I'll talk a bit on the skilled worker shortages. My name is Phil LeBlanc. I am the president of IMO Foods, which is a private label seafood processing company located in Nova Scotia.
As we heard, everybody has labour shortages coming up or expected, and the seafood industry is in the same position as everyone else.
In an increasingly competitive global marketplace, Canadian seafood processors have to find niche markets if we're going to be successful in our business. At the same time, we need to retain the skilled workers other people are looking for and keep them in our industry by providing them a stable and steady place of employment.
There is a need now for a rebalancing of interests brought about by these market-driven changes affecting our industry. The approach we're recommending is that processors develop a model through a national forum on fisheries to conduct and engage seafood processors, the fish harvesters, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in a dialogue that addresses the management of the fishery.
Ideally these groups would collaborate and share information and resources to reach a consensus concerning the management of the fishery, in terms of opening and closing dates and other things that affect everybody in a common way. The overall prosperity of the seafood processing industry can be expected to improve if we do this.
The recommendation on skilled workers is that the government provide assistance in the development of a national model to facilitate a dialogue of DFO, fish harvesters, and the processing sector to help in the management of the fishery in a collaborative way.
We'll get back to worker mobility for another minute.