HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Mr. Harold Theriault, Chairman

Mr. Alfred MacLeod

Mr. Sterling Belliveau

Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon

In Attendance:

Ms. Rhonda Neatt

Legislative Committee Clerk

Eastern Shore Fishermen's Protective Association

Ms. Nellie Baker Stevens, Coordinator

Ms. Sara MacInnis, Observer

Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association

Mr. Denny Morrow, Executive Director

Xsealent

Mr. Terry Zinck, Owner

Atlantic Fishing Industry Alliance

Mr. Jay Lugar, Coordinator

LFA 34 Management Board/Advisory Committee

Mr. Ashton Spinney, Executive/Co-Chair

Ms. Mary Kenneally, Assistant

Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen's Association

Ms. Virginia Boudreau, Managing Director

SPAN STYLE="font-family: Times New Roman">Mr. Greg Roach, Assistant Deputy Minister

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank you. My name is Harold Theriault, MLA for Digby-Annapolis. I want to thank you for being here this morning at our first Subcommittee on Resources in a long while, probably in the history of this province, we don't know. We put this together through the winter to do what we're doing here today. Today we're here to have a debate, a discussion, a presentation on Bill No. C-45.

We've all been getting a lot of telephone calls from the fishing industry not understanding this and asking for a debate to raise the issues in Bill No. C-45. We thought this would be a great start here today in this province, one of the best provinces of the fisheries in Canada and no better place to start than right here.

This will all be made public. It's all recorded. We will have presenters to the table; one presenter at a time or one group at a time. After the presentations are done, we will all come to the table and have a round table discussion on this, and what comes out of this subcommittee will go back to our Resources Committee, and the final conclusions of it. With that, I will let my colleagues introduce themselves.

[The subcommittee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: With that, we will have the first presenter. Really, we didn't put in any order here who would speak first, so the first one who wants to get up can come to the table and present. If I have to make a suggestion, I will.

MS. VIRGINIA BOUDREAU: Good morning, my name is Virginia Boudreau and I'm the manager of the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen's Association. Honourable members of the House of Assembly, participants and observers, good morning. Please accept our thankful appreciation for the opportunity to participate in this fisheries forum to discuss the new federal Fisheries Act. I must first apologize for my membership, as they could not participate this morning, they are all on the water lobster fishing.

We have engaged in much discussion with various groups in and out of our industry over what is being called the new Fisheries Act, or Bill No. C-45. I'm here to pass on the position of the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen's Association's membership. GCIFA is committed to a new fisheries Act, and in a timely manner. We, our industry, have been creating this Act for many, many years, and it did not just fall out of the sky on December 13, 2006, there has been much discussion and bickering, if you will, as to what should and what should not be in this Act. We continually remind ourselves that this is a fisheries Act and, for us, it should primarily solve or serve the fishing industry's issues.

We cannot afford to wait much longer for a new Act, as our current regulators cannot manage our fisheries' resources under the current Act. Court challenges with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have resulted in legal decisions stating that DFO can no longer manage the way they have in the past.

The old Act is not suitable in many ways, for the modernized way we all fish and manage our oceans - and that is not to defend whether the modernized fishery is right or wrong. Unfortunately, there is no contingency plan being developed for the management of our fisheries if this Act does not get passed - and, yes, the fisheries are our main concern as we are fishermen. We feel the Oceans Act has taken care of the oceans aspect of DFO quite nicely. We could wait five more years to develop another Act, but we worry greatly what state our fisheries would be in by that time.

Under the existing Acts, science cannot be paid for by quota or licences, and this industry has complained every second of the day since 1992, when the groundfish moratorium was placed upon us, that more money was needed for fisheries science. No new money came, and with the rationalization of fishermen came the rationalizing of DFO's budget for science, enforcement and even management.

The Oceans Act also had a hand in our current situation, as it left DFO responsible for all aspects of the ocean, and not just fisheries management, but very little budget was attached to this new responsibility. I do not recall too much of an uproar over the Oceans Act, but we all know that it did very little to serve or support the fishing industry, and sailed through the House like a clipper ship in an easterly gale.

If you do not invest in a business, it will go belly up, and we all know that can and has happened within our fisheries many times. We are in no way trying to defend DFO's management or decision making in the past. In fact, we could spend the whole day with our concerns regarding some of their decisions, but we do realize that in order to get the money for science, enforcement and management, DFO has had to be creative. Yes, the industry went along with this because money was not coming from any other source.

We entered into JPA agreements that allowed crucial scientific surveys to be completed on our existing viable commercial fisheries and new exploratory fisheries to be developed based on sound scientific advice. It is very unfortunate they were forced to use payment and management methods that under the old Act were unacceptable. Under a new Act we can continue with our science/ industry-based fisheries management that is improving every day. Even the new integrated ecosystem-approach-based management requires very expensive science and time management. Where are the funds coming from to support this commitment to ecosystem management?

We do realize that there are groups or stakeholders involved that would be pleased to see our industry operating from a 100 per cent precautionary approach. Without the proper fishery science data - which industry cannot afford to pay a higher percentage of the science fees and DFO has limited resources - we are forced to go to a precautionary approach where all fisheries without science will be set at quotas or limitations to reflect a fishery in distress or collapse. That would include just about all of our commercial fisheries. We do need a new fisheries Act and we need one soon.

A quick note on the owner/operator, as it sets the stage for many of our current concerns with the new Act. We feel the current minister is dealing with this issue through the Commercial Fisheries Licensing Policy for Eastern Canada, and we are comfortable with policy doing what it should. There are many policies we do not like, but we do have a say in them and with this new Act supporting the co-management regime, we accept the responsibility to help manage. We have not identified any major issues that we cannot deal with through fisheries policy changes or through our integrated fisheries management plans. We feel the new Act is flexible enough where it should be and stringent enough in other areas.

In closing, I would like to include a personal observation of my own. If you know fishermen at all, they are the most creative and resourceful group I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Just tell them they can't do something that they absolutely need to have done or to do, give them a day and they will find a way around it.

I thank you very much for your time and your attention. We appreciate the opportunity to come to give our views.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Virginia. I should have said at the beginning, we set the time limit on 10-minute presentations. Originally, we had eight or nine presenters, and I believe there are only five or six here today, so if you want to take some more time in presenting, please do so. Thank you.

MS. BOUDREAU: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The next presenter is Mr. Jay Lugar with the Atlantic Fishing Industry Alliance

MR. JAY LUGAR: Good morning, my name is Jay Lugar. I'm the coordinator of the Atlantic Fishing Industry Alliance, and I'm happy to be here today. I will be just making a brief presentation on one aspect that is contained in the Act but it also pervades existing fisheries management.

My apologies, I don't have any prepared material today but I'll be referring to a couple of documents, and also these are letters that we have sent to DFO and the minister, so I'd be happy to share a copy of those with you later on. Some of them are historical letters, and there's one current one.

If I can just continue, I would like to first advise you, or at least inform you of the Atlantic Fishing Industry Alliance. It is sort of an umbrella group that was started post the Marshall Decision in 1999. It is a unique group in the sense that it is not only Nova Scotian, we have members in the other two provinces in the Maritimes, both New Brunswick and P.E.I. It has both processors and harvesters in the organization. There aren't many organizations in this area that try to be able to address the issues around both harvesters and processors, although it is certainly not unique, it is just somewhat different.

[10:15 a.m.]

The purpose of the Atlantic Fishing Industry Alliance is to protect the interests of the commercial fisheries industry as treaty rights and Aboriginal rights are implemented in our fishery. So we have been active during the time from 1999 onward on that score, and we continue to be active. At the time, there was a large outcry and a lot of issues to be dealt with, as I am sure you recall in your own ridings, during that time. Over the seven years or so, and it will be fully eight come this Fall, but over those years, the fisheries management and interaction between Aboriginal commercial fishermen and non-Aboriginal commercial fishermen has changed substantially.

I'm not here today to talk about those broad issues, but I do want to bring to your attention one particular issue, and this is one of the areas that we are currently focused on. The other area, I should say just briefly, that we're currently focused on, is the

negotiations with regard to the long-term agreement between Mi'kmaq and the province and the federal government.

As an aside, I suggest to you that that is a topic you may want to turn your attention to at some point in time down the road, as that negotiation moves forward it is certainly something that we're very much interested in knowing how it is eventually going to be implemented, that is the eventual impact of long-term, or shall I say, final level, of implementation of the Aboriginal commercial fishery inside the existing commercial fishery.

The focus of my brief remarks today is going to be strictly on fisheries management agreements. This is one component of the Act, and it is being represented to us, I guess, and to everybody, as sort of the modern version of implementing things that are currently being done in the fishery. You've all heard the term co-management , well, the previous version of this Act, under the previous government, actually used the term "co-management". This Act, C-45, uses the term fisheries management agreements, and these are broad agreements, or potentially narrow agreements, that can be used for the department and a fleet or, really, any particular group to come up with a new method of managing their own fishery.

Our concern with fishery management agreements - and it exists in terms of DFO fisheries policy even today - but our concern with fishermen agreements is that they will be used as an opportunity for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to create separate, if not special, agreements with Aboriginal organizations, whether it be a band, a group of bands, a Native Council or any Aboriginal organization that is different and has a different set of rules in it than the rules that are currently in place for the other side of the commercial fishing industry.

Now these are just commercial operations we are talking about and the core of our understanding is that a commercial operation, whether it be with large vessels, small vessels, Aboriginal vessels run by a community co-operative, run by an individual, run by a corporation, run by a band, when they are on the water they should be following the same set of conservation rules inside that fishery.

As a specific example I'll take one fishery that I think the two of you are quite familiar with, let's take the LFA 34 lobster fishery. There are currently some Aboriginal commercial fishermen involved in that fishery. If DFO is going to use fisheries management agreements to have a separate arrangement with those licences and then use a fishery management agreement that has a separate arrangement with the other commercial licences in the same fishery, and if that former agreement set out different rules with regard to escape mechanisms, with regard to legal size, with regard to seasons - like starting a week or two early or something of that nature - you could imagine the furor

that you would encounter in the areas. I am of the mind and believe that DFO is not inclined to go down this road currently.

We have some verbal communication with DFO officials saying that they are likely, and want to keep the commercial fishery managed as a single entity and not to have separate rules for separate groups inside the same fishery. We're still concerned because there are examples on the West Coast whereby they have set out separate rules for Aboriginal commercial fishermen inside some river systems, primarily the Fraser River system - it's called the pilot sales program - so it is a precedent, and what they do on the West Coast tends to find its way to the East Coast and we're just concerned.

That is the nature of our concerns and, as I say, it doesn't relate only to C-45, it could relate to the current policy and implementation, but because fishery management agreements are spelled out in the new bill and the ability in the new bill for DFO to have an agreement with any class of person or licence holder does concern us because it permits these types of operations.

