FOPO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, May 6, 2003

·

1330

The Chair (Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.))

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

·

1335

·

1340

·

1345

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

·

1350

·

1355

The Chair

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

Mr. André Boucher

¸

1400

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

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

¸

1405

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

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

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

¸

1410

Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance)

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

¸

1415

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

¸

1420

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

Mr. André Boucher

The Chair

¸

1425

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert (Vice-President and Co-owner, Groupe de commerce international Eng.-Hubert inc.)

¸

1435

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn

¸

1440

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

¸

1445

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

¸

1450

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert

The Chair

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

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

¹

1510

¹

1515

The Chair

¹

1520

Mr. Loyola Hearn

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

¹

1525

The Chair

Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance)

¹

1530

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

¹

1535

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

¹

1540

The Chair

Mr. Bob Wood

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Bob Wood

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

¹

1545

Mr. Bob Wood

Mr. Jean-François Martel (Vice-President, Alliance des pêcheurs professionnels du Québec)

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. Bob Wood

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

¹

1550

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Peter Stoffer

¹

1555

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

Mr. O'Neil Cloutier

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

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NUMBER 033

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

---

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, May 6, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

·  (1330)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order to reconvene our continued study of Atlantic fisheries issues pursuant to Standing Order 108(2).

[Translation]

    Now we have Mr. André Boucher from the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie.

    Good afternoon. I ask you to make your presentation, please.

    Mr. André Boucher (Coordinator, Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie): Thank you. I thank the committee for agreeing to hear us on the perception our fishermen have of fisheries management.

    As you know, I represent a group of fishermen who live in the northern portion of the Gaspé Peninsula, between Trois-Pistoles and Pointe Gaspé. The vast majority are fishermen who use fixed gear on boats under 50 feet long. They mainly fish for turbot in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in areas 4S and 4T. Directly and indirectly, we represent some 100 fishermen who depend on that resource.

    I'm briefly going to read you the brief we submitted last fall, since, in the spring, when the committee was in Rimouski, we mentioned that we were working to prepare a brief on our perception of fisheries management. We in fact filed that brief with the House of Commons last fall with the cooperation of the member from our area, Mr. Roy. How far did that brief circulate? We don't know, but we think it made its way because members and people have talked to us about it. The brief mainly concerned the disparity in resource allocation in our area.

    Ground fishermen are facing major profitability difficulties. They're wondering about the way marine resources, that is turbot and snow crab, are being allocated and managed, since snow crab licence holders are generating substantial revenues in the same sectors, thereby resulting in significant revenue disparities.

    As regards turbot management, in recent years, fishermen have maintained that the use of six-inch gillnets is inappropriate. In response to forecasts, which proved to be false, stating that turbot would be back in 2001-2002, fishermen asked that analyses be carried out. There was no positive follow-up to the FRCC recommendation that the sexual maturity and growth rate of fish at maturity be determined. The FRCC reiterated its request the following year, along with recommendations regarding the impact of the use of 5.5 and 6-inch gillnets.

    At the meeting of the Regional Turbot Management Committee, representatives stated that, for 2002-2003, 5.5-inch and 6-inch mesh size gillnets would be used in the commercial fishery on a 50/50 basis.

    What was actually authorized was quite different. The use of a 5.5-inch mesh size was authorized for Area 4T only. This fishery, which was established at the last minute, was designated an experimental fishery with a 5.5-inch mesh size only and the catch was limited to an equivalent of 30 percent of the quota. Fishermen who did not have 5.5-inch mesh size gillnets were unable to participate in the fishery, despite the fact that the initial period was extended on a sporadic basis for 12 weeks.

    We wonder whether it's worthwhile participating in the committees set up by the Department if DFO was not going to act on what it said at the meetings.

    MLI, the Maurice-Lamontagne Institute organized a scientific fishery with two or three fishermen using 5.5-inch and 6-inch mesh size gillnets simultaneously. It was not very conclusive since participants had difficulty catching enough fish to provide an acceptable sample size using the 6-inch mesh size and because the sites were frequented by snow crab. Participants gave up because they weren't interested in spending hours removing crab from their nets.

    The FRCC's recommendations generated little interest among scientists. Fishermen continue to face an uncertain future and say that the Department is preparing to force them out of the fishery by denying them equitable snow crab allocations and not allowing them to catch their turbot quota. Quebec fishermen have lost 13 percent of their historical share of the fishery to Newfoundland fishermen as a result of DFO's decision last year.

    Joint project agreement: co-management agreement, snow crab, Area 17. Since the early 1990s, Area 17 groundfish licence holders have been pressing for substantial snow crab allocations or temporary snow crab licences in order to offset part of the shortfall caused by the decline in groundfish stocks.

    The Department has refused. And yet snow crab biomass has increased substantially, to the point where there is snow crab by-catch in their gillnets, which they must return to the water or else face fines. On page 16 of Annex I of the brief that I submitted to you, photographs of crab by-catch show the unacceptable waste of resources in view of the fact that the crab returned to the water inevitably die.

·  (1335)  

    Implementation of the co-management agreement. There are 22 fishermen who hold snow crab licences for Area 17. Before the 1998 fishing season, the first year of the co-management agreement, the RPPNG, which represents primarily groundfish fishermen, received a letter from DFO's regional office stating that talks were under way with the Area 17 crab fishermen.

    Annex II: “Letter from DFO dated March 20, 1998--open consultations”, page 17. That letter included the mandate, composition of the working group established on November 21, 1997 and the joint agreement dated January 23, 1998.

    Comments and questions. Paragraph 3 stated that the consultation was designed to be open and that comments were to be received by March 31, 1998. Why wait so long before conducting a consultation, if the task force had already been in place for nearly four months?

    The agreement on the implementation of the co-management initiative was planned in October 1997. The joint proposal (DFO-crab fishermen) received by the RPPNG was dated January 23, 1998. Why did the Department wait five months before informing RPPNG of its intentions, given that the consultations were supposed to be “open” and given that the deadline for providing comments was 11 days from the date of the letter? It is clear that the development of the co-management agreement with Area 17 crab fishermen was carried out on the quiet and without any real consultation. This amounted to an unacceptable lack of transparency and objectivity in the public management of a resource that belongs to all Canadian citizens.

    Correspondence from the Regroupement des pêcheurs professionnels du Nord de la Gaspésie. In reply: Annex III, “Letter from R.P.P.N.G. dated March 26, 1998--request to discuss the proposal”. The Regroupement informed the DFO that it was unhappy with the joint proposal and requested a discussion. The Department did not reply to the letter of March 26.

    The Regroupement sent another letter, Annex IV: “Letter from R.P.P.N.G. dated April 16, 1998--counter-proposal to the sharing formula”, page 22, including a counter-proposal to the sharing formula proposed in the letter of March 20, 1998. Once again, no reply was received. However, the RPPNG happened to learn that the co-management agreement was in fact in effect as per the initial joint proposal that had never been discussed, a good example of bogus consultations and lack of transparency.

    Tonnage allocated under the co-management agreement. After the agreement was put in place, credible information began circulating to the effect that the crab fishermen had requested a basic quota of 1,400 tonnes, roughly the average catch of the three years preceding the implementation of the agreement, in order to ensure they would get a basic quota of 1,200 tonnes. Without further negotiations, the Department gave them a basic quota of 1,600 tonnes. Fishermen who might have received temporary allocations were denied a significant volume. The reduction in the overall quota available to crab fishermen was just a prelude to the signature of the co-management agreement because, since the agreement was implemented, volumes and revenues have increased dramatically: Annex V, “Table summarizing the average revenues of the 22 Area 17 snow crab fishermen since 1995”, page 23, compared to turbot fishermen: Annex VI, “Comparative table of revenues—crab and turbot fishermen—residence of crab Area 17”, page 24.

    Questions. These facts were corroborated by the then regional director of resource management, who argued that it would be easier to manage resources that way. Why then did decision-makers act this way knowing full well that groundfish-only fishermen needed to increase their revenues and knowing full well that snow crab stocks were clearly increasing in most inshore crab fishing areas? Perhaps they hoped to see groundfish-dependent inshore fishermen disappear without having to provide them with financial compensation.

    Comments and observations. Turbot-dependent fishermen are in dire financial straits owing to poor groundfish catch rates. Since the end of the 1999 season, turbot catches have, on average, been limited to roughly 30 percent of the 1998 quotas. Turbot-dependent fishermen have been asking for larger snow crab allocations, but the Department's representatives are hiding behind the pretext of compliance with the co-management agreements in effect not only for Area 17 but also for Area 12 and its sub-areas. In view of the exceptional circumstances, the Department has the prerogative to amend or terminate any agreements.

    In the industry, it is constantly said that the crab fishermen are the ones who decide the Department's direction on the management of this resource. There are examples that corroborate that impression. Yet article 14.1 of the agreement is clear: Annex VII, “Excerpt from the Area 17 co-management agreement”, page 25.

·  (1340)  

    (a) In the February-March 2002 issue of Pêche Impact, page 39, the comments of the President of the Area 17 Snow Crab Fishermen's Association are revealing: Annex VIII, “Article from page 39 of the February-March 2002 edition of the newspaper Pêche Impact”, page 27.

    (b) In June-July 2001, the RPPNG discussed and prepared a protocol for an experimental snow crab fishery with the Department. On June 29, 2001, in a conference call with a DFO representative, the RPPNG board of directors reached a verbal agreement with the Department on the seventh draft of the protocol, which was to be the final version. The DFO representative then stated that he had to meet with the crab fishermen's representative on the following Thursday and that the licence conditions could be available. Before proceeding, the RPPNG had to receive the final version of the protocol. It finally arrived late on the Friday afternoon and had been significantly changed. A rollout plan arising from the Thursday meeting had been added to the seventh draft of the protocol. The board of directors had to cancel the experimental fishery project.

