[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 4, 1995

.1630

[English]

The Chairman: I want to call the meeting to order.

Mr. Harris (Prince George - Bulkley Valley): I would like to make a point of order when it is appropriate before we start.

The Chairman: Why don't we do it now.

Mr. Harris: In preparation for this meeting today, because I haven't attended, I was trying to find some evaluation material on the TAGS program. I wan't able to find much. However, I did discover that Price Waterhouse had just finished one about two months ago. As I understand, the press have it. However, the committee doesn't have it. Our party couldn't seem to find one. If it is available for the committee members, may I get one?

The Chairman: You may have one. I don't have one. It's actually a document that was quoted by your party in the house yesterday as well as the media in some stuff I've done today. Why don't we see if it is a publicly available document? It's been widely leaked anyway. It's an HRD document.

Mr. Wells (South Shore): I believe I got it through this committee.

The Chairman: I don't think I did. You have better sources than any of us, Derek.

Mr. Wells: I didn't? I don't know where I got it, then.

The Chairman: Mr. Harris, it's a very good point. It's a document that's made public. Perhaps we could put a call in.... Is anybody here from HRD? Could we check to see if the document is no longer embargoed, since it seems to be gaining wide distribution and is widely quoted?

Mr. Harris: Thank you.

The Chairman: We'll see if we can get it, Dick, before....

Now, we have a whole bunch of fellows down at the end here, some of whom I know from previous lives and locations and things like that and some of whom I don't know. We're not doing a formal evaluation of the TAGS program. What we're doing here is following up on the first report this committee had done. We had done a report on the AGAP-NCARP program as it expired. We did a teleconference in the region which some criticized at the beginning but I don't think they criticized it at the end. We saw over 95 witnesses via the teleconference. We submitted a report, as everybody knows.

Commmittee reports are reports of committees. It does not necessarily reflect nor is it government policy. It's a report on what the committee members believe to be a reasonable comment about either what we heard or what we think should be done.

We also sought at that time some assurance from both ministers, since two key departments are involved...that we wanted to be assured we would remain part of the process.

This committee is the fisheries and oceans committee. We can deal with anything dealing with fisheries and oceans. Human Resource Development reports to another committee. But because the TAGS program...the components they have are so tightly linked to the fisheries - they're there as a result of the crisis in the fisheries - they report back to us on an intermittent basis.

We had received our last report update back in December when we met with officials both from HRD and Fisheries and Oceans. We knew things were changing, but we also knew both ministers had given a commitment to constantly review the program to see whether or not things had moved, whether or not some of the targets were out of reach, things such as whether or not there were more participants...and that they would constantly review through consultation.

Yesterday and today we concentrated on two things. We had the departments come forward to give us an update. As well, as a result of yesterday's meeting we requested that one of the scientists show up today to talk about the continuing bad news in stock assessment, because we think that should have an impact on the design of the program, since as we heard yesterday in parts of northeastern Newfoundland, the waters off there, the scientists are saying that stock cannot recover or most likely is not able to recover until another 14 years to a commercial sustainable fishery.

What we also wanted to do is not just hear from officials but to invite some people in from the region, people who are down at the coal face as they say in Cape Breton, to give us some feedback as to the TAGS program, whether or not the program is hitting the mark, whether or not there should be some investments, and just give us some feedback on the various components.

So we have here a number of people. We have Con Mills, from the Maritime Fisherman's Union from Cape Breton.

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Cape Breton is where I was born and raised. So I have known Con for many years. We had a meeting last week.

It's good to have you here, Con. We've got Ray Wimberlton. We've got David Decker, business agent, Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union; and Lester Batstone and Andrew Fequet, president, Lower North Shore Fishermen's Association.

We're going to do this in a rather informal manner. We're going to jump in with questions from time to time. I'll try to moderate it.

Mr. Decker, why don't you start? We're looking for input about the actual success of the program, the implementation of various components of TAGS: whether or not it's working, whether there should be some adjustments, and if so what adjustments; has there been enough consultation. It's your nickel. You can tell us what you want.

Mr. David Decker (Business Agent, Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union): I'm from the west coast of Newfoundland. I'm living on the West Coast right now but I'm originally from the tip of the Northern Peninsula so pretty well as far north as you're going to get on the island of Newfoundland - Ship Cove, a small community right across from L'Anse aux Meadows. I hope we all know where that is.

The TAGS program certainly has had a dramatic effect on the community where I'm from. It's a community of about 250 people and no doubt without the income support provided under TAGS would be totally a welfare community by now. The fishery was the lifeblood of that community.

Actually, my great-great grandfather was the first person to settle in that community. He settled there for one reason: to fish.

That's what sustained us over the years. The only hope for survival of the community would be with a rebuilt stock. So the stock must be rebuilt; and that is not an impossibility.

As for the science you spoke about earlier, we have as little regard for the science now as we had 6, 7 and 8 years ago when we were trying to tell them the stocks were going down and they didn't listen. As for telling us now that it's totally wiped out and it's going to be 14 years to rebuild, well, what makes them such experts now if they were so wrong back then?

Certainly we're not saying that the resource is in great shape. It's not. That's why there is a closure. But certainly we don't think it is extinct, or commercially extinct either. We think it can be rebuilt. We think it must be rebuilt because that is the only way rural Newfoundland is going to survive. You can talk about other industries and stuff like that, and yes, you can build around it. But you had better have the backbone there or you're not going to be able to survive.

There have been quite a few problems with the TAGS Program. Some of these are problems that could have been with people, who if they had had a bit of understanding of rural Newfoundland, of the people, and if they had listened to the people...some of these are problems that could have been overcome. It seems at times there are too many people who just want to dictate, as opposed to listen.

Right from the start, with the application process of the program...you went out and put out a program, sent out applications to individuals to apply and no assistance, nothing; just an application in the mail to apply for a program. They need a hell of a lot of information if you're going to have quick processing of these applications and get people on the program quickly...yet nothing to help people along with it; to help them fill out the application to get it in.

The information that was required, for instance, was information for a lot of parts...which fishermen didn't keep. There was no reason for them to be keeping that information. Why would you keep all these receipts if you didn't need them? All of a sudden you come out with a program that required you to keep them. So it ends up in a lot of confusion in trying to get people on the program in the first place.

.1640

I think also the shift of the program from DFO to HRD, especially the fishermen's part, was a mistake. It was bad enough trying to deal with DFO, but when you're trying to deal with HRD, which has no understanding of the fishing industry at all and never dealt with it to any great extent, it went from bad to worse.

Right now, for instance, we're basically a year into this TAGS program, and still there are people who are not through the appeal process yet. You're a year into the program and these people should have had a decision. You're talking about the fishery, and they haven't been able to fish for a full year and they're still awaiting a decision. Stuff like that's not good enough.

We had individuals who two years earlier were covered under NCARP. It would take months and months to get them through this system. They appealed under NCARP and made their case under NCARP. Some of them, for Christ's sake, had been on NCARP for only a few months. By the time TAGS was announced, they had to go through the whole process again. They couldn't be rolled over; they had to go and apply all over again.

It goes through the same thing. They made a case before another appeal committee and some of these are now still stalled in the appeals process before another committee. If you made your case once, for Christ's sake, why couldn't they just accept that you made your case?

The Chairman: How big a problem is that, David? Are there a lot of people who are stuck in that, or does it seem that generally the appeals go okay, but there are a few that don't go? Is it the general rule that they're all stuck?

Mr. Decker: No, the general rule is that most of them are going through. It took a long time, but no doubt the majority of people are through the system right now.

The Chairman: But you're telling me that the process is too long from beginning to end?

Mr. Decker: It takes too long from beginning to end. There's too much frustration.

The Chairman: How long does it normally take, David? How long would you tell us? Say I'm disqualified and I file an appeal. What's the normal waiting period?

Mr. Decker: In the first instance it was announced in May, and before we got anybody to the first appeal, we were up into October.

The Chairman: But nobody was cut off during that period.

Mr. Decker: Nobody was cut off during that period. That's fine to say for somebody who had already been on the program, but I represent an area which was new entrants. From May till they got their appeal in October, hundreds of these people were just turned down with no income support and no way to make a living because their fishery was shut down. They were just trying to get through this process. So it was very difficult.

That's led to a lot of frustration out in the communities. Right now, each time something new comes down it's building up. And people don't know; they're being pushed one way and pushed the other. So they just don't know where they're going any more.

I guess what I'm saying is they've lost control over their lives. There's no control for the individual over his life any more. Somebody is always telling him what he has to do; that he can't make a living. I mean, you're talking about the individuals.

For instance, I fished. Although I'm working with the union now, up until 1990 I fished for a living. For the most part, all people had to do - my father before me, his father before him - was to prepare. You went fishing. You earned a living. You didn't even have to deal with the government departments, for the most part. You went fishing, you earned a living, you got the gear ready in the frame, you went fishing, you made your summer. You did your work. Now all of a sudden you're caught up and your whole life revolves around government.

Government makes a decision on this...for instance, you guys now, with your recommendations. There are a few back in my community...your recommendations could affect them, right? What do they know? They don't know about this system up here. They don't know what's going on around this table. But you're making decisions or recommendations that are certainly going to affect their lives. Do you understand these people?

For instance, take the extenuating circumstances under TAGS. Again, I have people who have been in this industry for thirty years, forty years, and who are not qualified for the program. The industry didn't just go like that and collapse, you know. It's been going down for years. While it was going down individuals had to turn to other fisheries to try to make a living. Now it's all tied to numbers and percentages and so on. Everybody in the community is affected because of the closure.

Take Andrew here, for instance. If Andrew wasn't fishing groundfish, if he had to give that up five years ago and he's not qualified for TAGS because he gave up fishing groundfish five years ago and turned to another species...you can be sure today with the groundfish shut down, there are ten other people fishing what Andrew fished, and taking money out of his pockets. Yet we say yes, everybody is qualified; but Andrew is not.

.1645

It's that sort of stuff. If anybody has forty years in this industry and never did anything else, only fish, how could anybody come in and tell him he doesn't qualify?

For instance, I also have individuals who didn't draw UI. They fished and they made enough money fishing to pay the year around. Some of them had companies set up. I have individuals who don't meet it because they didn't have the insurable weeks. So they meet DFO's criteria, but then they go to HRD and they don't meet HRD's criteria.

I have people who got through DFO. They are recognized by DFO because if there's a catch failure, they get through the DFO criteria, and then they run into HRD criteria and they can't make it through that.

Again, that's not the majority of people by far, but still, I represent individuals. Numbers don't mean anything to me back in the communities. I represent individuals and the individuals I hear from, and it's certainly individuals who should be taken care of under this program. Yes, with income support, the majority are taken care of, but the individual still matters here.

The training aspect of a lot of it, for the most part, is money that I'd have to say is being wasted right now. I think it has to do with the focus on training, which is not on the individual at all. Again, in this process the individual is left out. We don't have peer counselling. For the most part there's no trust between the fishermen and the counsellors who are there. It's not a relationship of trust at all. It's almost like a master-and-servant relationship in some areas, for Christ's sake.

Right now, training focuses on institutions for the most part. Training institutions are popping up all over the place. They are seeing a pot of money that's supposed to be spent on retraining. So they develop programs they get approved through HRD. Then once a program is approved as a legitimate training program for HRD purposes - that's okay - they go to the counsellors. It's referred to the counsellors that we're going to set up this training course in that community. It has nothing to do with individuals who want to take the training or think that training is valuable or anything.

