Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman
In my presentation, I want to focus on the potential impact of CETA on the rural fishing communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. That's an aspect of our commercial fishery that receives little attention from fishery managers, policy-makers, and, I might say, trade negotiators in Ottawa and in St. John's.
Newfoundland and Labrador is blessed with some 40,000 kilometres of coastline that has hundreds of communities situated adjacent to some of the richest fishing grounds. Or they were the richest. They've been somewhat depleted in recent years, but they're very rich fishing grounds.
Now I want to give you some idea of the scope of what these communities contribute to the economies of Canada, Atlantic Canada, and Newfoundland in particular. In 2012 we had nearly 5,000 fishing enterprises operating in the inshore fleet, which comprises vessels of less than 65 feet. The inshore fish harvesters are self-employed fishing enterprise owners that employ some 10,000 skippers and crew members in the communities in which they live. This does not include processing jobs and the spinoff jobs created indirectly by the entrepreneurs.
In 2012 this fleet landed $370 million worth of fish, which was 60% of the landings for the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Now, to show you that this was not just a one-off, between 2000 and 2012, over that 12-year period, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans recorded that the average annual landings of this fleet were $360 million and accounted for 60% of the total landings.
This fleet has proven to be the foundation of a way of life in Newfoundland and Labrador for 500 years. Not only that, this fishery makes a much-needed contribution to the food security of our coastal communities and the province as a whole. If we extend this to the whole Atlantic region, plus Quebec, there are some 10,000 enterprises in eastern Canada that in 2011 produced landed value worth $1.8 billion. This fishery was probably the biggest employer in the whole of Atlantic Canada.
Now, these fishing enterprises are embedded in the economic, social, and cultural life of these rural communities. This fact was acknowledged with the introduction of two policies: the fleet separation policy, which was introduced in 1979, and the owner-operator policy, which was introduced in 1996.
Combined, these two policies restrain the purchase of quotas and licences by corporate entities and others who have the financial power to buy them up, consolidate them, and remove them from communities. So as you can see, they constitute a considerable barrier to loss of those enterprises, the jobs, and so on in communities. The policies, in other words, have acted as a bulwark. They've prevented the shutdown of enterprises. They've saved jobs. They've enabled owner-operator fishers to remain the economic engine in our coastal communities.
Now in addition to these two policies, we need new and innovative fishery legislation, policies, and programs to address other serious threats to the viability of our communities. One such serious threat is our demographics. They are arguably our greatest threat. Most fishermen are nearing retirement age and want to sell and convert their quotas and licences into retirement funds, but the problem with this is that aspiring young fishermen can't afford to buy their enterprises to enter the industry. So creative policies and initiatives are needed to ensure that these jobs and incomes stay in our communities.
Some of these are already in place, and I'll give you some examples.
St. Anthony Basin Resources Inc. allocates quota to the community and allows the community to use that quota for development purposes. The Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company has retained thousands and thousands of jobs along the shores of Labrador, on the south coast in particular. The Fogo Island Co-operative Society is another one. In Nova Scotia there's a program called Off the Hook, which allows the fisherman to contract with consumers to supply them with food for their households at a pre-arranged price. Cooperative ownership arrangements that allow fishermen or communities to pool licences and quotas and lease them back to members at reduced fair-trade costs is another. Even lending institutions such as the South Coast Community Development Corporation on the south coast of Newfoundland have recognized the importance of offering affordable lending options to young fish harvesters in order to support the continuance of inshore fishing in their region.
Now you're wondering why I'm raising all these things. I'm concerned that CETA may become a barrier to implementing, to in fact retaining, some of these policies, particularly the fee separation and the owner-operator policies, and it may become a barrier to implementing new policies that are sorely needed to maintain our communities.