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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

0940

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque))

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC/DR)

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy (President, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters)

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. John Sutcliffe (Vice-President, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters)

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins (Delta--South Richmond, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Earle McCurdy

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. Earle McCurdy

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. John Sutcliffe

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. John Sutcliffe

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. John Sutcliffe

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. Earle McCurdy

Mr. John Cummins

0945

The Chair

Mr. Daniel P. Bernier (Executive Director, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters)

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia--Matane, BQ)

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

0950

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Earle McCurdy

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

0955

Mr. Earle McCurdy

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour--Petitcodiac, Lib.)

1000

Mr. Earle McCurdy

1005

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo--Alberni, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. James Lunney

Mr. John Cummins

1010

The Chair

Mr. Marc Allain (Policy and Communications Adviser, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters)

The Chair

1015

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore, NDP)

Mr. John Sutcliffe

1020

The Chair

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien (Labrador, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

1025

Mr. Earle McCurdy

1030

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Bernier

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

1035

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. John Cummins

1040

Mr. John Sutcliffe

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. John Sutcliffe

Mr. John Cummins

Mr. John Sutcliffe

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

1045

The Chair

Mr. Steckle

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or--Cape Breton, Lib.)

1050

Mr. Earle McCurdy

Mr. Rodger Cuzner

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. Rodger Cuzner

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Daniel Bernier

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

1055

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

Mr. Earle McCurdy

The Chair

1100

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

NUMBER 037

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Tuesday, February 5, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0940)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque)): I'll call the meeting to order and welcome you, colleagues, along with the representatives from the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters.

I just want to state at the beginning that we had worked on a tentative agenda at the last meeting, and we were supposed to be dealing with the Fraser River questions today with Pat Chamut. Pat Chamut was unavailable due to NAFO meetings, so he couldn't be prepared to be here today. I've therefore asked the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters to come in.

As well, I believe committee members have been informed that we had wanted to have the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in later in the month. The minister was unavailable on the day requested. I had asked him to come in on Thursday, but he can't come Thursday morning due to a cabinet committee that he's on. However, he's available to come in on Thursday afternoon, from 3:30 until 5 o'clock, which would mean a change in the committee's meeting time. I do understand that some committee members have a problem with that timing, but unless we move the minister back until a very considerably later date, that time is the only time available.

If anybody wants to raise anything on that, we're wide open.

Go ahead, Loyola.

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC/DR): I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, that we shouldn't waste any time if we get the chance to get the minister in for a couple of hours. There are a lot of important issues on the go right now, so delays are dangerous. The fishing season is getting ready to start, so if we have a chance to get him in now, unless most of us can't make it, I think we should bring him in.

The Chair: There will be another opportunity. He has agreed to come as soon as the estimates are tabled. I think it would be good for us to get an overview of where this minister is at this time. Then, when he comes in on the estimates, we will have him for hopefully two hours at that time, which will be in late February or early March.

All right, turning to the witnesses today, then, we welcome Earle and the rest of his delegation. We've had their brief for some time, and I will say off the top that it's an excellent, well-documented presentation.

I was talking to Daniel earlier, and he said you would like a little bit more than the usual ten minutes. Maybe you could hold the presentation to fifteen overall. You are the only witnesses this morning, so we'll go to questions after fifteen minutes, if that's agreeable with the committee.

Welcome.

Mr. Earle McCurdy (President, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to introduce the other people with me. We're having our own intergenerational transfer in the council this week, actually. With me is Daniel Bernier, who has been the executive director of the council since its formation. He is now taking a year's leave of absence.

Also with me is John Sutcliffe, who will be replacing him. John is from British Columbia has been, at different times, secretary treasurer and vice-president of the council for a number of years.

And also here is Marc Allain. He works for the council in policy preparation and related areas.

If I could stray a little just very briefly, the last time I was here, it was for a joint presentation with some other industry people on the shrimp fishery, and I'd like to congratulate the committee on their report. It was excellent and concise, with no beating around the bush and no malarkey. It was a very clear report, and I think it's quite helpful to have it in there as we try to grapple with the serious problems in that sector.

I'll try to summarize quite quickly, because this brief was submitted ahead of time.

The council has been concerned for quite some time about the erosion of the independent owner-operator as a cornerstone of the coastal fisheries. There's not much legislative underpinning for the owner-operator principle, but there certainly is a lot of policy underpinning for it. Over time, though, people have picked away at it, have found loopholes, and so on, and the existing family owner-operator nature of the fishery is quite jeopardized in terms of where we're headed in the next ten or fifteen years.

The demographics of the fishery are such that, like most sectors of the economy, we have an aging workforce generally, particularly amongst the licence holders, over half of whom are over 45 years of age. There's an intergenerational issue looming large, and it could really undermine the viability of fishing enterprises.

In terms of what has happened, a fairly fateful decision was made quite some time ago in the administration of the fishery, and it allowed licences to effectively be bought and sold. Now, technically, that's not exactly what happens, because they're technically the property of the Crown. They aren't officially called transfers, but for all practical purposes, people are able to sell—if I can use that term—their limited entry licences. The cost of getting those limited entry licences is becoming quite a burden, so this is really one of the looming critical policy considerations in the fishery, in our judgment.

The key thing is what a fishing licence is. In our opinion, a fishing licence is a licence to fish. It's not a licence to peddle the opportunity to fish to somebody else, with the person who actually holds the piece of paper deriving the greatest share of the benefit. But there have been loopholes found and practices developed that have really undermined that principle. Particularly in British Columbia, a real mess has developed. I know we certainly don't want to see the Atlantic situation deteriorate to the extent it has in British Columbia—and John will deal with the B.C. aspect of it in a minute, because he's much more familiar with the details of it.

The Fisheries Act and general regulations espouse the principle of the owner-operator policy, and there are aspects of policy that lay out the details as it relates to the east coast. On the west coast, there's virtually no policy to encourage owner-operator fishing, and the outcome has been essentially a continued growth of investor licence holders who have no actual fishing involvement and merely lease the licence.

That situation is quite different from the situation of somebody who fishes for a lifetime and then, as he gets closer to retirement age, perhaps has his son or daughter take over the enterprise while continuing to hold the licence and designating someone as an operator. This latter situation is different from that of somebody whose background is that of a stockbroker or whatever they are, from people who happen to have a bit of money. We believe fishing rights are a heritage, not something to be bought and sold on Bay Street, so we're very concerned. But the problem right now is that there's no neutral position. If nothing is done to address the loopholes that are there, then that's a policy decision in itself.

The fleet separation policy in eastern Canada really developed in conjunction with the extension of jurisdiction in 1977. That involved an ambitious expansion of corporate fishing and processing capacity, and in response to some of the concerns raised about corporate concentration at the time, the so-called fleet separation policy was implemented for vessels of less than 65 feet. In a nutshell, what that policy says is that people who are involved in processing cannot hold fishing licences for vessels under 65 feet. There are a very small number of grandfathered, pre-existing enterprises, but that has been the policy for quite some time, for over twenty years. Eventually, though, somebody hired a lawyer who was able to find a loophole in the policy. Effectively, what has happened gradually is that the processing companies have been taking control of those licences, notwithstanding the fleet separation policy or the owner-operator intent of the policy and the regulations.

The courts have also upheld legal arrangements that opened the doors to corporations and other non-fishermen holding licences. In terms of the way this is done, they have succeeded in separating the ownership of a licence or the holding of a licence from the beneficial use of that licence. There is no real ownership, because technically the ownership rests with the Crown and the individual holds it. The only thing that remains of any value in a licence is the right to use it. Other than that, a licence has no intrinsic value, unless you can use it to catch fish and make money. That's the value of a licence.

So-called trust agreements have been developed, usually between processing companies that finance an enterprise and the fishermen, and this is a growing problem. What they've built into these agreements is a provision that says the beneficial interest is vested in the processor who provides the financing. What that means is that, for example, the agreements can have a provision by which the harvester is legally bound to transfer—it was called “issuance of a replacement licence”—what is effectively the transfer of the licence to a person designated by the processor. This type of thing has really undermined the intended independence of the actual fisherman who goes out and gets his hands dirty catching fish. What it also does is undermine the intent of the owner-operator and fleet separation policies.

The council had some legal work done on this, and according to a legal opinion that we received, this loophole could readily be eliminated by including, in the general regulations of the Fisheries Act, provisions specifically stating that the legal interest of the holder of the fishing licence and the related beneficial interest of the licence are inseparable. Those aren't terms that most fishermen around the wharf talk about. They don't ask each other what they think about the beneficial interest of the licence. But in terms of trying to find a way to address the present problem, the advice we have is that the loophole could in fact be eliminated if those provisions stated explicitly that when licence financing transactions occur between harvesters and corporations, control over the beneficial interest remains with the licence holder.

I'd like to turn it over to John, who will deal with some of the issues on the west coast.