Those individuals, then, through the TAGS counsellors, are forced into taking that course in that community. Some of these were things like ``Improving Your Odds'', for Christ's sake. Now they have another one called ``Life Skills'' or something. I forget what the name is. They changed the name and they're putting the same people through the same program again.

The people are being treated like the fish going through the fish plant. They're a product now; they don't count for anything. Shove them through; they make money. For every head you can put through that course, you make money.

The Chairman: When you talk to HRD, HRD will tell you - and they'll give you the numbers - they've counselled and done the career paths for about 25,000. They've gone and done the assessment and it's up to the individual to select which components. So what you're telling me is that this may be the case, but there's pressure on the individuals in some of the smaller communities to take a training component that basically they don't want to take or that probably has little likelihood of a job.

Mr. Decker: I think it goes back to what you said, yes. It's numbers. They show you numbers. If you're not in the communities and you can't see anything, then numbers are what counts. How many numbers did you get? What's the number of guys you have in the training?

So you look at the numbers. That's fine. All you see are the numbers. What about the individuals? It doesn't focus on their needs at all. They didn't want to take a course, for the most part; they didn't feel it was worth while. They're forced into the training, and a lot of it is training that means nothing. It's training for training's sake. People are getting nothing out of it and they're going to be no better off in the end than they were when they started.

There's going to be training. I'm not opposed to training -

The Chairman: But there must be some good training, too.

Mr. Decker: It must be training that Ray wants, for instance. If he wants to take something, certainly I would say he should be encouraged to take something. Probably if he were talking to some of his peers, if it were more like peer counselling out there, if it were more people from the industry who were involved in it, I think they would get farther ahead, because it would have been people that Ray, for instance, would trust.

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The Chairman: Are you telling me the training component is better, worse or just about the same as it was under NCARP?

Mr. Decker: I would have to say the training program was about the same; probably worse in the instance that we're getting more and more of these institutions popping up for the sole reason of making money, as opposed to trying to deliver some real training to people.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier (Gaspé): Mr. Decker, you have gone through two programs: NCARP and TAGS. Both seem to be very similar. Mr. MacDonald, our chairman, noted that in the TAGS program, there were two departments involved: Fisheries and Oceans and Human Resource Development.

If I understood properly the officials whom we have met with yesterday, Employment and Immigration would not want to invest very much in training nor in the economic diversification of your communities as long as Fisheries and Oceans have not determined with you what the core fisheries would be. How far are you in your discussions with the Department? Do you represent the Eastern part of Newfoundland? Are you on the gulf side or on the ocean side?

[English]

Mr. Decker: I represent in the gulf. I represent all the west coast of Newfoundland, the southern Labrador, a part of 3-K, which is around the tip of the Northern Peninsula, back to Harbour Deep, and 3-PS, which runs down as far as France right down to the Burgeo area, which takes in the south coast stocks. So I really represent all the stock areas of most of Newfoundland.

Mr. Bernier: So you have three fishing areas to cross.

Mr. Decker: Yes.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: Let's get back to the table we have in front of us. If I have understood you correctly, you are saying that this was designed here, in Ottawa. But I warn you that you are going to have programs based on these assumptions.

They are going to tell you that your people who fish on the east coast should wait for 14 years. You know as well as I do that included in these programs is a retirement age of 50. With these 14 years, do think it means that Human Resource Development is going to have these people retire at 36?

On the northern side of the gulf, they are talking about six years. We will get other numbers and different systems for your people in the south, in the Burgeo bank, in the 3Ps, they are talking about three to five years. You will have to discuss this in your communities.

Do you believe that the people in Fisheries and Oceans have had enough consultations before they decided on the core fisheries? Who are the people who are still going to be able to fish considering the stock still available. Then one will have to knock at the door of Human Resource Development to explain what are the needs of your communities with regards to diversification.

Two programs have been implemented yet nothing has changed. What I can tell you, is that it will not change as long as Fisheries and Oceans does not settle the issues of core fisheries with you.

You are telling me that you do not trust scientists but if they keep you waiting for 14 years, a decision will have to made. Indeed, you will have to make decisions within your communities.

[English]

Mr. Decker: Again, you're going back here to putting all your faith, in what you're saying, in science. So you have a chart there that says, fine, it's going to take 14 years to rebuild the stock.

Mr. Bernier: No. That's the figure that DFO gave me.

Mr. Decker: Yes, exactly. You're going back to that figure. In the communities it was 14 years. The same people whom just a few short years ago we were fighting against because they were going to put factory-freezer trawlers on the northeast coast of Newfoundland to take the fish.... Provinces were fighting over the shares of all this resource that was out there that was going to be harvested. Inshore fishermen, the small communities, just couldn't harvest it all; what was going to be there. There was no way we were going to be able to harvest it.

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Now you have a set of figures from DFO again, from the science, that are telling us it's 14 years now before it's going to come back and we must all adjust our lives around that chart. Fit that chart; our lives have to fit that chart you have there.

It's just not good enough. We don't have any faith in them. We don't believe them. So why should we adjust our lives to fit somebody we don't believe? We're not going to do it. It's just not going to happen.

You mentioned the core fishermen. Yes, the union itself, the organizations themselves, are taking steps to identify who is a core fisherman. It's something we're in the process of right now. We're coming to grips with this.

We certainly just went through consultations with our fishermen under a program called Professionalization in Newfoundland. We did meetings with 5,400 fishermen in Newfoundland. We have the criteria for implementation all set out. We hope it will be in January 1996. We need provincial government legislation, for instance, passed to allow this to be enacted. This was ratified by over 90% of the fishermen in Newfoundland: 5,400 fishermen were out to seminars and some 90% ratified it.

We are taking steps. We realize this can no longer be a fishery everybody can just jump in and out of. We realize it can't be. Nobody wants it that way. We fought for years -

The Chairman: David, before we go over to Mr. Harris, I think the question is not what is a professional fisherman? That will be defined by fishermen, and is being done in Newfoundland and other places. Core fisheries...which has me in all kinds of trouble for things I said about it yesterday. With core fisheries, you can define who you think is a bona fide or a professional fisherman. But the problem we have is this whole program is being driven with the expectation at the end of the program there will be a core fishery and there will be a class of fishermen who will fit into that fishery. The whole thing is being driven by the belief that the stock will come back at some point, and you have to reduce your stress on the stock by reducing your harvesting capacity by about 50%.

I think what Mr. Bernier is saying is we have to define what that core fishery is that's going to be left before you can really define the options to help people stay to wait for it or to get out. I know what you're saying on the science, because I'm not a big fan of the scientists, but let me give you some numbers. Then I'm going to go over to Mr. Harris.

In 1990 the scientists said the stocks were in good shape. One year later their assessments dropped by 50%. One year later, 1992, they said there was a two-thirds decline from the 1991 figure, which was 50% of the 1990 figure. The next year the figures dropped by three-quarters from the previous year. In 1994 there was an 80% decrease from 1993. So they're telling us 1% of the spawning stock is left; of the biomass. There's 1%.

Now I may like them or dislike them, but I will tell you the fishermen I know could have told DFO each year before they came out with these figures the fish wasn't there in those quantities. I don't think there's any argument the fish isn't there.

That's what they have told us, so you know, because I know you weren't here. That's what they've told us. And based on the fact that they can only find 1% of what was there in 1990, based on the ages, they don't think it's possible the stock can recover to a commercial basis until 14 years, up in 2-J, 3-K, L. That's basically what they told us.

So we're not saying we believe everything they have said, but it's pretty overwhelming. If they can find only 1% of what was there in 1990, there's a big problem. So I just want to give you that on the science.

I think what Mr. Bernier is asking about is the core. Do you think we should define what we think is going to be the fishery before we do these adjustment programs, or do you just go along your way and hope there's something there at the end?

Mr. Decker: For one thing, on the numbers, there's no doubt in 1990 the figure they started with in the first place was way too high. It just wasn't there. Everybody knew the numbers they were giving us just weren't in the bloody water. It was not there.

So to talk about 50% reductions...first of all, that 50% was never there to get the first 50% reduction; and we know the stocks have declined. We know the stocks have declined.

Then again, are we down to 1% of what was there? One would have to say for the most part, talking to the fishermen, no, they don't believe the scientists that it's as drastic as it is right now. There are areas all around the island that certainly see fish in the inshore areas during the summer.

.1700

The Chairman: In the bays.

Mr. Decker: In the bays and stuff. The fish are there; and that's all along the coast. You don't go anywhere and say it's a desert. The fish are there in the bays all around.

Nobody is saying that we should open it now or anything like that and go fishing, but certainly one says the chances...the hope is there it will rebuild. People believe it will rebuild. I don't think there's anybody who thinks it's going to take 14 years, either.

As for the definition of the core fishermen, for the most part when you look at it on a community by community basis, there's more adjustment going on out there than people realize. Take my community, for instance, where I was just a few weeks ago. I find that, for instance, almost nobody is left there. All the young people have left. They're all gone.

There's community after community where there are no young people left. They're leaving the communities. This is happening year after year after year. They're leaving and going. Either they've gone somewhere on training courses or they're gone off to Ontario, Alberta, B.C. or somewhere looking for jobs. People are moving on.

I don't know if you would like to speak here, Ray, but I know community after community my way, that's happening.

The Chairman: Ray, if you want to say something and then you jump in after that.

Mr. Ray Wimberlton (Individual Presentation): I would just like to verify what Dave was saying. I fish on the northeast coast, on the Baie Verte Peninsula, as a matter of fact, in the middle of the 2J3KL area you're talking about. We've seen sign of cod in the bays in the last couple of years better than we've seen in the past 10 years. I'm not saying there are thousands of fish there but if it was as bad as DFO scientists are saying, then I would think a codfish would be a rare sight.

Every other year we fish we usually see some sign of fish, or you get a little by-catch in something you shouldn't get a fish in. A lump net, for instance, is a 10 1/2 inch mesh. Every now and then you'll get an occasional fish. You'll get a fish about 5 pounds in a net like that. It tells you there's a sign of fish around. That wasn't the only fish around that net.

There are times we see it on the bottom when we're hauling our gear. If you look overboard you'll see the fish. As a matter of fact I haven't seen that since my father's day, that you could look overboard and see fish in shoal water.

So you have a job to convince me as a fisherman - and that's all I've really done - that there's no fish, or the 1% they say are there. It's just impossible to convince fishermen that's true when they see what I'm seeing in the bays every year; and every year it's been improving.

This is why we feel that this Sentinal Fishery is going to be a very important step in deciding what is going to be there in the future.

Mr. Harris: Can I focus on the training programs you talked about, David, and where you express your dissatisfaction. I've had some exposure to these groups and institutions that spring up out of the blue whenever there's some HRD money to throw around. I have found in most cases the people who go in for those training programs will come out of there maybe feeling a little bit better about themselves, but no real skills to go out and get a real job. Is that sort of what you're saying to us?

In your opinion, is any of the training the people are getting going to result in getting a real job? How many people do you know, even on your committee, who have been on the TAGS training programs and what has been the result? Is it more psychological than real training and job skills?

Mr. Decker: The problem I have is with the training courses that are out there, the short duration ones, for instance those people are forced into - a two-, six- or eight-week course; stuff like this - and herded into.... A significant number of people who are out there involved in training courses that are quite legitimate. A lot of training is going on that's legitimate. But for the most part they're courses people themselves determined they wanted to take and sought. The training that people are forced into...I don't see where it helps anybody.

