FOPO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 4, 1999

• 0904

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting to order. Today we are going to be looking at the west coast fisheries. We have several people before us: the Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee, from B.C.; the British Columbia Fisheries Survival Coalition; and Dennis Streifel, who is the Minister of Fisheries in British Columbia.

Welcome to you all. We can take a little more time this morning for presentations than normal. I guess we'll have to, given the number of people.

Who would like to start?

Ms. Christine Hunt (Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee): I will be chairing this side of the table, and we'll start with the Honourable Dennis Streifel.

• 0905

Hon. Dennis Streifel (Minister of Fisheries, Province of British Columbia): Thank you very much, and good morning, colleagues.

I'm Dennis Streifel, the Minister of Fisheries for the Province of British Columbia. I'm here with constituents and residents of British Columbia who are facing an economic and social crisis on our coast as a result of the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye salmon run this year.

The crisis is particularly difficult this year. I'll give a few lines of background. This is the third or fourth year in a row where there has been limited or zero access economically to a salmon fishery on the coast of British Columbia, a salmon fishery that is traditionally in the neighbourhood of $0.5 billion in economic value to our province. So the thrust of my talk in this instance is an uncertain fishery and uncertain future.

First of all, last year and the year before, through the negotiation of the Pacific Salmon Treaty and other initiatives, the fishermen on the coast of British Columbia participated with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in a conservation ethic to preserve endangered coho. That shut down the bulk of the fishery last year and in other years.

Moving to this year, the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye compounded the issue. The fishing community has had the lowest economic return in the history of the Fraser River salmon run, which is traditionally known as the largest salmon run in the world.

Dramatic shifts in conservation objectives for the fisheries and accelerated economic policies have resulted in extremely limited access and, in some cases, no access to the fisheries. Following a number of years of restrictions, a moratorium on once-plentiful coho was imposed in 1998, as well as a closure on the Fraser River sockeye.

We have some statistics for you arising from the sockeye closure. The collapse of the Fraser River sockeye is estimated to have affected some 2,500 jobs and caused in a loss of $133 million in revenue. This includes $48 million in commercial harvest landed value, an additional $48 million in losses to the processing sector, $10 million to $20 million for sport fishing losses, and $18 million to the aboriginal fishery. About 35% of the commercial fleet did not fish this year, and the disruption in the supply may have long-lasting repercussions on British Columbia's presence in export markets like Japan.

We have tabled a document, The 1999 Fraser River Sockeye Fishery: A Lost Year, that B.C. commissioned as a review of the problem.

The sockeye collapse is but one episode that contributing to the devastation and hardship. Since 1990, job loss in British Columbia is estimated to include some 13,000 fishermen. Close to 50% of the fishing sector has been removed from direct and indirect employment. The economic contribution, the wholesale value of fishery has also dropped from a high of $306 million in 1997 to an estimated low of $45 million in 1999.

The salmon farming industry, the cultured salmon industry, which is valued at between $250 million and $300 million now, far outstrips the commercial fishery on the coast of B.C.

No region can absorb that kind of rapid drop in economic foundation without tremendous suffering. That the communities are witnessing change and transition is an understatement, and the outlook for many, and particularly first nations communities, remains desperately bleak. There's a retching change in the communities. Estimates indicate that hardship and devastation in coastal communities exceed provincial averages for suicides and alcohol-related deaths in communities such as Kyuquot, Ahoushat, Alert Bay, and Sointula. The change in B.C. is deep and now appears to be lasting and permanent, and this is not a foundation for the future.

We must recognize that there is a salmon fisheries crisis in British Columbia and provide a response that is appropriate to a crisis. A legal declaration is not possible—

The Chair: Mr. Minister, could you slow down a little bit. The interpreters are having a difficult time. We'll give you an extra couple of minutes.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Thank you very much.

The people in communities in B.C. are hurting—that's not a secret—and this is shared among native and non-native communities alike. The crisis knows no boundaries and is building.

The Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee is a coalition of various interests that crosses all boundaries. The essence of this is that British Columbians in this instance are united in their hardship as a result of the collapse of the salmon fishery.

• 0910

What we're looking for are three basic things: a recognition that there is a crisis, a response that provides emergency moneys and immediate assistance, and a process where governments work together with fishermen to shape the best arrangements for both the short term and the long term. What we're really looking for is a strategy, a vision, to deal with the circumstances of fishermen on the coast of British Columbia.

These are not unreasonable demands. Communities have expressed these before. Communities and fishermen have seen the future and they know they must brace for it. In Fishing for Direction, another report I will table with you, British Columbia communities have told us that they need both emergency and long-term assistance. They need and want training and skills development, sustainable job creation projects, business plan support, small business financing, infrastructure development, marketing support, and technical assistance.

There is a need for governments to listen and respond to what communities and people are saying. This is the very role of government: to see and understand the impact that dramatic change brings—particularly change in policy. There is a need for both short- and long-term relief and for a process to engage with those affected by the policy shift.

The fisheries crisis is a federal problem requiring a federal solution, because fisheries management is within federal jurisdiction.

In June of last year, we announced a $400 million resource package as a transition, a building, and a buyout package for the fisheries. Only $182 million of this money has been spent, so I believe many of the things we need to do can be found within that package.

I'll give you a short comparison of spending per capita to address the fisheries crisis on the east coast versus the west coast. In per capita spending since 1996, there has been $66,000 per worker on the east coast and $46,000 per worker on the west coast. That's a difference of $20,000.

What is missed in all of this is that while the federal government has allocated moneys to remove people from the fishery, they have forgotten those who can't get out because they don't qualify. They have forgotten those who are not firmly planted in the limited fishery that remains and/or are in transition. They have forgotten those who believe there is a fishery of the future and want to remain so that they can fish again, in a fishery that will be different from the past—but in a future that fishermen themselves help to shape.

The other folks who have been forgotten—it's not included in my notes—are folks in remote British Columbia. Sometimes they don't have an economic choice. One of the reports delivered to the federal government for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans by the British Columbia job protection commissioner recognized that many of these remote communities have never had any economy other than fishing and really never will have, because there is no other opportunity there.

In the interests of time, let me say that some of the immediate relief and interim measures needed are items such as a licence fee return; a redefined licence buy-back program; a recovery of out-of-pocket, pre-season expenses; income support programs; and more money now to extend eligibility for EI benefits and training programs. How much money is needed? Others are going to have to determine that in their presentations.

What we're looking at here is not wages for inactivity for folks who just possibly didn't get the opportunity to fish this year. What we're looking at here is absolute survival of individuals, families, and communities. There are folks killing themselves. We have folks losing their homes and their futures. We have to build a bridge to a future in this fishery. We have to support these coastal communities in order to be successful, in order to have the opportunity for British Columbia residents to live in the communities where they were born and where they have their history.

I'd like to leave some time for other presenters. I thank you for your time and for the opportunity to present today. I'm standing with British Columbians on a common cause crisis.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Minister.

I might point out to the committee that the minister does have a fairly extensive presentation. When it is translated, it will be made available to all committee members.

There's a lot of information in there, Minister. Thank you.

Christine.

Ms. Christine Hunt: Thank you.

Mr. Probert has generously given us three of his minutes, so we're—

The Chair: Don't worry about the minutes. Go ahead.

Ms. Christine Hunt: Chief John Henderson, of the Campbell River Band, will make his presentation next.

Chief John Henderson (Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee): Good morning, and thank you.

• 0915

I'd like to start by introducing myself. I'm Chief John Henderson, from Campbell River. I'm representing a large contingent of first nations people as well as the non-native communities that are a part of our community. I represent the Campbell River Indian Band and am co-chair of A-telay Fisheries Association. I've been elected to voice first nations opinions by the First Nations Summit committee. As well, I am also a co-chair of the Kwakiutl District Council, which represents ten tribes.

As you can see, I represent a lot of people involved in the fishing industry, both first nations and non-first nations because of the fact that we are in an urban area where we've had a lot of intermarriage. I have to speak for both sides.

On behalf of all of our fishermen, I would like to have you be respectful of them when you make some formal decision on whether to indeed put your efforts forward in helping us with our request. I know of the difficulties in all areas. Really, I would like you to understand our community. Since I've been here...I got a call last night from one of our neighbouring tribes: we've had another suicide. It's becoming very evident that this is a crucial time.

I was here last year at the same time speaking about the same thing. We didn't get information back. We got no help. We're still in the same position. I came to Ottawa last year at approximately the same time looking for help, so I don't know where we go from here. It's a sad situation.

I will be respectful of everybody I represent. We have a gentleman at the end of the table here—Dan Edwards. I have a lot of respect for that man. He's on a hunger strike. He hasn't eaten in ten days. He's trying to find ways and means of getting the government to the table.

This is a situation where we've waited long enough, both as concerned fishermen on the coast and as first nations people.

I have a hard time putting everything into a short period of time, like what Christine said, into three minutes, but the reality is this: we need immediate assistance. Nobody has had income since June 1, and what is it now? November? We've been working on this for darned near four months and have had no results.

I'm going to tell you what one of our people said at one of our meetings. He simply said “I'm going to take my family on my boat and run as far out into the ocean as I can and run it out of fuel. Maybe I'll get some results. I'll be treated like a Canadian citizen.”

I say that because the immigrants that have come into this country have had better treatment than the people who really belong here. I say that from the heart, because that's the way we feel. When you see the dollars that have been spent on those people....

We had a meeting last week, where about 110 fishermen came to our meeting place and voiced their opinions to me. They said that it's only a matter of time before they start civil disobedience and taking matters into their own hands, because my abilities haven't gotten us anywhere. I've been put in this position to come forward to negotiate in good faith with the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia.

• 0920

The importance of this to me and to my family is something you simply cannot put aside. I come from a very large family. We were born and bred on the water, and we still fish today. I'm from a family of sixteen children, and seven of my brothers are all involved in the fishing industry. You can therefore see how important it is to me and to our village. We have 85 households in our village, and there's a person who fishes in every household, so it affects every person in our community.

I feel it is important for you to address this while remaining respectful of who I represent—and it's a large contingent of people. I'm always asked the question about who it is I represent. I'm here to tell you that I represent just about every native community in the province of British Columbia. I'm their voice. I was elected to that position by a standing committee over the summer, because I voiced my opinion strongly on the directions in which we wanted to go, regardless of our differences in colour.

