International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and let me thank all members for the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning. My name is Derek Butler. I am the executive director of the Association of Seafood Producers in Newfoundland and Labrador. On behalf of our members, I am pleased

International Trade committee  Yes, Mr. Easter, that's a key issue, the ATRQ. What we hope for in a CETA is that we'll get to zero, period, and we won't have to worry about the ATRQ, which has an autonomous tariff relief quota of 20,000 tonnes at 0%. The problem with the ATRQ, which expires this year, is tha

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much, and thank you for the kind invitation to appear here today in relation to your study on changing ocean conditions and other factors off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, and how that has led to stock fluctuations particularly in northern shrimp, and we'

Fisheries committee  Bruce could probably speak to that better than I can. I've always said there is a short list of some very bright people in the fishery and Bruce, I've always said, is one of them. Bruce would have a better understanding of the shrimp assessment model, for example. We can do much

Fisheries committee  We have some interesting stuff going on. But there are challenges, you're right.

Fisheries committee  Or in the same picture....

Fisheries committee  Thanks for the question.

Fisheries committee  Perhaps I'll deal with these in reverse order. I'm not familiar with the lobster fishery. We have a $25-million fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador. I don't negotiate the prices for lobster. It's handled by another smaller association. I'm not too familiar with it, so I can't sp

Fisheries committee  That they're paying more for product from other jurisdictions than they pay for product from our jurisdiction...?

Fisheries committee  The honest answer is that I don't know.

Fisheries committee  I don't think Asia in general pays any less for our product than they would pay for Alaskan snow crab, for example.

Fisheries committee  Dollar for dollar, spec for spec, we are at the same value in the marketplace for the same snow crab.

Fisheries committee  As for the decline, if you look at inshore shrimp, we've gone down from 177 million pounds in 2008 and 2009. We didn't land it all in 2009, as there was a price dispute and the shrimp values had gone down too low. We're down to just under 90 million pounds this year. We have in t

Fisheries committee  Yes, I would leave my individual members to address the issues of allocations, LIFO, and all those DFO policies, because again, I have members including, for example, as Bruce mentioned, the Labrador shrimp fishermen's union company, which is in Labrador and would be on one side

Fisheries committee  It's immense, and as I've said before, it's the last buffalo chase. It's the last wild protein we can eat, and we should all eat much more of it undoubtedly. That's going to drive the prices. We're seeing that with China. China is driving prices, because you have a growing middle