The Chair: Before you turn it over to John, Earle, on the points you just made on licences, you have a couple of statements on pages 7 and 8 of your submission. Are they what currently exists, or are they what is proposed? Is page 7 what currently exists in the general regulations, and page 8 what you're proposing?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: No, all these citations from regulations and so on are as they currently exist.

The Chair: They're as they currently exist.

Thank you.

Sorry, John. Go ahead.

Mr. John Sutcliffe (Vice-President, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to depart from the presentation a little, because I think some important issues are connected to owner-operator that also need to be included in this discussion. However, I'm prepared to answer questions on the B.C. example. It's different from the east coast. It's the example of where owner-operator policies have not been in place, with certain impacts.

Basically, two things have happened there historically. One is actually processor participation in fleet ownership, and that goes back to the turn of the last century. The other is a more recent development, in that individual fishermen have either had to rent or lease additional fishing rights to make their enterprises viable, or lease them out and stay out of the fishery. Both of those things have impacts today that have become acute as the west coast experiences major restructuring and resource problems, which are very important issues.

One thing I'm very struck by, again in B.C., is that particularly with respect to the salmon fishery, there have been some policies developed and implemented by the department that move ahead in new directions in order to attempt to deal with selective fishing and responsible fishing, and to address a number of problems having to do with conservation of the resource. I am struck by how significant an issue such as owner-operator is for coming to grips with dealing with conservation-based fisheries.

The stress a fisherman is put under in terms of his costs and overhead is significant. Often, the lack of understanding—or even consensus, I suppose—of new policies that are meant to address problems in the fishery creates a problem for responsible fishing as well. It has been my observation that the owner-operator fleet in salmon, in herring, and in halibut, is best positioned to see that those policies are implemented.

I'm very struck by an example that I was very closely involved with last summer, when the largest single owner-operator fleet left in British Columbia, the northern gill net fleet, was able, on relatively short notice and unfortunately without much cooperation from the department, to design and implement a fishery that was radically different from that of the past. They were able to get back on the water and double their production and double their season. About 500 individuals, in the space of a week, were able to come together and determine that they would make huge adjustments to the way they fish. It was only with a great deal of assistance from people here and there across the country, actually, that the department was in the last instance convinced to go ahead with this fishery.

That fleet, diverse as it is, with around 500 individuals fishing in that huge area, met and exceeded all performance standards having to do with compliance, having to do with the adjustments to their gear, and having to do with the mortality on by-catch. They exceeded the department's expectations in the standards that they set by such an extent...well, it was anticipated that they would fish for literally hours before they were be forced out of the water, but they fished for nine days, doubling the fishing season and doubling the catch. To me, this could only have been done by people who have an attachment to the fishery and an ability to make those changes to their operations basically on the fly.

I guess what I'm saying is that this is only an example of an owner-operator fleet doing something. And by the way, I think it was definitely a national first, if not a world first, for a full-fleet selected fishery. I'm very much of the opinion that owner-operators are the kinds of stewards necessary in the fishery in order to make those kinds of changes.

So I strayed a bit from the presentation and I haven't articulated it very well, but I am absolutely convinced that we need to look at the connection between the nature of the fishing right and the new policies that, in B.C. at this time, are being developed and implemented on a fishery-by-fishery basis, to address the public interest in the fishery, to address the consumer interest in the fishery, and to address a whole range of expectations that I think we all justifiably have in the fishery. Implementing those in fisheries in which owner-operators are not present—in IQ fisheries and in basically day-rate fisheries—in which individuals responsible for the way fish are caught, the way fish are handled, and in which they do not have a stake, is much more problematic. That's particularly the case in the IQ fisheries, in which the burden of costs and so on additionally makes it less likely that appropriate fishing practices can take place.

In closing, the reference before the session began about the Fraser interested me very much. I wish I had been here for that. The Fraser River has been a thirty-year interest of mine, both as a fisherman and as a person participating in the salmon commission and the Fraser River district council. I suppose it's not appropriate to have questions about that issue today, but as you're probably aware—especially those of you who were in Steveston—things happened on the Fraser River this year that are without precedent as far as mismanagement goes, and they even touch on the owner-operator issue in certain kinds of ways.

The Chair: Thank you, John.

Are there any further remarks?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Yes, if I could just summarize it very briefly, the real hit is coming in this industry. I think there's a socio-economic time bomb out there, and I think policy-makers have to look at what the shape and nature of the fishery are going to be for the next generation of people fishing. A couple of major problems really suggest that the days of making reasonably good money at fishing could end with the current generation.

There are two really serious problems. One is the cost of intergenerational transfer, the cost for the next generation to buy licences for the prices those licences now command, prices that have been inflated to some extent by buy-out programs and those kind of things. A study has been done by the gulf region of DFO that suggests that the cost of a licence will really suck out all the profitability of the future enterprise, and that competition will bid the buying of a licence down to a point at which someone just barely scrapes a wage out of it.

This problem is compounded by present capital gains taxation rules, and particularly by the fact that although farmers and fishermen are quite similar in the nature of their operations, our sector doesn't enjoy the kinds of taxed capital gains provisions that farmers do, nor do we have the same ones that are accorded to small businesses. That's a really serious problem.

The end result of all this is that we're looking at a future generation with a very serious economic problem. In turn, that inevitably gives rise to increased pressure for more fish in order to cope with the economic stress—and we've seen in the past where that takes us. So these are serious problems.

We believe there's a need for a comprehensive national policy on this matter, including legal entrenchment of the owner-operator principle and implementing the owner-operator principle in British Columbia. In particular, we urge the committee to examine this issue in depth in terms of the public policy considerations related to intergenerational transfer, and to look at what the options are for how we avoid what is clearly going to be a very serious problem.

Simply by doing nothing, a de facto decision will be made to allow that crisis to develop. To do nothing is to say we accept it, but there's going to be this major problem that will really undermine the stability of fishing communities in the future if no action is taken.

We had meetings with the people involved in the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review at DFO just a couple of weeks ago. They seem interested in our suggestion that the department do a significant policy review of this whole area, look at options, and work with industry. If nothing happens on this issue, we'll be looking back in a few years time—or somebody will—asking ourselves to remember the good old days in Canada when people used to own fishing enterprises, and those who lived in a community fished in that community, owned land in the community, and so on. Those will be seen as days that have passed us by. I, myself—and I think our organization—think that would be a black day, and I hope there's enough leadership taken by the people in the critical positions to find a way around that kind of an outcome.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, folks.

Mr. Sutcliffe, I'm not sure whether or not you were at the Fraser River hearings in Stevenson—I think Mr. Cummins chaired that meeting—but those minutes are available to the public. They're on the committees' parliamentary website.

At our first opportunity, we will be holding a hearing in Ottawa to question DFO on some of the issues that were raised at that particular meeting. That'll be coming up...we're out of Ottawa next week, but hopefully we'll be able to have someone in from DFO shortly after that to respond to some of those questions.

Turning to questions, then, we'll start with Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins (Delta--South Richmond, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for your presentation. I see much in your presentation as reasonable and accurate, as I understand things.

Just for the record, who do you folks represent?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: We represent about fifteen fish harvester organizations across the country, including most, but not all, of the larger ones—most of the ones with, say, more than a couple of hundred or a few hundred members. We represent a substantial majority of people who are fishing for a living. We have some small organizations and several quite large ones in our membership. We have members in five eastern provinces and in Manitoba and British Columbia.

Mr. John Cummins: You're confusing me. Are you a coalition of organizations, or are you representing fishermen?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: We're an association or federation of fishermen's organizations organized under the sector council program of Human Resources Development.

Mr. John Cummins: Which organizations in British Columbia are you representing?

Mr. John Sutcliffe: There are four organizations that initially joined the council, including one that may not be in existence anymore. They are the UFAWU, the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia, the Pacific Gillnetters Association, and the Area G Troll Fishery Association. Until very recently, when one of those may have ceased to exist, they were the only organizations in B.C. that qualified based on the size of their memberships, with the exception of the halibut group.

Mr. John Cummins: The only organizations that qualified based on membership were the FAW, the Native Brotherhood, the Pacific Gillnetters—which may or may not exist; it's an entity, I guess—and the Area G Troll Fishery Association. Is Area G the inside trollers?

Mr. John Sutcliffe: No. In fact, it's the outside ones.

Mr. John Cummins: The outside ones.

So, in fact, as I would see it, you don't represent the bulk of the salmon fleet, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: Between the UFAWU and the Native Brotherhood, I think you'd half to assume that over half of both the licence holders and the crewmen are in those two organizations. It's true that the bulk of the fishermen in both the salmon fishery and the other fisheries are not in organizations. Historically, there have been many small sectoral groups, but I don't think too many people in the salmon fishery would question the predominance of those two groups in terms of representing fish harvester interests.

