Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries
Issue 9 - Evidence - May 27, 1998
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 27, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries met this day at 5:40 p.m. to consider the questions of privatization and quota licensing in Canada's fisheries.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: The committee is meeting today to continue its work on the order of reference it received from the Senate to conduct a study into the questions of privatization and quota licensing in Canada's fisheries. The first witness we will hear from this evening is Dr. Chris Newton, Director of Research, Pacific Salmon Alliance.
The Pacific Salmon Alliance is a broad coalition of stakeholders united around a common concern for the British Columbia salmon fishery. More than 40 individuals and groups representing First Nations, academics, industry, labour, environmental and community groups founded the organization in April 1996, at a meeting in Nanaimo. The alliance provides a forum to discuss issues and facilitate networking among members.
Dr. Newton, welcome to the committee. I invite you to begin with an opening statement.
Dr. Chris Newton, Director of Research, Pacific Salmon Alliance: I should have liked to describe the experience of the Pacific Salmon Alliance as not being a negative one. The alliance provided a very positive response to the Mifflin Plan's goals of reducing the fleet size. Its focus was on the need to separate the corporate fleet from the owner-operated fleet and deal with each sector accordingly. The most important part now being dealt with is the question of privatization, and it seems necessary first to say that the Pacific Salmon Alliance opposes privatization of Canada's fisheries.
First, it is important to trace the development of individual transferable quotas, ITQs. This practice was commenced by New Zealand, which used it as a tool to nationalize the extension of the New Zealand zone to 200 nautical miles. It has been applied by Australia, particularly in the bluefin tuna fishery, where the fleet went from thousands of vessels to fifteen vessels in the space of one year. Iceland is a unique situation which may be similar to what Newfoundland might have experienced.
Not all ITQs in the world have been successful, because the biological basis has not been good enough. The collapse of the orange roughy fishery off New Zealand is one example. The overfishing of abalone in British Columbia is another. However, ITQs have been successfully applied to certain specific fisheries, most notably the clam fisheries in the eastern United States and British Columbia. This may be because historically the clam fishery has been on a leased basis and because of the territoriality associated with the species.
ITQs have enjoyed widespread support from the fisheries scientific community in North America since the 1900s. ITQs, along with set sustainable yields, are the management objective tools for nearly all the fisheries in the developed world. The demise of maximum sustainable yield essentially is due to the great excess capacity of fishing fleets, in particular the industrial fleets.
In my 15 years with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, I was partly responsible for monitoring the world fleet. Our estimates were that the replacement value of the world's industrial fishing fleet was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $329 billion, which is roughly equal to the replacement value of all merchant ships. That fleet is trying to share a landed value of world catches of marine species of $70 billion. Under those economic conditions, I would argue that the concepts of fisheries management and maximum sustainable yield do not have a hope.
Under the fiscal constraints imposed by the United States and Canadian governments, it would appear that there is no option for fleet reduction open to the fisheries administrators other than ITQs. They simply do not have the resources or access to the funds to go about successfully reducing the fleet to sustainable levels. Coupled with this is the World Bank's action to encourage countries to adopt ITQs in order to improve collateral for bank loans for infrastructure, including fleets. Similarly, Pescanova, the big Spanish multilateral, is encouraging Argentina, Peru and Morocco to adopt ITQs in order to improve its access to and control of those fish resources. Both Peru and Morocco have rejected ITQs, regarding them as a transfer of ownership of their natural resources to non-national interests.
Our second concern is that fisheries are almost worldwide common property resources. The language of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea refers to states licensing, authorizing or permitting fishing vessels to operate. The 1995 UN agreement on straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks reiterates that language. The Canadian Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has the authority to issue and the power to withdraw licences or permits for fishing vessels. This would seem to be consistent with Parliament's view of fisheries as being common property resources. Privatization should surely require Parliament's consent and, presumably, constitutional amendment.
The third point is the impact of the ITQ policy. There is no question that it will remove the small-boat, dependent fishers from the fishing community. The quotas are guaranteed to end up in the hands of the processing sector, which has the leverage of its pricing mechanism and its basic need to secure its share of the available supply.
We should question why we would want the small-boat fleet removed, other than on the basis of efficiency. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea calls for the conservation and management of fishery resources to take into consideration the economic needs of coastal communities. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development calls for states to protect the practices, needs and interests of indigenous and local fishing communities. It is a recognition of the link between indigenous and local fishing communities in the stewardship of adjacent fishery resources. The small-boat fleet has flexibility, low costs, lower capital demand from the resource and is less affected by technology. We must remember, the small-boat fleet has been fishing cod on the Grand Banks for several hundred years.
In keeping with Canada's signing of various UN conventions and agreements, DFO policy should start by protecting the interests of the indigenous and non-indigenous small-boat fleets. Then it may wish to identify those specific fisheries requiring industrial technology for some form of privatization that does not undermine Canada's ownership of the resources nor the common property aspect.
In the case of the salmon fishery, the impact of the Mifflin Plan on the coastal community has been devastating. When the Davis Plan introduced full licensing in 1969, the ratio of purse seines to the small-boat fleet was one purse seine to 15 small boats. Over time, through the licence limitation program, this has changed from one purse seine to seven small boats. By the end of the Mifflin Plan, that will be one purse seine to two small boats. From any way of looking at it, that means that the salmon fleet is becoming industrialized. The communities, therefore, are removed from the resource.
Salmon depend on the fresh water habitat for their survival. It is continuously being eroded. Surely the argument to be made is that there must be a genuine economic link between the communities and the fisheries. If the communities have an interest in salmon, they surely will have an interest in preserving the fresh water habitat and, in fact, rehabilitating it. As it stands now, with their ultimate removal from the fishery, communities may as well fill in the streams and make parking lots because they will get more revenue from that than they will from the salmon. The same goes for flatfish, shellfish and molluscs. They are all dependent in part of their life cycle on shallow bays or the inshore areas.
We must also recognize that while we have over $500 million invested in salmon licences for the Pacific coast, we have almost nothing invested in habitat restoration. This is obviously an imbalance. We should be looking to establish a genuine economic link between the communities and their adjacent resources.
The expectation that communities will look after streams and crucial habitat in order for an urban-based industrial fleet to come at a certain point of time for harvest is unrealistic. Therefore, in the long run, privatization in this form will result in a lack of sustainability for many species. The salmon fishery now must focus on developing low-cost harvesting methods in order to compete with salmon farming. Other fisheries also must focus on low cost harvesting methods in order that we may remove the enormous economic need that has been built up for nearly all of our fisheries.
Senator Butts: Could you tell me exactly what you mean by territoriality?
Mr. Newton: Territoriality means that you can almost define the ownership in terms of an area in space. A clam bed or a clam lease has a territorial boundary within which the fishers can conduct their harvesting rights. For example, there is a territoriality among the lobster fishers in Maine, and there used to be in the Chesapeake oyster fishery.
