International Trade Committee on Sept. 26th, 2016

[Jim Quinn]

On the first question of diversity, there's no doubt about it that the marine industry seems to be the slower mode of transportation, whether it comes to technology, changing of routings, or things of that nature. I would suggest the marine industry has a way to go to have much better, stronger diversity with respect to employment of everybody that's involved in that transportation chain.

I'm encouraged, because there are organizations in Canada, such as the Canadian Institute of Traffic and Transportation, CITT, that have promoted the presence of women in particular among their ranks. Last year I was at their annual conference in Niagara Falls. It was a conference of about 200 practitioners in that logistics business. I would say the majority of folks there were representatives from under-represented groups. That's encouraging, because that's getting to the younger people who have to be promoted and be encouraged to follow those skill sets and competency learning opportunities to situate them to take positions in this transportation mode. In Saint John, we need to move in that direction in a more meaningful way.

With respect to trucking, and the question about strikes and things of that nature, we've been very fortunate in this port. Our truckers in New Brunswick work well with the other service providers in our port, whether it be the longshoremen, the terminal operators, the stevedores, or indeed with the port itself. They are very much a part of what we call our stakeholder inclusion group. We seek their advice as we bring strategies forward to our board of directors who manage the port as they put forward a strategic direction for us. The trucking folks are represented through that inclusion model, and so they have opportunities to give us their ideas.

The basic principle is that we run ports, and people who run trucking businesses know a lot more about trucking than ports know about trucking. It's a great opportunity to gain that experience and knowledge from that particular group of people.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Surrey—Newton, BC]

Are there any negatives you see that ratifying TPP will bring to New Brunswick?

[Jim Quinn]

In the two areas you have raised, I think it is positive. It creates opportunity, opportunity creates growth, and growth is going to cause people to think about their career choices. That would cover all groups, including under-represented groups in New Brunswick. This is good. If we can increase business and opportunity, we'll see a stronger, more diversified workforce over the longer term.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, Mr. Dhaliwal.

Mr. Gionet, you mentioned that when they are pulling up the crab they're only catching the males. They come to the surface and then they throw the females and small ones back in. Is that how it works, or is there a type of trap that keeps them from coming up?

[Joel Gionet]

The female is very small. The mesh on our traps is large, and the female does not stay in the trap. All that we capture are males whose shell is of the legal length—95 millimetres. Once in a while, one or two young crabs get stuck between two large males. Females almost never come to the surface.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I understand it's important that they don't come to the surface, because it's so deep that they can't drop them back in. It's good that the traps let them go through.

We're going to move over to the Liberals, with Madam Lapointe.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today. I appreciate their being here to talk to us about these issues.

I will briefly address Mr. Quinn, from Port Saint John.

Have you calculated your competitive advantage over other ports in the northeastern U.S.? You said that the roads and the railways help the goods move more quickly. Have you taken the time to calculate that competitive advantage compared with the ports in the northeastern United States?

[Jim Quinn]

When we examined our business case for the federal and provincial governments to consider, we talked about competition in the markets we tend to focus on. We feel that the amount of cargo that moves into Canada via U.S. ports provides a unique opportunity for us. We have strong ports in eastern Canada, such as Halifax, Quebec, Montreal, Saguenay, Trois-Rivières, and Sept-Îles. The different ports in the eastern part of our country are well situated to accommodate different competitive forces.

Here in New Brunswick, we have two ports, the port of Belledune in our northern part, and in the southern part we have the port of Saint John. The port of Belledune concentrates on things like wood pallets, coal, aggregate cargoes, fabrication, things of that nature. We focus more on products that are historically traded through this port, such as wood products, oil products, and containers. We are the only container port in New Brunswick .

We tried to assess the strength of our port 50 years ago, in order to see where that strength had one and how to get it back. We're still in close proximity to those large marketplaces in New England and central Canada. We talked about how to move things in a more efficient way, particularly in the north-south corridors. We considered how to build other opportunities to take advantage of congestion in other ports and the location of distribution centres.

I don't think it's any secret for those who live in Atlantic Canada that if you're driving down to, say, Boston, there is an increased amount of traffic year by year. You used to be almost to Boston before you ran into heavy traffic, but now the congestion is very evident. There have been lots of studies done. The North America study done on the movement of goods within the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and beyond shows that the congestion is only going to grow.

We look at those cargoes to see how we can—

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Sorry to interrupt you, but I would like to put a few questions to the other witnesses.

Mr. Gionet, you previously said that crab stocks vary between 20,000 metric tons and 25,000 metric tons. You also said you would like to move toward the Asian markets. Do you have a surplus of crab during the fishing season, which lasts from 10 to 12 weeks?

[Joel Gionet]

We currently have no surplus of crab. Over the past two years, stocks in the Bering Sea, in Alaska, have been declining, and we have had no problems selling off our crab. However, during the years when Alaska had huge quotas, it was not hard for us to sell off our crab, but we did have to sell it at a lower price.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

So the prices become less advantageous.

[Joel Gionet]

Exactly. With a bit of competition among the countries buying our crab, we could negotiate a better price for our product.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Okay.

Do you believe that illegal fishing is practised here like it is in some TPP countries?

[Joel Gionet]

Are you talking about here, in Canada?

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Oui.

[Joel Gionet]

No.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

But there is illegal fishing in other countries.

[Joel Gionet]

There is no illegal fishing here. We cannot exclude the possibility of an individual running that risk, but there is no systematic illegal fishing in Canada. It is impossible to fish illegally.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you for meeting with us today.

I will now talk about dairy products.

Mr. Gaunce, how do you think the New Brunswick dairy farms compare to the Quebec ones? You said that the dairy farm herds in Quebec are larger than those in New Brunswick.

Quebec's dairy producers do not like the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the TPP. Are New Brunswick's dairy producers in favour of signing that partnership agreement?

[Paul Gaunce]

If I look at the big picture, I can't tell you today, but I'm trepidatious for sure because I'm losing market. If it's a good trade deal and if 10 years down the road we're showing economic growth, and if we are fortunate enough to gain access to those markets and can sell milk there to help mitigate the loss in production, then I'll be happy.

I can't answer that. We can do all kinds of studies and guess what kind of growth we'll have, but we don't know. As long as trade is fair, I think both countries can win, or all the countries in the TPP deal can win.

We have to make sure when we look at trade deals that we're all working under the same rules. I don't work under the same rules as a dairy farmer in New Zealand, for example, or a dairy farmer in the United States. Some of them are subsidized differently. We don't get any subsidies. We get our money from the marketplace. That's the way it should be done, but the world market gets screwed so badly because these farmers are subsidized. They dump milk on the world market and cause a glut, so the price drops.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much for your answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

We're going to move on to our last MP for the day. Mr. Ritz, you have five minutes.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you gentlemen for your presentations today. They're very interesting topics. I have one question on the crab fishery.

On the graph you showed, the consumption in Japan, which is the premier market, has gone down quite a bit over the last few years. Is that simply because they want live crab, or are there other factors at play?

[Joel Gionet]

The key factor is that they want live crab. Since Japan is very close to Russia, Russian well boats dock directly in Japan to unload their catch. That is actually why Japan has turned to Russia for its supply of snow crab. The United States turned to Canada because their stock in Alaska is declining. We sell them our snow crab at high prices. So Japan has turned a bit to Russia to the detriment of our exports because it could no longer compete with the United States.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you.

On the port, a fantastic job, you're looking ahead and that's wonderful. If I remember hearing you correctly, Jim, you said your tonnage is going to increase threefold with the expansions you're talking about doing. Is that correct?