THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 9, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met with videoconference this day at 9:03 a.m. [ET] to study the federal government’s current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada’s fisheries and oceans including maritime safety; and, in camera, for the consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Fabian Manning (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Good morning. My name is Fabian Manning. I’m a senator from Newfoundland and Labrador, and I have the pleasure of chairing this meeting this morning.
Today, we are conducting a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. Should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk and we will work to resolve the issue.
I would like to take a few moments to allow the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Busson: I am Bev Busson from British Columbia.
Senator Francis: I’m Brian Francis from P.E.I.
Senator Ravalia: Mohamad Ravalia from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Kutcher: Stan Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: We have another senator joining us in a moment. Please introduce yourself when you’re ready.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran, Manitoba. My apologies for being a few minutes late.
The Chair: Not to worry. Thank you, senator.
On February 10, 2022, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was authorized to examine and report on issues related to the federal government’s current and evolving policy framework for managing Canada’s fisheries and oceans.
Today, under this mandate, the committee will be hearing from Mark Dolomount, Executive Director of the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board of Newfoundland and Labrador on the topic of the independence of the inshore fishery in Atlantic Canada.
Mr. Dolomount, good morning. On behalf of the members of the committee, I thank you for joining us today. I understand that you have some opening remarks. Following your presentation, I’m sure members of our committee will have questions for you. Once again, welcome. Mr. Dolomount, you have the floor.
Mark Dolomount, Executive Director, Newfoundland and Labrador Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board: Good morning. Thank you, Senator Manning and all committee members, for this opportunity to explain the role of the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board as it pertains to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO, licensing policy and the independence of the commercial fisheries in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board is the organization that registers and certifies Newfoundland and Labrador’s 10,000 commercial fish harvesters, owner-operators and crew members. We are a Category 3 public entity that operates under provincial legislation, the Professional Fish Harvesters Act.
The board was established in 1997, and at that time DFO transferred the responsibility of registering and certifying all Newfoundland fish harvesters to the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board. In that process, existing harvesters were grandfathered into the new certification criteria based on their historical attachment to the industry.
From that point forward, new entrants have entered the industry under a new system of professional certification with three tiers: Apprentice, Level I and Level II. New entrants enter as an apprentice and can upgrade to Level I and Level II by completing the required education credits and full-time fishing years. As an example, 60 education credits and two years of full-time fishing for Level I; 120 education credits and five years of full-time fishing for Level II. There are other criteria to address such as minimum age, definition of full-time fishing season, residency and re-entry to the industry following periods of inactivity, as well as the provision for an independent appeals process.
The relevance of Level I and Level II is the linkages between provincial certification and DFO licensing policy in the Newfoundland region. The licensing policy requires a harvester to be a minimum of Level I in order to be designated as a substitute operator and Level II to receive the transfer of an enterprise.
With fewer than 2,800 independent core enterprises remaining in the province, down from 5,500 in 1997, it’s arguably more important than ever to ensure that the remaining enterprises stay in the hands of bona fide, independent fish harvesters with the experience and qualifications to do it safely and successfully.
I’m sure I’m repeating what you already know and what you have already heard from other stakeholders when I stress what maintaining the independence of the fishing industry means to Newfoundland and Labrador and to Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. It brings in enormous value to our coastal communities. The landed value here alone is in the range of $1 billion a year, 2,800 enterprises and 10,000 incomes in 400 communities.
Independent harvesters who have direct access rights can negotiate and demand more for their product, thus generating even more income for their families, their communities and their province.
However, the benefits extend beyond the economic value. Of course, our independent, community-based fishery connects us to our ocean and it defines the economic, social and cultural fabric of our coastal communities. Make no mistake, independent harvesters and their organizations take greater responsible for and directly invest in the protection, sustainability and enhancement of our fisheries resource, and they contribute to science, traceability and sustainability initiatives like V-notching and marine protected areas — they have a vested interest. Owner-operator fisheries have positive influences in fishery safety. The COVID-19 pandemic should give us a better appreciation that local fisheries feed millions of Canadians and add to our collective food security.
Owner-operator fisheries allow harvesters and processors to reinvest in their industry, including training and advanced innovation in many areas. It also allows for succession planning, including retirement planning for those harvesters who have invested in their independently owned enterprises. In a nutshell, it allows us to utilize and prosecute our fisheries resource to their maximum benefit, not just to the benefit of fewer and fewer quota holders.
I’m certain that committee members are also familiar with the concerns being expressed about how the independence of the fleet — the owner-operator and fleet separation policies — are being threatened, even eroded. I won’t speak specifically to the issues related to controlling or trust agreements, the abuse of designation policies or the flipping of vessel registrations. You have heard those concerns from previous speakers. But I would like to speak briefly about the issue of demographics — age and numbers — and the overall topic of recruitment and retention of labour in the fishery.
