Fisheries committee  When you're dealing with salmon, and previously with the herring fishery, for vessel replacement, you couldn't get a bigger boat to replace the one you had. It didn't have a limit. It only said you couldn't go any bigger. Those are for fisheries where there is an opening. You would have motivation to get a bigger vessel to take maximum advantage of a two-day opening, a one-day opening, 12 hours, or whatever it might be, for things like salmon or herring.

Fisheries committee  We have some flexibility for the temporary replacement of vessels. I'm not sure of the circumstances that were described there, so I can't specifically respond to that particular case. If vessels are lost, either offshore or inshore, there's some flexibility allowed in terms of replacing those on a temporary basis while you're getting things more permanently worked out.

Fisheries committee  I think I made the comment that currently in some fisheries people are not making enough money to cover more than their variable costs. That is the cost of fuel, food, bait, and equipment. They're aren't making enough to recapitalize. They're running older vessels and they don't have the wherewithal to recapitalize them.

Fisheries committee  There is a series of ten principles, and we could send the committee a copy of the documentation. Essentially, they're not allowed to increase overall capacity, they're not allowed to create more need for fish, they're not allowed to do a number of things. Some of these are in our deck.

Fisheries committee  It's a bit of both. If we leave it wide open, with no vessel limit, somebody will make the big investment, the others will feel pressured to compete, and they will all end up in a situation where there's not enough legal catch to support the investments they've made, to pay the bills.

Fisheries committee  Clearly, if it's an ITQ fishery or an IQ fishery, you don't need to control the business decision. Where we get into a problem is that most enterprises have a lot of licences. If they're fishing actively in more than one fishery and there's a size limit--for example, the lobster fishery--of 44 feet 11 inches, and the guy has an ITQ groundfish, then that becomes an issue.

Fisheries committee  We did polling of the licence holders. Most of them want to keep the 45-foot length restriction. They're concerned about the fact that they're not able to move the traps as fast and not able to....The more capital you put in there, the bigger the boat, the faster and farther you can go, and the more fishing pressure.

Fisheries committee  That's one reason the vessel replacement rules were in there in the first place, in Atlantic Canada at least. A lot of the fisheries in British Columbia switched to ITQ fishing. Therefore, there has been a consolidation, there's no question about that, and there has been an accumulation of quotas on some of the vessels such that they're doing very well, etc.

Fisheries committee  On new vessels, that's usually a decision made by the fishermen, relevant to what they have licences for and what they need to prosecute the fishery that they're involved in. There are some people recapitalizing, but in a lot of fisheries in some parts of the Atlantic right now, there's not enough money being made to recapitalize.

Fisheries committee  That would presuppose that they know there is going to be a catch history or something like that. But clearly, we've seen a big recapitalization in the lobster fishery, and that's been driven by an attempt to maximize catch, not by concern about going to quotas or anything like that.

Fisheries committee  It's been many millions in that one. I'd have to come back with a clearer estimate, and that's all we could give you because we don't track that. It would probably be in the vicinity of or over $100 million.

Fisheries committee  First, limited entry was obviously our first attempt at controlling capacity. That took place thirty years ago. The second thing that was observed was that the vessels started to grow, so there were limitations placed on vessel length and volume. Have those worked really well in terms of controlling capital investment?

Fisheries committee  We're looking at vessel replacement in particular as a result of the initiative that was launched in May between the province of Newfoundland and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The premier was involved directly in that. It's clear that this overcapacity in harvesting and overcapacity in processing in that area, along with the existing resources and how they're being used, are not going to be adequate to provide people with a reasonable living and to attract workers and prevent the out-migration of crews and other workers to other parts of Canada.

Fisheries committee  Officially it's overall, but what happens is the FFAW, working with the individual vessel, says, you have x tonnes, and you have y tonnes. But it's not on the licence conditions, so we aren't involved in enforcing it.

Fisheries committee  There are informal ITQ systems in place in Newfoundland, so they're not formal. The reason they've done that is that they want to share the quota amongst themselves, but they don't want to pay the extra licence fee that is required if you have an ITQ fishery. That's something we'd have to consider in any review of licence fees in the future: why would we create a disincentive to having what works out for us to be an easier to manage fishery?