can't think of any offhand. There are numerous species that are not fully subscribed in terms of their quotas. In terms of what you characterize as our lobbying, we were asking for the traditional historical shares to be respected. That is a hope for all fisheries across Canada.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Central Newfoundland, NL]

I heard you say in your opening remarks that you've invested tens of millions of dollars in vessels and processing.

How have you survived, having to wait such a long time to get some return on that investment?

[Alain d'Entremont]

That's a good question, and I appreciate that.

Over time, we are a diversified business. We do harvest multiple fish stocks, not just redfish. We do fish redfish. Pretty much this year, every NAFO area has come through the plant. We harvest redfish, not just in unit 1. It's a part of our overall suite of redfish quotas. We also fish haddock, halibut and other species, along with scallop.

Our plant was built with the idea that this fishery was going to continue to grow. Once we had access to the resource, we could harvest it and deliver it in various product forms to customers, and we'd find an appetite for redfish. That seems to be where things are going.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Central Newfoundland, NL]

Given the long lead-up to this fishery and the anticipation of the success of this unit 1 redfish fishery, other than the size of the redfish not being where folks had expected it to be—it hasn't grown—what other factors have led to such a failure in this fishery?

[Alain d'Entremont]

I think a lot of the discussion around management measures and trying to ensure that every potential measure that would limit the ability to catch redfish was put in place under the previous decision, or at least the original opening decision, made it very difficult for us to harvest redfish. Also, with the timing—the ability to access the fish when they're available to our gear and when we have markets for them—unit 1 was very difficult.

This year, with the opening of the test fishery early on in the spring and then the opening of the commercial fishery, allowing for fishing at various depths and understanding the protocols seemed to work better. I think we're on the right track.

The only issue is that if we had spent the last five years focused on developing markets and building the market for these fish as opposed to having to defend our historical shares, we would be in a better spot and taking more out of the water this year.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Central Newfoundland, NL]

The Liberal government failed in putting measures in place to secure a market for this large biomass. Is that correct?

[Alain d'Entremont]

There have certainly been opportunities to grow. I think the time spent on the debate over access, allocation and management measures could have been better spent working on marketing.