What I would like to do now, having expressed that to you, is to provide two things. First off, the reason why we think on the commercial basis that Aboriginal licences and non-Aboriginal commercial licences are equivalent and have the same priority, and our thinking on this comes from the second Marshall Decision which was in November 1999.

I would just like to quote briefly a couple of excerpts from that, and they are:"The 1760-61 treaty rights were thus from their inception enjoyed alongside the commercial and recreational fishery of non-natives." This is the court talking about their view of how treaty rights should be implemented, and the operative word in that instance is "alongside" - equivalent to, together with, not separate from. The court also spoke at the time - and for your own reference this comes from Paragraph 38 of the second Marshall Decision - it says: "The notion of equitable sharing seems to be endorsed by the Coalition, which refers in its written argument on the motion to the equal importance of the fishing industry to both Mi'kmaq and non-Mi'kmaq persons." They are quoting one of the applicants in the court action at the time.

Finally, and I think it is instructive, the court said: "Equally, the Mi'kmaq treaty right to hunt and trade in game is not now any more than it was in 1760 a commercial hunt that must be satisfied before non-natives have access to the same resources for recreation or commercial purposes. The emphasis in 1999, as it was in 1760, is on assuring the Mi'kmaq equitable access to identified resources for the purpose of earning a moderate living. In this respect, a treaty right differs from an aboriginal right which in its origin, by definition, was exclusively exercised by aboriginal people prior to contact with Europeans."

So the point being in both those instances is that the court feels - and I believe that they have continued to be consistent with this in their other more recent decisions on Aboriginal rights and treaty rights not related to the fishery but related to other subjects - that when it comes to a commercial enterprise, there is consistency between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal fishermen in this instance. So that is our concern that it be implemented in DFO and DFO policy.

Finally, I would just like to, for your information, read to you the subject matter of a letter that we wrote to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans - and I would be happy to share a copy of this with you either after the fact or whenever - this is the recent letter, late in April, and it says that we believe the proposed fishery management agreements, as well as other agreements that involve conservation rules in other "on the water" fisheries management rules for Aboriginal fisheries could create a situation in which groups of commercial fishermen will be treated unequally or unfairly. A hallmark of the commercial fishery is that once a licence holder is on the water, he or she has the same opportunity to derive an economic return as all other commercial licence holders in that fishery.

We urge the department to maintain this "single commercial fishery concept" for all licence holders and a gear sector species vessel size and/or area grouping that defines a particular fishery. On the East Coast, your department - that's speaking to the minister - has been supportive of a single commercial fishery. We hope that fishery management agreements will not cause or be used to separate Aboriginal commercial fisheries from other commercial fisheries. We ask for assurances from you that the department will continue to manage the fishery as a single commercial fishery and that fishery management agreements or other agreements will not create separate commercial fisheries, or separate fishing rules, for Aboriginal Canadians in Atlantic Canada.

So it's a pretty small point, but it's a huge point if you think of the implications. We are concerned that the department be made aware of the possibility. I believe some of the department is, and we would just like to emphasize that fact. So thank you for the opportunity to be here today to highlight this concern that we have with regard to Bill C-45.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Jay.

MR. LUGAR: Would you like to do questions now, or that will be the afternoon portion?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe we'll wait until after all the presentations and then when we come to the round table group, that will be the time I believe for that. Our next presenter.

MR. DENNY MORROW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the House of Assembly. I'm Denny Morrow, Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. Our association has 58 member companies around the province. We estimate the value of our exports of seafood at somewhere over $400 million annually. With me today is one of our directors, Terry Zinck, and I'll let him introduce himself as well.

MR. TERRY ZINCK: My name is Terry Zinck. As Denny said, I'm a member of the board of directors of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. I also own a vertically integrated seafood company in Clarks Harbour and Cape Sable Island - an excellent seafood company.

MR. MORROW: I don't have a formal presentation. What I circulated to the members is something that we have tried to digest, the 110-page Fisheries Bill, small print, much of it written in legalese, difficult to understand, so what I have tried to do for our association members is to pull out sections of the bill that we think are of concern to us.

Also scattered throughout the bill there are certain themes, things to do with licensing - for example, you may find in one part of the bill and then you find it later and so on. So what I have tried to do here is to pull it out. I haven't always quoted verbatim from the bill - sometimes I have put it into my own words and you people, as legislators, know that sometimes there is danger in doing that because each one of these words, I'm sure, is crafted with some intent, but for the business person to try to understand this thing, it's difficult.

So I certainly want to compliment you today for having this session and giving the industry a chance to discuss it. There has been a great deal of media attention, I read articles from across the country; and politicians are speaking out on it. But what we have tried to do is look at the bill itself, see how it is going to affect us and the way we do business. So what I will do here today, and you can stop me when my time is up, is I am going to start at the beginning of the bill, and in the document that I presented to you I clearly indicated where it is our discussion, not the bill itself - you know, how we see this.

[10:30 a.m.]

So I will start with the consultation process. As of April 30^th, Bill C-45 seems to be stalled and that's when I put this document together on how consultation on the bill should be conducted. The Liberals and the NDP in Parliament seem to be supporting a hoist amendment which asks the government to start the consultation process before Bill C-45 goes to second reading. The government and the minister are saying that consultation should take place after second reading and under the guidance of the House Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

An opinion that we want to express, that one of the most important clauses, Clause 30.(1) which deals with licensing - and I will get to that a little later - for example could be amended as discussed below in this document and that would be a significant change in the bill. If that could be amended after second reading, then it would seem that moving Bill C-45 to second reading would not prevent the kind of discussion and possible amendments that critics of the current version of bill are advocating. If, however, the legislative process would not allow the kind of rewording of Clause 30.(1) suggested below, then hoisting the bill would be warranted, in our view. So I will get to that Clause 30.(1) in a few minutes.

In the preamble of the bill, there are about 12 "whereas" statements - these are kind of motherhood statements that are set out as guiding principles - and these statements have been criticized because they do not obligate DFO and the minister to do anything that is measurable in terms of success or failure. It might be interesting to take one of these guiding principles and put it to a test where results can be stated in concrete terms.

A suggestion - and we took one of those whereas statements - "Whereas Parliament intends that Canada's fisheries be managed sustainably, to benefit present and future generations of Canadians;". Opinion: DFO should request, with the consent of the fleets involved, that the Marine Stewardship Council conduct its sustainable fisheries certification analysis on two new different fisheries, each in the Atlantic and Pacific regions. This process would provide an objective, third-party review of at least four different fisheries to see if they are being sustainably managed. Not only would Parliament have a sustainability report card on these fisheries, but the certification process might provide some guidelines for the development of an accountability process in regard to the whereas above.

I might say that some of the biggest customers for seafood in the world, Wal-Mart, for example, has set a timeline where they will only be sourcing seafood products from fisheries that have been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council. That's a growing trend around the world - the Department of Fisheries and Oceans knows it, our members, certainly, are seeing it every day. I'm getting calls from companies - whether they're herring products or groundfish - asking what are we going to do about third-party sustainable certification? So, anyway, it's a suggestion.

Moving on to Fisheries Management Agreements/Programs and Projects. Clause 11 - the minister may undertake programs and projects whose objectives may include: improving the abilities of a fishing enterprise or organization, union, Aboriginal organization with regard to business management and the management of harvesting of fish; improving the fishing techniques of an organization's members - there are a number of things that these agreements can do.

Opinion: Many fishermen's groups have been saying for years that if co-management is to have any meaning, then DFO needs to invest in capacity building with fishermen's organizations so that they will have the skills and financial means to take on more management responsibilities. The opposing point of view, however, expressed is that DFO will be able to play favourites in deciding which groups to favour with capacity building projects.

Clause 12 goes on to talk about the minister facilitating implementation of these programs by making grants or contributions; making loans or loan guarantees; and the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Ministers of Fisheries and Finance, can make regulations respecting these grants and loans for projects and programs.

Opinion: An urban issues dominated Parliament has been reluctant to allocate more money to fisheries management and science in recent years. The question must be asked - what are the prospects for DFO to get additional public money to invest in capacity building and co-management projects? The expectation in the industry is likely that a little public money will be used to lever more money out of the industry. Like so many clauses in the bill, regulations - yet to be written - will spell out the implementation. For certain, the bill will give the minister and the bureaucracy more power and more flexibility.

Clause 13 talks about entering agreements and arrangements with any province, and I don't think it's an accident that the provincial departments, by and large, are supporting the adoption of Bill No. C-45.

Clause 43.(1) goes on about fisheries management agreements and the purpose of them, and details that a fisheries management agreement may establish who the group of persons or licence holders would be; the roles and powers; funding arrangements. For example, amounts that licence holders to whom the agreement applies are required to pay the organization - in other words, if a fisheries management agreement is done with a fishermen's organization, then DFO actually would be enforcing the contributions to that organization through the agreement. In some fishermen's groups that has been criticized.

Clause 43.(3), a fisheries management agreement can establish guidelines to be used by the tribunal - and the tribunal comes later in the bill - when it makes an order or penalty in respect to a major violation against a licence holder/person to whom the FMA applies. What's happening there is the fisheries management agreement actually would bring the fishermen's organization into the setting of penalties under the bill. So a person who has been charged and convicted may serve a penalty that the organization has recommended. Opinion: Regulations to be written will spell out how DFO will select the groups that are eligible for a fisheries management agreement. That's an important issue and it's not spelled out in the Act, it will come later in regulation. How will DFO pick

and choose? How will DFO decide that the group is representative and has the support of fishermen in the sector? What is meant by a class of persons?

The industry and DFO have had some experience with these kinds of projects called Joint Project Agreements. The courts, lately, have struck down some of these agreements when challenged by a fisherman - the Larocque decision, for example, a snow crab fisherman, I think.

There is no doubt that more investment in science is needed in some of our fisheries. Joint Project Agreements have been used by the industry and DFO to develop the necessary funding for some science projects. Again, without some kind of flexible mechanism that involves the industry and DFO as partners, where will the money come from to do the necessary science that makes fisheries management possible?

Then, going over to Clause 55 - and I'll be pointing this out, this is consistent throughout the bill - that Governor in Council can make regulations for entering into fisheries management agreements and their ratification. So we don't know what the criteria is going to be or what the regulations will say. Opinions are being expressed, cynics are saying that DFO will write regulations that could undermine equality among fishermen in a gear sector or a species fishery. The phrase "classes of persons" has triggered concerns.

Fees and cost recovery, this is important to all fishermen, all processors. I'll skip to the opinion part of it. Clause 17, "The Minister may, subject to any regulations that the Treasury Board . . . fix fees in respect of products, rights and privileges . . ." privileges in this case I guess would mean licences ". . . provided under this Act." The financial objectives and guidelines to ensure fairness across sectors and regions for licences and access fees are not stated. The clause above it, Clause 16, sets out some guidelines, Clause 18 sets out some guidelines, but Clause 17 does not. I think that's an important omission.