We have all sectors of the fishing industry here. There's an aboriginal component and a coalition here, but I'm not here to argue about that. I'm here to argue about where we're going to go, about programs for the future, about immediate assistance. We're willing to push everything aside, because it's too important not to.

I have a number of issues and concerns that I'd really like to address, because our Minister of Fisheries and Oceans hasn't addressed them. I sent a letter on October 18. I'll read the response I got from the minister. It's not much. It says:

The First Nation Commercial Fishers would ask that in light of the difficult situation to our reserve the government of British Columbia and the Federal governments of Canada address our concerns respectful of First Nations.

The Chief and Council of the Campbell River Indian Band on behalf of the First Nation Commercial Fishers request that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Province of BC and the Canadian Federal government address these concerns as soon as possible.

The need for immediate assistance is of great concern at this point for myself as a leader of our village and representative of First Nation Commercial Fishers.

It appears to me that governments of this country are not taking this situation of this crisis as serious as they should.

First Nations have been very patient to this point...

I say that because we have been. I wanted some answers, and he didn't even give me the time of day. I think you must all realize how frustrating it is for me to sit here one year later, just about to the day, and to have nothing resolved.

His response was:

On behalf of the Honourable Herb Dhaliwal, Minister of Fisheries & Oceans, I would like to thank you for your correspondence of October 18, 1999.

That's it.

That's how frustrating it is. It's a situation in which.... I've looked at all kinds of correspondence from our neighbouring tribes, and at declarations to sue the federal government. I'm here today to try to do this without having to do that.

It's a hard time when you look at the activities on the east coast and the activities on the west coast. I don't think we want to see that on the west coast, but if we don't do something quick, I think it's going to be here. Then we're really going to have a war on our hands.

Thank you.

• 0925

The Chair: I certainly thank you for your directness, Chief Henderson. That's how we like to hear it.

I'm sure some of the minister's people who are sitting in this room will be looking at that letter of October 18. I assume it's just an initial response that will be responded to more directly.

Christine.

Ms. Christine Hunt: Thank you. Next we'll have Dan Edwards make his presentation.

Mr. Dan Edwards (Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee): Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for having us in front of you to discuss the situation on the west coast.

As John has alluded, I've gone on a hunger strike for ten days, so I may not be as coherent as I normally am. I'm normally very articulate, but this is the second time in a month for this. I was on a hunger strike for eight days, but we got off that because of what we thought was some movement forward. It turned out not to be.

I'm going to focus on the process issue of this. As far as process goes, since August 9 there have been groups of up to 35 organizations meeting in B.C. to try to deal with the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye fishery this year, never mind all the other problems that have occurred. We wanted to focus on what would happen if we had no emergency relief from the collapse of the Fraser sockeye fishery this year, when 98% of income was lost for the south coast fishermen in British Columbia.

After a month and a half of meetings with ministers and meeting with bureaucrats, we ran into a stone wall. I believe in process, but when we ran into that stone wall, my daughter and Vivian Narcisse, who's the wife of Hardy Narcisse, the aboriginal co-chair, went on a hunger strike. You only go to those kinds of desperate measures when you're not being heard. We weren't being heard.

We asked for a process. It's pretty simple. In the package I've given the committee, there's a process document. It's a negotiating document set up by a very good process person in British Columbia in order to help us. We asked for the provincial and federal governments to sit down with us. We've asked for that under the Canada-B.C. agreement that was already signed off by the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of British Columbia. That process brings everybody together at the table in order to deal with the situation in a cooperative and collaborative manner. That's what we need, but we don't have it in British Columbia. We don't have a policy forum, we don't have a place to deal with these kinds of issues. We're asking for it to be realistically struck.

The kinds of solutions that we are looking for include the process first. Get the process underway properly, and then work on immediate needs. We have have characterized those in a package called “Disaster Relief”, which is also in there as a draft. It's a draft because we have to have the process to work through the interests with both governments. They include first nation interests, with food fish and replacement and distribution of section 35 fish; compensation for expenses incurred; and AFS programs. There was a lot of money lost in some of the AFS programs in which people rented licences out under that kind of program development, but they never got any income back.

In the commercial fishery, they include pre-season expenses and in-season expenses. They were quite high this year because people went out fishing while expecting to have a fishery, but there wasn't one.

We've also asked for flexibility. These are things that are to be negotiated with governments. This is how we want to do it. It has to be done in such a way that the people who are affected are right at the table, so that they can tell the governments who work with them what the needs are in our communities. Otherwise, it doesn't get to the ground. I know that because I ran a labour adjustment office in Uclulet, British Columbia, so I know how difficult it is to get that money on the ground.

There's income assistance, disaster relief, and EI adjustment. Those are needed. As John has said, some of these people haven't had an income since June 1. No income. Zero. But there are major expenses paid out to try to go fishing.

There are guaranteed low-interest loans, diversification loans, early retirement, reprofiling, and buy-back tax adjustments. The sports fleet needs assistance, particularly in the Fraser River area. Community infrastructure needs assistance. On top of that, or beyond that, there's a need for a comprehensive, long-term plan after the short term has been dealt with. We need to work together under the B.C.-Canada agreement for a comprehensive strategy and for long-term vision for the fishery of British Columbia.

• 0930

That's what we're asking for. It's a pretty simple demand. It should not have to be that I go on a hunger strike and not eat for ten days, and eight days prior, to get this message out in such a way that we get real process built. But that's what's happening.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you.

Back to Ms. Hunt.

Ms. Christine Hunt: Thank you, Dan.

Now we'll hear from John Sutcliffe of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union.

Mr. John Sutcliffe (Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, for this opportunity.

The disaster this year was completely unforecast. While the fleet restructuring program, the $400 million program we all know about and many of us have appeared to talk to you about in the past, is purported to have been put together to address an anticipated downturn in the fishery, this year's event was totally unanticipated.

The forecast $8.3 million return for that run was on the books prior to the time that any fleet restructuring program may have been designed. I know that because it was in our data packages during the time I was involved in the stakeholder negotiations on the Canada-U.S. treaty. That was a number to work with when we were looking at sharing arrangements with the U.S.

So the $3 million that did return was totally unforecast. At the forecast return, the Fraser River sockeye and pink salmon fishery, which was voided as well because of sockeye concerns this year, produced 73% of the value of the total salmon fishery; 90% for the southern licence-holders; and about 100%, as it turns out, for many of them.

I think the point that really needs to be understood is that this was not an anticipated event. The programs that were in place under the $400 million restructuring program were not taking this season's events into account.

The difficulty fishermen and their families in the communities in which they live are now put in is that in the face of the restructuring package, the type of restructuring we're going to end up with because of the force-outs, given this year's crisis, will be the type of restructuring we don't need. The package was flawed in the first place, but those flaws are going to be so amplified by the condition fishermen are in that we're going to end up with a totally damaged, and perhaps irreversibly damaged, infrastructure for the fishing industry on the west coast of B.C. We're going to end up with the more capitalized elements of the industry surviving in the face of the current buy-back and other elements of the restructuring package, and the participants' and communities' particular economy of the fisheries, which we need, especially in today's global economy, gone or forever damaged.

Those are just very general points, but they're absolutely critical. The unanticipated event, the damage to the infrastructure of the industry if this crisis is not treated as a crisis separate from the restructuring that anticipated a different kind of downturn in the industry, will forever, frankly, foreclose on the opportunities we need for a coastal economy based on fisheries.

In the context of the new business opportunities in a global market and in the context of environmental concerns and all the selective fishing, we lose the infrastructure to be able to do those things.

Those are very general comments, but in my view, they're critical.

The Chair: Before I go to the next speaker, Mr. Sutcliffe, would you elaborate a little more, for the committee's benefit, on specifically what you mean in terms of the infrastructure?

Mr. John Sutcliffe: The personal situation of fishermen in certain fleet sectors means the support industries, be they net sellers, fuel docks, taxi firms, or all of those other things in the small communities, diversified geographically on the coast, are impacted. We have Love Electronics, for example, in Prince Rupert, one of the oldest and most key electronic firms, selling T-shirts now to survive.

• 0935

Anyway, we won't go through those details, but all of that is at risk. In the face of the restructuring, the people who would normally participate in that kind of diversified coastal economy are going out big time, unless certain checks are in place that are not now currently in place. The kind of small-scale, value-added, diversified fishing economy that can take the best advantage of our extraordinary salmon resource in the markets today will be gone.

This is related to a critique we've had before you in the past with respect to the restructuring program. We will be left with an industry that is only capable of doing what it has done for a hundred years...and frankly, that is producing fishing at the lowest cost per unit, competing on the basis of price and world markets for a product for which they can no longer capture the kind of value or market share that is of any use to the economy of British Columbia. It's of use to a few entities, but it completely excludes what could be a very good future for the coastal economy and the fishery. The inability of the smaller producers, the independents in the industry, to survive in the face of this crisis and in the face of the offerings for buyout forever damages and changes the face of the fishery there.

I want committee members to be aware of the significance of the situation we face now for the future and for the livelihoods in our coastal communities.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Sutcliffe.

Ms. Hunt.

Ms. Christine Hunt: Thank you. Minister Streifel has some information to dovetail on what Mr. Sutcliffe has just said.

The Chair: Can we get that during questions later?

Ms. Christine Hunt: Okay.

The Chair: I'll make a note of that.

Ms. Christine Hunt: Before Bruce Probert makes his presentation, I would like to finish off our part of it.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Ms. Christine Hunt: I want to talk about the social impact on our communities, and it's not limited to just native communities, although the suicide rate, as you know, is much higher in native communities than in non-native communities.

A couple of years ago, when the effects of the Mifflin plan were first felt in our communities, in my community alone we lost three young men to suicides. And I heard at breakfast just this morning from Chief Henderson that we had a suicide within our community. The problem we have is that it quite often has a ripple effect and we find that there are several suicides within the next few weeks. We've been preparing for this, because we knew we had not even begun to see the darkness of what this past season has done to our communities and to our people.

Our people are demoralized right now. They have no means of supporting their families other than welfare. This is not something they like to do. They like to work. They want to work.

