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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

0800

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.))

0805

Mr. Paul Jagoe (Fisherman, Overlooking Troubled Waters)

0810

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0815

0820

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Michel Arseneau (Fisherman, Overlooking Troubled Waters)

0825

The Chair

0830

The Chair

0835

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0840

0845

The Chair

Mr. Georges Farrah (Bonaventure--Gaspé--Îles-de-la-Madeleine--Pabok, Lib.)

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Farrah

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Farrah

0850

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Farrah

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Farrah

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Farrah

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Gérald Haché (Vice-President, New Brandon Fishermen's Association)

Mr. Farrah

Mr. Gérald Haché

A voice

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Georges Farrah

Mr. Gérald Haché

0855

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Roy

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Roy

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Roy

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Roy

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Roy

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Roy

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0900

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0905

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0910

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.)

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Michel Arseneau

0915

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Wappel

The Chair

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Wappel

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

0920

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Burton

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0925

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Gérald Haché

A voice

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Gérald Haché

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0930

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0935

Mr. Michel Arseneau

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Michel Arseneau

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

0940

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

Mr. Paul Jagoe

The Chair

0955

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher (Coordinator, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie)

1000

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

1005

1010

1015

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

1020

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

1025

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Wappel

The Chair

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Wappel

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. André Boucher

1030

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. Burton

Mr. André Boucher

1035

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier (Alliance des pêcheurs du Québec)

1040

1045

1050

The Chair

Mr. Roy

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

1055

Mr. Jean-François Martel (Alliance des pêcheurs du Québec)

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Stoffer

1100

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Stoffer

1105

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Jean-François Martel

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

1110

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. Réjean Dubé (President, Marina de Rimouski-Est)

1115

The Chair

Mr. Roy

Mr. Réjean Dubé

Mr. Roy

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

The Chair

Mr. Burton

1120

Mr. Réjean Dubé

1125

Mr. Burton

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Réjean Dubé

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

The Chair

Mr. Wappel

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

The Chair

1130

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

The Chair

Mr. Réjean Dubé

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Réjean Dubé

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Réjean Dubé

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

1135

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Pierre Sansterre

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Mr. Réjean Dubé

The Chair

Mr. Burton

Mr. Réjean Dubé

The Chair

Ms. Annick Marquis (Director, La Mitis Local Development Centre)

1140

1145

The Chair

Ms. Annick Marquis

The Chair

Mr. Roy

Ms. Annick Marquis

Mr. Nicolas Roy (Economic Development Officer, City of Mont-Joli, Centre local de développement de La Mitis)

1150

Mr. Roy

Ms. Anick Marquis

Mr. Roy

Ms. Anick Marquis

Mr. Roy

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Ms. Anick Marquis

Mr. Stoffer

Ms. Anick Marquis

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Nicolas Roy

1155

Ms. Anick Marquis

The Chair

Mr. Nicolas Roy

The Chair

Mr. Nicolas Roy

The Chair

1220

The Chair

Professor Jean-Claude Michaud (Department of Economics and Management, University of Quebec in Rimouski)

1225

1230

1235

The Chair

Mr. Roy

1240

Professor Marcel Lévesque (Department of Economics and Management, Université du Québec in Rimouski)

Mr. Roy

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

Mr. Roy

1245

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

Professor Pierre Blier (Department of Biology, Chemistry and Health Sciences, Université du Québec in Rimouski)

The Chair

Professor Claude Rioux (Department of Economics and Management, Université du Québec in Rimouski)

1250

The Chair

Mr. Andy Burton

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud

Mr. Burton

Prof. Pierre Blier

The Chair

1255

Mr. Wappel

Prof. Pierre Blier

1300

The Chair

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud

The Chair

Prof. Claude Rioux

Prof. Pierre Blier

1305

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

Mr. Stoffer

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

1310

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

1315

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud

Mr. Farrah

Prof. Pierre Blier

1320

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

1325

The Chair

Mr. Farrah

The Chair

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

The Chair

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud

1330

The Chair

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

The Chair

Mr. Roy

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

The Chair

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

The Chair

Prof. Pierre Blier

1335

The Chair

Mr. Roy

Prof. Pierre Blier

1340

The Chair

Prof. Marcel Lévesque

The Chair

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Prof. Pierre Blier

Mr. Stoffer

Prof. Pierre Blier

Mr. Stoffer

The Chair

Prof. Pierre Blier

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

NUMBER 045

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¾ (0800)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.)): We shall call the meeting to order.

First of all, I want to say it is our pleasure to be in Rimouski in the province of Quebec. It was Suzanne Tremblay who really wanted us to come to Rimouski. She is in the hospital today, we hope recovering well. We have with us Jean-Yves Roy, who's the member from the riding next door. It is indeed our pleasure to be here, and we thank Madame Tremblay for the invitation to be here.

We'll be dealing with a number of issues today, quite a mixture of issues, actually. Our first order of the day is, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a meeting on lobster licensing policies. From the group Overlooking Troubled Waters, we have Paul Jagoe, who is a fisherman; Monsieur Arseneau, who's a member; and Gérald Haché, who is the vice-president of the New Bandon Fishermen's Association.

Welcome, gentlemen. The floor is yours. We have approximately an hour and a half.

¾ (0805)

Mr. Paul Jagoe (Fisherman, Overlooking Troubled Waters): First of all, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank you for having us here to listen to our plight. We are more comfortable sailing in a northeast gale and fishing our lobster traps than we are sitting in a boardroom and making speeches, but we'll do our very best.

We are three lobster fishermen who are here today representing the class B non-core lobster fishermen from Atlantic Canada. All of us have lived next to the sea for our lifetimes and have worked these waters making a living for our families.

We have sent out many distress signals from our small boats and coastal villages to Ottawa for help in the past 32 years to repair the injustices and conspiracies against the class B fishermen forcing them from the sea. When our distress calls reached Ottawa, they were never answered, and we were left in troubled waters by our elected officials to perish.

The conspiracies and the injustices have divided our communities and our churches, turned neighbour against neighbour and brother against brother. We are now sending another distress call today for you people to do the honourable thing and help us sort out this mess and restore harmony in our communities before things become worse.

Now I will give you a brief description of what a class A core fisherman is and then a class B so you will understand completely what we are talking about.

Class A fishermen are people who have acquired a lobster fishing licence by either purchasing it from DFO in 1968 for 25¢, or inheriting it from another family member, or purchasing it from another fisherman in later years.

In 1991 the Maritime Fishermen's Union was formed and did not have enough votes to become legal. These are some of the people who are trying to force us out of the fishery. Now the class A fishermen have at their disposal a federally and provincially sponsored very powerful and political union, which has received upwards of $900,000 to date in taxpayers' money. To date there has been no accountability as to where the tax dollars have been spent, along with millions they have taken from the crab industry.

A class A fisherman in area 23 fishes 300 traps, some of which are four-entry-point traps instead of our traditional two-entry-point traps. These four-entry-point traps can catch one and a half to two times more fish than the traditional.

A class B fisherman, which is what we are, is someone who originally held the same licence as the so-called core A fisherman. Class B fishermen are citizens of Canada who traditionally fish the Atlantic waters of Canada.

¾ (0810)

The Chair: Excuse me for a second. Are your remarks written down here anywhere?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: I'm working from speaking notes.

The Chair: I wondered because if they are written down I would not make as many notes. Thanks. Go ahead.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Class B fishermen are citizens of Canada who traditionally fish the Atlantic waters of Canada who have decided to supplement their income by earning a wage outside of the lobster fishery, enabling them to support their families. Because of this, the smallest and the least destructive boats are the target of DFO and the Maritime Fishermen's Union for elimination from the fishery. Please note that these small boats are causing no drain on our EI system and are causing no harm to the lobster stocks, all the while paying our fair share in taxes.

Class B fishermen are citizens of Canada who have fished these waters for over 40 years, whose historical and traditional rights have been violated. Class B fishermen are citizens who for 32 years have been fighting these injustices.

These policies to eliminate the class B fishermen were orchestrated behind closed doors by a small group of so-called A fishermen and DFO officials. This group was situated from Bass River, New Brunswick, to Pokeshaw Rock, New Brunswick, and used political interests and DFO at the time to come up with these policies of injustices with absolutely no input from our side.

These policies introduced in 1976 have affected thousands of employees and plant workers and class B fishermen's families, imposing financial hardship by not sharing our publicly owned resource.

A class B fisherman will fish 90 traps in area 23, and our cost per trap, expenses, and boats will be the same as the A fishermen. But we are only allowed to fish 30 percent of the number of traps the A fisherman has. A class B fisherman cannot sell his licence. A class B fisherman cannot pass his licence down to another family member. If a class B fisherman passes away during the fishing season, his family has three days from the time of his death to remove the gear from the water, which is what is going to happen with me.

Class B fishermen have never been offered a buyback program by DFO or the Government of Canada. Class B fishermen cannot sell herring, mackerel, cod, or other by-catches we catch in our nets.

You will find in our brief that we have had meeting after meeting with government officials for 32 years, who have stated and promised fairness to all, but in the end, the doors remain closed. I will touch on three instances of that today in my speech.

The Honourable Herb Dhaliwal stated, in the “The Management of Fisheries on Canada's Atlantic Coast”, page vii:

Shared stewardship--stewardship of the fisheries resource should be shared with resource users, including Aboriginal groups and the fishing industry, as well as with other stakeholders, through participatory decision-making processes and structures.

We are the other stakeholders in this fishery, but when I spoke before the east coast policy review board in Moncton, New Brunswick, on March 28, 2001, representing all the class B fishermen for Atlantic Canada, Mr. Paul Sprout, the chairman, made a statement to ATV News. His statement was that the class B fishermen would not be included in this round of talks. Where is the respect for other interest groups? Another door had just been closed to the class B fishermen.

On April 22, 1985, government document 000034 stated that DFO officials did not want any official announcement made on licence changes for the class B fishermen that is forcing them out. Rather, it should be kept secret and behind closed doors

A government document dated November 13, 1984, a memorandum from the adviser of the resource allocation branch in Tracadie, New Brunswick, to area director, Maurice Lévesque, stated:

The problem has existed for as long as these areas have been fishing lobster, these areas are relatively well industrialized and over the past history of fishery, most people who lived close to the sea, fished and worked. The last eight years, due to pressure by “full-time fishermen” and political avenues, a new classification of licence holder was introduced. “Remodeling policy 08-11-1976”; this policy was designed to phase out the moonlighters, thus alleviating the problem temporarily. However, over the past four years and due to renewed efforts on the fishing industry, (Lobster), a new outcry has been declared because of the still-existent problem of the so-called moonlighters. The A fishermen are crying, “Keep the fishing industry for full-time fishermen only” and “people making $30,000 to $40,000 annually in the industries should leave the fishing to the legitimate full-time fishermen”.

There was never anybody in our sector in 1984 who was making $30,000 to $40,000 a year.

Now I would like to touch on conservation. DFO will never manage this fishery properly unless they have true statistics. They have no monitoring, no DFO weighing stations, and no research on the gear type used, such as the four-entry-point lobster traps.

The true lobster catch numbers have been drastically falsified by the fishermen and a government-funded union, using propaganda tactics and a black market to sell their lobsters. Some lobster fishermen have caught upwards of $75,000 worth of fish, but sold $25,000 to $30,000 under the table. Then the union made a false statement that the lobster stocks were on the decline, which wasn't true at all. This has turned into a $200-million-plus black market in Atlantic Canada.

In conclusion, we are asking for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to meet with the class B fishermen from Atlantic Canada and find out what we want. We want a government buyback package; licences made transferrable, saleable, and upgradable; and the class B fishermen's share enhanced. We want to be allowed to sell other species; to be included in crab allocations; to be included in all talks about the fisheries' future; and finally, to have a voice after 32 years.

¾ (0815)

Now, that is my speech and a brief of what's taking place. I am sure you people will have many questions to ask, and we would be more than happy to bring forth our evidence.

If you flip to the back of my speech, you will find some photographs of the little boats we are fishing out of.

The first photograph is, of course, of this gentleman beside me, Michael Arseneau, who's probably the top fisherman in Atlantic Canada--or he likes to think he is.

Then, if you take a look at the photograph below, that is the small, traditional lobster vessel that we've fished out of over the years.

The second page of photographs is a class B lobster boat, which is mine, the smallest of the fleet with the bravest of crew, and we have fished out of these boats for a lifetime in terrible storms.

At the bottom of that is a traditional two-entry-point lobster trap, which we have used for generations.

And then, if you turn to the final page of photographs, these are the new class A luxury boats that are equipped with televisions, VCRs, all kinds of navigational gear, that want to take control of our east coast fisheries and keep our small boats off the water, along with using these four-entry-point traps. These four-entry-point traps are the same as having 600 traps in the water instead of the 300 they normally have.

So you can see it's certainly a David and Goliath story that we have been fighting for many years now. Thank you.

¾ (0820)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Jagoe.

Before we turn to questions from the members, I'm trying to recall what I've heard on class B fishermen over the years. What was the arrangement that was made with class B fishermen when the original agreement was made, that basically you would be able to fish under the class B licence for your lifetime and that would be it? That was my understanding. What, from your perspective, was the original agreement?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: I'll let Mr. Arseneau address that one.

Mr. Michel Arseneau (Fisherman, Overlooking Troubled Waters): Back in 1975, the then Honourable Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Roméo LeBlanc, had what he called...it started way back in 1969 with Jack Davis. Down in our area on the map, we were in absentia of all those assets. And then, all of a sudden, underhanded somehow...with NRDC trying to upgrade some facets of our lives...but they made a mess of it. They came in and they started to probe to see if they could enhance the A and B categories.

In our area of Tabusintac to New Mills, about 150 miles of literal access around the bay, we had 306 fishermen. Out of those 306 fishermen, 79 percent were not in favour of any changes. We proposed to Mr. LeBlanc, with the attached brief that is there, which is an archive piece, to have a subdivision of district 7C. Now it's 23. We proposed to have a subdivision from Grand Bank to Paspébiac.

The same group that got us under is still making, today, the same proposal, a little bit further out, to get some crab...and to be alone because they want to wash this all themselves.

We can't see why they didn't bite on that, to have our 70 subdivided. Our neighbour in front of us has 250 lobster fishermen and 21 subdistricts. How come? As far as I'm concerned, the feds never managed the fishery right, and still don't today, because they never listened to us first.

As soon as you disburse, like the Acadians did, back and forth.... I don't want to bring that up or make any remarks, but we were afloat on the ice floe because of our small group. Then the people who had four to 25 traps, who were not fishermen--they were only going to get a few nets--were promoted. They were class C. Then they gave them two years to get out of the fishery. If their boat was rotten, they couldn't fish any more. If the boat was finished, they didn't have another registration.

It was just a drastic event at that time. It was stressful for everybody. Those little fishermen from four to 25 traps went up to 375. There was no conservation ethic at all in that deal. I was one of the biggest fishermen and I was working, and I couldn't fish my full year. I fished 150 traps maybe, morning and night. Everybody was like that. I think the biggest was about 250.

They went from four traps to 375, and then they didn't know what to do with it. The government came with a buyback. The buyback was not for us; it was for the Cs. It was supposed to come A1 up to 79. Then they gave them two to 6,000. Those people were just bad because they didn't have any rigging. They had the title, but they didn't have any rigging. They had a rowboat and four traps. We had the full rigging. I was feeling very distressed because of that law.

I have three sons. I couldn't leave them out in my boat alone for one day because they didn't have the right because I was classed as a B. I was belittled into my Canadian contingency citizenship. From then on we started to fight. Because of our little group, we never had a chance. Today it's a Klondike for us. I am glad to get a little bit out of there.

To continue with the lamentation, you go from 1979 to 1981. Then they start to have that rule that any group that was working, out of that 79 percent I told you about that was not in favour of any change, had some money from the government to work, and we didn't have any. It finally came out in 1982 that they wanted to discontinue the upgrading of the B. They never told us; they never invited us. We've never been invited to negotiate for one moment or one time. This is the first time we have our say.

Then in 1983, 1984, 1985, we started hearing some little things. The fishery officer wanted to know if.... They say here--we have the notes and we have everything about it--that there was enough lobster in the bay to upgrade us, to upgrade some. But they never asked us to go and sit and explain the way we wanted to upgrade. We didn't want to upgrade all of us, all together. We were 51 then.

We proposed a scale to them. It's in there. We sent it to Tobin, to Mifflin, to Siddon, to Dhaliwal for the Indians, but they never listened to us. They spent millions of dollars. We wanted to upgrade a stairway, like four or five or two a year. We proposed five in 1995, five in 1996, and 10 in 1997. From the 375, it would have taken two tickets one year, two tags, and four tags the other two years. That means they were left with about 365 traps. That was a good deal, and there would have been 20 Bs upgraded. With the natural attrition, what is happening with the age and all that, it was a very good way to start and get everybody happy. They never listened to that.

Then, all of a sudden, Alphonse Cormier, who was the director of the Gulf region, had a meeting with Maurice Lévesque. It's in there, in the access papers we got. He said there were enough places and he would like to upgrade the Bs. There were only 101 altogether. It's in 000041. Look in 000041, in the brief. I'm going to read it. It's in French.

¾ (0825)

The Chair: You can read it in French and the interpreters will interpret for us.

[Translation]

At the moment, the only sector of the Atlantic Region that has Class B lobster fishermen is the eastern sector of New Brunswick. I'm not overly worried for the moment about the fishermen who have Class B Terminal licences. However, fishermen holding Class B licences will hold Class A licences in time.

[English]

That was in 1985. Before then we were shanghaied all the way.

Sorry we didn't number the pages. We were rushed and only had a few days.

The Chair: That's not a problem at all.

[Translation]

However, fishermen holding Class B licences will hold Class A licences in time. That implies an increased effort to go after what is a very limited resource.

[English]

Now, they say the resources are not there. How can they say the resources are not there with no statistics? We know as fishermen that at least 40 percent is not declared--at least. Mark that down. I want that to be heard. That 200 million doesn't come from nowhere. It doesn't come from under a rock. It's the tip of the iceberg.

[Translation]

Personally, I propose that all fishermen holding Class B licences be advised that lobster fishing is reserved for fishermen who meet the conditions of the bona fide clauses.

[English]

But when we were class B, to us, we never lost our bona fide status because all 360 of us were promised by Roméo Leblanc that when we came back to work, laid off or retired, we would get our status. Over the years someone hasn't given this right to us because we haven't ever been heard.

¾ (0830)

The Chair: Mr. Arseneau, pause here for a second. Going back to my original discussions on this from five, six, or seven years ago, when I was in the same position as Georges Farrah, I understood there was a restructuring in the lobster fishery when class B first came in. Those who were working in other jobs outside of the fishery were given class B licences that would be with them for their lifetimes and that would be it.

That was my understanding. Now I'm not saying whether it's right or wrong, but I want you to clarify it for me if you can. I raise this because I want us to be at the right starting point as a committee in terms of what the original understanding was when class B licences were implemented.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: I was going to answer this. You'll see why in the next few lines.

I'm going to start back at the second paragraph.

[Translation]

Personally, I propose that all fishermen holding class B licences be advised that lobster fishing is reserved for fishermen who meet the conditions of the bona fide clauses. We will give them one year in which to decide...

[English]

If we had been at that table and had had one year to decide on that deal, we would have decided--somehow, some of us. We never had the chance to defend ourselves. That was the trouble.

[Translation]

...whether they will continue to fish lobster or work outside the fishery.

You see what I mean.

After that period, they will have to choose between lobster fishing and working at another job. This does not exclude the possibility of benefiting under the bona fide clause...

[English]

If we had been questioned that year, we would have had a clause in there for those who wanted to go.

[Translation]

...and having their licence frozen for a five-year period.

[English]

It's what all the fishermen do now. They could control the licence for five years. If we had had the chance to have that...it was secret again, behind closed doors. Do you see what I mean? We never had a chance.

[Translation]

If they choose not to fish as Class B fishermen from the first year, their licences will become Class B Terminal.

[English]

They classed us B terminal, to have 113 traps until we die, without us having a chance to argue it. We tried to open door after door and we couldn't.

I'll have to stop there, because this is lengthy.

¾ (0835)

The Chair: That's fine.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: There's a point of injustice that I want to bring to you.

The Chair: Regarding this letter to Alphonse Cormier, then, Alphonse Cormier is a fisherman?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: No, he was the director general.

The Chair: He was the director general.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes.

The Chair: So who wrote this letter?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: It was Maurice Lévesque.

The Chair: Maurice Lévesque.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes, DFO.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: You see, when all of this came about, the Honourable Roméo Leblanc travelled around to all the fishing communities, and in the last year and a half I have spoken to almost every B fisherman in Atlantic Canada. I have talked to people from Mr. Easter's area, from all over Nova Scotia.

The Honourable Roméo Leblanc had met in our church halls and meeting rooms throughout Atlantic Canada, and he told these people who took a reduction in traps back then that at such time as they retired or lost their job, they could go back to the fishery and regain full-time status again. He stated that meeting after meeting. We have minutes of meetings throughout the Atlantic provinces where he stated this. Then, as Michel is saying, they come out with the government document that says, no news media breaks to tell these B fishermen that we are going to can them from the fishery.

I called up DFO here a few years ago. Every year there was a little change in the licensing policy. It would go from B to special B to another category every year. Then finally there was a “BT” marked on my dad's licence when it came in. So I called them up--this was a DFO office in Moncton--and said, can you tell me what this “BT” stands for? They said, oh, don't worry about that; that's just an initial; there is no need to worry about that. Then we come to find out in the last year or so that it means B terminal. So every chance they had to drive a knife in our back and remove us from the fishery they did, but behind closed doors.

It has gone on long enough. We are going to take this fight to the streets and to the water. In the last year and a half we have been hounding the government. What we have been doing is next to harassment, to get meetings and to set things up to repair these injustices.

I went before an appeal board in Moncton, New Brunswick, and I took Gérald Haché with me to my appeal because he had more experience in stuff like this. I was told by the heads in Moncton that this would be a completely impartial hearing, that I would have my say. So I went there and presented my case.

