Fisheries committee  First of all, halibut was divided into quotas, not into transferable quotas. We had quotas also in rockfish. With those quotas, you fish what you needed to fish on a full quota, and then after three months they put all of the unfished quota back into the pot. If you were going ou

Fisheries committee  Many fishermen have come up with many different ideas. Part of it depends on how much the quota is worth. The quota's not worth very much in a degraded fishery. Fishermen say, “Well, let's just buy the quota out, put it in a pool, and work from there.” For other fishermen, take f

Fisheries committee  It would be an easy answer to say just get rid of it, but that's a facile approach. What really needs to happen is the people in the groundfish integrated fishery need to sit down and talk about what would work for the active fisherman. I have lots of questions about the fair sh

Fisheries committee  I think Peter de Greef said what I said in a much better and more succinct manner. Every fishery is going to have its own plan on how to get out of the bind that we're in. I think it has to be active fishermen who sit down and decide what their futures are. I think the governmen

Fisheries committee  I think that fishermen have a right to make up their own minds on what would work best for them. Then you have to bring the investors to the table to talk about a transition process, how you get from where we are now to where active fishermen feel that they would have a chance to

Fisheries committee  Well, no. Actually, it's the transferability that's the issue. You can certainly have a stock of fish. It's a management tool in the integrated groundfish fishery, but there are other ways. Once you have decided to divide your fish into quotas and transfer them, you have to look

Fisheries committee  Well, the process of control is key, and that's why processors like this system. When I talked to one of the smaller processors, the manager said that he personally hates it but it's good for the company. That's how they guarantee that they get deliveries for the company. They

Fisheries committee  Oh, I don't think so. The fishermen I've spoken with go to the processing company. They don't really know whose quota they have; they just get it through the processing company. We are dealing with a company on salmon quotas right now, and they treat their quotas as though they

Fisheries committee  Thank you. I'm the president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union, which is also known as UFAW-Unifor. Our union represents some, although not all, fishermen in all the wild fisheries in British Columbia. Our membership is made up of active fishermen only. Those of