I wanted to point out that I am, and I know Chief Henderson is, very concerned about what is happening in our community. In talking to our brothers up north, from the Tsimshian to the Haida, to the Heiltsuk and so on, I know that in the last couple of years they've all suffered a great number of suicides, all young men in their early twenties who had been primed to be fishermen and for whom, once that goal was out of reach, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. That is something I'm very concerned about and that's what I wanted to speak about.

Now I'll turn it over to Bruce Probert.

• 0940

Mr. Bruce Probert (Individual Presentation): Good morning, bonjour. Thank you for letting me speak.

I'd like to make a clarification before I start. I'm down as representing the British Columbia Fisheries Survival Coalition, and I am not representing them, I'd like to state for the record. I'm a member of the UFAWU, which is the fishermen union on the B.C. coast. I am a member of the survival coalition, and I am also the chair of the standards and training committee for the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters.

I am here representing my family and friends, and other families that I have grown up with my whole life, fishing on the Fraser River. In my family, my mother fishes, my brother fishes, my father fishes, and my sister fishes. Our whole family is intimate with the fishing industry. We've done it our whole lives. We're third generation fishermen on the B.C. coast, and I'm here representing them, as well as, I would say, most other fishermen on the coast, because we all are in the same shape and of like mind.

I'd like to start out by pointing out the east-west disparity that is so obvious to us on the west coast. The east coast cod stocks collapsed and, bang, there's $1.2 billion for a TAGS program. Our stocks collapse, and it's zero dollars.

I'd also like to point out that last year the federal government had a program where if you didn't activate your licence you got $6,500 for expenses that you might have incurred to prepare for the season. This year we were prepared to catch a five-million surplus that did not arrive, and we get zero dollars.

I'd also like to point out that, in my mind, the major part of this problem or crisis can be laid right at DFO's feet. It's total mismanagement. This season—I'm sure nobody has brought this point up—there were 600,000 surplus chilko beyond escapement requirements that made it back to the grounds. DFO didn't know there were all those extra fish. That is $6 million worth of fish that we were not allowed to catch, because of their mismanagement. So the fish were there, but we were not allowed to catch them, and there was not a coho concern at the time that run was coming through.

The major problem for me is that it's negligence on the part of DFO. They never listen to what fishermen, who have grown up fishing their whole life on the coast, know intimately; it has no relevance to their programs or how they run the fishery. There's no accountability. Nobody loses their job when we don't fish and all those fish go to waste on the grounds. Nobody pays but us, and I have a problem with that, and I'm sure most others do as well.

It's interesting to note that it's been seven years since the start of the aboriginal fisheries strategy, and one part of that is the pilot sales. Since the pilot sales began, and I believe it was 1992, there have been three reports on missing salmon and the threats to the salmon stocks. There have been two by Peter Pearse and one by John Fraser, who used to be the Minister of Fisheries. So this is not a new problem. This has been going on for seven years, and it's been getting progressively worse. Everybody is burying their head in the sand, and we pay the price.

I'd also like to note that this past season the DFO thought the stocks were in such bad shape that they shut down some native food fisheries, and as well there was no aboriginal sales component this year, as far as I know. But the Cheam Band, which is in the Chilliwack area just above where I fish, Fort Langley, basically said “We're going to fish anyway; the fish are there, we're going to fish”, and dared DFO to stop them. It took two weeks before DFO started pulling nets and confiscating the boats and the trucks, which they have the power to do the first day they start.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that the Marshall decision on the east coast is very interesting. I read in the National Post about a week ago that the only fair way to deal with the Marshall decision is to buy existing licences from non-native fishermen and transfer them to the native fishermen, so they can be in one commercial fishery.

• 0945

On the west coast we call that the industrial solution. We have been asking for that since day one of the aboriginal fisheries strategy seven years ago, and not one thing has been done about it. There is still a separate fishery going on that has separate rules, with no mesh restrictions to conserve coho or other such conservation measures that apply to the commercial fleet in general.

It's apparent to us that we mean nothing to the power centre of Ottawa. It just seems that the government has a policy that if we don't get to fish we'll starve and die, and it won't be a problem any more. But I have to tell you, it's a major powder keg on the west coast. What it looks like to the fishing fleet is that the violence on the east coast got results. We've been privately talking, going to meetings, trying to get the industrial solution to work for the west coast and solve our problems, and nothing has happened.

After one month on the east coast and a violent protest—boom, $500 million and the industrial solution is the only fair answer. Why does that not apply on the west coast? That's what I want to know.

The frustration and helplessness is hard to describe. I'm telling you, I want a future for my family, but it's gone. It seems to me it's total government mismanagement through DFO. It seems that we don't matter, and it's very frustrating.

I haven't caught one sockeye for food this season for my family or any of my friends. My gross income was $100 yesterday, and I had to have someone else fish today because I'm here appearing before you.

I don't think you understand how devastating it is to have an investment of $150,000 in a boat and a licence, about $30,000 in gear, insurance costs, licence fees, fuel, etc., and no fishery. That's why we're here. We need help and we need it badly. I would like you to strongly urge your ministers, or whomever, to get us some help. We desperately need it.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Probert.

We will go to questions. We will have to move on to other business at about 10:45 a.m. I'd like to raise the following question near the end of the meeting to whoever can answer. What do you see as the quick solution to this problem in the short term? But I'll go to other members for points first.

Bill.

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Nanaimo—Alberni, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing, and particularly to Bruce for his very impassioned presentation. It has a lot of weight before this committee.

I tend to share your opinion that this is DFO's mismanagement, simply because Alaska had its second-highest record sockeye catch of 208 million fish.

My riding takes in Nanaimo, Alberni, Tofino, Ucluelet and Bamfield, so I have a lot of fishing people. Alberni had a good sockeye run this year. The Alaskan fish, the Alberni fish and the Fraser fish all reside in the same water. So in my mind, the collapse of the sockeye in the Fraser is man-made.

• 0950

To say it's a natural unforeseen disaster is a little simplistic. Four years ago, in 1995, people were saying there was overfishing on the Fraser, by the AFS, the food fishery and the commercial fishery. If we look back, we can see that it was going to happen.

The timing is particularly good. I know that doesn't help you people, but we're looking at the Marshall decision on the east coast. We can go back seven years and look at a similar situation to what's going on on the east coast. We have the examples sitting right in front of us. But if we don't handle the east coast correctly, we will have exactly the same situation.

Bruce, what is the problem? Is it DFO mismanagement, too many players in the fishery, the pilot sales, or the AFS? Where do you see the fingers being pointed?

Mr. Bruce Probert: It's such a big issue, and that's the trouble. I tried to condense it as much as I possibly could. It's just such a broad issue.

On the AFS, in my mind the pilot sales issue was the start of the downfall of our stocks. If you look back to the records prior to that, the stocks were rebuilding after the imposition of the AFS pilot sales. There's a broader strategy there.

Illegal sales have been rampant, even this year with the sockeye crisis. I spoke with a friend I met at Costco, and he told me he had just bought six sockeye salmon from a native fisherman in Chilliwack for $6 apiece. He bought them from him because he knew he couldn't buy any from me because I would not get to fish. That is the reality. It's sickening.

If DFO does not enforce the law, there's no hope for the salmon, in my eyes. DFO has been turning a blind eye to all the abuse that's been going on, not to mention that there has been so little input from fishermen into the process.

I was on the Fraser River Advisory Council and I called the DFO guy I dealt with. I told him to take me off every list, because I had spent seven years on these things and I couldn't point to one recommendation made by me and the broader group that had actually been implemented. I'm not going to waste my time going to these meetings if I'm not having any input.

That's the reality and that's the best I can explain it. Maybe someone else can elaborate.

The Chair: I know we have to get to the crux of the problem, but my concern is we have probably an hour. I think it's fair to say I didn't recognize that this problem was as great as you people portray it to be. If we only have an hour, I would like to spend more time on what we can do about it than on the cause of it.

Ms. Hunt.

Ms. Christine Hunt: I just want to point out that the trouble with having two groups here is that we're talking about apples and oranges. This is not what we are here to talk about.

Mr. Probert has a different agenda from ours, and I want this committee to appreciate that. Minister Streifel would like to say something, and then John Henderson would like to say something.

The Chair: Minister.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Thank you, Chair.

I would like to put on the record that I distance myself from the remarks of Bruce Probert. I don't want to get into a debate on whether he's right or wrong. I have to separate myself from those remarks. That's not why we're here. We have people starving, losing their homes and killing themselves, and as far as I'm concerned it has diddley-squat to do with whether or not someone bought six sockeye at a Costco store.

The Chair: Next is Mr. Henderson, and then we'll come back to Mr. Gilmour.

• 0955

Chief John Henderson: I'm of a similar opinion as Minister Streifel. I've stated in my remarks that I wasn't here to debate whether I was an aboriginal person or non-aboriginal person. I think it's too important to use divide-and-conquer tactics at this point in time. I think we're here for a common goal, a common objective, and that is to resolve an issue at hand, which is that we need immediate assistance some way and somehow. I know the differences in licensing schemes that have been developed by governments of this country, but that's in the past. We know it has to be corrected, so let's not debate that here. We're here for our people.

Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Okay, the point is that we know that, for example, there are 100,000 cans of food fish that were sold this summer, so the issue is there.

Minister Streifel, we had the group from HRD here yesterday, and they went through a number of the programs that are available. On the term “job creation”, it's early retirement, and I'll just read a paragraph from what the representative was saying:

The objective of Early Retirement is to assist fishers and plant workers, between the ages of 55 and 64 to retire from the fishery. It is done in partnership with the provinces through an agreement in which the federal government would provide 70% of the funding and the province 30%. Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Quebec and New Brunswick have signed their respective agreements. To date, no agreement has been signed with the government of British Columbia.

Now, there's $20 million sitting on the shelf, and it has been there since June of last year. Why is your government not assisting in the buy-back program? Why are you blocking it when the feds are at the table and your government is saying you won't sign on?

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Again, Bill, I take exception to your comments in that I don't deal in early retirement programs in addressing a crisis situation. The early retirement program was announced as a result of area licensing schemes under the Mifflin plan and, I guess, to address the coho crisis and other issues, not to address the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye.