Just to touch base on part of my case, I have been fishing my father's licence for 10 years. My father has been sick with cancer and I have no other work, so my father has handed me over this licence. But when my five years was up the first time, they got these recommendations in that after you fish for five years you have to be off the water, and my father had to go back to sea. After his five-year battle with cancer, I had to take my father back to sea. So then we got another extension for five years. My father fell sick with cancer again, so I went back to sea alone, and I have been there by myself ever since.

I went before this appeal board, an impartial appeal board, trying to get this licence transferred. We went in there and we didn't know who anybody was. Everybody was sitting around a nice table. After it was all over, we waited a few weeks--this was back in June of last year. After we left there I said, I'm going to do some investigating to find out who these officials are, these people who were supposed to be neutral on the appeal board.

Number one was Gildard Chiasson from Tracadie, New Brunswick, a DFO official from the office there. Number two was Janet Smith, licensing coordinator for DFO in Moncton, New Brunswick. Then the chair of the committee was introduced to us as Mr. Bertin Leblanc. Mr. Bertin Leblanc, we came to find out, was an ex-DFO official who was with Roméo LeBlanc back in the days that helped orchestrate the mess we're in today. Then there were two appeal people there, Donna Chisholm and Yvette Cormier. We have no idea who those people were.

So here I was sitting in a kangaroo court. The decision was already made by these officials. They were all on the DFO's side. We had no chance of appeal. I gave them my story. They were very sympathetic about it, as the government has been--pages and pages of letters we've received back saying, “We're very sorry but the policy remains the same”.

After my appeal--that was in June--the following day, Mr. Dhaliwal finally said “I'm going to send down my key person who's looking after Atlantic Canada and we're going to listen to your plight”. The following day Gerald, Michel, and myself met with Mr. Hogue. Mr. Hogue listened to our plight and assured us he would go back to Ottawa and take our concerns back to the Minister of Fisheries. Anyway, we didn't hear back from the Minister of Fisheries, Herb Dhaliwal, so I started wondering. Finally, Steven Hogue, within three weeks, is transferred into the Prime Minister's Office.

About a month ago, I decided to call Steven Hogue in the Prime Minister's Office and ask him what his conversation was with Herb Dhaliwal. Steven told me by phone, “I didn't have a chance to speak to Mr. Dhaliwal about your concerns. I mentioned it to a few officials in his office, but we didn't have a chance to sit down and talk about it.” I said “Fine, great”. Then we knew where we stood with Mr. Dhaliwal.

I had Yvon Godin, MP for Acadie--Bathurst, speak to Mr. Dhaliwal on our behalf in Ottawa. Mr. Dhaliwal stated to Yvon just before Christmas, “I have no idea what a class B fisherman is. I have no idea of what is taking place.” So again, our information never got through to Ottawa.

When I spoke in Moncton before the east coast policy review, which was supposed to repair the fishery and give everybody a fair chance, Paul Sprout, as I said, stated that we wouldn't be involved in this round of talks. Of course, I called Ottawa again and I harassed them. Then finally, a couple of days later, I got a letter back from Mr. Sprout, just to pacify me, stating that we would be included in this round of talks. But we know we're just being put on the back burner. For 32 years we've been put on the back burner, and we're not going to be put on the back burner any more.

This government-funded Maritime Fishermen's Union and the DFO officials in Moncton, New Brunswick, and Tracadie, New Brunswick, have been running this east coast fishery, not listening to all sides of the story, covering their behinds because of the stuff they've pulled behind closed doors, and they don't want to be shown up. That's what's taking place.

It's a conspiracy that has been operating on the very edge of the law for at least 25 years. I called DFO offices in Tracadie to find out if my access to information report was ready. They said “They're working on it now in Moncton.” I called Janet Smith in Moncton. Fifteen minutes later she said “No, I'm afraid it's not.The officials in Tracadie are working on it.” I said “Is that right? That's a funny thing. Tracadie just told me 15 minutes ago that they were working on it in Moncton.”

¾ (0840)

They had been trying to cover their tail for this long, and it's going to stop, because every day we're getting a little bit closer to getting this mess straightened out.

These B fishermen in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia...I've had calls from families in which a father who had a B licence has passed on, and there are two grown men on welfare, sitting in a house, looking out to the water, because of a policy that was drawn up to eliminate the B fishermen. They're sitting at home on welfare now, staving to death. When my father passes away, I'm going to be sitting on the shore looking out to the ocean, starving to death or being on welfare.

This is going to stop and stop now. We are asking you people to take this information back to Ottawa and have a very, very serious look at it. The native issue was the big issue in Burnt Church. There's going to be a bigger issue in northeastern New Brunswick, because it's not going to stop here.

¾ (0845)

The Chair: Okay. Could we go to questions?

Who wants to start? Mr. Farrah first, and then Mr. Roy.

Mr. Farrah

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah (Bonaventure--Gaspé--Îles-de-la-Madeleine--Pabok, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome our witnesses.

I'd like to come back to the Chairman's question regarding the initial criteria. You were aware of the existing criteria when you received your licence. Are they the criteria I see here, on page 3?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: As I said earlier, [Editor's Note: inaudible]. We were all bona fide fishermen; everyone was on the same footing. We could fish; there was no limit on the number of traps. That's what lobster fishing is about, traps. We could fish as much as we wanted: four traps to catch a mess of lobster, as we say.

You could fish to earn a living or combine fishing with another job, because at that time, there was no full-time work. There was no industry. At the same time, if you take that area as an example, industrialization began around 1964 with the opening of the Brunswick mine. We must not forget that those who worked there were forced to leave well before their time because of illness.

We wanted to get a subdivision, to came back to the story about the line. It's just that, all around us, fishers at Caraquet, Shippagan, Lamèque and Miscou received millions of dollars in subsidiers for boats. If they couldn't pay for their boat, the government would pay. They didn't care if it was $1 million or $25,000. If they wanted money, it was provided.

Mr. Georges Farrah: Was this funded by the province or by the federal government?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Both by the federal government and by the province. Were we not Canadians too? We knew there was an elite in the policy sector and in the fishing cooperative sector. It was more lucrative for them. This brought in industry.

We weren't offshore fishermen but inshore fishermen. With the boat that I have, which is 23 feet long, I can fish 300 or 400 traps. It's the same thing for Paul. We can fish in one foot of depth or we go down to 50. We're just on the edge of the shore. It is a way of life.

In our brief, the one I showed you and that I have here, you may hae read how people tried to have a longer carapace accepted in order to adapt to consumption. It took years to get there. There was too much greed; people were too greedy.

We wanted to make some artificial [Editor's Note: Inaudible] to be able to manage things and got a few more lobsters staying on the muddy bottom; but they didn't want to hear about it. And now, the union is talking about it, 32 years later. I had tried a few things. I had contacts in France. They were in the same situation we were, using trawlers for bottom fishing. It took them only seven years to achieve a lucrative fishery.

These are all similar issues. If you read this, you will see that we were in the vanguard. We were practicing conservation, not them. We asked to have egg-bearing females [Editor's Note: Inaudible] the tail, in order to get them out of polluted areas, to clean them up and put them into sonds. They never listened to us.

Mr. Georges Farrah: Let's get back to the criteria. In the end, you say they were imposed on you.

¾ (0850)

Mr. Michel Arseneau: They were imposed on us without our knowing that we would be held liable later on.

I'm happy that there are people here today we can talk to. You are members of the House, and I'm going to ask you a question. Take this piece of paper here. We hold the same piece of paper as core fishermen, even if we are non-core, and we pay [Editor's Note: Inaudible] to get it. In the past, it was 25¢. And before that, it was free.

Are you in a position to take your chair, like Mr. Guimond did in the House of Commons, leave with it and go to the bank, and say that it is worth $600,000? That's what they get between $200,000 and $600,000 per piece of paper, for a policy that you don't have the right to sell. The government has made a mess of this.

Mr. Georges Farrah: That's what I want to get to. May I continue, Mr. Chairman?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Farrah, go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah: I want to get to what you're saying. In the end, the document you have may not have the same value as your neighbour's, although you are from the same country, you are both Canadians, and so on. But when you got this paper, were you aware of the conditions attached to it? If it was my document...

It's like a crab licence; some people have a licence to fish 60,000 pounds of crab and others have a licence to fish 200,000 or 300,000 pounds of crab. A guy can say that he is Canadian, and wants a licence to fish 250,000 pounds like the other guy. And I'm not saying that your claims are not fair. I just want to know: when you got that paper, were you aware of the attached conditions? If yes, you could say to yourself that, having accepted the conditions, you now have to live with them.

That said, you could perhaps challenge the conditions afterwards, and ask that they be modified because you feel that what is going on makes no sense. But, was this document imposed on you at the outset? That is what I want to know, because it does come with certain conditions.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: We sat down with the Minister of Fisheries at the time, Roméo LeBlanc, who lived about an hour away from our place. He met us at Christ Church Hall. It took six months for us to hear...

At the time, we were all considered bona fide. It is clearly set out, and once again, signed in the brief that you have here. As I was saying, in the preamble that he wrote it was called the North East Amalgamated Fishermen's Association. It applied to 306 fishermen and to 4 locals: a local for the Restigouche region, a local for the Belledune and Bathurst religion, another for his region at Stonehaven, and another for Tabusintac. We were all bona fide.

At that meeting with Mr. LeBlanc, we negotiated but found ourselves in a paradoxical situation because be wanted to practice conservation. We agreed to restrict ourselves to 113 traps, with the right to have our status completely reviewed.

Mr. Georges Farrah: You agreed to that.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: We agreed to that. And we were not the only ones. We were 306 members and all the women present.

Mr. Georges Farrah: We are not in court here.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: No, exactly. But it has to be said. We've been waiting 32 years.

[English]

The Chair: If I could let Mr. Haché in....

Mr. Haché.

[Translation]

Mr. Gérald Haché (Vice-President, New Brandon Fishermen's Association): Regarding the issue raised by Mr. Arseneau, I would like to specify that, at one point in time, there were Class B, special Class B and Class C licences. But without warning, all these groups were combined into a single Class B Terminal. that is what happened. We have a list here of those who were in the B Terminal class, but our names do not appear. This indicates that we were in Class B, which could have been moved up to a Class A for some groups. That is when we were designated members of the B Terminal class, without warning and without consultation.

Mr. Georges Farrah: And approximately what year did this occur?

Mr. Gérald Haché: Some people told us that this happened in 1982 to 1983—but it was in 1985. The name you see on the document is Alphonse Cormier, I believe.

A voice: It was in 1985, I think.

Mr. Gérald Haché: It was in 1985. But at one point, some people told us that it was in 1982.

I myself went to see Roméo LeBlanc at his office in Ottawa. Mr. LeBlanc was there, with Brian Tobin and Michel Fournier, the Senator. Mr. LeBlanc clearly told us— and even told me personally—that our licences would be reclassified as As, as soon as we quit our jobs or we were laid off.

Mr. Georges Farrah: And there's nothing in writing.

Mr. Gérald Haché: He was suppose to send it to us in writing, but we never received anything.

¾ (0855)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Arseneau has a quick point, and then we'll go to Mr. Roy and then Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Arseneau.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Arseneau: It's complicated. It seems complicated because they... I think there was a local hierarchy, and things did not often reach the minister. We often tried to bring this to the minister's attention, but it often didn't get pass the Post Office. Our ideas are not that bad.

Earlier, I referred to 1985. Do you know when I received the letter, the little note on which the number 38 or 34 appears and which says “No press release”? I received it 10 years later. It was attached by mistake to a document that came from Moncton. That is when we realized that we might have made progress since 1985.

After that, we started to wake up and collect information. We used the Access to Information Act, with Mr. Jagoe's help. We finally obtained the document in question. Why were we not informed? If anyone had been in a position to help the communities, it was us. We paid our taxes. We don't want to take anything away from someone else making a living, but we want to make a living too.

I myself ended up at the blast furnace, and I became sick. It's a personal story, but the same sort of thing happened to others from our area. I made a decent salary, yes, but I also worked for it. When I came out of there, I had a small pension: $796 a month. Could you live on that? I took $30,000. I went to the bank and borrowed $30,000 to buy a new boat, thinking that I would get the status I needed. I wasn't going to stay at 113 traps. I was forced to live with that. Was I not a candidate?

Furthermore, I had another [Editor's Note: Inaudible] long line licence to fish cod and ground fish. Now, I fish halibut. I was not eligible for the large crab quota, but some union people who were not yet [Editor's Note: Inaudible], who were well connected, as we should have been, did get crab contracts.

If you want to hear more complaints, we are obliged to stay on board our boats. They can go out and fish crab, take one boat, rent a boat and send four helpers out on it to fish their crab quota. They continue to fish lobster. They have no business there at all, no more than we have. If they want to give out crab, they should give some to everyone and give everyone a chance to get some, everyone should have a fair chance.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia--Matane, BQ): I think I understand. In the beginning, it did not quite seem clear to me. What you are telling us, in fact, is that since 1985 all those who had Class B licences have become holders of class B Terminal licences without having been consulted.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes, sir.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Without being consulted.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: I would suggest to you that it goes beyond that.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: The point is to get rid of you, basically.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes. When we found this out... I can tell you that in the Charter of Rights, this is a section 15(1) issue. You can make a not of that.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Mr. Arseneau, to follow up on Mr. Farrah's question, you initially accepted the status conferred upon you, provided you could renegotiate it if you wished. Is that correct?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes, but we never had the opportunity to do so.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: You never had the opportunity to renegotiate. The conditions that you have today were imposed you over time.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I have a final question. It is not really complex, but it appears complicated at the outset.

Approximately how many people does this affect? I mean in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

[English]

Mr. Paul Jagoe: In our area there are 41. But then across Atlantic Canada--Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and P.E.I.--there are in the vicinity of 200 class B fishermen or people who were put into this group because of what happened in Stonehaven, New Brunswick.

Just to clarify things a little bit more, I have this government document. How all this came out is I started doing some research and I went through the Access to Information Act and I got this government document. It is dated November 1984. This was a government document done up by a friend of my family, who was a DFO official. He was travelling around everybody's yard and talking and being a nice guy. We just thought he was a fisheries officer, but he was put in there as a mole to change this fishery.

In his policy that he sent to the Tracadie office--and this is how it happened that we didn't get any feedback on what was taking place--he says “The 'B' fishermen...be given the opportunity” of one year “to upgrade” their licence “to 'A'”. But we weren't given that.

Of the 22 fishermen in this district, his prediction would be to upgrade to an A. They wouldn't upgrade to an A, primarily because of the existing employment status. I doubt very much if anyone who is 37 years old and making $42,000 annually would upgrade, but there was nobody making that kind of money. Therefore, he predicted that over a 15- to 20-year period, if we can keep these people in a B terminal status through sickness and through death, that we're not going to have to deal with these B fishermen any more.

But due to technology and keeping people healthier...they expected all of these gentlemen to be dead, and they didn't expect a guy like me to come along and open up this can of worms. This was his proposal, and many of the proposals were right there. Well, we're going to give them 113 traps, but we're going to continue reducing them. Sooner or later they're going to be squeezed out and they're going to give up.

And this is all in government documents and signed by Ron Louden. He had three different scenarios to eliminate us, but as I say, once they put one of his scenarios into policy, we weren't told about it. We had no chance--please, let's not make any official announcements so these boys can't fight back.

¿ (0900)

The Chair: Is that document you quoted from in this package?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: No, it's not.

The Chair: Can we get a copy of that and give it to the clerk?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes, sir.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation. I can assure you as I'm sitting here that there are an awful lot of people within DFO who are probably watching the situation now. Once done, these transcripts will be read by people within Ottawa. Whether or not you'll get the answer you wish is another story.

But you said something about the $200 million that has been making the news--an illegal or a black market fishery going on. Are you indicating that a similar type of black market lobster fishery is happening in the gulf as well?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: This illegal fishery is happening all over Atlantic Canada. The thing is that with this lobster being sold under the table for cash, the Maritime Fishermen's Union is then using this to say, well, our stocks are way down; they're drastically changing.

They're not changing. There's more lobster coming in every year than ever has been coming in. It's a phenomenal time to be catching lobsters. The cod is gone so the predators eat the juvenile lobster. The catches are coming in. But these fishermen had to alter their catches; they were making too much money. They were trying, of course, to keep other people out of the gold mine. They didn't want anybody else mining this gold. They've altered the catches by selling this lobster on the black market, under the table, to falsify the statistics.

I have government documents here on lobster catches from over the years. In our sector, in Stonehaven, New Brunswick, in 1984, they landed 76 metric tonnes of lobster. They landed way more than that, but they only showed 76 metric tonnes.

If you go to 1993, they landed 203 metric tonnes for the same amount of boats, the same amount of fishermen. All of a sudden they're winding up bringing in over two and a half times more lobster. It wasn't that they weren't bringing it in before. There were changes in those years in the EI system to reflect the catches. So whatever they had to have to qualify for this new type of EI system, they caught them and they sold them. They were always catching them, but they just weren't recording them.

Then the EI system changed again, and they didn't have to record quite as many. The stocks drastically dropped, from 203 metric tonnes in Stonehaven, New Brunswick, down to 125 metric tonnes in 1997. They were still bringing in over 200 metric tonnes, but they only had to sell 125 metric tonnes at that time to qualify for the EI system. Then the EI system changed once more in the year 2000. So they sent the fishermen out. They had no problem catching 147 metric tonnes, just enough to qualify for the two-tier unemployment.

They can sell $20,000 worth of lobsters in one week. That grants them EI from July 1 to the end of December. Then they catch another $20,000 worth of lobsters. That sets them up for another EI cheque from the end of December until April 30. What do they do with the rest of their lobsters? The are sold under the table to fish plants for cash, or they're sold to the public for cash. They turn around and are buying all these great, big pleasure yachts to go fishing in, but they've got to spend their money so they don't have to pay income tax on what they show. It's a gold mine. You fellows will all want to be fishing by the time we're done here.

¿ (0905)

The Chair: I don't want to go down that path. If there's a black market in lobster, that's a very serious allegation. We in fact have made a recommendation in the past that anyone caught buying aboriginal lobsters in the black market lose their licence. I think you could be assured we'd recommend the same thing in terms of lobster fishermen. If they are selling lobsters on the black market, then they damned well should lose their licence.

But I want to stay on the topic of class B licences. Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My colleague, Yvon Godin, wrote a letter to Tim Jones on January 29, 2001, regarding some of your concerns. But I don't notice any response from Tim Jones. Was there a letter in return?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: There was a letter in response, but every time there's a letter written to DFO it takes six months to get a reply. Sometimes we used to get no reply at all, but we do have that letter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: While you are looking for that, you had also indicated in that letter from 1984 that, according to the note, you were given an opportunity to upgrade to a class A. But you are saying you were not given that opportunity?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: We were never given it. They said they were going to do that in their government documents. But then, of course, after they made the policy changes, there was another government document that said we are not going to let these fishermen know about it.

A voice: There was no press release.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: There was no press release. They took Ronnie Louden's--the DFO's--information. They made the policies. They never told us about it. It was just “forget about it”.

The Chair: To interrupt there for a second, does Fisheries and Oceans not have a list of who the class B fishermen are?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes, they do.

The Chair: Then why would you do it through the press? Why wouldn't you just be written a letter?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: I don't know. You'll have to ask them that. Nobody received a letter.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I think some of the problem is that there's a perception--it says it here at the beginning of your brief--that you're considered moonlighters; that you're not real fishermen. You just do this on the side in order to supplement your income. That's the perception out there. I believe that to be correct. But if we could get you a meeting with Minister Thibault, who is the new minister and who is also of Acadian descent, from Nova Scotia, do you think that would be helpful?

I think what your problem is--and we've seen it on the west coast and in central Canada--is there are layers of bureaucracy within DFO. You just mentioned Mr. Hogue, whom I have great respect for. I find it hard to believe he would listen to you and then not transfer the information immediately to the ear of the minister, because he has the ear of the minister. He meets with him on a regular basis. When you indicate three weeks had passed, and he's moved on to another department and never had a chance to meet with the minister, I find that incredible. I'm not going to deny your testimony, but if it's possible for the committee to arrange a meeting or some meetings with the minister, would you consider it helpful?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: There'd be free lobster for all of you guys.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: No, I can get enough lobster, and I could do it legally as well.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: That is what we want: we want a meeting with the new minister. I've called and I've called. Finally I talked to Duncan Hills. He's in the minister's office. We've requested meeting after meeting now with the new minister. Anyway, Duncan Hills said, “I am going to do my best”. We kept sending letters. Then finally, two weeks ago, I spoke with Duncan again, and he said “The new minister isn't interested in meeting with you people”.

¿ (0910)

The Chair: Do you have a question, Mr. Stoffer?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: To narrow this down, if I were the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and I had the...I'd have the power, if I were, but name me three things right now that I could do to make your lives better.

What's the first thing?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: The first thing is give us back, at the very least, 113 traps, and make these licences saleable and transferrable, so if anybody wants to get out, they can sell it to the natives, to a neighbour, or whoever.

The other thing is, when you go back over the documents and you see what's been done to us, to be fair about it all, we should get our full status back. There are enough lobsters out there for everybody.

And at least have a meeting with us and figure this out.

For those who want to sell, sell. But why keep something tied up like this and cause hardship in families, which has been going on for years, because of a couple of policies drawn up behind closed doors?

The Chair: Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm sorry, I'm a little slower than the rest of the committee members, and I'm having some difficulty following what's happened here. I have seven sentences that I've written down, and I would appreciate it if you would basically either agree or disagree in as short a sentence as possible with the sentences that I have written--in other words, say either yes or no. Then I have a couple of questions after those seven sentences.