Like most sectors of the Canadian economy, the fishing industry in Newfoundland and Labrador has an aging workforce. Currently, more than half of all independent core licence holders are over the age of 55. If you also consider that, since 1997, the number of certified fish harvesters has dropped from 17,000 to approximately 10,000, your first response might be to think that we’re in very big trouble. But it’s important that we keep things in perspective and factual — not anecdotal.
The reality is the number of fish harvesters has fallen in direct proportion to the reduction in the number of fishing enterprises. The average number of fish harvesters per core fishing enterprise was 3.7 in 2002, and 20 years later, in 2022, it’s 3.7. There are currently more than 2,000 Level II certified fish harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador that do not currently hold licences who are eligible to hold a core enterprise. More than 500 young men and women with an average age under 35 years have upgraded their status since the spring of 2020. The Marine Institute is currently full of young fish harvesters completing Fishing Masters certificates. During the past couple of years, with healthy lobster and crab resources and record prices, we have seen a large number of harvesters returning to the industry. The issue for these individuals is not Level II certification, it’s the accessibility and affordability of licences.
I’ll conclude with one final message. Please do not accept the greatest myth in the Canadian fishery, a message being propagated by those pushing for further consolidation of enterprises and vertical integration of the fishing industry. This is the myth: that there are no young people interested in the fishery, so the only solution is to consolidate more licences.
This is not a viable solution. In fact, it only exacerbates the problem by creating larger, even less affordable, less accessible enterprises and will concentrate the enormous value of the industry into fewer and fewer hands in fewer and fewer fishing communities.
I speak daily — every single day — with young men and women pursuing upgrading so they can someday own their own enterprise. Yet, in 22 years here at the Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board, I have never had a single call from a current enterprise owner who wanted to sell their enterprise but couldn’t find anyone to purchase it.
With an independent owner-operator fishery, where harvesters have direct investment in their own independent core enterprises from which they can make a decent livelihood and are given an opportunity for intergenerational succession planning, we will have qualified young men and women lined up to get into this industry for generations to come.
However, if young, qualified fish harvesters continue to be outbid by existing enterprise owners who have already maxed out the number of licences they can legally hold, by fish-processing companies or by outside investors who have no legal right to hold licences in the inshore fleet, then we know our system is broken.
Again, this issue of accessibility and affordability, in my opinion, is arguably the single greatest challenge in maintaining the independence of our inshore fleet in Eastern Canada.
Thank you very much to Senator Manning and the committee. I’d be happy to answer any questions that committee members might have.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Dolomount, for a great presentation. I’m sure from my list here you will have some questions. Before I go to Senator Busson for our first question, could you explain the education credits a little bit more, just so everybody is aware of what exactly that is? You touched on it in your opening remarks. Thank you.
Mr. Dolomount: Absolutely. For example, for Level II certification, which I guess is really the goal for most young men and women who are in pursuit of owning their own enterprise, 120 education credits amount essentially to 120 days in school. Those credits can be acquired in any number of ways.
I’ll give an example. Right now, Transport Canada requires all Canadian fishing vessels to have a certified master. As I mentioned, many of the young men and women who are pursuing certification upgrading — as you know, Senator Manning — go to the Marine Institute and do their Fishing Master IV ticket, which would give them the majority of the credits they’d need towards their Level II certification.
Any harvesters who have done any other types of post-secondary education — diesel mechanics, electronics, electricians, anybody who has attended trade school and done any type of business, computers, communications, that sort of thing — can all submit their education for accreditation under the certification system.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the board has developed, in partnership with the Marine Institute, a very comprehensive Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition program whereby 85 of those education credits can be acquired by being assessed in 11 different areas related to fisheries, from diesel engine maintenance, small engine maintenance, hydraulic systems, fish handling, holding and quality and the list goes on and on.
There are numerous ways to accumulate those credits. The ultimate goal in the end is to ensure that those who are eligible to hold these enterprises have the training, certification and qualifications to do it successfully and safely.
The Chair: Thank you very much for that.
Senator Busson: Thank you for being here. Your presentation was incredibly helpful.
Being from the West Coast, unfortunately there are very few independent harvesters operating in the industry there, as I’m sure you well know. While appearing before this committee on February 14, Jason Spingle from the FFAW-Unifor explained:
. . . hundreds of Level II professional fish harvesters who are saying the situation is such that they just can’t get access to the enterprises that are becoming available or they’re being outcompeted . . . .
In your opinion, what has contributed to this situation for new entrants? You alluded to it in your presentation, but I’m wondering if you can be more specific about what the specific barriers are. Are they disproportionately affecting certain groups? Are they also affecting different regions of Atlantic Canada differently, and, of course, Quebec? You alluded to some of the things that are the barriers. What would you say that we could do, suggest or recommend that would support and enable younger people to be able to get to their own fishing enterprises and their goals quicker?