If you want to get into a debate on numbers, I've contacted my counterparts in Atlantic Canada and I can't find a 30% cash contribution to this program. Nobody has put a program in front of me that explains how early retirement works. Who does it cover? How much is it for? How does it compare with provincial income assistance programs? What does it do to CPP? Are you required to buy down your early retirement CPP benefits? What's the effect on any other retirement programs or schemes you might have, including personal resources around RRSPs? I haven't seen any of that on a piece of paper. All I hear is a constant call for early retirement.

The figures we have from DFO, my officials and their officials, Bill, would say that the requirements right now are between $20 million and $23 million to fund an early retirement program. If there is $20 million in the kitty, get on with it. Don't try to cloud the issue by folding it over into addressing a crisis situation that was not predicted, that was not understood, and that has not been valued for the depth of despair that it has created. Early retirement doesn't replace the crisis needs here, so let's get on with life and put the program on the table. If the money is there, fund it.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Well, the point is it's one of a number of programs. We often get this story—big crocodile tears in the west. Here's a program that is in the east and the west. It's working in the east, yet it's not being accessed in the west because your government won't get on board. It's fine to come here and say you need money for programs, but you also have to agree that you're part of the problem. That, I think, is fairly clear.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Well, as a representative from British Columbia, I'd get a bit peculiar if you were to suggest that...if we were in the funding stream of $3.5 billion to $5 billion TAGS program over the last four or five years, I'd gladly cough up 30% on an early retirement program. We haven't had any of that.

The per capita worker expenditures in British Columbia are two-thirds what they are on the east coast, and we could get into other programs, but you're clouding the issue. I would ask the committee and the questioners if we could focus on the crisis that's ahead of us. I think it would be extremely helpful for the residents and the constituents of British Columbia. You know, they are Canadian citizens, and the requirement here is some equality of treatment from coast to coast, and a recognition and a respect that these folks are in desperate circumstances.

• 1000

I'm not here to debate whether or not I believe or you believe that the problem is DFO mismanagement; I'm here to debate and request respectfully some support for British Columbia citizens who are in crisis and turmoil.

The Chair: Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la- Madeleine—Pabok, BQ): Unfortunately, my English is very bad.

[English]

I'm not perfectly bilingual, so....

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to welcome our witnesses. I am sorry that you have to use that technology but that is what allows us to speak in our own official language.

I too will try to be brief. I believe this is the first opportunity I have to understand the seriousness of the crisis going on this year in British Columbia.

I come from a riding from Eastern Quebec, the Gaspe region, and I live close to the water. I was not aware of the seriousness of your problem.

Without making a political issue out of this, Mr. Minister, I would like to underline that our Standing Committee on Fisheries had travelled to the West Coast as well as to the East Coast when Mr. George Baker was its Chairman. One of the issues that had struck us at the time, and we referred to it in our report, was that fishermen as well as corporations, on both sides of the country, had mentioned a management problem at DFO.

This was a unanimous opinion and it did not refer at all to the party in power. Now, people seem to confirm that things have to change at DFO, and I agree with you. However, we're not here to put the Department on trial, we're trying to see what can be done.

Even if I'm not perfectly bilingual, I took the time to read what I believe to be your document of November 4. I would like to ask the following points of clarification.

First of all, your group wants three things this morning. First, you want the Canadian government or the Standing Committee to recognize that there is a crisis. Then, you want an emergency or assistance program to be set up very quickly. Finally, you want a calendar to be established so that the federal, provincial and perhaps even municipal governments of your region start building a plan. That is my understanding and you can tell me later if it is correct or not.

Could I ask all my questions at the same time, Mr. Chairman? Is the Minister ready to take some notes, since the pages of his document are not numbered?

[English]

The Chair: Could we get clarification on your point first? Is that the basic thrust of what you're saying, Minister and others?

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Yes, it is, and I would apologize for being unilingual.

The Chair: No.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: I do know a bit of the history of the salmon fishery in the Gaspé and the circumstances and the problems that surround it, and you have captured the essence of our presentation exactly.

On referencing the standing committee's reports on DFO on the east coast and the west coast, I've read them, I am aware of them. A discussion around that and DFO interaction with the coasts would be appropriate for us in stage two and stage three of our proposal, the mid-term and the long-term initiatives. But the immediate concern is to help some families and some communities survive.

The Chair: Thank you.

Okay, let's get to specifics. Yvan.

• 1005

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Some of the issues you have raised would justify some immediate assistance. Those are things that we have observed during our last travels on the West Coast, but you may add a few.

When you talk of

[English]

“licence fee programs”

[Translation]

you refer to the fees paid by fishermen. I think the amount is $50 million. That was Mr. Tobin's gift before he left: everybody would have to pay to get a fishing license. I suppose that is what you are referring to. Since the fishermen have had no income this year, are you asking for the federal government to repay the fees that they have paid?

Secondly, you mentioned the

[English]

“recovery of out-of-pocket pre-season expenses”,

[Translation]

which means the repayment of expenses paid by the fishermen.

Unfortunately, I have no clear idea of what the amount could be. I could give you a rough estimate for the Gaspe area, however. To help the Committee, could you perhaps give us some estimate of the expenses that fishermen have to pay at the beginning of a season?

Then, you have asked for an income support program and you have mentioned extending the eligibility to EA. Would that apply to people who have already worked some given number of hours? I would like you to clarify your request on this point.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, there is some innovation in the ministerial document, a thing that I have seen nowhere else, and that is the

[English]

“catch insurance program”,

[Translation]

which means some insurance for future catches. I have heard about something similar in Quebec but I have some reservations because this is absolutely new and I would rather have some time to look at it closely. I suppose, however, that it would be something for the long term.

[English]

The Chair: We'll give you the time, Mr. Bernier.

Who wants to answer? Mr. Streifel.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Thank you. I'm going to take a crack at the catch insurance program. The fishermen who are with me would understand the gear-up costs and the pre-season expenses. I expect they would be able to cover that off for us.

A catch insurance program would be similar to some of the whole farm insurance programs, where an insurance policy would be purchasable to cover expectations in a harvest and, when the expectations aren't realized, simply would recover some expenses and supply family support income until the next harvest. That's a very simple way to describe how a catch insurance program could work.

I will leave it to Dan, perhaps, to respond to the gear-up costs and the pre-season expense costs, maybe with some dollar figures attached.

Mr. Dan Edwards: Yes, I'll take a stab at that.

We've had over 757 disaster relief forms returned to our office in Ucluelet over the last two months by fishermen and shoreworkers and licence-holders, who have attempted to break down their costs, their debt load and so on. The same fleet has done a breakdown of their in-season start-up costs this year to get ready for a fishery that didn't happen. It's around $34,000 just for a seine boat to get up and ready to go.

For the small boat fleet, the extra costs this year incurred by actually going out on the grounds, getting ready for fishing, which a lot of people did—I personally did that myself—the extra costs over the amount of money that was allocated for that last year, we figured out to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $15,000. That's a ballpark figure, but that's what it cost a lot of people just to get ready to go fishing for a fishery that didn't happen this year.

As Bruce has mentioned, there are all the other costs of staying at the dock that happen, with insurance, with merged costs, with the other kinds of costs that are just there when you have a boat sitting at the dock—getting it painted, getting it ready to go fishing, that kind of thing. Does that help?

The Chair: Anyone else? Mr. Probert?

Mr. Bruce Probert: Yes, I'll speak to that. I want to clarify something first.

I'm sorry Mr. Streifel has to distance himself from my comments. I did not want to detract from the purpose of this meeting, which is the disaster crisis, the relief package, that is the main reason we are here. I wanted to give you a background, and I'm glad to see we're dealing with the actual crisis itself as opposed to a lot of....

• 1010

I believe in what I said, and if we had the time I'd like to go in more detail. But I hope we can specifically deal with the income assistance that I feel we need for the fleet.

I filled out one of those disaster relief forms, and it was approximately.... Well, for me it's a little different because three years ago I set up a fish stand, bought some commercial property, got a business licence, got a client base. I have over 350 names on my list of people who buy salmon from me. This past year, of course, I couldn't supply them with any, so I had to turn them away and probably have lost their future business as well as my loss of income from not fishing.

So in that respect I'm carrying about $1,500 a month debt load on that property. As I stated, I have the boat and everything else to pay for as well, and I figure my loss to date is about $20,000, just to start off, because I run two businesses directly related to the fishery.

As a boat owner, I would anticipate it's roughly $7,000 to $8,000 minimum, not counting the labour involved. That would be cost.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Probert.

Mr. Henderson.

Chief John Henderson: Thank you.

As previously stated by Dan, I think it's important to understand that, yes, there has been a problem in the areas of licence fee structures as well as insurance, moorage and storage for gear types.

As you're probably not aware, we have to pay for those. It doesn't matter whether we go fishing or not. We've incurred those costs now for roughly years.

There are a lot of people, fishermen, out there who are stuck in large corporations now because those people are the ones who are buying. We're borrowing the money. We're getting further and further in debt and we're practically going to be all owned by corporate entities. That's a reality. How else are we going to be able to...? We can't finance them any more.

One of the differences between a non-native community and a native community is we cannot go to the bank and mortgage our properties, so it's harder to finance. So what we do is get involved with these large corporations, and eventually they own the boat and the licence, That's what has happened over time. I think, if we don't get help this time, there aren't going to be any native fishermen left, because we won't be able to finance anything any more. If this is a way of getting us out of the industry, the job has definitely been done well.

The Chair: Thank you, Chief Henderson.

A very quick one, Yvan, and then Sarkis.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: In your document, you refer to an income assistance program and to extending the eligibility to EA. Do you have some model of a program that would allow us to make quick suggestions to the new Human Resources Minister?

[English]

Mr. Denis Streifel: Certainly on an income support program I give you a couple of possible suggestions. One could be as simple as a loan program to support fishermen through to the next harvest or to the next opportunity to define a strategy and a vision for the fishery.

So what I would understand my friends here really require is the opportunity to help build the fishery for the future and redefine it. That opportunity has never been offered to the fishermen on the coast of British Columbia, although it has been proposed in the bilateral agreement that British Columbia has with Ottawa—the Pacific salmon fisheries document that I've tabled. It sets up a process in there for the discussion of the building of a future fishery as opposed to having all the decisions made in isolation for the fishing communities.

• 1015

In addressing employment insurance qualifications, the folks here who fish for a living would understand more than I how the change to the rules and qualifications for employment insurance have affected particularly seasonal workers and workers who have their livelihoods affected by others' decisions.