My understanding, from what I've heard and read today, is that class A fishermen are allegedly full-time fisherman. Is that correct?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Class B fishermen were, as Mr. Stoffer said, considered moonlighters, and the reason they were considered moonlighters was because they apparently had other jobs and fished part time. Is that correct?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Class A licences can be passed on or sold. Correct?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Class B licences cannot be passed on or sold.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: On June 20, 1995, there was a letter from Mr. Wiseman to Mr. Jones. On page 2 of that letter, which is in this document with the beige cover, in the last paragraph, Mr. Wiseman makes the following statement:

When Roméo LeBlanc classified us in 1978, he allowed us to fish a certain number of traps and gave us the privilege to upgrade if we should lose our employment.

So in that letter he is saying if you no longer were moonlighters, because you were no longer employed at another job, you could upgrade your licence from class B to class A.

Am I reading that letter correctly?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Where is the documentation to back up that statement I've just quoted?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: There is no documentation from Mr. LeBlanc. He stated in different meeting halls all over Atlantic Canada that this is what would take place.

This gentleman met with Mr. LeBlanc in Ottawa in a hotel room--

Mr. Tom Wappel: Okay. What I'm getting at is there's nothing in writing anywhere to back up the statement that Mr. Wiseman wrote in his letter. Am I correct?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: If you don't mind, I could answer.

If you look, this is the brief that was used, with the North-East Amalgamation Fishermen Association...to Roméo LeBlanc. We had to bear two of these old briefs all through the years because we've never been able to approach anyone, and we couldn't change our course.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But, Monsieur Arseneau, all I'm asking is whether there is any written proof of the statement that Mr. Wiseman made in his letter, and the answer is no.

My sixth sentence--

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Tom, if I may--

Mr. Tom Wappel: Just a minute, Peter, I just want to...I'm doing the questioning.

Now, as I understand it, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' policy is to retire class B licences, either by attrition or death. Is that a correct statement?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: That's their understanding.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: After 1985, yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: That's what you believe their policy to be. They want to get rid of all class B fishermen eventually. Is that right?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: No. What I want to tell you is that this was served behind closed doors in that document 000041, which I just read a while ago, and we were supposed to have a year to see to it and they never told us. I got word of that in 1994 when I had a press note from the Department of Fisheries in Tracadie. It was a little clip that was caught behind my documents coming back from them, and that is where I got that press release.

¿ (0915)

Mr. Tom Wappel: Never mind the press release. I am just trying to figure out what you think is going on.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: We were never told about--

Mr. Tom Wappel: Do you believe it is DFO's policy to get rid of all class B licences, either by attrition or death?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you. My seventh sentence. You want to go back to what the world was like in 1978: is that correct?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Not exactly.How would you feel if you were in my place and you didn't have a chance when this all started in 1978 to get back in line when we were promised we would have a change of status?

Mr. Tom Wappel: That's what I am getting at. That is what you say, but you have no backup documentation for it whatsoever.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes. We have our brief that we sent to the minister.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But a letter that you send, with all due respect, isn't proof unless it's accepted. If you wrote a letter, for example, saying “Minister LeBlanc, on June 13, 1984, in the Tracadie basketball court, in front of 750 people you specifically stated X. We're relying on that policy, and if we don't hear from you we're going to assume that you're going to implement that policy.” Is there such a letter?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: No, I told you a while ago when we--

The Chair: Mr. Haché and then Mr. Arseneau.

Mr. Gérald Haché: Through letters from DFO it proves right here that they said it themselves.

Mr. Tom Wappel: What are you looking at?

Mr. Gérald Haché: It's 000040, Alphonse Cormier.

Mr. Tom Wappel: The French document? Could you show me exactly where it says that? I have this French document to Alphonse Cormier from Maurice Lévesque. Where are you referring to?

[Translation]

Mr. Gérald Haché: “Personally, I propose that all fishermen holding a licence...”

[English]

Mr. Tom Wappel: Let's stop there. “Je propose”. He is making a proposal. He is not confirming some fact. He is suggesting something to Mr. Cormier. Let us start with that, if I understand the words “je propose” correctly. So then what are you referring to?

Mr. Gérald Haché: That we could operate through any licence.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Right. So he's making what you think is a reasonable proposal. Do you have anything from Mr. Cormier or anybody else that agrees to this proposal?

Mr. Gérald Haché: Not on paper that I know of.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Those are my seven statements. I have a question now. Are class A fishermen today allowed to work at other jobs?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So they're moonlighting on other jobs and they still get their class A licence.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And 25 years ago you moonlighted on fishing and you had your licences taken away, and that is what you think is unfair.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: On the face of it, so do I.

The Chair: Mr. Arseneau, you wanted to add one point.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Around 1982, as soon as they thought they had us subdued, they were saying to themselves that the upgrading of class B was postponed, and we did not have a chance to defend ourselves. They were calling themselves class A then. They were still bona fide and we thought we were bona fide. They could buy their licence, go home for five years, work anywhere, come back, fish for one year, and go back. They still do that.

What I said a while ago for the crab is the same thing. It's not a matter of the same laws of the land for all Canadians. The resources belong to you and me.

¿ (0920)

The Chair: I have to go to Mr. Burton, and then we will come back to you.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I want to get a clarification on Mr. Wappel's question to him about what Mr. LeBlanc said at these meetings. Correct me if I am wrong, but you said minutes were taken of those meetings.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: We have minutes of meetings from 1968 all the way through to 2002.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Is the statement that Mr. Wappel is looking for recorded in those minutes?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: We have the minutes of the meeting with the four locals, which were comprised of 306 fishermen. I mentioned that a while ago. There was Frank Pettigrew from New Bandon with a group of 150 fishermen, Artie Taylor with 74 from Restigouche, Emilien Robichaud from Bathurst with 82, and--

Mr. Peter Stoffer: To narrow it down, what Mr. Wappel is looking for is a very valid concern. Is what Mr. LeBlanc said written in any of the minutes?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: I told you a while ago that the NRDC was orchestrating the whole thing. Our papers are in there somewhere, along with the answer, but we cannot find them.

We appealed to six fishermen who were not on the baseball field. They were in the hall in front of us. They provided a guard for us, because it took six months to get him there, and we wanted to talk to him. He agreed to our thing, and we agreed to what he was proposing, to be able to enhance a sort of conservation on the fishery. But we found out that it was a disaster. As I told you, they would take four traps and he gives them 375. Then they buy them right away. As soon as they had that all settled up in 1982, they started giving them a paper, and then they went away to work for five years.Yet we couldn't get our sons onboard the boats. That's not justice.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Burton.

Mr. Andy Burton (Skeena, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

I am a little confused about this Maritime Fishermen's Union, which you mentioned. It seems to be very powerful. You say it's funded with taxpayers' dollars. Can you expand on that as to how that was initiated, what the purpose of the union is, and who is in it? Why are taxpayers' dollars funding a union?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: First of all, I used the Access to Information Act to find out about the money. I had heard that money was being funnelled into the Maritime Fishermen's Union by DFO to do studies on the fishing. I got a receipt and the cheque numbers and everything from 1995 through to 2001. The Maritime Fishermen's Union was given almost $600,000 to do studies on the fishing. Then I went to the Maritime Fishermen's Union to find out where the $600,000 of DFO money had gone. They have no studies. They don't know where the money has gone. Then they wound up getting another $300,000 for another study. The total was almost $1 million. Again, there was no study and there were no records.

Then, lo and behold, I pick up the newspaper and read that in the last month another $70,000 was given by ACOA to the Maritime Fishermen's Union to do a study on introducing blue lobster into our waters.

First of all, what's the government doing funding a union that's trying to put us people off the water? Secondly, isn't ACOA for small business, not for funding a union to do studies?

The Maritime Fishermen's Union is a multi-million dollar operation that is controlling the east coast fishery, along with Jim Jones, Janet Smith, and a handful of DFO people. They are all buddies. They are all in the same pot.

We had a meeting a few months ago with the provincial minister of fisheries to try to sort this out. He said, “We are partnering with the Maritime Fishermen's Union; we are helping them out.” It doesn't make sense. Is it DFO that's running this east coast fishery or the Maritime Fishermen's Union?

The other thing is I brought up these four-entry-point lobster traps. There was never any study done on these. These traps are twice as big as our traditional traps, with four entry points instead of our traditional two entry points. When the full-time fishermen figured they were going to control it and have it all to themselves, they built these humongous traps. DFO did no study on that, and didn't make them put two tags on them. They still only have to put one tag on these traps. So instead of having 300 of our traditional traps in the water, they have 300 of these big four-headed traps, which is the same as having 600 traps in the water.

Greed has taken over the fishery. These groups have gotten so rich and so wealthy from government coffers being pumped in to take control that there's nothing we can do now.

¿ (0925)

The Chair: The only point I want to make on the MFU is I can tell you that in our discussions with the MFU over the last several years involving the Marshall decision and the Burnt Church fishery, if it hadn't been for some of the leadership in the MFU we would have had a heck of a lot worse situation.

We can check on those studies. It's not unusual for government to put project money out there, whether it's studying blue lobster or whether it's studying the health of the lobster industry, whatever. I wouldn't say that is money being funnelled to an organization. They would have to meet specific criteria.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: You know, it's funny, the Maritime Fishermen's Union, once they find out that they've been beat by the natives in the Marshall decision and there's nothing they can do, they come out with statements like there's room for the natives in the east coast fishery. Yes, there is, because there are all kinds of lobster there. Yet when we went to the Maritime Fishermen's Union, no, there's no room for a couple of class B fishermen, but there's all kinds of room for the native fishery.

The Chair: I don't want to debate the issue, but--

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Well, I do.

The Chair: I mean in terms of the Marshall decision you've got no choice: there's a court decision that has set it--

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Well, there's going to be a general decision--

The Chair: --which leads me to your letter to the Chief Justice. Did you get a response to that letter from the Chief Justice?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes, we have. We have a response that she's awaiting us.... It was addressed by Julie Terrien, acting senior legal counsel. She answered:

This is to assure you that Chief Justice McLachlin has received your letter of January 10, 2001, and that your views have been noted. Your letter has been referred to me for reply.

I am sure that you will understand that because this matter has been brought before the Court in the past and may be brought back again, it would not be appropriate for the Court to comment on or express opinions with respect to the issues raised in your letter.

That's from Julie Terrien.

The Chair: So that is in response to the letter to Beverley McLachlin--

Mr. Michel Arseneau: To Beverley McLachlin directly, with the signatures of the members on it. I was glad that she answered and we have a little hope. If we don't get by with you guys, we still have the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice. We're not going to stop.

The Chair: Okay. Mr. Haché, you wanted in.

Mr. Gérald Haché: You're right.

The point I want to bring up is there was upgrading of fishermen from B to A in the past, in the 1980s: those who had full-time jobs and lost their jobs went from B to A. They upgraded I don't know how many, but in our area at least four that I know right off.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Well, it was more like--

Mr. Gérald Haché: There were more than that, but at least four names, because I know they were working with me at the smelter.

A voice: In the eighties?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: In '85.

Mr. Gérald Haché: Yes, '85--it went to '83, I think.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Yeah, probably. But another--

[Translation]

Mr. Gérald Haché: That means something was expected.

[English]

Mr. Tom Wappel: Do you remember names?

[Translation]

Mr. Gérald Haché: Yes. They are Arthur Taylor, Raymond Lagacé, Jean-Claude Lagacé, George Ellis, Ivan Daley and William Knowles.

[English]

Mr. Paul Jagoe: After they figured they were rid of us, the Maritime Fishermen's Union said, “We're going to get a policy drawn up so that you people can now work in other industries”. So right now in our area there are full-time A fishermen who have trucking companies and are running trucks year-round plus fishing a full year.

¿ (0930)

The Chair: I'm going to interrupt you there, Mr. Jagoe. In my view, before this committee, your fight is not with the MFU, and I'm not going to accept any more stuff on the MFU. The argument here has to be whether or not you were used fairly, in a transparent way--

Mr. Paul Jagoe: No.

The Chair: --in terms of class B licences, fully knowing the options that were available to you at the time and over the ensuing period. I think that's the issue that's before us. The Government of Canada or the Minister of Fisheries has to make a decision on some of these things at some point in time. The MFU will put its case before them, as will others.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I have a couple of quick questions. When did the two-entry system change to the four-entry system on traps?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: In roughly 1983, one fisherman had brought some of those four-entry-point traps to Stonehaven, New Brunswick. They started trying them out. They realized what they would catch, and then within five years, every full-time fisherman on the wharf had a complete gear of these four-entry-point traps.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My other question is about the levels of bureaucracy within DFO. Of course, you're dealing with them on a constant basis. It seems that somewhere along the line, one individual or a couple of individuals are not getting that information to the minister. I've seen the name Jim Jones frequently throughout here, and others. In your opinion, who is the stumbling block within the department?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Our first stumbling block was Tracadie, New Brunswick. Tracadie, New Brunswick, was never corresponding any of our information to Moncton, New Brunswick. Then, when we got the door open there a year ago and I started dealing with Janet Smith and Jim Jones of licensing, it just went to there and it stopped. Of course Mr. Jones says they'll do whatever they can, but he never did anything about it.

So then finally we started dealing on the Ottawa level, and our information still wasn't getting through to the minister. It was going to this person by the name of Lilianne Wells, and she'd just write back these letters with Mr. Dhaliwal's name on them. He was never hearing it. Finally, when we talked to Steven, we figured he was a fine gentleman. He took the time, he listened, he didn't push us out of the room, and he assured us. So it's gone through numerous levels, and still the minister did not receive our cry.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In your report--I think it's on the third page of the yellow handout--you said that full-time A fishermen are now allowed to put their names into a draw for a $10,000 cheque for part of the snow crab quota. If their name is drawn, they are issued a cheque but do not have to fish the crab.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: That's right.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Is that still the policy today?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: That's still the policy today.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: So if I'm a class A fisherman of lobster and now I'm going to try for some crab and my name gets drawn, they'll cut me a cheque for ten grand and I can stay at home?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: That's right.

The Chair: That's how that allocation is done.

On the two last questions, you were not forwarded by DFO, at any point in time between 1975 and now, any documentation or correspondence that explained your status to you and what your options were?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: No.

The Chair: Okay, that's fine. Well, it's not fine, but that's the way it is.

Lastly, in terms of these meetings that the then minister Roméo LeBlanc had, do you have any recordings or documentation from those meetings that specifically outline what you allege Mr. LeBlanc said relative to your status?

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Do we have any of that in the minutes of the meetings?

¿ (0935)

Mr. Michel Arseneau: The minutes of the meeting when we met with Mr. LeBlanc are all there on pages 27 and 28.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: The minutes of the meetings are in our big book here. It's been translated. We will leave you a copy of this.

The Chair: Okay. Perhaps you can leave us a copy of that meeting.

Go ahead, Mr. Arseneau.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Prior to meeting with Mr. LeBlanc, we sent him that brief, dated December 8, 1976, from the 306 fishermen. And we dealt with the three items that were marked on it on pages 2 and 3. The first item reads:

[Translation]

1) That district 7C be subdivided from Tabusintac to Campbellton, New Brunswick, or to the point north of Restigouche county.

[English]

That's one thing that we bear for ourselves.

Then on item p), we were not in favour of the licence class C that the government had announced a few weeks prior to that.

The main item that the 306 fishermen stressed there was:

[Translation]

q) That the part-time lobster fishermen be allowed to continue fishing a limited number of traps and in the event of a lay-off be allowed to return to fishing full-time.

[English]

And that's why we stressed and we kept in our minds and hearts...that we told Roméo LeBlanc. But I'm telling you this was orchestrated by NRDC, and through that elite group somewhere, somehow, it was an underhanded thing again. We are still there and we're living. We are not in the baseball field anywhere. We are there in front of the minister, and he was God for us that day.

We met with Minister LeBlanc not too long ago, a few weeks ago, and he was more or less hoping that we get to something.

The Chair: In fact, I met with him about three weeks ago myself.

Mr. Michel Arseneau: I hope you had a very good meeting.

The Chair: On this brief of yours to the ministers, do you have a response to that?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: I did, but I cannot put my hand on it. There was an element of the four associations. I was for a time being...but there was somebody else. As I told you, after that there were freeloaders.

The Chair: On your three suggestions, if you had a letter back from the minister with the minister's signature on it saying, “We hereby agree to these three suggestions, or two of them”, then you had better possibilities. That's why I raised the questions.

In any event, there has been a lot of information tabled before us here. We recognize your concerns, and you feel you have been treated unfairly. We'll have to discuss it further amongst ourselves after we go through the documentation and see what kind of approach we take as a committee on it.

Mr. Arseneau, do you want to make a last point?

Mr. Michel Arseneau: Yes, I would like to make a last point because it is important.

At that meeting I asked Mr. LeBlanc a question and he pointed to me and said, “It doesn't matter if there may be one opinion, I have to listen to it.” And we were 306, and then we faded to attrition, like we are now, and we are still asking, and that's why we went to see His Excellency. He is not the minister any more, but I hope he can enhance the subject.

Through those years communications were not like today. We did not have GPS on our boats. We never had a compass or anything like that. We were in the fog and we could come back home with a match on top of our signal area; we could see where the shadow was at the time and that's how we navigated.

We could see how long it was taking to take communications there and back. We might not get it through NRDC, and that was a flaw as far as I'm concerned, and I pray to God that something will come out of that.

The Chair: I wouldn't say that communication with Ottawa these days is at lightning speed either.

Mr. Jagoe, you can have a last comment and then we have to close.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: My last comment is first of all I want to know if you can open any doors for us. You are the elected members of this country, and it's time people started listening to us and everybody as Canadians.

Also, after you meet and hash this out, what are you people going to be able to do to help us, if anything?

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Well, we certainly have to meet on it. I don't want to pre-empt what the committee might or might not do. But it certainly is evidence in the minutes. We will either write a letter or table a report in the House of Commons, which has to be responded to in 60 days, or call in officials from DFO on this issue specifically and raise some questions with them. Those are three options. There are probably others I haven't thought of. But there are a number of options available to us. We'll certainly not just leave it lie. I don't think the committee would allow that. We will, in one fashion or another, carry the issue forward, so that your evidence moves up the line to other authorities.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: Will it be six months before we get any kind of a report back on what your recommendations were? Will we in fact get a report on what your recommendations are?

The Chair: It certainly won't be six months before we do our report. We have a lot of things on our plate, I know that, and each day there seems to be more on it. But in any event, we will, as rapidly as we can, either do a report, put a letter--we had a talk about that--or call DFO before the committee to raise this and a number of other issues with them.

All I can say in terms of the six months is that when we, as a committee, table a report in the House of Commons, the government is obligated to respond. But they're allowed six months to respond under the House of Commons rules. We just tabled a report before them on MCTS and the west coast, and we asked that they respond to us in 90 days. We can make that request, but under the House of Commons rules, they don't have to do it. They could take six months to do it, if they so decide.

In any event, those are the options. We will deal with it, I can assure you, as a committee, as rapidly as we can. We can send a letter to the minister or we can call officials before us. Those are the options.

Mr. Paul Jagoe: I think that's basically what would make us extremely happy. Things are going to get out of control if it's not dealt with. If we could get a meeting with the minister, if there's any way you people can talk with the minister, explain the seriousness of the situation, and at least listen to our plight....

The Chair: It's really 150 days, not six months, that they have to respond.

With that, thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming before us. You have provided a lot of documentation. We'll have to take it from there. Thank you once again.

We will suspend for five minutes for people to have a coffee. Then we'll meet with the Alliance des pêcheurs du Québec, with Mr. Cloutier.

¿ (0955)

¿ (0956)

¿ (0958)

The Chair: Just for the record, we are dealing with Standing Order 108(2), a meeting on local fisheries issues. A number of local fishermen's groups are coming before the committee to outline their concerns and local issues.

From the Alliance des pêcheurs du Québec, we have Mr. Cloutier and Jean-François Martel. From the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie, we have Mr. Boucher and Mr. Huard.

Welcome, folks. The floor is yours. We'll go through your presentations and then turn to questions.

I guess we'll start with Mr. Boucher.

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher (Coordinator, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie): We thank the Committee for giving us the opportunity to present our perspective on certain aspects of fisheries management. As we have different subjects, and Mr. Cloutier has asked me to start, I will speak to you about the subject that concerns me first.

We would like to inform the Committee that we are not in a position to table a brief on the subject that we'll be dealing with today, but we hope to send you one in the next few months.

The subject we would like to address with the Committee today on behalf of the fishermen that we represent is the inequity in the distribution of marine resources, specifically snow crab in our sector.

Our organization represents fishermen who live mainly in the Gaspé and in snow crab fishing areas 17, 16 and 12, including subareas A and B which are essential part of area 12.

Our fishermen are experiencing the following problem: the great majority of the fishermen we represent depend on groundfish, particularly turbot. Currently, turbot is for all practical purposes in crisis, there seems to be non there, in spite of all the information obtained by scientists, showing that the situation has improved since the 2001 season.

Obviously, the situation has not improved. Our fishermen are having more and more difficulty while at the same time, in the same sectors, there are groups of fishermen benefiting from co-management agreements for crab. These agreements mean that a portion of the resource that was not available when the co-management agreements were signed is being monopolized in for the benefit of a particular group. This means that any fishermen in our sector who depend on turbot will have an average annual income of $46,000 in 2001, including their small crab quotas. I'm referring to gross income, before operating expenses.

Since the co-management agreement for area 17 was signed—some four years ago—fishers who are in regular contact with those who rely on the turbot fishery have had gross incomes of over half a million dollars, for seven to ten weeks of fishing.

You would understand that, for those who fish turbot and work in the same zones, the situation is disastrous and creates inequities and obvious social problems. I think in fact that members of Parliament from the region are aware of the problems that can thus be created. These are two crab fishermen from area 17.

A voice:[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Mr. André Boucher:Yes, a million each.

The data put forward in the brief that you will receive come from Fisheries and Oceans statistics. I'd like to go back a little bit to explain to the Committee how this co-management agreement for area 17 came about. Since the 1990s, fishers who fish groundfish and live in the region asked DFO to get higher quotas for snow crab, because the resource was much healthier. The Department never acceded to the fishers' request.