Senator Butts: Territoriality will fit with a few species?
Mr. Newton: That is correct. Imagine a fence around a particular stock, and you can see that, although it is a wild stock harvest, the concept of farming can work. Where the stocks are mobile, like the bottom feeding stocks and the pelagic or surface swimming stocks, territoriality is extremely difficult.
There are applications in nearly all coastal states of the world, where the first five miles, seven miles or 12 miles is reserved for small-scale fishing. That might be seen as territoriality or a proxy to territoriality. One might argue that sedentary species, like lobsters, crabs, clams, molluscs and oysters, are easier to deal with because they are inshore and do not move great distances. With highly mobile species, on the other hand, it gets extremely complicated.
Senator Butts: I was thinking of the fact that the salmon go up a river which, in many cases, may be almost all privately owned. Is there a difference in that case?
Mr. Newton: I believe the Miramichi, the Restigouche and the St. John rivers on the East Coast are private, but on the Pacific Coast, the fresh water habitat is all common property.
Senator Butts: The people who live along that river have no claim?
Mr. Newton: That is part of the problem; you are quite correct, senator. If a First Nation tribe way up the Fraser River has a food right to those fish and the fish do not come back, then what incentive is there for the tribe to restore and look after the habitat? We are arguing that there must be a genuine economic link to recognize the interests of all the people who can affect the habitat.
Senator Butts: That is what I am driving at. It is very important to the people who live along that river and who run fishing camps and similar things that it be looked after, and the argument has been made that they will look after it better.
Mr. Newton: I would agree. Similarly, the people who live at the mouths of the rivers are the ones who would have the greatest negative impact on that fresh water habitat, unless they have an interest. This has not been recognized. It is the institutional missing link and, I feel, the prime focus of what must change in order to rebuild the stocks.
Senator Perrault: Dr. Newton has made a very constructive statement today. His international background and worldwide reputation may be of interest to this committee.
Doctor, are there any success stories out there? There must be other nations trying to decide how much fish they should have in a given resource. Are there methods being employed elsewhere that perhaps we could emulate?
Mr. Newton: Not many that I could bring to your attention. We should look at the Norwegians as one example of some extremely practical and new ways of approaching the problem. We should also look at the Icelandic group, which is highly privatized; but, we must remember that Iceland is a small island where everybody is a neighbour and the total economy basically is fish. It can be compared to Newfoundland.
Senator Perrault: What is the background for the Norwegian success?
Mr. Newton: They do not have any privatization; rather, theirs is a limited entry program. They balance their industrial fleets with coastal communities. They have direct policies for maintaining the viability of their coastal communities, so that when salmon farming took off, the infrastructure was already in place to allow these small communities to move from fishing into the processing of salmon farms.
Senator Perrault: Do they have adjacent neighbours lusting after the fish?
Mr. Newton: The Russians and Norwegians came up with an innovative solution when the Russian fleets were targeting juvenile cod in their own waters that would have gone into the Norwegian zone as adults. Given the hunger of the Russian fleets, no juveniles survived to adulthood. Since the adults are far more valuable, the Norwegians invited the Russians to fish inside the Norwegian zone, under Norwegian supervision, under a quota-sharing arrangement. That compromise resolved a difficult problem. In the same way, the Norwegians have the British and the Icelanders fishing in their zone.
Senator Perrault: Do you believe the same kind of pragmatic approach to the problem could work on this coast vis-à-vis the United States and the Alaskans?
Mr. Newton: I believe it is exactly the same principle. We are trying to stop the interception of each other's fish by moving the fisheries more towards the rivers from which they originate. The only way it can be done is by having the Alaskan fishers fish the Skeena River stocks in the Skeena area under our supervision, rather than fish mixed stocks on the Fraser River, the west coast of Vancouver Island, Washington or Oregon. In the same way, the Canadian vessels would fish off Washington and Oregon on their share of the stocks. There is a lesson to be learned there.
Senator Meighen: Dr. Newton, my familiarity is more with the East Coast than the West Coast. I believe I heard you say that, as a general principle, the Pacific Salmon Alliance is against ITQs. Does that cover even areas where, in other jurisdictions, there was some success?
Mr. Newton: The PSA contains environmental groups and the environmental groups oppose privatization of the fishery, some on the basis of multinational interests and others on the basis that it alienates the community interest. There are other groups which represent small-boat, coastal community fishers who see that they have no access to the resources adjacent to their communities. I believe that is all of the groups.
The First Nations are quite frightened, particularly because they do not have the same access to capital as an urban dweller. Usually, a fisher would mortgage the family home to buy a licence. A house in a remote coastal community in British Columbia would be worth approximately $120,000; in Vancouver, the same house could be worth $600,000 or $700,000. Therefore, the coastal-community inhabitant cannot compete in terms of capital for increasing or maintaining a stake in the fishery.
Senator Meighen: The major objection seems to be, and I have no quarrel with it whatsoever, that the T in ITQ means that inevitably the quotas will end up in a concentrated form in corporate or some other individual's hands. Is there any practical way that there could be an ILTQ, an individual limited transferable quota? It seems to me that some of the objections might be met by specifying that quotas could be transferred only within a certain class of persons, in a certain geographic area. On the other hand, as soon as I said that I remembered from my legal background that lawyers are paid vast sums of money to figure out ways to get around regulations. Would your answer be that probably there would be a way of getting around the limited transferability no matter what was said?
Mr. Newton: I believe so, senator. We tried it in the Pacific herring fishery where we put the licence on the individual and made it non-transferable. Immediately the fisher became a company because then the licence would continue forever. Moreover, how do you explain to the widow whose husband has just been drowned when his fishing boat sank that the licence is worth nothing? It is not a practical solution.
There also seems to be an objection that fishers who lease their quota are not bona fide fishers anymore. On this coast, there is a strong argument that one must be a bona fide fisher. Otherwise, what is their real interest, and what do they do to give back to the resource?
I feel the question of leasing undermines the whole concept of the ITQ because the capital demand from the resource has not really been reduced. The numbers of vessels may have been reduced, but the leasing of licences and the buying of quotas does not reduce the total capital invested in the resource, which must be paid for from the extraction of that resource.
Senator Meighen: It is a terribly complicated problem, obviously. In terms of a solution, would the view of the PSA be that each species must be dealt with on an individual basis, but forget about ITQs because that will not work?
Mr. Newton: I believe there is a whole range of other options. For example, instead of the Mifflin Plan, which basically hands the economic advantage to the large-boat fleet to the detriment of the small-boat fleet, they proposed that there must be a balance between the corporate interest in the fleet and the owner-operator part of the fleet. Therefore, they suggested that fishers wishing to retire should be allowed to turn in their licences to the government and in return receive an annuity. Instead of selling their licences to a buy-back program for, say, $80,000, they would turn in their licences and receive $8,000 for ten years, and that would be the end of it. Those sorts of mechanisms would continually withdraw the number of licences and the government would be able to decide whether it wished to reissue or scrap some of them. At the same time, they talk about dealing with a corporate fleet in a corporate manner, which may incorporate ITQs, but not the social dimension.