Mr. John Cummins: It seems to me that the membership in the UFAWU, as far as representing fishermen is concerned, has declined in recent years. The organizations that deal specifically with the problems fishermen are having, whether they be area C or area D or area E gill netters' associations, seem to be stepping to the fore on issues that affect fishermen and how they want to deal with them. Is that not true?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Mr. Chairman, I don't know if it's normal for someone to impugn the representative capacity of witnesses here, but we're here to discuss an issue. In fact, the Canadian Council represents the clear majority of fish harvesters in the country. Organizations either join or don't join at their own choice. In some provinces, we have a higher level of participation than in others. We have a serious issue here, so I don't know. We could spend the time available discussing whether or not....

One problem we do have in the fishery is that the department has encouraged the formation of small sector groups around very narrow issues, which in a sense undermines the idea of broad fishermen's organizations that deal with a host of issues on a policy basis. For the most part, these sectoral groups don't come before you on broad issues like this. They may come on a particularly narrow issue regarding their quota in a particular fishery in a particular year, but they don't get the bigger picture. They don't participate in the public debate on the bigger picture, which is why we're here.

We can quarrel about representative capacity for as long as you like, but I think it might be more productive if we spent what little time we have available discussing the issue.

The Chair: [Inaudible—Editor]...Earle. It is a legitimate question, though, in terms of what organizations or parts to the industry you do represent. John has his questioning time, and how he wants to use it is entirely up to him. As someone who came before a lot of committees as a witness myself in a former capacity, I can tell you that question is often asked. It's not unusual.

John.

Mr. John Cummins: Earle, I take exception to a couple of your comments.

I don't think it was the department that encouraged fishermen to form some of these organizations. It was a matter of necessity that they were formed to deal with the dictates of Parliament. On some of the serious issues we had in British Columbia, and especially on the issue of transference of access from the all-Canadian commercial fleet to the native fleets, the fleet simply wasn't represented by the larger organizations that you talk about, including the UFAWU, and that's why their membership declined.

I'll tell you my point in asking these questions. As I said at the outset, I think your presentation is accurate. I think it reflects a crying need as far as the problems in the herring fishery and so on are concerned. What I'm trying to determine is whether the solutions that may be proposed are going to be representative of the people engaged in the fishery—the fishermen, in other words.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: There are certainly some groups— perhaps more so in B.C. than elsewhere in the country—for which the policy that has been created has encouraged investor licence holders who don't fish, who've never fished, to buy and sell fishing rights. In some fisheries, it's getting to the point at which there have been cases in which over half the landed value of the fishery comes out in licence and quota leases before a penny goes to the crew members or before a penny goes toward the cost of operating the enterprise. That's the kind of outcome that has occurred in British Columbia. Therefore, some people there clearly would have a vested interest in seeing that continue.

We don't think that represents by any measure the majority view of people who hold fishing licences in the country, but there are some who would not agree with the view we have presented. However, if you look at the list of organizations and check with the department in regard to the relative membership and so on, you'll find that what we have is quite a substantial representation of the fishery licence holders in the country.

Mr. John Cummins: I guess that's a point in dispute.

I guess the point is that some of what has happened has not so much been by design as it has been by circumstance. For example, the government imposed this Mifflin plan on the fleet, a plan for fleet reduction. They introduced area licensing into the salmon fishery in British Columbia. The end result was that people were forced to buy extra licences, but the financing wasn't available. The money wasn't there. You couldn't go to a bank to ask for money because you needed money to buy another licence. It just didn't happen. Many of these companies put that money up because people were basically begging them to put it up.

So part of the problem that we have here has been one of government regulation, you might say, as much as it has been corporate greed or an effort by the corporations to gain control. The problem was that the money had to come from somewhere if licences were going to be bought and licences were going to be sold. The problem itself still hasn't been rectified.

Mr. Sutcliffe, in your talk, you mentioned the Fraser River this year. Well, we didn't fish in the Fraser River this year. There was no fishery. In the last three years, gill net fleets have fished three and a half days. That has nothing to do with ownership, but it has everything to do with the transfer of the access from one group of Canadians to another.

¿ (0945)

The Chair: Mr. Sutcliffe or Mr. McCurdy? No?

Mr. Bernier.

Mr. Daniel P. Bernier (Executive Director, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters): If I may try this one, I think what Mr. Cummins is describing is a large reality of what happened under the Mifflin plan, and which was also put in place prior to that under Minister Anderson. What fishermen were forced to do was stack licences in order to allow them to fish under a new management regime put in place by DFO. They were basically forced to buy these other licences in order to fish all along the coast.

I think that's basically what we're trying to avoid on the east coast in many ways. We're also trying to avoid the formation of what we've seen on the west coast, that being the B.C. Seafood Alliance, which I think certainly represents the majority of the investors in the fishing industry on the west coast. That's basically what we're trying to avoid in the 350 communities on the east coast that are populated by fishermen who live off a fishing industry that provides 50% of the income of those 350 communities. We're trying to avoid being part of some federal—I'd like to avoid that word, but I don't know how in some ways—scheme that would basically just see investors having access to the fishing industry on the east coast instead of having the real fishermen, the owner-operators, operating their vessels as the investors in this industry.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Roy.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia--Matane, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Based on what you said, I think you identified two problems relating to the transfer of owner-operators' licences. The first is that it would be a legal problem, a problem whereby the legislation allows some processing plants to buy licences.

The second would be more of a financial problem. Mr. McCurdy broached that topic earlier. You seem to be headed in the same direction as the farming sector, namely that you are asking for a tax exemption, among other things. But what appears to me to be another problem is that the people do not necessarily have the money to buy the licence. If you are the son or daughter of a fisherman, you do not necessarily have the money needed to buy the licence in question.

You spoke of possibly setting up a pension plan for owner-operators. I agree with you because the buy-back of the licence by the son or daughter may be the only way an owner-operator can retire. The same applies to the buy-back of his gear.

Have you studied the possibility of setting up a pension plan for fishermen? How do you see it? How do you think a pension plan for fishermen could be set up? Would the fishermen themselves contribute? Would you ask the government to set up a pension plan, so that the people have one, or do you think the people should pay into it? Who would manage it? Would it be the association? What I am really asking is: have you considered this possibility?

[English]

Mr. Earle McCurdy: I think it's fair to say there haven't been any details worked out on this issue, certainly not at the national level, although some individual organizations may have put varying degrees of effort into this.

I'm sorry, but I missed part of it. I've heard about coming to Ottawa and sometimes getting caught up in red tape, but I got tangled up in a stray cord here. By the time I got it untangled—

The Chair: The other question that was asked was on the capital gains and the tax implications. You do have that in your submission. I think you're saying there should be....

Mr. Earle McCurdy: I'll start with the last one first.

Those are complex questions to which quick responses are not necessarily all that helpful. I think someone would really have to sit down in a think-tank session or brainstorming session, take down ideas, and then have some detailed research done on what the practicalities of it are, what costs there would be if there are costs, how such costs will be met, and so on. I think that's what we've asked of the department. I must say that we had what seemed to be a constructive meeting recently on the subject of doing a proper, detailed study.

At the moment, I don't think it has been adequately studied in terms of all the details needed to give a satisfactory answer. I think this is something that's overdue in terms of being done. Sometimes necessity drives you to get cracking on something, and we clearly have this looming problem of the cost of acquiring licences. There's a clear necessity to do something, so we think that, in the context of a properly established substantial research effort, proper attention could be given to some of these options that we have spelled out.

In the case of the capital gains and what the capital gains tax does, we say in our brief that there is “a special capital gains exemption...for the disposition of qualified farm property, which includes such things as the sale of quotas for eggs and milk.” It seems to us that farm quotas and fish quotas are somewhat similar. They're not exactly the same, but there certainly are strong similarities. Farmers and fishermen are both primary producers. The absolute base of the areas in which fishing and farming are carried out...fishing and farming were the two cornerstone industries of our country initially. They seem to be very analogous, and it would make sense to us for them to have similar treatment.

As for what's happening now, the capital gains tax is actually encouraging the leasing of licences. The tax bite is so prohibitive when you sell that, when someone is leaving the fishery, rather than encouraging them to get out completely and transfer the licence to someone else, it prompts them to hang on to the licence and lease it to somebody else in order to avoid the capital gains.

The time will come when, in order to get a majority view of any particular fleet on a policy issue, we'll have to go an old age home to see what they think about it, because as the fleet ages, the rules make it absolutely punitive even to transfer a licence. I've had members come to me who wanted to transfer their enterprise to their son. They don't want a nickel for it, all they want to do is say, “Someday, son, this will all be yours.” But when they find out they have a huge wallop from capital gains if they do that, even though they have no intention of.... There's a deemed value for the enterprise, and they're stuck with the tax on it.

So if there is a determination and a will at the federal government level to address this problem, I believe it's an area that offers a real potential to help to address the problem.

