We know that trade agreements are not just about the trading of products; they're also about rules, particularly about rules that give rights to corporations that can override national legislation. This is of great concern to us, because Canada's approach to fisheries is based on the owner-operator concept. Rules like owner-operator and fleet separation were put in place to make sure that fishing communities benefit first and foremost from the adjacent fisheries resources. They are critical for rural development and sustainability in Atlantic Canada. They rest on the notion that Canada's fisheries resources are a common property resource to be managed by the federal government in the public interest and for the benefit of Canadians.
Our concern about the TPP is that certain key countries behind the deal, like New Zealand and Chile, both fishing nations, over the last several decades have taken a very different approach to their fisheries resources. They have in essence privatized access to fisheries quota. The situation is quite alarming in New Zealand. Fish quota is now harvested by foreign industrial vessels, South Korean for the most part, using indentured crews from very low-wage countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
The working conditions aboard these vessels have been described as slave-like by Bloomberg business report. This was confirmed by New Zealand department of labour investigations after repeated cases of crews jumping ship to flee the abuse they were subjected to. This kind of arrangement, having a country's fisheries resources harvested by foreign industrial boats using slaves, is no doubt good for the bottom line of companies that control or own the quotas, but we don't see how it could be good for fishermen or fishing communities.
News last week that similar practices were taking place in Hawaii only emphasize the need to maintain and enhance Canada's approach to fisheries management.
Let's be clear here: fishermen understand the market. We deal in it every day. We know the market doesn't care about our fishing communities or their future. Our concerns are that the big fishing companies of the Pacific countries involved in the TPP, including our own, will use the negotiations—which we understand were conducted in secret and which Canada had to sign on to before even seeing them to be allowed into the deal—to get access to Canada's fisheries resource at our expense.
That critical policy like owner-operator and fleet separation, and the notion that Canada's fisheries resources are a common property resource, will be sacrificed so that other sectors of the economy, pork producers perhaps, can get access to TPP markets. We want to participate in the shaping of our international trade policy, and we want to do it on an informed basis. What we don't want is to have our interests and the long-term interest of our communities and future generations traded away by people who do not value the importance of coastal rural communities.
Thank you.