Mr. Dolomount: Sure. There’s a lot to unpack, senator, in that question, but I’ll do my best.
The question of affordability and the cost of enterprises really goes back to the 1970s and 1980s when we went, in Eastern Canada, down the road of limited entry licences. There was a time when anybody who wanted to fish — down on the Cape Shore, Senator Manning, if you wanted to go fishing, you picked up a licence for $5 from DFO and away you went. You got a boat, gear and whoever spent the most days on the water, worked the hardest and did the best probably landed the most fish.
But as we move towards a limited entry fishery, and I guess then with the core policy in 1996 — where, again, we identified who the people were with the largest amount or recognized amount of historical attachment and we established some 5,000 to 6,000 core enterprises — that’s really when the price of enterprises started to gain material value. DFO, initially at least, didn’t really recognize the fact that these were commodities that could be traded, so to speak. But I think we, including the Canada Revenue Agency and DFO, have all recognized that they do represent considerable value these days.
It ranges, senator, from small, open boat enterprises with limited access to lobster and maybe some groundfish on the southwest coast of the province where an enterprise might be worth $150,000 to eleven large, 89-foot inshore vessels with multiple species that are worth multiple millions of dollars. The industry is very diverse in that regard and very diverse in terms of the cost of enterprises.
Simply put, one of the biggest barriers is accessing a licence, namely, trying to find one. This may seem a bit ironic or perhaps contradictory because we’ve been pushed by our provincial government — and so we should — to enter into initiatives around recruitment and retention of labour in the industry because we have an aging fisheries labour force. But I’m always cautious to point out to our provincial minister that we have to be careful that we don’t attract people into an industry and suggest to them that there’s a large pot of gold at the end of a rainbow and they invest years of their lives, go to school and do training to come out eligible to hold an enterprise but with no accessibility to it.
There’s trying to connect young harvesters with existing enterprise owners, but the real elephant in the room is this business of how you afford it. How does a young 25-year-old or 26-year-old man or woman who worked as a crew member on a fishing vessel, particularly if you’re not in line to receive a family enterprise, afford it? We could talk about fisheries loan boards and ways to go to banks and secure financing, but that doesn’t solve the problem either if every time a young harvester goes to purchase an enterprise — I’ll use an example that we’ve heard many times — and says, “I have $300,000. I will make an offer.” But another licence holder, who already holds the licence and a lot of equity in their enterprise, bids $50,000 or $75,000 more. I said I wouldn’t get into the business of trust or controlling agreements, but even outside investors will outbid a young fish harvester in order to gain direct access rights to that valuable fisheries resource.
I don’t know if that answers the question thoroughly, but affordability of enterprises is crucial. As far as solutions, I really do think we need to start trying, as our provincial Minister Bragg says, to find a pathway to get young men and women off the deck of the boat and into the wheelhouse. We have to try to find a way to establish an eligible and qualified pool of young fish harvesters and enable them to secure some kind of affordable, low-interest loans, longer amortizations — something — where they can afford to gain access to these valuable enterprises.
Again, DFO has to begin to enforce their own rules and regulations. We have an owner-operator policy. We have a fleet separation policy. We have designation policies. They’re all meant to ensure that licences remain in the hands of working fish harvesters so that when a licence becomes transferable, it goes to one of those eligible working fish harvesters. However, we all know that that’s not the case. It’s becoming a growing problem not only for those young men and women who can’t access licences, but also for our fishing communities that depend on those direct incomes. People that own enterprises and work in communities bring money into those communities. They spend money and reinvest money in those communities.
Regarding the people who own licences and live outside the community, the majority of the value of the wealth of our industry is funnelled out of our coastal communities before the fishery even begins. That’s a serious problem if our fundamental principle of managing Canada’s fishery is to do it to the maximum benefit of Canadians.
Senator Busson: Thank you very much. That’s been incredibly valuable, especially from your lived experience.
Senator Francis: Good morning and welcome. While appearing before the committee on February 9, 2023, representatives from the Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association, or PEIFA, explained they experienced a rapid escalation in the price of fishing licences in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The P.E.I. representatives explained that as the cost of fleets and licences increased, it has become more difficult for new entrants to purchase existing fishing licences.
Can you explain how controlling agreements are contributing to the increased price of fishing licences in the Atlantic provinces and Quebec? Do you believe the elimination of controlling agreements would bring fishing licence prices back to reasonable levels?
