Madam Speaker, I am here to speak and hopefully get a real answer to my question that I asked just a couple of weeks ago about the sudden decision to stop the sale of frozen-at-sea spot prawns.
This is having a huge impact on coastal communities. I want to personally thank the B.C. Prawn Industry Caucus chair, Emily Orr, who has been in regular contact with my office, connecting us with local folks in the sector and keeping us updated about the concerns that are arising daily.
Since this announcement, prawn fishers and harvesters, their families and members of coastal communities have contacted every member of Parliament in British Columbia about the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' decision. My colleague, the member of Parliament representing Courtenay—Alberni, and I wrote a letter to the minister imploring her to reverse the decision. This is not some big corporation. These are small family businesses, in some cases multi-generational businesses. They do not have the capacity or the resources to manage this type of change, especially when it is so sudden. It is simply not fair.
The important facts are thus: it is the practice of freezing spot prawn tails in tubs at sea and it has been going on for 50 years without any incident and without any concern. We know that prawn size limits are a market issue. They are not a conservation issue, and there is no minimum prawn size regulations for recreational or FSC harvest. The commercial prawn fishery of British Columbia has been consistently recognized, both internally by DFO and externally by a third party assessment, as a sustainable fishery. These are the facts on the record. No one seems to be questioning them, so why is DFO making this decision, and why is it making it now?
For no reason that is clear, DFO has recently reinterpreted the existing fishery regulations to assert that a tub of frozen-at-sea spot prawn tails no longer meets its requirement that fish are readily determined for inspection purposes. This is very concerning. There seems to be a redefinition of what “readily determined” is, but no one seems to know what that definition is now. With no clear reason being provided for the reinterpretation and no means of compliance for tubs of prawns frozen at sea being provided, folks are left in a significant lurch.
In my riding I am thinking of people like Kim Mikkelsen and Melissa and Joel Collier, who are all second-generation prawn harvesters. I am thinking of Shane, Mike, Ivan and Loretta, Duane, Jon, Zeke and Randy. These are people who have dedicated years, some of them over 30 years, of their life to this work. By preventing the practice of freezing prawn tails at sea, which is the primary format for domestic sales, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is effectively forcing freezing vessels to create an export-only product.
This is terrible for the stability and economy of prawn fishing operations and undermines local food security. The situation is the fault of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, not the prawn fishers, and DFO must make this right and fix it. The stand-down on this decision for one year is simply not enough. Will the minister—