They argue that the allocations are made on historic grounds according to gear type, that fleets should be adjusted according to those allocations, and that the failure of the limited entry is due to the fact that we were unable to manage technological change. Seine boats are incredibly innovative and efficient harvesters, just like combine harvesters in agriculture. Accordingly, we should probably have a ratio of 20 seines to one small boat. However, the fact is that from a ratio of 15 to one we are now moving to a ratio of two seines to one small boat. We are moving in the wrong direction. We have failed to manage the technology.
Senator Adams: You mentioned the First Nations a couple of times in your brief. I have heard that some fishing associations have complained about natives being allowed to fish in the rivers while some people in the commercial fishery only fish in the sea. Do you have a problem with how future fish stocks will be regulated by the Department of Indian Affairs?
Where I live in the Northwest Territories we have, for example, the Arctic char fishery, and there are certain restrictions on that fishery. You mentioned both the salmon fishery on the Fraser River and farm fishing. How was the farm fishing started and how do they catch the salmon? In farm fishing, must you have eggs to produce the fish? In the meantime, it may be that there are no regulations prohibiting native people from fishing whenever they wish. How do you feel about the fish stocks and how the fishing affects other people?
Mr. Newton: Senator Adams, I feel that one of the key changes on this coast has been the getting together of the native and non-native communities to deal with the fisheries crises. Both types of communities are being removed from the fishery. How can you deny a native village access to the herring or the salmon groundfish right in its foreshore areas? How could you allow an industrial purse seine fleet to harvest highly-valued herring roe in front of a native community and not allow members of that community to participate? That is what the licensing policy, particularly the Mifflin Plan, has caused. Some native communities have fish farms right on their front doors. They do not participate in any of the economic benefits of those farms, but they do suffer the effects of the environmental degradation, including the putrefaction of the bottom area caused by the offal and the feed.
One thing the Mifflin Plan did in antagonizing coastal areas was to bring them together. On the west coast of Vancouver Island, Indian communities and the towns of Tofino and Ucluelet are talking about a regional fisheries management board, where together they will be able to make these difficult allocation decisions on who can fish what and, at the same time, evaluate the opportunities for rebuilding the salmon runs within their areas and rehabilitating lost habitat.
All too often, the native peoples living much further upstream in the upper Fraser River or in the Yukon, et cetera, who have exactly the same claim, get ignored. They also live on the rivers, control the habitat and expect a harvest from the fish that are returning. Where do their voices enter into the dialogue?
The lesson of the Pacific Salmon Alliance is that you can have a multi-stakeholder group which will come out with positive recommendations, learn and reach consensus. It is not a difficult process, but the group is denied access under the DFO routine business. The DFO will deal with the native fishers as a block or they will deal with a gear sector, but they will not deal with a holistic group of stakeholders who all have views and can contribute.
Senator Adams: Can the people who live along the river and who are allowed to fish in the river also fish in the commercial and dragging salmon fishery? Can anyone who owns a dragging boat for salmon, including people from the native community, go out to sea and take part in commercial fishing?
Mr. Newton: Under the Davis plan, licences called AI licences were created for the native Indians to fish salmon, et cetera. An Indian fishers' assistance program ensured that they had access to loans to purchase vessels to be able to fish. That existed until the introduction of the Mifflin Plan. The native communities were among the largest communities who sold or lost their licences because of the Mifflin Plan. They basically are removed from the fishery, unless they can fish under the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, where there are select openings for natives only. There are select fisheries for the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, and yet there are villages where no native fisher has a licence to fish in adjacent areas.
Senator Adams: You mentioned fish farming. Are any of the fish released when they reach harvesting age? Are some released at sea? Do they migrate? Is there a market? How does the system work?
Mr. Newton: All the fish are kept in pens in the shallow bays, so they are basically penned as a farm is and they are fed and harvested on a selective size basis. The size of that industry, in particular in Norway which has production of 500,000 tonnes a year, has affected the price of salmon worldwide; in the commercial fishery the price is not nearly so high as it was before the farm salmon came in.
Considering the technology associated with salmon farming, feed specialties, disease and inoculations, a large amount of capital is required in order to get involved in fish farming. This may explain why native bands are not involved in terms of the ownership of those farms.
Senator Stewart: I am from Nova Scotia, Dr. Newton, and I am somewhat familiar the lobster fishery there. As you know, it is a limited access, licence fishery. The licences can be transferred, but I understand that the transfer is controlled, and there cannot be a concentration of licences in the hands of one person, whether natural or fictitious, to use lawyers' language. Assuming there is some advantage in a quota system, and assuming that the quotas could be transferred, would the system not work as well provided that the same kind of controls that are applied in the case of the licence were applied in the case of the quota?
Mr. Newton: I cannot claim to be an expert in the lobster fishery, but with respect to the licence, whether for lobster or salmon, it is usually defined in terms of the equivalency between vessels, either vessel length or vessel restriction. The purchase of another licence would allow a fisher to expand the vessel, or in the case of a trap fishery, increase the number of traps being operated.
For example, in Australia, the Western lobster fishery has a limited entry on the traps, so that each lobster fisher has a licence for 30 traps. In the case of a transfer, one fisher would take another`s quota of 30 traps, and run 60 traps in total. That has worked extremely well over 30 years, except that the increased technological efficiency of the new gear has caused a corresponding increase in fishing efficiency. In response, the government has told fishers they can no longer have the 60 traps for which they have a licence; they must surrender 30 traps. The fishers' income does not changed from what they had originally, they are just fishing 30 traps much faster to be equivalent to the 60.
Of course, as you say, senator, there will be limits. No fisher could have 100 per cent of all the traps, and in a lobster fishery, the traps are the limiting factor. But, lobster is a relatively sedentary species. With groundfish, the fishers who catch their quota the fastest will win. The impact of technology still provides an incentive to over-invest in a vessel. Vessel and net size are not easy to restrict.
I am trying to say that in a trap fishery, the gear itself is relatively inefficient, whereas in a troll fishery it is not so easy to regulate the size of the vessel, the quota of the vessel or the net of the vessel in the same way. That is why I said that individual transferable quotas work for specific types of fisheries. In many other fisheries, particularly where the stocks are mobile, there are not many positive examples and global experience is too limited to come to a complete conclusion.
Senator Stewart: Let me mention the control, as I understand it, that is applied on the Atlantic Coast in the case of the lobster fishery. If you have a licence you are allowed to fish 300 traps, and that is it. There is a limited season. Regardless of how much money one might have, or how big or efficient a boat one might be able to afford, the number of traps that goes with a licence is 300. There is a strict control. Although the licence is transferable, there is no point in attempting to accumulate licences. My question is this: Suppose you apply the same controls in the case of a quota, making it is transferable but limiting the capacity for concentration. The quota is defined and is specific to an owner and a boat. Why is that not acceptable, when the transferable licence with controls is acceptable?