Mr. Dolomount: I’ll qualify my response by saying that I’m not an economist and I don’t pretend to fully understand the financial dynamic of what contributes to the increasing or decreasing of fishing enterprises over time. I’ll keep it brief because I’m certainly not an expert, senator, in this area, but if you allow people who have extremely deep pockets and whose goal is to access the resource in the water and to further consolidate enterprises — as we’ve seen — into even larger enterprises, it does two things. First, it creates, as I said in my presentation, larger, less accessible and less affordable enterprises. If the only people who can afford those enterprises are people with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to come forward, it really puts young fish harvesters — I shouldn’t say young; I don’t mean to age discriminate here — or any fish harvester who has lived and worked in a community for their fishing career and supplemented their income outside the fishing season as best they can on a modest livelihood in a difficult position.
Those of us who live in small coastal communities — look around. How do you compete against somebody with a million dollars in their pocket if you’re 26, 28, 35 or even 40 years old living in those communities? It’s extremely challenging.
Specific to the question, if we can eliminate controlling agreements and we can take the people who technically — legally — are not supposed to be investing in those enterprises out of the process, will it drive the price of licences down? I can’t say for sure whether that will happen, but I can say one thing: It will certainly go a long way to ensuring that licences somehow stay in the hands of the people they are intended to stay in the hands of. I think that’s the important thing here.
Yes, the cost of the enterprise is the barrier, but the fundamental principle we’re trying to achieve here is to ensure that these licences, no matter the cost, stay in the hands of legitimate, working independent fish harvesters. I think we need to remember what our goal is here. I hope, as the Government of Canada and as a committee of senators, that you agree and recognize that if we’re going to manage our Canadian fishing industry to its maximum benefit for all of Canada and all Canadians, it makes more sense to have the licences and the value of the fishery in the hands of working people and not in the hands of outside investors. I think it’s a really dangerous and slippery slope.
A previous senator mentioned British Columbia. I was there to speak at a fishery session two weeks ago. Listening to the stories from communities, families and individuals about the devastation that happened on that coast with the erosion of their owner-operator policy, I said that it should be a mandatory requirement for Eastern Canadian fish harvesters to sit in that room and listen to what happened. By doing so, I think we would value the extreme value of our owner-operator policy even more than we already do.
Senator Francis: Thank you.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you, Mr. Dolomount. I’m speaking from the perspective of living in a coastal community in Newfoundland and Labrador, Twillingate. In the 35 years that I’ve been there, I’ve certainly witnessed a decline in the number of independent operators and loss of our own fish plant.
My question is twofold. This is anecdotal, but I hear a lot from crew members who are increasingly feeling that their share of the value of the enterprise has declined, and that there is a sense of lack of protection, potentially exploitation and additional payment on the part of the crew for things like fuel, bait, et cetera. I am interested to hear your perspective as to whether there are any protective elements for crew members with respect to their livelihood in some of these enterprises?
Mr. Dolomount: As far as the exploitation of labour and the protection and rights of crew, I really wouldn’t be comfortable answering that. I don’t represent a fish harvesting organization. Jason Spingle was previously before you. The Fish, Food and Allied Workers, or FFAW, represents fish harvesters under the collective bargaining act in the province. I wouldn’t be comfortable addressing that specifically.
However, briefly, we have gone through nearly a 30-year fisheries rationalization process in this province. We talk sometimes about the reduction in the number of fishing vessels, fish processing plants and even the number of fish harvesters as being devastating to our communities. In many ways it is, but we have to remind ourselves that it was very much a concerted effort to reduce the number of enterprises so that they were good, viable enterprises that could provide a good livelihood to those that were fortunate enough and privileged to hold them. Through that process, we have had, as they say, the best of times and the worst of times. We have created some extremely viable fishing enterprises. The less viable enterprise that’s struggling to make ends meet is not always the ones that shave crew shares. Oftentimes, it’s the larger enterprises that are doing quite well, in an effort to do even better, try to maximize their profitability. I would suggest that’s probably not unlike most capitalist ventures throughout the country.
There is another standing committee taking place in Ottawa now — I’m going to speak there — about those in the grocery business and questioning the wages being paid to staff and whether or not we’re being gouged at the grocery store. Is it happening? I think you are absolutely right. You are on the ground. You speak to crew members. My point is it speaks, again, to the challenge that some of those crew members face. Many of them in their own right are very qualified. They hold fishing masters tickets, and are extremely experienced. They would dearly love to own one of those 2,800 core enterprises. Sadly, however, the owners of those enterprises may not want them to own their own enterprise because they probably want to own it themselves. That, in and of itself, is a huge challenge.
I don’t want to suggest that I’m only pointing the finger at fish processing companies who want to vertically integrate and get direct access rights. Sometimes we can be contributing to our own demise. We do have — and I think everybody knows it in the industry — some wealthy fish harvesters who have well exceeded their footprint of licences that, under the licensing policy, they are not supposed to be able to control. But they control them. It really is an escalating issue. It comes back to the wages and working conditions of crew. But if you work your way up through, eventually that contributes to whether or not they are going to be able to access or afford an enterprise of their own.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much for that response. The second part of my question was related to the location of fish plants and where these operators are able to land their catch. We know that that demographic has shifted dramatically. We lost our only fish plant and some individuals from my community have to land their catch at distances away from or have it trucked out of my community. To what extent has that shift impacted the viability of some of our enterprises?