¿ (0950)

The Chair: Mr. Roy, this is your last question.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I have another question. What you seem to want is also the establishment of a financing scheme similar to the one available to farmers. For example, when a father wants to transfer his farm to his son or daughter, he can resort to the Farm Credit Corporation for financing. Do you want a similar system for the fishery, for owner-operators?

[English]

Mr. Earle McCurdy: I don't know enough about it to give a clear answer. I'm not trying to be evasive, I just don't know.

I think what we really need is...it would make sense to me, as part of a study on this matter, to say what our policies are and what's in place in the agriculture sector, and maybe what's in place in a small number of countries that have an economy similar to ours, such as Norway, the U.K., Iceland, France, or a couple of other similar.... It does no good to look at Bangladesh or something that doesn't pertain, but there are a number of countries that are close enough in nature to ours to see what's there, and to really subject this whole question to a very thorough and rigorous examination

What you say sounds like it would be of interest, but without having a proper explanation of the details, it's hard to know. What we need to do is look at all the options, and look at them in some detail, to try to see what will help us.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: When you say the matter should be studied, who do you think should do so?

¿ (0955)

[English]

Mr. Earle McCurdy: The Government of Canada is responsible for the management of the fisheries. I don't accept that this extends only to setting quotas and enforcing them. I think it has a broader responsibility than that.

I know when our province, Newfoundland, came into Confederation in 1949, one of the toughest issues for people to accept and swallow was that part of the deal was that the national government would have responsibility for fisheries management, the fishery certainly being the overwhelmingly dominant industry at that time. And it still is a very crucial industry. It's the industry most crucial to our economy in terms of the numbers of jobs, the distribution of those jobs, and so on.

Now that this problem has been raised, addressed, and identified, I think there's a responsibility to come to grips with it and begin a debate. In addition to having the opportunity to appear here—an opportunity that we appreciate—that's why we also met with the DFO officials to try to get it addressed by the people who are involved in policy review.

I don't think the initial draft of the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review paper mentions “owner-operator” once, and if the words “fisherman” and “fish harvester” are used two or three times in the whole paper, that's all it had. It had all kinds of stuff about the department trying to unload its responsibilities for managing the fishery—which I don't blame it for wanting to do; I would too if I had it, because it's a lousy job. Nonetheless, in our view, it didn't really deal with the really critical issues of the fishery. We're awaiting the subsequent drafts with interest to see if that shortcoming is remedied.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Thank you, Earle.

On the point on the Farm Credit Corporation, FCC is just like another bank, only it lends money to the farm sector. There's a real problem in terms of intergenerational transfer in the farm sector as well, but the capital gains exemption does help. But you're talking about $2-million operations being transferred now, and I don't know how they're going to transfer those to the next generation there either. Intergenerational transfer is an issue in both raw commodity sectors that has to be addressed. I know the agriculture committee is looking at it and the Prime Minister's task force on agriculture is looking at it, and I guess it's something that needs to be looked at in the fishery as well.

Mr. LeBlanc.

Mr. Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour--Petitcodiac, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your presentation, gentlemen.

Earle, I think you've described very well and very eloquently the importance of the fleet separation policy, particularly the owner-operator principle. I'm not familiar at all with the situation on the west coast other than what I saw in your document here, but I have seen it on the east coast. I think we've been going through the back door and have been eroding by little changes—some of them almost invisible—a pretty sacred principle, that being the owner-operator principle that has developed the economy of many small communities on the east coast. Sometimes these changes haven't been noticed, but the effect of getting away from that policy—which, as you noted, came about some 25 and 30 years ago, sometimes at the hands of a great fisheries minister from the 1970s—worries me a lot. But I know you've spoken eloquently about this.

I want to touch on two things; therefore, I think your presentation is important in order for the committee and for the government to reaffirm, in a legislative way, the tax changes.

[Translation]

Mr. Roy dealt with the tax issue.

[English]

The tax changes are something that has bothered me. When fishermen in my riding come to me, in some cases because of the Marshall buy-back, many have found themselves with huge capital gains. Those capital gains drive the price up, because the fishermen want to recover a certain bottom line that they think the enterprise is worth. That precludes their families, their sons or daughters, from being able to pay that price. It's then a deemed disposition, as you've said. So I really want to congratulate you for your presentation, and I encourage you to continue to speak about this issue, because it's very important.

I want to touch quickly on two issues. One is very specific, and one is more general.

In terms of the specific one, on the Acadian peninsula in northern New Brunswick particularly—I'm not aware of the situation in Quebec—many of the crab fishermen, the mid-shore crab licence holders, own the fish plants. You have an owner-operator principle in reverse there, because the licence holder is able to buy a processing facility in some cases. That leads to all kinds of confusion. When the fishermen get in a fight with the government about quotas, they're able to crank up plant workers who are in fact their employees, whereas a group of wealthy people in fancy, imported cars demonstrating isn't as politically effective as a bunch of women out on a street when they earn modest wages . We've had distortion there that worries me as well. I think if it's good enough for the goose, it's good enough for the gander.

I worry about that situation, and I would be interested to hear your comments on it. There may be other examples in the country, but that's just one I know of. We're going to have some controversy later this spring over the crab management plan in area 12, I think.

The second issue is the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. You're absolutely right. That document, as I read it.... When we had Mr. Sprout before this committee, it reminded me of some of the great employment insurance reforms of the 1995-96 period that were so unsuccessful. The bureaucratic buzzwords in there that worried me most...that it didn't mention the owner-operator principle is a glaring omission. If it's not ultimately shelved, I hope it does talk about such things in subsequent versions.

How did you react to the constant discussion of “economic fishery”? To me, that term is insulting, because what it says is that we have to move toward a more economic fishery. To me, that's code for getting away from a social fishery, which itself is a polite word used so you're not saying “welfare fishery”, which is insulting to many of the people in small communities on the east coast.

To me, “economic fishery” was the bureaucratic term for getting into some form that would be dramatically different from the owner-operator principle. In your discussions with officials, did you see that an economic fishery, an economic model, means big companies could perhaps own enterprises? That's what I'm worried about, so I'm wondering if you have a comment on that.

À (1000)

Mr. Earle McCurdy: I think we have an economic fishery. The latest figures that I can recall show that we contribute about $3 billion to $3.5 billion to the balance of trade in the country. The industry provides employment. If you look at how much money has been spent through agencies like the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, ACOA, and others over the years to try to generate some kind of economic activity so that we can populate the coastline that faces the rest of the world, that's been a....

Quite frankly, if the fishermen and the industry just got a subsidy for all the times they've helped capture people and provided information on various kinds of illicit activity, we'd be off to a good start. Maybe they should be deemed to be part of the RCMP or something.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

Mr. Earle McCurdy: But we have an economic fishery. We have a lot of economic activity. But there's a real difference between saying there's a desire to have an economically successful fishery—a desire that we all share—and saying fishing rights should be peddled like futures in pork bellies or something.

The real question is why the Government of Canada, the Crown, issues fishing licences? It's a right to go out to catch fish. It's not just some esoteric exercise, it's so people can make a living, so that there can be activity going on in the economy.

If you want to see how important it is, if somebody had gone down to St. Anthony, Newfoundland, in the summer of 2000 and again in the summer of 2001, the contrast would have been stark. I spoke to this committee a few months ago on the issue of the closure of the shrimp fishery. When you go down there, the place is hopping. You can't get a room in the hotel to save your life. The stores are going flat-out, as are the clubs, the suppliers, and everyone. There's a tremendous amount of activity. On that tip of that northern peninsula, where governments have been bedevilled as to how to find and develop employment for people, there are 200 people just in monitoring and weighing. That's quite apart from fishing and processing. All that activity is going on, when last summer it was all at a standstill.

So the fishery, such as it is and with its imperfections, is the economic engine of hundreds of small communities in the country. I think we have a very economic fishery. The question we're really addressing here is what the tools of national policy are that can help to make it more successful, as opposed to putting up impediments such as a capital gains tax.

There need to be some restrictions on the issuing of those licences so the people.... Fishing is hard, dangerous work. The people who do it are the ones who should hold the licences, not somebody who sits back in an office and peddles them around to the highest bidder, someone who doesn't do the work to earn it. I think that's the fundamental question.

À (1005)

The Chair: And on the issue of crabbers?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: On the crabbers issue, we don't have a policy as such. All I can make is a personal observation on that. If the quid pro quo of fleet separation policy was that it was a two-way street, I would accept that myself, and I think our organization would.

One of the organizations on the Canadian Council represents crabbers, but I'm not aware of their view on that particular item. But I would say the idea of somebody using hard-pressed plant workers as a kind of political cannon fodder is not unique to that particular group. I can't speak authoritatively about that situation, but I do know of cases with the fish processing companies. There's no need to look any further than Burgeo and Canso to see examples of where somebody's spooled up and used the desperation of the people in the communities to back campaigns for all kinds of wild and woolly proposals by the companies that employ them. That's not a brand new concept, because we've had it over there.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McCurdy.