Mr. Newton: I believe the problem is that you refer to the lobster fishery and I refer to the clam fishery, and molluscs, as areas where the ITQs have been highly successful. My argument was that for sedentary species, like lobster and crab, a system of ITQs probably is very applicable. However, when you get to groundfish, like cod, herring and pelagic stocks, then it is extremely difficult to see what the benefit would be.
The only difficulty would be whether the community, the fishers, would be able to afford to buy someone else's 300 traps. Presumably, if licences are transferable, a fisher would buy another 300 traps for a total of 600; is that not correct?
Senator Stewart: No, it is not allowed. Three hundred is the limit.
Mr. Newton: Under your proposal, senator, where quotas are transferable, a fisher would go to 600.
Senator Stewart: No. A son or a neighbour might be able to buy a licence, but an individual could not accumulate licences with each licence bearing the right to fish 300 traps.
Mr. Newton: That is allowed under the transferable licence scheme but not allowed under the trap?
Senator Stewart: One can transfer a licence but one cannot accumulate licences.
Mr. Newton: I believe that addresses much of the concern.
Senator Stewart: Could the same scheme not be applied in the case of the quota?
I will ask my second question. As far as I can determine, the main argument in favour of the individual transferable quota for certain species, is that it eliminates the tendency of the fishers to rush to catch the fish. They know what their quota is and they can pace their endeavours according to their convenience or according to their reading of the market.
Is that a valid argument in favour of the quota system, or are we being misled? If it is a valid argument, how can the same goal be achieved without the quota system?
Mr. Newton: ITQs do pace the harvest, and that is the argument put forward in their favour. In the Pacific halibut fishery, the season has been extended and the supply of fresh product has increased dramatically. In contrast, the U.S. part of the halibut fishery, which is a limited entry fishery, was open for only one and a half days of fishing; it was just a hopeless situation. That does not mean to say that it paces the harvest for all fisheries. The halibut fishery was a candidate because there were really only three major landing sites: Seattle, Prince Rupert and Kodiak.
In other fisheries, such as the orange roughy fishery off New Zealand, ITQs did cause a race for stock which is abundant at the beginning of the year and thus provides higher catch rates. At the end of the season, when the stock is depleted, it must be fished harder to maintain the same catch rates. It is a species restriction that must be considered. That does not occur in the halibut fishery, and I am not sure about the lobster fishery.
In the herring fishery, the Icelandic experience was that ITQs created massive discarding. Since quota was limited in numbers, fishers kept only the large herring and threw the other ones overboard. The Icelanders solved that problem by changing to an individual revenue quota; instead of having a quota in herring tonnes, fishers had a quota in dollars, making small, medium and large fish profitable.
In the fisheries of most species of groundfish, it would be difficult to see that the race was slowed down or that technological efficiency in vessels was no longer an advantage. This changes as the number of quota holders reduces dramatically. For example, it is quite easy for 15 quota holders or 20 quota holders to agree that only five of them will fish and they will all share revenues. There are cases of this in the herring fishery in Alaska.
ITQs will not solve the problems of all fisheries. While there are fisheries where ITQs fit perfectly, there are others where they are not preferable at all. The number of market points and the local demand for a given fishery must be considered.
The bluefin tuna fishery in Australia is given as a classic example of how successful ITQs can be, yet even in this case there are problems. That fishery went from thousands of licences to 15 licences in one year. Now those 15 licence holders are off-loading bluefin tuna outside the 200-mile zone and, in fact, under-reporting their catches to Japanese transfer vessels. There is still an incentive to under-report and cheat on one's quota. The ITQ system is not a 100 per cent workable management tool at this point.
The Chairman: We will now call on Ms Kathy Scarfo, President of the West Coast Trollers Association.
The West Coast Trollers Association represents the interests of some 439 licence holders who fish off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Trolling vessels fish for salmon in the open ocean throughout the Pacific Coast. Lines are used with different lures to catch salmon. The type of lure and the way they are arranged enable trollers to target the desired species. In the course of its deliberations, the committee recently learned that some fishers are anxious to try an individual quota system in the salmon control sector.
I will leave the remainder of the opening comments to you, Ms Scarfo.
Ms Kathy Scarfo, President, West Coast Trollers Association: I represent 468 trollers on the west coast of Vancouver Island. In the past, over 2,000 fished in that region. With the industry's restructuring, we downsized the fleet in that area in particular. We are independent owner-operators, family operators, usually based in the communities where we fish. We produce a higher quality product, therefore, we do not usually sell to the large companies. The bulk of our fish goes to small independent processors, or we market it ourselves because we freeze on board, also.
There has been a selective fishery on the west coast of Vancouver Island for over 100 years. It was started by the natives in that region. The proposal for looking into an individual quota came from one or two representatives within the older troll fleet, not from the troll sector as a whole. There are reasons why the concept of quotas appeals to us, and I will explore them, but the members have basically said no to individual quota at this point.
We are a fairly new association and we have a very high membership at this point. We came into being with the restructuring, so we are very familiar with the present situation within the troll sector and within commercial fishing in British Columbia. We came to the realization a few years ago that fishing can no longer proceed the way it once did, that things have changed, and that we will not be doing business the same way we did in the past. In order to meet those challenges, we have some very difficult decisions to make. Those choices must be based on certain principles, which must be defined.
Our fleet feels strongly that we are very closely linked to the communities to which we deliver the fish. When we talk about allocation and quotas, we are actually not looking so much at an individual vessel quota but at a regional quota. We want to maintain access to a region of the coast so that we can keep the infrastructure, the local knowledge. Essentially, it is a much more manageable approach to fisheries than is the approach taken to the salmon industry, in particular, with its individual quota per vessel. We have a fairly high transient fishery. You never know ahead of time what the stock composition will be in detail or the amount. Therefore, individual quota allocations became unmanageable. Regional quota allocations make more sense because they allow us to maintain some kind of percentage. We have been looking at establishing regional quota allocations in our region through our First Nations interim treaty negotiations, in conjunction with other sectors. This would be a new method. We are working very closely with the native, sports and fishing communities, and with the fishers who have a vested interest. We are taking a different approach than has been taken in the past, where treaty negotiations happened at one table, and licensing policy happened somewhere else.
If you look at the way we have been managing our fisheries and our allocations in the last few years, our sector has paid the price of reallocation to other sectors. We have found this very difficult. We have been sacrificed in the Canada-U.S. treaty, and we have also been sacrificed in favour of reallocation to the large corporations and the large net fleet, who do not buy troll fish because we produce quality, not quantity.