Mr. Dolomount: That’s a good question. I’m not sure that it would have a huge impact on the viability of an enterprise other than the time, fuel and resources generally that it takes to land in another community. I think the greater concern, regarding the case of the loss of a fish-processing facility, is the loss of direct fish processing jobs in that community.
Senator Ravalia: I see.
Mr. Dolomount: Those fish processing workers, just like fish harvesters, make money and spend money in their own communities. The greatest impact on the enterprises themselves is the impact to their own communities. In most cases, the people who own the enterprises have family members or neighbours who work in fish processing plants and drive trucks to and from fish processing plants. Anytime you are taking a resource and jobs out of a community and bringing it somewhere else, it’s a redistribution of wealth, for sure.
Again, if we look at the big picture, we need to look at the majority of the wealth of our industry being vacuumed out of our province — and, in the case of British Columbia, out of our country. I shouldn’t go to British Columbia. We have an issue here now with the state of Denmark: Royal Greenland has a huge foothold in the Newfoundland fishing industry. I’m not suggesting that Twillingate’s loss of its plant is not a huge, devastating blow to the whole Twillingate-New World Island area, but our main focus needs to be to keep the wealth of our valuable fisheries resource — at least what’s adjacent to our province — in our province. We can then worry about the micro level of how we distribute the wealth within the province to the people that live here.
The issue that we’re dealing with around owner-operator, fleet separation and the independence of the fleet speaks to a higher-level principle of trying to ensure that the wealth of our industry stays in our country and in our province. Once we get it in the province, then we can worry about trying to maximize it to the benefits of as many fishing communities as we can.
We have gone from 5,500 licences to under 2,800 licences. The question we need to ask ourselves is: How few is too few? How few communities are too few? How many fish plants are too few? My concern is do we go from 2,800 to 1,400? When we get to 1,400, do we go to 700? Twillingate is very lucky because it’s a hub on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and it’s going to survive. But there are a lot of smaller communities around there — Moreton’s Harbour and Musgrave Harbour, for example — that probably won’t survive if we don’t keep the wealth of our fisheries resource in our province.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much for your very thoughtful and coherent testimony today, Mr. Dolomount, and also for the clear way that you have answered our questions.
Economists tell us that small and medium enterprises, SMEs for short, are really the foundation of Canada’s economic and civic success. One of the challenges that federal and provincial governments have is to help create the conditions that SMEs can flourish in. An owner-operator would be a classic example of a SME.
Our report will make suggestions to the federal government on what the federal government can do to better create the conditions that will allow these to flourish.
Could you tell us three things that you think we should most strongly consider that the federal government must do to create the conditions for success? You have outlined the problems, but what three things do you think we need to consider? There are obviously more, but at least pick three. What would those three be?
Mr. Dolomount: First and foremost — and I’m sure you have heard it many times — is the obvious one. You mentioned trying to create the conditions by which small enterprises, community-based fisheries — and community-based enterprises in our discussion today — can flourish. Before they can flourish, we need to ensure that they remain, in our case, in Newfoundland and Labrador. About 2,700 small enterprises need to remain small enterprises. When I say “small enterprises,” I’m including in that 65-foot vessels that are multimillion-dollar vessels with multimillion-dollar value. They are included in that small enterprise envelope, at least for today.
DFO has entrenched in federal law the upholding of the owner-operator and fleet separation policies, I presume for the purposes of keeping those 2,700 small enterprises in small fishing communities — through the residency requirements — and in the hands of working people through the owner-operator policy. DFO needs to make a commitment to all Canadians — and, more specifically, to commit fish harvesters — that they are going to uphold their own policy to ensure that those valuable enterprises stay viable and stay functioning to the maximum ability as they can for our coastal communities and not to some outside entity. That’s number one.
Number two is if those small enterprises are going to stand the test of time through intergenerational transfer, it comes back to the question of how few is too few. Furthermore, not only do we need to uphold the owner-operator policy and enforce it, but we need to sit back and ask ourselves how long we are to continue to allow the combining and the consolidation of licences. It’s a dangerous race to the bottom when you start reducing that number of enterprises. The vast majority of fishing enterprises in this province now — I can’t speak for 2023; we don’t know what’s ahead as far as prices in the marketplace — up until recently are extremely valuable enterprises. That begs the question: Why do we need more consolidation of those enterprises? If an enterprise, even a small one in a small, rural fishing community, can provide a good livelihood for a family, I think that is where we should be. I think we should try to maintain as many of those as we can. In this case, we should try to keep as many of Newfoundland and Labrador’s 2,700 enterprises in our communities as we can. That’s the second thing.