Opinion: There's a perceived lack of fairness or common principle in establishing licence fees for the various fisheries. Clause 17 does nothing to address that. In the ITQ groundfish fleet in South West Nova, for example, it's been the practice of DFO to charge access fees up front for the entire quota even if the quota cannot be caught due to bycatch issues or market conditions. Also, the guiding principle in setting access fees and licence fees with DFO seems to have been internal revenue targets and political considerations. Cost inputs in many fisheries have changed considerably in the last five years, and in some product markets margins have shrunk or disappeared in the face of competition from low-cost countries.

It might be prudent to ask what are the DFO objectives and rationale when it comes to setting access and licence fees in the different fisheries and regions? The

financial objective isn't stated and whether the rationale accounts for changing economic conditions in the different fisheries, everything is passed off to regulations that will be written later.

So go down to licensing, which is a very important issue, and once I've gone through these comments, I will ask Terry to comment from his point of view and his company's point of view. There are some definitions laid out first, but I'll skip right through to some of the important clauses: "27.(1) The Minister may make regulations respecting applications for licences and their issuance, including regulations respecting eligibility criteria."

Opinion: What will be the guiding principles for eligibility requirements for a licence? Guiding principles have been described for types of sanctions that may be applied by the courts or tribunal, the principles or objectives for alternative measures and fisheries management agreements. The Canadian fishery has evolved and certain licence renewal and transfer practices have become an expectation in the industry. The vagueness of Clause 27.(1) is a concern. The minister goes on - will be designating persons as licensing officers.

Clause 30.(1) which I talked about earlier: "A licence confers privileges and not any right of property, and may not be transferred."

Opinion: This clause is proving to be one of the most contentious in the bill because it does not reflect recent court decisions, lending practices or the value that has come to be attached to a licence in the marketplace. A court in the recent Royal Bank of Canada vs Saulnier decision said that a fishing licence is an intangible property, even if it isn't a tangible piece of property. That decision went on to say that there is also an expectation that the licence can be transferred to the buyer of choice, limited by conditions in the regulations.

The wording in the above clause seems to describe the attributes of a lobster licence, for example, in the State of Maine, but not in Nova Scotia. If a lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia wants to leave the fishery, he can find a buyer for his licence and the price may reach, I will just use $500,000, in some areas. He can request that DFO transfer his licence to that buyer, and there is an expectation that the transfer will take place and thus support the monetary transaction. In many cases, the sale price will be the core of the fisherman's retirement.

[10:45 a.m.]

In Maine, when a lobster fisherman retires, the licence ceases to exist and there is no buyer or expectation of a transfer. Depending on the lobster fishing area in Maine, a new fisherman can enter the fishery from a list of applicants who have served in an

apprenticeship. A set fee is paid to the state for a new licence. If we are replacing a 137-year-old Fisheries Act in order to better reflect today's fishery and commercial realities, shouldn't we try to describe the process that we actually use to transfer a licence?

Clause 30.(1) might be worded in a positive manner to reflect today's reality - a licence confers privileges and has intangible property attributes and there is an expectation that a licence holder can transfer a licence to a buyer of choice subject to the following limitations as described in the regulations, and the minister could set those out. Again, I will go back and emphasize if we can't change Clause 30.(1) after second reading, then perhaps Bill C-45 should be hoisted.

"Clause 31. A licensing officer may refuse to issue a licence to an applicant who meets the eligibility criteria set out in the regulations or interim orders made under section 27. . ." above.

I will go down to subclause (b) of that. "Clause 31.(b) the licensing officer has reasonable grounds . . . " and I have underlined that ". . . to believe that the applicant has, with respect to the licence, entered into an agreement whose purpose is contrary to the regulations or interim orders made under section 27;"

We certainly have a problem with subsection (b), and I have underlined reasonable grounds. I have asked, at some of these information sessions that DFO has had on the bill, if I call up a licensing officer and say that my neighbour, Terry Zinck, who has a lobster licence, I believe is in violation of some regulation, has never been accused or convicted, is that grounds for denying him renewal of his licence or a new licence? I was told no, that would be hearsay. Then I asked, what might you do? Might you present him with a piece of paper saying sign here? Yes, we might do that. I see in some of the communiqués that have come out from DFO since the owner/operator policy was announced on April 12^th that there is going to be an internal DFO committee that will be reviewing licence applications, licence renewals. It sounds like a court to me, but you don't get a chance to present your case.

Going on to Clause 32, if a licensing officer refuses to issue a licence or does not issue it within a certain reasonable period after an application, the applicant may appeal to the tribunal within the prescribed period. I point out that the Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing licences or classes of licence for Clause 32 - appeals to the tribunal, apparently, not all licence applications will have this appeal mechanism. You have to read through the entire bill to understand that.

Clause 206, for example, the Governor in Council may make regulations pertaining to imposing fees to be charged with respect to licence appeals under Clause 32 and proceedings in relation to violations and prescribing the amount of the fees. So, in

other words, if your licence application is denied by the licensing officer, you can appeal to the tribunal, and you're going to pay the costs of the appeal.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Denny, maybe we could let the rest of the presenters go on. We could get back to this, maybe starting at the controlling agreements, in the round table, when we get to it, if you wouldn't mind.

MR. MORROW: Okay, fine, yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Zinck, would you like to present, please.

MR. TERRY ZINCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I want to talk about as well, I want to focus on the licensing section of the bill and transferability and how it's affected by the recent regulations that are being legislated with regard to the owner/operator policy. If you would like, I can talk about it now, or I can talk about it later at the round table discussion. It's entirely up to you folks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Maybe we could do that at the round table when we start on the controlling agreements. Would that be all right?

MR.TERRY ZINCK: Sure, part and parcel with the controlling agreements, that might be well suited.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Our next presenter, please.

MR. ASHTON SPINNEY: Honourable members, my name is Ashton Spinney. I have the pleasure of being chairman and co-chairman of LFA 34 Management Board/ Advisory Committee. I come today, first of all, saying to you all that we definitely need a new Act. There's no question there. The areas that we enter into here, this is only just a brief look at Bill C-45, and there are some areas that create some concern for us, thereby we felt it was important to take up your invitation to be here today. I would much rather be on the water. When I left home it was sunny and beautiful - no it wasn't, it was dark, but it was nice out.

On behalf of LFA 34 Management Board, I would like to thank the Nova Scotia Government for recognizing the importance of having a strong and fair federal Fisheries Act, for providing a forum for fish harvesters and community groups to provide insight and the impact of this bill and for an opportunity to discuss the contents of the proposed bill. LFA 34 Management Board acknowledges that many components of this proposed bill deal effectively with fisheries' concerns. This is only our preliminary assessment of the bill. Please understand, as an organization, we cannot carry out an in-depth review of the proposed Fisheries Bill 2007 until the end of our Spring fishery. There is concern of whether we will be given sufficient time to carry out an industry review of the bill in

order to develop and to submit our recommended changes - and I would add, amendments - to the proposed Fisheries Bill 2007. My next question is whether Minister Loyola Hearn will incorporate the necessary amendments into the new Fisheries Bill 2007?

This presentation deals specifically with a major piece that this bill neglects by omission - I won't go into great depth on this - the owner/operator and fleet separation, and the clauses that deal with aquaculture and tribunals, et cetera.

Numerous reviews of the proposed Fisheries Bill 2007 make note that the existing 138-year-old Fisheries Act needs to be modernized. What these reviews fail to mention is that the existing Act enabled the establishment of the first Canadian Department of Fisheries - under a different name - with a mandate to deal with two critical issues that independent fish harvesters and most provincial governments of coastal provinces recognize as priorities of current times - to protect fish stocks and to protect the economic, social and cultural foundation of fishing communities in Canada.

The state of our oceans, and the state of our fisheries resources demonstrates that these two original DFO mandates are even more critical today than at the time of Confederation. It was recognized by the federal government in 1868 that fisheries technology could wipe out fish stocks and fisheries jobs and thereby destroy the economic, social and cultural foundation of Canadian coastal communities. The LFA34 Management Board strongly advises that the Fisheries Bill 2007 maintain the intent of the 138-year- old Fisheries Act in a manner that requires DFO to protect the fish stocks, fish habitat and coastal communities dependent on these resources. The Fisheries Bill 2007 must include the owner/operator and fleet separation policies thus bringing these policies to a higher level of federal law. In Part 1, Clause 26, under Licensing, include that the holder of a fishing licence must fish the licence and be the primary beneficiary of its financial rewards. The holder of fish quota mush fish the quota and must be the primary beneficiary of its financial rewards.

The inclusion of these two policies - owner/operator and fleet separation - in the new Act, would give these policies the force of law. Inclusion of the owner/operator and fleet separation into legislation would put to rest the fears of DFO privatizing public renewable resources within the fisheries.

Rationale: For over 30 years there has been absolutely no political will within DFO to acknowledge the existence of the owner/operator and fleet separation policies. In fact, the intent and directives by DFO decision makers has been to ignore the existence of these policies, which is clearly shown in a number of inshore fleets DFO has allowed to become vertically integrated. To add insult to injury, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans intends to reward those who knowingly manipulated and contravened these DFO policies with a grandfather clause. This alone proves the point that DFO cannot effectively deal with the owner/operator and fleet separation through policy. The recent announcement

about the fleet exemptions made on April 12^th by Minister Hearn is in opposition to recommendations made by DFO in two rounds of the Atlantic Fisheries Policy Review and is in opposition to the recommendation made by John Hanlon. The result of all three reviews showed a unanimous response to DFO that the owner/operator and fleet separation policies must be maintained, strengthened and enforced.

Summary:

i) After 30 years of failing to implement or to enforce owner/operator and fleet separation policies, DFO continues to claim that owner/operator and fleet separation can deal with it by fisheries policies.

ii) The recent announcement by federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn further substantiates that DFO cannot put into practice a mechanism to deal with owner/operator and fleet separation policies within the inshore fishing fleets of Eastern Canada. The announcement of April 12^th included fleet exemptions to the independent core status which further substantiates and validates the DFO managers' past intent to privatize through vertical integration of the East Coast inshore fisheries industry.

iii) Those fisheries fleets the minister exempted from the new regulations further substantiates a strength of support within the federal fisheries management bureaucracy to reward those who knowingly contravened federal fisheries policies. Where is the fleet separation policy?

[11:00 a.m.]

iv) Current and past management practices within DFO is proof that DFO cannot deal with such important policies as owner/operator fleet separations that were put into place 30 years ago to protect the fish stocks and fishing communities.

A question that begs for a response from Minister Hearn: What are you, Minister Hearn, telling the youth of our great country by your action to reward those who knowingly connived to contravene federal public policies? Canadian youth, be sure to watch closely to see how our government can be manipulated and controlled to make fisheries policies ineffective. If you're smart enough, you can devise a plan to control and monopolize a Canadian public resource for your own personal gain at the expense of the economic, social and cultural fabric of rural communities in Canada, and you do this regardless of federal policies. If you show the federal government you can do this, you'll be highly rewarded for your efforts.