    (c) Another example that DFO's decisions are largely driven by the crab fishermen. At the Area 17 Snow Crab Advisory Committee meeting on February 14, 2001, the RPPNG tabled a document (Annex IX, fifth paragraph, “Request for modification submitted to the Area 17 Snow Crab Advisory Committee on February 14, 2001”, page 28, requesting a change to the percentage available for temporary allocations for Area 17 groundfish fishermen. It was mentioned that if a modification was made, the traditional crab fishermen could fish the allocations given to groundfish fishermen, who would agree to sell them to them.

    There was never any follow-up to the document submitted. As the modification was not granted, the fifth paragraph is of no effect. However, in the sixth paragraph of the notice to fishers dated March 28, 2001, Annex X, “Notice to fishermen dated March 28, 2001”, page 36, DFO authorized the traditional crab fishermen to take part in harvesting the temporary allocations, which had not previously been done.

    Conclusion. DFO must review the way it manages the resource. In terms of groundfish, there are generally many problems. With respect to shellfish, and particularly crab, the quota increases show availability of the resource, which should be more equitably shared.

    The department's recent decisions regarding the allocation of crab quotas for various areas are inconsistent with the principles of natural justice. Now that the co-management agreements with crab fishermen have expired, it is time for DFO to revisit the way it manages the resource. It would then have to look back in time and consider catches for the years preceding the implementation of the agreements, to consider volumes caught for the three years preceding implementation, and it's based on that basic volume that the surplus could be allocated to groundfish fishermen in financial difficulty.

    This way would enable crab fishermen to make a more than comfortable living and would also allow groundfish-dependent fishermen to make a decent living.

    The reading I've just done for you includes the main elements contained in the brief which you received in English, which was translated by the Department. The French version was obviously submitted last spring.

    As regards Annex X, which concerns the notice to fishermen, in the last paragraph, we had to attach the English version of a news release, and I apologize for that. In the English version of the brief, Annex X is a news release rather than a notice to fishermen because that notice to fishermen had not been issued in English; it had been issued in French only.

    That's it for the presentation.

    With your permission, I would also like to draw your attention to comments on the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review.

    In May 2001, we received a document that had been prepared by the Department seeking the organizations' perceptions of the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. What we did is we digitized the summary of the discussion document on policy direction and principles related to the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. We inserted comments in bold characters and in underlined italics. This change to the original text was made by the RPPNG. Unfortunately, I don't have a translation of the document; I have filed copies in French.

·  (1345)  

    To draw your attention, we commented on remarks that were in the document. I think it would take too long to read the whole thing, but if you have...

[English]

    The Chair: There's not enough time to read the whole thing, but please summarize.

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: Yes. We say:

Although DFO promotes a conservation-focused approach to fisheries management, the term “conservation” has yet to be adequately defined.

    What we're saying is that it is important that the term “conservation” be clearly defined because the industry can't identify the species that should be conserved. For example, should seals be more forcefully conserved than cod?

The role of economic and social considerations in DFO's fisheries management decisions is unclear.

    The economic and social aspect is closely related to resource access and allocation. When a community cannot have access to a nearby resource because of poor allocation, negative social consequences arise.

Disputes and uncertainty over access and allocations, and disagreements about how these decisions should be made, continue to impede progress on other fisheries management issues.

    The powers conferred on the Department's representatives and information relevant to each fleet could make it possible to avoid conflict and uncertainty over access to resource allocation for the most lucrative species: crab, shrimp and lobster.

The traditional approach to fisheries management in Canada is too paternalistic. Those who exploit and benefit from the resource have little to say in its management and insufficient incentive to use it sustainably.

    It has been going round in the industry that those who harvest and benefit from the resource exercise considerable influence over its management and intend to use it in a sustainable manner.

    There are other elements like this as well.

The collapse of Atlantic groundfish stocks has made clear to government and industry alike that Canada needs a more conservation-oriented approach to fisheries management. The resulting adjustment and capacity-reduction programs should engender a self-reliant and more professional harvesting industry.

    Perhaps the review should have been conducted at the start of the moratorium. That would have resulted in appropriate corrective action.

    Recently, we've discussed the fact that when the moratorium went into effect in 1996, some fishermen said--this isn't part of the document, but I have to tell you this remark--that an analysis should have been conducted of unused licences at that time. The Department should have surveyed licences for the five years preceding the moratorium and seen that unused licences were withdrawn from circulation because, since the moratorium, a number of those licences have come back into circulation and there has been a permanent increase in fishing pressure in certain areas.

If conservation is to be the top priority in decisions affecting the fisheries, the term needs a precise definition. We propose the following: conservation means sustainable use that safeguards ecological processes and genetic diversity for present and future generations.

    It would be important to establish priorities for genetic diversity.

    Access and resource allocation.

Under the current legislative regime, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has broad discretionary powers to distribute wealth, that is, natural capital in the form of fishing licences and quotas. How this wealth is distributed has significant implications for the economic performance of fishing-dependent communities and the economic viability of individual fishing enterprises, large and small.

    That's our comment: Fishing resources are part of the Canadian heritage, and it is the Department's responsibility to allocate them fairly. It is therefore important to define the term “fair”. As departmental representatives enjoy vast discretionary authority, it is up to them to establish criteria of fairness. The question must be asked whether fairness consists in maintaining vast revenue disparities between fishermen in a single area.

The access and allocation process must be, and must be seen to be, fair, transparent and subject to clear and consistent rules and procedural requirements. DFO was proposing a three-step approach. As a first step, existing policies and arrangements should be codified, and dispute resolution mechanisms should be open and transparent. This could mean recognizing current sharing arrangements, with some exceptions, and fixing fleet shares for longer terms.

    That's stated in the document.

    Our perception is quite different. If the Department recognizes the existing sharing agreements, it should be determined whether the sharing applies to the fleets by province or to the fleets by species. Should the Department recognize the present sharing agreements of the fleets by species, that would then mean the end of fishing operations for a number of fishermen because the expected versatility would be ruled out. That approach would be unfair and unacceptable.

·  (1350)  

This could take the form of an independent, arms-length mechanism to make decisions based on clear policy and criteria. Any movement in this direction will take time.

    An independent mechanism should not serve as a scapegoat for decisions made by the Department.

    Those were basically the main remarks. There are a few more. I'm certain you'll have the opportunity to read them.

    Our main demand, as I just mentioned to you, concerns the allocation of resources. In some areas, as in Area 17, which is the west part of the estuary, the scientists recommended 15 percent reductions in crab for this year. According to the fishermen as a whole, with the catches that are currently still being made with gillnets at depths of up to 160 and 170 fathoms, crab has clearly been less affected in that area than in other areas. The reason is obvious in the fishermen's minds: there's been no trawling in the area for a number of years, not even shrimp trawling. That's true for the entire area, with a few exceptions between Baie-Comeau and Baie-Trinité, but for all the other sectors of Area 17, there's no trawling, not even shrimp trawling. So what the fishermen are saying is that crab is still at a very stable level. The natural seven- or eight-year cycle, which has not yet been completely determined, would be completely disrupted by this situation.

    The fishermen have been fishing since April 1. However, last week, some fishermen spent a number of hours removing crab from their nets. There are pictures in the brief that show how abundant crab can be in certain areas, and it's not in traditional crab fishing areas. It's at depths of more than 100 fathoms, generally at depths of more than 130 fathoms.

    So that means there's crab in the nets, and that's a resource that's destroyed. To estimate the tonnage destroyed every year in our area, we should perhaps refer to the scientists, who had previously informed us that the waste could be very, very significant.

    Last year, we tried to establish an experimental crab fishery. It proved to be very positive for depths of 100 to 140 fathoms. Below 140 fathoms, the difficulty we encountered was not that there wasn't any crab, but rather that they didn't enter the traps that are currently used. However, they get caught in the nets because they go into the nets to eat the fish that's been caught and then they get stuck in the nets.

    So what we requested for this year was the opportunity to have another experimental fishery in an attempt to find another trap that would be appropriate, because the crab that's generally at those depths is old crab that's going away to die. But it could be recovered.

·  (1355)  

[English]

    The Chair: Merci.

    We wanted to leave some time for questions and answers. That's why I asked you to conclude.

    We have Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia—Matane, BQ): Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Boucher, I welcome you back before the committee. For those who don't know--Mr. Chairman, you were there--he previously appeared before the committee in Rimouski.

    The problems don't appear to have been corrected. Things don't seem to have changed very much. But what you're telling us is that there are currently enough crab so that your fishermen, the fishermen who belong to your Regroupement, can earn a decent living if a proper sharing is done.

    But it seems to me there's an agreement with the crab fishermen in your area which is renewed every year. It's not a standing agreement, but it is nevertheless renewed every year.

    Mr. André Boucher: The co-management agreement for Area 17 has been expired since March 31. According to the notice to fishermen that we received, it was not renewed.

    As regards the 2003 fishing plan, the notice that we received was only temporary; we were told that the agreement was under discussion. We are telling the minister that there could be an agreement, but we would like it to be less generous than the one that terminated on March 31. As stated in the brief, before the 1998 agreement was signed, the 22 traditional crab fishermen of Area 17 had caught approximately 1,400 tonnes of crab. You have a table showing revenue earned from the start.

    They requested 1,400 tonnes hoping to get 1,200; that quantity at the time enabled the 22 crab fishermen to earn a very good living. They earned revenue of between $200,000 and $300,000. The Department offered them 1,6000 tonnes, and we subsequently submitted a proposed co-management agreement based on 1,600 tonnes.