You know, you buy into an employment insurance program, as we all have as Canadians across the country, and when rules change and your expectations of the fishing season aren't met, and you don't qualify for employment insurance at all, as far as I understand it your basic fallback is welfare.

Most of the surpluses built into the employment insurance scheme were built in at a time when British Columbia was the only province in the country with a booming economy. The rest of the country, including the federal country itself, was in deep recession during 1990s, and British Columbia's economy boomed and help fill those coffers.

It's time to return some of that to British Columbians. We are in desperate straits in the province right now due to circumstances beyond our control. With the Asian turndown and the economic tie we traditionally have had with Asian markets, it has hurt our base economies, forestry and others. Now there's this circumstance, the loss of the Fraser River sockeye.

I don't know if the committee quite realizes what happens in a marketplace when you can't supply your customers, in this case with fish. They'll go someplace else. These fish can and will come back, as they have historically over the decades behind us. Then we'll have to get back into the marketplace. We'll have to buy our customers back and provide the supply stream for our customers. That's the compounding problem here.

So we need those types of bridging mechanisms until we get back into the marketplace. Nobody at this table, or from British Columbia, is asking for wage replacements for inactivity. What we need to do is work cooperatively, particularly with DFO and the federal government, to build programs for the future that will have these people self-sufficient and working again in a redefined fishery. But in order to get there, we need crisis intervention now so that they're there in their communities to participate in that fishery in the future.

The Chair: Mr. Probert, a quick response, and then we'll go to Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Bruce Probert: I think it's more important that we get our out-of-pocket expenses covered immediately. That's the main reason I came here.

I'd just like to point out that I did do job retraining, as a grip for the movie industry. I've had a total of 21 days' work in the last year. That's hardly an income replacement, as it stands right now.

The Chair: Dan, did you want in?

Mr. Dan Edwards: I have a quick comment on the EI question that was asked.

In our submission, under a paragraph entitled “Income Assistance—Disaster EI Adjustments”, it says:

Deck hand/shore-worker/skipper and other directly linked to the fishery and affected by the collapse. EI should be adjusted to reflect the uncertainty of the next season's forecast and not be seasonal.

There's a note that adds:

Similar to programs offered in the Ice Storm, Manitoba Flooding, New Brunswick Aquaculture 1998. Alaska in 1997/98.

So a number of different programs are available both in Canada and the U.S. that we can look at to develop flexibility. Many fishermen, deckhands, etc., didn't even get enough weeks to qualify at all this year. Flexibility, in the face of a natural disaster....

I'll call it that, a natural disaster. I won't blame it on anything. I'm certainly not pointing fingers. There was definitely a major collapse this year. In the long term, we can figure out what caused it and all that, but it's a crisis right now, and we have to deal with it.

The Chair: Okay.

We have six witnesses, so it does take some time. Go ahead, Chief Henderson.

Chief John Henderson: Thank you.

As you're probably aware, you need to have work to qualify for EI. I think everybody around here understands that, and why we're here. We're never going to qualify for that, obviously, if we never get fishing.

How do we get to the point where we can qualify? Is it criteria change? Is it some form of payout classed as wages for a year so we can qualify for some form of program? We can develop all the programs in the world right now, but the criteria spell out that we cannot access any of them because we don't qualify. So where do we go?

The reality is, there needs to be some change, or some form of income assistance that could qualify us to get to that point where we are qualified. I think that's what we're here to say. Nobody really wants to say yes, we need some kind of cash payout to qualify us, some income, because right now we can't. In 1998 $10,500 and $6,500 was paid to gillnet seiners to stay home, as a form of a scheme to not risk anything to go fishing. But that doesn't help anything. There are six people who fish on that seiner who never got any assistance. That's why I'm saying that it's a larger picture than where we are today.

• 1020

We talk about the needs and the assistance we're looking for. I think some of the documentation you have and some of those reports mention the average catch level—what we would have caught if it were open, if the fish were coming back. The gross average per seiner would have been about $110,000. For gillnetters it would have been $25,000, and for trawlers it would have been $50,000. That would have been our income, and then we would have had to divide that amongst the crew members. That would be our wages. Then we could establish ourselves as workers. Maybe we'd qualify for some new training programs. But right now we can't, so we're asking you, where do we go? Have the criteria changed, or has there been a policy change?

The Chair: I'd just like to point out, Chief Henderson, that a change in criteria would require a change in the legislation. I'm very familiar with the EI legislation. You basically have to be looking at some special initiative to deal with the problem. There's no sense beating around the bush. Those are the facts. I'm very familiar with EI.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much.

Welcome again to this committee.

I have four questions, Mr. Chair. First, perhaps someone could comment on the supply and demand aspect of the fishery. A year and a half ago there was a documentary on TV that said there were tonnes of frozen fish in B.C. warehouses. What impact does that have on the fishery business overall?

Second, what impact has climate change had on the fishery? All I hear about is mismanagement by DFO, but I'm sure you've heard the reports from all over the world that climate change has had some impact on the fishery and the way we live.

Third, Mr. Bruce Probert mentioned that there have been three generations of fishers in his family. In Ontario, Quebec, and other provinces things have changed. I'm sure things have changed in B.C. too. My family used to do farming. There's no more farming. My family used to work in a steel factory. There's no more steel. Things have changed. Life goes on. Is there any plan for diversification in the area to help the economic situation, rather than sticking only to fishing? What are we doing to diversify in the area?

Fourth, what kind of activities do we have with regard to research and development in order to make sure we get the best information available to the fishers so that they can do a good job?

Fifth, how much use do we make of a fishery in tanks, aquaculture? Would that substitute for the regular fishery?

Those are four or five questions from me. Thank you.

The Chair: Ms Hunt, do you want to start?

Ms. Christine Hunt: We'll start with John Sutcliffe answering a couple of those questions.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I'm just not sure what you're referring to with regard to the supply and demand question. For salmon there are no inventories. It's a major concern of our processors. They've lost shelf space. They're buying a lot of fish in Alaska. They put up half a million cases of Alaskan fish this year in Prince Rupert. It didn't touch the orders. It didn't protect for them their shelf space, which, as has been pointed out, is critical to do. It's one of the fallouts from this problem this year.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Mr. Sutcliffe, are you saying they have an oversupply of millions of tonnes of frozen fish in storage?

Mr. John Sutcliffe: No, there is no inventory. There is no oversupply. I'm saying that our processors in fact have so little inventory that they access very large amounts of salmon caught in Alaska for their canneries in B.C. in an effort to maintain their orders.

• 1025

Shelf space? There is no carry-over of frozen fish.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: This documentary was on CBC or CTV about a year or so ago.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: Well, that may have been so at that time, but you can't carry inventory of frozen products that long, and there is no inventory for canned salmon.

With respect to climate change, there is an issue there. There's widespread speculation, if not consensus—and it's getting to consensus, I think—that part of what happened this year is related to that issue, and ocean survival factors.

What's interesting about that, though, is that we don't know, and DFO doesn't know. It's not just an economic crisis here that warrants attention; it's a biological crisis here that warrants attention. It was totally unforecast. The reasons as to why it happened are unknown, and need to be known. How do we manage the fishery next year with such a result this year?

Climate change is still a hypothesis. There was a large conference about it a week ago at Simon Fraser. It's just a hypothesis, a whole lot of evidence on a global scale, that suggests that. But to say, as some are saying, that B.C. is too far south for the salmon to survive, well, we need only look at the return of chinook, or pink salmon, as they call them in California, and to the record high catches this year.

So there's some strong evidence to suggest that whatever is going on out there is unknown, but needs to be known, and the doomsayers about B.C. salmon stocks.... It's just speculation. We do need to know. There is something going on out there, but I think the doomsayers are way out of line, because there is some evidence to suggest that very far to the south of B.C., salmon stocks are rebounding big time.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I know in California they're taking people deep-sea fishing for salmon. How come? There must be some environmental element there, right?

Mr. John Sutcliffe: Or they're wild stocks. In Sacramento they've done a lot of habitat work. In combination with perhaps changed ocean survival conditions, they've had massive returns.

I missed your third question, I'm sorry.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Diversification of the areas.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: First I want to add to the comments of my colleague and friend, John Sutcliffe.

The cyclical nature of the salmon run on the Fraser River is not unusual. Historically, it's not unusual. That's not to detract from the crisis we face.

On one of the pages in my submission it shows, going back to 1962, the salmon runs on the Fraser River and the commercial catch versus the run numbers. To pick out one year, 1964, the actual return to the Fraser River was 1.8 million fish. This year it was 3.5 million fish. The commercial harvest in 1964 was eleven times the size it is this year.

So the fish aren't gone forever. This is a bit of an unusual event that's unknown, whether it was El Niño or ocean conditions. Certainly that has to be viewed and investigated, but again, it can't deflect us from the need for crisis intervention at this time to understand what's wrong with the river and what's wrong with the river systems.

To pick up on the plan for the future, as per the question from the member, that of course is part of the presentation today. Get us to the future. Help us solve the crisis now, when it's relatively inexpensive in the overall picture, and let us work with DFO, with the federal government, to plan for the future, on where we go and what the fishery looks like.

We have lost about 50% of the licences that were fishing a generation ago on the coast of British Columbia. We haven't solved the crisis, are in a deeper crisis, and haven't solved the capacity of fishing.

Referencing a meeting I had in Quebec City with my colleagues from the other provinces, looking at the capacity of fishing fleets as a real issue, not just the number of participants and the number of licences, has to be part of the plan for the future.

• 1030

On the question addressed to research and development and aquaculture, farming fish versus wild fish, British Columbia and Canada are somewhat unique. We have available five commercial species of salmon, not just one, on the coast of British Columbia, and they run in different sizes and numbers and different values throughout their run cycles.

We in fact have announced an aquaculture policy that will develop an environmentally sustainable aquaculture industry for British Columbia, but it does not replace a wild salmon strategy or the priority that British Columbia as a government places on our wild salmon. The wild salmon have had historically and will have a higher value to us than aquaculture. We know across the country and around the world the difficulties we've had with farming salmon and the spinoff from that. We have undertaken to kick off an initiative that is fairly well funded by the provincial government to develop new technologies for salmon farming and move toward that technology.