The federal government must own up to past mistakes that allowed the vertical integration of the inshore fishing fleets in a manner that contravened existing federal policies and put into place the mechanism to correct this wrongdoing.

The current minister must seize this opportunity to right this serious wrong and to prevent fisheries' monopolies and fish lords in Atlantic Canada. Incorporate owner/operator and fleet separation in the Fisheries Act 2007. Cancel the exempted fleet status concocted to reward those who knowingly contravene these policies.

There are some clauses in here that I just thought we'd bring to your attention. Page 16, the Fisheries Bill, the new proposed Fisheries Bill, Clause 6.(a), we suggest a change there, and it reads the minister must take into account the principles of sustainable development and must apply an ecosystem approach to the management of fisheries and in the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat, that was 6.(a); 6.(b), we also strongly suggest that must apply as a precautionary approach. In this clause, the terms sustainable development, ecosystem approach, and precautionary approach must be defined. I'll read that again because it's important - in this clause, the terms "sustainable development, ecosystem approach, precautionary approach" must be defined. The word "seek" must be deleted and the words "must apply"must be used in the bill.

Under Agreements with Provinces, Page 17, Clause 7, and the Fisheries Management Agreements on Page 26, they suggest the minister must publish an agreement. The method to publish agreements must be easily accessible to the public and in a timely manner. Programs and Projects on Page 18, Clause 11.(c), we need to define economic viability - and later this afternoon in our round table, I'm sure we can look at how you understand economic viability.

I'll just depart from my presentation for a second. You may fish all year and only have $100 to your name when you finish the year, you've paid your bills, you've fed your family and you have no huge bank account - is it economically viable? The thinking of the day is if you don't have a big bank account at the end of the year, or a big bottom line, you're not economically viable. I think that's a dangerous precedent to be allowing to not be spelled out in our new fisheries bill. Anyhow, it's just a thought for you two, and these are thoughts for you people too.

Clause 11.(d) promoting adjustment in a fishery, including industry restructuring - that should be clarified. Enter into agreements, arrangements with any person, body - boy, Clause 13.(a), that needs to be clarified. I've heard other presenters here really question that. There's a serious need here, and I agree with the comments that were made.

Clause 16 - and under 17 also - the minister may fix fees. Under 16, the fees may not exceed the cost, but the minister may fix fees in respect to products, rights and privileges provided under the bill. This is in addition to fees set under the approval of the Treasury Board? So we see this as a downright right by the government to download all the costs to us as fishermen, as fish harvesters.

Allocations - buyers, processors can secure their means of access to fisheries resources through traditional methods of purchasing fish from fish harvesters. The buyers who pay a fair price for landed catch maintain their access to available landed catches. Those buyers who have difficulty to maintain access to the fish resource sometimes as a result of direct bad business practice as a result of the buyers' business practices.

There is no need to give property rights of fish quota for 15 years. This is, in fact, a privatization of the fishing resource. It took less than 15 years for a quota management system to bring about the demise of the groundfishery and brought the Atlantic cod stock to near extinction.

Fisheries Management Agreements. One commercial fishery, there must be one set of rules and regulations for all participants in the same fishery. This ensures an equal and fair treatment of all Canadians, including inshore fleets, First Nations, communal, commercial licences. DFO cannot perpetuate the division of fleets by signing on to co-management agreements with a minority faction within a fleet, or different agreements with separate groups within the same industry.

Fisheries Management and Conservation and Protection of Fish. Part 1, Page 21, Clause 25.(2), we suggest an amendment there of an insert - the minister "must" to replace may, that's to replace may; the minister must. The minister must take into account (a) to (g), fairness, fishers' adjacency, et cetera.

Page 24 and Page 28, here's one that is really concerning to us, aquaculture. In Clause 36. "The Minister may issue leases for aquaculture purposes." Clause 49 reads, "No person shall fish in any area to which a lease issued under section 36 applies, or set in such an area any fishing gear or equipment, except by permission of the leaseholder, and no person shall interfere with activities authorized by the lease." Clause 49 must be deleted. If you don't think so, we have included, if you look along the little map that is there that we have of the coastline of Nova Scotia and you see all those green dots on your paper that you have before you, those are all leased areas. That prohibits me as a commercial fisherman from going anywhere near those leased areas under this new proposed Fisheries Bill. This causes great concern to us here.

DFO must ensure existing fisheries that use areas identified as aquaculture lease sites are not displaced - refer to the map, it shows you below. A conflict of interest is inherent in DFO's critical mandate as protector of Canadian fish stocks and protector of fish habitat and ecosystems at the same time being responsible to develop aquaculture.

Some of the reasons why aquaculture development conflicts with DFO's mandate to protect fish and fish habitat:

i) Chemicals introduced in the water column by aquaculture to kill sea fleas are also detrimental to other species.

ii) Medications administered to farmed fish to control fish stress and diseases are introduced into the water column, therefore introduced to other ocean species that natural habitat is the area in or near aquaculture sites.

iii) Residues of these medications are found within the farmed fish sold as a food product.

iv) Pollution of large areas of fish habitat from farmed fish waste products is a long-standing issue yet to be resolved.

v) Aquaculture sites deny public access to large areas of ocean, that's if this goes through. Large areas of ocean.

vi) Aquaculture sites displace other fisheries in fish farm areas.

vii) Aquaculture displaces other ocean species from their natural fish habitat in fish farm areas.

viii) Aquaculture does nothing to increase existing fish stocks but actually increases the depletion of existing fish stocks that are used as feed for farmed fish.

ix) Acquaculture sites increase the biomass of sea fleas, thus increase the demise of fish larvae and juvenile fish stocks that exist or migrate in or near aquaculture sites.

x) Escaped genetically-modified farmed fish threaten the existing natural biomass of the fish species.

These are concerns that we raised about this. There may be safe ways, but these things need to be nailed down.

Fisheries Act Tribunals: I'm glad that Mr. Morrow raised that area, we have a concern here. The concern is if it is going to be a political appointment by one Party in power for these tribunals, we have strong problems with that. If it's multi-Party, all political Parties, much the same as you have here today, then we feel there's more fairness to us in that so, thereby, it's important that the tribunal also be made up of a cross section. They must be knowledgeable - we put in here - about Canada's fisheries resources. They must be knowledgeable. With that, we're looking forward to the round table. Thank you.

[11:15 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ashton. That was some pretty good input from Bill C-45. I read it three times, and you just pointed out some things there that I didn't read just right either. So this will be a good opener for debate here in Atlantic Canada, I believe.

With that, if you all want to come to the table right now, or if you want to have a five minute break of some kind, too, I think we should go right on and maybe stop at 12:00 p.m. and then we can reconvene after some lunch, if we need to, and go on. So if you would like to come to the table now and we'll have a round table discussion.

We'll need a few minutes anyway to see where people will be sitting so Hansard will know exactly who's speaking at the right time. Pick your seat anywhere.

I call this round table to order. We were scheduled to go until 12:00 p.m., but we could go on until 12:30 p.m. and see how far we are at that time and, if we need more time, we can take a break for lunch, because we have the room until 3:00 p.m. if need be.

With that, I would like to start off with my colleagues asking a question to get it going. Before you speak, could you just say your name for the record, for Hansard, so they will know who is speaking. (Interruption)

MR. SPINNEY: Some of these people, we don't know who they are, maybe we could have introductions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we can do a round table introduction. We will start here with Denny.

[The witnesses introduced themselves]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, with that, we will start with Mr. Belliveau, please.

MR. STERLING BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, I do want to thank all the ladies and gentlemen for your presence here today. I really value your participation, and I think Nova Scotia will be enriched by the discussions here today.

I just want to make note of a couple of comments. I have a number of questions but, because of time, I'm going to start off with one or two first. I want to kind of end with the last speaker's presentation who talked about tribunals and his concerns of fairness, about people being knowledgeable and participating on such a tribunal, if that will actually evolve.

If I can just lead back to Mr. Denny Morrow's presentation regarding Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. Mr. Morrow, I want to emphasize a point that you made, I want to get it correct. You, in your observation of the Fisheries Bill in general, had difficulty in explaining some of the wording in that. Am I correct in that evaluation?

MR. MORROW: Well, it is written in legalese, and we are business people, so you have to understand it, and the implementation, when I go through the various clauses, usually the nuts and bolts of it are yet to be defined in regulation. I understand that when the House of Assembly or Parliament passes an Act that it's a framework, and then it's regulations that really implement things but in our business, where we are so highly regulated, you start to say well, what are the regulations going to say, and you start to put some hypotheses forward. I certainly did that.

I hope at some point here today that I will get a chance to - a big section of the bill is on conservation, protection of fish, fish habitat, and pollution prevention. That part, a lot of it will affect fish plants around the province. I really want to comment on that because the tendency so far is to just discuss the bill as it affects fishermen.

MR. BELLIVEAU: The point I would like to make, Mr. Chairman, is that I was going to use Mr. Morrow's credibility here. I just want to give people a background. I think what I heard is that you had difficulty with the wording of this particular bill. I want to highlight Mr. Morrow's background. It's my understanding that you are a representative of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. You also have an educational background. You have been on many boards. You also represent the fisheries alliance. I made note of that. I'm not here to review your resumé, but I think this is a very valid

point, that the terminology in this particular bill is very vague. There are people who need to understand this.

I will give you a scenario here, that some lawyer or some judge in 50 years time is going to look at the wording of this document. We have a 138- , 139-year-old Act now, in 50 years if some lawyer or some judge does a review or decision on this particular wording - and I think I would feel very comfortable with Mr. Denny Morrow's background, of feeling comfortable with your observation that there are some words in there that you are not comfortable with, I take great concern and reservations about that. I think this bill needs to be clear. That's the point that I'm trying to make. If somebody of your qualifications cannot interpret this bill, we have a problem with the bill, and the bill needs to be very straightforward and I think it needs to be in terms we all can understand. I would just like to ask for some discussion with some of the presenters on that particular point, because I think a lot of these particular policies and clauses in here are very vague.

I'll leave you with one other note. My understanding of Denny Morrow's explanation, there was one clause in it, Clause 30, about the transfer of licences, and this was the other point, the very first clarification that the federal minister made was to send out a fax suggesting that these licences can be transferred - the complete opposite of what's being said in Clause 30.(1). I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, and the members present here, I think that's what you alluded to, is that if there's going to be one particular clause that needs to be amended, that's the one we need to get all political Parties - I think the other speaker addressed it, that they want to feel comfortable.

To me, there is the olive branch here, if we can suggest, maybe from this committee today, that here is an approach that we can ask all political Parties to sign an agreement that that one clause will be amended to read the way we know it should read, that these licences can be transferred. There's two points that I'm going to put out for discussion. I'd like to hear some response.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like to respond to that, Mr. Morrow?