A lot of people from my area, for instance, have moved to the larger centres, such as Corner Brook and St. John's. They're in the marine institute, for instance, in the community colleges, and who are taking different courses such as administration, computers, and things like this eventually could lead to employment. But a six-week course, for instance, in a community talking about...some are playing cards, for Christ's sake and everything else they're doing. It makes no sense. People were shepherded in there for one reason, and for one reason only: it makes money for somebody.

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Mr. Harris: This TAGS program has been in effect for what, about a year now?

Mr. Decker: Yes.

Mr. Harris: How many people do you or your committee know personally who have actually gone through the training - a particular course, whether it's their choice or not - that's resulted in a job? Are there jobs out there for those people to go to in and around your community, indeed, even within the province, after they've had the training? What's the end result? What's the benefit of it?

Mr. Decker: Yes there are individuals who are getting training and moving on. I don't have the numbers. I know some people who have had training, moved on, and got jobs in different areas. There's no doubt about that. I guess the younger individuals have a better chance then to do something.

But if you're talking about in a small community where an individual is say 40 years old and has a couple of kids who are in school themselves, every cent he has is invested in his home, in his fishing gear, or whatever in his community. Everything he has is invested there. The chances of that individual being able to do something and move on are very slim.

I mean his focus is on his kids: getting an education, giving his kids a chance. To uproot, leave, go anywhere...the home is valueless. It's not like you if you lost your job and you have sold your home. You can move on or whatever. You'd get fair market value. Fair market value for a home in a city like this would be decent. You would go on and you would replace that.

I moved out of my community because I got a job with the union. I sold my home for $20,000; and I'm telling you I was one of the lucky ones in being able to sell it. I replaced it in Corner Brook with a smaller house for $104,000. Most people can't take these kinds of knocks. I had a job waiting for me and that's why I was able to do it.

If I never had a job I would still be living back there. The reality is I have kids and their education will be more important now than myself moving on. I want something for them, to try to prepare them for the future.

The Chairman: Con Mills.

Mr. Con Mills (Maritime Fishermen's Union): Mr. Chairman, I would just like to touch on a few of the things my friends from Newfoundland have.

Being a Newfoundlander fishing in Cape Breton, I am a little disappointed in reading what was in the newspaper today. You spoke earlier on the appeals for TAGS. Well, I have some figures.

I guess you're familiar with the chairman who is in our area. He went through 130 appeals for TAGS. I'm not sure now if he passed 17 or 18. One went to the Halifax HRD. Of the 17 or 18 - I'm not sure - 1 was turned down completely. So there's a situation where there's no consultation or whatever. That's an unfortunate situation.

The other thing you asked about is the time. I'm one of the guys who has been waiting four months now for an appeal. I have fished for some forty years and I don't qualify for TAGS. I'm one of those guys - not that I'm that concerned about it either. I have got myself into another fishery.

But the reason I am a part of it is I was thinking about the buy-back, where I was going to sell out. That's another can of worms that should be straightened out as far as fishing in Cape Breton is concerned.

The Chairman: Could you think on it? That's part of the program.

Mr. Mills: As you know, I have no hard feelings about any fishermen, other than some Spaniards and what has been going on there lately. But getting back to Mr. Wills, two people were appointed to deal with the buy-back and they were both from South West Nova. I would like to say to you, Mr. Chairman, there's as much difference between fishing in Cape Breton and fishing in South West Nova as apples and oranges.

.1710

As you are aware, in southwest Norwood they can fish pretty well year round. In Cape Breton we're somewhat like Newfoundland, we get 5, 6 months of it and that's it. I've seen us having to wait until May 20 or 25 to set lobster gear in that area.

There hasn't been that much consultation on the buy-back. When it came out it wasn't clearly expressed to the fishermen where they had to go. The two gentlemen from southwest Norwood...one of them is a fisherman and the other guy did fish at one time. They came to Cape Breton and laid out the criteria for how they were going to go into the buy-back and so on and so forth. They spent about two hours. When they left they looked up and said, if you don't qualify for TAGS, then you don't qualify for the buy-back.

Somebody has to realize, as far as I'm concerned, that a boat and a net don't catch fish. They're a part of it, but it's the aggressive skipper who is in the wheelhouse, the one who gets out and catches the fish. So there are people that don't qualify.

That piece of paper he got - and you go from 35 foot to 45 to 65 - that piece of paper can, if a guy wants to buy it, go out and catch a lot of fish if he's aggressive. Myself, I've been representing a lot of small inshore fishermen and we have taken the dirty end of the stick for a number of years. I have some numbers. I'll pass you one. I have two or three here.

The Chairman: Give us one here. We'll get it photocopied.

Mr. Mills: With the Cape Breton counties, the downturn in the fishery...the reason a lot of the fishermen didn't qualify...I think it was in 1991, when Mr. Crosby was Minister of Fisheries...he paid $850 to a number of fishermen in Cape Breton that year - and that was classed as a catch-failure year...but it still didn't do any good for fishermen to qualify for the TAGS program.

I think the gentleman there said we have to have more input. It's a little over a year ago today our minister came to our convention and he said to us, we want to work with the fishermen. I want to say to you, Mr. Chairman, that's not happening in our area. We'd be too glad to work with the department. There are a lot of mad fishermen in our area. The reason they're mad is that the fishermen who are entitled to TAGS are not getting it.

I know fishermen in our area, or so-called fishermen - and I guess some fishermen are partly to blame for that - who have never gone out of the harbour and are getting TAGS. So if there's no consultation with the fishermen to be able to.... In my area I know who's a fisherman and who's not a fisherman. I'm not going to name any names. We haven't had that kind of consultation.

The Chairman: So you're telling me, Con, that you think if there were better consultation with local groups of fishermen, basically on qualifying criteria...what would that accomplish? Tell me what you'd want to get through consultation? What role do you see the fishermen playing down there in that respect?

Mr. Mills: The role of who should qualify. If you look at the situation where...in the training to qualify, I know there were fishermen 60 years of age and over who had to go to school to qualify for TAGS. Now what in the hell.... I'm in that age group. If I did qualify, why would you spend that kind of money on me to go to school? These have been the things that have been happening. What they have had to do has been downgrading to the older fishermen in our area.

.1715

The gentleman asked how many have jobs. Not 1% of those who went through training have jobs in our area.

The Chairman: In the area you represent, how many fishermen would be on TAGS, and of those how many fishermen would be in training or have received training? Just give me a rough number.

Mr. Mills: Inshore, if you take Louisbourg in itself, they had 6 draggers there. Pretty well all the crew - there were 15 crew members on each one of them - had to take training. There are 7 or 8 boats in Louisbourg that were longliners. They had a crew of roughly 4 people. They had to go to school to do other things to qualify for it. Yet as I say, something like 130 appealed and are still waiting.

Mr. McGuire (Egmont): I think I asked, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: I knew it was from over on that side, Joe.

Mr. McGuire: I'd just like to make a few comments on a couple of things you asked about. I'm speaking as a man who still has a fisherman's point of view. This training which has been kicking around out there in the last year or so, and even prior to that...what I've seen of it in my area is that we have young people finishing high school who want to get into our training colleges to get an education to better themselves, but what they're running into now is classrooms full of people 50- and 60-years-old doing courses of no value because that's where the bucks are; and those people are on TAGS. There's money in getting them in the classroom, as David said, but what they're doing in reality is they're keeping our young people away from an education and in the long term they're going to end up depending on a social program that is not going to be there, probably, and is not going to be very generous, because their way is being blocked by this training.

Under the old NCARP program they offered young people who met the NCARP criteria training for up to three years in a university or a college or something like that. I say to you if I were a fisherman intending to get out of the fishery, then I would like for you to say to me if I wanted to go to school for three years or four years and get an education, then you give me the opportunity to pick what I want to do in what's already available...but not for someone to come out from a stupid school and say we're going to offer you a course like Improve Your Odds, which was about the stupidest thing I can come up with, and it's going to benefit me in the future.

If I want to go and be a scientist or a teacher...if I were young enough...then that's already there. All I need from you if you want to get me out of the fishery, if I were willing to do that...is put me through there, and then if I have five years training I'm on my own. People 55 and 60 years-old are not going to do that, but they're getting in the way of our young people.

I just wanted to say that's what's happening. You're going to be talking to a generation down the road in the same position we're in if it is not looked at in a different light.

The other thing I want to say is in my Bay, Notre Dame Bay, I fish on the north side of the bay. We started off fishing strictly groundfish: cod, turbot, halibut; what have you. We never fished any other species. The majority of us never did. We didn't have to. There was lots of that to do us the whole season.

On the south side of the bay, about 50 years before us, their stock started to decline. They had to go to other species, such as lobster, herring, mackerel - whatever they could get their hands on - to make a living. But because their stocks failed long before our and they turned to other species just to survive, they can't qualify for TAGS, for the simple reason they had no groundfish in 1989, 1990 or 1991. But in years prior to that they depended on it.

On our side of the bay, where we were fortunate enough to have groundfish right up to those last few years, enough at least to qualify, we meet TAGS. Meanwhile some of those guys have been fishing twice as long as I have and they're in the same situation I'm in; it's just that it was not in the same years that it happened. We feel TAGS has overlooked a lot of our core fishermen, as I call them.

The Chairman: Committee members, there's a vote. It's a 15-minute bell. We made these guys wait for a while this afternoon because of House business and they've been patiently waiting.

.1720

I know some people have some other things to do after the vote. Since I'm not very good and I'm never in my whip's good books anyway, I guess we have a choice. We can go vote, which is our duty, or we can cancel each other's votes and continue to hear the witnesses.

Mr. McGuire: I move we don't hear the bell.

The Chairman: We basically cancel each other out; it would make no difference in the vote, except for one, but I'll take the flak for that. It's up to the committee.

Mr. Wells: What's the vote? Do you know, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: It is a vote on time allocation.

If you can just give us 30 seconds to do our business here....

.1721

.1722

The Chairman: Okay, that's it. Let's keep going then. Mr. McGuire.

Mr. McGuire: I'd like to ask David something.

Obviously you're not very happy with the past few years, about how NCARP and TAGS have been administered, designed, and delivered. I was wondering if you as a union rep and maybe cooperatives in Newfoundland have ever developed a plan or a proposal of your own, asked or unasked, to replace this or to do a better job. Has the union, as a representative of the fishermen, come forward to DFO or to HRDC and said we think this is a better way to do it, a better way to use that money, and we'll have a better person at the end of the five years than we will under your plan?

Mr. Decker: Certainly through the old process of setting up TAGS there was representation from all our groups throughout the industry, whether it was in the Maritimes or in Newfoundland. Bu, as with all these things, you don't get all of what you want. There's no doubt we've had impact, I would say, on some of the program to date. Certainly what came down was different from what was envisioned from the start.

But still you have these problems which happen when you're administering the program and you run into these situations. For instance, I go back to the one where I talked about individuals who had done nothing. They earned significant dollars from the industry and they have an investment in the industry of about $700,000 or $800,000. We're told they don't qualify for TAGS.

That's a problem, but when we're dealing with HRD in this instance, they don't even recognize it as being a problem. It's just that he doesn't fit the criteria, so he doesn't fit it. You can't work with these people and say Jesus, we have a problem; this was never intended, so now how do we solve it? Right now the decision is more or less well, fuck, he's not in, he's not in.