    Forty percent of the surplus of the 1,600 tonnes could be offered as a temporary allocation, either to the Aboriginal communities or to the groundfish fishermen. Sixty percent of the surplus of the 1,600 tonnes went to the traditional crab fishermen, as a result of which, last year, the TAC, including the experimental fishery, reached a production volume of 3,000 tonnes.

    As a result, the first 1,600 tonnes went to traditional crab fishermen and 60 percent of the 1,400 tonnes also went to the traditional crab fishermen. There was a little more than 500 tonnes, 100 tonnes of which was allocated to an Aboriginal community. The revenues of the traditional crab fishermen have thus been generally between $500,000 and $600,000 for some years now, for seven to eight weeks of fishing. In some cases, those who have fish shops and want to sell their crab at the best price, fish for 10 weeks.

    Last fall, we told the minister that we wanted a fairer allocation. He told us he didn't want to rob Peter to pay Paul. I had the opportunity to meet with him last week when he came to Rimouski, and I repeated the same request to him. I reminded him of our talks last fall and told him that I thought it was possible to achieve a fairer allocation in Area 17 and that our fishermen could benefit from it.

    It seems hard to get that message across. Clearly those who have been enjoying this private preserve for a number of years have no interest in giving it up.

    For 2003, the Department has decided to reserve part of the volume reserved for temporary allocations, that is approximately 100 tonnes, and to add a new fishing permit for an Aboriginal community. However, the Department had already purchased at great expense, $2 million a piece, two licences for the Aboriginal community of Viger. In that case, one was handed over to the Aboriginal community of Betsiamites.

    This year, we have appreciably the same temporary allocation as last year, but our fishermen are still living in uncertainty because we don't know when the turbot will come back. The fishermen can't earn decent business income with 17,000 or 18,000 pounds of crab.

    In the brief, you'll find a table that shows the revenue disparity between the two groups for 2001. And yet they have similar boats and they fish in the same areas. The situation creates disparities within the villages. That results in negotiations. In the same village, there's a group of poor people and a group of rich people. In Tourelle, the situation is particularly flagrant because it's a village and some are very rich, while others have to qualify for employment insurance in order to eat in the winter. For those reasons, there has to be a change of attitude on the part of the Department.

    We hope that, with documents such as this and by circulating our remarks, you'll be able to influence the minister and that that, in turn, will have an impact.

¸  (1400)  

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What do you think about what's going on in Area 12?

    Mr. André Boucher: In Area 12, I can tell you that the crab fishermen's revenues are comparable to those common in Area 17.

    Yesterday on television, I saw that a major case was being made out of events in New Brunswick. Some individuals said they had developed that fishery. However, that fishery was developed from a resource that belongs to all Canadians. Who developed that resource? It was the governments that permitted there to be adequate boats for that fishery to be developed, that subsidized crab processing plants and that permitted crab sales in the markets. So it's a natural resource that belongs to all Canadians, regardless of whether it's the federal government or the provincial government that permitted that fishery to evolve.

    As for Area 12, when the co-management agreement was applied a few years ago, they said that $500,000 in revenue was necessary in order to fish 200,000 or 250,000 pounds of crab. They also said that that required $1 million or $1.5 million boat. That's not true.

    I'm going to give you an example that can apply to the other areas as well. If you look at the table--I unfortunately didn't have the time to complete it, but I could eventually leave you a copy--you'll see that, last year, that is in 2002, the average income of the 22 crab fishermen in Area 17 was $584,000. Those figures come from the Department; we didn't make them up. In 2003, it states that the revenue of each crab fisherman declined by an average of 10.68 percent. But now there are 23 of them because part of the volume was removed from the temporary allocation.

    The fact is that crab won't be at $2.50 this year, but at $3.10. So even if there is 10.68 percent decline in revenue, it will be offset by a nearly $60,000 increase. Revenues will rise to $646,000 this year, as a result of which since the co-management agreement went into effect in late 1997, those people have enjoyed a revenue increase in the order of 239 percent.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Whereas your fishermen...

    Mr. André Boucher: Whereas our fishermen are facing an operating loss.

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

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

    Sir, in the composition you gave us, in fact I'll go right to the page here, you indicated--I thought this was quite telling, to be honest with you--about how the consultation was bogus. Actually this is back in 1998, and you describe it as “a good example of bogus consultations and lack of transparency on the part of DFO”. Sir, that was on March 26, 1998. Do you still hold that sentiment about DFO and its consultative process?

¸  (1405)  

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: In fact, we haven't yet been consulted regarding the renewal of the Area 17 co-management agreement. We should have been consulted last fall. So, not having been consulted, I can't tell you whether the thing is a lot of b.s. or whether it's being done in secret; there haven't been any consultations.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: And on page 10, sir, you have another statement where it says:

Perhaps it hopes to see groundfish-dependent inshore fishermen disappear without having to provide them with financial compensation.

    That's a pretty strong statement to make. In many ways I agree with you, from what I've seen personally on both coasts in this country. Do the people you represent, some of them, hold that view, or is this just your own view?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: I must tell you that the opinion expressed in the brief is not mine, but rather than of the fishermen I represent.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Very good, thank you. That's fine.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Hearn.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    I have only one question, really. A number of agencies over the last few years have obtained crab and shrimp quotas: co-ops, business perhaps, first nations. In some cases, the principals involved didn't fish the resource. They were given the resource, which they immediately resold to somebody else, sometimes right in the water, while not actively participating themselves. Do you think this is the way a resource belonging to fishermen really should be handled, or should the resource be distributed to those who actually go out and catch the resource, with the benefit going to them?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: I completely agree with you. In our area, when there are allocations, we only have one fisherman who doesn't take part in the fishery, who sells his allocation. All our leaders feel that those who don't have boats, who don't take part in the fishery and who don't meet the criteria to obtain allocations should be withdrawn from the fishery. That's what we think and what we hope.

    In our current discussions with the Department, we've been told that, starting in 2004, there's going to be a change of attitude and that the participants' fishing histories will be surveyed before the allocations are given out. We used that process with the Department's cooperation in 1998 to put in place individual turbot quotas in our area. It's that process that we managed to establish with a departmental official. We noted the fishing history from 1991 to 1997, then we established individuals quotas that were not all equal, based on the fishing histories.

    That's why I told you earlier that that's what the Department should have done in 1993. It should have taken the fishing histories and withdrawn the licences from individuals who had no fishing history.

[English]

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: I agree fully, Mr. Chairman. The concern I have about making decisions down the road is you probably then will run into the grandfathering clause that protects a lot of these groups that will have already gotten licences. Hopefully they'll revert to the fact that we have a resource, there are people who make a living by catching that resource, and they should be the prime beneficiaries.

    Mr. Chair, I raise the issue because I believe this is one of the most important issues we should address, and our recommendations along those lines should be pointed to this, because more and more of the resource that is supposed to benefit those directly involved is really going into the hands of those who are indirectly involved, and quite often large portions of the profits are really going elsewhere, not to the people who are directly involved in the resource. It is becoming a major problem that could destroy the fishery as we know it today.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Hearn.

    Mr. Wood, do you have any questions?

¸  (1410)  

    Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing, Lib.): No, I don't.

    The Chair: All right.

    Mr. Elley.

    Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance): I have no more questions.

    The Chair: Very good, then I have a couple.

    Annex III.... I'm startled that you said they gave you 11 days to answer. Effectively, they gave you less than that, because the letter was dated March 20. Of course, it had to be sent, then received and then reviewed. Did anybody ever ask Daniel Boisvert why he only gave less than 11 days to offer comments?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: Yes.

[English]

    The Chair: What did he say?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: He said that it was the management committee that had made the decision and that the letter had been sent. That's all; we had no further explanation than that. He said that that was the letter and that we had 11 years. That's why we filed copies of documents because we feel that's an unacceptable way of doing things. It's unacceptable for a department to conduct a consultation which in fact isn't a consultation since we were told we had 11 days to respond. We subsequently requested a meeting so that we could at least discuss the matter, and we never received an answer to that letter of March 26, 1998, further to yours of March 20 concerning the above subject, which was further to a discussion with the members of the board of directors.

    We requested a meeting and we were never given it. We made calls. Of course we don't have the telephone recordings because we don't do that, but we made calls to request a meeting, and we were told that the process was under way. At one point, we learned that the agreement had been signed and that the matter was settled. But according to our information, it was signed long before that. The agreement in principle between the traditional crab fishermen and the Department dated back a number of months. We had agreed on a principle and we were consulted at the last minute.

[English]

    The Chair: I understand the point you're making about false consultation.

    You've answered one part of my question, but the other is, did you ever ask Mr. Boisvert why the letters of March 26 and April 16 were never answered?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: For the letter of April 16, we were given a verbal answer that the document issued with the 60-40 sharing proposal was the proposal on which we had agreed with the traditional crab fishermen. The matter remained there. That's all the verbal information we received. The document he had sent us was unchanged. The matter remained there; that's all. That's often the way certain persons in the Department proceed.

[English]

    The Chair: All right.

    Do you know where Mr. Boisvert is now?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: He's in the same place, and the same position.

[English]

    The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

    Perhaps I misunderstood the earlier evidence, but when we had the snow crab fishermen before us, they were talking about their expertise in knowing what size of crab to keep and what size of crab to return, so that it could continue to grow. That is directly contrary to what you said today, which is that the crab that are pulled out will inevitably die when they are thrown back in.

    Why did you say that they all die?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: Perhaps I expressed myself poorly, but what I was talking about earlier was crab that's caught in the nets. Crab by-catch, according to the regulations, must be thrown back into the water by the fishermen. But you know, when a crab is caught in a net and fishermen have to spend five, six or sometimes seven hours removing crab from it so that they can recover their nets, I can tell you that, when the crab comes out of there, it's missing legs, it's missing pieces.