MR. MORROW: Well, everything that I've heard out of Ottawa has been that it's time that we took, I guess, a 138-year-old Act - I said 137 - and brought it up to date. If it doesn't reflect reality, today, the way we do things - we have two members here, I believe, who have lobster licences, when you fellows decide you want to go out of the business, I'm sure you expect to sell your licence, find a buyer for it. That's the way we do business. The horse is out of the barn, this isn't Maine, so why shouldn't Clause 30, Part 1 - I suggested some wording just as a starting point, and I understand the minister has the prerogative to set out some conditions on transferability, that you can't go out and find somebody in Dorchester, for example, there are bound to be some limitations on it, but there's an expectation that you can find a buyer and you can make a financial transaction when you get rid of your licence.

[11:30 a.m.]

That's not the case down in Maine. Clause 30.(1) describes what actually happens in Maine, not what happens here in Nova Scotia or the rest of Atlantic Canada. To me, that's a basic starting point, and if this goes to second reading and you can't change that to reflect reality, then it shouldn't go to second reading.

MR. SPINNEY: I agree with Mr. Morrow's comments, that it shouldn't go to second reading if that can't be amended and clarified. It should be clarified. If there's no amendment, there should be a clarification that there is a way of transferring licences. I believe they brought it about for the minister's recent announcement, it is called independent core. Every fisherman now will become an independent core, he has until the end of October to sign an application form, a declaration to DFO stating his situation with his licence. Then there will be an assessment made of that, and he will be classified as independent core as long as he doesn't have a controlling agreement.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there any questions? Mr. MacLeod.

MR. ALFRED MACLEOD: I'm still interested in hearing, in relation to Sterling's question, about the way the bill is written and the way people are comprehending the bill. Again, going back to Mr. Morrow's issue, I've been reading a lot of Acts lately and I still sometimes have the same question, so I guess I'm wondering, in your case with some of your fishermen, and your case, I'd like to hear some of that back if we could.

MS. BOUDREAU: In Guysborough County we have 109 lobster licence holders, probably two crew members on each boat, of those 300 or so fishermen, how many do we think are actually going to read this bill? My estimate would be six. Unfortunately, that is reality. What they will read is Mr. Spinney's interpretation of the bill; they will read Mr. Morrow's interpretation of the bill; and they will read Ms. Baker Stevens' interpretation of the bill. They will read that because it's in layman's terms. It's in their terms and, not only that, it's reflective - what they say is going to be the reality on the boat, on the wharf.

Mr. Sterling Belliveau, when he met with us in Guysborough County, stated that as well - that if you want people to react to this bill and to respond to it and to interpret it, it has to be in terms that they can understand. So, you know, the bill is confusing. It is confusing and most times, speaking from their point of view, they really don't care what's in the bill, the wording - it's the interpretation, it's what's actually going to happen to them because of this bill. We can sit here all day and try to guess what's going to happen - and that's what it would be, it would be an informed, educated guess. Of course, as managers, I guess that's what we're expected to do. Will we be right? Will we be wrong? It's anybody's guess. Do I understand what's in this bill? No, I don't and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I do. I'll do my best to read it, interpret it, and put it out there and say this is what we interpret - what are your thoughts? You know, where have I gone wrong - and I guess that's sort of why we're sitting here.

In response to Ashton's comments on the transferring of the licences, and Denny's, we don't have a problem with the clarification. We would like to have the clarification on the transfer of licences. We think licences should be transferred. You should be able to, if you're getting out of the fishery then somebody else should be able to get in. The criteria should be there and we expect that it will be there. When we say we don't have any glaring concerns with the bill, that is why, because we expect that we will be contributing to that criteria, and if we don't like it then we're going to be right back here saying the criteria is where we're going to be consulting, and we're moulding this bill to something that's useable for our industry. I hope there will be more people there to do the moulding because it's going to take a lot.

MS. NELLIE BAKER STEVENS: I agree with everything actually that Ginny has to say. As an organization - and we have over 200 members, plus of course their crew who go out - I don't know for sure that even one has read it. And I'll be truthful with you - because I knew I was coming today I spent yesterday afternoon going through it. I thought I should know probably what I'm talking about. I don't think I'm any further ahead after reading it. I've written, interpreted, how I wanted to see it.

There are things, as a coordinator, that we coordinate many fisheries on the Eastern Shore with multi-species, right? As a coordinator for the fishermen, I looked at it and I said I think I can use this; I think this is going to help us. I see good things in it, but that's my interpretation, and when we meet with DFO - my understanding is it's when or if this gets passed - we're going to be sitting with DFO to work out the details. It's not done - once this gets passed, my understanding is there are going to be lots of meetings, lots of consultations on the interpretation and the detail, and that's where I plan on making sure that what my interpretation is will come to light.

There are a lot of very good things in here that will help us. I'm sure that Ginny sees it there, and I'm hoping the rest of you have looked and you see very good things for organizations that are trying to co-manage the fishery. When you're dealing with several species, I liked the flexibility in here, and I heard Ashton talk about you have to change some things to must - well it was explained to us why some things are "must" and some are "shall", and the shall is because you need flexibility. Every industry and every set of fleets are not exactly the same and every area can be different. When there were consultations way back in 2001, that is something we said - one size doesn't fit all.

We questioned that, too. Because it all looked good, like adjacency and all this equal and fair communities, et cetera, why isn't it "must"? Because they're very important things - each and every one of those points are very important. But they explained to us and now it makes sense to me, "shall", because once you put "must" in there that's it for everybody, whether or not it is Cape Breton or South West Nova, if you say "must", adjacency for example, that's locked in, you can no longer backpedal and change it - well maybe it works in this area, but maybe for this fleet or this particular time, it doesn't work here. So I'd like the flexibility, and I expect years of consultations

with DFO when, or if, this gets passed. This, to me, is the stage that is going to be set for the industry and then it is what do we do with it and how is it interpreted, and that to me is the big job.

Let's get this through, with its warts; let's get it through and then let's begin what I call the real work - to sit down and interpret it. And I plan, on behalf of our fishermen, to interpret it in the best light possible that will help us the most.

Of course what Denny says, the way that Clause 30 sounds, a transfer of licence, I have questions on that as well. Actually the few phone calls I got were on that particular clause because fishermen believe that they own their licences. Actually my husband is a fisherman and we're planning on that - that's our retirement; that's already planned. So when you say that it cannot be transferred, that was a question of DFO that I had. They explained to us that this isn't anything unusual, this is policy; this has been policy since whenever. But they go - when you go and ask for a transfer - how many times have you been said no to? It's automatic, it is done, but it's very scary, for a fisherman who believes that it is theirs and they're making their long-term plans on it, to say that it cannot be.

I agree with everybody else here who says that wording really should be looked at. If they need to put criteria exceptions, anything, if they want to put a whole new section in, that it can be transferred, go ahead. That cannot be transferred, and that's really, in my mind, what the fishermen are having the problem with, not the rest of the bill - not that they're reading it. But if that answers your question - maybe I went on too much on that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Baker Stevens.

Mr. Zinck.

MR. TERRY ZINCK: Denny mentioned earlier in his presentation that it seems - and understandably so - that a lot of discussions surrounding the new bill are dominated by harvester issues. Although we are involved in harvesting, my company is a processing company and I've been involved in seafood processing and marketing for over 20 years.

I just want to reiterate, from a processor's perspective, what's being said around the room with respect to how the bill is written and how it can be interpreted. I think when I read the bill, and I can get a good understanding of the content and the intent of the bill, however what's alarming are some of the things that jump out at us - and I think that's the same with any document, you read a document, there are certain things that jump out at you - this one is even more alarming because it is intended to become a parliamentary document and one that's going to lead our industry for many, many years to come.

In saying that, that's the reason we are here today. I think we have a responsibility and due diligence, as players in the industry today, to make sure this bill is right, that it is crafted properly and we're not just thinking about our current situation, the situation of ourselves, but the generations to follow.

In saying that and getting back to a couple of these things - and I could pick out a lot, but there are a couple that really jumped out at me - one is under Clause 55. It actually talks about classes of persons with respect to FMAs and, when I read that, if nothing else as a layman, but more importantly as a citizen of the Country of Canada, I thought we had gotten beyond that with our Canadian Constitution. I cannot believe - and again, maybe not being able to understand the intent, but I believe I do understand the intent - that we are thinking about moving a bill through Parliament which in the 21^st Century refers to classes of persons in our society. I just wanted to point that out - it makes me very uncomfortable and it is echoed by many people who are familiar with the bill and have taken the time to read it.

The other thing, of course, which has been echoed here over and over again - and I want to take my turn, if I may, Mr. Chairman, to echo it again, and it centres around licensing, transferability, et cetera. The thing that, again, jumps out at me with that is that we have this bill which became public the early part of the year, and we started reviewing it and when we got to the section on licensing and transferability, of course, as has been discussed here today, I guess for some of us we couldn't believe what we were reading. It affects anyone who is involved in fishing licences. Denny pointed out that there are a couple of you in the room today who have fishing licences and obviously you're not fishing them, but that may indicate that indeed yourselves and many like you have arrangements where you can continue to get economic results from that licence.

[11:45 a.m.]

Then on April 12^th we were introduced to the new regulations of the owner/operator policy, and something I would like to point out before I get into that is it's ironic to me that we are having so much debate with respect to this new Fisheries Bill - not that we are having the debate, I think that is very valuable and important, but what keeps coming to the table is the fact that the Act is 138 years old, over a century old. The owner/operator policy is over a quarter of a century old. A lot is made of the fact that we can't use a parliamentary Act that was a century old to govern our industry today. I think it is also fair to say that it's equally as important to recognize the fact that it is difficult to use another policy, being the owner/operator policy, 30-plus years old, to govern our industry today.

That being said, it's moving forward and I would like to talk about that from not only a processor's perspective, but also from the perspective that we gathered from our fishermen. When I introduced my company earlier, I told you that we were a vertically integrated company. Most of you, I'm sure, in the room know what that means - it means

that we're involved in harvesting, processing, secondary processing and marketing of our seafood products. I find it kind of entertaining that from time to time those of us in the inshore industry who are directly involved in harvesting are referred to as "fish lords" - that actually was mentioned earlier today in Ashton's presentation - and the reason I find that entertaining is when you have the connotation of a lord, the connotation is usually great profits and great wealth. I just want to qualify that I'm speaking here today as a fish commoner - I certainly don't qualify as a fish lord. However, we are vertically integrated and we are involved in harvesting of the seafood that supplies our plant.

There is certainly debate out there on whether seafood companies should be involved in harvesting, and thus the reflection on the owner/operator policy in the new regulations. There was a time when the industry talked about vertical integration they usually looked on the bigger companies, the offshore companies - some are still in existence, some are gone - they were vertically integrated and over time the quota that was deemed necessary to run their operations was grandfathered into their operations in the offshore. Enterprise allocations, as they were known, became exempt from anything relative to the owner/operator policy.

A lot has been said over the past 30 years since the owner/operator policy was written, that DFO has done a poor job in actually implementing the regulations that are attached to the owner/operator policy, and thus today they're going to fix that.