The Chairman: We have to go for the vote. Our proposal's been rejected by the whips, so we're going to have to go over to the House for a little. When we get back Mr. McGuire will continue with the questioning.

Mr. Bernier: It's not the opposition who put the shit in the fan.

The Chairman: It normally isn't, for the last little while. It seems more on our side than your side.

For the witnesses, we are going to come back as quickly as we can, okay? This is what we get paid all the big bucks for, and the pensions and everything, so we have to go over and do this. If you can just stay here, we'll come back as quickly as we can. We have two guys up there, Mr. Batstone and Andrew, who haven't talked yet. When we get back maybe you can throw yourselves in and we'll get the questions and try to get you out of here at a decent time and let some of our guys go. Okay?

Mr. Decker: We have lots of time.

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.1755

The Chairman: Okay, where did we leave off?

Mr. McGuire: I just want to make a comment on the difference of opinion between the fishermen and the scientists. This is a sad state of affairs. We have the scientists saying there is basically nothing there, even though the seals are living on something, and you yourself are saying you can see fish over the side.

At the same time there's a whole effort here to reduce the number of fishermen, because there are too few fish for too many fishermen. I can see you guys are not going anywhere, as long as you believe there are fish out there and you can get back in less than fourteen years, maybe in three or four, maybe in the lifetime of this program.

How is the number of fishermen ever going to be reduced if the fishermen themselves don't believe there are no fish out there, that they're there now in some quantity and they're going to rebuild? David said in his initial remarks that the stocks must be rebuilt, and if they're there, they can be built on. How many fishermen are going to leave the fishery? It's what you know; it's what you like to do.

Mr. Decker: I'd like to make a few remarks, and Ray might want to have something to say afterwards.

Out in the communities now, there's no trust - we're back to trust again - in government, in DFO, in the science of it all. You touched on a couple of points in your remarks. How are people going to move on when we're talking about there being no fish, and how are we going to downsize?

Well, fishermen are looking at this and they know, it's well stated, that the aim is to cut the industry in half or whatever. Then you get the sense from people that things are not moving fast enough for them. If anybody thinks no adjustment is taking place, it really is. It's happening out there, but it's happening at a slower pace than some would like.

People are suspicious right now about the agenda, about all this doom and gloom about the stocks. They're suspicious because they think the doom and gloom is there for a reason, that it's to fit somebody's agenda and to try to prod them on down the road, as opposed to trying to give them reality.

That's why it is so important that we continue with the Sentinel Fishing Program that was started this year. Until fishermen see for themselves and have a chance to use the collective knowledge of fishermen to collect the data, until we have them in on the process all the way through, they're not going to believe anything science says.

Ask yourself why they should. Given their experiences in the past, why should they? With the Sentinel Fishing Program that was started on our coast this year, fishermen are right now collecting data. For instance, in my area, 3Pn, they're at it right now, but it only rounds for another week. They're collecting scientific data; they're measuring the fish; they're getting the condition of the fish; they're seeing it for themselves; and we hope that they then will have these fishermen involved with the science in making presentations to other fishermen.

Fishermen are involved with not only using the hard data that's collected but also using the collective knowledge of fishermen, knowledge they've built up over the years. It's important that this sentinel fishing is going on so that fishermen themselves can have a say in what the status of the resource is.

Mr. McGuire: Didn't they have one last year and they found nothing good?

Mr. Decker: No. We had a sentinel fishing program last year in the gulf, for instance, and some of the results are encouraging; there are certainly optimistic signs in the area. In fact, in talking to sciences, the results of the back-to-back 1990 and 1991 year classes certainly were that the recruitment was average.

I talked to science about a month ago on this, and that's in my area, which has a substantial number of fishermen. There are two year classes back to back that look to be about average recruitment, but you don't hear about these things, because everybody wants to focus on gloom.

.1800

I have just one more point. The other thing is that this is groundfish, but there are other things. We do have other fisheries, you know. This year the crab fishery is certainly going to bring in tens of millions of dollars, and I would guess more. You're talking about a couple hundred million dollars going into the industry in a couple of months.

Take the capelin, for instance. It was only last year that we never had a capelin fishery. Capelin has a much quicker turnaround time than cod, and that brings in tens of millions of dollars. For instance, 1993 was one of the biggest years ever for capelin in terms of value to the province. So a hell of a lot of dollars are still coming in and a hell of a lot of fishermen are still active to a certain degree.

Mr. McGuire: So it's not as gloomy as we're led to believe.

Mr. Decker: It's not all gloom. If we focus just on gloom, we're going to be throwing up our hands and giving up on it. There is going to be a fishery in the future; it will continue.

The Chairman: I know fully what you're saying. I usually give my speech and the scientists from the DFO who are in the room and who speak to me before the meeting normally don't speak to me after my speech. I do poke some fun, tongue-in-cheek, half in jest - all in earnest, as we say down home - because in the past they simply have not listened.

Science is about observing and drawing conclusions from the observations you make.

There were tens of thousands of people out on vessels and the inshore small-boat fishermen observed a lot, but nobody ever asked them. When they volunteered, they were told, ``You don't know what you're talking about, because I'm the scientist and you're just the fisherman''.

But - and here's the big but - you told me that in 1990-91 the fishermen could have told the scientists there was no fish. The scientists were giving data that allowed us mere politicians to make recommendations as to catch and quota that were wrong, that simply weren't sustainable; the fish weren't there.

I criticized them for not listening to the fishermen early on.

Now they're on the other side of it, saying, ``You know what? You're right; there isn't a resource there''. They're telling us that it's not going to be there for as long as fourteen years, if you deal with the cod fishery and the northern cod up in that zone.

The program we have is finite; there's x number of bucks in it, it's going to end at a certain date, and at that date it's assumed that there will be a fishery to go back to for those people who are in the core fishery. Help me with this. What happens if the scientists are right this time and there is nothing to go to?

If somebody came to you and could convince you today that this fishery will not be recovering for ten years, would there be changes in the way you would apply the dollars that are in the program? Would you change some of the components? Would you do something different? Would you just kill the training or would you keep it up? Would you do more early retirement? Would you buy out more capacity?

Mr. Decker: On the downturn, science was saying it was there, and now they're saying it's here. Fishermen are more or less saying it was there and now it's here. Those are the degrees.

The Chairman: But it's still not there today.

Mr. Decker: We know the resource that was there is there no longer. That's why it's so bloody important that the Sentinel Fishing Program should go ahead this year, so we can really monitor.

Last year, for instance, nothing was done. For the last three years we've had a closure and nothing has been done. Nobody's going to have confidence in a couple of boats that survey around, but if we were to proceed all around the island of Newfoundland with a sentinel fisheries program, as was put forward this year, you'd be collecting a hell of lot of data. It would be collected by fishermen firsthand and they themselves then would be able to see from all the information that was coming in what....

In their own terms, through collective knowledge, instead of having somebody say, ``Boy, I saw a lot of fish over there'' - what's a lot of fish, right? - you'd be able to measure that. Fishermen would be seeing it themselves, and they would be measuring it all around the island. Is this one lot of fish that moves along the coast so everybody's picking it up, or is this something that at certain times is all along the coast? It makes a big difference. It's that sort of stuff. If we're going to make it anywhere, then involve fishermen in the process. Let them do it.

The Chairman: Now we're going to go over to Derek, but just before we do, Lester or Andrew, do you have something to throw into this mix?

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Mr. Lester Batstone (Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union): Yes. I'm from the Baie Verte Peninsula, Nippers Harbour, a little town.

I'm going to change the subject a little bit. I've been fishing for 37 years. I'm 50 years old. To get back to the early part of the meeting where we're talking to this guy here on the training program, I have a young man, a 24-year-old. He has a home in Nippers Harbour - they call it rural Newfoundland - and he has a wife and kid. He owns his own home; he has a $70,000 or $80,000 investment. He's the future fisherman in 10, 12 years' time, if he decides to stay in the fishery.

Who's important in your eye? I've been fishing all my life. Are you going to put me on some stupid program to train me for stuff that I don't care too much about and isn't going to turn the country into anything, it's not going to do the fishery no good, or are they going to look out to the young people so when the fishery comes back there will be some mature fishermen?

The Chairman: So what are you telling me - that the dollars being spent on some of the training programs, the active components for the older fishermen, should be redirected towards the younger fishermen?

Mr. Batstone: Something that makes real sense, not carrying a rock from one side of the road to the other. Put the money in good use, and if you want to train, then put it in good use. So when the time comes, if he wants to train in the fishery, there will be a future for him. If he wants to get out of the fishery and train as a miner, there will be a future for him.

If you're going to go on with those little stupid programs that don't amount nothing in six weeks' time - a stamp project you might call it - just in order to get more UIC....

I think the day has come when we're going to have to make some stiff decisions on you're going to go fishing or your not. You are not going to go fishing just until a job rolls up. You have to be a professional fisherman or you're not going fishing.

In rural Newfoundland most of the towns are going to go by the sideway if there's not something.... You have to know who the fishermen are. They are not fishing because there's nothing else to do. Those days are gone. You have to make up your mind: you're going fishing or you're not.

My young man was out in B.C. for six to eight months. He could have stayed home and drawn TAGS, but he preferred going to B.C. I have a son-in-law who went to B.C. and unfortunately he lost his life; a boat went down. That can't be helped; that's human nature. As you can see, you can get my message that there's more to life than TAGS.

In two years' time or ten years' time the fishery will come back. We're all living in hope. If not, there's no point in being there.

My message to you is to train the man who's going fishing in something that really makes common sense, or there won't be any Nippers Harbour or Snooks Arm or La Scie. There will be no rural Newfoundland, which we were always used to.

Mr. Wells (South Shore): I'm not sure who to address the question to. Perhaps it can be David to start. It has to do with your comments about science and the fact that you feel the fish are there.

We've been discussing these whole fishing issues with the Cashin report in the background and everything that's been said since then, talking about a 50% capacity reduction, talking about harvesting as opposed to processing. Is it accepted in your part of the country that there has to be a reduction in harvesting capacity, and do you accept the 50%?

Mr. Decker: First, on the statement about the fish being there, we're not saying that you can go out and have a fishery tomorrow. But I think enough fish is there to rebuild. You get the idea if you listen to...and you get some really pessimistic reports that say - about the status of the northern cod, for instance - that it's commercially extinct, and these sort of things.

.1810

Our union is saying that, no, we don't believe it's commercially extinct - but not to the degree that we would say, yes, there's lots of fish there, and in two years we're going to be fishing it. So I guess it's a matter of the degrees of the downturn.

Mr. Wells: I understood what you said. I may have not phrased it -

Mr. Decker: On the reduction, yes, we believe there must be a reduction in the numbers in the fishery. There's no doubt about it. The fishery over the past has been used, for instance, by governments, by people like yourselves who have been elected - not you as individuals, but governments themselves - to push people into our industry as a quick fix.

Mr. Wells: The employment of last resort.

Mr. Decker: Yes. They were pushed in because they couldn't think of any other options, or whatever. The incentives were there. Programs were designed there to get more people into the fishery. So it just built and built, into something that was not possible.

For instance, from the 1970s in my community the number of fishermen probably went from around 10 or 15 to 40-odd - in just one community. Multiply that around the regions. That happened over time. It was the policy of government that it should happen, and it was governments' responsibility to manage this resource. It is a renewable resource, and big mistakes were made here.