We have heard many reasons in the last few years why the troll fleet should be looking at individual quotas, because we are not economically viable as we stand. Part of our economic viability depends on our access. If we have a constant reallocation to other sectors and no stability in our access, then we are definitely not viable. We are confronted with paying the price for conservation and undermining our markets. We are therefore looking at stabilizing our allocation perhaps, rather than at an individual quota system. If that means a regional quota so that we can continue to build, so be it.
I had hoped to prepare a whole package for you but, as you know, we are facing a severe fisheries crisis on the West Coast. I have just come from a meeting, which attempted to address coho management. As you may know, the Department of Fisheries cancelled the multi-stakeholder process yesterday and essentially left us hanging, not knowing. Our main concern is that there is a major shift in allocations. We may be talking about new ways of looking at allocations, but by the time this committee finishes its deliberations, many of us may not be in existence.
I must apologize for not preparing some of the data. I know that Dr. Newton is very well versed in international allocations. We have looked at allocations from the point of view of principles. Canada has some very good principles that we have agreed to internationally, such as the United Nations Code of Conduct. We keep producing documents about sustainability in the fisheries. We would like to see these principles actually applied, instead of just constantly sitting on a shelf, getting dusty somewhere. These are the kinds of discussions and criteria that will lead to sustainable fisheries and to stability in allocation and regional access, which is really what we are looking for.
I wish to add the fact that I have been involved in fisheries for a number of years, both in academic administration and on the grounds. We really need to bring the different levels of discussion into a comprehensive planning process. There is an incredible level of mistrust of government policy at this point. Any decisions that are made on these kinds of issues, such as individual quotas, must involve the actual grassroots individuals who are the stakeholders, who have the vested interest. Certain issues need to be discussed at the regional level, not just by myself as a licence holder, but by the communities that have a very strong stake in all of these discussions. Those communities, in our case, represent a large native component. The issues that need to be discussed include: the regional effects of individual quotas or shifting licences; the value of marketing licences as opposed to the value of fish harvesting; and the distribution of the benefits of the resource to the communities.
I know that, in the United States, they have had serious concerns about individual quotas. They have actually put in place a moratorium for several years to explore some of the repercussions of these issues. We must recognize that salmon do not stay in one place. We do not know from year to year, or month to month, how they will come back. Most individual quota systems are in the kind of fishery where you can actually not fish for a couple of weeks and then go out and catch the fish a little later. Our fish show up in a large quantity during a very short period of time, and that kind of pelagic fishery needs to be addressed in a slightly different manner.
The Chairman: You mentioned the problems that you are now facing with the coho. My understanding is that your fleet fishes mostly the coho and chinook, and that these are very directed fisheries. We can understand your apprehension and the need for your involvement in any future decisions.
You mentioned what the U.S. is doing at the present time, and that is in fact true. The Magnuson Act has been extended for a number of years to stop any further privatization or the establishment of ITQ regimes.
I had made the statement in my opening comments. I had said that the committee recently learned in the course of its deliberation that some fishers are anxious to try an individual quota system in the salmon troll sector. The witness in question was Bruce Turris, executive director of the Pacific Black Cod Fisherman's Association, who believed that some salmon fishermen are now very anxious to try an individual quota system in the troll sector, and that there is no reason why it would not work there.
I just pass that on as the source to which I was referring in my opening comments. I believe that you have mentioned that this is, in fact, not the position of your sector.
Senator Stewart: You say that you are catching a high-quality fish, which you ice on board. Am I correct in assuming that the boats that belong to your counsel members are fishing in the same waters as the other types of fleets? If so, how do you assure that you get the better fish?
Ms Scarfo: Our quality is based on our handling. Our fleet fishes in some regions with the other sectors. We have an inside troll fleet that fishes side by side with the seines and the gillnets. Much of the difference lies in the handling of the product. Last year, the same sector harvested 1.5 million sockeye in a ten-hour period. It took my fleet 48 days to harvest that amount of fish. We are handling them on a one-to-one basis. Each fish comes over the side individually, and some of our fish is still iced. A great deal of our fish is frozen fresh on board the same day it is caught. We can then go out and find a better market for a quality product that is well handled. It is not crushed as it comes on board; it is bled. It is really a different product altogether. That is why the large companies do not handle our product anymore. They really should not be speaking on our behalf in any way, shape or form. We have our own markets and we would like to continue to explore them. But when you continue to lose access to the resource, it is very hard to maintain your markets.
Senator Stewart: You mentioned that you had 468 members. Would I be correct in assuming that there are 468 licences, or is there a concentration of more than one licence in the hands of some of your members?
Ms Scarfo: I represent a fleet of 468; 350 of them are my members at this point. Our organization has been in existence for two years. We work very closely at the grassroots level with our membership to ensure that they are involved in the process. In my region, there are 468 licences.
Senator Stewart: There is only one licence to a boat. Is that correct?
Ms Scarfo: You can stack a licence. Since the Mifflin Plan, I can purchase another licence to fish another region. Some of my boats are stacked licences.
Senator Stewart: Do you object to that?
Ms Scarfo: No. I have a small problem with the way the Mifflin Plan was implemented and whether the lines that were drawn on the map make sense. I am not sure whether or not the segments of the coast that we were given make sense. Each of those segments of the coast has an uncertain access to the resource, which should have been defined ahead of time. As a management tool, we have restricted the fleet's size.
Senator Stewart: You refer to the desirability of regional quotas. That is a very interesting concept. Am I correct in assuming, however, that only those who happen to be fortunate enough to have a licence can fish in a certain region?
Ms Scarfo: We basically have regional licensing at this point. When you implemented the Mifflin Plan, you set up areas. Each of those areas has a different gear type per region. In the way we traditionally did allocation within the commercial sector, the troll, gillnet and seine sectors had a percentage of whatever was returning. Now, we are saying that, within the troll sector, each of those regions is allowed an allocation or a percentage of that troll share. Within the troll sector, we have actually come up with a troll consensus that reflects licence choice and historical allocation. Otherwise, we would see continuing conflict over allocation, which is an age-old problem. As long as fish have existed, we have all been fighting over access. It gave some stability so that we can maintain the infrastructure, the local knowledge and the regional distribution.
It also meant that we were not in a constant battle year to year in shipping allocations from one region to another. We have worked out our allocations in sockeye equivalents. I know that traditionally I harvest coho and chinook -- those were our bread and butter. But in the allocation process on salmon, we share the burden of conservation by working everything out in sockeye equivalents. In other words, if, for conservation purposes, I forego a chinook fishery, I should have a large percentage of the total share of the pie, which would mean pink, chum or sockeye. Maintaining that sockeye equivalent has been incredibly important because not everyone lives at the source of the resource that they are harvesting. Therefore, if I live in a region and I have a sockeye river behind me, it is just as important for me to be a steward of that river, whether or not I am harvesting that sockeye, chinook or coho, because, in the long run, it comes out of my share of the allocation. It maintains that grassroots sense of ownership of all the resource, habitat protection and stewardship everywhere in British Columbia.