Since the signing of co-management agreement, the crab population has steadily increased and fishers have a problem, because they end up catching snow crab in gill nets when they fish for turbot even when they go as deep as 180 fathoms. Normally, crab fishers would go a depth of 70 to 90 fathoms, but in that zone, there's so much crab that fishers have to move and set their nets elsewhere because there's too much crab in their nets; according to regulations, fishers cannot land crab at the wharf.

Great quantities of crab are thus destroyed. The department has always said that, under the regulations, the crab cannot be landed. The fishers have to abide by the regulations. Some fishers have taken a chance and landed small quantities of crab, since their incomes are quite low. They've been sued and had to pay fines. But that doesn't solve the problem. There's more and more crab in that area.

À (1000)

[English]

The Chair: May I interrupt for a second, Mr. Boucher? Are you not allowed a bycatch of crab? Any bycatch?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: No. Your question was also put to me by the Special Committee appointed by the minister to examine access criteria. The Committee sat in Quebec last year. The information that this committee received—I don't know where they got it from—was that one was allowed by catch of snow crab in gill nets.

We had to prepare a mini-report, which we submitted to the Committee, showing that in effect fishermen did not have the right to land any crab caught in the nets, even if it was a by catch. We have not heard anything since then. We made the committee aware of legal proceedings, of a court decision, of proceedings that had been initiated, of photographs showing the problem. The fact remains that nothing has changed.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Mr. Boucher, you said you had not received any answer. I would like to know whether it is certain that people have to destroy the crab and throw it back into the ocean. At present, that is what they do.

Mr. André Boucher: Yes.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What quantities do you estimate are being thrown back in this way? How much crab did that represent last year?

Mr. André Boucher: According to the Maurice Lamontagne Institutes scientific data—we had a brief presentation—in certain sectors, each fisher could be destroying up to 50,000 tonnes of crab a year, by throwingit back into the ocean.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: But this is dead crab.

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, it is definitely dead. When I mentioned that to the Committee I spoke to you about earlier, one member of the Committee, who I believe came from the University of Vancouver, didn't believe me. He said that we were wasting the resource, that it could provide jobs for people and all that. Twice he told the Chairman that I was trying to lead him down the garden path, but we showed him that we were telling the truth.

Fishers have to abide by the regulations. They are saying that, rather than waste this crab, they should be able to use pots to catch it, thereby increasing their revenue and improving socioeconomic conditions in their communities.

Going back to the issue of the way the co-management agreement for zone 17 was signed, I think that it is very important for me to explain the situation to you. I was telling you that, since the 1990s, sector fishers have been asking for more and more temporary quotas to improve their situation. The Department has always refused them.

When it was time to sign the agreement with the 22 crab fishers for Area 17, negotiations between crab licence holders and the Department were held in our absence, and our organization was informed of the matter on March 20, 1998. These dates are very important, as they indicate how the co-management agreement was signed: on the fly.

We received a letter dated March 20, in which a departmental representative told us about the proposal for the 22 crab fishers from Area 17. We were informed that we had 11 days in which to make our position known.

Then, after obtaining these documents, we realized that the co-management agreement between the 22 crab fishers and the Department had been signed five months earlier. We were consulted and given 11 days to make our position known. The agreement with the 22 crab fishers concerned had been signed five months earlier! The letter we were sent stated that we should organize broad consultations. We did, and were given 11 days in which to respond, where the agreement had been signed five months earlier. The members of our Board of Directors said that the consultation had been a sham, and that everything had been decided in advance.

They signed the agreement in November, four months before we were informed about it. A committee, from which we too had been excluded, had been established to discuss the terms of the quota to be given to the 22 crab fishers from Area 17 for the year 1998. We are informed of the fact four months later, and we were excluded.

On March 26, we responded to the Department's letter, stating that the Board of Directors disagreed with the proposal that had been made. During the three years prior to this agreement, the 22 crab fishers from Area 17 had caught, on average, approximately 1,400 tonnes of crab. The Department was proposing to cap the catch at 1,600 tonnes.

We then discussed the matter with their Regional Director. He told us that the crab fishers' representatives had requested a base catch of 1,400 tonnes, before anything was split with the others, in order to obtain 1,200 tonnes. He told us that the Department, further to confirmation by the Regional Director, had offered 1,600 tonnes, knowing full well that, in the same sector, there were fishers in difficulty and that the crab licence holders from Area 17 had made a very decent living from their catches over the three years before signature of the agreement.

We subsequently asked for a meeting with the Department to discuss the issue. On March 26, we sent a letter to the Department stating that the Board was dissatisfied and that we wanted to meet with the Department's representatives to discuss the situation. We never received a reply to our letter.

À (1005)

All we got was a verbal response. There was a press release in April, just before the fisheries opened, stating that the agreement was in effect and that the matter was closed because the minister had signed the agreement.

Since then—and four years have already gone by—we make a yearly request to the department to obtain additional allocations.

Even when we write to the minister, the reply comes from the regional office. The minister never reads our letters, and it is the government officials themselves who have told that this is so. When a letter arrives in the office of Minister Anderson or Minister Dhaliwal, the letter is sent to the Quebec office. The Quebec office prepares the reply, which is sent to Ottawa where it is signed by Dhaliwal or somebody else and then sent to us. So the minister's office has never been informed of the situation.

The problem that we have been experiencing for the past four years is still with us this year. This is the final year of the co-management agreement. Given the situation facing fishers in the ground fisheries, who have been dealing with a moratorium and who have spent their life fishing, we are asking that representations be made to the minister and the department in order to distribute more fairly the marine resources. As far as the fishers are concerned, these resources belong to all Canadians and it is incumbent upon the department to distribute them as fairly as possible.

Principles of natural justice are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Departmental decision-makers must realize that, while some people are in difficulty, others, during the same period of time, are making a comfortable living and, in some cases, are even becoming millionaires within two years. We are not talking about producing goods. We are talking about the resource, the biomass that belongs to everybody, the marine resource. We cannot turn this into a business.

This, then, is the request we are making to the committee. We hope that the department's attitude will change. The co-management agreement for Area 12 has now expired. There will be a substantial increase in the quota for the 2002 season. We are hoping that this increase will not apply exclusively to crab licence holders. Should this happen, it would be tantamount to renewing the co-management agreement and the groundfish fishers would once again face bleak times.

We are hoping that the committee will be able to examine the issue. In a few months' time, we will be submitting a full brief to you which will include evidence for the arguments I have just been making. We have documentation to prove the assertions that I made a few moments ago and we will be submitting them.

I must also tell you about one important matter. The fishers in these same sectors have nothing against the Supreme Court decision in the Marshall case, but they find it somewhat surprising, if not at times bewildering, to see the millions of dollars that can be spent so readily in order to support aboriginal communities by buying crab licences that are transferred to them, when it is impossible to split a crab licence for groups of fishers earning $46,000 per year.

We have even asked the department to buy a licence and transfer it to the association. We could then split this licence in order to give it to our fishers: 10,000 pounds for one and 5,000 pounds for another. And we would be prepared to reimburse this money within 10 years. No, this cannot be done, we are told. It cannot be done for us, but it can for other communities. It can be done for the aboriginal people. Are White fishers second-class citizens in Canada? I don't think so.

Here, in Area 17, the department has just purchased two licences which to be given to the Malecite community. We agree that the Malecites should be able to participate in the fishery, in accordance with the Supreme Court decision.

À (1010)

However, if we do that for certain groups, we should also be able to help the others because this is creating frustration amongst the fishers. They see that and feel that they are being abandoned.

I would like to thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk to you about our problems. We are hoping that your committee will have some influence with the department so that, in future, the resource, the wealth that belongs to all Canadians, will be distributed much more fairly. Thank you.

À (1015)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Boucher. We can either do this--

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: On a point of order. You referred to areas 17, 16, 12A and 12B. In order for the committee to know exactly where these zones are located, could you give us some idea of where they can be found? Do you have a map?

Mr. André Boucher: Yes. We will attach a map to the brief that we will be submitting in order to indicate their location. Area 17 is this one here, in the estuary, and it goes up to Trinity Bay and Rivière-à-Claude. Then, there is Area 12. Area A goes along the end of the Gaspé Peninsula. Area B runs along the south shore of Anticosti Island. I think that Area 12 is well-known; it covers three provinces: Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. This is a zone covering Chaleurs Bay, towards the south.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Roy, we can get maps from DFO as well, and probably we should. Maybe the minister's office has a map as well.

Mr. Farrah, on a point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah: I would like to make a suggestion, providing the witnesses are in agreement. We could ask Mr. Boucher and Mr. Huard our questions to complete their presentation, and then we could go to Mr. Cloutier and Mr. Martel, who may be presenting a different point of view.

I do not know whether or not you would agree with that. Seeing as you have just made your presentation, it is fresher in our memory.

[English]

The Chair: That is fine, Georges. That is what we'll do. I was going to suggest that in any event. If we could, I'd like to keep it to 15 minutes for questioning, or thereabouts, or we're going to run out of time.

Who wants to start? Mr. Farrah, go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah: Thank you for your presentation. What is interesting about it is that you have just made my colleagues aware of the reality which, in certain respects, is specific to Quebec.

Mr. Chairman, the problem is that the fishers here are the victims of a moratorium or have licences for groundfish only, a resource which unfortunately is no longer available.

In the decisions pertaining to licences or division of the quota, we often realize that this distribution may not be based on those who are in the most need. Yes, it is also channeled to the right places, but when you look at the entire problem of income sharing, we have to ask ourselves some questions. This is what all colleagues have to be made aware of.

As I have always said, often, when people talk about the fishery in Quebec and in all of Canada, they say that Quebec is a wealthy province and that the fishery is not significant there, that it is a marginal sector in Quebec's economy. However, the fishery is just as important to the fishing communities in Quebec as it is to those in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, because these communities are entirely dependent on that for their livelihood.

Consequently, when you look at the situation, you have to wonder about the way that the quota is divided. Some fleets are able to bring in an income of half a million dollars whereas other fishers have very low incomes. If the quota has to be divided, it must be channeled towards those fishers who are in difficulty. I agree that the department does not always understand the situation. We are entitled to expect some understanding from the department, and I make it a point of honour, in a very modest way... Obviously, I do not have control over everything, far from it.

I think that the committee should discuss this in detail and look at how the resource can be shared. Regardless of the treaties, lobster fishers have needs. If they are facing difficulties, they should have access to some of the resource. It should be directed towards those who are facing difficulties.

I have learned something here, and you can correct me if I am wrong. Fishing associations in other provinces have received money from the sharing of the resource and have used the money to buy a dental plan. When there are people who are almost dying of hunger—and unfortunately that is the case—we are entitled to expect these matters to be dealt with in a much more equitable way.

That is what I wanted to highlight. I can confirm that these fishers who are making these requests are victims of a situation that is making them very vulnerable and we must listen to what they are saying.

À (1020)

[English]

The Chair: I don't know if you want to make a comment on that or not, but I just want to clarify one point. Are you talking about fishing zones 17, 16, 12A, and 12B on the map?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Yes.

[English]

The Chair: Zones 17, 16, 12A, and 12B, correct? Do you fish in zone 12 other than A and B, or are you talking about...?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: No. We have people who are currently fishing in Area 17, who are fishing turbot in Area A and Area B. There is no turbot in Area 12. We have fishers who live in that area and who are members of our association. We represent them.

I would like to add something that I left out. Since the co-management agreement for Area 17 was signed, combined average incomes for the past four years have gone up by more than 150 per cent, and the volume available has increased by 83 per cent. The volume available for the 22 crab licence holders has increased by 83 per cent, and incomes have increased by more than 150 per cent. Not many people in Canada have seen their income go up by 150 per cent in the past few years.

[English]

The Chair: Before I go I have a couple of questions here--just points for clarification.

When you mentioned Marshall, you said the department has just bought two licences for the native community. Were they crab licences?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, they are crab licences.

[English]

The Chair: These crab licences, you are saying, bring in about a million dollars a year?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: A half a million dollars year.

[English]

The Chair: Half a million. Okay. Thank you.

The new co-management agreement is.... The 1997 agreement, you said, was the original co-management agreement, and it was for five years.

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, 2002 is the last year. The agreement was signed in October 1997. The committee to establish the rules was struck in November 1997. The 1998 fishing season was the first year the co-management agreement was in effect.

[English]

The Chair: Is the new co-management agreement that is being discussed being discussed with just the ones that hold ITQs for crab, or with the whole community?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Just with the crab licence holders.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. I just needed that for clarification.

Monsieur Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Yes, my question was to clarify the point regarding the new agreement. I wanted to speak to that. You were not invited to participate in any negotiations on renewing the agreement.

Mr. André Boucher: On March 20, as I pointed out earlier, we received a letter from a departmental official along with a table indicating how the resource would be shared, in preparation for the signing of the co-management agreement. We replied stating that we disagreed with the document. We asked for a meeting with the department, but we did not get one. That is the only consultation we had. We do not consider it a broad consultation; it was not even consultation.

À (1025)

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Have you been offered a share of the resource based on the upcoming agreement?

Mr. André Boucher: The co-management agreement states that when the TAC, in other words the overall quota for the sector, is over 1,600 metric tonnes, 40 per cent of the excess volume will go to temporary allocations. But that does not represent much in light of the total volume.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What I want to know is how much it represents.

Mr. André Boucher: For last year, since the TAC was 2,700 tonnes, and included fishers with mobile gear, we received a total allocation of 350 tonnes.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: How many fishers does your association represent?

Mr. André Boucher: We currently represent 42 fishers who are members of our association in good standing. Indirectly, we represent about 60 fishers. There are some local or regional associations in our area whose fishers are not members of our association, but since their associations are members, they benefit from the information on management. In practice, we represent about 60 fishers.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What does a gross income of $46,000 represent?

Mr. André Boucher: It means that this winter... The department put out an economic study and we agree with some of the points in the study. We commissioned a study from an independent firm and arrived a new income of about $200 for the 2000 season.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Two hundred dollars?

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, and I can tell the committee that for the 2001 season, last winter, people went on social assistance.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I have one last question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. Is it true that the department offered to buy back certain licences?

Mr. André Boucher: Yes.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: And what value was assigned to the licence?

Mr. André Boucher: To the crab licence or to the turbot licence?

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: To the turbot licence. Is that correct?

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, some were bought back. There were some negotiations with the department. We heard that fishing licences for 50,000 to 60,000 pounds of turbot were bought back for $150,000 to $200,000.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Very well. Thank you.

Mr. André Boucher: On the other hand, the crab licences are currently being bought for close to $2 million.

[English]

Mr. Tom Wappel: I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Yes, Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I didn't quite understand the answer. Was the answer $200 net?

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Yes, $200.

Mr. Tom Wappel: In the year?

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Net.

Mr. Tom Wappel: For $46,000 gross, it's $200 net. Is that the answer?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: No. According to the department's study, this is for the 2000 season. Incomes were a little higher. The net income was $200.

For the 2001 season, on average, fishers made a gross income of $46,000. So there was no net income. They had an operating deficit for the 2001 season, because that year fishers took only 25 per cent of the quota. In 2000, they caught 45 per cent of the quota. That year, with 45 per cent, they had a net income of about $200, but in 2001, they were in a deficit situation.

[English]

The Chair: That would not be unusual, Tom, in either the fishing or agricultural industry. The average net farm income in 2000 was $13,700. The gross was probably around $280,000. Your expense is fuel, boat repairs, you name it.

Mr. Stoffer.

[Translation]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you for your presentation.

[English]

Monsieur, you had mentioned the fact that 50,000 pounds of crab were destroyed. I was wondering if you can elaborate a bit more on that. Is DFO aware that this type of crab is being destroyed as we speak?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, the department is aware of that. The department's science branch actually did some surveys, based on observations at sea, on the volume of crab caught in nets and destroyed. The information I gave you earlier came from the department.

À (1030)

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In terms of revenue for the alliance, what would it give you in terms of money if you were able to keep that 50,000 pounds of crab?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: The crab that is caught in nets may be worth a little less. Fishers can catch between 40,000 and 50,000 pounds of crab in their nets and that they can get $1.50 a pound for it, so we can figure out the value.

At the moment, top quality crab sells for about $2 a pound. Crab caught in nets must be removed from the nets. It may be broken or have lost a claw. That lowers the value. Only the flesh can be used. We think we can easily get between $1.50 and $1.60 a pound.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: And you had also mentioned the fact that the turbot were in decline or weren't around in the areas where they're supposed to be. That's of grave concern, because we have heard for a couple of years now that the size of the turbot was actually decreasing. Is that true? And is the turbot not in the areas where traditionally it was found within the gulf of the Quebec region?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: You are well informed, because for several years now, the size of the turbot seems to be the problem. Scientists at the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute have mentioned that the species now seems to be somewhat smaller.

A few years ago, the FRCC recommended that the sexual maturity of turbot and other species be analyzed. Unfortunately, this was not done.

Today, we find ourselves back where we were three years ago. Three years ago, we were told that given the resource available, beginning in 2001, we would have no problems with respect to turbot.

A few weeks ago, we took part in the peer review at the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute. We were told that in 2004, turbot might become available again for fishing. But we asked the people there a question. We asked what they were going to say if, in 2004, there were no turbot. They thought for a moment and said that they had decided to remove the reference to the year 2004.

That means that as we speak, there is still uncertainty regarding this resource. There is a great deal of uncertainty.

[English]

The Chair: Who else has questions? Last question, Mr. Stoffer, and then we'll go to Mr. Farrah and then we'll have to close.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I wanted to clarify that. Are you saying that you had discussions with various officials and they've eliminated the year 2004 from the statistics?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: No, they did not decide to eliminate the year 2004. They decided to change the wording of the text so that it would no longer emphasize the fact that the 2004 season could mark the return of the turbot. There is still much that is unknown, and no one can guarantee that in 2004, the turbot will be sufficiently mature that they can be fished.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Burton.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For the sake of clarification, on the crab bycatch of 50,000 pounds, is that per licence, or is that the total for the whole area?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, it is per boat, but it is in areas 17, B and A. In the sector that extends from Area 17 to the eastern tip of Anticosti Island, on the south side, there is a problem. The traditional turbot fishing sites are located at more than 100 fathoms. This is where the crab catches are the highest.

In the eastern part of Area 17, the problem may have been less significant this year and last, because there was more shrimp fishing in this area. Before that, the shrimp was fished a little more to the north, a little closer to Anticosti Island.

Since the 2001 season, the shrimp volumes have moved, and there is more intensive shrimp fishing in the eastern part of Area 17, which you can see on the map. This increase in the shrimp fishery has meant that trawling-net seems to be causing the crab in this sector to disappear to some extent.

This is a very significant problem beginning at Les Méchins or Cap-Chat, and west of there, on both the north and south shore of the estuary.

À (1035)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Last point, Mr. Farrah.

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah: I would like to ask a short question, Mr. Chairman. You say that you were not consulted about the management plan in Area 12 or 17. Was there an advisory committee on the crab fishery in Area 17?

Mr. André Boucher: Yes, there is an advisory committee every year in Area 17. Until last year, we were not informed about the date of the meetings of the advisory committee. Last year, we were informed. We went and made a presentation and made a request, which was rejected out of hand. The report that was submitted to the regional branch did not even reflect the points we raised at this advisory committee meeting.

There have been some meetings of the advisory committee with respect to the 2001 season, but our organization's board has decided not to participate again in the advisory committee and to speak directly to the department, because the advisory committee got us absolutely nowhere.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Just one last question. When is the decision time on the new co-management agreement? Do you know?

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: The 2001 season is the last year that the co-management agreement will be in effect. The department has said that starting in the fall—and this is why we want to present the brief to the committee beforehand—there will be some discussions with representatives of crab licence holders and our association. If this is the same type of consultation process that we had four years ago, we will be left out in the cold. We would not like to have that happen again, and that is why we are here before the committee.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. This is a controversial issue, certainly, in a lot of areas. The proceedings are recorded. We will be able to go back to the minutes, dig out some more of this stuff that maybe we haven't been able to raise questions on, and talk to the department about it.

[Translation]

Mr. André Boucher: Excuse me. If you need any documentation about any points I raised, I would be pleased to send it to you. If you give me a little bit of time, I could send the documents directly to your committee.

[English]

The Chair: Just send them to the clerk of the committee. Thank you very much.

The Fishermen's Alliance of Quebec, Mr. Cloutier and Mr. Martel.

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier (Alliance des pêcheurs du Québec): Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to see you and the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans again after five years. The last time we met was in Charlottetown in 1997, when the inshore, fixed-gear fishers held a meeting to tell the federal government how to plan for the return of the cod fishery at the time.

We want to rebalance fishing incomes, and I cannot help but support my colleagues from the north shore of the Gaspé, who are trying to get decent incomes for fishers. We should mention that in zone 12, the most prolific zone in the Gulf for snow crab, this type of distortion unfortunately exists for other fleets as well, in particular lobster fishers in Chaleurs Bay.

In my opinion, it is very important to opt for human capital rather than equipment, that is, the size and quality of the boats and equipment.

In our view, it is clear that the federal government must take steps quickly. It must not think only about temporary allocations, but rather about a permanent sharing of the resource. That will free up coastal communities in the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec and in the Gulf region and help them develop and particularly become self-supporting. There is no reason for so few people to enjoy such a rich resource.

My topics are much more general in nature. There are four I want to mention, and I will try to be as concise as possible.

First, there is the disastrous cod situation in the southern part of the Gulf, in Area 4T. When we held our general assembly in 1997, the group representing all fixed-gear fisheries in the Gulf and the five provinces, including Newfoundland, clearly identified a method it considered the most practical and particularly the safest in order to allow a return to cod fishing after a five-year moratorium.

We took action on two fronts: with the politicians—and of course you were affected by this initiative—and with the DFO officials as well. We distributed a document which showed that when we began fishing cod again, we should not be taking huge quantities. We stated clearly that fishers in the southern Gulf absolutely had to get rid of their mobile gear. I am referring to the gear used for trawling, which has the biggest impact on groundfish stocks.

Unfortunately, Newfoundland won. The fishers of Newfoundland, in their fishing area, had all their mobile gear taken away and there was a shift to a very environmentally sensitive, selective fishery, while the rest of the southern part of the Gulf was disregarded.

