Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm Peter Connors, and I represent fishermen from the eastern shore between Halifax and Canso. I represent a small community and the very beginning of the supply chain, I guess you could call it.
I don't have much expertise in trade. That's really somebody else's purview. It's not my expertise, by any stretch, but I wanted to come as a fisherman and explain to the committee the hopes that we, as small fishermen and small communities, have for the opportunities that might come out of the European free trade deal. I'd also like to pass along some of our concerns for your consideration, which I hope you might be able to allay, or at least take note of, and that may be of some benefit to you.
I represent 220 independent businesses, really. They are individual enterprises: fish harvesters from the eastern shore of Nova Scotia from Halifax to approximately Canso. Most of these are inshore harvesters who fish lobster, snow crab, and groundfish, which is right now limited to halibut, but also herring, mackerel, and tuna. It's a multi-species fishery really, although the groundfishery is presently limited to halibut.
While our exclusion from the groundfishery was a blow to our area in the late eighties, the increase and abundance of snow crab and lobster could have somewhat compensated for the loss of the income that we had from groundfish had the marketing capacity been able to correspond.
If existing world markets cannot economically absorb the sustainable production of our seafood, it is needless for me to point out how important new markets and reduced tariff barriers are for our industries. To that end, we support the efforts by our trade delegation to expand trade with other countries. I must caution, however, that our support is tempered by our concern for local sovereignty over what is considered essentially a strategic asset for our regions, it being the main reason—the resource, that is—for our existence and the only immediate prospect for our prosperity.
We are concerned for our capacity to maintain the policies that we have worked hard to have put in place to protect local control of this strategic resource, and effort and benefit distribution. While we are anxious to trade what we produce, we are not prepared to trade our means of production or our self-reliance for any price. We support trade being an implement of integration with other communities, and even a degree of equalization, but never an instrument of acquisition or conquest.
We would ask that our negotiators take extreme caution as to the possible application and consequences of provisions proposed by other countries and even corporate interests of our own business community and the international business community. Please appreciate the vulnerability of these rural communities and the consequences that the failure to protect their economic interests would have on the democratic structure and the social fabric of our regions.
With regard to the theme of the effect trade has on economic, operational, and social structure, let me give an example of how this may be relevant to the independence of our region, which is a primary concern for us.
If trade is pursued by a particular corporate interest for their own interest, and subsequently is controlled by that interest—if the trade is controlled by the corporate interest—it could impact significantly on the operations of a free market system. That would diminish the capacity that local producers need to encourage local private investment, and it would, in effect, make us a ward of those corporate interests, with a loss of social structure. In that case, we would become a more unionized employee society, rather than independent business communities, with all the business spinoff effects, especially profits, being transferred to who knows where.
That's an important one for us, control of the resource and ownership of the resource, which, as of late, has been traded, and we're very concerned about how that might play out.
Many believe that circumstance is already prominent in the marketing of our products—the capacity of these international corporations to arbitrarily set the price of our product in whoever's interest they decide. Drawn to its conclusion, this power would completely control and alter the economic and political system we now refer to as a free market system governed by democracy.
Politically and economically, we are at a crossroads, and we will be watching for the signs that indicate how we must structure our response. We in our industry feel that in order to maintain our heritage as a small boat fishery, fishing shallow water harbours, fishing near the small communities—these small communities that exist just for that purpose, so that these fishermen can fish near them, which is the necessary way to fish that area—and marketing our product as coming from those sorts of enterprises, and being supported to do just that, we would need a trade conduit, if you will, or a trade highway that is accessible to small business, to all independent business, so that they can operate independently of monopolized businesses or corporations, in order to prevent the levers of trade power from consolidating and allowing monopolized toll-gating of an otherwise competitive free market system.
Democratic governments or otherwise universally democratic institutions, if we are to remain democratic, must control these mechanisms. As part and parcel of such a trade highway, there may also have to be some national mechanism considering the export value of some of our products, so that predator pricing by overcompetitive corporations...especially in times of abundance, as we find now with our all-important lobster industry.
According to a report by Gardner Pinfold, our national lobster exporters are subject to the negative consequences of competing against each other for foreign markets. This whole pricing regime/guidelines and the trade conduit-sharing mechanism to protect the competitive system is something that could be addressed by an integral body skilfully facilitated by those who have the capacity to bring power to bear. As of now, it still remains within the purview of our democratically elected governments to affect the nature of our politics, our economy, and social structure going forward as a consequence of trade.
Societies are all about trade, both personal and international. Modern-day governments will ultimately—through these decisions on trade now—have to take responsibility for future judgments by future societies that will be moulded by the provisions of trade agreements they make now.
Again, we are not prepared, for any price, to relinquish local control of local resources and our independence. I appreciate the competing individual versus collective business philosophies and the inherent need for both. Whether they operate competitively, side by side, or whether they can be incorporated into a singular integrated structure is a consideration and a negotiation that is well worth the effort if we are to construct a solution to the competing strengths and enjoy the benefits of both those systems, rather than constructing an acrimonious confrontation going forward and all the stress that accompanies it.
As I stated earlier, we are at a crossroads, and it is a strategic time for the formidable neutral powers to intervene. I'm applying to you, senators, as sober, thoughtful intellectuals to champion the propagation of this message to the appropriate negotiating powers.
I thank you for your time.