Senator Stewart: Tell me why my following suggestion is wrong. It seems to me that you are saying that you favour having a limited number of persons who can fish, but that you want the assurance that your region will have a certain percentage of the total allowable catch. It seems to me that you want your bread buttered on both sides.
Ms Scarfo: We have had limited licensing and entry in the commercial sector for many years. You need some sense of what you have bought into, otherwise it is a really bad investment. Also, you would not continue to invest in that resource, then. If I know that the commercial sector has access to, say, 80 per cent of the total allowable catch, then I know that as a troller in my region, because we now have regional licensing, I should have access to this percentage of the overall piece of the pie. Then I can continue to invest. As it is, without some certainty in your allocation or in your quota by region, and I did not define the regions, I could have stayed coast wide. It would not have mattered to me. But if we have this regional access, I need to know that I can be as economically viable as possible and that I have some sense of stability. Thus, I will continue to invest not only in my markets but in my infrastructure, and maintain some sense of local knowledge in that region and continued access. Without that, we will continue to see conflict in British Columbia over access.
I do not think you are wrong. Yes, I want my bread buttered on both sides. Whether I buy a liquor licence or you give me 200 seats next week, I believe that any business person would wish to know that he will have access to 200 seats and not 10.
Senator Butts: I am wondering if your group belongs to the Pacific Salmon Alliance that we just heard about?
Ms Scarfo: Yes, we have participated in the Pacific Salmon Alliance. We work on the concept that we can no longer do business by ourselves, that we must expand. "Partnership" is the key word that the federal government uses, although their concept of partnerships, from what we have seen, is that basically we pay the price, and they maintain control.
The partnerships that we are attempting to build are somewhat different. In recognizing that this is a common property resource, we wish to see certain principles applied to our fishery. We need to work in a more holistic, comprehensive manner on those principles. We will be working with native organizations, environmental groups, communities, much more than we used to in the past. We are also members of the Nuu-chah-nulth treaty process through the Aquatic Management Resource Board, and are members of the sustainable fisheries foundations. You name it, we are members.
Senator Butts: You are that flexible. However, your ideas are certainly different on the Mifflin Plan, right?
Ms Scarfo: My personal opinion of the Mifflin Plan is not very high. It did not achieve what it was meant to achieve, which was to decrease the capacity of the fleet and to increase economic viability. I have never heard of anyone becoming more economically viable by having to go further into debt. The Mifflin Plan has resulted in a shift of allocation from the rural regions to the urban regions, and from the independent owner-operator to the large corporations. That may not be readily apparent or easy to document, but when you look at who harvests the fish, and who is making a profit from B.C.'s resources these days, I believe it is very clear.
Senator Butts: Rather than oppose it, you have attempted to adapt to it. Is that fair?
Ms Scarfo: No, I would oppose the Mifflin Plan, but I have no choice but to work within it. Working within it has posed many problems. Last year, we were cut off from a large portion of our allocated share of the fish because someone drew an invisible line on the map that did not meet conservation purposes, and to fish the way that we should have fished, or would have had to have fished to get our share, would have meant that we need to forego conservation. Instead of foregoing conservation, our fleet, over the last two years, has foregone fishing opportunity voluntarily, not waiting for the department to come up with fishing plans. We have said that there are certain species of fish that we will not harvest. The Mifflin Plan is not flexible; we were required to pay for our conservation efforts out of our pockets and watch someone else harvest the benefits.
Senator Butts: I am very interested in your notion of a regional quota (RQ) and I wish to know how you go about getting one.
Ms Scarfo: We have sat through allocation processes since the Mifflin Plan. When the Mifflin Plan was first implemented, they said they would define allocation so that we knew what we were investing in, stability being a very important factor. That should have been defined prior to our having to make not only a gear choice but an area choice. I personally fished the whole coast, using a combination of gears. When it came to making a decision, how do you choose an area when you do not know what access to the resource you will have? It was basically a case of taking a dart, throwing it at the wall, or choosing the type of fishing that you feel is the most sensible. I personally chose trolling because it is a more selective fishery; it has a higher value; and it is environmentally a sounder fishery. It was a personal choice based on those reasons and on the promises that there would not be massive shifts from historical allocations.
We have seen a massive shift from historical allocations, however. The Mifflin Plan and the data that was handed out to the round table and to the commercial licence holders in what we call the prospectus, which is the only documentation that we have, very clearly identified the traditional harvest in sockeye equivalents by each region, by each gear type. For my sector, we traditionally harvested 30 per cent of the commercial share. In my region, we harvested 52 per cent. On the west coast of Vancouver Island, it was 14 per cent, and I believe it was 32 or 34 per cent in the north.
We have said that in order to maintain some sense of stability of access in these regions, we need to maintain that historical access to the fish. Otherwise, we will lose our infrastructure. We have seen a massive shift, and this cannot continue. These massive shifts in allocation from one region to another are creating much of the turmoil and financial instability in our coastal communities.
On the East Coast, they looked at community allocations to maintain that sense of "communities of place." which is the term used by the United Nations. We say that instead of giving the actual community the licence and the allocation, give it to the region so that all of us can participate. You need not live in that region; you are licensed for that region. I personally do not live in the region where I fish. I spend over six months there; I spend much of my income there; and I land my fish in that region, so I am a part of that regional community economically and I have a vested interest there. I do not personally need to live there. Many of these regions do not have community capacity. The First Nation concept that we have of tribal councils covers these large areas.
Senator Butts: Is there a specific size for a region or a specific number of fishers for a region?
Ms Scarfo: The Department of Fisheries has designed our regions in the area licensing of the Mifflin Plan. Essentially, we have defined areas right now. Unfortunately, there is no defined number of licence holders because the Mifflin Plan does not have an end. The Mifflin Plan will continue to change the access to the resource if we allow it to proceed as it has been doing.
In other words, I could starve the north coast trollers by not allowing them access to the resource. Then I could go in, purchase a licence from a north coast troller and change that licence to a different region. As an individual fisher, I may be able to take that licence and fish somewhere else where you may allowing me to fish. However, that region, that community of place, has lost its access to the resource. You have shifted the allocation from a rural area usually to an urban centre, moving closer to either a terminal fishery or a more centralized fishery that is easier to manager. I say "easier" not in my terms of what I believe is ease of management. There is a challenge to management that we need to meet.
Senator Butts: Is there any input from the province in this regionalization?
Ms Scarfo: We have a memorandum of understanding between the federal and provincial governments, which has been completely disregarded. Look at the way we have addressed the coho crisis in particular. We have seen over the last three days a discussion of massive reallocation of resource from not just one region to another but from one sector to another. In other words, the concept of sharing the burden of conservation has basically flown out the window. Principles of allocation are gone. The discussions at the table need to have the province involved because the economic impacts of what is being discussed are absolutely overwhelming. The Department of Fisheries has neither the capacity nor the expertise to deal with these kinds of discussions. Yet these discussions are happening in Ottawa or behind closed doors, excluding the main stakeholders. The province definitely needs to be involved in these types of discussions.