    Last year, I saw one case where the fisherman had to come back to the wharf with the crab in his roller because the wind had come up. The net is on a roller. He'd had to roll up his roller because the wind had come up. He'd had no other choice, and he didn't have the time to remove the crab from the nets. So he came back to the dock with a lot of crab in the net, and it was considered that he had committed an offence because he had brought crab back to the wharf. He hadn't even untangled it. People went onto the boat and stole all the crab in the net.

¸  (1415)  

[English]

    The Chair: Just so I understand, it's almost inevitable that bycatch crab would die. So I guess what they were talking about was catching crab in the proper manner, and then throwing them back in if they found smaller ones. I understand that now. All right.

    Mr. Stoffer.

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

    Sir, we've heard about that before, where people are really high-grading or they're forced to dump a product they catch. Here, for example, the net has crabs attached to it.

    Are you suggesting then that those crabs should be brought on shore, and either be part of a quota of something else, or at least be brought to the processing plant for marketing instead of just throwing them away?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: I'm going to go back a little. We were consulted by the AFPR, the departmental committee that had established for the access criteria.

    We appeared in Quebec City. It was a departmental committee meeting for consultations on access criteria, and there were representatives from the universities. There were hearings in Vancouver, Ottawa and so on. There was a man from Toronto whom we told that we were required to reject the crab caught in the nets, and the man told me that I was a liar. Mr. Kroeger chaired that committee meeting. The man told me that I was a liar because the information he had from the Department was that the crab by-catch in the nets could be kept. I said that was absolutely false. I had to send Mr. Kroeger copies of proceedings, legal documents showing that fishermen who had brought back crab had been tried and had to pay a fine. The matter remained there.

    What I can tell you in response to your question is that, when there are by-catches of other species, a certain percentage may be kept. Perhaps that option could be considered. For turbot fishermen, there is 100 percentage dockside weighing, and the dockside weigher has a mandate to determine whether other catches remain in the boat. At that point, there might be a softening of the regulations so that, in turbot landings, 10 percent or 15 percent of crab by-catch might be kept and deducted from the temporary allocation. The volume obtained would be deducted from the temporary allocation or from the quota. At that point, there would be less waste. I'm not saying that would make 2L or 3L commercial crab to sell in the market, but the crab could be processed and sold for flesh.

    It's true that this is a shameful waste. That's why the man told me I was lying, because he thought it was astounding that such a large volume of crab could be wasted, whereas, at today's prices, it's a considerable resource.

[English]

    The Chair: Just a quick question.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: Just for a point of clarification, I think what we're actually talking about here are crab caught in pots versus crab caught in nets. When you find small crabs, soft crab, or whatever, caught in regular crab pots, you can take them out and release them, because they are alive and moving around and are not tangled up in the pots. Even then, some people question how many really survive because of the depth of the water.

    What we are talking about here are crabs caught in gill nets, which you would use for cod or turbot or whatever, at greater depths perhaps. But in the meantime, they are all tangled up in the twine, and they are usually torn apart. Unless you can sell them, you'd be a little more careful. The ironic thing about it is that some years ago, when you put in your gill nets for cod or turbot or whatever, crab were a real nuisance. You just smashed them up and threw them away. But now they're much more lucrative than the other product.

    That is the difference—pots where the crab are alive, almost like a lobster pot, versus crab getting tangled up in gill nets, where it's very difficult to extricate them.

¸  (1420)  

    The Chair: Finally, Mr. Boucher, just so I understand this clearly, are you saying that at present there is no percentage of crab bycatch allowed to be taken? In other words, everything must be thrown back?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: Yes, everything must be thrown back into the water.

    The fishermen don't go into those areas on purpose, because sometimes there's crab at depths of 140, 150 or 160 fathoms and, in a given area, it's going to get caught in the nets. But there isn't one groundfish fisherman fishing turbot who's interested in spending hours cleaning nets full of crab. In those cases, the fishermen work quickly, and the crab is destroyed. If there was a chance of being able to bring in a certain quantity of crab, then they might be careful when cleaning the net; they take the time. But in this case, the crab brings them nothing; it makes them lose time, so it's destroyed.

    The scientists tell us that approximately 99 percent of the crab caught in the nets and thrown back into the water will die.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: It's frustrating when I see this, and they're told to throw it away.

    There has to be a reason why DFO is telling you this. They don't just say “Throw it away”; they have to give a logical explanation why they're saying it.

    The Chair: I think the explanation would be, as Mr. Boucher said, that they're afraid of abuse. They're afraid of people pulling it up and alleging that it was bycatch, when they were actually fishing it. In other words, if there's no profit in doing that, if everything has to be thrown over the side, then hopefully nobody does it.

    I think what Mr. Boucher was saying is that if you keep the percentage small, but at least have a percentage—I think he said 10% to 15% bycatch, or something like that—then at least there's some incentive to keep some of it, but not enough incentive to fish illegally.

    Mr. Boucher, is that approximately what you said?

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: Prior to 1992 or 1993, fishermen could bring crab by-catch back to the dock. They brought the crab back to the dock and they sold it in the local market or to consumers who were on the docks at a price lower than the price of conventional crab.

    I'm not a fisherman, but what I've been told is that there was pressure from traditional crab fishermen, who found that that slightly undermined their local market. Since others were selling crab at lower prices, it harmed their local market a bit.

    There are statements. There's a table in the brief, which reads:

The data used to prepare this table was taken from documents provided by DFO and by statements by the President of the Area 17 Snow Crab Fishermen's Association to the effect that 80 percent of landings are sold to plants and 20 percent to retail markets.

    That means that 20 percent is very lucrative for them because it's sold at the dock at $4 or $5 a pound. That's why fishermen told me they didn't want fishermen bringing back crab to the docks; it hurt the local market.

    I should tell you that, in our regions, a fairly large number of transactions are conducted locally to sell crab. I can tell you that, last week in Matane, traditional crab fishermen sold crab at $6 per unit. That's quite lucrative.

[English]

    The Chair: All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Boucher. It was very interesting, and we appreciate the time you took to come this afternoon and give us your written presentation. Merci beaucoup.

[Translation]

    Mr. André Boucher: Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: We'll now call on Monsieur Georges-Henri Hubert.

¸  (1425)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert (Vice-President and Co-owner, Groupe de commerce international Eng.-Hubert inc.): Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be with you this afternoon because this is essential. For me, in any case, what represents democracy is a committee such as yours, provided we're sure that what we tell you has a chance of moving up the line and being effective. I feel that's really democracy.

    Democracy can also play tricks on us. It played a trick on us with the product description we have. Here we have a product which is Greenland seal oil, Phoca groenlandica, and curiously enough all the countries in the world accept this product as something very welcome, but the United States of America refuses to open its borders to us. We're working very, very hard to change matters.

    I submitted a short background document to you. Briefly, the story started in 1972 with the Mammal Protection Act, which essentially states, where it concerns us, that seal products from Canada are denied admission. It's an embargo. They call it a “ban”, but I call it a “embargo”. I told them jokingly that my name wasn't Fidel Castro, just Georges Hubert, and that they had no business imposing embargoes on us, or on seal products or lobster products or the products of other mollusk or fish species.

    But lobbyists in the United States are very strong. Lobbyists in Canada are very strong. Yours in Ottawa are very strong too. We were received at the National Assembly of Quebec, where there was a meeting roughly 18 months ago on problems related to the implementation of NAFTA. So that's followed its course without there being any real chance of results, because it's an issue that has been forwarded to Foreign Affairs.

    Then we submitted a well-substantiated document entitled Toward Fairness for the Canadian Seal Industry in the Markets of the United States of America and the European Union. So that's also another document. We cited things such as the advertising on research that's done on seals, a bit like Quebec Science or something like that, which praises the merits of research conducted to see how seals can be prevented from reproducing. That way, we'll have fewer of them; there'll be less damage. There are trends like that. We prefer to address that, to process them and make money that way.

    Essentially, there's the U.S. Mammal Protection Act. I'm saying that there's nothing preventing us from going to the United States with our seal products, if we attended to the matter, but, to date, we haven't. Your Department of Foreign Affairs is supposed to handle that, as well as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for other components.

    I believe we have to go before the Americans. There was a man this afternoon who mentioned that, perhaps if we had a few million dollars to invest in advertising to talk to the Americans directly and to offer them our products...

    What you have beside you in the little Omega bottle is something that's now caught on in Europe, in France. It can be taken with statins, a family of anti-cholesterol drugs. And if you have Omega-3s with that, with statins, that gives you a better mix in order to reduce your cholesterol levels. It works miracles.

    In addition--this could be a good Ottawa-Quebec City issue--in France, they have provided that people on welfare are entitled to these drugs free of charge. It's paid for by the state.

    So the idea has already been launched in the Government of Quebec. It's going to make its way, but that's currently the result.

¸  (1435)  

[English]

    The Chair: Are you ready to take our questions?

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Yes.

[English]

    The Chair: It's interesting for the witnesses to ask us questions.

    Let's start with Mr. Stoffer.

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

    First of all, thank you very much to the committee for having a sample of this.

    You may not know, but in 1999 we did exactly what you asked us to do. The committee made a recommendation to the minister and the Government of Canada to go to the United States to open up the markets and to get rid of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which is a hindrance to our Inuit and sealers in Canada in marketing seal products to the U.S.

    We know that the aboriginal community in Alaska can sell seal products to the United States, but our aboriginal people cannot. This has always been a bone of contention. We mentioned it in our 1999 report. I just wanted you to know that the recommendation has already been made. The committee can decide, but it may be helpful to perhaps reintroduce that recommendation at a later date just to re-emphasize it.