The third one, if I were to point one out, is that in order for any of that to work, we have to try to find a functioning mechanism to keep those licences in the hands of people, not through the owner-operator policy — that’s not what I’m talking about — or maintaining the minimum number of enterprises, but the sheer affordability. There’s the Farm Credit Canada program, I understand in this country, where if young farmers can demonstrate their commitment to their industry, their capacity and their training to be able to prove that they can run a farm successfully, they can access financing to be able to do so. We need to really take a serious look at that. I don’t know whether this falls under the purview of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or some other federal department or provincial-federal partnership, but we need to find a way. There is no reason why a 25- or 30-year-old man or woman, who has a 25- or 30-year window in the fishery, can’t borrow an adequate amount of money to get into the fishery. If the interest rate is reasonable, if the amortization period is reasonable and if the enterprise they are purchasing is viable, then we should be able to make it work.
I’ll end by saying I refuse to accept, as I said earlier, the myth that we do not have young people interested in taking over fishing enterprises. We absolutely do, but we need to try to find a mechanism for those that want to own enterprises to be able to do so.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much, and thank you for your clarity.
I was going to ask you — then I thought maybe it wouldn’t be appropriate, but you brought it up, which is fantastic — about the Farm Credit Canada program. The struggle here is similar to the growth of agribusiness and the fall of the family farm. Do you know of any initiatives in that particular area, for example, putting guardrails around agribusiness growth and helping family farms to be successful so small farming communities can continue to flourish? Are there any things that we could learn from the successes in that kind of program? It may not be fair to ask you that question, but you did bring up Farm Credit Canada. I think the committee should have some witnesses who know what happened in agriculture. What is your thought on that?
Mr. Dolomount: Senator, to be honest, it wouldn’t be fair to me to even attempt to answer because I have only recently started giving it some consideration and doing a bit of research into the fact that it exists in the context of trying to find strategies around recruitment, retention and cracking the nut, so to speak, of the issue that we just spoke about regarding the affordability and accessibility of fishing enterprises.
If it is, in fact, a model — and I’m sure this issue cannot be unique to the fishing industry in Canada or in Eastern Canada — there must be examples throughout the country and the world about the rising cost of access rights, whether it’s in farming or in mining. I would like to keep it in the context of common property resources, but there must be a way to ensure that we can finance these licences in a way that make them affordable.
I get challenged sometimes by people who — I’ll refer to them as free enterprisers — don’t see any reason why those 2,800 enterprises shouldn’t be able to be owned by one person or ten people. When I moved to St. John’s to attend university, there was a family-owned grocery store on just about every corner in the city. I’m probably given away my age here now prematurely, but if you go hunting through St. John’s now for a family-owned grocery store, with the possible exception of Colemans — and they are a pretty big operation in this province as many of you know — you have two choices: Sobeys or Loblaw. That didn’t happen overnight. It was an erosion over time.
The fact that we have a hearing happening now to investigate that very issue speaks to the fact that while it may be the most economically viable way to run a grocery business to consolidate all those enterprises, I would argue from a community sustainability perspective, it’s not. The Walsh’s Store and all those family grocery stores may not have made as much money as Sobeys, but when they made it, it stayed in this city.
However, the big difference is that groceries are not a common property resource; fisheries are. For that reason alone, the Government of Canada and DFO have a responsibility to try to maximize, to all Canadians’ benefit, the value of this fishery. That value will manifest itself in our communities much quicker when left in the hands of independent owner-operator fish harvesters than in the hands of a few investors. Again, we look no further than British Columbia to see that that’s true.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much for those comments. Just an observation that the human development index is probably a better measure of how countries flourish than their GDP. I’ll just leave it at that. I really appreciate your testimony.
The Chair: Just to check, Mr. Dolomount, do you still have time to stay with us?
Mr. Dolomount: I do, absolutely.
The Chair: We had you scheduled for 45 minutes, but I have a list that’s still here.
Senator McPhedran: Welcome, Mr. Dolomount. Thank you for taking the time to work with us this morning.
I have a number of questions that build on some points that have been made earlier, and you mentioned on a number of occasions — and it’s very much appreciated — men and women as potential independent fishers and harvesters. Could you tell us a bit more about the presence and the participation of women in this industry today and if you see a trend?
Mr. Dolomount: Absolutely. There is a long-standing trend — and I will say one thing right upfront, and I have said it many times: If we’re going to satisfy the labour needs of the fishing industry going forward, we are going to have to depend more heavily on the role of women in the fishery. As senators from Newfoundland and throughout the East know, women have always played a vital role in the fishing industry. If you go back a couple of generations, it wasn’t as active on the water in the harvesting sector, it was more on land in the processing sector. But we have pockets throughout the province where women are more active in the harvesting sector than in others. Make no mistake, if you go to the west coast of Newfoundland, the southwest coast, Placentia Bay area, small lobster enterprises, for example, there are numerous men and women, husbands and wives, that fish together in small family enterprises.