I suggest that the reason that ignorance, if you will, to the application of the owner/operator policy is because the industry was evolving well beyond anything that the owner/operator policy was intended to do. The owner/operator policy was intended, of course, to separate church and state, meaning that fishermen would be fishermen and processors would be processors and never should the two combine their interests.

In talking about that, quite briefly, we see as vertically integrated processors that in fact even the owner/operator policy as it is written today, in the new regulations, continues to contradict the intent of the policy in the first place. I'll give you an example: As a processor it should be that I cannot be directly involved in harvesting. In other words, I can't have interests in licences to benefit my fishermen, or myself for that matter; however, a fisherman can own a fish plant, can own a lobster tank house and can be involved in marketing, a direct contradiction of the owner/operator policy which says that the two shall be separate.

We have no problem with that and, as processors, I think you'll find that you don't hear that coming to the table very often. The reason that we don't have a problem with it up until now is because the policy was not regulated to the letter and we were able to involve ourselves in harvesting - which we felt was a much-needed part of our companies in order to survive - supply of raw material.

DFO claims that the so-called involvement of the industry in inshore licensing, inshore harvesting licences, was going on and they weren't a party to it - and in some cases they will claim that they weren't knowledgeable of it. I have a problem with that, I have first-hand knowledge, I've been at meetings over the past 20 years, particularly during the downturn of the industry, where DFO told us just the opposite. They told us - our cry during the downturn was what are we going to do for fish? The quotas are being cut, fishermen can't go fishing, they don't have enough fish to go fishing with, our boats are laying idle at the wharf, how are we going to run our plants? - you have to combine your operations, you have to combine, you have to go out and secure your supply of raw material any which way you can.

What will come to light over the next several months - because there's a six-month period to initiate the final step of putting the regulations in place for the owner/operator policy - is that DFO was very knowledgeable and, at times, actually played a part and gave advice on how processors could get themselves involved in certain harvesting practices.

That being said, I just want to give you a quick example of what it means to my company. We have had many consultations just over the past week or so, both by teleconference and meeting room gatherings of industries and fishers alike, to discuss the new regulations concerning the owner/operator policy.

If a company has a group of licences which they have purchased or have an interest in, they obviously have to put those licences in the hands of fishers in order to exercise the use of the licences and gain the quota attached to them. There is a connotation out there that if a processor holds the interest in a fishing licence it is taking something away from the fishermen. In some cases that may be true, however I can give you first-hand examples of where that is not the case. Very often these licences have come into the hands of processors within the last 10 to 15 years - as the industry downturned, the quotas were cut and these inshore licences were no longer viable to the individual fisherman who held them. In other words, there wasn't enough fish left on the licence for them to make it economically feasible to go fishing, so they opted out of the industry.

Getting back to what we talked about earlier and what has been said around the table - there was an expectation that the licence had some value to someone, and part of their retirement, if you will, from the industry with some dignity was to sell the licence to someone who could use it and they would bow out of the industry - very much supported by the industry as a whole and by the federal government, DFO as a whole, less players. As a matter of fact, as you all know, DFO actually initiated a buyout process of their own back in the early 1990s.

So what was happening was these licences were becoming available. To an individual fisherman, they were at that time, and remain today, almost useless. If a

fisherman had to acquire that licence and generate a fishing enterprise from it, there wasn't enough fish allocated to that licence to do so. So the result of that is that you look at the package, a group of licences. For example, and this is the example I'm going to give you, a company like mine, and several others, many others in Atlantic Canada, would be approached by the fisherman who wanted out of the industry - are you interested in buying me out? Well, of course we are, because at the same time we're looking at securing our supply of raw material. Again, it could be fair to say, well, just as easily a fisherman could acquire that same licence. You have to keep in mind, and it's paramount, that that licence would be literally useless to a fisherman, simply because it's not economically viable to fish it.

So the licences were acquired by the companies. Something else I want to add, a lot has been made in the new owner/operator regulations of support from the chartered banks, registered financial institutions as they're referred to, for buying licences. I've had probably 15 fishermen in my office over the past week discussing this issue. I can assure you, that of those 15, a very small percentage of those fishermen would have the wherewithal to go into the bank; even today, if I were to offer them up a licence that we have an interest in, they would not have the wherewithal to acquire the funding necessary from a financial institution to buy that licence from me. Furthermore, there seems to be a connotation in the owner/operator policy that the banks are going to take the licence as collateral - although that is contrary to the new bill and how transferability is referred to in the Act - they would be able to take that licence as collateral and lend the fisherman the money to buy it from me or to buy it from another fisherman who may hold more than one licence.

That's not the case, and we are in discussions with the banks right now. That isn't the case, because the fisherman not only has to put up a licence for collateral, he has to put up his house for collateral, his car for collateral, his first-born son, and whatever else the banks may ask for, assuming he has a good credit to get him that far. You have to remember that many of these fishermen have struggled over the past decade and a half and it has affected their credit, not unlike some processors in our industry. The security that the banks and lending institutions feel in financing, for example, companies like mine to buy interest in licences is because we have an infrastructure that allows us to verify that we are able to pay the bank back on whatever monies may be lent. It becomes part of our overall operation of our company, as opposed to an individual going in and wanting to borrow the money to buy a licence. As an analogy, if an individual goes in to buy a car, depending on their credit, there's a lot of red tape and a lot of paperwork that may follow in order for them to get a loan. If I go in to buy a truck for my company, a lot of that is reduced because I already have established credit with the financial institution.

Anyway, that being said, what's happening now, and the result of the gathering of this interest in licences, is that it has done two things, it has allowed me to secure a supply for my company, and certainly not a supply that's healthy enough that without any other supply my company will operate, because that's not the case, but what it has allowed me

to do is take the licences and the attached quota from fishermen who have decided to opt out of the industry and feed it back to the fishermen who are trying to stay in the industry. Meaning that fishermen come to me, arrangements that I have with fishermen, already have existing fishing licences, their dilemma is that they have decided to stay in the industry while their next-door neighbour, who is a fisherman, decided to opt out of the industry, however, they still don't have necessarily enough quota to go fishing. So they come to me and say, Terry, can we make an arrangement? Of course we can. What ends up happening is that I allow him to use the quota that is on my licence so he has enough to go fishing for the year and, in return, I buy the fish back from him at fair market value.

Again, the fish lord scenario, the connotation is out there that prices are being driven down, if you're tied into an agreement with a company and you're selling fish to that company you are getting paid less, et cetera, nothing could be any further from the truth. Anyone who knows the competitive atmosphere in our industry today knows that that is not conceivable nor possible. If we are not paying fair market value, we are not going to get fish, period, from any fisherman. It's as simple as that. That is indicative of the groundfish industry, and it is also indicative of the lobster industry.

I would challenge anybody to go around the lobster shore today - whether they are fishing a licence which they have an interest in, or a licence that they own, or they're fishing with one someone else has an interest in - to show me the variance in the price they are getting paid at the wharf, and show me that it is significant. I would really challenge anyone to produce that information.

Of course, where I'm going with this probably is self-explanatory. Ashton earlier alluded to the fact that the minister saw fit to provide an opening in the regulations that certain fleets may be able to exempt themselves from the owner/operator policy based on vertical integration. They have gone so far as to specify some of the fleets that may qualify for vertical integration. However, we get back to classes of persons, I guess my question is, and I think it needs to be asked of the minister, from where has the list been derived? How can the minister or anyone else with that responsibility and that power say that my neighbour is able to do this and I am not able to do it even though we are competing in the same environment and the same industry? It doesn't make any sense.

Furthermore, and I would like to end on this note, I can sit here all day - and I would love to, but I have taken up enough time - and talk to you about the strife of the processors and what this means for those who have interests in fishing licences, but I want to tell you that this is not isolated to the processors. We have fishermen working with our company who do not share any interest in a licence with our company. They are independent core fishermen, whatever you want to call them, who also have a real grave concern of what this regulation is going to mean to them simply because they have done the same thing as we have done. There are individual fishermen out there who hold more than one licence. By regulation, they can't hold more than one licence in their name, so they have interest agreements, trust agreements, whatever you might want to call them,

with other fishermen who are holding the licence in good faith to allow the fishermen to access the quota that is attached to those additional licences. They are not in any different situation than we are.

[12:00 p.m.]

I think rather than look at the industry and break it down in classes of persons, meaning processors, fishers, who is qualified, who is not qualified for exemptions, I think we need to look at the industry as a whole, as Denny pointed out earlier, with a more broad- based look at the bill with respect to licensing, take a realistic approach to what is really happening in the industry today and let's not take a 30- year-old document and try to imply or regulate that document into today's fishery. It doesn't make any sense. That makes no more sense than trying to take 139-year-old Act and apply it to today's fishery. The principle is the same. Thank you for your time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Zinck. Does anyone else want to speak on that?

MS. BOUDREAU: I would like to respond, if that's okay. Thank you, Mr. Zinck. I appreciate Mr. Zinck's opinion, as I do Mr. Lugar's, Mr. Spinney's and everyone else around this table. When we were invited to participate today, it was with the hope that it would be a group of individuals who would come and address their specific issues and that it would be a broad enough group, so, me, coming from my little corner in Guysborough County, with my issues, they are not going to be her issues or this gentleman's issues or those issues, they're going to bring their issues or their interpretation of how this bill is going to affect them. That way, we can look at the whole bill and assess how it's going to affect the whole industry.

Saying that, and I do appreciate that my comments are on the owner/operator, for sure. Everyone who gets into this industry, whether they're a harvester, processor, market analyst, or association manager, comes in with the same risk. It's a business. Whether it's a fishing business or an aquaculture business or whether I'm selling wood, we all have the same risk - we invest our money, we invest our time. If it is viable, under the rules and regulations of this particular industry, then we'll survive. If not, well, there's the door. We may be pushed out, we may be forced out, we may just walk out on our own accord. Hopefully, in some cases, we can do that.

The other thing about the owner/operator is that its intent is to protect not just the fishing industry per se, the big global industry, it's to protect our communities, it's to protect the social aspects of our lives. Now, if the owner/operator was challenged and enough Canadian citizens felt that socially, economically, the communities are not worth saving, they're not important enough, the way this fishery has developed socially, from family-based enterprises, if you want to call them - that's how it has evolved, it seemed to have worked fairly well with a few bumps in the road, yes, - we would collectively have

to decide that that's not the fishery we want. At times, we're going to butt heads, you have a different perception of the fishery for whatever reason. That's not to say that they're wrong, it's just to say are there enough people who agree with the way you would like the fishery to progress to have that owner/operator tossed out. I would say from where I'm sitting, and that's all I can say, from where I am sitting I would say no.

Now as far as what DFO has allowed, not too long ago I got stopped for speeding. That RCMP officer, legally, was supposed to give me a fine, and he should have given me a fine for the safety of all you guys, and not only that, to protect the law or policy or whatever you want to call it that's put in place to protect you for the reasons that are there. Well he didn't, he decided to give me a warning. Well, I was thankful for that, but that doesn't make it right.