Senator Butts: Do you think that the trolling technology is better for the quality of the fish or for the preservation of the habitat than the other kinds of technology?
Ms Scarfo: I have a personal interest here, so I could give a sales job on my fishery.
Senator Butts: Why did you choose your type?
Ms Scarfo: I chose trolling over other sectors because the type of lure I use will basically decide in many ways the type of fish I harvest, the speed at which I work, the area and the time of year I fish. We have a whole series of management tools to draw on to become very selective in our fishery. We have not maximized those technologies in the past. Essentially, the goal was to go out and massacre fish. My fleet used to harvest a large number of coho. My fleet can now go out there and not harvest coho. We are capable of change.
When you handle fish in large quantities, it is like anything else, you do not take as much care. By handling our fish in a slower method, we have the ability to basically maintain the quality. Selectively and environmentally, I feel that we are very compatible with the goals of sustainability. We harvest at a much slower rate, we are therefore unlikely to make a severe mistake by over-harvesting or harvesting too many of an endangered run in a very short period of time.
If you continue to monitor your fishery properly, you can maximize these tools. We have considered working with Dr. Carl Walters at UBC and other specialists to develop more selective and better stock assessment monitoring. In order to manage any fishery, you need as much information as possible, particularly when you have large runs appearing and a very high capacity in some of the other sectors, such as the seine fleet.
In 1994, we unleashed the seine fleet on what we thought was a very large run of Fraser River sockeye. We had not planned on the peak and the distribution of that peak. We knew what the abundance was in one area, but we had not anticipated these peaks in distribution. You need to basically nibble at the run here and there, bring in as much assessment as you can, and the PSARC scientists very clearly identified the need for more data on a continuing basis from different regions to assess ocean survival, stock distribution and diversion rates. We can provide that information. Our fleet has been downsized to the point that we are comparing a West Coast troll fleet of 468 trollers to a fleet that used to have over 2,000 just two years ago, in the same region where we are willing to unleash 400,000 sports fishermen with very few rules and regulations.
We have the abilities. I feel that my fishery is a very sustainable fishery. We just finished a sustainable fisheries project with the European Economic Community. Some Baltic fishermen came to see how we manage our fisheries on a community-centred, family-oriented, higher-value, selective, slow-paced basis. The Baltic fishermen use traps and weirs, and the trapped fish are preyed upon by seals, and the fish are dying at an incredible rate.
We have a fishery that should be the fishery of the future. Unfortunately, whether or not we are here in the future will be decided in the next couple of weeks.
Senator Meighen: Were you talking about seals in the Baltic?
Ms Scarfo: Yes. In the traps and weirs, they have incredible seal predation. At this point in British Columbia, we are looking at using new technology without even doing any pilot studies to see what some of the other problems are. New solutions are being offered without any testing, without any qualitative research into any of these massive changes.
Senator Meighen: You said that the fleet went from something over 2,000 to 468, or thereabouts. Over what period of time did this take place, and what was the principal reason? Was it non-viability or were fishers forced out?
Ms Scarfo: I am not sure if you are very familiar with the Mifflin Plan. It was implemented under the guise of conservation and manageability of the fleet.
Senator Meighen: It was implemented only a year or so ago, was it not?
Ms Scarfo: It was implemented two years ago.
Senator Meighen: Two years, and it has gone from 2,000 to 468?
Ms Scarfo: Within one month, it dropped from 2,000 fishers in that region. It actually went higher than that, if you take into account the combination boats. Every small boat had the right to combine gear. My boat was a combination boat. At any given time, you could have opened the west coast of Vancouver Island to a sockeye fishery and you could actually have had 4,000 vessels show up in the small boat fleet. Management-wise, this was too many boats. We did not know what was happening. We put in single-gear licensing. We also put in area licensing at the same time and implemented a buy-back program. We went from a potential of 4,000 vessels fishing in this one region to 468, so it was a massive downsizing. The small-boat fleet was divided up into much smaller regions than the seine fleet, which has two regions. Basically, all of them have stacked boats. I believe that only 60 boats have not stacked at this point. The actual capacity of the seine fleet in one area has not been diminished, and the concept of maintaining equality in the buy-back between sectors was disregarded. We ended up with the most bang for the buck, buying the cheapest boats. While the small owner-operator boats were cheaper, many of them were native boats from some of the small communities that have been devastated by their loss.
Senator Meighen: I was very taken with your arguments about the advantages. I realize that you have a fairly significant self-interest here in trolling, as opposed to other methods. Fair enough.
First of all, is the difference in value of the landed fish taken by a troller, for example, considerably higher than that taken by a seiner? Are we talking 1 per cent, 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent?
Ms Scarfo: I can get $6 a pound for sockeye salmon harvested off the west coast of Vancouver Island frozen fresh at sea. Fraser River sockeye, harvested in the mouth of the Fraser River, where they are watermarked and where they hit the market basically overnight, are worth $0.80 a pound.
Senator Meighen: If I am going into business, this sounds very attractive. I can see why you chose trolling.
If you were the next Mr. Mifflin and could wave a magic wand from wherever and could change regulations, would it not make a great deal of sense to try to get people out of seining and into trolling? First of all, you have the economic incentive to get into trolling. As well, you have the conservation incentive and all the other aspects you mentioned.
Ms Scarfo: That is a very interesting argument. You have used a word that does not apply to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans any more: "sense." I have been in the fishing industry for 20-odd years, working in stock assessment, purchasing or on the grounds, fishing, and we do not use the word "sense" any more when we speak about Department of Fisheries and Ocean policy.
Yes, the fishery of the future would reduce capacity and increase the number of boats. It is not too many boats catching too few fish; too many fishers are not maximizing or distributing the value of the resource. I would say, yes, increase the number of small boats, distribute the wealth between these communities, and multiply the value of this resource to Canadians. Unfortunately, the small-boat fleet does not have a very strong lobby voice, and none of us play golf with Jean Chrétien.
Senator Meighen: How would you persuade a seiner, for example, to get into trolling? First of all, you must compensate the seiner for the cost of the equipment, would you not?
Ms Scarfo: The bulk of the seine fleet is in some way, shape, or form owned by the company, at this point. You either purchase your licence, get your loan, or you are forced to sell your fish, so you sign a contract. Essentially, you sell your soul to the company. When we deal with the seine fleet, we are dealing with the large companies, and the large companies are very closely tied to the Department of Fisheries and Ocean. In fact, their main lobbyists are former Department of Fisheries and Oceans bureaucrats. When we sit in allocation discussions, we never know who we are dealing with. Michelle James represents the DFO and, a month later, she sits there as the lobbyist representing the companies.