In many cases, and it was mentioned earlier, if you are trying to increase the profitability of a small family-run enterprise, one of the best ways to do it is to keep the money in the family. After the cod moratorium — I digress again. But here we are now talking about recruitment of labour in the fishing industry and trying to bring people into the industry. It’s such a counterintuitive concept because we have spent the last 30 years trying to drive people out of this industry. We have bought them out. Parents have driven their kids away from the industry, and now I think we have finally had an awakening and realized the vast value of our ocean’s resource, what it can do for our communities and for our individual family livelihoods.
To answer your question, women, at the moment, make up about 20% of the certified fisheries labour force in this province. While I don’t have the numbers from DFO on the number of women who actually own their own independent core fishing enterprise, I can tell you that there are many of them. I wouldn’t suggest that it’s 20%, as far as the participation rate, but I would guess that it’s maybe in the 5% to 10% range. No doubt about that.
One thing I will say about the participation of women and families — and I made a point earlier that owner-operator fisheries have a positive contribution to safety, and I didn’t allude to it at the time, but it’s a known fact and we deal with it all the time in the delivery of basic safety training: Women keep husbands and family members accountable for safety. They have a positive influence in the safety of the small-boat industry. But make no mistake, they are a huge contributor both as owner-operators and crew members, and we’re going to have to depend on them even greater going forward to meet the labour supplies for the industry. A specific area of our recruitment strategy is to try to attract more young women to the industry.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you. That’s really interesting information for us to add to our consideration of this.
You referenced ownership a number of times throughout this discussion. I would like to ask whether you see any cooperative ownership initiatives emerging anywhere, but particularly among younger potential harvesters.
Mr. Dolomount: It’s certainly one of the strategies that has been brought forward — I have heard it on a number of occasions, and I can’t disagree with it, but just to step back. The owner-operator policy right now says that a fishing enterprise has to be in the name of a single person. They did make changes to the policy a number of years ago whereby an independent core enterprise could, in fact, be held in a corporation, but then the corporation has to have one majority owner.
I think you have hit on an extremely important point, and I’m not sure if it’s the solution. I’m not going to put myself out on a limb and say that I’m willing to support that solution right now. But one of the potential ways to go forward to make enterprises affordable is if — I’ll use two friends that fish together in the same community who may not have enough access to capital to buy a $300,000 enterprise on their own. Could we find a way for them to jointly go into business together? I don’t know if the answer is yes, but it certainly seems to make a lot of sense to me, and I’m not sure if that’s the line of thinking that you were on.
Senator McPhedran: It is.
Mr. Dolomount: I will say this: I would prefer to see an independent core enterprise stay in the hands of two or even three young, independent fish harvesters than I would to see it go outside the community or into the hands of somebody who is already a millionaire.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much. That’s exactly where I was headed with the question, so I very much appreciate the answer.
You have also referenced repeatedly ownership, and you have talked about people and people with deep pockets. I think we’re also talking about corporations, are we not? Yes, indeed, corporations are legal persons. But we’re talking not so much about individuals as we are talking about big companies. I would appreciate that clarification. In addition to that, what is the extent of foreign presence even if it’s not officially recognized or is somehow tucked away, shall we say, in the registration process?
Mr. Dolomount: Well, I’ll start from the back and work forward. As far as the foreign ownership piece, again, the obvious example of Royal Greenland and their ownership of nine processing facilities I think it is now in this province, and a huge foothold in the processing sector. Of course, they are entitled as a corporate entity to have access rights in the offshore fleet. But they are not, through the fleet separation policy, supposedly, able to have access rights in the inshore sector. When they bought out Quin-Sea, I think if you were to speak to any fish harvester that lives in communities where fishing takes place — and I shouldn’t be using specific examples, and I don’t mean to point fingers, because it really doesn’t matter at the end of the day whether it’s a large fish processing company from outside the country or whether it’s an independent fish harvester who is not a corporation.
The main thing is trying to keep those — in this case 2,700 and something core enterprises — out of the hands, simply put, of the people whom the licensing policy says are not legally entitled to own them. We can say it’s worse for Royal Greenland to own them than it is for fish harvester number 4 in Twillingate. But really, at the end of the day, if it’s an individual who already has maximized the number of licences that they are legally able to hold or a fish processing company or an outside investor with no connection to the fishing industry at all, that all erodes the fundamental principle — at least that I think — we should be building this fishery on, and that is trying to keep those licences, however many of them are left, in the hands of independent owner-operators.
I’m not sure if the issue is really about corporations. Corporations do what corporations do, and I’d like to see fish processing companies process and access resources legally in the offshore sector and try to keep those licences in the hands of 2,800 people.