With respect to the results you see today, even in the Gaspé, the FRCC is desperate to try to get the industry as a whole to understand that the cod stocks are in great difficulty, and have in fact almost disappeared.

Today, we are calling on the federal government to take action. We are asking it either to impose another moratorium on the cod fishery or to totally ban mobile gear for this fishery, particularly the Danish trawlers and seiners, which do the most damage to the habitat and the resource itself.

The second point, Mr. Chairman, is about the new Fisheries Act, the one championed by Mr. Sprout, whom you probably know. This legislation would replace a rather old act, and would give some advantages to some fishers, thereby enabling them to be freer and to own their own boats and licences.

We think that this new act should respect a fundamental principle—the one being called for by all fishers throughout Atlantic Canada. We do not want to see a debate of the sort that took place in British Columbia. Under the new legislation, the Canadian government gave the industry the greater share of the catch rights. It is out of the question for us fishers in the Atlantic region, us to stand by quietly while such a piece of legislation is put in place.

À (1040)

Third, Mr. Chairman, I would like to talk about the lobster situation in the Gulf. Since you are from a province where there are many lobster fishers, you must be aware that this sector requires more protection, because every year, there are 4,000 fishing licences there, and thus 4,000 sources of income for some 10,000 families in Atlantic Canada.

We have all seen a reduction in all the groundfish species, for a variety of reasons. Today, we would like to take advantage of the growth in the lobster fishery. The Canadian community benefits from the fact that the lobster fishers are making an effort to promote conservation of the resource through a variety of measures.

In Quebec, some 3,000 tonnes of lobster are landed every year. About 2,000 tonnes come from the Magdalen Islands, which is the largest amount, while the rest, about 1,000 tonnes, comes mainly from the Gaspé Peninsula, where 935 tonnes were landed this year, in 2002. For the 205 lobster fishers in the Gaspé Peninsula, excluding the aboriginal communities, this represents a gross income of some $54,000 for each fishing enterprise.

We have to help lobster fishers support their activities by helping them protect habitat. Fish habitat protection is not the responsibility of fishers; it is the responsibility of Fisheries and Oceans.

We want all members of Parliament to understand that a number of groups are wondering about the department's management practices for some species that are in competition in the same area with other fisheries that are very controlled.

The federal government, through OTFO, will have to pay very careful attention to the Habitat Management Division of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This division will become increasingly important for the future needs of Canadians. It will need a budget to carry out its management responsibilities. At the moment, it does not have a cent for habitat management. It is an empty box. Everyone is trying, but there is not a great deal of money for habitat management, compared to protection activities or fisheries management as such, for example.

I think that the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans must realize that the federal government has to play an important role in assisting this division to protect fish habitat. If we do not protect the habitat, we are going to have trouble developing the fishery and protecting species.

Finally, I would like to talk about the capital gains exemption that all organizations which defend fishers' interests in Canada have been demanding for four years. This includes the central organization, the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters. We are having trouble getting this exemption. We know that other primary sectors, such as agriculture, have it.

Our view is that this exemption has become necessary today, because licences are overvalued at the moment, something that has clearly been caused by the buy-back of aboriginal licences. In addition, the owners of licences who want to get rid of their assets and transfer them to their sons, for example, are forced to increase their price because they do not have an exemption and they know that they will be taken to the cleaners when they do their final income tax return, after they get rid of their licence.

À (1045)

For example, a lobster licence that was worth $150,000 five or six years ago is now worth $300,000. A father who wants to pass on this type of licence to his son at no cost is now forced to sell it, and at such a high price that the son can no longer afford it. Slowly but surely, there will be a reduction in the number of fishers, which, of course, will favour rich people from outside the fishing sector. It is important that you understand this and that the Government of Canada finally agree to the capital gains exemption, if only for intergenerational transfers of licences, in order to maintain the number of fishers in Canada. I think this is crucial.

That is all I wanted to say this morning. I am very pleased to be here, because the last time I met with the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was 12 years ago, in Ottawa, when Charles-Eugène Marin was the Conservative member for our area.

À (1050)

[English]

The Chair: Maybe he was here last night, is that correct? He was also in the hotel last night. In fact, we were talking to him last night, some of us.

Mr. Roy?

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank you for your presentation and to ask you a question on what you have said regarding fishers who must keep licences to avoid corporations buying them up.

It might be a good idea to explain the current situation in our region. Is this sort of thing happening? Are there currently corporations buying these licences? In other regions, fishers are experiencing problems. When they want to repair or improve their boats, they might not have the money to do so. Given the current situation in the fisheries, banks are not willing to lend fishers money. Corporations, industry players, lend fishers the money and more or less turn them into slaves. It's a bit like what the major corporations used to do maybe 50 or 60 years ago. They gave people jobs but they had complete control over them because of the money.

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: That's what the Gordon Piew corporation used to do in British Columbia.

There are still currently some relies, if I could use that term, of the days where corporations profited that way or held fishing licences. There are a few cases like this in the Gaspé area, as regards groundfish.

The Fisheries Act contains the principle of fleet separation. All boats under 65 feet, if I'm not mistaken, must have either the owner of the boat or the licence holder on board when they're fishing . All boats over 65 feet can fish as they wish.

Currently, given the fact that there is a lot of money to be made in some sectors, crab for example, large corporations are being created through the transfer of assets. That is what is dangerous.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Farrah?

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You're quite interested in habitat, which is perfectly normal since your future depends on it. When you mentioned habitat earlier, you said that it was possible that there could be various fishing activities on the same site, which could have a negative impact on habitat that would go against one of the stated management goals. Could give us some examples? Could you give us more details of what you meant by that?

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: They're going to think that you and I prearranged this, but that is not the case.

Some voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: It's just that I take this with me wherever I go. It is my Bible. You need tools when you defend an issue like that. The document was prepared in 1995 by the FRCC and is entitled A conservation framework for Atlantic lobster. These are recommendations that were presented to the minister at the time. I do not remember which one. They change so often.

It says on page 28 of the French version of the report that to guarantee that resource capital is maintained for the future—two very specific points are made—there must be a sufficient number of eggs laid, so more females, whether they are small or large, must be allowed to lay eggs at least once, and we must protect the quality and number of lobster habitats.

This is what lobster fishers, especially in Quebec did, fortunately for Quebeckers and unfortunately for others in Atlantic Canada.

In 1997, a program was put in place to increase carapace size and to mark large females, which will help increase the number of eggs laid and maintain the lobster stock.

As regards the habitat, Mr. Farrah asked if we had examples of fisheries that are practised to the detriment of others. Yes, we do have examples, mainly in Gaspé-Sud at present: the scallop fishery, in comparison with the lobster fishery, that is practised in the same marine bed, in the same habitats, and in a very inconsistent way. The scallop fishery is destructive because it is done with a trawl, whereas cages, which are very ecological and do not alter the marine bed, are used for lobster fishing.

The federal government is forcing us to enhance our conservation methods, but it will have to look after the habitat and put an end to this damage, which is where the idea came from of buying back scallop licences that are available in the Chaleurs Bay, Mr. Farrah, with the help of crab allocations.

À (1055)

Mr. Jean-François Martel (Alliance des pêcheurs du Québec): I want to add a point on habitat protection. Last fall, on Thanksgiving, we saw large deep-sea seiners from New Brunswick, boats that were 100 feet long and more, seining for haring that was close to the legal size, in mooring areas, in 60 feet of water.

These boats usually fish in water that is more than 25 fathoms deep.

A voice: That is a hundred and twenty-five feet.

Mr. Jean-François Martel: So this is another type of gear that is changing the seabed in this area. You can add to that the otter trawls and the Danish seiners that are in the lobster beds.

Lobster is found in 20 fathoms of water and the surface, to the shore, but there are buffer zones where there may also be scallops and ground fish, where mobile gear of this type is destroying the seabed.

To give you an example, a fleet of four or five scallop fishers side by side is like five plows harrowing a potato field in Prince Edward Island. It's the same. No biodiversity remains in the seabed so that the lobster can use this habitat to procreate and live in peace, like any good Canadian family would like to do at home.

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: He treats me like a lobster!

The federal government's mission must be clear, straightforward and specific, as one of my friends would say. If fishers are asked to move in a specific direction, then the federal government, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, must move in the same direction. If it is not moving in the same direction, it is sending out a message that is unclear.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cloutier and Mr. Martel.

The FRCC report that Mr. Cloutier referred to set out a plan in 1995 for increasing carapace size, etc., over a four- or five-year period--I just forget now. That plan was implemented, and by Minister Anderson. It was a very good plan.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

Gentlemen, are the 4,000 lobster licence holders bona fide licence holders?

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes, they are professionals who hold licences for boats of less than 65 feet, who must be on their boat during their fishing operation. They are called owner-operators. They are also in the Maritime provinces, especially Nova Scotia, part of New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. They are bonafide fishermen, so they hold multiple licences to fish multiple species.

It is a huge pool, if I may use that term, of human resources in the fishery. They represent 4,000 inshore fishermen out of approximately 4,500 licence holders in the entire gulf. If there was a crisis in the lobster fishery, it would be a major disaster, even worse than the cod fishery.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer How many of these lobster licence holders would also hold crab licences?

Á (1100)

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Not very much. There are a few in Nova Scotia and those who were in the small area of Prince Edward Island up until five years ago. I would say that in areas 18 and 19 of Nova Scotia there are perhaps 75 lobster fishermen, and there are approximately 30 fishers in Prince Edward Island, which means at most 115 or 120 lobster licence holders who also have a licence for crab in Area 12 or in the areas adjacent to Area 12. And in the Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands, areas there is no one.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I just want to let you know I agree with you about the protection of the habitat, because that's DFO's main mandate constitutionally--the protection of fish and fish habitat. I thank you for bringing that again to our attention.

You had mentioned the New Brunswick seiners coming into your waters to fish for herring. Do they do that with the permission and under the licence agreement with DFO? DFO obviously is aware they're here. If your concerns are true about the fact that they're doing great damage to our ocean floor, what is DFO saying when you bring these concerns to their attention?

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: This fleet, made of up six fishers from New Brunswick and Newfoundland out of the 5,000 Gulf fishers, as well as the mobile gear fleet, for scallops, towed gear, such as trawls, dredges, otter trawls, Danish seines, seines [Editor's Note: Inaudible], especially those that touch the bottom, have no restriction whatsoever on their licences, in other words, they can go from one inch of water to the other end of the Gulf without any sort of restriction.

This year, in Chaleurs Bay, it was the fishermen themselves, fed up with the situation, who decided to chase those two big boats from New Brunswick. They tried to board them, they shot a video and reported the situation. Because it happened on Thanksgiving weekend and our wonderful federal officers were on vacation, they blew the whistle on Monday morning. They got the DFO from Moncton to go to the plants in New Brunswick where the haring was being processed. They made all that happen. We do some forcing to make sure the DFO does its job. So I do not think the DFO is very aware of the situation, since these are always big boats belonging to big businesses.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, but you brought these to the attention of DFO. What has DFO said in response?

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Since DFO cannot ignore this indefinitely, we were told the department would try to introduce corrective measures for the year 2002. What will those corrective measures be? We have not yet seen them in the advisory committees. Usually those corrective measures are presented at the advisory committee meetings.

To protect those sectors we want restrictions along the coast. We are telling the DFO officials that we want them to restrict the fishers and that type of fishing to a minimum of 25 fathoms along the coast. If the depth is less than 25 fathoms, we think the lobster will be protected because we do not think they go any deeper than that.

That is the solution we suggest. Unfortunately, they are not listening to us for the time being.

[English]

Mr. Jean-François Martel: There are other issues that were brought up: the black boxes--to make sure they're not inside that 25-fathom line; 100 pecent observateurs à bord; dockside monitoring--the ability to make sure that inside the shop you are able to see if there's lobster on the production belt; and minimum size of fish. Take it down from 20 percent to 10 percent, because they have raised many issues because the fish were too small. We're targetting the small fish because for three years there have been difficulties inside the Baie des Chaleurs. The fish are smaller, so we make sure that percentage, 20 percent, is going down to 10 percent. If it is still at 20 percent, we make sure there's a calculation value based on mature fish, that they are so long and of a certain weight. We make sure to calculate whether he took 20 tonnes. We make sure, if that 20 tonnes is worth 40 tonnes, we put 40 tonnes on the quota.

Á (1105)

The Chair: You're saying, then, that DFO has to emphasize habitat protection far more than it has to date.

I know of a similar situation to that you talked about north of P.E.I.--north of Rustico--where the fishermen of the community put the run to the draggers that came in. But you're saying Fisheries and Oceans should be exercising a stronger mandate relative to habitat for the lobster fishery?

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes, indeed, since the lobster licence holders are being asked to make a huge effort that is often very costly, in terms of income, to protect their own species.

That is correct. I think that fishers got the message when the moratorium was imposed on the cod fishery. It's fine for them to make an effort, but if the lobster that remain in the water are not protected and there is massive destruction by other gear or equipment, there is absolutely no point. So the real problem is one of credibility.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to answer Mr. Stouffer's question about the steps to be taken. There is now a new one. I wanted to tell you about it. It is a satellite-linked black box. In Nova Scotia, on the dredges, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans designed—and it exported this technology to Chaleurs Bay, in the Gaspé—a black box system that you install on a boat, as you would on an airplane. It is linked to a satellite and a console. This makes it possible to monitor those who abuse or destroy the environment, by knowing exactly where they are on the water--

Mr. Jean-François Martel: And whether they are meeting the licensing conditions.

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: ...and whether they are meeting the licence conditions.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you for that suggestion.

I had just one last comment. You said the cod fishery is in danger of becoming extinct. We heard a lot about that when we were in Newfoundland--a lot related to seals. Very concisely, what do you believe is the reason, even though the moratorium is in place, the cod fishery does not seem to be coming back? What, from your perspective, is the reason why, and what should be done?

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: To be very honest with you, Mr. Chairman, we feel there are a number of factors we can control and others we can't if we want to protect the species. Obviously, we cannot control things like temperature. We cannot do anything about the water temperature increasing or decreasing by two degrees.

If you take the overabundance of a particular species, which we have been opposing for a number of years, but unfortunately the federal government has turned a deaf ear... For example, we think seals attack big cod. We think that is a controllable factor.

If you take another factor that literally leads to the destruction of a species environment, such as trawling, that is a controllable factor. In my view, all those factors combined result in a dramatic decrease in the number of fish of that species.

Our generation will probably witness the total disappearance of the cod, because the smaller the stock, the more vulnerable it becomes to predators. So the cod moves from being a predator, which it was at the outset, in a strong and healthy stock, to being a prey, because the only ones left are small.

That is where we want to intervene. Let's immediately start to control the factors that we can, and those that we can't--

Á (1110)

[English]

The Chair: We have heard a lot on seals. There has been a seal report. We did a seal report as a committee ourselves some years ago. To a certain extent--I think I am fair in saying this--we believe there are about four million too many seals out there, and we are going to have to deal with the question at some time.

How long are you going to be?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Two seconds.

The Chair: Two seconds you have.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: If they have any documentation that they have provided to DFO regarding habitat protection and any responses, is it possible for them to supply that to the committee at a later date?

[Translation]

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes. I promise I will send them to the committee through Mr. Farrah, since I see him more often than others in my region. He will make sure you get copies.

As for your last question, Mr. Easter, I didn't quite hear it. You wanted to know something about seals.

[English]

The Chair: The committee previously did a report on seals, and there was also some analysis done by DFO in a report as well. I think the estimation is it takes two million seals to have a sustainable seal herd, and there are roughly 6.5 million. That tells me we have over four million too many seals, and that has got to do a phenomenal amount of damage on the fishery. It's not what we are catching; it's what they are eating.

With regard to the capital gains exemption, I want to mention to you that as a rule our recommendations from the committee usually have a 75 percent to 80 percent success with the government. But we did recommend the capital gains exemption at one time in the past on a west coast report, and it was in fact rejected. But that is not to say we can't recommend it again. Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will turn now to the marina group from Rimouski. Mr. Dubé is the president of the executive council. Would you introduce those with you, Mr. Dubé? Thank you for coming, and the floor is yours.

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé (President, Marina de Rimouski-Est): Yes, Mr. Chairman. On my left is Pierre Sansterre, the vice-chairman of the board of directors, and on my right, Roch Banville, a director with special responsibility for relations with Fisheries and Oceans and the transfer of infrastructure, if it occurs.

In presenting our board of directors, the first thing that we must tell you is that our name is the Marina de Rimouski-Est. That is our usual business name. However, the corporation was originally known as the Corporation du Port polyvalent de Rimouski-Est. We feel that it is important to point that out to you here today, in particular because we manage the facilities for various types of boats, not only pleasure craft. Fishing boats use our facilities as well as tour boat operators. A very high proportion of the facilities at the Marina de Rimouski-Est are used by people other than pleasure boat owners, in particular fishers.

I do not know whether the members of the committee know about the infrastructure at the Marina de Rimouski-Est. It is important to realize, first of all, that Fisheries and Oceans owns the basin. Fisheries and Oceans is the owner of all the major docks at the marina. We add our own equipment every year to be able to accommodate more boats. Of course, people use the basin to access the St. Lawrence River.

We have noted certain difficulties in using that equipment. The first problem—and a number of people have pointed this out to us—is that there is a jetty on the east side of the marina that is supposed to shelter the boats that are tied up from the east winds, in particular. People generally agree that the jetty is very inadequate: when there is strong east wind—and God knows that when a northeaster comes up around here, it is not much fun—the waves come into the port and it gets quite choppy around the docks. The boats really get tossed around then. We have even had some breakage.

There is another problem that we would like to raise for the committee. As I mentioned earlier, the facilities belong to Fisheries and Oceans. This equipment is now in a very poor state of repair. Our efforts to get Fisheries and Oceans to do regular repairs have generally met with very limited success, I would say.

They make minor repairs. But a number of people who have inspected the equipment feel that the moorings, which are very old, could well break in a storm or a strong gust of wind.

I would just like you to imagine what would happen if there were 70 or 80 boats tied up to the docks and the whole thing broke and got pushed up against the jetty. There could be considerable damage, especially because people live practically full-time on their boats in the summer, of course. There could also be a risk of loss of life.

In our opinion, this whole facility needs to be fully repaired and put in good working order.

We also want to highlight another problem. For a few years now, a ferry has been running between Rimouski and Forestville. The ferry's home port is Rimouski and it is moored in the same basins used by our boaters. We are talking about a very powerful ship. We are seriously worried that it will ultimately silt up the basin completely, since each time it leaves the wharf it sends out a powerful jet of water that shoots mud into the marina.

It is our users that suffer the consequences, and we do not know to what extent the ferry owner or the company that operates it will be able to repair the damage that is caused over the long term.

I would also like to make one last point to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. For a number of years, there has been talk of transferring infrastructure. We have been dealing with that at the marina for a number of years already. At the beginning, there were negotiations to bring this about. But there has been no progress on this file for several years. We are not hearing anything about it. We do not know what is going on, and our people do not know exactly to expect. This is particularly difficult because the members of the board of directors are all volunteers and we are usually replaced every two years. Every time someone new takes on responsibility for that issue, he or she has to consult an enormous file and ends up realizing, after two or three years, that nothing is happening on that front.

It would be very helpful, in the short-term, if Fisheries and Oceans could let us know what its intentions really are and whether or not this equipment will be transferred and to whom. As a port corporation, we are naturally interested in having it but there is the matter of what conditions would be imposed; that is another question. There is no doubt that the Corporation du Port polyvalent is not interested in acquiring outdated equipment in serious disrepair, which is the case right now.

Á (1115)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen.

We will start with Mr. Roy, then Andy, and then Peter. Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Dubé. Yesterday when we arrived by bus, the committee members saw the Rimouski-East dock. We went by quite quickly, but we did get to see the facilities.

My question deals with the comments that you just made. You say that these facilities belong to Fisheries and Oceans. Unless my information is wrong, it seems clear to me from your presentation that you have a very serious communication problem with Fisheries and Oceans. You are basically telling me that you are not at all informed of what is happening. You do not know where you are going, you are trying to have a relationship with Fisheries and Oceans, and you are not succeeding. Moreover, what you say about the catamaran used in the crossing from Rimouski to Forestville is true: it drastically silts up the wharf. But it has Fisheries and Oceans authorization to do this. Do we understand each other? It is as simple as that.

I think that you have a serious communication problem with Fisheries and Oceans.

Mr. Réjean Dubé: That is true, but the facilities and the basin floor still belong to Fisheries and Oceans.

There is an old rule that says: res perit domino. The owner assumes the losses, but all that we can do is to communicate regularly with the official in charge. In many cases, when repairs are needed, only the urgent ones are done.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: The corporation itself does the repairs.

Mr. Réjean Dubé: No, it is not the corporation, but rather Fisheries and Oceans. We ask them to do certain urgent repairs, where the situation is dangerous. For example, the moorings holding the main docks urgently need to be replaced. There are tons of boats attached to these docks that are held in place only by moorings and chains. The river water is very corrosive—I think that you know that—and this equipment cannot last forever. We have now been told it is more than half worn out.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Usually, if Fisheries and Oceans owns equipment, it evaluates it regularly, unless I am wrong. Mr. Chairman, you have been here longer than I have, but to my knowledge, they evaluate it regularly.

As a corporation, have you seen any kind of evaluation done by Fisheries and Oceans regarding what repairs are currently required and how much Fisheries and Oceans is ready to invest? Let us suppose Fisheries and Oceans has the money—I am not saying that it has—have you seen any kind of evaluation of the cost of the work to be done?

Mr. Réjean Dubé: I will let Mr. Sansterre answer that question.

Mr. Pierre Sansterre (Vice-President, Marina de Rimouski-Est): The official in charge of the file in Rimouski came last year. He noted that some chains were worn to the breaking point. He noted that some of the steel drums used as floats for the pontoons had water leaking into them. When he was asked what he intended to do, he told us that water was leaking into them. As for the chains, he told us that they had not broken yet.

