Fisheries committee  I don't know how many times I have to reiterate this, but we were transient workers at one point. We had become skilled workers. We're still there. Every other industry has come and gone. We are still there, but the problem is one man is controlling all of that.

Fisheries committee  Who is that question directed to?

Fisheries committee  Yes, I made that statement. When we talk about skills and labour and we talk about Alaska being more efficient than the Prince Rupert plant, there is no comparison. You can get just as good material in Alaska as you can in the Rupert plant, but when you don't do it in the Rupert

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Nathan. In a lot of our people's views—mine personally, and a lot of our families and fellow nations in the industry—our haun has been an industry that has sustained us both through sustenance and commercially for many years, but we've seen a slow transition. From a

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Strahl. That's almost a Double Jeopardy question. We had the capability to maintain.... If they did proper maintenance in the facility in our plant, we would have the ability to can 500,000 cases or more. In fact, we've done that. We did it in one specific year,

Fisheries committee  Thanks for saying “without banking them”. In all my years, I've never banked any overtime. Last year, even though we don't want to talk about last year, I barely made the requirements for EI. The year before that, where Joy wanted to move us to, I barely made EI once again. The

Fisheries committee  That question is for me?

Fisheries committee  Myself personally, I've been a shoreworker all my life. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, my mother, my grandmothers all worked in the industry, and in those days they were fishermen. When the company started to open canneries, my mother, my aunts, my grandmothers—

Fisheries committee  [Witness speaks in Sm'algyax] My name is Conrad Bernard Lewis. I am the vice-president of UFAWU-Unifor local 31, and I am also a general member of the executive board of our union. We come to you today with a major concern over the closure of the canning operations in the Pri