The repercussions are that for people like me, my communities, the communities where I come from and people like these come from, all of a sudden the total future is jeopardized.

Yes, there has been a response and responsibility has been taken by government to a certain degree; but with the loss of the fishery, individuals have lost their independence. We are adjusting. The adjustments are taking place. People are moving on. It seems to me that the degree to which it's taking place.... I know people now who have fished and they're moving on, out of the industry.

It's a slower process. Somebody from my community, for instance, moves to - where? - Alberta, for God's sake. They establish themselves and they get a job. The next thing is that their buddy is talking. They're talking and they say, ``Sure, I'm established and I have a job. Come up and stay for a while''. So he goes up and he stays for a while and he gets a job. Things such as that are happening in every community, but it's a slower process.

It seems to me that, before they'll be satisfied, somebody wants a mass exodus to move out of those communities They want to see people with their suitcases and lines walking down the road. It's not going to happen in that way. It can't happen in that way. Jesus, we support ourselves when we go out there.

There are seven kids in my family. The only ones left in my community are my parents. I have two of my sisters and brothers in B.C., three in St. John's, one in Stephenville and one in Corner Brook. We've all moved on down the road. We're not the only ones. I know more families of 13 who were in my community, that I grew up with, with only one left. The adjustment has taken place, but it's not recognized here.

Mr. Wells: Is it being accepted within the fishing community that 50% have to get out, or are people hanging on, saying that when it comes back, they are going to go back fishing?

I don't accept the 50% in my area because I'm from southwestern Nova Scotia, which has largely an inshore fishery. When I talk about it, I keep saying, ``Don't apply 50% to my area; we'll apply that in Newfoundland''. So I'll apply that to you. Is it accepted by the fishermen that half of them are going to be gone, or are you looking at it from a capacity point of view - 50% of the capacity going and 80% of the fishermen staying? How are you looking at the 50%? Are you looking at it in capacity or in fishermen?

Mr. Decker: Out in the communities, nobody is looking at it in terms of numbers. Nobody can come up with a magic number. What's right for my community might not be right for.... Where I come from, options are more limited, for instance, than they are farther south. Our community was based not only just on fishing, but for the most part on one species of fish, which was cod. Communities farther south in other areas have more options. They have lobster. They might have capelin.

Mr. Wells: Can you give me the names of some of those communities?

Mr. Decker: For instance, in my area right now, around the Saint George's Bay area, along the west coast, lobster lends a certain stability. A lot of these people, for instance - even if this TAGS program is ongoing - will participate in the TAGS program for only certain periods of time, say from July to November - then they roll into UI or something like that - because they still have that lobster fishery going and only a piece of their fishing has been taken away from them. That's certainly a better chance in that area in the short term than in the community I'm from.

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Recognize that in the community I'm from 50% you're going to see more than 50% go. Fifty percent is not a reasonable number in that one, because we're going to have 80% go. For instance, in my community there, as I said, they got up to around 40 or 50 individuals, and that was made of about 16 or 18 skippers, enterprises. I would say that about the time buy-out is finished we'll be down to about four.

Mrs. Payne (St. John's West): Which is your community?

Mr. Decker: Ship Cove. It's right across from L'Anse-à-l'Eau on the tip of the peninsula.

Mr. McGuire: [Inaudible]...fairly large. Are they stable?

Mr. Decker: A bit more stable for instance in Port au Choix Fishery Products just put in a $7-million shrimp facility, which is employing 120 individuals, which over the next couple of years they hope will go to a 40-week operation. There's a fair shrimp resource in that area, which is good. Lobster is there; they've got a bit of crab there that they're fishing now. There's a bit of turbot. So there are more species and more choices. Maybe in that area there will be less, but still people are moving on and they have to move on.

Mr. Mills: At the beginning you were quite critical of the training and then you went on to say that a lot of good training is going on. We're interested in trying to do an evaluation of the program. If something is working, we need to know where it's wrong and not working so we can make some attempts to make recommendations for fixing it up.

I'm more interested now in getting into the six-week courses that you're talking about in the community, because in the community I'm from I haven't had the same types of complaints as you're mentioning now about training schools sprouting up. I'm getting the opposite complaint, that people who want to set up training cannot because the training is taking place in existing facilities and community colleges. Then we get into the problem of not having room for others if these people get into community colleges.

Do you have some more information on the six-week courses you're talking about? What are these courses? You said that people are being herded into them. I'd like you to expand on that, because these are serious things. If these things are happening in that way, we need to know, but we have to have more factual information as opposed to that type of general comment.

Mr. Decker: One of the last ones that was being promoted heavily in my area was called Choices. The same people who were herded into this Improving Your Odds course also then had to take Choices when TAGS came along.

The Chairman: They had not choice but to take Choices. Is that right?

Mr. Decker: They had no choice but to take Choices.

The Chairman: Can you tell me what Choices does?

Mr. Decker: I don't know if somebody else would like to explain. I don't know what it's supposed to do. What it does, yes, is give a couple of instructors a job for a few weeks and puts our people through...I'm going to have to say almost a humiliating experience.

The Chairman: Tell us what it does to you.

Mr. Decker: For some, they get in and they're playing cards, for instance. They don't have the tools to deliver anything productive to these people, for the most part. There are no tools; you don't learn anything productive.

Mr. Wells: What grade level would these people be going into Choices with? Do these people need some upgrading before they get into training?

Mr. Decker: Some of these going in, yes, would need upgrading. There's a broad range.

For instance, one person had just come out of a two-year computer training course. He was forced to do something at that point. He could have taught the course. There was no problem. He qualified to teach the course, but in order to be active he was forced to go into the course. There are things like that.

Mrs. Payne: David, can you just tell us where the fishermen go? I know the answer to this, but I want it to come from you. Who tells them they have to go to these courses? In other words, they take a course and they finish and they take another one and they finish, but where does that come from? Can you go into that?

Mr. Decker: The courses like these that people don't want to take clearly come from the TAGS counsellors. They force them into these courses. If a course set out in that community needs 12 individuals, then, by damn, 12 individuals are going to go.

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On the content of the course, I don't know what's actually delivered in the courses. I do know that what the results of it are, that members coming to me are totally pissed off with it, something like that. But nobody can complain about the ABE programs - and that's why there's a difference in the training. There's a lot of that taking place all around the island, upgrading courses and so on, because a significant number of our people need upgrading.

Mr. Wells: I was going to ask the chair if we can perhaps somehow get some information on the Choices program or some of these programs that he's being critical of, because I still don't have a sense of what it is.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): Is there anyone here from HRD?

Mr. Decker: The program purportedly was supposed to give someone going into it a sense of direction, of where they want to go with their lives. They were supposed to go through this course and in the end they were supposed to have a sense of direction, where they wanted to go, giving them options. That's what it's supposed to do.

Mr. Wells: Would the training be relatively good? Is this a small component of what's happening?

Mr. Decker: That one right now is a smaller component, because not a lot of it is taking place.

There's nothing wrong with the ABE programs, upgrading and so on. These are taking place out in the communities, and certainly no one can argue. Everybody can benefit from upgrading.

Mr. Wells: Do people taking the training in your community take it in the community, or do they have to leave to go to a larger centre to take the training?

Mr. Wimberlton: I'd like to be able to answer that question you just asked. It's been going through my mind ever since you started talking about this training. On the tip of the Baie Verte Peninsula since the TAGS program started, four different so-called colleges have come into the community and rented rooms in the back of garages, stores and basements and put up a sign and said they were offering such-and-such a course. The people of the community who are dependent on the TAGS cheque are so scared to death of threats that have been coming at them from different sources - and many of them are from those colleges - that they're going in and filling up those classrooms.

Mr. Wells: - [Inaudible - Transeditor] -

Mr. Wimberlton: Yes, there are some new colleges. I think many people - [Inaudible - Transeditor] - did not exist prior to this moratorium. They're being passed by HRD apparently, or they wouldn't doing it, but they wouldn't get anybody to attend those classes if the scare tactics weren't out there.

Mr. Wells: Do the people not want training or do they not want this type of training?

Mr. Wimberlton: A lot of people want training, but the last thing a person wants - and you can put this to yourself - is for someone to come to them and tell them that they must train. Individuals have to decide for themselves if the training if for them or not.

Mr. Harris: The bottom line is that after this training, regardless of what it is, are there any jobs for the people to go to, or is all this training just something to keep the people who are being forced out of the fishing industry busy, while being subsidized in some way, until the government comes up with some other scheme that won't work, as well?

When you have these training programs there's got to be an end-result, and one would generally expect that it's going to be a job. If you're going to take a program to get yourself out of the fishing industry or at least to downsize the number of fishermen by putting the people into different occupations, are there any jobs there to go to once the people have gone and got whatever training has been offered?

Mr. Wimberlton: Do you mean jobs in Newfoundland itself?

Mr. Harris: Yes.

Mr. Wimberlton: Boy! I'd say the jobs in Newfoundland itself right now are scarcer than the cod. So the opportunity is certainly not there in Newfoundland.

Mr. Harris: So basically the people take the training, and if in fact they get some training that's of value, basically they've got to leave the province and go somewhere else.

Mr. Wimberlton: Right, but at least they'll be prepared to go somewhere else.

Mr. Harris: Okay, I understand that. What one has to examine, then, is whether the training is right, what the quality of the training is, whether it really does prepare you for it.

.1825

If you had to scale the training available on this program on a scale of one to ten, how would you scale it as far as preparing people to go on to different occupations is concerned? Is the training itself of any value?

Mr. Wimberlton: As I said before, there is training there. We have lots of things in our colleges and universities that are certainly beneficial. If I could speak on what is being offered since the moratorium, no, a lot of it is not beneficial, except the final steps of the operating system. That has to be there for a person to go on.

The FFAW has five or six centres in Newfoundland, and its different colleges are offering different ABE courses. A lot of people are showing a lot of interest in that, and it's voluntary. They want to get an education. When they get that set done, maybe they'll go on and do something else with their lives.

I think what upsets the population is when the counsellor comes out and says there's a six-week course here. They're scared and they go and attend this course, but they don't know what it's all about. They come out of it just as blind as they went into it. Some of those people who are standing at the bottom working up are going to leave the fishery, and they're doing it in their way, in what they want to do. They'll have an education and maybe go to the mainland, some other part of Upper Canada, and get a better job. The course is the problem.

Mr. Harris: The Price Waterhouse report, which at least some of us haven't seen, apparently described the program as a huge white elephant, to use its words. I haven't seen it, but they said it was ineffective, the program simply wasn't working, and it's basically far over budget.

David said earlier that when the government came and put this program in place, the one thing they lacked most of all was talking to the people there before they brought the thing in, which is probably typical of governments. A few bureaucrats in some back offices come up with an idea and tell the people this is what's good for them.

If you had done it in a different way, how could they change that program to make it better? How could they make it beneficial?

Mr. Mills: In the training, you're partly right; those short courses don't do anything. A lot of it was that they had to do this to qualify for TAGS. We have to get rid of the short term. We have to look at the long term. If we want to get people out of the industry, then we have to train them, and you're not going to do it in six weeks. As far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of time. We have to look at getting back to long term.

