Fisheries committee  Yes, and for no apparent good reason, as well. You just heard from James about the impact it has on his business. He has to devalue his business. There are other harvesters out there that have bank agreements that specify how many tubs they are actually going to produce. Now, y

Fisheries committee  I haven't spoken with other harvesters, specifically, regarding their concerns about this being implemented—actually some, yes. There is concern, but there hasn't been any kind of direct change, that I know of, targeted on another fishery right now.

Fisheries committee  Yes, it has that potential of spreading across multiple species. We don't understand exactly what they're seeing here and the implications of this. Hake, here on this coast, is frozen in totes at sea. What does that mean—put that offline? They're telling us not.... You fill a ho

Fisheries committee  I think exactly the same. We have had an opportunity to question the department on this and their answers have been lacking. They have not clarified what made them reinterpret this regulation in such a way that 50 years of practice has gone out the window. We do not understand th

Fisheries committee  Yes. If you're a small operator, you make investments, you build a business plan around your fishery. Part of that business plan might be putting a freezer onto your boat; that's $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000. The intention is to go to the central coast and tub prawns and market th

Fisheries committee  Do you want me to answer that?

Fisheries committee  From what I laid out there, it's pretty obvious that harvesters make more money when they can sell direct and shorten the supply chain. It's significant, there's no doubt about that. In this case here, it's at least 50% less by selling through a processor. That's obvious. That b

Fisheries committee  I have just one comment. I've been made aware there has been some enforcement action on exactly this with the recreational sector recently in the last six months. I'm not sure if that is behind this. It was for a recreational fisherman who had frozen his prawns in tubs. I don't

Fisheries committee  We worked with the region for a couple of months trying to get some kind of resolution with them and some kind of means for compliance on that. Not seeing that, we reached out to the minister's office. They came back and said, basically, that it would be pretty much status quo fo

Fisheries committee  I would say no—no prior knowledge of this and no consultation prior to the change being made.

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you today. I come to you from my home in Sidney, on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish peoples on Vancouver Island. I wear several fisheries hats, including the secretariat of the B.C. COVID-19 Active Fishermen's Com