If I'm selling drugs - mind you, that's an extreme case - for 10 years and never get caught, that doesn't make it right. The owner/operator, because it wasn't enforced, doesn't make it right that it wasn't enforced. That was wrong to start with. If we invested time and money, as an industry, into an industry and ignored policy, whether it is right or wrong, whether the policy was a good policy or a wrong policy, or regulations, and we invested time and money under those regulations, and now we're crying we got caught, or, okay, now you allowed me to do this for 10 years - well, I'm sorry, we all got in under the same rules and regulations, we knew them up front, we know the risks. So as far as saying that the owner/operator policy isn't doing what it should do, well I disagree. I think the owner/operator is there to protect our communities, it is to protect our fishermen.

Now, the owner/operator policy is not a processing policy, it's a harvesting policy. Am I wrong? I don't think so, but you can challenge that. As far as processors owning licences, if you as a processor want to go aboard a boat and go fishing, I welcome you. I bet the industry would welcome you. The owner/operator challenges anyone who doesn't want to go aboard the boat and go fishing. As far as saying there are fishermen out there, harvesters out there who own four or five licences, well I'm sorry, they shouldn't. It is our hope that that owner/operator policy looks after them as well, right or wrong. I'm sorry, if it's black and white for me, it's black and white for you. That's the other side of it. As far as saying that, as processors, it saved fishermen from bankruptcy or whatever, that's the risk they got into when they got into the business.

If you hadn't - not you personally - but if the processing sector had not bought up licences to get that extra quota, that gentleman would have been out the door and the gentleman in the next boat would have got that quota regardless, because the management boards manage this quota. Right? It's divided up amongst all licensed holders in a fair sharing arrangement that is pre-set. That fish is not going to stay in the water, you can be sure of that, it would have come out by someone. That would have left the guy in the next boat more viable, in my opinion. Now, that's just my opinion, you can challenge that as well. The other thing is that if that quota had been passed on to the next guy, then it

makes it easier for him to stay in business. So that quota is not going anywhere. If it didn't go to the processing sector, it wouldn't have been into the black hole.

As for the banks loaning money, there is no problem with you, as a processor, loaning me, a harvester, money to purchase a licence if I can't afford it. It's the control that you attach to that loan. If I'm going to bank A, they're going to give me an interest rate of 5 per cent, 10 per cent, whatever. I can go to a loan shark and get a loan. Does that make it right? Is he operating within the regulations? We really do have to look at the bigger picture.

As far as processors controlling fish prices, right now in Nova Scotia it's not a huge issue for our processors or our buyers to control the fish prices because they don't control enough of the harvesting. They don't control enough of the quota yet. Without the owner/operator it is, in my opinion, that maybe down the road we would have fear of that.

So, from where we're coming from, the owner/operator policy to some industry people, or people who are involved in the industry, it's holding them back. But to us, as harvesters, and I speak for harvesters, it's protecting us. Do we need to be protected? Maybe we need to look at that. Maybe we don't need to be protected. Maybe we can operate under a different arena and trust each other, I don't know. But, to date, we don't have that yet. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon.

As far as the fleets who are exempt, it is in our opinion, and my opinion, and the opinion, I guess, of my association, that those fleets that are on that list of exemption, they already control 100 per cent of that quota, or those licences, so that's why they're getting the royal treatment. There are no individual or independent harvesters aboard most of those fleets, that's why they're exempt. Should they be exempt? In our opinion, no, they shouldn't.

That's our view on those particular issues.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Virginia. A lively debate. Before we go on, maybe I'll just ask, I think we can probably spend another two hours at this, no problem, I know Denny wants to get at it some more, how about if we break, unless you want to finish off, Ashton.

MR. SPINNEY: I will probably finish with the question the honourable member asked, how many fishers read it and will understand the bill? I think there are very few fishermen in LFA 34, and there are close to 1,000 - 980 licence holders, I don't know how many crew, who may have scanned through some of it, a very small percentage. Understand it? I'm of the opinion - I'm not an educator, and not as educated as our learned gentleman here, Denny Morrow, but if he can't get through it, where do you think I'm going, as a fisherman?

The other side of the coin, and I liked Terry's comment he made, and I agree with him 100 per cent, we have to get over - he didn't make this comment, but I want to say before I try to quote it to a degree what he said from my words - we have to, I believe, look past the things of today that are causing us to be very concerned. To sum up what Mr. Zinck said, that we're forming an Act here for the future, we don't know how many years, and we have to be very careful that we just do not try to shape it in just a certain way that we want it to go, but through the betterment of our fishing industry, for everyone involved, and we need wisdom in there, and we need a lot of wisdom.

The things that we've been discussing here will be overcome and worked out, but the Act itself, and this is the concerning thing, we've had one that's gone, I've heard, 137 years, I've heard 138 years, and 139 years, but anyhow it's 130-plus years. So the thing is, this comes about, and it may be another 150 years before it is ever revisited again. As Mr. Morrow said, we have to think of - I lost the comment I was going to make to him. I'm sorry, I'll have to bring it back later, Denny, I was going to quote you there, something I wanted to bring up and something else flashed . We look at this bill, and it needs to have a language, I believe, that we can understand that cannot be used - well, let's put it another way, 10 years down the road we will sit down and we'll reinterpret it, and 10 years after that it'll be reinterpreted again. Is that healthy? No. This is what Mr. Zinck has been getting at.

[12:15 p.m.]

One year it is interpreted, we go so many years under that, then it is reinterpreted again. Somewhere we need to have some clarity, and that's why we're here today, we need to talk these things through, we need to talk to our federal government, to our provincial government, to the people who are responsible, so that we have, at the end of the day, a very good working document that is useful for everyone in this industry.

Remember, we have to have everyone in the chain, from the harvester to the end user, we have to have them all. Our industry will not exist if there's a break in that chain. We should be trying to keep foremost in our mind to keep all these - can I use the word players or individuals or sections to be involved there - one cannot become so strong that it takes control of all the rest, that's a break, and that causes a serious problem and concern.

So we will have more discussion on that this afternoon. I thank you. As far as people, yes, there are a few reading it. Understanding it? I would say zero, myself included.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Spinney. How about we break now for 45 minutes or so and try to get back maybe at 1:00 p.m. I would say we'll take the two hours this afternoon, no problem. Anyway, with that, thank you.

[12:18 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[1:15 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to bring this meeting to order, please, if we can. We have until 3:00 p.m., an hour and 45 minutes. I hope everybody had some lunch. First of all, this morning, Mr. Morrow didn't get his full presentation out, and I believe he would like to touch on a couple of things in his presentation and maybe that will give us direction for talks this afternoon. So, anytime you are ready, Denny.

MR. MORROW: I'll just start off with one comment coming from this morning about the tribunal and the fear that it is going to be staffed by people from one party or the other. I guess when I read the tribunal and questioned whether I would have time to really get into it today, but I have done an analysis of it. My reading of it is, when you exempt anybody from the fishing industry, or a fishermen's organization, or a processor organization like ours, because of conflict of interest, who does that leave? I'll tell you who came to my mind when I was reading it, it was ex-DFO people, that's who I see will be on the tribunal. (Interruption) Well, I'm not so sure of that, but at any rate - because you have to look at who is going to be appointing them, and you know the role the bureaucracy plays.

I would like to spend a few minutes commenting on something. The provincial jurisdiction, the provincial department and the provincial government is largely focused on the processing sector and what takes place, buying fish, lobsters, processing it. Sections of the bill, and I'm referring here to Clauses 56 through 72, I think Clause 72 has to do with - when you get into the 70s - aquatic invasive species. It's a very important part of the bill - conservation, protection of fish, fish habitat and pollution prevention. So I'll start off with an opinion after reading those sections.

There is an Atlantic-wide task force and a task force in Nova Scotia of government agency representatives to research and make recommendations regarding seafood processing plant effluent and its affect on the coastal marine environment. The same type of inter-government agency task force exists in New Brunswick and has made recommendations regarding lobster, crab and herring processing plant effluent. The government agency task force is headed by the federal Department of Environment - by the way, the federal Department of Environment people tell me that they get their powers from the Fisheries Act when it comes to the marine environment - and it includes DFO, provincial fisheries, CFIA, and I believe the provincial Department of Environment, at least in New Brunswick it does.

In New Brunswick, the seafood industry representatives through the New Brunswick Fish Packers Association volunteered to participate as well. The task force in Nova Scotia has complained that it doesn't have sufficient powers under the existing Fisheries Act to do sampling, to identify and establish toxic - and you'll see all through

the Act this term, "deleterious substance" - in effluent from different types of seafood processing plants, to establish quantities and concentrations in the regulations of deleterious substances that are harmful and should not be permitted, and to order a plant to correct a polluting situation.

The Nova Scotia task force has relied on seafood processors to volunteer to have their effluent sampled and analyzed. Sections of the new bill seem to give DFO and the Department of the Environment, as well as the provinces, the power to do the things discussed above. There is a perception from Nova Scotia media reports over the past 10 to 20 years that the main sources of coastal marine pollution do not come from seafood processing plant effluent but from untreated municipal sewage, agricultural runoff - fertilizer, manure, and chemicals - effluent from other heavy industries, and the physical breakdown of packaging and plastics that end up in our waterways and our coastline.

It is questionable, in our minds, as to whether Clauses 56 to 72 of Bill No. C-45 will do anything to address these sources of marine pollution in Nova Scotia. These sources seem to be left to the provinces. The federal Department of the Environment is currently funding a research staff position at Dalhousie and the person is analyzing samples of seafood processing plant effluent for toxicity. It's not known if the analyst is testing any municipal sewage, agriculture runoff or effluent from other industries. It is likely that such a position is referred to in this bill as an analyst - I refer you to Clause 76.(1) - and/or a certification officer, Clause 77.( 1).

Definitions are important. Clause 56 of the bill: " 'deleterious substance' means (a) any substance - including water that has been treated, processed or changed by heat or other means from a natural state - that, if added to any waters, would be deleterious, or likely to be deleterious, to fish or fish habitat or to the use by humans or fish that frequent those waters;"

I make the comment that I was always told when I was in university to never use the word you're trying to define in the definition, and you will see that later, Governor in Council will make regulations on advice from the minister as to what substances and what concentrations are deleterious. And I tell you, remember the research position at Dalhousie analyzing plant effluent.

It goes on down, Clause (c): "any water that contains any prescribed substance, . . . in a quantity or concentration that equals or exceeds a quantity or concentration that is prescribed . . ." Nowhere does it tell who's going to do the prescribing, and in our view that's a serious issue. And (d) "Any water that has been subjected to a prescribed treatment, . . ." Nowhere in the bill does it tell you how that's going to be determined. And it goes on to define "deposit".