As well, as a plan for the future and to address climate change and research and development, we have established Fisheries Renewal British Columbia, with a three-year budget of $30 million, to address transition strategies and building and diversification of new fisheries. Over the past three years, British Columbia has invested over $400 million in habitat restoration to prepare for fisheries for the future, but we need participants to be there in order to participate in that future fishery.

I need to address one quick point on what it's like when we establish a new fishery in a community, and a very modest one at that. In Massett on the Queen Charlotte Islands, where there is little or no commercial salmon fishery happening these days, we established a fishery on dogfish, on mud sharks. We have a market in Europe and byproduct markets coming out of the skeletons, etc.

With only 27 boats fishing in that fishery at a modest return—I think it was 30¢ a pound return to the fisherman on that product—what resulted in the community was immediate gear-up by the community. The grocery store had to hire another clerk to meet the demand for the people who had to go fishing to buy their groceries. When they got their paycheques they came back and they enjoyed their social time. The bar had to hire another bartender.

That's what we're losing on the coast of British Columbia when you don't address infrastructure. It's not just the nets and the hooks and the gear that supply this industry. It's the social infrastructure, the commercial, the downtown business that has a grocery store, that has a sporting shop where they can't supply tackle any longer because the sporting industry lost $200 million in the collapse last year. If we lose that infrastructure, then there is no reason any longer for Canada to support citizens equally in coastal communities because there's nothing there. We have the boom and bust of a goldmining town that disappears.

The Chair: Mr. Minister, we're going to rapidly run out of time.

Mr. Probert, quickly, in answer to that.

Mr. Bruce Probert: I will try to be as quick as I can. You speak about diversification and I have tried doing that, and that's why I took the job retraining, to try to supplement my income through other means. As I said, I got 21 days' work. It's not going to help.

I would also like to point out a few facts. My father is 78, my mother is 63. They still fish. What exactly would you suggest that they go to? That is one question I would like to ask. There is now area licensing on the west coast, which means there are three different geographical areas to fish. In one area, area D, I have been told the average age of the fisherman—the average age—is 55.

Now, in government programs and such there's an early retirement package that buys people out when they're no longer needed and they've put in their time paying taxes and all the rest. I don't see the logic in this—because DFO mismanaged the stocks, they still have a job but I have to get a different one. I don't get the logic there, myself. That's my answer.

The Chair: Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: One quick question. Why is it that you expect people to have early retirement? Now, your father is 78 and still fishing.

Mr. Bruce Probert: I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about these people with an average age of 55. What retraining would they get so that they would get a job?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Didn't you say your father is 78 and still fishing, and 63? Why do you ask others to have early retirement? Why don't you tell your father, for example, enjoy your retirement, enjoy your life, enjoy your family?

Mr. Bruce Probert: Because he's going to die if he doesn't get to go fishing. It's what he lives for. He's fished his whole life, and you're saying get a wheelchair and sit—

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I'm not saying get a wheelchair.

• 1035

The Chair: Can we go through the chair?

Mr. Bruce Probert: Sorry.

The Chair: I think we understand.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Sarkis, to answer your question, on the east coast after so many years if you were 55 there was a retirement package for you. That's what Mr. Probert is trying to say.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I'm not saying—

Mr. Peter Stoffer: However, I do find it interesting, Mr. Chair, when a Liberal member talks about diversification, and says to try to do something else, but with no finances behind that statement. That's always unique.

You know, Mr. Chairman, we did a west coast report—we did two of them, which were I thought very valuable to the committee and to the people of the west coast. The only unfortunate thing is that the DFO has completely ignored the recommendations the all-party committee recommended in that regard. Since then we've been dealt on the west coast what I call one of the most horrible treaties of all time, the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Hopefully that thing will have a stake driven through its heart and we'll do this again—one that benefits British Columbians.

Secondly, prior to that you had the infamous Mifflin plan. God love Mifflin. All of a sudden a treaty comes in there and it's $100,000 to get an area sacking licence. And who can afford to do that?

Mr. Probert, for your information, we were in Sointula as a committee, and there was a gentlemen there with his wife and three kids who was literally crying into the microphone. So we understand completely the effects of what has happened to fishermen and their families in coastal communities, not just in non-native but aboriginal and first nations communities as well.

I have a couple of questions, one for Mr. Streifel. What effect has the Pacific Salmon Treaty had on British Columbia? Secondly, the corporatization of our fish stocks has happened on the east coast tremendously through a program called individual transferable quotas and enterprise allocations. I know that Jimmy Pattison now owns 37% of the stock that's out there. Who knows what Galen Weston owns out there as well?

This is one of the things I think has really hurt commercial fishermen, especially the independent fishermen in the small coastal communities, aboriginal and non-aboriginal. I was wondering if one of you could answer that question—the effect the corporatization of the fish stocks has had over the independence of individual fishermen and their families.

Thank you.

The Chair: Who wants to go first? Ms. Hunt.

Ms. Christine Hunt: It's my understand that Jimmy Pattison bought Galen Weston out, so he is now the kingpin out there. It's affected aboriginal communities because we cannot use our homes on the reserve as collateral, and so a lot of fishermen fish for the companies. When the Mifflin plan came along, the native people were the first ones chopped out of the companies. Chief Henderson was alluding to this before—the people who are still left in are bound by ties stronger than marriage to these companies. They owe their soul to the one big company that operates out there. There seems to be no way of getting.... I myself have a herring seine licence, married to the large company. I have a five-year agreement with them. There's nothing I can do to change that. After those five years are gone, they'll pick it up again. That's the only recourse I have.

A lot of the commercial fishermen, especially in John's community and in my community, work for the companies. When all this trouble was happening on the east coast Mr. Pattison advised his managers to advise the native fishermen who were fishing on his boats that they were not to use his boats to go food fishing. Now, we fish for food, social and ceremonial. We do not sell our food fish. They go into the freezer, into the smokehouse, and into cans for sustenance for the winter.

They quickly reneged on that order, realizing the political outspin that would have. But it's a big problem for us to be married to these companies. They own us. They own us lock, stock and barrel. They own our souls.

The Chair: Minister, go ahead.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Thank you very much. I'll try to address the effect of the treaty first.

It's long-term, 10- and 12-year fishing arrangements with the United States. On the north coast of British Columbia, where the Alaskans had a record fishery and an unrestricted fishery on British Columbia stocks, we again had little or no participation in the fishery.

• 1040

As was explained to me by one of our north coast fishermen on the Skeena system, the average income for the fishermen up there was somewhat south of $10,000 this year, and it's their best year ever. Everybody was rejoicing because they earned about $10,000, whereas the Alaska fishermen participated in abundant stocks coming back to Canadian rivers. The treaty has been little or no good to our north coast.

At the risk of getting thumped by some of my colleagues here, Washington state did not have much of a fishery either on Fraser River stocks this year because of the return crisis, but in the long term, in regard to the fishery on the Fraser River stocks, the treaty is an unprecedented giveaway to Washington state fishermen. When the stocks are healthy and a normal fishery is happening, they will participate at unprecedented levels in harvesting of our stocks.

The quid pro quo, to answer the member's question, is that Canada does not get the opportunity to harvest any American stocks at all. Maybe Dan Edwards would like to elaborate slightly on that if he has some community-based details.

The Chair: Dan, it's fine to answer, but I don't want to spend time on the Pacific Salmon Treaty when we have to deal with this issue here before us.

Mr. Dan Edwards: Actually, I was going to change the subject a little—

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Dan Edwards: —and move from the treaty and on to the corporate issue, which is part of the crisis issue.

We've researched around the world on ways of developing a diversified economy with fisheries. There are a number of programs in Alaska, for instance, where they do a state bank, federal licence bank processes, and owner-operator processes. Those are alternatives to corporatization. If you don't have the alternatives, you will see just one person—it'll be Jimmy Pattison—owning most of the fish in British Columbia, in a very vertically integrated process.

That's the way it will go without government stepping in with the stakeholders and designing alternate policies to maintain the diverse economy and diverse fleets in British Columbia. There are a lot of those out there, but again, what we need—I'll reassert it—is the process in which to sit down with the federal and provincial governments to do that work. We don't have it, and that's why we're here.

We need the process for the short term, for the emergency relief issues, which are linked to the long-term viability of this industry. If we don't get it.... This is where this whole thing around the buy-back problems is coming up. It's so bloody-minded. With this very terrible season this year, with not one extra dime or any other help coming in here right now, there's a reverse option buy-back about to happen, with people so on the ropes that the government's hoping to get the licences—and most of them will be the small community licences out in the rural areas—for next to nothing, and through government processes.

As John Sutcliffe has said, that's it. That's it. We saw it in the forest industry in B.C. in the 1950s, and we're about to let it happen again here in the fishing industry in the 1990s, because we don't have alternatives with our governments in order to change that direction. We need that change.

The Chair: Thank you.

Do you have one last question, Peter?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I just wanted to let Bruce know that it wasn't $1.2 billion but $4.2 billion since 1988 to readjust the east coast fisheries. You can compare that to what British Columbia is receiving and you can see the difference.

Mr. Bruce Probert: You can see our frustration. People are getting extremely upset.

The Chair: Are there any questions?

Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Bill Matthews (Burin—St. George's, Lib.): I don't know if it's a question or not, Mr. Chair, but it's an observation of mine, I guess.

I'm staggered, I guess, that we can't seem to pull this thing together to get a solution, to be very honest with you. I've been at this committee for about two years. For some reason, we just can't get our minds around this issue and get it dealt with. That's just an observation of mine.

Coming from the east coast, let me say that we haven't completely restructured our fishery there yet. It hasn't all been successful, but at least there's been some dealing with the issue and some gain. The retirement of licences and the early retirement were voluntary, not mandatory.

It just seems to me that for some reason we can't get to deal with this. I want to echo the comment of the chair. In my view, it's going to take a special initiative to deal with this, referring to your comment about EI and how you get a solution. I think it's going to take a special initiative. It seems to me that for some reason this hasn't been pulled together by all those concerned in order to find a solution, and I don't know the answer to that.

• 1045

Just from sitting here for the length of time that I've been a member of this committee, I know how frustrated you must be. If it were my area of the country, I would be as frustrated or more frustrated than you are in regard to representing the people.

