Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to the motion introduced by my colleague from Cardigan. I made a first visit to Magdalen Islands and to Yarmouth.
When we travelled around with the fisheries committee a few weeks ago, it was a very good experience. We had an opportunity to visit four locations, including a location in the riding of my colleague and friend who moved this motion today.
I do agree with him in some respects, in terms of taking the pressure off the stock and that it is going to take a reduction and effort to actually do that. The question is whether we should implement a program that is a licence retirement plan. I appreciate his comments that we might view this a little differently, but I think we all realize that this is important. From my perspective, we certainly support the underlying goal of the hon. member's motion to ensure a viable industry for future generations. It is the method of how we go about it that we have to discuss. We are going to have some recommendations on that from our fisheries committee, which will be coming about very soon.
Without a doubt, all of us and all the members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans recognize that the lobster industry faces significant and daunting challenges. The member went through those, and therefore I do not have to do that. He talked about a number of things in terms of the cost pressures that have gone up. We have seen that in the agriculture industry. I represent a rural riding, and these cost of production issues are hitting us. We also heard about a number of other challenges that are facing the industry too. One of them under discussion was the grey seals which are starting to have an impact. Whether it be predation, or taking the bait and destroying traps, all these things are causing problems for the fishers and are worthy of a discussion as to what we do about them.
In my remarks today, I want to discuss several of the initiatives and strategies the government has launched to help the industry adjust to the challenging economic times and foster sustainable communities in Atlantic Canada. To understand the nature of the issues that inform the motion now before us, allow me to provide some vital context. If I have time, I am also going to talk about some of the testimony that we heard, which leads me to the conclusion that maybe we need to think about this just a bit more.
Atlantic lobster is Canada's most lucrative fishery. The value of lobster landings in 2007 alone was $560 million. This amount represented some 35% of the total value of commercial landings in Atlantic Canada fisheries.
Lobster is a major export for Canada. In 2008, lobster exports earned $920 million, or approximately 24% of the total value of the country's seafood exports. Consumers around the world, particularly in the United States, Europe and Japan, all enjoy Canadian lobster as a high quality, healthy food. Many of us in Atlantic Canada look forward to the opening of the season when we can start enjoying it on our decks.
The lobster industry is the economic cornerstone in many communities in Atlantic Canada. There are nearly 10,000 lobster enterprises in operation, providing jobs for approximately 30,000 harvesters. Most of these harvesters work inshore on relatively small boats and they are determined to protect the quality of both their product and the marine environment.
Given the importance of the lobster fishery, the government continues to do its utmost to support the viability over the short and long terms. Budget 2009, Canada's economic action plan, included a number of measures designed to assist many industries, including the lobster fishery.
One area of particular focus is access to credit, a factor crucial to the success of businesses all along the lobster value chain. Several components of the recent federal budget improve access to credit. The Business Development Bank of Canada received $250 million in capital to increase the market's lending capacity. For instance, budget 2009 also invested a further $100 million in the bank to create a time-limited working capital guarantee. To support greater collaboration among the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Export Development Bank and public sector financial institutions, the government established a business credit availability program and allotted up to $5 billion in new financing.
Canada's economic action plan also established a new Canadian secured credit facility to support financing vehicles and equipment. We also increased the Business Development Bank's paid-in capital limit to $3 billion so that it can benefit from future injections of capital.
We also were in Montague, and I appreciate the intervention made by my colleague from Wetaskiwin on hearing about all the challenges regarding access to credit in this industry. He said that maybe it was time that the fisheries committee, as part of its study, heard from some of the financial institutions. The committee agreed unanimously that was an important factor which will be coming up very soon.
Another component of the recent federal budget is the community adjustment fund which will provide $1 billion over two years to stimulate the creation and support the maintenance of jobs in communities impacted by the current economic downturn. Designed to prioritize single industry communities dependent on the resource of manufacturing sectors, the fund will support transition plans, science and technology initiatives and other measures that promote economic diversification.
Regional agencies, such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, are responsible for the delivery of these investments. I fully expect entrepreneurs and communities dependent on the lobster industry will develop and submit CAF proposals. Funding could then be eligible to flow to proposals that support initiatives that may include seafood marketing, eco-certification, which we also heard was a major issue and could potentially have a cost impact on this industry, traceability and harvester managed conservation activities.
It is also important to note that the government recently partnered with Canada's Maritime provinces on an international lobster marketing initiative worth $450,000. The initiative will include advertising and media campaigns, retail promotions, chef events and market research, all intended to help boost the currently low market demand for lobster products.
Along with these and other measures, the government continues to work with all stakeholders to address structural issues in the lobster fishery. Fisheries and Oceans, in its ocean to plate approach to fisheries management, calls on stakeholders to work toward a common goal of sustainable, economically viable and internationally competitive industry, which is exactly what my colleague from Cardigan is looking to do with the lobster industry.
We want to adapt readily to changes in the resource and market conditions, extract optimal value from world markets, generate comfortable incomes for workers, drive economic activity in coastal communities and attract and retain skilled workers.
When we talk about some of the consensus issues across the stakeholders, I want to draw on some presentations that were made to the committee. When we talk about the diverse opinion on this industry and what should happen.
Mr. Jenkins said, “Getting back to the buyback, we're wide open here”.
Ms. Richardson said:
I guess the buyback is not on the table for us either. We have not contemplated it. We have not talked about it. Well, we've talked about it, but it's not on the table. Our guys feel like their enterprises are there.
They feel that there is a continual thing that they can do.
Mr. Christian Brun said:
In other words—and I think this has been documented in literature—buyouts in the past have often proven that there's an effort creep-up afterwards. In other words, if you eliminate some fish harvesters or participants, the people who remain get better gear or better equipment, fish harder, and actually end up fishing relatively somewhere around the same amount.
I tend to concur with the recommendation by the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council which said:
The FRCC supports options that involve self-rationalization within the industry. The FRCC concludes that a government-funded buyout of licences is not an effective means to deal with the over-capacity in the lobster fishery. If it is decided that a buyout is preferred then it should be done in conjunction with other mechanisms that will ensure that the fishing effort is not allowed to increase following a buyout.
In my view, the motion now before us, although it does have good intentions and I really appreciate the members' comments, would fail to achieve this goal as it suggests one solution when I think there may be others and when there is a wide array of evidence which suggests that maybe it would not be workable and it would need to have the buy-in of industry and it might not lead to the lowering of fishing effort.
I agree with the solution that we can work with industry to help it self-rationalize and we do need to decrease the fishing effort. That is one of the things I am hopeful will come out with strong recommendations from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.