It is difficult for us to do more than just say that it is urgent. He replies that he agrees that it is urgent, but things go no further.

[English]

The Chair: Before you start, Peter, I have a question.

Whose liability would it be from your perspective if an anchor were to break and a boat were to get wrecked?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: The corporation has civil liability insurance for this. Our insurers have told us that if there is an accident, they will obviously pay the cost. But if Fisheries and Oceans is responsible or if the insurers believe that Fisheries and Oceans is responsible, then they will sue Fisheries and Oceans for negligence.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Burton.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm curious as to the management structure of this facility. Do you actually lease it from DFO, or does DFO collect the moorage fees? Do you have a group that collects the moorage fees? How is this facility operated in terms of general overall management?

Á (1120)

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: We give Fisheries and Oceans an annual levy for the use of the equipment. It is a levy, I believe, that amounts to between $3,000 and $5,000 of our budget.

Thus, we are in charge of most of the daily management, which means that we rent space to users. We manage that, and at the end of the year, we pay the levy to Transport Canada and we also pay rent for the use of the basin.

Á (1125)

[English]

Mr. Andy Burton: I see.

The Chair: Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Maybe it's a question of terminology that I don't quite understand. The witness indicated that DFO owns the basin. I don't know what a basin is. I presume it's the area of the river. What about the actual dock, or the wharf, or whatever it's called? Who owns that?

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: In general, to explain this to you... Mr. Roy, you said just now that you had visited some of the infrastructures.

The area we use is the one at the far eastern end of the Rimouski port facilities. By the basin, we mean the part that between the wharf on the west and a stone jetty on the east side. What we call the basin is this area where ships are docked.

Regarding the other aspect, there are Fisheries and Oceans wharves in the facilities we rent or use. There are wooden docks, held up by metal floats. They have a certain shape and what we add are fingers, which are smaller, shorter docks where smaller boats can tie up. That equipment belongs to us. The main docks are anchored and permanent and they belong to Fisheries and Oceans.

Has this made it any clearer?

[English]

Mr. Tom Wappel: Maybe I'll approach it this way. What doesn't belong to DFO?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: It is rather confusing because Fisheries and Oceans built the protective dyke, did the dredging and also manages the northeast part where most fishermen come to dock.

On the other hand, in the part that the marina manages, Fisheries and Oceans owns the docks, the main floating docks, the moorings, and—this is where it gets a bit confusing—the electrical system, the water system, and the small docks belong to the corporation.

We are in charge of the management and maintenance of the water system, the electrical system and the small docks. On the other hand, if something has to be done with the main docks, Fisheries and Oceans must be called in, and this becomes a bit awkward.

As for the dredging problem, since Fisheries and Oceans owns and is responsible for the basin, it is responsible for dredging it.

[English]

Mr. Tom Wappel: What is the name of the person in charge?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: I think his name is Mr. Roy.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Roy?

Mr. Tom Wappel: Another Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: It is another Mr. Roy.

A voice: He is not elected, he is an employee.

[English]

The Chair: He is a bureaucrat, a public servant.

Is it a small craft harbour under the small craft harbours division of DFO? Is there a Transport Canada wharf there as well?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: The entire eastern part, which means everything to the east of the eastern jetty, is managed by Fisheries and Oceans, whereas everything to the west of the eastern jetty is a port managed by Transport Canada. This is a port for merchant ships, whereas the eastern part is reserved more to fishermen, researchers and recreational boaters.

[English]

The Chair: Have there been any discussions with the marina group under the harbours divestitures program of DFO to turn over the harbour to either the marina or the community?

Á (1130)

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: Yes, discussions have already been held for several years. From the start, Fisheries and Oceans has always wanted to hand the marina part over to a municipality.

In Quebec, we went through municipal mergers. Talks had begun with the Rimouski-Est municipality which is now a part of Rimouski. At that time, Rimouski-Est—and Rimouski seems to have similar intentions—was ready to accept the marina under the condition that it would be the legal owner, while we would manage it. Thus we would become tenants. We were asked for reserves and whatever else was needed. They wanted to own it, but they certainly didn't want to pay.

[English]

The Chair: But as part of the harbours divestiture program, if the harbour is to be turned over to a private body or a municipality, that harbour is supposed to be in good repair. Is the problem that the small craft harbours directorate does not want to put the harbour in good repair, or what is it? Why isn't the divestiture taking place? That is what I want to know.

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: I think that is exactly where the dilemma lies. If we look at the marina as it is now, even if there is a program for the divestiture of ports, we wonder whether Fisheries and Oceans really intends to hand it over in its current state because we know that the program requires that ports be handed over in good condition. Currently, things are dragging on and, from year to year, we never really know what to expect from that equipment.

[English]

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Mr. Stoffer, last question.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: To follow up on that, in Nova Scotia the small craft harbours division will look at a wharf and look at the community group that wishes to take it over, come to some arrangement as to how much it would cost to repair or to bring it up to sort of modern-day standard, then the ownership and responsibility of that particular wharf or harbour would fall upon that local community. Are you saying that's not what's happening here?

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: Mr. Stoffer, I've been chairman of the board of the marina for three years now and I've sat on the board for four years. Nothing at all has happened for the past four years. This issue is regularly put on the agenda. We try to take an interest in this file and, as the years go by, nothing at all is done.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Dubé, with your group, have you done a business case plan or a cost analysis of what it would cost to bring up the section we're discussing in Rimouski to sort of a modern-day entity, then to divest it over to yourselves? What would it cost in terms of real dollars to fix it up?

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: Let me give the floor to Mr. Sansterre who knows more about this file.

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: The first steps were taken five or six years ago. That study was done. Fisheries and Oceans even reviewed some docks. Everything seemed to be getting off to a good start. The docks were partially repaired and floated again. Since then, the official in charge of the file has disappeared without a trace and we have had no news. As we said earlier, there is in fact a communication problem. When certain persons are present, everything goes well.

It looks like the files are not being handed over to successors.

Á (1135)

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'm sorry; maybe I didn't communicate that properly. Is there a current business case plan or a cost analysis of what it would cost to fix the wharf in order to turn it over? Is there one now? In other words, how much would it cost to fix it in order to turn it over?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: The cost analysis was performed six or seven years ago. But there is no cost analysis at present, because part of the work performed in the past has to be redone. Much more dredging is needed now. And since there is no indication that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans wants to go ahead--

A voice: How much?

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: We have no assessment of that at present.

Mr. Georges Farrah: How much was it?

Mr. Pierre Sansterre: Approximately three quarters of a million dollars, including dredging.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My final statement would be that from my interpretation--and I would stand corrected, Mr. Chairman--what DFO wants to do is get out of the running and maintenance of harbours, especially small craft harbours. I find it rather puzzling that here's a community group that's wishing to take it over, and yet they seem to be running into some sort of communications stumbling block with DFO. The only thing I can conclude is that it must be fairly expensive for DFO to do that. But on the other hand, if DFO doesn't fix it and turn it over, it's going to cost them that much more to meet their constitutional mandate of protecting that wharf and fixing it up.

The Chair: I just want a further point of clarification. Is this a recreational harbour, the part that is being asked to be turned over here?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Both.

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: That is more or less what I was explaining a few moments ago. Some marina facilities are used by regular fishers who cannot find room along the concrete pier. They use our facilities. Fisheries and Oceans uses the facilities for its research vessels.

There are other reasons as well. As you have probably noted, we built a magnificent dock at Point au sel, which isn't used for anything at all. Most vessels owned by the Maurice Lamontagne Institute dock in our harbour regularly, some of them all summer long. The institute, which is part of the Université du Québec, has its own research vessels. There are not just recreational vessels.

To give you a ballpark figure, pleasure craft account for some 65 percent to 70 percent.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Burton.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thank you.

I'm just curious on sort of a businesslike basis. I think you said you have 70 or 80 boats that use this facility. You charge moorage fees. That obviously generates some revenue. You said at the end of the year you turn the revenue over to DFO. I presume that's less expenses. What do you generate in a year for moorage fees and how much are you turning over to DFO annually?

[Translation]

Mr. Réjean Dubé: As I was saying, we pay an annual levy to Fisheries and Oceans. The levy for our Marina de Rimouski -Est, amount to about 15 percent of our sales figures.

Our marina is a non-profit organization. Our objective from year to year is not to generate profit but to break even. Every year we operate with a little extra so that we can maintain sound management practices, but as a general rule do not make any profit. Our goal is not to generate profits but to make it possible for the facility to continue operating.

To give you a ballpark figure, the marina's annual budget is about $100,000. We are not administering a huge amount of money.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I know of similar cases where we're turning over recreational harbours in Ontario, where there are also problems. This one, as you indicated, seems to be multi-purpose. We will look into it, as well.

I will admit that changing personnel drives a lot of us crazy sometimes. There just seem to be too many acting directors. They're there for a little while, you build a relationship, you think you're going somewhere, and all of a sudden you're dealing with somebody new. It creates a lot of difficulty.

In any event, thank you very much, Mr. Dubé and gentlemen. We will see what we can do with it from here.

The next group is the La Mitis Local Development Centre. Ms. Marquis is the director, and with her, I understand, is the economic development officer of the City of Mont-Joli, Mr. Roy.

The floor is yours. Welcome.

[Translation]

Ms. Annick Marquis (Director, La Mitis Local Development Centre): First of all, before reading our brief, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Fisheries and Oceans and committee members for giving us a chance to share our vision with you. The main theme of our vision is fostering economic development in our region, in tandem with the scientific and technological achievements of the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute.

Allow me to tell you something about our organization. The Local Development Centre of La Mitis is a non-profit organization whose mission is to create jobs within the Regional County Municipality of La Mitis. It serves as a multi-service centre for people, in business or not, who require assistance in implementing their job creation projects. In cooperation with the city of Mont-Joli, our organization recently came up with new ways of creating sustainable jobs in our region, and our appearance here today is part of that initiative.

This short brief—which contains major recommendations—affirms our desire to work closely with the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, which, as you know, is located in Mont-Joli, which is within the La Mitis RCM. We would like to bring several recommendations to your attention.

The purpose of this brief is to introduce you to the idea of public-private partnership, and to highlight the conditions necessary for achieving significant economic benefits, which are enjoyed by other regions in Canada and the United States where prominent research institutes like the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute are located.

Many years ago—1962 in the case of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography—these successful regions adopted a collective approach to regional development and created favorable conditions that led to the synergies required for entrepreneurial development in the marine science sector.

Among other things, leaders suspected that the results of basic research could have significant benefits once they were applied; more discretion was given discretion; private researchers were given access to facilities; and the results of basic research were shared to find commercial applications.

The Quebec maritime region is currently trying to position itself in a similar way. To that end, the Government of Canada—through Canada Economic Development—was involved in implementing the concept of a “maritime research park”, designed to be a collective approach involving all major players in the marine sector in order to contribute to the region's technological development, from research activities to the establishment of innovative, SMEs that would create sustainable jobs. The region of La Mitis and the city of Mont-Joli wish to adopt this approach and, with the scientific and technological contribution of the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, maximize the potential economic benefits flowing from the Institute's research findings.

The Institute was established in Mont-Joli 15 years ago. The region expected a great deal from it. However, it has generated no significant economic benefits. Fisheries and Oceans Canada seems to recognize that the institute was established solely to meet the Department's needs. And yet, we know full well that the institute generates a wealth of ideas and research that could have marketable, viable economic benefits, that represent business opportunities.

Á (1140)

Basically, we would like the institute to follow the example of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography.

We would therefore request that the committee consider the following recommendations: extend the institute's mission to include the concept of private-public partnership with the aim of creating more and more business opportunities; appoint a person from among the Centre's existing management to assume responsibility for the institute's economic spinoffs, and to serve as a resource person and official contact, working closely with the various organizations in the region, and allocate a budget for that purpose; increase discretionary authority to allow implementation of private-sector research programs within the institute; agree to and encourage sharing of the Institute's infrastructure and equipment, like--

Á (1145)

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Marquis, could you slow down a little bit so the interpreter can catch up? Start where you are, that's fine, but simply speak a little slower.

[Translation]

Ms. Annick Marquis: As I was saying: agree to and encourage sharing the institute's infrastructures and equipment, for example, establish a research centre on the institute's property, and thus create the first RD industrial park for marine sciences; finally, create a Maritime Quebec Innovation Fund. In fact, this program would be similar to the Atlantic Innovation Fund, announced and set up by the Prime Minister on June 29, 2000, with a $300 million budget. The goal of the program is to encourage the commercialization of research and development in the marine sciences sector.

In light of these recommendations, we consider that the perspective, not only for our region but for all maritime Quebec, could be to encourage Quebec, Canadian and international businesses to set up partnerships with various regional stakeholders and encourage new business projects. Furthermore, these recommendations might allow the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute itself to create the environment needed to retain expertise and meet its current and future recruitment needs.

That completes my presentation.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Starting with Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I was at the opening of the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute. It was some time ago, but I actively participated in its creation. I am very surprised to hear what you have to say now. I must point out that I have not followed what has happened since. It was all some time ago.

Basically, what you are telling us is that things have not changed. The Maurice-Lamontagne Institute is still a completely closed and isolated shop that has almost no contact with most people in the area, and is not even buying locally. That's more or less what you are saying, is it not?

Ms. Annick Marquis: That's correct.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What you would like to see, with the development that has happened at the Université du Québec à Rimouski, for example, and the INRS-Océanologie, etc., and with the announcement concerning the new marine research park, is the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute showing more openness to the community, and perhaps even allowing private researchers and those from the Université du Québec à Rimouski to do research there. That seems to be what you are saying. At the same time, you wish this would allow for the creation of businesses in this sector that could, at the very least, continue the work that is presently being done at the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, which is not happening at all at the moment.

Ms. Annick Marquis: That is exactly right. You have understood completely.

Mr. Nicolas Roy (Economic Development Officer, City of Mont-Joli, Centre local de développement de La Mitis): I would like to add to that. Presently, the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute has 32 hectares of land. The way we see the positioning of the marine research park is that Rimouski has within its boundaries, the ISMR, the Université du Québec à Rimouski and the marine research park as such. According to the latest news, a marine biotechnology research centre will soon be built here as well.

What we want to see, and what we're asking for in the brief, is for the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute to have someone, internally, who is responsible for make the connection between the basic research and possible applications in terms of commercializing and manufacturing products. That person could be in touch with us; we are responsible for socio-economic development in La Mitis. We could put that person in touch with researchers from the private sector, stakeholders or potential developers.

Moreover, if the surplus land belonging to the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute were used to set up a kind of industrial research and development park, for example, in marine sciences, the economic spin offs and job creation could give rise to a growing pool of workers and researchers here in La Mitis region and more specifically at the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, which would serve the MLI's recruitment interests at the same time.

Á (1150)

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask just one more question.

You have said a lot about the institute in Bedford. Do you have any sort of assessment of the impact that institute has had in its area? I'm not referring to the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute; I'm talking about the one in Bedford. Do you have any sort of assessment of the economic impact it has had over the years, from the city or the region where it is situated?

For example, could you state that the Bedford Institute, through its synergy, has created 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 jobs in its area over the years? Perhaps not as many as that, but nevertheless...

Ms. Anick Marquis: I could not give you a number. What we do know, however, thanks to our contacts at Bedford, is that concretely, an industrial park was indeed built around the Bedford Institute.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Thanks to the openness of the people at the institute!

Ms. Anick Marquis: Thanks to their openness. That's right.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Merci. Thank you.

What role or what advice or indication has the Province of Quebec given to this proposal?

[Translation]

Ms. Anick Marquis: In fact, this is our initiative. We have not received any particular direction from our government concerning...

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I understand that, but is the Province of Quebec interested in this proposal? Are they willing to assist financially in any way, or to bring your concerns to the federal government as well?

[Translation]

Ms. Anick Marquis: Absolutely. Currently, as you know, the government of Quebec is in the process of perfecting a strategy to create what we call niches of excellence. And one of the niches of excellence for this region would be marine sciences. Therefore funds have been earmarked, and the biotechnology research centre, amongst others, was funded in relation to this niche of excellence.

Therefore, there is money available from the Quebec government, and our region is part of the regional development strategy.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My last question. How much money are we discussing, or that you would require, in order to facilitate the concerns you've expressed here today?

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Roy has the floor.

Mr. Nicolas Roy: As you saw in Ms. Marquis' brief, we have taken the Atlantic Innovation Fund as a model. Without giving a dollar amount, we want to establish a correlation between maritime Quebec, including, amongst other regions, the North Shore, the Lower St. Lawrence and the Gaspé regions, and other regions. There are a lot of similarities with Atlantic Quebec: an unemployment rate that is higher than the national average; a small market; a small population. Therefore, we must turn often to exports and technological innovation in order to create new business opportunities.

We see the model of the Atlantic Innovation Fund as an opportunity for us to create a kind of Quebec maritime innovation fund that is somewhat similar, with the same goals, that is to say to ensure that ideas become commercial realities.

We want to ensure that scientific concepts that are born of research between the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute, the Université du Québec à Rimouski and the industry, with the assistance of the Canadian government, can become a driving force in job creation in our region.

For example, the Atlantic Innovation Fund is a $300 million fund over five years. So it is not necessarily only the fund that will ensure that new projects will be launched, because that is not enough money over five years. On the other hand, it is presently the necessary financial leverage to ensure that projects develop in collaboration with the active players in the area.

Á (1155)

Ms. Anick Marquis: To answer your question more specifically, as regards the Quebec government, these are not major funds. We are talking about small amounts, a maximum of $2 million or $3 million, that are distributed around several regions in Quebec.

This is why we are recommending that the Canadian government also set up a similar fund, that could be called The Maritime Quebec Innovation Fund.

[English]

The Chair: I'm quite familiar with the Atlantic Innovation Fund as I was on the committee that developed it. But do you not now do some of this innovation through the Quebec regional development agency?

[Translation]

Mr. Nicolas Roy: At Economic Development Canada, there is a program, which is called Idées PME. This is a very broad program which provides funding for some research and development programs.

However, the beauty of the Atlantic Innovation Fund is that it is geared to marine biotechnology and oceanographic research and development. Consequently, this is the type of position that we want to develop on this issue. However, this is somewhat in addition to the main purpose of this fund, which is to provide some support for the development of a park around the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne.

[English]

The Chair: Are you talking about a soft industrial park in terms of biotechnology, or what exactly? And would you then partner with other institutions throughout either the Quebec or the maritime region? Is that what I'm hearing?

[Translation]

Mr. Nicolas Roy: It might well end up being like that. If the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne shows some resolve in this direction and if there is an official willing to look at this opportunity, the first step would be to assess the results of research, which could potentially be used in the private sector or in industry in general. Once this assessment has been completed, the community of La Mitis, in cooperation with the local development centre, the SADC, the city of Mont-Joli and other stakeholders or even regional bodies would be in a position to put the issue in the hands of the maritime industrial park—because it goes without saying that we do not want to duplicate existing bodies— which already has the authority to look for promoters.

Consequently, if the existing industrial park deals with rooting out prospective promoters, who would be interested in setting up in the region, at the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, in cooperation with the Quebec government, the Université du Québec at Rimouski or even other research centres such as the one at Bedford, and if these people attempted to develop biotechnology projects or projects that would be used for other applications, such as navigation, cartography or smart buoys... There is a salt water pumping station at the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, which might be of potential interest to aquariums or salt water therapy centres, to name but a few. The research done at the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne could potentially have commercial applications.

[English]

The Chair: Okay.

Are there any other questions?

Thank you very much for your presentation. We'll certainly take it under advisement.

I will say this. The Atlantic Innovation Fund in Atlantic Canada is actually just starting to roll out. That's been there for quite a while. It's been a long while getting projects together, but it is a very good fund.

Thank you very much, committee. We'll take a 10-minute break and then come back to order.

Thank you once again.

Á (1156)

Â (1216)

Â (1220)

The Chair: Welcome, gentlemen, from the University of Quebec in Rimouski.

Just as a matter of procedure, we have a submission and it is only in the one language. I don't assume there's a problem with distributing that.

Welcome. I understand you're going to be talking about the aquaculture in Norway, and if you have something else on your mind you're welcome to talk about that as well. Madame Tremblay has mentioned a number of times that we should hear from you people on aquaculture in Norway. So we certainly welcome this opportunity to be here and to hear your presentation. I'm not sure who is leading it off.

Mr. Michaud, if you would introduce the people with you, the floor is yours.

[Translation]

Professor Jean-Claude Michaud (Department of Economics and Management, University of Quebec in Rimouski): Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I would first like to introduce my colleagues from the Université du Québec at Rimouski. To my left is Marcel Lévesque, a Professor of Finance, and an expert in regional development strategies. To my immediate right is Claude Rioux, Economist and Director of the Master's in Maritime Resource Management Program. To my far right is Pierre Blier, Biologist and Director of the Department of Biology at the Université du Québec in Rimouski. We are part of a team of economists, biologists and management experts conducting research mainly on maritime resource development and more particularly, on the development of aquaculture in maritime regions of Quebec.

We would firstly like to thank you for inviting us here today. We accepted your invitation to meet with you with great pleasure. We want to talk to you today a bit about the experience of Norway. I say “a bit”, because given that there are time constraints, we will stick to specific points.

I would also like to recognize two Moroccan professors who are here today from the Institut supérieur d'études maritimes. They are currently here in Canada to participate in a CIDA-funded project. The Université du Québec at Rimouski and CIDA have developed an agreement to share our experiences in Canada, Quebec and in Rimouski in terms of maritime resources. I would also like to point out that the CIDA maritime bursary program provides funding for approximately 10 students per year to come to study in Rimouski. These students come from Sub-Saharan Africa, from North Africa and also from Latin America.

I would now like to come to the main points that we wanted to make on aquaculture and the economic vitality of coastal areas in Norway.

The growth of Norwegian agriculture is part of a regional development-based approach, which is fundamentally geared to enabling people who live on the northern and southern coastal areas of the country to remain there. Between 30 and 35 years of regional development has meant that of a total population of 4.6 million, only 10 per cent live in the capital and the second largest city in Norway has a population of only some 225,000 people.