I don't think there are any numbers yet that can show us how many people are out by training, even though it's shut down. I don't think there are any numbers available anywhere. In the short term there's no benefit. I know that in our area the fishermen are older, and it's of no benefit whatsoever.

Mr. Harris: Do people like yourselves have any input at all into how this thing was going to be? Did the government ask anybody before it came and said, ``Okay, here's a program; TAGS is going to replace NCARP and the gap program''? Did they just come along and said, ``This is it, fellas; take it or leave it?'' Is that basically how it worked? Does anybody know anyone who had any input into this thing before it was handed to you?

Mr. Andrew Fequet (President, Lower North Shore Fisherman's Association): Not through the lower north shore.

I'm from the lower north shore of Quebec, and if people don't know, it's situated in the northeast gulf, right up in the corner. I think we've been forgotten about concerning TAGS and the criteria. We were telling the government that the fishery's been going down long before they even recognized that it was going down.

.1830

The scientists tell us the fish come up through the Cabot Strait and they go back. The people in Nova Scotia and the Port aux Basques area get a chance at the fish coming up and they get a chance at the fish going back. They get two chances a year, but in my area we only have one chance, so we were hit first with the decline.

I don't have any documentation on this, but when the criteria came out I think Mr. Brian Tobin's announcement was that there were going to be regional differences. We thought we were going to be taken care of as a different region, but come criteria time we weren't treated differently from anybody else. A lot of fishermen down our way were not even mentioned on TAGS because we didn't meet the criteria list. They set it so high that over the years our fishermen weren't even catching that amount of fish. So that gave us a problem.

Most of the fishermen on my coast who qualify for TAGS can still make a living, because they're crab fishermen and they have other species to catch. But we have a lot of fishermen in our area who are not even mentioned in TAGS because the criteria put them right out.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): What part of the criteria disqualified them?

Mr. Fequet: The eligibility criteria.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): But which part of the eligibility?

Mr. Fequet: The percentage of income.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): The 25%?

Mr. Fequet: Yes, and the amount of dollars. That's what put a lot of our fishermen out. Our fish plants got put out; they weren't designated. There are still some that aren't designated, and the only thing we did in those fish plants was groundfish.

They tell us we're not designated because we weren't in the fisheries in 1989 and 1990. Well, in those years we didn't get any fish. The fish was already gone. There was still some in the southern part of the gulf, but none in our area. We were left out.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: I would like to ask you a question on the issue of training that was just discussed. I do not know whether you are aware of the following fact. Normally, education is under provincial jurisdiction. People that listen to the radio know that the province of Quebec also claims manpower training. All of that is linked to education.

You have lived through numerous programs. Don't you think that envelopes given to the provincial governments, that are nearer to the people, would make the training more adapted to your needs? The money would be given to the province but it would be spent according to the training needs that you would have identified. Do you think that that level of government would be closer to the people or are we going to repeat the same...?

[English]

Mr. Fequet: Concerning training, we didn't have any. There's no training in my area, none.

Even the first appeals haven't gone through for a lot of fishermen. The program is one year. They appointed a person from Gaspé by the name of Delton Sams. The first trip on the lower north shore was on March 27. He did a part of the lower north shore. The other part hasn't seen anything yet. Their appeal is sitting on a desk somewhere. We're one year into this and we're no further ahead.

Mr. Decker: I have a point on the training. The provinces have been involved and I think there's certainly room for the industry itself to be involved. I understand there are different industries across the country where industry is really involved and has a say in what sort of training is available to people in their industry. I think it's time for the people themselves, as opposed to government, to have a say in what sort of training their dollars should be spent on in their industry.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): David, is the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union involved in the training?

.1835

Mr. Decker: Yes. Right now we have approximately 16 centres set up around the province that are focusing on upgrading, because a lot of our people in our industry have education levels below high school. So we are involved with approximately 1,500 to 1,600 people who are attending these -

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): ABE.

Mr. Decker: Yes, they are really ABE upgrading. There's certainly a great need for upgrading around the province.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): When you said that the industry should be more involved, what did you mean by that?

Mr. Decker: In determining how funding should be spent. For instance, if industry was involved, I doubt if we would have seen a program like, under NCARP, Improving Our Odds. Industry would have given thumbs down on something like that.

With industry being involved and more peer counselling out there, where I'm going to be talking to someone as an individual for whom I have respect, say Ray, who can be given some skills.... We do have fishermen who have the skills to be able to do this. We do have fishermen with high school education or university degrees. Certainly individuals like that could be used in the areas that have credibility. The respect of their peers could be used. I think we would get a lot further when we're talking about them going into communities, not talking about where we're going, and if somebody from the communities was talking about it rather than somebody from outside coming in and talking about the future of the community when they know nothing about it.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): I'm the wife of a fisherman, so I understand what you're saying.

Mr. Decker: It goes back to a point you made about white elephants, or something, about this program. I don't want to get into a situation where our talk is all negative. I mean, my God, where would rural Newfoundland be right now without this program? We'd be looking like Ethiopia, for Christ's sake, in the midst of a famine.

A lot of good has come out of this program so far, although there are problems with it - a lot of concern out in the communities, a lot of frustration and I guess people feeling a loss of control over their lives. That's natural in a situation like this and one would expect that. They want more say in their lives.

But, my God, without the TAGS program where would we be, without income support to see us through this? Everybody who was left behind would be on welfare or something.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): Can you tell us, then, what you feel is really wrong with the program or what caused the problems in the training programs?

Mr. Decker: What caused the problems in the first place was the sense of going out and telling people. It was somebody dictating from above as opposed to listening. There was a sense in the communities that they had lost any control over their lives, that from now on they were puppets on a string and somebody was going to be jiggling the strings and they were going to move in tune with what somebody else wanted. That's what caused the frustration out in the communities and is still causing it. There is a sense of the people that they don't have any control over their lives any more, and these were very independent people.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: That is why I asked you whether it would not be more appropriate that the provinces be responsible for manpower training since it goes hand in hand with education.

I do not know how the Newfoundland Education system operates, but in Quebec, we have regional school boards. The trustees are elected by the region so that they are better tuned to the needs of the communities. I think it could have been a way to improve the situation. We should have asked ourselves who was in a better position to bring about that improvement.

It is in that sense that I reach out to you. Could the federal have transfered the amounts to the provinces so that they be given directly to your school boards and that the decisions be made by people from the community? It must be much easier for you to speak to your regional school board than to speak to Jo Bloe in the district office in the centre of Newfoundland.

[English]

Mr. Decker: I can't speak for the others, but I have no more faith in the provincial politicians than we have in the federal department. So it really makes no difference.

.1840

What it means is they have to come back to a community level. I would say it's their peers who should be doing it, who they should be talking to and working in conjunction with. Obviously you have to work in conjunction with departments and so on.

If it were people from the communities, from the areas - and not just from the areas, by the way, but out of the industry itself.... Whether these people come out of the plants or out of the harvesting sector, they should understand what it is to be in that situation, what it is to live that life - and understand everything about the fishery.

If you are using people like that on the ground, then you're going to make a lot more progress than you're making right now. These people are out of touch.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): Do I understand then that the training that was given by the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union was successful, or did that go the same way as the rest of it?

Mr. Decker: The training in the education centres is very successful, I would have to say. This training, by the way, was instituted and started prior to TAGS and prior to NCARP. It started at a time when nobody had to go.

There were two education centres, one at the tip of the northern peninsula and one in Port au Choix, set up prior to NCARP. It was there for the fishermen to attend, but it was totally voluntary. They attended and they made a success of these programs and certainly sold them.

Then they were extended to other areas and then NCARP came along. So before NCARP they had already proven that this was successful. There was no reason why they would attend the centres other than that the person wanted to learn.

Mr. Harris: David, I should clear up that I understand just how important income support programs are. The only thing I was trying to get at earlier was if in fact training is going to be offered, then the training should be most effective. In other words, it should mean something to the people who are receiving it. Probably there are some areas where that simply is not happening.

What we have in your area, Newfoundland, is probably as close to describing what can be called a conundrum as anything else, where there is a problem but there doesn't appear to be much of a solution.

Madam Chairman, if we're going to pursue this TAGS program and the effectiveness of it in subsequent meetings, maybe on a point of order could I request that members of the committee, ourselves in particular, get a list of all the training organizations that are actually receiving TAGS program money, both private and public organizations, and how much they have received.

Also, if we want to take a look at the type of effectiveness, could we get a course syllabus for the courses and exactly what the HRD guidelines are for these training organizations are?

I'm on the other side of the country, but in my town alone HRD funds provide money to no fewer than two dozen consulting organizations in a town of 80,000 people. It seems the end-result is that people go in there feeling a bit depressed they come out feeling a bit better about themselves and their position, but without real job skills to go and get a darn job.

If we're going to continue this discussion in this committee, then it would help for us to have an understanding of how much money is being spent, what kind of training is being offered and what the guidelines for these organizations, either public or private, really are from HRD. Then maybe we can analyse and discuss some ways of making the programs more effective, with the input from people who are at the ground level getting the training and relying on these programs for getting on with their life.

.1845

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): I don't know, Mr. Harris, how feasible it would be to get copies of all the syllabuses you mentioned on these training programs. We certainly can attempt to get - the clerk, I'm sure, will attempt to get - some of the information that you request and the names of the institutions that have been -

Mr. Harris: Of course, we can get them through access to information, but that takes a while.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): Exactly.

Mr. Harris: It's in everybody's best interest. The sooner we have this sort of stuff, the better it will be.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): I understand we have a person here from HRD. We'll attempt to get as much information on that as we can.

Mr. Wimberlton: I would just like to say, in response to what you were saying on education, that, as a fisherman and an individual out in the community, I think all that's really needed in the retraining thing is a chance for them to get their high school education. That's the only thing that may be lacking.

The FFAW has gone a long way in fixing that.

Beyond that, we already have all the training offered that we can possibly need. There may be a course there to help us along. We have colleges and universities that offer everything that's really needed. I can do anything I want. All that's needed is for me to want to go to school.

I don't know why you would spend extra money on inventing courses. If I'm going to be on TAGS for four years by force and I want to go to university, then the option is there. So I don't know why we have to talk about spending millions and millions of dollars on training. If a person wants to train, it's there now. If TAGS is going to continue while he's in school, then I really can't see the big thing in all this money being spent.

The upgrading is necessary; there is no question about that. You have to get a high school education first, but beyond that it's already in place. It's just a matter of taking advantage of it.

As for getting numbers down in the fishery, if you prove to fishermen that the fish is not there - and the way to do that is to let the fishermen take part in getting the proof - then I think you'll see people who are fishing now, young enough, voluntarily leaving the fishery. But as long as they mistrust DFO and their advice, and they have no facts, they're going to wait and wait. I know, because that's how I feel.

The closing thing I'd like to say is that TAGS in itself is probably around 80% in fishing. I have to give credit: it is a major job in itself to have gone that far. As Dave said, we don't want to be all negative here, because, even out in the community, people realize there's a lot of work in putting this together and administering it.

There are a few bugs to be ironed out, and this is why we have to be critical about what's going on.

Mr. Wells: I assume you haven't seen the Price Waterhouse report that was referred to earlier. I understand from the clerk that it's going to be made available. I would like it, if possible, to be made available to the witnesses, because you could have written part of that because a lot of what you say is in there. It has been identified.

This was issued on January 6, 1995. We've had two updates from HRD, in February and again yesterday, on how they're trying to rectify some of the problems identified. If it's 80% efficient but 20% isn't working, then we want to make it 100% efficient. With your help, I think we can do that.