Do you have a short one, Dominic? No?

Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo--Alberni, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Being a first-year member on this committee, I'm not fully up to speed on a lot of things, like the Mifflin Plan and so on. I'm behind on some of the implications of that and on the terms that come out. Some of you are right up to speed on, but I'm a little behind.

I did want to say something that I picked up on, because I wonder if it doesn't roll into this same issue. Going back to the roe-on-kelp issue on the west coast, when governments get mixing in the plans, they suddenly can really change the value of the fishery. Five people in my riding were ready to purchase a licence for roe-on-kelp, negotiating with about $1 million. Government then stepped in and purchased one licence for $2 million in order to give it to an aboriginal community, and that suddenly drove the price up to $2 million overnight for those five people, up from the $1 million they were negotiating on. And then government went and created six more licences that they gave to, I think, the Heiltsuk nation up there.

I'm just saying that...Peter, you may have the specifics on that, because I know you're involved in that file, but I was just elected when that was happening. I just wanted to ask.

I would certainly have an interest in seeing our communities involved in the fishery. Anything that can be done to encourage that is certainly going to benefit all of our communities. The whole character of the communities changes when the fish...[Inaudible—Editor]. The resource is out there, but the communities aren't benefiting from it.

I wanted to ask about the loophole that you mentioned. That part went by kind of quickly. Could you expand on this loophole that might help to benefit fishermen and let them stay involved in the fishery locally?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: To my knowledge, I believe the first application was in Nova Scotia, but that's not particularly pertinent. It doesn't really matter, because it's spread all over the place now.

In that situation, a processing company provides financial backing for a fisherman to acquire a licence. A fisherman has limited options. He doesn't own the licence, it's the property of the Crown. He can't use it as collateral at the banks to support a loan, so, in many cases, with the cost of acquiring enterprises, investments, and so on now, the financial options become very few.

Oftentimes, the processing companies are the most available and sometimes only option for getting financing. What the processing companies have therefore taken to doing is writing in or developing a so-called trust agreement. It's a formal agreement between the processor and the fisherman, whereby the fisherman signs over the beneficial use of the licence, which for all practical purposes is the value of the licence. There's a splitting of hairs, I guess—and I'm no lawyer by a long shot—between the legal title and the beneficial use, but for all practical purposes with a fishing licence, the beneficial use is everything.

That's the loophole that has allowed the processors to actually write into the contracts the right to control the beneficial use, including who gets designated in a transfer. They can designate someone to whom the person has to transfer the licence. Our legal advice is that this loophole could be plugged by rendering the legal title and the beneficial use inseparable under the act or the regulations.

I don't know if that's clear. It's a complicated kind of arrangement, but that's the best I can summarize it.

The Chair: Not to take away from your time, James, but on that legal advice, can we get something more specific on that, Earle, in writing, something tying it together? That's why I asked you at the beginning of the hearing whether or not there were specifics. It might be helpful if we could get something on that, because we'll be looking at that under a number of issues.

Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: I just wanted clarification on that issue so that we can better understand how it works.

Mr. John Cummins: Could I do a follow up on that? I think an interesting point has been raised here.

When this Mifflin plan came down, I know a number of fishermen were forced into buying another licence. For example, for a guy with a seine boat, there was no fishing on the south coast, so he needed to buy a north coast licence to continue. He was independent and wanted to stay independent, but the banks wouldn't loan him money. He had a boat worth.... To rebuild the boat or to build a new boat maybe cost him $1 million or $1.5 million, but a boat has no value without a licence. He had the one licence, but it wasn't enough to keep that vessel in operation. The banks wouldn't touch him because there's no certainty in the industry, so the only recourse he had was to go to the companies. The companies gave him the money and required—and this happened with many of these contracts—that during the lifetime of the loan—and many of those were for seven years—the fisherman was to deliver to that company.

I can't fault the companies for doing that. I would think they would have to protect their butts. They've put some money out, and they want to make sure they're going to get a return on that money. That's the way business operates.

To me, the issue is about creating a certainty that would allow the bank to put the cash forward, rather than having the guy having to go to the company because there's no certainty. Am I wrong? What's your comment on that?

À (1010)

The Chair: Mr. Allain, keep it short if you can. We have to go to Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Marc Allain (Policy and Communications Adviser, Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters): I think Mr. Cummins has put his finger on part of the problem, and that's the notion of the lack of assignability of a licence. The licence is the property of the Crown and it reverts to the Crown each year and is reassigned. Banks look at it and say it's not property, so they won't lend the money. So that has to be part of the solution that is looked at here.

What the council has tried to do is shed some light on a very complex problem, and there's not one solution that we can go to the shelf to get in order to fix this problem. We're not proposing very specific solutions. What we're saying is that this is a very serious public policy issue and it really has to be looked at in its entirety, in all its complexity, and some reasonable things have to be put forward in terms of guaranteeing the public interest.

There's another issue, though, and that's the whole question of the relationship between the fishermen, the processor, and the financing. It has been a long-standing one, but what has changed is the fact that, through these trust agreements, the processors are now getting control over the licences. In some cases, it's compounded by the generational shift. You have huge numbers of fishermen who are going to be retiring, and we have a situation in which it's not the fishermen wanting to get into the fishery and to buy licences who are going to the processor, but the processors who have this huge amount of capital and want to buy licences. They have a ready market there in terms of fishermen who want to retire and want to leave, so they're buying up those licences. They can then get a fisherman to put his name on the licence, so all the fisherman is providing is a name. The processor gets effective control. If you go back into your communities, if you go up and down the coast, you can find lots of examples of this going on.

The Chair: Thank you, John. This is an important point, but we have a lot of people with questions, so I'm going to have to go to Mr. Stoffer.

À (1015)

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, Daniel, happy sabbatical. I think you've been a great asset to this committee and to others in the fish industry across the country because of your insight on this specific issue.

To all of you, my condolences in the loss of Mike Belliveau. I know he was a colleague amongst all of you, and he'll be sadly missed by all of us, especially on this committee. Also, when the Marshall decision came down, I think Mr. Belliveau's leadership actually calmed the waters an awful lot. Without him, I think that situation could have gotten a lot worse. I know he meant an awful lot to all of you.

I also want to thank you for mentioning the Cruickshank report in your brief. When we were on the west coast, the Cruickshank report came up time and time again.

John, my first question is to you, and the second one to Earle is very similar.

Cruickshank indicated that if we don't do something on the owner-operator principle, and not necessarily on community-based management, but on the fact that fishermen in those communities should have access to the resource for their livelihood and their children's livelihood, then the big shots from Vancouver and away are going to end up owning all the resources. I'd like you to comment on the influence that Jimmy Pattison, for example, has had on the west coast.

Earle, on the east coast, we now notice the FPI Clearwater situation, in which that corporate control of a public resource is becoming concentrated into even fewer and fewer hands. We know what's happening to the people of, for example, Marystown, Harbour Breton, etc. I would just like to have a brief from you, very quickly for the committee, on the influence on what's happening when a public resource is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, and on what effect that has on these small communities and the people who live in them.

You're absolutely right. The fishery is still the number one employer on the east coast by far, and it's something I think we should be able to maintain for as long as we can.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: It is true, and going back to the Mifflin plan, which this committee has heard so much about, there has been a substantial concentration of the control of licences. But the issue of control is not precisely the same as ownership.

The reference the previous member of the committee made to the production contracts that companies and processors enter into with fishermen is significant. The concentration of ownership of licences since Mifflin really means we're talking about the one humongous processor in the B.C. fishery today. That concentration has increased under Mifflin marginally apparently, but what is below the surface is the control of licences. An independent fisherman with a southern seine license, as somebody has pointed out, had to enter into a production agreement with the processor in order to get into the north to make his operation sustainable. A consequence of that is that both his northern production and his southern production belong to Mr. Pattison.

That's one very significant impact, as there being only certain fishermen who are positioned to do that. There is information that Gordon Gislason and others have gathered on the west coast to document the flight of fishing jobs and licences from the coastal communities of British Columbia. The hardest hit, of course, those at the top of the list, typically are the first nations communities that participated in the commercial fishery in British Columbia. Communities like Alert Bay have been devastated, and their stake in the fishery has been dramatically weakened.

Similarly, in the communities on the north coast, where the stake of first nations in the commercial fishery was high and where they participated with all commercial fishermen in resolving the huge issues there, that stake is no longer there. They look for other options for access, and the control of the fishery is more and more urbanized. The strength of the owner-operator fleet and their presence in the villages is more and more diminished. The consequences, not just for the economies of those villages, but, frankly, for a manageable fishery that can achieve the kinds of goals we all agree on, is beginning to elude us in a very serious way. Members of the committee who were on the west coast recently heard how that works, particularly in Steveston.

À (1020)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Sutcliffe.

Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien (Labrador, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an issue—

The Chair: Just one second.

Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I think Earle was going to say something.

The Chair: Did you want to add something, Earle?

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Yes, thank you.

I'd like to acknowledge and thank Mr. Stoffer for his comments on Mike Belliveau . What happened with Mike was certainly a shock to all of us. There's no question about that native file Peter referred to. The pressures on people on the wharf to deal with those issues are tremendous when it comes to trying to do it in a civilized and respectful manner in order to protect the rights of members, but also in order to recognize that there has been a Supreme Court decision and that there are people there who have been granted certain rights. To try to find a balance that doesn't involve the use of firearms on board vessels and those kinds of extreme things that have happened, with incidents of violence and so on, just creates tremendous pressure. So I appreciate those comments. They're very well taken.

On the issue at hand, there's no question that as you get concentration of control, it carries a lot of risks. You get lessened competition and you get to a point at which you get too much power concentrated in too few hands. I think that's one of the reasons why we're here today. We're trying to prevent the same kind of thing happening in the under-65-foot sector that has happened in the over-65-foot, because there really is a clear separation in policy. For vessels under 65 feet, the regulations pertaining to owner-operator fleet separation and so on are entirely different from what they are over 65 feet, and I think that highlights why we want to deal with this problem before it's beyond salvation.

The question we should always come back to in reviewing fisheries management and policy is why a particular licence was issued in the first place. Presumably, the initial northern shrimp licences weren't issued for the sole purpose of enriching a handful of licence holders, but in fact because they provided jobs and so on. I think those things have to always be kept in mind.

In the case of FPI, there was very significant federal and provincial money put into that company. Even when it was privatized, it was only to the tune of 60-some-odd cents on the dollar. If you took the public investment in FPI in 1987—the money the government effectively left in, meaning the 30-odd cents they didn't get back—and invested it at 5% a year since then, the total value of what the two governments put in would be in the order of $230 million. It was a very substantial contribution to that company.

So I think there is a need for policy-makers to ensure that there's not an undue concentration of control over public resources.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. McCurdy.

Mr. O'Brien.

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The biggest problem I have in dealing with this issue is that there are so many issues within the main issue. I've been associated with this for a few years, and the single biggest issue in my riding is definitely the fishery, and the single biggest one inside the fishery is licensing.

As Earle knows, coming from Newfoundland and Labrador, I'm a very fortunate member of Parliament, because I feel we have a separation inside of our own province—and you know what I'm talking about, Earle—in terms of the way the FPI Clearwater thing is going in terms of the investor ownership of licences and the enterprise allocations. In Labrador, we have the Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company and Torngat Fish Producers, a co-op that's people-owned, people-driven , and very successful.

When you look at the northern peninsula, which is in Minister Gerry Byrne's riding, and when you look at the riding of Labrador, what they had thirty years ago was working quite well for them and was the opposite of what we have. We had the big guys coming in, reaping the benefits, giving the least amount to the fishers and the plant workers, and going away with the cream, but we turned that around. We're now in charge of our fishery, and I think we're very fortunate people. Earle knows that very well, because he was very much a part of it. The union stood behind us and helped bring us there.

I want to go into the licensing issue, because I certainly support the discussion on the terms of where we are on the taxation side of this, or the lack of such a discussion. The points on licensing are the same on the west coast and east coast as far as I'm concerned, when you talk about the deals worked with fishers by big companies. We know how those things work themselves through.

The point I want to make is that we have a fleet right now, the 34'11" fleet, in Labrador in particular—we have them elsewhere, as well—and there are too many fishermen chasing too few fish—involved in the crab fishery. We're in a situation in which, coming off the TAGS program, the fishermen exercised their rights. They went out and got their licences, they got their boats, and they built their enterprises, but now we have a situation in which crab numbers are dropping.

And it's not just that it's my problem today, because it could be yours tomorrow. There is just not enough crab to go around. You have a 34'11" boat with around 20,000 to 22,000 pounds of fish to catch per year, with three or four fishers on board and all the rest of the expenses that go with that. Just think about it. When it's less than $2 a pound and you have $40,000, it just doesn't make any sense.

My take on this is that we have to give these guys some way out, and the simple way out is by allowing them to combine enterprises, or something along those lines. I'd like to know what your take is on that.

And Mr. Chair, I'm certainly making that point for the record as well, because I took it up with DFO and I notice Jeff is here from the minister's office. It's a very important point. If all of them can't make it, we have to allow for some kind of flexibility inside the licensing scheme of things or the transfer of things, in order to allow people to do things so that at least some will be able to survive.

Earle, do you have any take on that?

À (1025)

Mr. Earle McCurdy: First, I'll just touch briefly on your reference to the Labrador Fishermen's Union Shrimp Company and Torngat Fish Producers. I think they were previously referred to, by a great minister from a previous era, as a very good decision of public policy. I'm not sure some of the other allocations of shrimp licences would get as much of a positive review too, but what they did was allow a people's organization on the coast of Labrador to take the proceeds of that licence and use it in a way that has just been a boon to the coast.

I think your comparison of that to the northern peninsula is a very interesting and apt one, because they've done very well, with good, hands-on, local management, through what is effectively a cooperative structure. It's very well suited to the remote nature of and independent spirit in Labrador, and it has worked extremely well. I think it's a really good example of the wise use of the right to go out to catch fish. If you look at the outcome and ask if it that right to catch a valuable commodity was used in a manner that derives benefit for a significant number of people, the answer very clearly is that it was. I think it's a really good case study.

On the issue of combining, I can't speak for the Canadian Council here because we haven't discussed it—at least, not the specific point—but, in general, what we have to be very careful about...when you have a situation in which the income generated is clearly inadequate, people—including ourselves, legislators, and so on—have to put their minds to what can be done to resolve it. One thing to be really careful about on combining is that it doesn't add to the problem we've already described. In other words, if four of us have fishing boats and want to have a combining policy, while those two fellows decide to sell out, who is going to be able to come up with the wherewithal to buy them out. Depending on how it's done, that would have the potential to significantly increase the control of the processor, who would be the one with the deepest pockets when it comes to getting the money to finance it . So it would have to be done in a very careful manner.

One thing we have developed in the under-35-foot crab fleets in Newfoundland has been what's called a buddy-up process, whereby two enterprise holders can get together to fish the two crab quotas from one boat, but it's a year-to-year arrangement made at their discretion. It's a voluntary arrangement. That has been done in a way that I think has helped to address that problem. There's no question that some of the details in Labrador are problematic, including the distances they have to go and so on. It's quite different from some of the other areas.

I think all of the options have to be looked in terms of how we deal with it. But in doing so, it's important that what we emerge with something that strengthens the owner-operators, not something that weakens them. In Iceland, for example, they have a kind of transferability in their quotas, or an ITQ system. I meant to bring some clippings—I can certainly provide them to anybody who wants them—on the situation in Iceland. There, people initially thought leasing quotas to go out to fish was a great idea, but the fisherman are finding it's the single biggest cost to their enterprise. So while it has a sort of a superficial or upfront kind of attractiveness, the devil is usually in the details. Anything in that direction will have to be done with extreme care in order to avoid those kinds of outcomes. These people who are now making those comments in Iceland—and these are enterprise owners—are people who, if you talked to them five years ago, would have said this is a marvelous development. But time has proven otherwise.

À (1030)

Mr. Lawrence O'Brien: I have one last point, because Earle mentioned something about going long distances.

I'll give you an example about safety and something about vessel sizes. DFO was suppose to address this in its Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. I don't know, it probably has, but when it something going to be done about it?

On 34'11"s, anybody who knows anything about the fishery knows a 34'11" is not a very big boat. When you're going 90 miles at sea off the Labrador coast to catch crab, you're really putting a gun to your head, fully loaded. It only takes someone to trip and they're dead. Basically, that's the truth. We'd like to see some flexibility on the part DFO to allow for people to get into boats of a size that at least allows for safety mechanisms. How fishers work that through in their own perspective is their business, but we should be looking at safety first when we're talking about going to sea to catch fish.

The Chair: Mr. Bernier had a comment on your original question.

Mr. Daniel Bernier: On the overall owner-operator and fleet separation policy, one of the key things we need to keep in mind is that as soon as you put in only the value of the licences, put the capital or the money at work in the system....

If you recall, in Quebec in 1992, they had northern shrimp licences, based in Matane. They were purchased by a company in Nova Scotia, so that happens even within our own provinces here. The same stuff happened last year with some of the crab licences from the Acadian Peninsula. They were purchased by someone from P.E.I. And as we speak, in New Zealand, where they have almost 100% ITQs, or individual transferrable quotas, half the quotas supposedly are owned by investors in Singapore and other countries outside New Zealand.

This was raised at the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review, and I don't think it's just a wish. It's a reality. It's happening. It happened interprovincially. As soon as you put capital into this work, when you play the big boys' game, you need to be ready to play the big boys' game until the end. So it is a Government of Canada decision, and there is a role to play in this whole situation.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bernier.