The population of Norway is spread throughout the country from the south to the north, and right into the Lapp regions. There are cities of varying sizes, ranging from 20,000, to 40,000, to 60,000 or even 75,000 people. This situation is a complete reversal of the Quebec experience. According to the most recent 2001 census, 50 per cent of Quebec's population is concentrated in Montreal. We have experienced an ongoing decline in the population of maritime regions such as the Gaspé, the Magdalen Islands and the North Shore.

A further sign of the Norwegian policy is that—after much hesitation and a good 10 years of debate—the government has decided to set up a university specializing in fisheries and aquaculture in the city of Tromsø.

When you look at the results of this type of policy and the creation of an aquaculture and fisheries institute on the very campus of the University of Tromsø, 30 years on, you can see just what a marvellous success this has been. The population of the city of Tromsø has risen from 30,000 to 60,000 people. The number of students has increased fifteen-fold over the same period and the number of scientists in all disciplines now stands at 600.

If you compare this with what has taken place in Quebec and if you look at the results of the creation of the Université du Québec at Rimouski in the city of Rimouski, you can see that the population of the city has not experienced the same boom and the number of researchers has not reached Tromsø levels.

The Norwegian government has taken proactive steps, in cooperation with its partners, to develop a consistent and comprehensive approach to fisheries and aquaculture. I do not want to overwhelm you with statistics, but I would like to give you just a few figures, however.

In 1970, aquaculture did not exist in Norway. There was no aquaculture industry at that time. The Norwegian government at that time decided to use the salmon as a prototype. It based its decision broadly on the North American, more specifically the Canadian, experience. When we talked to Norwegians about the work that they have done with the salmon, they very often tease us Canadians. They point out that we do indeed have very good natural science experts, but that in terms of moving to the commercial stage of the operation, we haven't quite got it right. They have tapped into and continue to build on our scientific knowledge. They work closely with Canadian researchers. Once again, the only difference is that they have been able to use this knowledge with very profitable commercial results.

In terms of salmon production, Norway produces over 425,000 tonnes, which is exported almost everywhere in the world. There are approximately 3,000 potential salmon farming sites. These range from the Agder coast in the south of Norway to Finnmark in the north and even Lapland. The Norwegians have created 4,000 direct jobs and 16,000 indirect jobs. The jobs have been created in the food and equipment manufacturing industries for example. An entire food industry has developed over the years. Jobs have also been created in the transport and marketing industries.

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In 1999, the value of aquaculture caught up with capture fisheries. Don't forget, Norway's capture fisheries amount to three million tonnes. In total, Norway now produces about 500,000 tonnes of farmed salmon, trout and so on. There are 650 plants across the country, for a total of 13,500 person-years. That is an indication of quite impressive success.

When you look at the strategies of Norwegian firms, you can certainly say that these are aquaculture multinationals. You can find them in Scotland, Chile and now even Asia. They have become the multinationals of this industry.

Efforts have been made for other species: salmonid, shell fish, and also for purely salt water fish like wolffish, Atlantic halibut and even cod.

In a recent report, the Norwegians, despite the success they have already had, identified aquaculture as an industry with very high development potential. So they hope to significantly step up production of various species in the coming 10 or 15 years.

When you look at the coastal regions and areas, you see that the industry is highly integrated into the regional economies, to the extent that we were recently told that no one would dare question aquacultural development in any way anymore. For example, when environmental problems crop up, discussions are held with the Department of the Environment in order to come up with the best solutions, such that production is maintained and can be increased in the future.

That being the case, in Canada, unfortunately, we are not at all at that point in various regions. Just think back to the debate last fall on the northeast shore of New Brunswick, where there was a dispute between oyster producers and coastal residents.

How can we achieve similar results? That is the question we have attempted to examine. One of the first things that stands out is the need for long-term vision, i.e. patience. For example, in 1970, salmon production was nil. It took a good 12 years to produce results. To get off the ground, brood stock were taken from 51 rivers from all across Norway in order to have a very solid genetic base from which to choose. This work is still going on today. They did not just do it once. They do it continuously in order to select very high yield brood stock.

They obviously also dealt with the nutrition problem. One of the interesting things about that is that in 1990, Norwegian government experts, from the Department of Fisheries in particular, said they were heading for a feeding problem. It had to do with farmed fish and fish who prey on them. You cannot feed them alfalfa; they require animal protein. So there was an impending shortage of feed for fish farms.

They set up a research program, which will last until 2010. When you talk about long-term vision, that means being able to work on problems over very long periods of time. Here, it is hard to go beyond three or four years when you plan a project. Even when you talk about genetic selection, some people have trouble understanding that we cannot go faster than the species' reproduction cycle. If a species of fish takes three years to reach sexual maturity, it is going to take a dozen years to produce three generations.

Wolffish is another example of patience. About seven years ago, they began investing in the development of wolffish farming. Over $7 million later, they are still only at the pre-commercial stage. That does not prevent them from continuing to work, particularly on genetic selection problems. In comparison, what we are doing in Canada and particularly in Quebec is very modest.

The third element is organizational research and development. That is an important element. It is one thing to have money, but that money has to be well spent. Over time, substantial sums have been invested in research and development in order to achieve meaningful aquacultural activity. Over the years, tens of millions of dollars have been spent per year. Even today, tens of millions of dollars are invested annually. When a country that already fishes much more than us is so concerned about aquacultural development, we should definitely take a lesson from that.

In terms of research and development, decentralization and the relatively minor research role played by the Department of Fisheries are noteworthy. Research and development is done by a number of public and private institutions, such as the Tromsø Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Aquacultural Research Institute located near Oslo, the University of Tromsø Nutrition Institute, which was mentioned earlier, and the Bergen Marine Resources Institute.

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The department sets the research priorities. It provides the budgets of the institutes, the Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund and the Norwegian Research Council, which is more or less equivalent to a combination of our Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The council plays an important role and must place great emphasis on applied research geared toward industrial development. Departments fund the council, and the budgets are divided up among eight areas, for example, an aquaculture program to develop a technological and professional base with a view to producing marketable aquatic organisms in a way that is environmentally and resource-use friendly.

The operative objectives are the following: to acquire the necessary knowledge for the development of salmon culture through the assimilation of farming methods; to create the necessary technology for commercial production of marine species through adequate knowledge of the biology of the species involved and their specific needs in a farm setting. The program is thus divided into eight sub-programs, including animal health, nutrition, and of course genetics.

The council directs both basic and applied research through four policy tools: research programs, independent projects, infrastructure and scholarships. At the University of Tromsø, we met students who had left Oslo to go study in Tromsø with the money they needed to pursue their studies without financial worries. The planning extends over periods of 5 to 10 years and is geared toward commercial development.

The Norwegian Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture has even more immediate goals in terms of industrial benefits. Its primary mandate is to do research and development for the fisheries and aquaculture industry; it has to promote and disseminate research findings and knowledge among the industry and the public, and advise public officials on various aspects of fisheries and aquaculture. It has a staff of about 100 people, most of whom, incidentally, are researchers. We were quite impressed by the fact that you do not see a lot of administrative personnel in the Norwegian institutes. The institute is a centre for technological transfer, a biotechnology lab and an aquacultural research station.

In terms of its legal structure, the institute is a mixed enterprise, where even the University of Tromsø plays an active role; the university is in fact a partner of the institute.

The private sector is not left out. Akvaplan-niva, a private group that initiates and uses aquacultural research and development projects, has a budget of $5 million. Among other things, it directs sea farming projects.

These close links between the institutions and the private sector, combined with industrial and regional development concerns, has produced extremely positive results.

Now, with the arrival of marine biotechnologies, the development opportunities for coastal regions have just increased. With aquaculture, the more traditional processing of marine products and marine biotechnologies, the coastal regions of Norway find themselves in the mainstream of the knowledge economy.

In conclusion, there are four elements. First, you need clear long-term goals. Once again, patience is key. You have to keep hammering away at the same nail for a good many years. Second, you need organizations that complement one another and that have appropriate budgets. Third, you need to have coordination and cooperation mechanisms to make sure research programs are sustainable and remain on course. Research and development also has to be decentralized, away from the large urban centres, in fields that deeply affect the development of maritime regions.

Despite the presence of UQAR in the maritime regions, it is still hard to take research out of the major centres—Quebec City and Montreal—particularly in new fields such as marine biotechnologies.

Given the current situation with respect to the development of Quebec's maritime regions and problems with the fisheries, public organizations involved in maritime regions need to concentrate their efforts on the same goal: contributing to regional development through the establishment of a meaningful sea farming industry. We will not have concrete results without more money and more human resources.

Thank you for our attention. If you have any questions, I will ask my colleagues to respond if necessary.

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[English]

The Chair: Thanks very much, Mr. Michaud.

I would like to make note that Mr. Stoffer and I were in Norway and looked at their aquaculture industry approximately four years ago now. A number of us from the fisheries committee of that day went to Scotland and Norway to look at their aquaculture industry.

Monsieur Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In your conclusion, you said that we needed a coordination and consultation mechanism to ensure the viability of research programs and, in particular, to stay the course. I would like you to clarify what you mean by this.

What kind of organization are we talking about? Would it be an organization comprised of many different organizations? For instance, could the University of Quebec, along with other institutions, do the follow-up work and, in particular, as you said, stay the course as regards the objective we are trying to achieve?

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Professor Marcel Lévesque (Department of Economics and Management, Université du Québec in Rimouski): In fact, what we have observed is relatively simple. It is a very flattened structure and therefore the decision-making levels are very close to the operational levels. This structure is very focused on industrial development. As an example, the Department of Fisheries, in cooperation with the National Research Council and the universities and research institutes, come up with a plan. So there are always steering committees. Let's use the aquaculture committee as an example. Ten people sit on this committee and they represent the entire sector, including research units, the research institutes, the universities, the processors, the aquaculturists, etc. In addition, as we mentioned earlier, the various institutes have representatives from the sectors of nutrition, genetics and so on and so forth.

These people define a strategic research and development plan. These institutes define a type of strategic development plan for research, and the various groups work together to ensure that the strategy is carried out in a coordinated fashion.

In practical terms, that would mean a committee comprising all stakeholders, which would define the objectives and coordinate their application with a long-term vision focusing on industrial development.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I have a second question. This morning, witnesses complained that it was practically impossible to have any type of relationship with the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute. I see you are smiling.

I know that the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute has a very special mandate. Would it be possible to broaden this mandate to enhance your relationship with it, particularly as regards the type of research and development that you do, namely applied research as opposed to basic research?

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: That is a very good question. Moreover, during our trip, we saw this same scenario in Norway.

Indeed, the mandate of the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute pertains to what we refer to as marine science. We could, to some extent, describe this mandate as being a societal mandate. So its mandate is to ensure the preservation of both the research and habitat, etc.

We were told, when we were at Fiskeriforskning, the aquaculture institute in Tromsø, that this approach was virtually incompatible with the institute's mandate. Moreover, there were plans to transfer this part of the institute's mandate to the Norwegian institute, which would do marine science.

So there is a cultural problem between societal mandates and industrial mandates. They just about came out and told us that this was not a very good fit with their type of activities and created internal problems. Plans are therefore underway to transfer the marine science mandate, the societal mandate, from the institute.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: To Norway.

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: Yes, to Norway. I'm talking to you about the Norwegian example. That is why your comment is very timely.

We did observe that there was a cultural problem. So it's not easy. Moreover, the facilities set up in Norway are private. The industrial research facilities are holding companies which, in many cases, are owned by the universities, departments and so on and so forth. Their purpose is to promote industrial development whereas the marine science institute is a government organization and is accountable to the department.

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I'd like to ask a last question. What should we do to reach that goal? This is a good question, isn't it? Mr. Michaud said earlier that we needed a lot of patience. For how many years will we need to be patient before we get anything concrete done?

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Prof. Marcel Lévesque: I can only answer that if we do not start, we will never get there.

Professor Pierre Blier (Department of Biology, Chemistry and Health Sciences, Université du Québec in Rimouski): Here, in Quebec, we try to come up with an integrated approach regarding research. I will come back a little later on to your question regarding the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne and I'll elaborate.

I think it would be very hard to get researchers, who have a culture of applied research, to completely change course and to focus on strictly applied research regarding economic development. It's an issue of culture.

Various attempts have been made with Fisheries and Oceans, but it's not an easy task. The funding structure for targeted research in DFO is extremely heavy. I have been cooperating with Fisheries and Oceans for quite a few years now and even today, we have problems regarding the funding structure.

To come back to your other question, an attempt was made to come up with an integrated approach, and I think it was a good effort, through a competition sponsored by the Department of Research, Science and Technology in Quebec, the MRST, which funded VRQ projects, Valorisation-Recherche Québec projects. The project that had been put forward was a structuring project involving not only research expertise, but also business and management expertise, that is people from the business sector, such as the Société de développement de l'industrie maricole, producers, representatives from various levels of government, in order to define the medium and long-term research objectives, and to obtain the resources necessary to reach those goals.

This initiative could have been quite interesting. Unfortunately, VRQ works on a competition basis. The requests presented totalled some $130 million whereas the budget available was $70 million. So only some projects could be selected, and those coming from the regions were set aside and those that were selected came mainly from the major research centres, Montreal and Quebec, and also Sherbrooke.

[English]

The Chair: We're not finding that difference in many of the outlying regions. The University of Montreal, McGill, and the University of Toronto have a similar pattern. We're well aware of it.

Did you want to make a comment, Mr. Rioux?

[Translation]

Professor Claude Rioux (Department of Economics and Management, Université du Québec in Rimouski): I'll give you an example of things that are already happening simply because of the good will of those involved, things that deserve to be studied more closely and could have a major impact on coordination and applied research in some fields.

I am thinking of the initiative taken by the office of Fisheries and Oceans in Moncton. Several times, and in fact again last Friday, the regional office successfully requested the creation of a very informal researchers' network in the south of the gulf. Last Friday, the members of that network—in that setting, Rimouski is part of the south of the gulf—were invited to meet to define research priorities in various fields, including aquaculture.

A major part of this initiative goes back a long way, and followed an indirect route. It is the result of a cooperation effort and a symposium in which UQAR, the Université du Québec at Rimouski, Moncton University and Fisheries and Oceans in Moncton participated. Some relationships were created. It is very informal. Unfortunately, I was not able to participate, because I was already attending another meeting of Fisheries and Oceans in Baie-Comeau. Would it not be possible to make this approach somewhat more formal, so that it could have more impact and recognition, and focus more concretely on research and development?

It exists. It's possible. It's being done. There's good will on all sides. All we need, perhaps, is that small spark and maybe a bit of awareness of the time necessary for something to actually happen. However another aspect should not be forgotten. We are economists, but we are also able to speak to biologists. If we want to do research and development, it must be done in cooperation from the very start. Unfortunately, we're not very numerous in that field. I just wanted to give you that added information.

Â (1250)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Burton.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On a slightly different topic, what's the experience in Norway concerning your relationship between the commercial fishermen of the wild stocks and the aquaculture industry as a whole? I'm from the west coast, and there's a lot of controversy over those issues right now. Aquaculture is in its very formative stages really on the west coast, although there are some instances.... There have been some problems with relationships. What's the experience in Norway?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: We have not really studied this issue. However, we have asked some questions. I think that the answer can be found in the comment we made earlier. In Norway, aquaculture is recognized as an economic activity in and of itself. When there is a problem in a zone, no one will ask if aquaculturists have the right to be there. The question will never be asked. The question is how to solve the problem. For example, there is the issue of waste.

I must admit that the comments we have heard made us aware of the fact that industry is also quite aware of the environmental problem. As we said earlier, it is involved in finding long-term solutions to the problem. It anticipates problems and tries to find solutions.

There was a specific case; I think it was in 1994, there was a disease outbreak and there could have been contamination. The government decided to stop all sales of salmon in the industry. If you look at statistics, you will notice that Norway did not sell any salmon that year. They decided they had to solve the problem and that once that was done, they would resume their sales. This was a difficult period, it hurt, but the industry survived.

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud: I'd like to add that the same thing happened with the use of antibiotics. At one time, it would seem that antibiotics were used left, right and centre, and the government intervened to regulate the use of antibiotics by the industry. Today, very few antibiotics are used on fish farms, and only when it's absolutely necessary. If I remember correctly, the use of antibiotics has gone down by 90 percent. This can be done with the cooperation of the industry.

The other aspect is technological research.Biological research is not the only avenue to findings ways to control production processes. There's also technological research. Environmental problems are solved through the improvement of farming technologies. These are the two areas on which they work at the same time, in cooperation with the Environment Department, in order to solve all the environmental problems that could arise.

[English]

Mr. Andy Burton: I have one more quick question, again on a slightly different topic. You mentioned that these Atlantic salmon, or some of these fish that are being farmed, require animal protein for feed. I wonder what kind of research has been done into using seal meat. We've heard that suggestion. Have you done any research? Is there any credence to that suggestion?

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: I don't think they do a lot of research on that. I don't see any real benefit at present from doing research into the potential use of marine mammal proteins. The main thing to be avoided—I am speaking intuitively, spontaneously, off the cuff—is contamination, transfer problems such as prions, which come from using animal meal with organisms that are not adapted to using this type of protein.

In any event, the main problem with using fish protein is really the volume. Globally, the current challenge is to come up with alternatives to fish proteins. The availability of fish meal is expected not only to level off, but in fact to decline. Currently, the Norwegians are trying to find other protein sources, such as vegetable proteins and bacterial source proteins. It is a universal problem for the aquaculture industry.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Burton.

Mr. Wappel.

Â (1255)

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentation, professors.

I want to zero in on your fourth recommendation, which I find a little bit problematic. Norway is a country, and your comparison is between Norway, the country, and Quebec, the province. I think that's an unfair comparison.

I'm from the province of Ontario. We have aquaculture there. We'd like to have more aquaculture there. But how do you try to implement your fourth suggestion where the reality is so unlike Norway? The capital city of the nation has a large population, comparatively speaking. Certainly the city I'm from, Toronto, has a gigantic population in comparison, as well as Montreal, Vancouver, these large centres. We also don't have quite the same geography.

It's true, we have three oceans, but in a much larger sense than the strip Norway has. I wonder how you would recommend this decentralization, in effect, of research and development.

I know the University of Toronto and the various other universities in Ontario would be fighting for every dollar they could get, and they're going to be wanting to attract as many high-quality professors as they can. There's a lot that the larger cities can offer that the smaller cities can't.

So I'm interested in, perhaps from the economist, some comment on that, on how you would see Canada implementing in particular the fourth recommendation you have made.

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: I will give you a rather straightforward and intuitive answer.

The idea is not to use the available resources in the major centres. Clearly, in the major centres, there are significant resources that have to be taken advantage of in terms of research and development potential. I am thinking, for example, of biotechnology in the Montreal area or the pharmaceutical industry. I think this is a good opportunity, in terms of aquacultural development potential, to link animal biomass production with their development potential for biotechnology in the pharmaceutical and neutraceutical industries. We obviously have to give it a try. Capitalizing on the significant potential in the major centres is part of the networking strategy we have to try to define.

However, I think it is clear we have to make sure the aquaculture research centres, the agricultural research leaders, those who are going to be involved in the research and who are going to structure the networking, are in the regions with direct benefits to gain from the networking and the research in terms of economic development.

What I am getting at is that the Université du Québec at Rimouski clearly has more to gain politically and regionally from the development of the marine aquaculture industry than, for example, the Université de Montréal, where this will always remain, I imagine, a minor area in terms of research and teaching development potential.

In the regions, the motivation is not just scientific, but also economic, and that is important. In addition, the main potential users of these developments—aquaculturists and fishermen—are nearby.

I don't know whether that answers your question, but clearly we do need to use the resources available in the major centres too. It is all about synergy.

· (1300)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Michaud.

[Translation]

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud: I would like to add something to what my colleague, Pierre, just said.

I am managing a project involving the Université du Québec at Rimouski and the Department of Agriculture. It is a three-year, approximately $1 million project. We specifically aim to put researchers in Rimouski, the Gaspé, Grande-Rivière and the Magdalen Islands. We have just hired a researcher for the Magdalen Islands; we recruited him in Louisiana. He is an Italian who had become a Canadian resident. He had not found work here and decided to go to Louisiana for three years.

We had this project and were looking for someone qualified. We contacted him, and he in fact agreed to come to the Magdalen Islands to work on aquaculture development. With money and good structures, you can attract good researchers. The researcher in question is connected with researchers from here, MLI researchers, from Montreal and even with American researchers. With the arrival of someone like him, this is how the network is created. We can produce results, but once again, only with the right budgets, the right structures and decentralization of research and development in very specific fields, into regions where that is the core economic activity.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

I have a question related to this as well. Do you have any connection with the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown? They also do a lot of work on aquaculture, veterinarian nutrition, etc.

Mr. Rioux.

[Translation]

Prof. Claude Rioux: To complete what my colleagues have just said about decentralizing research, there are three key words: decentralization, coordination and complementarity. Clearly, we in Rimouski are not going to do exactly the same things the University of Toronto or the Université de Montréal is doing, but we can do things that will complement what they are doing and that will be of some use to the region, as my colleague, Pierre Blier, was saying.

While we are on the topic of research and development, let's not forget about applied research. What is the concrete problem we are trying to solve? If researchers want to do more basic research, they will, but let's start by solving concrete problems, in the coastal areas of Quebec and not necessarily in the Toronto area. Those are the problems we can begin to solve, and I think that research and finding solutions, I hope, will complement what other researchers are doing in this field. That is how we can both encourage some decentralization of the research and have an impact on the development of coastal regions.

Perhaps Pierre would like to answer the question on the college in Charlottetown.

Prof. Pierre Blier: Actually, the Université du Québec at Rimouski is a relatively young institution, with several young professors.

So the networks are still taking shape. We are, of course, looking as far and wide as possible within Canada to identify resources that will be of benefit to us, that will help us and that we might be able to build on.