It's just a comment, Mr. Chairman, but I just can't understand why we're still here today and we don't have this problem dealt with.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Minister.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: I'll be very brief, Mr. Matthews.

In the package I've submitted, there's a document, an Ogilvy-Renault report that governed the focus of the 1998 Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations. There's a paragraph in there whereby Canada questions the validity of supporting coastal communities on the coast of British Columbia. The comment in that paper from our external affairs department is that “if we have a policy that supports coastal communities, it will require access to fish—American fish”.

We didn't get the access to the fish, so is the policy now not to support coastal communities, particularly in British Columbia? That's at the root of the problem we have here. There is not a federal policy that supports British Columbians equally, like Newfoundlanders or Nova Scotia citizens, on the right they have to live in their communities.

In some instances, like in Chief John Henderson's family, families have never lived anywhere else, never in any other country. That's 10,000 to 12,000 years of history, and now Canada is questioning whether or not that individual and his family have a right to live in their chosen community. Canada might as well pack up their homes, put them on a barge, dump them off in Vancouver Harbour or Victoria Harbour, put them on welfare, and at least come clean and say that's what the plan is.

Otherwise, get on with life and support these communities. Build a bridge to the future. Get them working—don't support them in their unemployment—and get them active.

The Chair: Mr. Matthews.

Mr. Bill Matthews: Mr. Chairman, what would you have them work at? That is the question.

I know you don't have the same problem in the west as we had in the east. Out there, our stocks were collapsed. You don't have that problem.

A voice: He just acknowledged—

Mr. Bill Matthews: You've been into habitat and you've seen some very encouraging returns—

The Chair: I think it's fair to say that they do on the Fraser River this year.

Voices: Yes.

Mr. Bill Matthews: What's that?

The Chair: I think what the witnesses are saying is that this year they do have a collapse on the Fraser River.

Mr. Bill Matthews: Yes, they do have a collapse.

So my question is, what do you get people doing?

Mr. Dennis Streifel: That's a good question, because we have advice from the standing committee's work in the past and from the work that was done by our job protection commissioner and a contractor, Gordon Gislason, which recognizes that some communities don't have any other option, no other alternative but to fish.

But we can fish. We can diversify the fishery. We can participate in an artificial fishery, from aquaculture to other forms of harvesting of wild fish. We can live up to our commitment for selective harvesting and for gear changes in order to be able to safely harvest abundant stocks at the same time that low stocks are prevalent and present in the system. We can work on different kinds of fisheries.

What we need are the resources and the commitment to actually do that, and that's really what this presentation is. It's not just “write us a cheque so we can go home happy”. It's a very modest request to support us in participating in changed fisheries and changed activity within the fishery and those kinds of things. That in fact is achievable. It's possible to achieve that and have some economic stability in those remote communities.

The Chair: We have to go on to other business.

You had one other point you wanted to raise, Mr. Bernier. Or was it that you wondered who each of the representatives represents?

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Yes. I had other questions but I would like to know who each one of you represents. For the Minister, the answer is easy. I understand also that John Henderson is a native chief. However, I am not aware of the organization represented by Ms. Christine Hunt, perhaps because I came in a bit late. I understand that Mr. Bruce Probert is a fisherman but I would like to know who Mr. Dan Edwards, Ms. Christine Hunt and Mr. Sutcliffe speak for.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Dan Edwards: I work as executive director of the West Coast Sustainability Association. It's a native and non-native organization on the west coast of Vancouver Island. I'm here as a person who has helped to coordinate the work of the Fraser River Sockeye Crisis Committee over the last two and a half months.

The Chair: Ms. Hunt.

• 1050

Ms. Christine Hunt: I'm the first vice-president of the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia, which represents the native commercial fishermen. I sit on several industry boards. I also am special native adviser to Minister Streifel.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I'm a staff person with the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union CAW. In addition to that, I'm secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters.

My duties are in support of the independent fleet in our membership, the licence-holders and the small-boat fleet. In that line I have served on the salmon commission and numerous advisory boards. Christine and I have both just returned from a meeting of the board of the Canadian Code of Conduct.

That's my background. I represent the union on this committee. We're strongly supportive of it and have participated since day one.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Sutcliffe.

Mr. Provenzano.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): I have just one question. Like my colleague, Mr. Matthews, I'm trying to get my head around this problem. We never seem to manage to completely understand it or come up with a solution.

The minister was giving some statistics to represent his point about the cyclical nature of the fishery.

Did I understand you right that this year's fishery on the Fraser was about two and a half to three times bigger than during the 1964 collapse?

Mr. Dennis Streifel: I can clarify that. In 1964 the expected run was 1.6 million, and 1.8 million returned. There was 11 times the commercial activity on that run that there was this year. What's different about this year is that over 8 million fish were expected, and about 3.5 million returned.

So 1964 was an expected return. This was not an expected return. The smolt count and the spawning activity from 1995 suggested there would be a large run this year. That was the prediction. There was not. So the fishermen, who thought they had the opportunity to fish, had all kinds of out-of-pocket expenses to get ready for a season that didn't happen.

My intent was not to detract from the seriousness of this crisis; I was only referring to the fact that—

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Let's use your statistics, and help me here. In 1964 the expected run, and the actual run, was half the size of the actual run this year.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Yes.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: So the run this year was twice the size it was in 1964.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: Yes, that's true.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: We have a run that's twice the size, yet we have all of these negative ramifications to the fishermen.

Was 1964 a typical year or was it a down year?

A voice: It was a down year.

A voice: It was very down.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: What was the response at that time? I'm sure there were negative implications to that kind of run. What was the response, and what were the hardships suffered?

Mr. Dennis Streifel: One of the other differences in 1964 was that we didn't have the Mifflin plan over our heads. We didn't have area licensing, where we could only choose to fish in certain areas. In 1964 we did not have a weak-stock management regime, where we managed an abundant fishery for the sake of the weakest fishery. Whereas in fact this year we stood off artificial fisheries—enhanced fisheries from hatcheries—in order to protect some weak wild runs.

John, jump in here if you think I'm getting off track.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: No, go ahead.

Mr. Dennis Streifel: The management regime is different, the economic activity is different, and—

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: If there were more fishermen in 1999 than there were in 1964—

A voice: The reverse would be true.

Mr. Carmen Provenzano: So there are fewer fishermen now, but we have twice the run there was in 1964.

The Chair: John, we'll have one quick point from you and one quick point from Mr. Probert. There is another committee in here at 11 o'clock, and we do have a little bit of business to deal with prior to that.

We'll go to the two Johns.

Chief John Henderson: We got sidetracked from what we're here for. Basically what they're talking about is the reason we're here. That's fact.

Mr. Streifel is absolutely correct: the first nations have been here since time immemorial in our communities, and we don't plan on changing our lifestyle. How do we stay involved in the fishing industry? That's why we're here, and it's basically something for this gentleman to understand.

• 1055

At DFO in the sixties, we had problems in the halibut fishery. What they did to solve that problem was give them salmon licences, a buy-in. What happened then was a wipeout of the salmon. It started a long time ago. It's not a process that started yesterday. I know about all the facts. I know about the issuing of the licences, about their making deals. Now those same people who got salmon licences are halibut fishing again. It seems as if they had pieces of paper and just handed them out. When I first started fishing, I was the only boat that fished in my area.

I'm a fisherman, and I represent all these organizations because I feel it's important that I address this in a manner respectful of those people. That's why I'm here. But I tell you, this is the second year I've been here, and I'm hearing the same things from you people, the same types of questions, and we're not getting anywhere. I left the room last year with the same types of questions; it's another year, and I haven't had an answer.

I guess we need action in British Columbia. That's what I'm hearing around the table. If action is what you want, action is what you're going to get. You have companies out there, bands and native tribes that are now logging, and they're going to be going fishing. I'm here to try to resolve these issues so that we don't have to do that. But we're going to have problems all across this country if we don't start resolving these issues that are up front right now, and those are facts.

The Chair: I think we get your point.

Mr. Probert.

Mr. Bruce Probert: I'll try to be really quick.

To answer your question about the 3.5-million return, sir, this is one of the reasons I quite the FRAC process, the Fraser River Advisory Council process. When DFO managed stocks in the past, they would have a set number, maybe a 100,000 return, and then they would estimate maybe a million fish coming back in a four-year cycle, if it was a four-year cycle. Now they're on this ambitious rebuilding program.

In terms of spawning, what people don't realize is that just as one acre of land can only support so many people, every river system is independent and can only support a certain number of fish. I've been trying to get this point across to DFO, but I forget the name of what they call it. For a given return, though, there's a maximum return that comes back in the four-year cycle. Well, to draw an analogy, in its wisdom, DFO has decided that instead of taking two aspirins when you have a headache, you should take four and you'll feel better. The idea now is that instead of the 100,000 that used to be sufficient for the grounds, they want a half a million.

There's a problem with this. This occurred on the coast, and Rivers Inlet would be the perfect example. A million fish were on the grid during the last cycle that we fished, and we have not fished since. Prior to that, 500,000 would have been sufficient. In other systems coast-wide, they have tried to double the return in one cycle. I personally feel they are overloading the spawning grounds. There are not enough nutrients in the system to support this, so you're therefore having stock collapse.

I have brought this up with DFO biologists, and they say “Well, how do we know the maximum that the spawning ground can hold until we see what the return is after we double the return this year?” It boggles my mind, and that's why I had to expand beyond just the crisis. This is the reasoning, and this is why I blame DFO for a lot of our problems beyond all the warm water. I'm sorry, but that's their excuse to get out of taking the blame.

I just have one other point.

The Chair: Very quickly.

Mr. Bruce Probert: I'll be very quick.

A standing committee came out west about six or seven years ago, just after the start of the AFS. Not a report was written, nothing was done, and here we are six or seven years later. I encourage you to actually get results for us, please.

• 1100

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Probert and witnesses.

I've talked to a number of committee members around the table. I think it's fair to say that we recognize from your comments and from the evidence that there is an urgent and pressing crisis as a result of a number of factors, and I'll not get into those.

We as a committee, or I, will communicate certainly with the minister's office over the next day or so to find out just what's happening with that office on this particular issue. I think I can say to you, with the agreement of committee members, that we're going to have difficulty finding the time, but we will have to find the time during the week of November 15 to at least have another hearing, whether it's with the minister's office or whatever, and try to put together a letter to the minister prior to November 18 or 19 on this issue. Is there any problem with that?

