Fisheries committee  Good afternoon, committee members and Chair. Thanks for having us to speak about this issue today. My name is Andrew Olson, and I am the executive director of the Native Fishing Association. We're an aboriginal financial institution based in West Vancouver that serves aboriginal

Fisheries committee  No. In my experience, in the discussion that they had, they did not. They talked about their interaction with industry. As I mentioned earlier, the industry they are referring to is a large association that generally is controlled by processors that send fish overseas and not t

Fisheries committee  I agree.

Fisheries committee  I agree.

Fisheries committee  No.

Fisheries committee  There's always potential for that, especially in the Pacific region. That's one of the concerns that I think is important to bring out here. The Pacific region seems to operate on its own, in absentia of this national mandate to support fishermen and to support individual harve

Fisheries committee  Fishermen selling their live prawns directly to the retail customers are selling at anywhere between $10 and $25 a pound.

Fisheries committee  Absolutely. That's one of the problems with some of the leasing structures and issues with the licences in the Pacific region, in that fishers are essentially employees of the fish company that gives them the money to go fishing. They're then beholden, and they have to sell the f

Fisheries committee  Yes. I think that plays a significant part in the challenges. Fishing companies are the ones calling people to lease licences. It's often not fishermen. The goal is to control as much access to product as possible. Their interest is not in supporting fishermen.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  No, because they become a CFIA problem after that.

Fisheries committee  I think I would echo Sonia's words about giving fishers an opportunity to have a fair playing field so that they have an opportunity to fish and make a living so that they're supported and feel like they are supported the same way that industry is—“industry” being the large fish-

Fisheries committee  Yes. I think even in this species-specific fishing industry, about 50% control of the licences is held by first nations at this point. Their licences are used for boats on PPFA, so fishers are not fully represented. Fishers are not represented fully by the PPFA. It's more of an i

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  No.