We are working with people from Newfoundland. We are starting to work with people from Vancouver and from the University of Guelph, and we also work with people within the province. We are involved in a number of joint efforts. We do not limit ourselves to this province when it comes to potential cooperation. The networking involves all Canadian resources, which are recognized, as my colleague, Mr. Michaud, was saying, in a number of areas. For example, the University of Guelph is an internationally recognized centre for fish genetics.

What the Norwegians find amusing is that in Canada, we manage to have such highly skilled and recognized centres without using them for economic development. The Norwegians used knowledge developed by their colleagues at Guelph and their cooperation to set up large-scale selection programs to produce better salmon lines, in terms of productivity, than you can currently get on the international market.

· (1305)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your presentation.

This is the second time in our tour that we've heard good news about what CIDA does in order to bring people from other countries to learn. I notice two women are here from Morocco, working with them. I think that's a good thing CIDA's doing, in that regard. It's nice to know that some of our tax dollars are being spent in a proper way.

Have you had a chance, gentlemen, to bring this presentation to the commissioner of aquaculture, Mr. Yves Bastien? If you have, what was his response; and if you haven't, why haven't you?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: I think I will answer; I know Mr. Bastien very well personally. In fact, he was in Norway about 10 months before us. At one point, we actually followed in his footsteps for a while. We were told that [Editor's Note: Inaudible]--

To answer your question, I would say we did not feel the need to present him with information he had already gathered. In addition, our interest was somewhat different, in that we were particularly interested in the organization or research and development, specifically with respect to a species called wolffish. We wanted to know what progress Norwegian researchers had made in that area.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In that regard, have you had a chance, previous or now, to present your concerns to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the previous one, Mr. Dhaliwal, or the current one, Mr. Thibault?

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: No.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Secondly, have you applied in any way, shape, or form to Industry Canada under the Technology Partnerships program? About one-point-something billion dollars has gone to various industries throughout the country to promote new technologies. The BlackBerry is one. But would this type of program fall under that type of application for funding? Have you had a chance to do that?

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: No.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Secondly, as you know, in parts of Prince Edward Island and in other areas they have been experimenting with genetically modified fish. Many people within the aquaculture industry say they want nothing to do with genetically modified fish. Is that your position as well? Do you want to enhance the salmon to create economic opportunity, but not necessarily participate in any kind of study that involves genetically engineered or genetically modified fish?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: To my knowledge, we are not currently interested in creating genetically modified fish of any kind.

We have studied genetically modified salmon; we worked with Bob Devlin's team in Vancouver, but to study genetically modified salmon as an animal model, to study the physiology of growth and nutrition. We are not at all interested.

The genetic programs that interest us are the standard, classic line selection programs, a bit like we have been doing for 2,000 years with sheep and cattle to improve performance through repeated crossing. Standard selection, in other words.

· (1310)

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Your organization has been involved in this research. Have you studied the Chilean experience in terms of what they're doing in aquaculture? Further to that, in terms of discussions you've had with people within the department, there is a gentleman, and you may know his name, David Rideout, who is the head of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance. Have you had meetings with him to discuss your concerns?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: Last year, I went to Chile for a two-week mission to observe aquaculture development there. I think what I have to say goes back to Mr. Wappel's previous questions. In Quebec, we are not interested in salmon. Norway is already a huge producer; Chile is a producer too. This year, I believe Norway will produce 500,000 metric tonnes of salmon. Chile is heading for production of about 600,000 metric tonnes. Currently, in the industry, there is actually an overproduction of salmon.

What we are seeking—and I think this goes back to your question—in terms of industrial research is a niche, but not a niche that will compete with other research centres in Ontario, for example, or elsewhere. It is applied research. For example, I was saying earlier that we are interested in wolffish. That is one example.

We are not saying that wolffish is the species of the future, but perhaps there is a niche for a cold water species here. We could specialize, with a unique research centre located in Quebec, focusing on one cold water species. We visited the Norwegian institute in Tromsø, which, I remind you, is located on the 72nd parallel.

The debate over research took place when this university was established. It was a political decision to conduct research on site and to say that the centre would focus specifically on cold water species. The centre was thus intended to occupy an industrial, research-oriented niche.

[English]

The Chair: Last question, Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes.

My last question has two parts to it. Have you met with Mr. David Rideout, who's the head of the Canadian aquaculture industry and is in Ottawa, to express your concerns? If you have, what's his interpretation? If you haven't, why not?

The second part of it is that people in Canada are very concerned with escapes and sea lice in aquaculture. Are you aware of whether Norway at this time is doing any studies at all--on finfish, not shellfish--with regard to a closed-loop system for aquaculture?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: All I can say, in answer to the first part of your question, is that we have not contacted Mr. Rideout, simply because we had no project. We are currently working... The focus of our presentation is on structure: how the research is organized, and how we can accordingly set up an organization. We are not discussing specific projects at this point.

As for the second part of your question, I cannot answer specifically, but what we have seen in the research program is three broad technology components. In relation to technology, one of the major concerns was the fact that salmon were often lost to seals that came and ate them.

Another significant concern was all of the technology around handling during transfer. Many salmon managed to escape at that point.

As was said earlier, the research programs are very broad in that they cover all areas: marketing, production, biology, transportation, etc.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Farrah.

Mr. Georges Farrah: Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome our witnesses. Your presentation was very interesting.

You obviously talk about problems you may have, particularly financial problems, because research takes funding, it takes money. Everyone agrees.

Do you think, despite the fact that the money may not be enough, that what money is spent on research is well spent?

· (1315)

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud: That is a $100,000 question. In terms of Quebec activity specifically, not a lot of money is spent. If I take the case of money channelled through SODIM to meet the needs of producers, the research activities are really focused on solving problems producers face. In that sense, I think the money must be used quite well since it seeks to meet those needs.

More generally, in terms of the work being done on fish, we have focused our activities on certain salmonids, on brook trout in particular, and to a lesser extent on Arctic char and wolffish, to a lesser extent.

On the whole, I would just say that it is not because the money is poorly spent; it is that there is not enough of it. In terms of the million dollars I was talking about earlier, that is a significant effort, but if we wanted to conduct the entire research program we put on the table involving brook trout, Arctic char and wolffish and all of aquaculture, we would probably need three times as much money.

You always have to make sure the money goes to the right places and answers the right questions. Nevertheless, the funding levels are short-term. The project I mentioned earlier is a three-year project. It has to start soon, because six months have already passed. There are discussions to see whether it might extend beyond three years. It is very hard to operate like that. If the time frames are not longer and the funding base is not more secure, it is very hard to do what the Norwegians are doing, thinking 10, 15 and even 20 years ahead. It is very hard.

Mr. Georges Farrah: So that's one more reason why the investments being made by the different levels of government should be made in a concerted way, to make sure, at least, that no matter how small the sum invested, it will at least be used as effectively as possible.

That's what I wanted to get to. We know that the Province of Quebec intervenes in aquaculture as does the federal government. Do you see a concerted effort there? Do you see any common objectives supported by both levels of government or complementary action that would at least lead to a maximizing of those interventions? It should be a complement, in my opinion, seeing as how you're often caught between a rock and a hard place in that kind of situation.

I just want to ask you if both Quebec and Ottawa's actions are concerted and if they're targeting the same goals?

Prof. Pierre Blier: I think they're relatively concerted, because of the nature of the beast, because the objectives are often suggested by the researchers and the producers. There's also a matter of personality or personal affinity. I think that some senior officials have broad decisional powers and that they manage to be clairvoyant enough, at the government level, and they understand that it's clear, because of the low level of funding, that effective dialogue is absolutely necessary. But this means that all you need is someone who doesn't have the necessary competence or vision heading one of the organizations for the whole thing to go down the tubes.

To get back to the question you asked before as to whether the money was well spent, the message in our presentation is, in fact, relatively simple: recurrence is needed in the research targets. It's a long-term affair. When you talk fish, you talk fish like we used to talk pork or beef 20 years ago.

To develop a profitable pork population that could be sold at an interesting price for the producers, it took 20 to 30 years of targeted research. It's exactly the same thing for fish.

To make sure the money is properly spent for research, long-term objectives must absolutely be defined. That's not the case right now. Most organizations subsidize over a maximum three-year period. The objectives of the research programs often change after two or three years. That means that it's not just a matter of spending money or knowing whether the money is well spent; on top of that, our human resources are not properly utilized because of those problems of non-recurrence in the definition of the objectives.

What I want to get to is that, as a researcher, when you show up in Norway your first reaction is frustration. The reason is very simple. Norwegian researchers do research. When we come back here, what we're searching for systematically is money. We have to change our arguments and the manner in which we present projects every two or three years because objectives change every two or three years.

You can ask just about any researcher in the area in Canada. We spend at least 50 percent of our time trying to find funding for our research. When you factor in the number of researchers, that's a lot of wasted resources.

· (1320)

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud: To go a bit further on this matter, I would say that it's the funding base that isn't ensured over a medium or long-term period. As Pierre just said, it's an ongoing search for funds.

As for the agreement I was talking about before, we've actually started looking because two and a half years isn't very far away. We already have to set up the whole mechanism to try and find funds and, in parallel to the agreement, so that the agreement can work, we need other budgets. So we're running after budgets. As Pierre said, we spend an awful lot of time running after money. Actually, it's sometimes rather frustrating.

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: I think it's a question of culture. The problem is that to make the aquaculture industry credible, you'd need immediate results whereas to get convincing results to make the industry credible, you need a long-term vision over 10 or 12 years.

What was being explained before, rightly so, is the coexistence of aquaculture with the commercial fishermen. It's well-known that aquaculture, over there, is an integral part of the economy because there are convincing results as a result of their patience. I think that we're stuck in a mindset that leads us to a short-term vision to get results. But to get results, you need a long-term vision.

I'll give you an example. In another life, when I was a member of a provincial legislature, I saw a file similar to that of Baie-des-Chaleurs Aquaculture where, with the best intention in the world, $10 million,$12 million or $14 million were invested in Saint-Omer which produced zero results. It makes one think.

I figure that, basically, we're not anymore stupid than the other guy. On the contrary, you yourselves say that they come to Canada to garner knowledge we've applied here and that we can't reach their stage of development.

The same thing goes for the second or even third stage of processing marine products. We can't manage to come up with concrete projects to add value to our products even when others are doing it. We're not actually any worse than they are intellectually speaking.

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud: I'd like to get back to the Atlantic halibut in Norway. I was telling you we need a long-term vision. They've been working on that product for a good 20 years and they still haven't reached the commercial stage. In total, in Canadian dollars, over 20 years, they've spent between $150 million and $200 million to try to get commercial results and they're still not quite at the commercial stage.

We have to agree to a long-term effort to get results. If we don't do that, we're not going anywhere. I'll just tell you a story about the Norwegians. We talked about Arctic char and what we were doing here with [Editor's Note: Inaudible], I think. The Norwegians just laughed. They told us we'd go nowhere with that because our selection base was way too weak and if we didn't have the capability of increasing our spawning stock, we'd just better forget that. It costs money and you have to go find them in specific spots.

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: What you said about Baie-des-Chaleurs Aquaculture and other second- and third-stage processing projects is very relevant.

I think one of the lessons to be drawn from the Norwegian experience is that the organization of industrial research means that it's not the businesses that do the research but the organizations. When the project reaches an industrial stage, then it's ready. That means—I'll just take the case of Baie-des-Chaleurs Aquaculture as an example—that concern was more of a research and development concern than an industrial production business.

When you ask private promoters to do research and development at that level, the risk of bankruptcy is high and major. Most projects that are mentioned, for example the second or third biotechnology stage and so forth, are projects where the technology and the farming are not sufficiently developed. But we tell the promoters to go ahead because we don't want to get involved. The research structure isn't sufficiently organized for the project to be ready.

I think that even in that case, there's something to be evaluated using the WTO international trade rules. I think it becomes a very valid and formative response measure for industrial development. At that point, you're not giving direct aid, you're just helping the project along until it's ready.

· (1325)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Farrah.

[Translation]

Mr. Georges Farrah: I would like to come back to the example of Norway as it relates to the regional based development of research and research infrastructure. This is the approach developed by the Norwegians. I would image that they had the political will to do what they did.

I think that the approach that we should be developing is to require the research on areas of specific interest to the particular region in question, be conducted in that same region. We should not be conducting research on heavy metals, on aluminum or on automobiles because we do not have the appropriate expertise or the space to undertake this type of commitment. We are specialists in all the areas of the sea. Consequently, I think it is important for us to develop our regional base research capacity and infrastructure in areas of specific concern to us. The purpose here is not to compete with other areas, but rather to supplement the expertise of the major centres.

Indeed, in relation to the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, I believe that we all recognize that setting up an institute specializing in sea science research in our area was the appropriate political decision at the time. I don't know exactly who took that decision however.

Now, you mentioned that the relationship that you have with the institute—and I don't want to put words in your mouth here—is not what it should be. What you are indeed saying is that, over and above the resolve to create major infrastructure regional areas and to focus on regional decentralization, efforts should also be made to ensure that the infrastructure that is set in place is able to work in cooperation with other research centres or individuals. If this infrastructure is indeed put in place in a particular region and if there is no communication and if there is no agreement and if the infrastructure has a different mandate then this decentralization may give very poor results.

I am not saying however that this is the case with the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne. I'm really not even sure what has happened in this case. However, I would really look forward to meeting people from the institute so that I can find out what's going on. It is not up to me to presume that staff at the institute are on the right track, but above and beyond decentralizing bodies to the regions, we must make sure, once they are set up in the region, that they are in a position to cooperate with stakeholders in a particular area.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Lévesque.

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: I would just like to make a brief comment to flesh out our rationale. My colleagues will be able to supplement my answer or to even contradict me if they consider what I have said to be incorrect.

Indeed, we are not saying that we have a difficult relationship with the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne. What we are saying however, is that the mandate of the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne is focused on marine science, the sciences of the sea. It is really a society-based mandate. Consequently, the institute's remit does not include industrial development. Therefore, the institute is quite right when it claims that aquaculture development for commercial purposes, for example does not fall under its jurisdiction.

Mr. Georges Farrah: They are complying with their mandate.

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: Yes, that's exactly right. What we are saying however is that we lack a research body focused on economic development.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Michaud.

[Translation]

Prof. Jean-Claude Michaud: I would just like to make a brief remark. I normally tend to use a striking image in answer to what Marcel has just said.

It's a bit like imagining that 25 or 30 years ago, the Environment Department had been asked to develop hog farming. This would have caused a slight coexistence conflict within the department. The mandate of the department was to protect the environment. Consequently, it would have been as if the department had been asked to promote industrial output in parallel to protecting the environment. That would have resulted in long-term problems.

I think that Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne in particular are currently facing this type of dilemma. These bodies are mandated to protect habitats and to preserve species and, at the same time, they're being told that they should, in parallel, promote industrial development. However, the research team that they have is not geared to research on industrial development. Consequently, it is undoubtedly difficult to get to an operational state and to be able to come up with results.

· (1330)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Farrah.

Before I come to Mr. Roy and Mr. Stoffer, you've been doing some research here, visited Norway, Chile, etc., with a view to moving the aquaculture industry ahead. How is that current research and development being funded?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: In Chile, for example, the government has taken very little action in this area. It should be pointed out however that the Chilean government is poor and as such, has made very little contribution. Indeed, what the Chilean government has indeed done is to encourage foreign investment. They mainly focused on quality control. Consequently, the template they followed was relatively simple. Chile is a major producer of fish meal. The strategy that they identified was to use the fish meal, and to raise salmon. The idea was quite simply to increase the value added.

Chile realized that these would be export products, which would not be used for domestic consumption. As a result, they saw to it that export quality control was very strict. The main action taken by the government was to provide quality control for products for export. They also provided foreign equity access to sites with huge potential. It should be noted that the Chilean example is based, to a great extent, on the enormous potential for aquaculture and a major meal industry.

[English]

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: Another important point is that in Chile, there are very few environmental restrictions. The government has taken very little action on environmental problems relating to production. However, this does not benefit the country. It is a type of competition.

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: It is indeed the case that the government took very little positive or negative action.

[English]

The Chair: Yes, we're aware of that. I'm wondering more in terms of your university, how is this work that you're currently doing being funded? Is it through federal or provincial money, private money, Quebec university money?

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: Indeed, I tagged along unofficially with a Quebec government trade mission funded by the Ministry of International Relations. Ocean ranchers, from the so-called Regroupement des mariculteurs du Québec, were down there to improve their expertise. Consequently, I was tagging along somewhat.

[English]

The Chair: The last question I have before I go to you, Peter, is to Pierre.

Earlier you talked about the industrial research side and the basic research side. Do you want to expand on that a bit? I take it if we're going to do research on the basic research side, we're going to have to be there for the very long term, not the short term.

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: Indeed, the major difference between targeted research and basic research is the types of issues that are dealt with. As far as basic research goes, researchers have tended to look at issues and have attempted to try to understand how things work.

For example, at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, researchers look at population vitality. As far as applied research is concerned—this is where researchers sometimes run into problems, especially if they are required to define the trust of their research—research must be linked not only to addressing technical issues but also to addressing technical issues relating to the market or industrial potential that has been identified. Consequently, this type of research is focused on existing markets.

Researchers are not used to looking at issues from the prospective of market potential. I am talking from experience here, because I deal specifically with the marine biotechnology industry.

It seems clear to me that the major problem in this industry, as in the aquaculture industry, is not a scientific one. The major issue is identifying markets and looking into market access. Researchers don't have the appropriate training to address these issues.

Having said that, I do believe that it is possible to use the resources which are generally used in the basic research sector,—as the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne researchers have done—insofar as there is an overarching body to clearly set out research goals. If this is the case, researchers would probably be willing to do this type of research, but they should not have to define their own industrial development oriented-research goals. They would just simply not know where to start.

· (1335)

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Monsieur Roy, and then Mr. Stoffer, and those will be the last two questions.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a comment before beginning.

Some time ago, we met with officials from Fisheries and Oceans regarding the salmon problem in British Columbia. I spoke to them about basic research and applied research, and they told me they did not know the difference. You can read that in the committee's record. I told them I would explain it to them some day, but this has nothing to do with what I wanted to tell you.

You've sketched out a rather negative picture of the situation, haven't you; your description is far from rosy. You are telling us that when we invest in research over a two-year period, we are wasting our money. That's what we are doing. At least, that is what you say.

I would like to know if there really is any future for research. Basically, it's rather discouraging when we look at what has happened in Norway and what has happened here. Do you think it is possible that we will get anywhere with the operating structure that we have currently?

Prof. Pierre Blier: I would say that, since I have been working in research, I have realized that there seems to be some desire, or at least a general tendency, to try and create the necessary networks at the various levels of government.

This is done on an individual basis, as various individuals have specific affinities, rather than at the management level of the various departments. There really is a will. There is a consensus: we have to work together and try to achieve the same clearly defined goals. In that regard, I am optimistic.

We had set up structures, both at the provincial and the federal levels. We have tried them out and adjusted them, and we are headed towards something that is much more integrated between the various industrial sectors, governments and university research.

I believe we will have to try even harder, but despite that, I am convinced that there are incredible opportunities for Canada in general, and for the Atlantic coast in particular. We have the necessary human resources to do basic research. In terms of expertise, we are very well equipped. There are also opportunities in terms of the resource. We havea coastline and quality water. The natural resources are there. We have fish and marine invertebrates that could be exploited.

We also have, and this is a very personal point of view, a very strong research sector, for example in biotechnologies. Major research centres like Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal are recognized internationally. There is incredible potential in the area of marine biotechnologies that could be tied in to aquaculture development.

This could represent an added value. We should not consider aquaculture as simply the production of low-cost proteins from natural resources. We must consider the possibility of producing active biomolecules with a very high added value. This would give rise to industries with an important impact in terms of economic and industrial development.

We are in a good position in Canada. It is just a matter of creating the structures that will allow us to focus research and development in these directions.

· (1340)

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Lévesque.

[Translation]

Prof. Marcel Lévesque: In Quebec, there is an entity called the Société de développement de l'industrie maricole, to which Mr. Stoffer referred earlier. Its first Director General was Mr. Bastien, the present Commissioner for Aquaculture Development.

The goal of this organization is to promote ocean ranching. It has just been endowed with a $9 million research fund by the provincial government. If memory serves me well, the federal government contributed approximately $1 million or $2 million.

I think that this kind of organization is very promising. It is close to the industry. It is in tune with the industry's needs. A niche could be used to address the issue of coordinating industrial research in Quebec. In my opinion, this is an avenue that should be explored.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Could I follow up on that, Mr. Chairman?

With regard to promoting what you're doing, I think it would be imperative for your organization to try to meet with Mr. Bastien and /or Mr. Rideout as soon as you can in order to discuss these issues as well.

Lastly, we talked a lot about finfish aquaculture, but are you in any way also involved in shellfish aquaculture?

The Chair: Professor Blier.

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: The university is involved in research on marine invertebrates. Mr. Michaud talked about it earlier. There is a memorandum of understanding on aquaculture research between the ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation and the Université du Québec at Rimouski. This program covers research on saltwater fish, on invertebrates and on the environmental impact of aquacultural activities in Quebec.

It may interest you to know that I am in the process of completing a literary review that covers 160 marine invertebrate species in an attempt to assess their aquacultural potential in terms of producing human food and for the biotechnologies as well. It is the equivalent of a study we did earlier on saltwater fish.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Would you be kind enough, when that study is done, to send us a copy through our clerk, or through Madame Tremblay, or whomever?

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: Yes.

[English]

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'd appreciate that. Thank you. Merci.

The Chair: Do you have a website at the university where some of this information is available?

[Translation]

Prof. Pierre Blier: It is not available on the university's website for the moment, but I could leave you my address and phone number and I could send it to you upon request.

[English]

The Chair: Merci.

Are there any other questions?

That's it.

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for your presentation. There are always more questions than answers. Listen, this committee should be a make-work project. We can create a lot of work.

Thank you very much for your presentation once again.

The meeting is adjourned.