Mr. Cummins, for Mr. Burton.

Mr. John Cummins: Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

On this issue of certainty that we were talking about a minute ago, you—

The Chair: I'm sorry to interrupt, John, but I'm going to go to Loyola because I missed him. I'll then come back to you.

Mr. John Cummins: Okay.

The Chair: Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I knew you wouldn't forget me.

There is a great Newfoundland fisher person philosopher who once said the future of the fishery is a thing of the past. I'm going to make a similarly profound statement today by saying that the best way to go ahead is by going back, because I think that's what has to be done with this issue.

One statement that's quite clear here today is the fact that the licence is the property of the Crown and that it reverts to the Crown each year. Yet even though that's true, there are people out there who are making fortunes, and there's all kind of manipulation within the system. The ordinary fisherman, about whom we're all concerned here, is no longer in the game because he can't afford to be in the game. The minute the present owner leaves, whether it's his family, his crew members, or whoever, unless they have a lot of money, that licence could go heaven knows where. Usually it's bought by some fish plant owner, some processor who accumulates all kinds of licences, and as Earle has so clearly said, they get a fisherman to sign his name on a piece of paper and they own him for life.

What was wrong with the old policy, in which the individual fisherman applied for his licence? Government has to get over the fact that they can make a lot of money on this, too. Government should be there to regulate, not to try to make a fortune. For a very reasonable, nominal price, you should be able to get a licence to fish if you are a fisherman, if you're an owner-operator. When the day comes that you no longer are going to use that licence, it reverts to the Crown, perhaps with the provision that if your son, one of your crew members, or whoever, wants to continue.... Many of our skippers are older people, and as they leave, many of them have young members on their crews who would like to continue. I've seen situations in which the crew members or even family members are out of it because the licence has to be sold for whatever reasons.

It's simply a matter of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans forgetting about the quick buck themselves, forgetting about looking after the corporate friends who sit around and drink cognac with them, and thinking about the people they're supposed to represent—the ordinary, average fisherman who should have a clear-cut licence if he qualifies, and whose licence should revert the minute he fails to be a fisherman, an owner-operator. We have too many sitting—and, again, it's in the report—at home, owning several licences. They're “slipper skippers” who sit with their feet up, monitor their two-way radios, and talk to the fellows out there making the fortune for them while getting very little out of it themselves. If this continues, the fishery is going to be a real joke in a few years' time.

As I said starting off, Mr. Chairman, I think the best way to go ahead is to go back. We can learn from the past. Maybe it's time we looked after the people we're supposed to be looking after in all these processes.

I'd just like your comments.

À (1035)

The Chair: You don't get much time for an answer, Earle, because he took it all up with his speech, but go ahead.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Just briefly, that was certainly the policy our union endorsed twenty-odd years ago. In fact, the slogan we use—which might not be quite the way you'd put it today—was “License the man, not the boat”, the message being that the licence should be attached to the individual and then revert to the Crown, subject to a right to transfer it or to arrange for someone in the crew or immediate family to take it over. They would have criteria whereby people would be on a waiting list to get involved in the fisheries.

Because we've gone a long way down what some would argue is a one-way street, to go to that other system from what we have now would probably involve using some of the proceeds of the licence fees that are now attached, in such a way as to provide fairness to those who, under the current system, paid through the nose to get the fishing rights that they have. There would clearly have to be a way of dealing with that, either through development of some kind of pension or retirement plan alternative, or through development of some other means to compensate them.

But a lot of the difficulties we have now certainly would have been averted had that been the policy. There was a critical right turn, left turn, detour, or whatever you call it, taken back close to twenty years ago, and there has now been the better part of twenty years of history under that new regime. So you'd have to have some kind of a quid pro quo developed—or a “squid pro quo”—for the people who were shortchanged.

The Chair: Thank you, Earle.

John, you had a question, and then I have Mr. Steckle and Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. John Cummins: On the certainty issue that we were talking about earlier, you suggested—and it's quite correct—that the licence reverts to the Crown each year and is renewable. In practice, it's generally regarded as property, but the theory is that it's not.

The issue of certainty goes far beyond just the licence. The issue of certainty plaguing the British Columbia fishery is whether or not you're going to have access to the stock. Mr. Sutcliffe, you know that full well. Almost 30 million fish went up the Fraser River this year, with no fishery for the area E licences, and therefore no certainty. That's the problem here. Would you not concur? If you want to talk about whether or not people are going to have access to money to buy these licences, that's the key issue when it comes to certainty.

À (1040)

Mr. John Sutcliffe: The certainty-of-access issue is critical, of course, and there are a number of ways to come at it. The owner-operator is one. Fisheries management is another. There are things that happened in the management of the fishery this year that look like they're the implementation of a policy that could only be read by fishermen to mean there will be no certainty of access. As you are perhaps more aware than anyone, there is also, critically, the pilot sales issue. There are a number of approaches to resolving the certainty-of-access issue. I would agree that, long term, in terms of public policy with respect to access rights, the owner-operator issue, however, is pretty close to the core of it.

Mr. John Cummins: Isn't it the reality that unless you address this issue of certainty of access to the fish, nothing else really matters? If you don't fish, it doesn't matter who owns the boat

Mr. John Sutcliffe: That's true.

Mr. John Cummins: What have you folks done on that access issue?

Mr. John Sutcliffe: Well, with respect to that particular issue, the council—and there will be others who address this question—is trying to address the owner-operator problem. On the west coast, we have seen a number of issues that are quite acute around the access issue. It is also the region of the country where the owner-operator has been eroded and was never formally in place except momentarily in the herring fishery, I suppose. That's probably not just a coincidence.

We have just gone through a massive restructuring, particularly of the salmon fishery, but it has also affected all other fisheries on the west coast. The erosion of owner-operators in the industry has proceeded much more quickly than over the prior years. Our ability to resolve a number of access issues, including the issues around pilot sale, the implementation of the new selective fisheries policies, and so on, has become more difficult to deal with as a result.

On the east coast, where the erosion of the owner-operator is beginning and where, at the same time, they face, perhaps as the west coast did back in 1994 and 1995, an approach of policy review of their fisheries, it's very important to bring that issue right to the table, front and centre. It's a key piece—but not the only piece—to addressing the concerns of our members and the fishery of the future.

The Chair: Mr. McCurdy, very quickly, and then Mr. Steckle.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Security of access to the resource is obviously critical. In 1992, when that was interrupted in the groundfish fishery in parts of Atlantic Canada, and predominantly in Newfoundland, a compensation program was developed. But I think there's an issue now in our province that points to the similar problem, and that is the temporary nature of the crab fishing rights for under-35-foot vessels. They've now been there for seven years, so it's time to give them the security of confirming that as permanent access to the zones that they fish. I think that would certainly alleviate some of the difficulties they find themselves in, having been there now for that long a period of time. It's very difficult to plan your operation when the piece of paper that have has “TEMPORARY” written all over it in bright red letters.

À (1045)

The Chair: Thank you, Earle.

Mr. Steckle.

Mr. Paul Steckle (Huron--Bruce, Lib.): Thank you very much, gentlemen.

I think Mr. Hearn enunciated very clearly what I've been thinking this morning. In fact, he centered his thoughts on the comments I was going to make. But I think there's a great parallel between what I see happening in the fishing industry and what's happening in agriculture. In my previous life, that's where I came from. In the quota system or supply management system as we know it in agriculture today, the cost of production is factored into the price of the end product, whether it's eggs, milk, or whatever. That's not the case in fishing. You don't have a cost of production, so you don't factor the cost of quota based on the value of the product taken.

Given the fact that the licences and the resource are the property of the Crown, I think we have to go right back to where Mr. Hearn has taken us this morning. We have to say that if we continue to go down this route—because agriculture is facing the same dilemma today—when we look at what's happening with our livestock agriculture today, it's very much focused. If we keep going down this road in the hog industry, for instance, we're going to see it eventually taken over by the multinationals, by certain people we could name at the table, although we won't do that this morning. But those people will eventually control that industry if we keep going down that road.

I think it's important that we recognize that the greatest efficiencies are always at the level at which the primary producer or the primary taker of a product is not the processor. The processor has other avenues by which to retrieve costs. The fisherman does not, so he's a price taker. So I think it's important that we go back to look at what we're doing to communities, because that's really where it's all at. It's people.

I very much support you in what you said this morning, Mr. Hearn. I think we have to go back to look at this issue from that standpoint. I'm just wondering what kind of receptivity there would be in terms of...I realize we have to go back to find some cost recovery for those who have invested in licences, but we certainly have to get it out of the hands of those people who sit in Florida while the fishermen are out in the cold waters catching fish. I think that has to change. While I'm not a fisherman—I love to sport fish, but it's not my life—I do understand it to some degree, and I want to ask you to make your comments on that.