    If this went the way you would like to see it, and you had the markets you envisioned, how many people could be employed in this area, for example, making just this one product?

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: I'm not sure I understood the question.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: How many seals would it take?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Right now...

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: How many persons could be employed?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Do you want me to reveal manufacturing secrets? I won't do it, but I can tell you that there are enough seals. As for Phoca groenlandica, there are enough seals in Greenland coming and going for the entire United States. There's only 500 milligrams per capsule.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: How many persons could get a job in the region if this product were developed in the United States?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: The Magdalen Islands plant is currently in operation. There's also one in Newfoundland. We're talking about some 20 employees who are devoted to regular operations. Then we have to see to distribution and marketing. For that, we would have to increase marketing locations, establish a wholesale system and so on. All that's in the binders. We know what to do, but the border has to be open.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: It says “Product of Canada”, so which community did this come from?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: It's from Newfoundland. It's a very good product from Newfoundland.

    The Chair: Mr. Hearn.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: Mr. Chair, I just have one other follow-up question.

    Of course, coming from Newfoundland, I'm well aware of the caps. If we had Mr. Efford with us today, he has been a real salesman for this product. But what other products created from seals do you envisage we should be creating and selling internationally, if we had the guts to push them?

¸  (1440)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Did he say “to other countries”?

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: No, he said “what other products”.

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: All the parts of the seal are marketable, but they currently aren't marketed because the market is small. It's possible to make a profit manufacturing highly valuable proteins in the food industry, both for aquaculture and for human beings.

    The jackpot, of course, is the fur. That market has never been so strong. We've hit prices that have never been paid in the known history of the “loup-marin”--that's what's it's called in the Magdalen Islands--in other words, the seal. All the parts of the seal, its fur, among other things, are used and generate a broad range of products.

    We are the sole owners of these groups of marine mammals. The only people we've been inspired by are the Norwegians. Norway hunts the fin whale, a kind of small whale that yields a high-quality oil. For the rest, we're there. We enjoy a kind of natural exclusivity; I think future generations will be able to benefit from that.

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Elley, do you have any more questions?

[Translation]

    Excuse me, Mr. Roy.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: You forgot me, Mr. Chairman.

    The Chair: Mr. Roy, please.

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Please excuse me, but the question calls for details on other species as well.

    Throughout the day, you've talked about preserving cod, at least what's left of it, and giving it a chance to renew by means of a moratorium. I sort of agree on that. However, if the amount of food is reduced for the seals in the spring, that will obviously give the other species a chance to expand a bit.

    Every report on resources states that seals eat everything. So we'll become part of the solution to the problem by going to the United States. So we have to go.

    Are you coming with me?

    The Chair: Mr. Roy, over to you.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: You talk a lot about the American market. I have asked questions on that subject in the House on a number of occasions, and I've been told that the negotiations have been ongoing for two years. What are the results of the negotiations? It's very difficult to determine what's going on and what the outcome will be. That's my question. At some point, the committee should ask the question very specifically, should make it known that it wants to know the outcome of the negotiations and perhaps summon someone from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to appear to tell us where the negotiations stand.

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Mr. Roy, I would like to emphasize that an organization devoted to the seal industry has been established in Quebec. It's called the Table filière loup-marin inc. I'm an advisor for that organization, and developments...

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: They're not moving forward.

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: They're blocked. The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade doesn't have the will to go any further. There's a fear of the ecological lobby in the United States, which is very strong. It can afford a page of advertising in the New York Times, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. So that lobby is very strong in the United States. When it intervenes, it can have a lot of harmful effects.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I would also like to know whether this product has been marketing in Canada.

¸  (1445)  

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: It's being done.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Really?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Yes, yes, yes.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What about overseas? For example, has it been marketed in Asia?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Overseas, we're in Kuang-Chou, Hong Kong and Beijing.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: In other words, it's starting.

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Yes, it's starting.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Good. Is it...?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: You know, there was a lot of concern at seeing China join the WTO, but there had previously been concern about the fact that it was not a member of the WTO. Now it's a member. So you have to readjust. We have to ensure that a food supplement such as this meets our statutes and regulations governing food, but there it's a lot worse. It's a total mess. You have to adjust to the rules of both countries.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I would like to ask you one final question. Are you receiving any kind of assistance from the Government of Canada to export this product?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: We belong to...

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I'm talking about financial assistance. Are you receiving financial assistance from the Government of Canada?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: I'm working with a private banker. I'm talking about a medium-size bank, not a large bank. I don't want to work with a bank that operates internationally; I don't have good relations with those kinds of institutions. I want to know who I'm working with. So I'm working with my Chinese friend, as I call him. We're working with a bank that we know well.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I hope you're not an owner.

    My question is this: I want to know whether you're receiving assistance from the Government of Canada in marketing this product. We're dealing with a moratorium on cod. We talked about it all morning and part of the day. Since that moratorium is in place, it's said that we have to develop the seal industry, but not kill for the sake of killing, as some have emphasized. I agree with them; killing for the sake of killing is out of the question. This is a resource that must be exploited, and there are products related to that resource.

    Unfortunately, you're telling me that the Government of Canada offers no assistance to develop and market those products. If we did, we could manage to develop a real industry and create jobs. Do you agree with me? That's my question.

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: We're not receiving any assistance for all kinds of reasons. They say the product isn't developed, but that's nothing very serious. Everything's consistent with our laws and Health Canada regulations.

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: That answers my questions.

[English]

    The Chair: Merci.

    Monsieur Hubert, are these pills that you gave us made from harp seals?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Oui.

    The Chair: Is there any difference between the species of seals, or could you get this oil from any of the species?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: No, because...

[Translation]

the best quality oil comes from the Phoca groenlandica, which, in English, is called the “harp seal”. We're trying to obtain the best possible oil from all points of view. The best quality oil also depends on the age of the seal at the time it is slaughtered. It shouldn't be too old. It shouldn't be too young either; it shouldn't be a pup--it's called a “bébé phoque” in French--that's not good.

[English]

    The Chair: So we're kind of lucky, in fact, that the best seal from which to take these is the most abundant seal in Canada.

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Yes, that's true. We're naturally lucky. We should take advantage of that, I think, like the Americans.

[English]

    The Chair: If we had the Chinese market, let's say, we wouldn't have to worry about the American market, would we?

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: There are some 300 million Americans. Those 300 million are much richer than the 80 million Chinese who can afford to buy the product.

    The Chair: That's the way it is for the moment, but it won't necessarily be the case in future.

    Mr. Stoffer, over to you.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Chair.

    Sir, from the harp seal that you would recommend, how many of these tablets or pills come from one seal?

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: That's a production secret.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: I will send you a little letter.

[Translation]

I'll send you a memo.

¸  (1450)  

[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Hubert, how much do you charge for one of these, retail?

[Translation]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: At Jean Coutu, the price of a 120-capsule container is $10.99 to $11.99, depending on the merchant's profit margin.

[English]

    From $10.99 to $11.99, special or not.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Are there any other questions? Thank you very much.

[English]

    Mr. Georges-Henri Hubert: Two capsules in the morning, two capsules in the evening.

    Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Now the Alliance des pêcheurs professionnels du Québec: we have O'Neil Cloutier, director; and Jean-François Martel, vice-president.

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier (Director, Alliance des pêcheurs professionnels du Québec): Good afternoon. We are lucky to appear before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for the second time. We appeared last year and I recognize you, Mr. Stoffer.

    I hope to be as amusing as our predecessor. However, we won't be talking about shark or seal cartilage. Instead, we'll discuss the official position of all Quebec inshore fishermen on the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. You'll receive the document a little later. It is highly technical; so I'll have to read it adding explanatory notes. We can answer all your questions, specifying, however, that...

[English]

    The Chair: Do you only have one copy of the document?

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes. You will receive one after, if everybody wants to make copies.

    The Chair: Do you have an extra copy here?

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: No.

    The Chair: Okay, the interpreters are out of luck.

    Mr. Stoffer.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Is it possible to take a minute's break to photocopy it for the interpreters? Because it will be difficult for them; it is quite difficult when it is technical.

    The Chair: Do we want to take two or three minutes? All right, we'll take two or three minutes, make one photocopy or a couple. If we're making them, we might as well make them for everybody. This gives us an opportunity for a coffee.

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---

¹  (1507)  

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Mr. Chairman, you say we have 15 minutes for the presentation. I hope I'll be quite fast, but not too fast for the interpreters.

    The Chair: It's not necessary to read the presentation because we have it in front of us now.

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: All right.

    First of all, we want to state that we are one of the four member organizations of the Alliance des pêcheurs professionnels du Québec, our provincial structure, which represents virtually all inshore lobster fishermen, among others, all the lobster fishermen from Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands, some of the crab fishermen from Areas 13, 14, 15 and 16 on the North Shore and the scallop fishermen from Areas 14 and 15 on the North Shore.

    We should also note that the Gaspé inshore fishermen are in perfect agreement with the document that was filed by the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters, of which we are members through our provincial organization.

    That document obviously refers to the vision that inshore fishermen have of the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. The Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review was clearly requested by the inshore fishermen since inshore fishermen don't approve and have never approved of the review for a number of reasons. Today we understand that the scope of the review is currently reflected in the crab crisis we're experiencing in the Atlantic. I'll explain that to you in a moment.

    So it is essential for inshore fishermen that the new policy be based on two fundamental principles to which we have always adhered and will always adhere. We hope that the government and the minister will take that into account. It is the principle of the owner captain on his boat, so that fishing remains fishing, and not excessive industrialization, and the principle of separation of the fleet, so that we can see fishermen transferring their knowledge, their sea culture to their families, children, sons and daughters,

    If those two principles are not highlighted throughout the text on the review, we will oppose it and we will let the government know it through the steps we intend to take at the appropriate time. We hope that the government, which is being accused of never listening to fishermen, will listen to fishermen this time, and not big industry.