I'll go down to Clause 59.(1): "No person shall carry on any work or undertaking that results in the harmful alteration or disruption, or destruction, of fish habitat . . ."

unless authorized by the minister and carried out under conditions prescribed by the minister.

Opinion: I expect environmental groups will likely see Clause 59 as a licence to pollute for the oil and gas industry, and some other industries that operate in the marine environment. Industries like seafood processing will fear the establishment of endless bureaucratic red tape that will kill growth and investment in marine - related industries.

Clause 60.(3):"no person shall deposit or permit the deposit of a deleterious substance in waters frequented by fish or in any place under any conditions where the deleterious substance . . . might enter such waters." Now this section seems to give DFO powers to go after municipal waste, agriculture and other industry pollution, but there seem to be exceptions made later.

Then we go down to - in fact the provinces seem to have a fair amount of input into that. Go down to Clause 63, "The Governor in Council may make regulations . . . (d) prescribing the deleterious substances or classes of those substances that are authorized to be deposited despite subsection 60(2);" So you see, what you are getting here is once deleterious substances - somebody will do this and we are never told who - once that has been decided, then if you have that in your effluent or in your waste, in whatever quantity, you will have to have a regulation authorizing you to allow it to go into the marine environment.

It's a different system than we have today. I think what we look for today is if there are examples of pollution events, you see them and then you go after the cause of it and investigate it. But this way, before you deposit anything, the deleterious substances are defined by somebody - we are never told who and we are never told what the process is going to be - then you are going to have to go through the bureaucracy to say here is what I'm putting in the water and I want to continue to do it. Then you start your process. Our experience with that kind of stuff is, it can be a killer.

They prescribe the waters are places where any deleterious substances are authorized to be deposited. I'd make the comment here that if you are depositing effluent in the Bay of Chaleur for example, where it is shallow, where it gets very hot, the water does in the summertime, and there is not as much tidal current, much different than, for example, around the Bay of Fundy or South West Nova where you have big tides, you have big currents, you have cold water and also you don't have the amount of concentrated processing that they may have around the Bay of Chaleur.

So anyway, just expressing an opinion, I would assume that Clause 63 will be opposed by most environmental groups and recreational fishing groups, but the scientific process that is used as the foundation by Governor-in-Council to make the above regulations will be crucial and it is not described anywhere in the bill.

Clause 64 - a person authorized to deposit a deleterious substance under the above, must, when directed in writing by the minister, conduct any sampling, analysis, tests, measurements or monitoring, install or operate any equipment to comply with any procedures, and report the information required by the minister. So that is going to be our cost - if we are given permission or authorization, we could pay for all this science.

A very scary situation for us and, regardless of Ashton's fish lord comment this morning, my reading of the processing industry in the province is that it is in trouble. We are losing people in the industry, we are losing market share, we don't have enough resource, we are dealing with the exchange rate - it has been going in the wrong direction, we have gone from a 65-cent dollar up to 90 or 91 cents today - and heavy competition from China, a low-wage country. So anybody who thinks that the processing sector is rolling in money and is going to be able to deal with these issues, I think they are wrong.

Opinion: If a research analyst establishes that you have a deleterious substance in your effluent, you may still receive permission to operate and to deposit the substance from your effluent, but it will require a regulation giving you permission that details the conditions, the concentrations, the quantities that are allowed and you could be required to cover the cost of any sampling and testing. Exemptions through the regulation process will be required if it is determined you are depositing a deleterious substance in your effluent.

We are in no way here advocating the right to pollute. Our industry, whether you are processing or fishing, lives on the marine environment, and our observation of the problems that we have out there. I'll go back to municipal sewage and waste, agricultural runoff, some heavy industries. I'm a sea kayaker, I go around the coast and I see a heck of a lot of plastic everywhere - shopping bags, packaging, strapping - it's everywhere. I saw a scientific presentation on it, and in the marine environment, it breaks down into tiny particles that resemble plankton. The fish are eating it - and you know one of the problems we have right now is our fish are not growing and we wonder wondering what's going on in the marine environment, but I don't see this bill really tackling those issues.

What they've done is they have a project going on in New Brunswick and British Columbia and they're going to make that across the country in the fishery and they're going to go after fish plants - fish plant effluent - that's what I read here.

So I'll just finish off. Clause 63: " The Governor in Council may make regulations . . . (a) prescribing, . . . the definition 'deleterious substance' . . . (i) substances or classes of substances, (ii ) quantities or concentrations . . .(iii) treatments, processes . . ." and so on, but nowhere does it describe how that's going to be done and, if you're in our business, that's a frightening prospect.

[1:30 p.m.]

So it goes into all the fines that you can get. They're significant. I've outlined them there, the civil liability - and just one last comment and this has to do with the tribunal as well. In reading the bill, when you start talking about justice in the bill and sanctions, you have to remember that the bill talks about offences and it talks about violations. If it's talking about violations, it seems to come under the jurisdiction of the tribunal; if it's talking offence, it's court. So you can have a ticketable offence which may be $2,000, like a speeding ticket, or whatever, it's still court- related, and it seems to be minor. You can have a minor violation which you can pay - and if you pay within 30 days, I think to the tribunal, you get half price.

Nowhere in the bill does it really define the difference between what kind of contraventions will be offences and what ones will be violations, what ones will be major violations, what ones will be minor - this is left to regulation later. The biggest part of the bill - 110 pages - is talking about enforcement and administration. So when Sterling asked me about understanding the bill, certainly a lawyer or a judge reading that, I'm sure could probably make good sense out of it, but somebody in the industry, I guess we're looking at how's this going to affect us and I was just trying to see - I would like to know if you have a fish plant, who's going to deal with it and how, what the offences are going to be, and it's left to regulation, Governor-in-Council, later.

So, anyway, I'll stop with that. If you want to get into a discussion on the tribunal, I have read it several times and I have made some comments on it, but I've circulated those comments to members of the assembly here, so I'll stop at that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Denny. Are there any questions or comments?

MR. SPINNEY: I'd like to ask, because Mr. Zinck is here and he may know - in this Clause 56 that Denny has been alluding to here, I never really stopped to think of what this was saying. You read and you don't think. But, you know, we change the water in our tank houses big time, especially in the summer - we pump it in and we chill it, and . . .

MR. ZINCK: Well that's the scary thing, Ashton. As Denny pointed out in his presentation, this bill and that particular clause of the bill leaves such a wide-open opportunity for power, if you will, for the bureaucrats to decide what's right and what's wrong and what will be and what won't be. There's definitely an understanding that the bill has to be regulated in a certain manner, but when the bill goes so far as to suggest there could be fines in excess of $300,000 - under $300,000, as Denny said, they talk about indictable offenses and whatnot.

When you're running a small fish company in South West Nova Scotia, or anywhere else in Atlantic Canada, those things can be very scary when there's no definition to tell you what exactly is going to dictate how that comes down on us. Again my personal opinion - it's fair to say that I think it's unacceptable to use that type of

pressure because the whole section in the bill is filled with a threatening tone to something that we're all very concerned with. We're all concerned with the environment. As business owners we are all concerned about the environment and to think that the bill has to reference a threatening tone to get us to comply lacks respect for the industry as a whole. It goes further than the processors - we have been doing a lot of work with the fishermen with respect to the amount of debris that's going in the ocean like bait boxes, and Denny alluded to plastics and things like that.

We're already taking that initiative. It's not because someone came up to us and said hey, you have to do this now - that initiative was underway long before any of this legislation was put forth because, as a business community, it is the right thing to do. There is no doubt about that, and I think anyone who has their head buried in the sand on that environmental issue is going to fail as a business in the long run. No doubt about it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Zinck. Anyone else who wants to speak, could you give your name - just for the record.

MS. BOUDREAU: Just to reiterate what Mr. Zinck has said - I think if we're looking at cost to our industry in the future, I think environmental cost is probably an area that we've all underestimated the amount that we would have to put in even to date. If we look towards the future, if we looked at one thing other than the cost of fuel that's going to affect our bottom line as harvesters, processors, the whole industry - it's going to be environmental. I think this whole section here is very crucial and I'm glad - again I want to reiterate that it's important that we have more than a few people looking at this bill to see how the overall effect is going to be. Like I said before, we look at it from where we're coming from, and if we don't have enough people looking at it from where they're coming from we may miss something that's very important. This is one issue, like Ashton said, he read it, and I read it - you know, nothing clicked. So it's crucial that we have as many people as possible.

MR. ZINCK: Just on that note, one of our fishermen approached us and we were talking about this and different aspects of the bill, and this section of the bill came up and he brought it to the table, which unfortunately there are no fishermen here today because it would probably again be brought to the table, I mean he was concerned about pumping the bilge in his boat, something that I didn't - we talk about trying to get an overall view - that didn't even occur to me, I was very much focused on my own situation. As Ashton pointed out, we pump sea water through our tank house, we obviously have effluent from our processing operation, and then all of a sudden he raises that issue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other questions or comments?

MR. MORROW: Just on Page 18 of my presentation it refers directly to Section 76 (1) of the bill: "The Minister may designate any individual or class of individuals as analysts." I took that section - and Section 77 talks about certification officers - I took

those two sections of the bill and those are the people who are going to define what you will put in the water. I don't know who they are. Is this going to be done in a university, or is it going to be done inside DFO? Can we have faith that the science is going to be any better than the science we had with northern cod? It's a big issue, a big concern.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe it is a big issue, Denny, and I think that's what we have to come up with today at this committee. I think we have to come up with these questions to submit to Ottawa, to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and let him know what we don't know about this bill. So, with that, Mr. Zinck.

MR. ZINCK: I just wanted to make a further comment to what Denny was saying in a more broad view in respect to the bill. The analysts who are so-called, would eventually become public employees to carry out the analysis. It also refers to licensing officers. I would just like to point out that with the existing environment we have today, and this is certainly no disrespect to public employees, but with the process that we have today, whether we talk about licensing, whether we are talking about the analyzation of effluence, we have a bill that governs, and regulations that govern how we conduct business, and there are public employees who administrate that legislation, if you will.

We've had some experience in the past, particularly through DFO, the Inspection Branch of DFO, which is now CFIA, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in that each individual inspector had the ability to analyze a situation with respect to regulations when a situation was to occur. In other words, what I'm trying to say is that an individual inspector could come into the plant, analyze a situation and come up with how he interpreted it needed to be dealt with. The industry evolved beyond that because of the workings between DFO and the industry in that we ended up with a system now where the industry itself, in some respects, governs how they are going to conduct business within the regulations. The inspectors come forward in order to make sure that what you say you were going to do is what you're doing and, assumedly, what you say you're going to do has to pass a certain criteria.

The point I'm trying to make is that we saw the faults in having public employees, if you will, or inspectors if you will or analysts, who have different interpretations of the regulations going in plan A, plan B, aboard vessel A, aboard vessel B, and making their own interpretation of what the resolve should be for any situation that occurs. Of course the result was inconsistency, and it ended up tying up the courts, it ended up tying up a lot of time.

It surprises me, within th