The reason I was asking about the education levels and the attitude of the fishermen is that those are the two things identified by Price Waterhouse - attitudinal issues.... When you read the report, if you look at what they're saying, you'll understand some of the questions. I think it goes to some of your answers, as well, why people are perhaps reluctant to take some of the training.

The idea in the program was not to give money to people to stay home. It was income support. The whole basis of the program was income support. Then, as part of what you do for that income, there is training so that if there's no fishery to come back to, you have some skills to take elsewhere.

The program you said is working well, the ABE program, was identified by Price Waterhouse as the most valuable course or program and the most popular, and for good reason, I guess, from what you're saying.

.1850

It also identified the low literacy rate. This is not just in Newfoundland; this is all over. In my own riding the majority of the people on TAGS - and I have all the numbers on everybody who was eligible and what they're doing - were in upgrading modules, because that is what they required before they could go to the next stage.

So if we can continue to get information from yourselves and others, and if you give us your comments on the Price Waterhouse report, with some ideas about where we can address some of those concerns, maybe we can get the other 20% up to scratch.

I just want to ask Con one quick question on the appeals. You said 17 appeals were allowed by the appeal officer in your area. Did you say all 17 were then turned down by HRD?

Mr. Mills: Yes.

Mr. Wells: I didn't realize they had that authority to override the appeal officer. Apparently they do.

Mr. Mills: That's the information I got. Peter King is the chairman. He's the man who goes around to the appeals. They were turned down.

Mr. Wells: There's a new appeal process. Are you aware of the new appeal procedure that's just been put in place? If I'm correct - I'll go back to my notes - it takes it out of HRD's hands and puts it into the hands of an independent. I'll check that and see.

Mr. Decker: That's right. HRD turned down the individual, for instance, and then it went to an independent appeals officer, who heard the case. These two reports, the report of the independent officer and the report of HRD, will go to the independent committee, which will review and make a decision. I think that decision is then binding.

Mr. Wells: Were you aware of that change, Con? You may want to follow up on that, because that problem was identified. I think it's been remedied. I raised that in the House myself, because I was concerned with the appeal process. So you might want to check that.

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): Mr. Bernier has a question on the same subject.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: Yes, I have a question regarding the Price Waterhouse report Mr. Wells referred to.

Mr. Wells will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that when the HRD representative appeared before us yesterday, he told us - and this brings me back to what was said at the beginning of our meeting today - that HRD would make no further investment in training and the other kinds of activities that are currently underway until the core fishery could be defined. At this point, they want to invest only in people aged 50 or over or those who want to take specialized training, as this gentleman was pointing out earlier. In other words, if he wants is to go to college or university, the department will send him there.

I don't know whether I'm making myself clear or not, but I keep coming back to the same old image, although you may not like it. All I can tell you is they intend to operate on that basis. Just what exactly can we do about that? From what I've understood from the Price Waterhouse report findings, they will make no further investment until the core fishery has been defined. Given the kind of picture they are painting of the future, I wonder whether there will be any core fishery left. How does the Department of Resources Development intend to operate in the future? I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that question.

[English]

Mr. Decker: The core fishermen, or, as they're called right now, I guess, SEC - special eligibility criteria that they're using - fishermen, are being identified at present. These are people who were in the industry, for instance, full time for seven years, the head of an enterprise, and had made 75% of earned income from fishing. So these people are in the process of being identified right now. Certainly one would expect that training would be available for these individuals if they want it.

The training you're referring to, by the way, is training within the industry, as opposed to training in general. There are two points here. There's training to go on for another career or something, where ABE is pretty general. That should be available to anybody who wants it. I don't care if you're going to stay in the industry or outside of it. It's beneficial to anybody, as a society, to upgrade our educational levels.

The training you're talking about I think is specific to training within the industry, when you say there will be no training until the core is identified.

.1855

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: As I understand the Price Waterhouse report - and that's the reason why I asked Mr. Wells to correct me if I'm wrong - when the representative of Human Resources Development Canada came before us yesterday, he indicated that no further investment would be made in fisheries training. If you want to receive general training, you can do that, but then you must apply on your own. In other words, this kind of thing will no longer be available to entire groups of people. As I understand the report, the six to eight week courses you referred to earlier will no longer exist. There will be much less activity in that area. The Department of Human Resources Development seems to have found a way out by simply saying that it will no longer invest in fisheries training.

They state in their report that they are short by $385 million. They say they are going to have to cut somewhere in order to save money.

This brings me back to my original question. You say that an effort is currently being made to identify the core fishery, but when do you think this process will actually conclude? I am sure that there will be some connection to discussions that have been ongoing within your association on the future of the fishery.

You said earlier to me that cod is not the only thing that can be harvested. When we held hearings last spring, the majority of Atlantic fishermen who came before us asked when they would be allowed to harvest a number of different species. I imagine that you have taken that into consideration in trying to define the fisheries of the future. It will certainly help you to determine how many fishermen you will need to harvest those species. The Department of Human Resources Development will be able to provide you with money to help you to improve people's expertise.

My own impression, as both an individual and opposition member of Parliament, is that the Department of Human Resources Development will not make a move until that core fishery has been identified. In other words, there will be no improvement in our ability either to harvest the species more effectively or to recognize economic diversification. My feeling is that they are just going to sit back and do nothing.

The question I want to put to you is this: How should we respond? These two departments continue to be closely connected; everyone continues talking about Human Resources Development Canada, but in fact the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was supposed to be working with you to define the core fishery and the fishery of the future.

At one point, we talked about professionalization, which has to do with the title we want to give fishermen. I have always thought that being a fisherman was a noble profession. But at the same time we have to be able to define how the fishery will operate, what kind of resources a fisherman will have access to and how they will be shared. As they say back home in the Gaspé, our fishermen want to be able to fish from freeze-up season to the next. When winter arrives, it's time to rest because where I'm from, everything is covered with ice.

Perhaps I'm going on a bit, but I come back again to the basic question: What kind of communication is there between Fisheries and Oceans and yourselves? My feeling is that the two departments are not on the same wave length at all and that you will end up paying the price.

Mr. Tobin said that the $1.9 billion budget envelope would not be cut, but he did suggest that no other money would be forthcoming.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mrs. Payne): Mr. Bernier, I thank you for your speech. Mr. Fequet has been waiting patiently to make an intervention, so I'm going to give him that opportunity first. Then if somebody else wants to respond to your comments, we'll let them do that.

Mr. Fequet: I'll comment on training. The local people down home sent in some projects to put people into training, but our problem was they were all turned down by HRD. We don't know why. The only projects that were put into place in our area were ones put in by HRD, approved by HRD. But the local people sent in projects and all of those were turned down.

.1900

For instance, the municipalities where I come from were in the process of building a new garage. This was steel, but our fishermen and our workers down there always worked with wood. To install this garage was steel work, and we sent in a project and asked if we could get TAGS to train those people to erect steel buildings. That was turned down.

We had a project sent in to upgrade our fish plant. That was turned down. We have sent in projects to do other species.

The Chairman: When you say a program to upgrade your fish plant, that's not under the training component. That would be under one of the other components.

Mr. Fequet: Well, it would be under training if you were training in carpentry.

The Chairman: Oh, I see. Okay.

Mr. Fequet: This is for other jobs. For training within the fishery, say the sentinel fisheries, we wanted our fishermen to be trained to do some of the scientific work, low down. So far we don't have any information on that program.

The Chairman: Are you telling me that you put in an application for some training for the sentinel fisheries but it hasn't been approved yet?

Mr. Fequet: It hasn't been approved yet.

The Chairman: Well, maybe we should make note of that and put some calls in tomorrow, because that's certainly an area that should be highlighted. That should go through there like a greased pig, just right in and right out, when you're dealing with the sentinel fishery, from what we heard earlier. It also gives some ownership and management of the resource to the fishermen.

Mr. Fequet: They're doing other species. We're getting into processing crab and the workers are used to doing cod. It's a new species, and we need training to do this. All this was turned down by HRD.

The Chairman: Do they give explanantions, or is it just that they seem to think they know better?

Mr. Fequet: They just send back to the local people: ``Your project is not acceptable''.

The Chairman: I was gone for twenty minutes, so I may have missed this, but I just want to know. What about the green projects? The green projects in my area have been very difficult. Initially there are about six layers of bureaucracy. There were advisory boards that HRD set up, and everything you can think of.

We've had one project that is probably going to create about sixty or seventy permanent jobs out in Eastern Passage, but I almost had to go and hold them hostage at the CEC to get it approved after five months. What's going on with those types of projects? Anything?

Mr. Fequet: Well, I'm just trying to think.

The Chairman: Nothing?

Mr. Fequet: We're way behind in our area. Dave and they were a bit further ahead. They did get a bit of training. We didn't get any.

The Chairman: But on the green projects, these projects that are meant to put people like some of the fishermen who don't necessarily want to take training but could go on....

In Eastern Passage, we're rebuilding fish shacks and we're basically putting a community restaurant in there, and things like that. We're getting the fishermen to form a co-op to do harbour tours of Halifax harbour. But we needed some basic tools of money and their labour to get that. It took forever.

Are any of those types of projects under way in your areas in Newfoundland?

Mr. Decker: In my area very few are taking place. I understand there are a couple, for instance, where they're training some people in cutting stones, working with stone and stuff like that. I know they're restoring an old church, but in the process they're training people to work with stone. In Newfoundland there seems to be a bit of a potential for working with dimensioned stone and so on.

The only one in my area that I'm aware of is the sentinel fishery project, which we had approved last year. Unlike our friend Andrew here, we did have training as a component of that course. All our fishermen went through a six-week training course.

I think that's very important, because I am one of those who's optimistic that we will rebuild the fishery. I think we will do it. Certainly if we don't, it's a loss to the world, not just to Newfoundland. I think we will rebuild it, but that is investment in the future.

When, not if, we rebuild it and we go through this, we will have people who are trained to work with the science, who will be in the collection of data. Hopefully, because we'll get the real people involved in it, we'll get the signals, we'll recognize when we're getting in trouble, we'll recognize it more quickly, we'll make adjustments more quickly, and we'll never have to go through this hell again.

.1905

Mr. Mills: I heard a reporter earlier saying that there was some screaming from the opposition in the House this morning in regard to the TAGS program. I suspect that there'll be pressure to kill the TAGS program, because after what scientists said, this 14 years, it's a scary situation if you're a fisherman. But I fish in the 4Vn-4VW area and I don't think it's going to take that long. I think some money has to be used for experimental work and getting the fishermen themselves involved in the experimental aspect of the fishery.

The Chairman: Like what? Are you talking about looking at fishing other species?

Mr. Mills: No. Experimenting into areas for cod. I think they did it last year, when a few boats went out and did some experimenting. I think this is what's going to convince the fishermen themselves when they do it, because, as you said, they don't trust the scientists in that aspect any more. So I think there are ways of doing this, which are getting the fishermen involved themselves.

The Chairman: The concerns I've heard, around this table anyway, are not to kill the program. It's to make sure that if circumstances change, then the program is able to change with them. Nobody sitting at this table - not any more, anyway - would say that.