    So the principle of the owner captain is very simple. To operate a boat and obtain a licence, the licence must be in the name of a person who has the necessary knowledge and skills to go out on the water and the level of education needed to understand the basic principles of conservation and the economic principles related to fishing. That person must be identified and identifiable. That person must also be accountable. The licence must therefore be in the name of a person, not a company, as we saw last year.

    In the 1970s, BC Packers, a Western Canadian company, came here, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to Gaspé in particular, with the Canadian government's permission, for 24 years without interruption, and we haven't seen a single herring tail in the Magdalen Islands. That fishery is simply ruined.

    So we don't want to see these big movements of big boats that are currently disputed around the world. That's no news to you; I believe you watch television like we do, that you travel like we do.

    So it's fundamentally important for us that the minister not adopt a review as was done in the west with the Sprout Report. You know what happened in western Canada, where 50 percent of fishermen completely disappeared.

    It may seem like a promising option for the government when it's said that there are far too many fishermen, but it's not a very livable, healthy or laudable option for the communities. We think there are other options, in particular sharing the wealth, but eliminating 50 percent of fishermen on a technicality in such a harsh, such an abrupt way is something we don't want here in the Atlantic.

¹  (1510)  

    The second principle is the separation of the fleet. We think that--and this has already gone way too far--that we must maintain the fisheries at a reasonable operational level, that is to say that we must harvest the sea using boats that do not exceed the reproductive or regenerative capability of the species. In that way, we have a principle that protects us and that prevents industry, big industry, from conducting fishing operations using very large boats. That's the principle of separation of the fleet.

    All boats under 65 feet must have an operator who is the owner captain or a captain. We must maintain this principle. It is the only one that protects us from very large boats that would seek only to generate maximum revenues and would thus generate major capital needs, which would suit the banks, but not the inshore fishermen or the communities or the resource. We've seen that in the past; we don't want to see it again.

    At home in the Gulf, we have a fleet that operates in a manner very much like a regional commitment to development and conservation. I can tell you that, in my region, in Gaspé, there are 225 lobster fishermen, and we live relatively well from the lobster fishery, although our incomes are very modest. We wouldn't want to have that replaced by seven or eight boats. That would suit big industry, but we definitely wouldn't want to see that. Otherwise, the regions would be finished. So it's very important that you understand that.

    The document is a summary of the brief that the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters filed. We know perfectly well that industrial interests currently want access. So for them, it would be important that the act be amended in their favour, but we wish to inform you that, if that was ever done in their favour, it would simply mean the end of the fisheries.

    Stocks have been eliminated all around the globe without any bitterness or second thoughts. In any case, we're informing you that, if the stocks we live off are ever eliminated, it won't be because we didn't tell you. You'll see. You know it now. So we shouldn't meet again in two or three years and say to ourselves that, if only someone had told us... No, no, you know.

    We are fishermen. We didn't request the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. Some genius had to convince someone in Ottawa to go down that road, and we know who that genius is. We'll keep his name to ourselves, but we never requested the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review. In our opinion, authorizing access to the fishery for industrial concerns is out of the question. Why? You see it today, and I think that what's happening in the Gulf of St. Lawrence comes at an opportune moment. Four thousand persons are threatened with losing their plant jobs simply because there are people who have a lot of money, enough money so that they don't have to fish, since that's what they announced, who don't give a damn.

    So, if these two principles are ignored, we're going to have to deal with this kind of situation. It is very important that you feel that we can't keep a government or a minister this way in Canada, whether he's Liberal, Conservative or from the Alliance, the Bloc or any other party.

    So what's going on in the fisheries, in the crab fishery, is precisely an illustration of what will happen in the other fisheries if those two principles are ignored. I can tell you that a lot of industrial concerns are waiting for the right moment to come in with their big bucks and then to decide on everything that's going to happen in the Atlantic. And it's quite simple. Why? Because it's a question of money. You see it today; it's really a question of money.

    A region, a municipality was besieged, and very unfortunate actions were taken. There's no point in sitting down and saying that it's true, that we encourage them, that we'll change the act and make it more permissible.

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You shouldn't think that we're in South America. We're telling you this because we've gone through it. My colleague and other colleagues and I were the main instigators of the sharing in 1995, and we nearly lost our skin. We fought at the time to have the principle of sharing accepted, and we think there's room in the fisheries for this kind of social initiative. It's collective, it's social, and we wouldn't want other people to be stuck with the same problem.

    Giving businesses access to the fisheries would ultimately mean eliminating a large part of the community. So you should think about that. I think you should think about that.

    You saw what happened with the cod. That's a very, very eloquent example. The Canadian government, with its ministers, its officials, its members of Parliament, its fisheries in general, got organized to control its fisheries efforts, its conservation plans in the Gulf, forgetting that cod knows no borders, just like herring or red fish, and forgetting that 200 miles further out, they're going to be caught by foreign fleets, by boats like the one we saw in Nova Scotia last weekend, boats where people work 16 hours a day for large corporations, very large corporations, and who catch everything that moves on the bottom of the sea. In the meantime, we inshore dopes continue this masquerade. We shout at each other, we insult each other, we fight each other for a fish tail, while these big businesses have the same access as we do because the fish travel, and they catch all the fish while we on the inside get nothing. And this is the second time.

    We shouldn't push this odious situation so far as to accept the Sprout Report. I believe that Canada's members of Parliament should simply shelve it and say that we can reform. Perhaps we can reform differently. Otherwise, you have to accept that the two principles I mentioned a moment ago must be written down in and protected by the document.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We'll go to questions now, starting with Mr. Hearn.

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    Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    I was intrigued with the comment in relation to the policy review document. We also were a bit surprised by that. It certainly wasn't an issue on which we were consulted. Nor did we have any direct input.

    If you look at the people who appeared before that policy review, the list is quite different from the list of people who appear before us as we go around. Today, the people we have heard have all said what you're saying. They are people who are directly affected, who have been involved in the fishery all of their lives, who are the direct beneficiaries, as they should be, who are saying that the licence holder should be the person who is in the boat catching the fish.

    I'm not sure why the policy review was brought in. I'm not sure who the architects were. As I say, if you look at the witnesses, we had a lot of vested interests appearing before that committee.

    I agree totally--and I think most or all of the committee will--with a couple of principles you mentioned. I simply wonder how much input does the average full-time fisherman have when it comes to getting his voice heard. Quite often when you have major hearings, it seems that we have industry represented, and if fishermen at all are represented, they are represented by the major unions, and I wonder sometimes if they are really carrying the message from the fellow in the boat.

    Could I have your impression of that?

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes. Except where shown otherwise, I believe that the major fishermen's unions--we don't have any in Quebec, but we do have large organizations--were very good at communicating the issues of the reform.

    I attended four meetings on the reform. The first meeting we had with Paul Sprout was held in Gaspé, where all the players of the fishing industry were assembled, that is to say the shrimp fishermen, crab fishermen, lobster fishermen, cod fishermen, turbot fishermen of all kinds, mobile- and fixed-gear, inshore and midshore, and everyone there asked Paul Sprout not to touch the two fundamental principles mentioned a moment ago.

    I attended three meetings which I would characterized as human, very human. We had access, we were able to speak, we could file briefs. Moreover, we've done nothing but file briefs for the past three years. Perhaps you should go look in Mr. Sprout's officers; you'd find them there.

    I attended a final meeting in Halifax last winter, in January, which all participants characterized as not human. It was a meeting where Mr. Sprout had taken care to confront all the fishermen's unions, that is to say the large and small fishermen's organizations, all the fishing industrial concerns, which were represented by lawyers. And we didn't like that at all, at all.

    In our discussions, we were always given messages which the lawyers translated, that they transmitted to us for their clients, which were very large industrial interests. When we talk about large industrial interests, we're talking about Daley Brothers Limited, Blue Cove Group Inc., Clearwater, all those major groups that want access to the resource, that want to take the resource.

    So I found that deeply shocking, not to say sickening, on the Department's part to have called us to a meeting where the dice were loaded in advance.

    Once again, through our provincial organizations for those who have them, and our unions, for those, like Newfoundland, that have them, we asked Mr. Sprout not to touch the two fundamental principles as a result of which fishing is now centred around five provinces in the Atlantic. And it's very good that way. If some provinces have more and others less, it's not important, provided they are fishermen who can live with their families in the communities and they're living from the sea. I don't think he understood.

    Perhaps you should inform your respective organizations that we do not want to change that, to change those two principles. I think it's very important that someone understand in Canada where we're heading.

    Obviously for a government or for someone thinking he can make a lot of money, it's much simpler to replace existing fishermen with 100 industrial boats than to have, say, 20,000 fishermen who work three, four, five or six months a year and then to have to meet all their needs and deal with all the troubles that can arise in the years when there's no fish, the years when there's too much, the years when there's less sharing or no sharing, and to have to take the Aboriginal people into account. Obviously, it's much simpler on paper, but there's also no soul in it.

    I want to repeat what I read, and that will probably be the gist of my last remark. I read a book last winter on the incredible history of the cod. Cod was the first item bartered in the world, before pepper. So the story was very interesting, and everything was going well until large companies from England invented the first steam-driven trawl in 1885. Within 40 years, there was no more cod in the Gulf. There was nothing on the coast of Labrador or the coast of Newfoundland. For what? For industrialization, just for industrialization, to enable the banks to make big profits by financing those large businesses, without allowing people, the public, to live.

    So I have a boat that allows me, for example, to earn $70,000 a year, but I support three persons on that $70,000. Some people who have $700,000 boats are currently on strike. They aren't large industrial boats, but they are boats that are geared more toward big industry and that support five persons. But they have $700,000. So it's easy to understand.

