Oh, okay.
My apologies, Mr. Chairman. It's a busy time of year for our board of directors, and we were just vetting it before I sent it off. We're in the middle of lobster season right now, so it's a busy time for all. Irrespective of that, it's certainly not anything for which people couldn't jot down a few notes, so I'm sure you'll have a few questions. Basically, I want to thank you for the opportunity of presenting to the committee.
I want to give everyone a little bit of background on the Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association. We represent close to 1,270 fishers on Prince Edward Island. Our primary species are lobster, tuna, herring, mackerel, halibut, and those types of species.
Even though Prince Edward Island is quite small, our organization has the area divided up into six local locations, and they each have their elected executives. Two members of those local associations sit on the P.E.I. board of directors, so our board comprises 12 directors and an elected president.
One thing we thought would be important and, hopefully, of value to the committee is mentioning that a lot of our members are under the fisher EI program. We want to clarify and put a little bit of information out there on how that program works. A lot of Canadians aren't aware that although there's some more flexibility in the program than in maybe some of the other programs, there is a clawback provision in the fisher EI program. Once an established economic threshold of $39,000 net income is achieved, there is a clawback provision under which any benefits paid up until that point would start to be paid back. The fishing community is less than 1% of all EI claimants nationally, so we're a pretty small part in the total scheme of things.
Another point of clarification, I would say, is that because there are lags in between fishing seasons, many of our fishers will fish one species and then another species may not open up for a number of weeks, so it's quite common for them to leave a claim open. Depending on how the numbers are analyzed, sometimes that can make the numbers seem artificially high for the number of people who are collecting. I think that a lot of the time people assume that if a claim is open, that person is collecting benefits during the whole period, and that's not necessarily the case.
Based on some of the more recent classifications, the fishers are classified as frequent claimants. This means three or more claims and 60 or more weeks of regular fishing claims in the past five years, and that's the category that a lot of our fishers come under.
Another thing we also want to point out to the committee is the impact on crew members of some of the recent changes. We are a weather-related fishery, so the length of the season is hard to predict. Some years we get additional weeks of income and fishing. Other years we don't, because of the weather. That will always be with us, as long as it's a wild fishery out there.
One change that was made fairly recently.... We did have situations of people taking other jobs and then coming back to fishing. The crew requirements are to have highly skilled people on the back of the boats. It is a very dangerous profession. There are a lot of safeguards in place for training a crew, but it is really important to have continuity on the back of the boat as much as possible. Our captains were starting to experience, until very recently, quite a challenge to recruit skilled people and keep them on the back of the boats, and it's only because of the unfortunate economic downturn in Alberta that this has softened a little bit for this year. A reversal the committee may want to consider is allowing people to seize an opportunity for some good, solid income at a higher-paying position and not penalize a person for taking that opportunity.
In the past few years we have been seeing an improvement in our returns to our captains, but certainly it hasn't been that way for a number of years, up until the last two or three years, and it is very common for captains to use family members as crew. There again you can have situations in which there may be two people in the household collecting, but they're actively involved and working with the fleet.
My last point with regard to crew impacts is that a shortage of skilled workers has developed, and we feel the less flexible EI system was a contributing factor to some of these staffing shortages on the back of the boat.
My next statements will address the impacts of overall EI changes.
One of them regards the Social Security Tribunal, which I believe is fully up and running.
The board of referees was discontinued back in 2013. Certainly the purpose of that panel was to significantly reduce not only administrative costs but also the number of appeals. To my understanding, that panel has 74 full-time appointees, whereas there were close to 1,000 locally based people on the other review panel, and they're handling not only EI claims but also CPP and old age security claims.
Now that the Social Security Tribunal has been in place for a couple of years, it may be an ideal time to assess the effectiveness of it. My understanding is that it's a challenge to have your case reviewed, and that may contribute to some of the significant drop in claims.
Jumping back to the fishing community again, fishing and regular claims used to be assessed separately during the year. Now there's a provision with the changes that one claim must run out before a new claim is started, and a lot of times that creates a lot of unnecessary paperwork. There are some nuances to the fisher EI, but there are times when the regular EI is part of the program too, so in an effort to streamline operations, that might be well worth considering.
In P.E.I. 11% of the workers are seasonal workers. I'll address this a little more in a further aside here, but some of the recent changes have restricted the ability of these workers to earn additional income or to switch to higher-paying positions, as I just mentioned. That may be something the committee would want to look at in a little more detail.
There was a program in some parts of Canada that was discontinued several years ago. It provided five weeks of additional benefit to seasonal workers. We can say from the fishing community standpoint that it was extremely beneficial in tiding people over to the start of the next season when they could go back to their seasonal job. It was of great benefit to a lot of the plants too, because it brought back a very skilled workforce.
I mentioned the discontinuation of the five-week program and the benefits it provided not only to the fleets but also to the plants. One of the other things we wanted to point out that seems to be punitive irrespective of what type of EI someone is on is some of the recent changes to working while on claim. It was at $75 or 40% of the weekly benefit; over that amount, it was clawed back. Now there is a higher degree of clawback once you're over 50%. Certainly we want to encourage people to take opportunities to earn additional income, and we feel that change has been more counterproductive than it has been productive.
In the overall EI service parameters—and this was taken from the government literature—claims are to be processed in the same time frame regardless of how you apply—mail, online, or in person—and payment is to be received within 20 days of application.
A point we'd like to make is that we feel the fishery EI program appears to be working very efficiently, and we view the recent proposed change to one week of processing time as a very positive development.
The last thing I wanted to say in our remarks was that the fishery is federally regulated. Unfortunately, there has been some poor management of a number of species by DFO. This situation has made the captains and crews more reliant on the EI safety net in recent years.
The PEIFA is working with the federal government to increase efficiency and financial returns to the fishery. I'm pleased to announce that there have been some very positive developments over the last couple of years in regard to the fishery starting to gain back some financial strength.
I have a couple of final points. Many people don't realize that you just don't fire up your boat and put it in the water and away you go fishing. There is a significant amount of preparatory time building traps, checking nets, checking motors, all those types of things. Although some of the actual fishing seasons might be quite short in duration, there is quite an amount of time taken up in preparing for them.
We have a letter from Human Resources and Social Development Canada from a few years back. It was written by Louis Beauséjour, who was director general at that time. It was addressed to the president of the Southern Kings and Queens Fishermen's Association. I'd like to read a quote from the letter:
Moreover, unlike regular EI benefits, fish harvesters are able to make claims and receive benefits twice each year for up to 26 weeks each time, reflecting the unique nature of the fishing industry with a summer and winter fishing season.
I think that really captures some of the uniqueness and challenges of our fishery. I wanted to share some of the differences in how our program works.
That concludes our remarks to the committee at this point. Thank you.