Fisheries committee  By the individual who owns it. For example, first nations communal commercial fishing licences are held by the first nations entity. They can assign a vessel each year to fish that licence, whereas with a vessel-based licence, the vessel is fixed and then people can fish on that vessel.

Fisheries committee  I'm simply reflecting the feedback I've heard from fishermen. As for how the banks interact with fishermen, I don't have any direct knowledge of that.

Fisheries committee  I guess the one thing I would add, Mr. Donnelly, is that I've heard from young fishermen and others that entry into the fishery is a huge investment. It requires a mortgage and a lot of upfront costs, but if they have the stability and the certainty for the future, it makes it a lot easier.

Fisheries committee  I don't believe there is one any longer. There was something in the past, and The Native Fishing Association had some kind of a loan-type arrangement, but that's the only one I'm aware of.

Fisheries committee  Yes. I should also add that in one of the restructurings, which we refer to as the “Mifflin plan”, a portion of that was financial support for licence-holders, and that was in mid-1996 or so. Certainly, the feedback that we hear is that because licences aren't true property, it becomes difficult for fishermen to get loans from banks, and so that causes uncertainty as well.

Fisheries committee  Over the past couple of decades, there have been a number of studies undertaken to look at any number of issues with the fishery, and one of them is exactly that engagement piece. In the early 1990s, a policy paper on new directions set out 12 principles, one of which spoke directly to what was called “improved decision making”.

Fisheries committee  Okay. Well, I'll start, and perhaps Andy and Kevin can help out. It was in the mid-1970s that individual quotas began to be introduced as a way to manage capacity in a way that we've talked about already. You can see IQs being used in various fisheries as a way to control effort and as a way to, I think, manage the fishery effectively and in an orderly way.

Fisheries committee  I would offer a couple of comments. One is the value of the licences is market-driven, so, as in other locations, it does create a barrier simply because of the cost. We do have a couple of examples where we have made the licences more accessible. For example, for the geoduck quota, which was a very expensive licence, there were only 55 licences.

Fisheries committee  Our paramount goal—our mandate—is conservation and protection of the fisheries. It is always a challenge, in any particular fishery, given the overcapacity of the fleet, to manage the fleet in such a way as to ensure that we keep conservation as the first priority.

Fisheries committee  I think you could find examples of certain fisheries having been overfished. There are examples out there—for example, very short herring roe fisheries in which you have too powerful a fleet going fishing with too many boats in one place—having resulted in management errors of that type.

Fisheries committee  The value of the recreational fishery is a reflection of the spinoff benefits from not just the harvest of the fish but also the guiding operations and the other operations that accompany it, so when you look at the recreational fishery value, you need to consider those aspects as well.

Fisheries committee  The overcapacity is something that has existed over the decades and it really is in response to interest in fish and DFO's efforts to limit licences. The response by the fishermen was to increase the fishing power. As DFO introduced what we call input controls, we limited licences, numbers or vessel lengths, then people built bigger faster stronger vessels and better nets to continue to enhance their fishing power, and so you had this race for fish essentially by building bigger and better equipment.

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting the department to appear before your committee today. Good afternoon to the committee members. Thank you to all for your welcome. As introduced, I'm Rebecca Reid, regional director general for Fisheries and Oceans in the Pacific region, which includes B.C. and the Yukon.

Fisheries committee  One of the issues around that question is the time series. Every year the answer will be different. We can provide a time series of a decade, let's say, if that's acceptable.

Fisheries committee  You need to define performance measures to know if you've been successful, and this is one that you can measure, that you can understand. It has direct cause and effect. I think it's a useful measure.