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[English]

    The Chair: That was a long answer.

    Mr. Hearn, do you have another question? No?

    Okay, Mr. Elley.

    Mr. Reed Elley (Nanaimo—Cowichan, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much for coming and sharing with us today.

    You mentioned what happened on the west coast of Canada. I of course come from Vancouver Island and represent a maritime riding there. The fishermen in my riding tell me exactly what you're saying.

    Of course, we had the decimation of the cod fishery in 1990, and DFO had this plan. They bought back all these licences. On the east coast, we know it eventually meant there were more people fishing than before. So something went wrong there, if there was supposed to be a buyback to take care of this.

    Now, on the west coast, of course, they bought those back, and you're right, 50% of the fishermen aren't fishing any more. So that's a huge problem there. What it means, of course, is the destruction of a way of life. That's what it is.

    I think you've gotten right down to the heart of the matter when you say what we have here are two competing views of what the fishery should be. I think, honestly--and my fishermen tell me they believe this too--basically the DFO approach is to eventually not have to deal with 20,000 or 25,000 fishermen across the country, which is very problematic. It's much easier to deal with two, three, four, or half a dozen large corporations and manage a more selective fishery from that point of view.

    So I think really that's where the problem lies and where we as parliamentarians and you as fishermen have to come together somehow on a way to strategize to head this off at the pass, if indeed this is what's coming. I say that because I'd like to get your reaction to that again and see if you think I'm on the right track here.

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[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: You've completely understood. The problem is that no one seems to want to listen.

    I believe that we, the fishermen's organizations, have filed enough documents in the past three years. We have travelled enough kilometers in the past three years, from Halifax to Ottawa, through Montreal, Quebec City, Gaspé and Moncton, to at least hope that someone will understand something about the subject.

    If, as you're telling me, no one is listening to you either, things are going very poorly. How can we find a strategy we can all agree on?

    I think we have to call on our elected representatives. Moreover, it's unfortunate that Mr. Farrah isn't here because he is the worthy representative of the party in power. We should simply call on the future Prime Minister because I get the impression that the outgoing Prime Minister won't get mixed up in this issue.

    So delay passing the proposed reform as long as possible. I don't know where the legislative process stands, what reading we're on. We have to question the future Prime Minister and ask him or her what operating method he or she wants to establish in Atlantic Canada. Perhaps we should look back to what happened in the case of the Pacific. We know what really happened in the Pacific. Thousands of dollars were spent in order to go take a look. We know. We all know what happened. So I believe that our strategy should be, in particular, to question the future Prime Minister and delay adopting the reform. I believe that a bill has been tabled, that the reform has been introduced. Delay its approval as long as possible and see what economic policies the future Prime Minister intends to adopt for the fisheries. We can't influence the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We've tried. We know 200 Kent Street by heart. We go there four or five times a year. We've tried, but we are powerless. We believe that the government is going to adopt this new policy and that will mean the end of licensing.

    You can see this phenomenon in the crab industry. It used to be a beautiful industry, but it no longer has a soul now because there's too much money per capita. It no longer has a soul. People no longer listen. They're making too much money. So when they make too much money, they stop listening. But it was a beautiful industry.

    If I had $2 million and you were trying to convince me to go and meet you, I wouldn't go if I didn't feel like it. If I didn't have $2 million, I'd be obliged to go and meet you and I would go. That's the way it is.

    In other countries, we've seen what happens when industries get too big, when they take over all the resources. We saw that in Gaspé in 1995. On May 8, 1995, there were 300 plant employees on the lot in front of my bungalow ready to lynch us, my wife, my children and me, because I had dared talk about sharing the wealth. It was the same debate as today. We experienced that situation; we know it well. I nevertheless prefer to talk about sharing the wealth because it's much more human than to talk about not sharing and reserve all fishing revenue for a few flourishing businesses. We don't want that. We don't want mega-businesses. They have no soul. There's no more life when that's the way it is. It doesn't reflect the culture of the inhabitants, it doesn't reflect the culture of Canada and it empties the regions.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Monsieur Roy.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: Thank you. From what you tell me, I draw a comparison between two fields where people may currently be experiencing difficulties. I draw a comparison with logging.

    I'm going to give you a good example. If you own private lots and you intend to operate them all your life, you won't clear-cut them. You won't pluck them and you won't go away.

    What we've experienced in Quebec with the logging industry is precisely that large businesses have had access to our resource and in a big way. They've completely cut all our forests to the point where we've nearly run out of trees across Quebec. You probably saw the film, L'Erreur boréale; it's not an illusion.

    I draw another comparison with agriculture. What we may be seeing in agriculture is that, by negotiating with the World Trade Organization, the federal government risks abandoning what are called joint plans. If you abandon joint plans in agriculture, we're going to find ourselves with only three large businesses concentrated around major centres. There will be no more in the regions.

    I share your opinion, and I think the same thing is happening in the fishing sector.

    Mr. Boucher made a comment earlier, which I was reading and which I had difficulty with. I'm going to reread it to you because the review policy states:

The traditional approach to fisheries management in Canada is too paternalistic.

    I'll read it very slowly.

Those who exploit and benefit from the resource have little say in its management and insufficient incentive to use it sustainably.

    That's what's stated in the document you're talking to us about.

    Here's Mr. Boucher's comment:

It has been going around in the industry that those who harvest and benefit from the resource exercise considerable influence over its management and intend to use it in a sustainable manner.

    The last sentence raises a problem for me. I would have put the question to him earlier, if we had had the time. Personally, I don't believe that because the more money a business makes, the more it wants to make, and the more quickly it wants to make it, the less it concerns itself with conservation.

    Do you agree with me on that?

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    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes, I agree. I would even say that, depending on the size of the business, if it's still a business headed by an individual or a family business, it may no longer want to make a lot of money and may think more of conservation, of sustainable exploitation. But if it's a soulless business, that is to say a numbered company, a multinational that exploits, it wants profits, that's all. So I also have a little trouble with that because that's not what we're currently seeing in the crab crisis that's hitting us in the Atlantic. It's really not that.

    To draw a parallel with logging, it's true. Mr. Desjardins and many others as well have denounced what the large businesses are doing and have remarked on the parallel with the fisheries. It's become such a concern that...

    Did you come by car?

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: By plane.

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: For those going back to Gaspé, if they take the southern route, at the entrance to the Campbellton bridge linking New Brunswick to the Gaspé Peninsula, you'll see the hills along Highway 132. They're in the process of clearing them off. The only visual contact that tourists have when arriving in the area will be that of mountains that are simply bare. I thought it was just our heads that could be bald, but there the mountains are going to be completely bald. Why? Because you can't stop the large businesses from wanting wood at any price. It's the same thing in fishing.

    When a business makes too much money, when the boat is too expensive, when it's become so big that it's the banker who forces the fisherman to go fishing and it's the banker who manages the business, things go poorly. They make money. You see it on the stock exchange; you see banks' results. There are two big groups making money in the world right now: oil companies and bankers.

    So, it's true. How do you stop that? That's another problem. I think we've lost hope once again. We dare believe that someone will wake up in Ottawa and say that the fisheries should be kept at a more human level. That might be preferable, but we don't have the power to make it so. We don't even know who's going to make the decisions. That's what's very hard for us.

    Consider the example of the Gaspé lobster fishermen. Did you know that the lobster fishermen on the Gaspé Peninsula create 800 jobs in a band of operation scarcely one mile wide along roughly 400 kilometers around the Baie-des-Chaleurs, from Gaspé-Nord to Miguasha? As for the crab fishermen--just as a comparison--there are 130 business for the Gulf as a whole, that is 160 miles by 160 miles, to create 450 jobs on the boats. We live in an operating area one mile wide by 20 miles along the shoreline; we create 800 jobs and we ensure that, year after year, conservation measures are sufficient to enable us to earn income from year to year. That's been going on for 50 years. We haven't been mistaken; we've worked hard until now.

    We were the first to implement quite sound conservation measures for lobster starting in 1996. We wanted to apply them in 1992, but the government wasn't ready. We wanted to increase the legal size of lobsters to enable our lobsters to lay eggs and to grow in order to increase the size of the group, but the government wasn't ready to follow us in 1992. We had to wait until 1997 to increase the legal size of lobster in the Gaspé Peninsula and Magdalen Islands.

    But we nevertheless live on two million pounds that are caught in the Gaspé Peninsula. Two million pounds is not a lot: 225 owner fishermen and 800 jobs. You'll tell me that it's employment insurance employment. We aren't embarrassed at having employment insurance employment since it's everywhere. We've still got our jobs. We bring in two million pounds of lobster year after year, and the resource is very, very stable. That's a model for economic development, for economic support.

    If things were like that for all the other resources, we would have a lot more jobs. There were 4,000 inshore fishermen on the Gaspé Peninsula at the turn of the century. There are 300 left.

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[English]

    The Chair: Mr. Wood.

    Mr. Bob Wood: Mr. Cloutier, I think you talked earlier about representing three different groups. How many people do you represent in the Alliance des pêcheurs professionnels du Québec?

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: I represent between 600 and 700 inshore fishermen from three regions: the North Shore, from Sept-Îles to La Tabatière and Blanc-Sablon, thus the North Shore of Quebec; the Gaspé Peninsula, Gaspé-Sud from Gaspé to Miguasha. Unfortunately, our turbot fishermen from Gaspé-Nord left us for other reasons. The decline of the species caused a real stir when the resource wasn't there. So they left us. The third region is all the lobster fishermen from the Magdalen Islands and the crab fishermen from Areas 13, 14, 15 and 16 from the North Shore, Sept-Îles, including the scallop fishermen. So three regions are represented.