I can assure you this much, that we will have to find the time. I don't know at the moment where we're going to find it, but we'll have to find the time to.... I'm not sure whether or not we have to have a meeting with the minister's office, but in any event, we'll find the time and put a letter to the minister outlining the urgent concern and saying this issue has to be dealt with. That's the best I can assure you for the moment. Do I see any problems from committee members on that?

Thank you very much. I wish we had more time, but I guess times moves on. Thank you.

Committee members, we do have a couple of items to deal with.

One, a sheet from the clerk on the committee's travel to the east coast has been handed around to committee members. It's just a proposal at the moment and it will have some flexibility. Outlined in the paper is the timeframe for questioning.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: What about November 21? The wrong date was written on it.

The Chair: It's November. So it is there before you. Are there any questions on that? We will be flexible on that. If we're in Halifax and there are fewer witnesses, there will be more time. It's November. The clerk made an error, he's a month behind time.

An hon. member: He missed a full month.

An hon. member: He turned his clock back a whole month instead of an hour.

The Chair: So that's basically the rough outline. Mike from my office, Alan, and the clerk will be working on the witness lists. If anybody who has witnesses they want to propose, we need to hear them immediately. As well, Alan and Mike from my office will be putting together a one-pager, which will be sent out to witnesses, in terms of the format and how we expect to proceed.

Rick, you had a question? Mr. Limoges.

Mr. Rick Limoges (Windsor—St. Clair, Lib.): It's with regard to the motion we have.

The Chair: Yes. I'll deal with that in a second. Are there any other questions on the committee travel? We have to sit down and decide who is going to do it yet, but we'll do that at a later date.

There's a motion before you, with the proper 48-hour notice, from Peter Stoffer on the procedure during questioning. Do you want to speak to this for a moment, Peter?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, sure.

Basically it's the same format we had last time, that after the witnesses have presented their presentations, the official opposition, Reform, would have ten minutes for questions, then it would be the Bloc for ten minutes, then the Liberals for ten minutes, then NDP for five, Progressive Conservatives for five, and then it goes back in the same rotation again, only in five-minute segments.

The Chair: I have Mr. Limoges, first.

Mr. Rick Limoges: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It seems to me after a quick calculation that this motion would give one-quarter of the time in round one to over one-half of the members of this committee, and it certainly doesn't reflect the composition of this committee or the fact that we have a majority government. In round two, it gets even worse, because we get five minutes out of 25, or one-fifth of the time, and therefore we have an even worse situation.

• 1105

It seems to me it's totally out of whack. You could have half of the table here who, if they happen to be sitting on the majority government side and they are the third person to put their hand up, would wait in excess of one hour and five minutes before they even had a hope of getting a question in. Frankly, I think that's absurd.

The Chair: I take it you're in opposition.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: The first line says that witnesses be given ten minutes for their opening statements. We have six witnesses. If each one gets ten minutes you're talking about one hour of that two-hour meeting.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The chair would obviously decide, as they did the last time, that there would only be two or three of them. If you have 50 people show up they're not all going to give a ten-minute presentation. It's always at the discretion of the chair.

The Chair: Let me just interrupt you, Peter. We're not talking about the witnesses, we're talking about the questioning.

Mr. Assadourian and then Mr. Bélair.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Excuse me, Chair, but this is how it starts: witnesses are to be given ten minutes. If you're going to amend it, I want a total combined of maybe ten minutes, not giving each ten minutes. I want to have clarification on that one.

The Chair: That's right.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Total. Can we have the word “total”?

The Chair: That's understood anyway, I think.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Then you can put “total” in, if that's the case. The witnesses will speak, in total, ten minutes for their presentation.

Am I right?

The Chair: That's what we're told, yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: So we can add the word “total” here?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sure.

The Chair: Mr. Bélair.

An hon. member: We should vote on it.

Mr. Réginald Bélair (Timmins—James Bay, Lib.): Yes, to simplify the matter, Mr. Chair, what Rick has just said is that there would be 45 minutes of questioning from the opposition and 20 minutes from the government, which is a majority. If anything, it should be the absolute opposite.

The Chair: Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Mr. Chairman, I did not want to cause any trouble. Let us say, for the information of those of my colleagues I do not have the opportunity to see regularly in this Committee, that the point of Peter's motion is to make sure that all the parties and their spokespersons have the opportunity to be heard.

We might change the time afforded to each one. I would agree with giving more time to the Reform Party and seven minutes to the Bloc Québécois, that would not be a problem for me. However, let's think about the next document that we will have to work on later on. The spirit of Peter's motion is the same as the proposal we will receive from the Chairman himself, that is that each party has some equal time when we're on travel. Then, indeed, you would only have 20 per cent of the time.

The point is not to prevent the government people from speaking but only to allow each party to be heard. After the first round, and the Chairman always makes sure of that, we would alternate between the government and the opposition. In that way, everybody would be able to speak.

The main objective is to allow each party to be heard early in the process, after which we could alternate. I believe that Peter's motion meets that objective.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Pratt and then Claude. David.

Mr. David Pratt (Nepean—Carleton, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Not being a member of this committee, I'm loathe to provide this committee with advice, but we went through this at the defence committee in the last session of Parliament and I think we came to quite a reasonable and equitable balance between the government and the opposition. You may want to study what we did in terms of providing time allocations.

Briefly, what we tried to do was reduce the initial time from ten minutes to seven minutes to cut down on long statements, long preambles, before questions were made, so that members could get directly to their questions, and then after the first round of questioning it was back and forth between the government and the opposition.

In the time we had in the last session, it was working quite well and the meetings were going much more crisply, and members, especially government members, were getting a chance to pose their questions.

The Chair: Mr. Drouin.

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[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.): Further to what Mr. Bernier has just said, I would like to mention that the motion does not say exactly what he seems to understand because it states that the process for the second round would be the same as for the first round.

If your suggestion is that we alternate after the first round, I have no problem. However, that is not what is in the motion and it would not be fair because then we would come fifth, like Mr. Limoges and Mr. Bélair just mentioned.

[English]

The Chair: I'm going to have to call the question. I would like to say, Mr. Bernier, on your point, that there hasn't been a time yet, at least since we started this new committee, that the opposition hasn't been on...and I think yesterday you had 30% of the time.

(Motion negatived)

The Chair: The motion is lost. Current procedure stands. The meeting is adjourned.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Could we perhaps...

[English]

The Chair: Just one point from Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Since we were close to an agreement, could we make another suggestion, Mr. Chairman, that would fit with what people seem to have understood? If we were to amend the end of Mr. Stoffer's motion so that, after the first round, we would alternate....

I would rather discuss this immediately, while we seem to be in agreement.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bernier, I don't want to cut you off, but you can always propose a motion with 48 hours' notice. That's not a problem.

Mr. Yvan Bernier: Yes, that will be discussed—

[Translation]

That's why I'm doing this now, if we want to have the chance....

Some Members: Oh!

[English]

The Chair: Order.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: If we want to be able to resolve this matter, I would like to amend Mr. Stoffer's proposal to make sure that we could alternate.

The point would be to confirm the usual practice. To that end, it would be sufficient to amend the end of the motion. That's my proposal.

Furthermore, you referred to the 48 hours' notice but I thought that we had changed that rule the other day. If that is not the case, I would move that notices of motions be once again 24 hours.

[English]

The Chair: If we have unanimous consent you can bring forward a motion.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: I had asked that that be changed the other day.

[English]

The Chair: Just send it in in writing.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: In that case, I can tell you that you will receive my motion.

The other thing I had raised the other day, but that could not be resolved, was the rule that was passed the other day and which flabbergasted me. The Committee has agreed that witnesses be able to table their documents in the language of their choice and that those documents then be distributed.

I would like this rule to be withdrawn. If we, the French- speaking Members, allow documents to be distributed only in English, we would receive very few documents in French. I would not like us to give the public the impression that the Committee is ready to work in one language only. If you do not believe me, I would like to throw this challenge: at the next meeting, Mr. Chairman, when we have witnesses, stop the distribution of documents. You will see what will happen. Or rather, distribute documents in French only. I would like to see the reaction of my colleagues. I would like them to put themselves in our shoes.

Personally, I do not have many problems. I am now nearly bilingual and I can always rely on the interpreters, but there will be other people after me, in this Committee, who will speak French only, just like most of the English-speaking Members speak English only. Give us a chance. We could accept such a procedure in some circumstances but the general rule should not be that we work with unilingual documents.

I would therefore ask for this motion to be withdrawn and that the rule be established that documents can only be distributed if they are available in both languages. The Clerk could make sure that the other documents be distributed later on. Our basic principle has to be that we are all equal.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Bernier, we are trying to ensure that documents coming before the committee are bilingual. We're trying to be as fair as we can be in that. If the motion in terms of the original procedure needs to be changed, then it's the prerogative of the committee to change it if they want. But we have certainly requested that all documents be tabled in both official languages. That is our policy, sometimes—certainly it has happened today—on very short notice. I don't think this one was translated, was it? One may have been. But we'll make every effort to ensure that they are.

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The same applies the other way. When we're in the Gaspé region on our tour, I expect some documents will come forward in French probably not translated, but I would still prefer that you were able to have it and not be excluded from it even though I, for instance, am not very good in French, because then you would have the document before you and you could raise the appropriate questions maybe better than I could.

We're making every effort to ensure that it is bilingual.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvan Bernier: In that case, it should not be distributed. I do not want the rule to be that documents can be distributed to the Members in one language only. This should only be acceptable if the Members give their unanimous consent to the Chairman. There will be people with me in our travel and it would be a problem for them since they cannot work in English.

Personally, I have never had any problems working with you but, when we have to meet people.... Let me mention, Mr. Chairman, that it has so happened that I have chaired a meeting in English in Nova Scotia, I, a member of the Bloc Québécois! Could you beat that! Let us be serious: the rule has to be clear. Later on, we can make exceptions. If that rule cannot be changed, I will have to talk to the Speaker of the House. I cannot accept that that be written in our regulations. I simply cannot.

[English]

The Chair: You certainly can bring forward a motion to change that procedure. It's your right to do so.

The meeting is adjourned.