Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.
I am very proud to take my spot today in the House of Commons to bring the voice of my constituents to Ottawa and speak to the proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act. There are several substantive reforms, and I would like to take the opportunity to speak about many of them. However, realistically in the time allotted, I would like to spend my time on one major issue, and that is the protection of the independent inshore fishery that is contained in the proposed revisions to the act. In particular, I would like to share some of my thoughts on the economic security that this measure would provide to rural communities like the ones I grew up in.
Madam Speaker, I hope you will afford me a bit of latitude to provide context that I believe is very necessary to explain the significance of the bill to my constituents at home in Central Nova.
I am from a community called Merigomish. It is a small community on the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia. I grew up in a family with six kids. I have five sisters. My parents were teachers. My parents stressed that we should get an education so we could bolster our careers in the future. I am happy that my sisters and I all took advantage of their advice and made that investment. That investment in time and resources is something I was very pleased and prepared to make. What I do not think I was adequately prepared for, and I would suggest the same would be true of my family members, was that on the back end of our education, when we were looking to join the workforce, we were not necessarily prepared to leave the place where we were raised to make a living.
If I rewind the clock to a year before I made the decision to run for office at what my family was doing, I had two sisters, both professionals in the medical industry, who moved to Ontario to find work. I became a lawyer and found a job that I absolutely loved in Calgary, Alberta. I have two younger sisters who both became teachers, one of whom moved from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick to find a job at a private school. The other was raising her daughter full time while her husband flew in and out of the Middle East so he could make a living for their household. My youngest sister was finishing up her studies at StFX and has since moved to the city of Halifax to find a job with a great accounting firm there.
If someone had asked us 10 years before what we wanted to do with our lives, I do not know that we would have had the answer, but I expect we would have said we wanted to be around home. The reality in many small towns and communities is that is not an option. I am thankful for the mobility we have as young people and professionals in Canada, but the opportunity to make a living in the community where we were raised is not a reality for far too many people.
However, there is a glowing example of an industry that allows people from the community where I was raised to stay in the community where they grew up and make a good living there. That is the fishery. If I look at my community now and go down to the wharf in Lismore, I can find Kelly, a classmate of mine from grade 2, who is still working in the fishery today. A former baseball teammate, Ryan, is a fisherman on the Northumberland Strait as well.
I was engaged in a back and forth with a constituent recently, whose husband is the owner and operator of a lobster fishing vessel. What she told me demonstrates the importance of the fishery to local communities. His annual expenditures, before he catches a single fish, were $82,000, and 90% of the expenses he incurred were spent in Pictou County alone, which is a small part of Nova Scotia. The remaining 10% were incurred with other businesses within the province. If fishermen are guilty of anything, it is of spending money in their own communities and supporting their neighbours, so they can stay in their communities as well.
The economic benefits of the fishery are perhaps obvious but worth stating. We now export over 100 different species in seafood alone. Last year, we had a record-setting $6.6 billion in seafood exports. We are pursuing trade deals with Europe, for example, through CETA, which has knocked down tariffs for the seafood sector, particularly shellfish, which will help drive the price up for seafood.
There are 72,000 Canadians who make a living in the fisheries or fishing-related activities. However, it is one thing to share these stats and talk in terms of contribution to GDP and billions of dollars, but it is more difficult to ensure that the benefits of this growth accrue, not only to the wealthiest Canadians who may have some sort of a corporate interest in the fishery, but to people who are doing work on the ground or, in this case, in our waters. This is why this bill before the House of Commons is so important. It is going to help bolster the economic security not just of fishermen but of rural communities, and allow them to stay alive.
If I look at measures contained in the bill that are going to help protect the economic security of rural communities, I have a lot of hope. My hope comes not just from the words in the legislation, but from my conversations with the minister. This is a project that I have been advocating for and working on for two years. This is a project that I have been seeking advice on from local fishermen, to ensure that their voices are not just represented in the House of Commons but embedded in the legislation we are looking at today.
Upon the passage of this bill, the minister would have the authority to consider economic, social, and cultural factors when making decisions about licensing. The minister would specifically have the authority to consider the need to protect and preserve an independent inshore fishery.
It is incredibly important for the communities I represent that the licence-holders retain the benefit of their licence. It is incredibly important that the licence-holders are the ones who are actually fishing.
The bill also contains measures that prohibit certain kinds of corporations from owning a fishing licence. This is not some sort of anti-corporate tirade; there is a very real danger posed to rural communities by some of the commercial relationships that exist in the fishery today. There are large corporations who have the ability to snap up a number of different licences, so to speak. What they might try to do is buy out 50 fishermen. The fishermen can still fish, but the benefits of their licence are going to come to those who have a large facility, where they can add value to the product. That can be a good thing, but over time there could be practical implications for the captain of a fishing vessel who has been supporting his family, and perhaps his parents before him were supporting their family. That captain who is making a good living today could become a minimum wage employee in the future. That does not sit well with me.
It is one thing to take my word for it, but in speaking with my constituents, they had something to say. I would like to share a statement from the Northumberland Fishermen's Association and someone I have incredible respect for, Ronnie Heighton, who is a strong advocate not just for the fishery but for the rural economies more generally. This letter says, “It is vital to the core industry that individual fishermen be required to fish their licence personally. The fleet separation policy is crucial to ensure that those that generate an income from fishing are not a processor but instead an individual licence-holder. The importance of supporting middle-class jobs by keeping these benefits from individual fishing within our communities is essential to the local economy.”
I thank Ronnie for sharing this information with me, for the education, and for being someone I can lean on when I need advice on how to best represent the interests of fishing communities here in the House of Commons.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the minister, who has been a fabulous partner to work with on this file. His father, perhaps decades before, started a project, and his son, the hon. minister, is now finishing the job.
I am proud to see this legislation go forward, and I am proud to be a representative for my communities. I campaigned in 2015 to be a voice for my constituents in Ottawa and not the other way around. Seeing the words that my constituents have spoken to me embedded into legislation, knowing it is going to enhance the economic security of rural communities and rural coastal communities throughout Atlantic Canada, makes me extraordinarily proud to stand in this House today.