[English]

    Mr. Bob Wood: I wrote something down quickly here, and I'm trying to rack my brain as to how it all worked together. I hope you can help me here.

    You talked earlier in your presentation about some other options that could be followed. Do you remember saying that? I don't know if you were talking about the separation of fleets, or the so-called trust agreements.... What were those other options you talked about?

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes, the other options are to draw a distinction once and for all between the industrial fishery and the need to maintain what I would call a cottage-type fishery. When I say cottage-type fishery, that doesn't mean using stone-age methods, but cottage-type as a whole, that is to say with average size boats and thus lower capital requirements than those of the industrial fishery.

    We believe that it is unrealistic to think you can carry on an industrial fishery in a stretch of water like the Gulf of St. Lawrence because it isn't big enough, vast enough. So we should have a development model in that stretch of water, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as a whole, for the five provinces, a model similar to development of a cottage-type fishery, that is to say medium-class fishermen with medium capital investment employing a maximum number of persons, and not an industrial fishery with very large boats, very high costs for those boats, very big infrastructures and capital structures, very big capital requirements and very little labour. That's what I was saying; there's another option. We should do what we did before. Let's choose it because it's disappearing.

    Before, on the Gaspé Peninsula in 1960, there were 4,000 inshore fishermen who lived off farming, logging and fishing at the same time; they were versatile people. They cut wood in winter, farmed in the spring and fall and fished in the spring, summer and fall. That was replaced by 100 trawlers in the groundfish fishery. Now the trawlers can no longer fish. Why? Because no one measured the capacity of the body of water, its absorption capacity. We thought we could fish with increasingly effective, increasingly industrialized, mechanized equipment, and we were wrong. We were wrong since we now have proof that it wasn't possible, that it was unrealistic. We, the people of Gaspé, are stuck with that now. The big boats have gone, just like the banks, which have turned to other sectors, but we're stuck with the problem. The fishery is closed, as it is in Newfoundland moreover.

    Do you understand the other option? That's the option of making the fishery more human, of going back in time and requiring that the boats be smaller when the boats are replaced. We obviously can't suddenly turn the page, but we can say, for example, as is now being said in the Gulf in response to the minister's comments: for crab, it's going to be 200,000 tonnes per boat; that's enough. Use your boats, but when they're really finished, buy smaller ones. Support other people. That's the message the minister is sending.

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[English]

    Mr. Bob Wood: Monsieur Martel.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-François Martel (Vice-President, Alliance des pêcheurs professionnels du Québec) I would like to give you a fairly recent example: in Iceland, cod fisheries were ruined. Competition with England and other countries was very strong. They started by setting the boundary of territorial waters at three miles, then 10, then 50. They eliminated trawling within the 50-mile area, and now they probably fish with big boats because the sea is quite rough.

    The boats have to be adapted to the local geography. As a result, they changed fishing gear and renewed the stocks, as we're doing with lobster. We started off with a declining biomass and increased it. They have more difficulty in some areas than others; things are better. The trend is generally still downward.

    We have to learn from our mistakes; this isn't the first time we faced this problem. It dates back to the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s. It seems we haven't learned our lesson. In that sense, nothing has changed.

    When the cod fishery was reopened after the moratorium, everyone continued using the same gear and the same small squares for each fleet. No one lost his little square. Why are we forced to stop operations again when, in addition, there's no plan this time to support these people? Nothing.

    Because of the crab crisis, those working in the cod sector won't be able to receive support allowances. There's no more crab fishing. The situation is serious. If no measures are taken, there's going to be a revolution around the Gulf, and the next time you come here, it may be in an armored truck rather than by plane. Thank you.

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Mr. Chairman, pardon me for insisting, but do you clearly understand the other option? We said earlier that the policy and the reform were oriented toward industrialization and toward greater mechanization of methods. However, I think we should do the contrary. We should lower the exploitation of the fisheries to a level that's more decent, more consistent with the resource, more social, more livable, more collective, and oriented more toward human beings rather than toward robots, television monitors and $25,000 or $38,000 devices.

    Do you understand?

[English]

    The Chair: I think we get that point nice and loud.

    Is there anything else, Mr. Wood?

    Mr. Bob Wood: No, thank you.

    The Chair: Mr. Stoffer.

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

    I love those words “social” and “collective”. Doesn't that sound great? Old Tommy Douglas stuff.

    Mr. Cloutier, it's good to see you again.

    A couple of examples have happened in the past little while that I'd like you to comment on. When the then Minister of Fisheries, Mr. John Crosbie, made the decision to shut the ground fishery for cod in the gulf and northern Newfoundland and Labrador, he said the only way to go is through ITQs, individual transferable quotas. I'd like your comment on that.

    As well, earlier this winter the minister lifted a ten-year moratorium on cod fishing off the coast of Cape Breton in 4Vn and he allowed draggers in that area after a ten-year moratorium on the winter fishery. I think he allowed approximately five to six draggers to fish for three months in that area. We all thought it was crazy for him to do that, because we know that dragging is the most destructive form of fishing. When the cod stocks in the rest of the gulf were in peril, as everyone knew, we questioned why he allowed dragging at that time. I'd like you to comment on that.

    Also, are you a member of the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters?

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[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Yes, we're a member of the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters, but I don't really know all the breaches that organization may have in Newfoundland.

    You've nevertheless raised the very important question of image. An image is what you use to explain certain things to young children who understand nothing.

    Management by individual quota is the heart of the problem. Federal Fisheries and Oceans officials have always said we had to control the fishing effort through individual quotas. Individual quotas are not a conservation measure, but rather an economic measure, and I'm going to prove it to you.

    Let's suppose you have 300,000 pounds of crab. The Japanese market wants 4L quality crab. So what do you do with your individual quota? You catch 300,000 pounds of 4L crab and you throw the rest back in the water. Why? Because it's the most profitable. There's 2L at $2 a pound, 3L at $3 and, lastly, 4L at $4. So you're going to keep the 300,000 pounds of 4L crab and throw the rest overboard. That's called “high-grading”. If that crab is damaged or injured, it's worthless.

    The cod situation was the same. There are four prices: for small cod its 45¢; for cod that measures between 16 and 24 inches, it's 55¢; between 24 and 30 inches, it's 65¢; and, 30 inches and over, it's 70¢. What do you think a fisherman who had an individual quota of 300,000 pounds did? He made sure he had 300,000 pounds of cod at 70¢ a pound. What did he do with the rest? He threw it overboard, dead or possibility eaten by the gannets. That's what the individual quota means.

    If we had individual quotas in the lobster sector, what would the smart guys do? I'd be one of the smart guys. I'd seized the opportunity and try to work it so that the mere 12,000 pounds of lobster I catch each year was $7 lobster, not $5 lobster. I'd keep all my big lobsters--I'd have all the time to do it--and I'd come back with 12,000 pounds of lobster at $7 a pound.

    That was a revolution in the Atlantic. No one dared talk about it. Why? Because it suited big industry and industrial concerns in general. There was a good ratio between purchase price and selling price. And it also suited the large fleets. It's simple. Nevertheless, a fundamental mistake was made, and it's constantly being repeated.

    You heard the comments--and I would like to talk about them later, if you'll give me five minutes--of the Association des crabiers gaspésiens, that lobster fishermen should have individual quotas. We don't want them. That would make us more like the industrial fishery, with no limits and no accountability. We don't want that. We're responsible people. I explained it, but they don't want to listen.

    Consider the example of a 3,000-tonne cod quota, like what we had in the Gulf of St. Lawrence last year. To make it last as long as possible, you could divide those 3,000 tonnes into four four-month periods at so many thousands of tonnes per month. Let's take three months at 1,000 tonnes a month. People operating on a competitive quota couldn't choose to keep the big cod and throw the little ones overboard because they wouldn't know when the quota would be reached. They'd be obliged to land their damned fish instead of throwing it overboard and to fish four times more simply to obtain the category they want.

    But those who operate on an individual quota do that because that's the quota. So they catch four times more to meet the desired quantity of fish. It's easy to understand. I don't know why people refuse to understand. There must be a reason, and it's no doubt economic.

    Believe me, Mr. Stoffer, the individual quota is not a conservation measure.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: A while ago, sir, I was in South West Nova, in Nova Scotia, and I said this four years ago and I said it again six months ago: I believe what you'll see in the maritime region is an ITQ system on lobsters. And they laughed at me. They said this is impossible, it will never happen.

    Do you believe today, if they continue on the path they're on, the DFO management, that you can see an ITQ system in lobsters, which would concentrate that resource into even fewer hands as we go along?

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[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: Once again, that depends on where you are. Take the example of Shelburne, where Mr. Thibault comes from. Is it in fact Shelburne?

[English]

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: He's from Digby.

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: For lobster, we have an offshore fishery. Lobster fishermen catch 50,000 pounds of lobster on Georges' Bank, south of the Bay of Fundy. In those areas, that might be possible, given the volume, but, once again, I want to point out that it wouldn't be a conservation measure. It would be a strictly economic measure. You have to watch out.

    We don't agree on the application of measures whose impact we don't really know. The individual quota is an economic measure which enables the person who owns it to do what he wants.

    Imagine that a person operating with an individual quota catches 50,000 pounds of lobster--that's a lot more than 12,000 pounds--and, out of that batch of lobster, decides to keep only the ones that are most profitable in the market. What do you think he does with the other lobsters?

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Does anyone else have a comment? No one?

    Thank you very much, Monsieur Cloutier. I appreciate it.

[Translation]

    Mr. O'Neil Cloutier: You have no questions, Mr. Chairman?

[English]

    The Chair: No, I think our colleagues covered it all. Thank you very much.

    The meeting is adjourned.