Fisheries committee  This fishing industry today is booming. There's every reason to believe that we can sustain that dramatic growth into the future. We are managing most of our commercial fish stocks now on a sustainable basis. As I mentioned in my introduction, the biggest challenge in many ways

Fisheries committee  I think we are moving gradually; we're slowed down now by the pandemic, but I think we are moving toward full monitoring and coverage in the lobster fishery. Electronic monitoring on small vessels may be a big part of that solution, rather than observers. Dockside monitoring is c

Fisheries committee  Fisheries management today, within a conservation regime, is a zero-sum game. If new entrants come into the industry or new fishing effort is brought into the industry, then effort has to be taken out—and maybe people are going to have to be taken out—somewhere else. Much of the

Fisheries committee  What's missing is a coherent approach. We need to move forward on three different initiatives. One is moving forward with negotiations on moderate livelihood and a new treaty. The second one is creating a structure where non-native industry stakeholders are part of that process a

Fisheries committee  It has to be negotiated. That's the great lack of clarity in the Marshall decision—what that means in practical terms. People in the commercial industry would greatly prefer to see first nations pursue moderate livelihoods through integrating into the commercial fishery rather th

Fisheries committee  That's correct. Thank you for the plug.

Fisheries committee  The economic impact on the community has been, in a few cases, huge in terms of employment. There are bands like the Elsipogtog in New Brunswick where they have almost 80 fishing boats fishing in the crab and lobster fisheries and 300 people earning more than moderate livelihoods

Fisheries committee  No, I think we should be accelerating and supporting moving forward as quickly as possible. I worry about the most militant voices in some instances calling the shots. I think wiser heads really need to prevail in this situation, without passing judgment on anyone.

Fisheries committee  C and P coverage fisheries officers are important, but they're not the solution to the problems we're dealing with today. We have to move forward on negotiations to resolve the questions around moderate livelihood and to establish a basis on which harvesters in first nations and

Fisheries committee  Where first nations harvesters are engaged in these illegal activities, it's often sponsored by or at the initiative of non-indigenous actors in the industry. On P.E.I., where you are, I don't think this kind of problem has reached any scale at all. There's a high level of coll

Fisheries committee  The point I would emphasize there is that there are problems. Members of our organization frequently report issues around illegal lobster sales, etc., but it's not everywhere and it's not every first nation. There are a number of first nations that have worked—

Fisheries committee  I guess my approach to this is focused on the fact that in the medium to long term, we are not going to be able to use fisheries officers and have rules enforced by officials on the water as a way to solve these problems. The key in the medium to long term is going to be to get a