The companies' philosophy is that they can continue to put every fish in British Columbia into a can, that they need quantity, and that we are not economically viable because we are competing with the company-owned fish farms. Twisted psychology is affecting the reasoning as to why we are not economically viable. I am competing with farmed fish, which is heavily subsidized by the same companies that are trying to take the resource away from me in the wild-fish market. The same companies are being charged with price-fixing in Alaska.
Yes, it would make sense but, like I say, sense does not seem to apply.
We have wonderful criteria for sustainability through the Auditor General's department on how we should manage our fisheries. I never see those applied to policy. The Mifflin Plan massively restructures the industry without ever clearly identifying what the goal is, without ever presenting a range of options or the impacts of those options, and without full cost accounting in a multiple criteria on the social, cultural, economic impacts of these kinds of decisions.
I am just sitting through another process where, once again, there is a massive restructuring of our B.C. fisheries; a massive reallocation from one sector to another; incredible instability; and no discussion of either the type of science that is being used or the way the science is being applied; the effects of these decisions; or a range of options as to how we address these kinds of situations. We are being railroaded, and right now I feel like I have been run over by a train. I am terrified of the outcome of the decisions that we are seeing right now. Yes, we should be looking at things in a different manner, but I do not know what to do anymore.
Senator Meighen: My understanding is that the recreational fishery, in terms of gross provincial revenues produced and the number of dollars generated thereby, is greater than the commercial fishery at this point. I thought I detected a slightly disparaging note when you mentioned opening up the area to 400,000 sports fishermen. We cannot have that. How does the sports or the recreational fishery fit into this gloomy picture that you have just painted? Is there room for them?
Ms Scarfo: In British Columbia, we are basically standing on the edge of a cliff right now. The decisions we make will dictate whether or not we have fisheries in British Columbia in the future, and what those fisheries will look like. I am a firm believer that without the commercial fleet, the sports fleet, without the wild-ocean salmon fisheries, you will not have a wild-ocean salmon resource because there is no incentive. A recent conference in Prince Rupert clearly indicated that, in looking at ocean opportunities, they are no longer looking at fish because it has been reallocated away from them. They are looking at ocean mining.
We need all the stewards of the resource that we can get. We need a comprehensive package that puts us all at the table, working together to rebuild the resource. We cannot continue to divide us up to say that the sports sector, the seine sector, or even the native sector, is more valuable. We must all sit down at the table and realize that we must share the responsibility and the burdens, otherwise we shall have the "haves" and the "have-nots." No one wishes to sit at the table if they think they have a better route to go, which is political lobbying. The representatives of the sports sector walked away from the discussions this week and said that they do not need to sit at the table because they get what we want through political lobbying. That is a very unhealthy way to proceed.
If we manage things properly and force everyone to the table evenly, there is a place for all of us, but we all must be managed fairly. That has not happened. You cannot allow a very mobile, devastating fleet of 400,000 sports fishermen to continue to cause great damage. Last year, they harvested 80 per cent of the runs of concern in British Columbia. We cannot allow this to continue to happen. We must sit down and build comprehensive plans by working together. In order to do that, though, we need a method in which everyone knows what their share is, and is committed to making sure that they stay on the water, as long as it is not at anyone's expense.
British Columbia needs a diversity of fisheries. It is not enough to have just one fishery. A sports fishery alone in British Columbia is not the answer. Much of the infrastructure that we have on the west coast of Vancouver Island is in jeopardy right now because of the resource's reallocation. Docks are falling apart. We have small native communities with no road access and where the commercial landing barge, which harvested fish in the past and also had a fuel barge, moved out of the community because no fish were being landed, for the commercial sector was devastated and reduced in that area. All of a sudden, that also has an impact on the sports industry because we need the same type of infrastructure: the fuel docks, hotels, restaurants and repair stores. We are compatible, but we will not be compatible if we are all out trying to demonstrate that one of us is more valuable than the other.
A study a few years ago commissioned by a consultant indicated that the sports sector was economically more important than the commercial sector. The economic consultants compared what could potentially be spent on a sports fishing expedition as compared to the landed value of the commercial sector as a whole. Instead of looking at the economic benefits that all of us bring to these regional communities, my price was diminished with the seine price.
The sports sector is definitely very important. It must be managed, as all our fisheries must be managed. We cannot have unregulated fisheries. We must take a very cautious, stepped approach. We must do test fisheries and monitor the effort by region. I was cynical about the 400,000. It is terrifying and irritating to see a 400,000-fleet sports sector moving in. It hinders our potential efforts. We are still being criticized for being an unmanageable fleet.
Unfortunately, when we sit at the table to talk about management plans, the representatives from this sports sector are the large-lodge operators. The person who wants to spend a weekend fishing is not there. Lodge operators instead argue that they need to promote British Columbia fish overseas, and that may not be appropriate at this point.
Senator Meighen: Who, in your view, should be responsible for bringing you all together? Is it the industry, a B.C. or an Ottawa politician, or a bureaucrat? Who can do it?
Ms Scarfo: In the past, I would have said that it was our responsibility, but given the incredible instability and uncertainty that has been created -- not just by factors such as El Ni<#00F1>o -- uncertainty over allocation, massive shifts in policy, I would say at this point that we need some leadership and that we have not seen it. I wish to participate in the decision-making process. We do not have that. We are consulted to death. I could spend all my time sitting in a chair at meetings. That is the process in which we are involved.
At present, we do not have a comprehensive process that brings us all together to sit down and actually work. We had asked the federal government for this, and I feel in many ways that both the federal and provincial governments have a responsibility to assist us, to show some leadership, to bring this kind of process together so that we can start rebuilding. With this level of chaos, groups such as the Pacific Salmon Alliance are attempting to do this, but we need something bigger, more substantial, more confidence-inspiring, that can actually bring us together. The provincial and federal governments must work together. The level of stress and animosity between the two can no longer be accepted.
The Chairman: You provide very compelling and powerful testimony. It will be very helpful to us. I might note that the committee has been studying this subject for some time now, and this has been done on purpose. We have decided not to rush the study that we are undertaking. One of the great advantages of this is that it gives us the opportunity to hear very powerful evidence from people such as yourself. Sometimes, if you rush through reports too quickly, you do not get the kind of feedback that we received this afternoon.
Do you have any final comments before we end our meeting?
Ms Scarfo: We are facing a crisis and massive reallocation. I hope that I, and my fleet, can be a part of this industry for many years to come. Obviously, the decisions that take place in the next few days will have a bearing as to whether or not I am around when you present your report. I would appreciate anything that you can do to ensure that there is some sense of comprehensive sharing of the burden and not a massive reallocation and restructuring of industry and privatization of the resource.
At this point, all I can do is ask for help. The effects are severe, both to the resource and to humans. I have travelled in these communities and have witnessed the devastation to families and communities. I am absolutely terrified that the actions we take in the next little while may not address in a comprehensive manner the need to rebuild a sustainable industry in British Columbia.
The committee adjourned.