I was worried today about some of the exchanges as well, but that's got nothing to do with us because the criticisms we may have as a committee are on the implementation. We want to make sure it's flexible, we want to make sure fishermen are consulted, and we want to make sure that the programs are flexible enough to suit the community, not to go forward and say the program shouldn't be done, not to say ``Kill all the training''. We're saying the training may not be working.

When you were speaking earlier, David, I got a bit worried, because I thought somebody might be left with the impression that training is no good. Just bad training is no good.

Mr. Decker: I think you were referring to the sentinel programs. Right now there are proposals from quite a few different organizations around the Atlantic Region, because we had a meeting as a group in Halifax about six or eight weeks ago where we discussed sentinel really putting in proposals that are uniform so we won't be all over the map when submitting proposals.

There are proposals in from all around Atlantic Canada on sentinel. We have been getting very slow response from it. If somebody doesn't get off their ass and move soon with these projects, get these approved, then we're going to waste another year and be another year without information.

Last fall, for instance, we fought and put in our project early. As you know, Andrew, we worked together; we collaborated on this between Quebec and Newfoundland to try to get a uniform program. It was so bloody late when it was approved that we ended up doing the program anyway, because we needed to get what data we could, but the program was only about 10% effective because of the lateness of it. So the money was still spent, but we got only 10% of what we should have if it had been approved when we asked for it in the first place.

I'm fearful that the same is going to happen this summer. If this doesn't get off the ground and doesn't get approved now, we're not going to get the training in; we're not going to get the information when we should be getting it. The season is starting; the cod are migrating inshore, and if we don't start early, we'll be into the fall of the year and we'll be too late again.

The Chairman: If anybody over there is still speaking to me or anybody else in the committee, we'll be in touch with them tomorrow seriously and see if we can move this along, get some good recommendation coming in.

Mr. Dhaliwal (Vancouver South): It's getting late, so I'm going to try to be as brief as possible. I thank the witnesses for being patient.

Andrew, you talked about the program, which sounded very much like the type of program we should fund. Did you ensure that the local MP in your area was aware of those programs and the problems you are having in getting approval, whoever the MP in your area would be?

Mr. Fequet: I'm not sure if he was or not.

Mr. Dhaliwal: It's important to make sure that you do involve your local member of Parliament and, if you are having problems, to make sure that he's aware of it and that he gets a copy of it. I also urge you to send a copy of your proposal to the chairman so that he can push it forward.

.1910

I've heard a lot of really good ideas, and one of them is that our training should focus on long-term objectives as opposed to short-term ones. The short-term objectives are not very good in most cases and there should be a different focus on them. That is a very good point.

The other points that I thought you put particularly well was a regional sensitivity to the TAGS program. I'm surprised, Andrew, that you're saying there was no regional sensitivity to take into consideration the regional differences that exist.

The Chairman: If anybody else has another single question, we'll throw it out.

If not, I'm going to ask our witnesses, who have been very patient, to go back and tell all your constituents that we just don't sit up here, that we run and we've got a lot to do.

Is there something we missed? Is there something that you want to leave with us that hasn't been said or that we haven't been able to flesh out? Is there anything, Ray, that you want to add?

Mr. Wimberlton: On the sentinel fishery, every different region in Newfoundland has a different way of harvesting cod. In Notre Dame Bay our way of harvesting cod was to start in the spring of the year with a deep-water fishery, which was 150 fathoms, with a gill-net and a long line.

This is 3K, the area that's in the worst state.

If the sentinel fishery is ever to prove anything to us, then it's got to start now. But it's already too late for that phase of our fishery. So we may try inshore with our cod traps and long lines and say there's no fish, and meanwhile have missed the best fishery offshore. So time is crucial in the sentinel fishery.

Mr. Mills: Getting back to the buy-back, I'm of the understanding now that 1991 is supposed to be a catch-failure year. If that's the case, then there are a number of fishermen who were told they weren't eligible for the buy-back because they didn't qualify for TAGS. Well, it's 1991 that's classed as a catch-failure year. The bidding was supposed to be closed; the results are supposed to be out now somewhat, but if 1991 is classed as a catch-failure year, a number of fishermen never had the opportunity. They were told they didn't qualify because they didn't qualify for TAGS. Do you understand what I'm saying?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Mills: So something should be done in this regard for those guys if they qualify.

The Chairman: Okay. We'll try to get that checked out and clarified.

Mr. Batstone: I'd just like to congratulate Mr. Tobin for the few months he's been office. He's doing a wonderful job and I hope he will continue in the future.

The Chairman: That's good. What we're doing here is trying to make a response better. Some in the House like just to criticize everything. I understand that; I did that for five years in opposition.

Mr. Fequet: Concerning the buy-back, a lot of fishermen down home, as I mentioned in my earlier comments, don't even qualify for TAGS, because we are in a situation away up there and we were the first to be hit with low catches. Because of ice, in several years we started fishing only on August 15.

I myself went crab fishing in 1991 and steamed 11 miles through the ice. There was no way of putting the gill-net into the water. A lot of my fishermen have not been not eligible just for this reason; they weren't able to catch fish.

The Chairman: Are you saying that in your area the qualifying criterion doesn't take into consideration the years in which you couldn't fish?

Mr. Fequet: The years in which we couldn't fish, just one set of criteria. TAGS is a good program, but in our area we have to see it put to work.

Mr. Dhaliwal: For the record, can you tell us where you're from?

.1915

Mr. Fequet: The lower north shore, Quebec.

Mr. Decker: First of all - I have to give a caution now - in the communities there is a sense of unrest over various components of the program and the whole fact that for some areas now they've been shut down for three years. It has to do with the loss of control; for instance, the problems they're experiencing with training - some of these, by the way, have been corrected - and things like that.

The fact is that a lot of our vessel enterprise owners are under severe pressure, because no vessel support is coming with this program. There's income support that puts bread and butter on the table.

For Andrew or for Ray, who have $200,000 tied up and have loan payments made to the loan board, and the loan board is coming after them for their income support to make payments on their loans, there's nothing. So choices have to be made in letting the boats go back, or not meeting the payments, and the loan board is coming and taking the boats from them, seeing the gradual loss of an enterprise that has generations to build up.

There is identifying a case of core fishermen, as you talked about, concerns that some people aren't making it. Then we have to go after all the appeals processes; some people have another appeal process. That all ties in to affect people.

There is the fact that in the communities there are long-term fishermen, people with 30 and 40 years, who are not on TAGS. In my opinion, there is no justification for somebody who has fished that long not being on TAGS, because everybody in the communities is affected.

All you can hear now is 14 or 16 years for the cod to rebuild, that sort of stuff that people don't have faith in. There is the fact that somebody is talking about a 50% reduction all the time, and our numbers are 50%, and the sense that somebody is just going to tear them out of their industry and tear the lifestyle that they've had over the years, fishing, away from them.

All it needs right now is something to gel that. I've heard talk that people are considering cutting the amount of benefits under TAGS. All we need is something like that to gel this together, and a wildfire will break out across rural Newfoundland, no doubt.

The Chairman: Let me be really bold here. With 40% more people qualifying, with the adjustment period being longer in some cases - In some cases it won't be, in other places that look fairly good as far as recovery is concerned.

Con, you were talking about numbers down in your area that seemed to indicate that.

If decisions have to be made in reallocating funds within the program, you're telling me that the last option is to reduce the payment.

Choices may have to be made here, and you all understand that. You have to make them yourself in your everyday life. If it gets to the point that pressures are on the program and the dollars have to stay the same - they can't increase, that's been the message from the Minister of Finance - you're saying, ``If things have to be reallocated, do everything else before you ever have to get to touching the income''.

Mr. Decker: I don't know what will happen. Maybe the Minister of Finance will have to start to rethink.

The Chairman: I know. Maybe he will. I'm asking you for some help here. I need to know, if you are representatives of the fishermen in your areas, what message you are telling us. If things have to change, if things are moving, are you telling us to tell the government that the last thing that should ever be looked at is a reduction in the payment?

Mr. Decker: I would have to say that one of the last things that should be touched is a reduction in the payments. Some people said to me, when we were having the discussion about this, ``Maybe we should go and do it. Maybe we shouldn't say anything about it, because if it gets done that will bring everything together and we'll have one hell of a mess anyway. We'll have one hell of a fight''. Maybe that's what we need to gel everything. We'll get out all of the discontent that's out there and we'll get the problem solved in one way or the other. There will be such a big ruckus that somebody will have to come in and try to change it.

The Chairman: I'm hearing from the guys at the table that there are problems, but they're generally supportive of the program.

Mr. Decker: Yes.

The Chairman: So the last thing you want is a ruckus just for the sake of a dust-up. What I'm hearing from the guys here and from the fishermen I talked to is that they're ticked off at some of the HRD bureaucracy and so on. They have all kinds of problems, but in almost every case they can tell you how to solve them without dismantling everything.

.1920

Mr. Wells: While the chairman was out, he missed your comment when you said you felt the program was 80% efficient.

The Chairman: That's not bad. That means we have to work on only 20% of it, if you're right.

Mr. Decker: That's a good point. We're not here to condemn the program. That's not what it's about. There are problems with it. I just went through these because they are the key problems. I want to tell you that there's discontent out in the communities. It has a lot to do with the loss of - You're in a community; you're three years with nothing to do. How would you feel?

Attitudes are changing out there. This is just a general thing.

Just to give you an example, we started this program last year. We got a little bit of funding from DFO and we went out and did a program. It really has to do with protection of the resources, an education and awareness program we started. We're continuing with it this year. Hopefully, we're looking to get it through probably as a green project, or as something anyway.

In the meantime, we're continuing really talking about it and we're trying to develop a 45-minute presentation, where we can put forward in our communities, by fishers, talking to fishers, but not only fishers, to everybody - I would like to have them give a presentation to you, for instance - in the schools, in the community groups and so on, about the need to conserve the resource, to protect the resource, sustainable fishing, and things like this.

That could have long-term benefits for all our rural communities, because if we have to have rural communities, they're going to have to be based on sustainable fishing. We can't do what's been done in the past.

Just to show you how attitudes are changing, we just went out and completed a series of meetings throughout my area, talking about lobster, for instance, which are still valuable and need to be protected. Without any support from anybody - only the fishers themselves have done it - they've decided to start a V-notch program for lobsters, which really means marking some spawning females that they will put back and leave there as a brood stock. They're agreed 100%, unanimously, to do this. That's not mandated by anybody. They're going to do it, and they're going to do it this year.

The Chairman: That is good conservation by the people who are there to benefit from the resource. That's good.

Gentlemen, I thank you again for coming. You've been a great help. I think we've listened. I hope the format didn't drive you crazy. We like to let people jump in, rather than just get a presentation, a presentation, a presentation.

We are hoping to be in Atlantic Canada early in June. We're just in the planning stage. We'll probably have to be there for 8 or 9 or 10 days. Mr. Bernier has promised us a very good time up in the Gaspé, so we may stay there an entire week.

You've been very helpful. Could you take the message back to your people that this program funding is not in jeopardy? We want to make sure we continue to be flexible and the government and the bureaucrats continue to listen to what's happening in the field so we won't miss the mark on this one.

Mr. Decker: On behalf of myself and all the fishermen here, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to air and express our views and concerns about the program.

Mr. Fequet: Mr. Chairman, would you be going to all the regions? Would you be coming into the lower north shore region with your committee?

The Chairman: Are we going to the lower north shore, Yvan?

He's looking after us in Quebec. I guess we are.

The meeting stands adjourned.