The Chair: Mr. McCurdy, could you be as quick as possible? We're going to run out of time.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: I think that's why we're here to protect that. The kind of detailed evaluation we're proposing that the department do, in conjunction with people like ourselves and industry, is critical so that we can fully explore issues, not just solve one problem and create two more.

Subject to the right fairness being implemented in terms of those who operate under the present system, there are alternatives available to prevent just a continuation of the present scheme and to avoid the loss of the independence. I think it's critical to do, and that's why we're here. We don't think it's too late. Otherwise, I suppose we wouldn't bother. We think there's still a chance, but it's urgent to get the matter addressed in such a way that the erosion doesn't become a landslide.

The Chair: Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or--Cape Breton, Lib.): I know we're pressed for time here, so I'll cut to it.

The issues that you guys have addressed are certainly issues that I've heard on the wharf in Glace Bay, in Chéticamp, and in Port Hood. I think they're issues that needs a champion, and your presentations were certainly well received today.

I'm going to ask your opinion on two points. I know you talked about complicated issues, and the two that I'll ask you about are somewhat complex.

First, on the native fishery, what is your organization's position on how the government has dealt with it since Marshall, and on the impact it has had on the issue of ownership? You've touched briefly on that, so what should we be looking at in the near future with the native fishery?

The other one is the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. It has been mentioned before, and we've talked. If we're using the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review as our guiding light, we might still be in the dark. Could I get your comments on the Atlantic Fisheries Policy review, too?

À (1050)

Mr. Earle McCurdy: On the native fishery, our original plan was to have Mike Belliveau as part of our delegation today, because he has certainly been intimately involved in that.

In our province, there's a very small native population, located in a separate area of northern Labrador for the most part—in Mr. O'Brien's riding—so although some issues have arisen, they haven't arisen to nearly the kind of magnitude we've seen in other provinces.

I'm hard pressed to comment. The Supreme Court decision clearly was one society wasn't ready for. The government had no backup plan in the event it lost. The thing was a mess, and the people who had to live with the consequences were the commercial fishermen. They were the ones who took the brunt of it, and the past three years have been very difficult.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: But it has an impact on the owner-operator issue in terms of pricing.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Yes, there's no question that the prices that are paid there have had an escalating impact on prices that are paid generally, as I understand it.

I don't know if anyone else wants to elaborate further, because that wasn't a very satisfactory answer.

The Chair: Maybe we could come back to that topic, Rodger. We'll have to deal with that issue. I'm sure it will come up when the minister is here.

On the second question....

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: It was on the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: We certainly made our views known in no uncertain terms in regard to our dissatisfaction with the original draft. In fact, even the second draft didn't properly address those issues. There was a consultation on the issue a few days ago in Halifax, so we're awaiting it with interest.

By the way, at the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review public hearings, through the coordination of our council, at every single public consultation that they held, unless I'm mistaken, there wasn't a single meeting at which someone didn't raise the owner-operator and fleet separation issues. It was a very coordinated campaign, and what the people involved in that said to us afterwards was that we certainly did our homework on lining up, and that they heard loudly and clearly the importance of the owner-operator issue. So I think we were successful in making an impact by having a coordinated campaign to highlight the issue, which they had essentially ignored or overlooked or whatever in the first instance.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer, I'll give you two minutes and that's it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to compliment my colleague from St. John's West, who is sounding more like a New Democrat all the time. Good man.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I have two questions, and since you're on sabbatical, Daniel, I'm going to ask them of you.

In the recommendations section of your presentation, you mentioned something about the committee studying the owner-operator principle in a manner that is a little more in-depth. I'm wondering if your organization can supply this committee with names, addresses, and numbers of people we should talk to in order to get further clarification on this issue.

And, Daniel, the minister will be coming before us very soon. If there was one question you could ask the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in regard to this policy—which we'll be doing—what would it be?

Mr. Daniel Bernier: I would ask him what he's planning to do with the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review, and if the owner-operator and fleet separation policy will be a centrepiece of the new version of the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. I think that's appropriate.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, gentlemen.

Before we close, we've covered a lot of issues here this morning, and I'm left with an uneasy feeling on how we move this issue forward. We've touched on the licensing and on the fleet separation. You will get back to us on the opinion we asked for on how to maybe handle licensing better, but I'm wondering where we go from here as a committee.

We've started what I wouldn't say is a new policy as a committee over the last few months. We're trying to deal with an issue, get it done, get the recommendations out, and try to put it behind us, rather than leave it hanging. I'm therefore wondering how either you or we, as committee members, could move this particular issue forward, because it's very broad-ranging. Can it only be handled by changes to the Fisheries Act and the regulations, or is it more simple than that to deal with the points you raised? Do you have any comments, Earle?

À (1055)

Mr. Earle McCurdy: I would hope there would be a report from the committee to the department on the issue, but I don't think it has to get into all the technicalities and the nitty-gritty, because this whole issue is more complicated than Chinese algebra. It's very intricate and complex, so I would hope it would be something just to underline the importance of the owner-operator basis of our fishery and our fishing communities.

One of the advantages that I find...my understanding of the rules or the procedures is that when a parliamentary committee makes a report to the department, the department then has a period of time in which to formally respond. Sometimes that can provide a basis for moving forward. If that response includes some particular commitment or some particular policy direction, then it's something we can try to get hold of to push an issue forward, because this clearly will need constant attention.

We dealt with this issue some time ago in the Senate committee, and I think we received a favourable response and they did some work, so I think it would quite useful. The more voices that speak out on these kinds of issues, the better the chances are of getting some resolution. Perhaps the committee would see fit to put forward a submission or a report to the department, endorsing the concept of the owner-operator nature of our fishery and asking the department to work with people in industry to try to ensure the future.

In a way, it goes back to Mr. Stoffer's question. If I had a question for the minister, I think it would be along the lines of whether or not he's committed to working with the industry and with his department to ensure that necessary steps are taken to protect the owner-operator nature of our fishery, because it's so much a part of our heritage and it's so important to our fishing communities. It may be a loaded question that's hard to answer no to, but, in any event, I think it would be quite useful if the committee saw fit to do something along that line.

If it were a public comment, which I presume your reports are, then I think it would be grist for the mill. It would be helpful in dealing with the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. It would be helpful in dealing with the minister and with the public. So I would hope you'd be able to do that.

The Chair: As a committee, we will have to consider that, consider how to proceed, and consider whether or not we do hold another couple of hearings, because some of this ties into the issue we wanted to deal with in Newfoundland. Along with Loyola and Paul, several members here are actually on the agricultural committee, and we're seeing this very same issue in the agriculture sector.

You said one of the key points was that a licence is not to be peddled to somebody else. I think you hit the nail on the head, because that's what's happening to a great extent. So I think you're right. A report may be the best way to deal with it. We will have to hear some other issues, though, so we'll put it on the agenda for a steering committee meeting and we'll try to proceed that way.

Loyola.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: I just have a very brief comment, Mr. Chairman.

Earle is one of the members on the NAFO group and is quite well aware of what's happening there. I was talking to him about our intention to discuss the overfishing and lack of control on the nose and tail of the Flemish Cap. Now, even more so than when we raised it two or three months ago, that issue is fairly pertinent and will draw a fair amount of attention as we get into it.

Maybe Earle could just comment very briefly, having experienced the recent meetings.

The Chair: Loyola, we're out of time. We have another committee coming in, and some of its members are already sitting here. We really don't have time, but what we'll try to commit to...I know there is a lot of rejection of some of the Canadian resolutions at the NAFO meetings, and we really need to have some people who were at NAFO come in here prior to doing that hearing in Newfoundland, because I think these things interrelate. We'll try to do that, but we really are out of time for the moment.

You can make a quick point, Earle.

Mr. Earle McCurdy: Just quickly on that, I made a press statement on this matter yesterday, but I'll undertake to send the committee a two- or three-page statement of our view. I can get that information to you.

The Chair: Just send it to either me or the clerk, and we'll get it out.

Committee members, I sent around a letter that basically deals with the Tofino wharf issue, and which we want to send to Minister Collenette. Are there problems with that, or do we have agreement on that letter?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Peter.

Á (1100)

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Absolutely, but there is one thing we need to deal with very quickly, and that's John Cummins' letter regarding the discipline of that coast guard member.

The Chair: That's on our agenda.

Okay, we're agreed. We'll send that letter.

Just in closing, folks, thank you very much for your presentation. It was well thought out.

On behalf of the committee, Daniel Bernier, I just want to thank you. I don't know how many years you've worked at that particular position, but it has certainly been for all the time I've been around here.

Mr. Daniel Bernier: Too many.

The Chair: It's never too many years.

In any event, on behalf of the committee, I just wanted to thank you for the well-thought-out research you've done over the years, for your knowledge of the industry, and for your diplomacy sometimes. You're much more diplomatic than most people in the fisheries, and that's unbelievable. In any event, we want to thank you for your efforts, and we wish you well over the next year.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.