I will say this — and this is purely my own opinion — but any time you get consolidation of the existing enterprises, or even without consolidation, with the multiple ownership of licences by one person outside the licensing policy, if you’ve got one person who owns 6 or 10 licences through controlling agreements, to me it makes far more sense to try to keep those 10 licences that are in the hands of one person in the hands of 10 families. Instead of one person making $1 million, you have 10 families making $100,000 each.
Again, I’m not an economist, nor am I a lawyer, but I think most of us will agree that if we’re going to look at this from a rural, regional or economic development perspective, it just makes so much more sense to keep those licences in the hands of as many independent working people as we can.
I know Royal Greenland is an issue, no doubt about it. You heard it from Jason Spingle when he spoke, and people are concerned about the sheer size of a foreign-owned company to be here participating. On the principle level, I don’t think it matters whether it’s them or anybody else who is trying to gain ownership of licences that shouldn’t be owning them.
Senator Cordy: Thank you so much, as others have said, for your comments today. Your comments and your answers have been practical and very detailed, so I very much appreciate that.
You spoke about the challenges, in fact, the myth that young people don’t want to get involved in the fisheries. You said, indeed, that it is a myth and the challenges that they are facing.
If we’re writing a report, what pathway do we put forward so that young fish harvesters can stay in the industry and, in fact, can become owners of licences? You spoke about the affordability of licences for young people, that it’s just not possible for them. If we don’t have an input of young owners and young fishers in our communities, then we’re going to be in trouble, I think. You’ve itemized all the things that could happen if we have fewer people holding licences. What is the path forward that we should suggest?
Mr. Dolomount: Well, I guess there are two things I’ll say. One is that we need to be able to attract those people to the industry. If we don’t have individuals coming into the industry, we’re doomed to failure. I think we have done a fairly good job in this province over the last 25 years through the professionalization process of raising the profile of commercial fish harvesters, frankly. We’ve taken an industry which only three decades ago most people would have called an industry of last resort. There were no training requirements, for example. As I said, anybody who wanted to fish went fishing. In some cases, those who didn’t go off to pursue other livelihoods went fishing.
That’s changed in a big way. The technology has changed hugely. The level of education, not only from the certification board in Newfoundland, but Transport Canada federally. If you want to operate a 65-foot fishing enterprise, you need to have a lot of training in order to do it.
I think we need to raise the profile. Part of our recruitment strategy is to present fishing not only as a viable career option that can give you a decent livelihood, but one that’s respectable and one that people can enter into with pride and a sense of decency that they’re participating in a good profession.
A friend of mine pointed out one time the four pillars of the Canadian economy that are represented in Centre Block there in Ottawa: fisheries, forestry, agriculture and mining — all seasonal work. In my opinion, for far too long, we looked down upon seasonal workers somehow as not contributing enough to the Canadian economy, and fishing in particular. Fish harvesters were looked down upon. I don’t know why. Fishing seasons in a small open boat are pretty short. It’s not that they didn’t want to work harder and longer; they just couldn’t.
Further to that — and I think the certification system in Newfoundland caters to this — we need to allow and encourage what has been referred to as occupational pluralism. We have to ensure that when fish harvesters are not able to fish that they have the opportunity to go and ply their skills elsewhere and supplement their income. In many cases, that’s the only way they will ever be able to afford an enterprise of their own.
I think we need to find ways, whether that’s through the provincial certification here or elsewhere. I’ll give you an example. We have people who want to go and do Fishing Masters training to upgrade their fishing certification, but because three years ago they went and did a welding trade, they can’t access their Employment Insurance while they’re in school or they can’t get tuition assistance because people don’t recognize the fact that an electrician or a tradesperson can also be a fish harvester. We need to break down those stereotypes and barriers and try to encourage more people to come into fisheries and not keep people out.
People who want to fish, live in rural fishing communities and own their own enterprises, I think we have a collective responsibility as provincial and federal governments, fish harvester organizations and fish harvesters themselves to try to find a way to give those individuals access to the fishing industry when they’re able to fish and the opportunity to go and ply their skills elsewhere.
We have to market our industry for what it is and not for what it’s thought to have been. Far too many young people in this province, particularly in St. John’s, don’t know the fishing industry exists, at least not as the economic driver that it truly is outside of what we call the overpass here. Most of them don’t know that the fishery recovered from the moratorium of 1992. We have to do a better job of marketing our industry so we can bring in good, qualified, educated people who can successfully operate these enterprises. At the moment, they are there, but if we don’t find a way to give them access to licences, they’re not going to be there, and that’s sad.
Senator Cordy: We do need young people in our communities. I’m from Nova Scotia. If you look at the population of Nova Scotia, it’s rising significantly but much of the rise in the population is in the Halifax region. In the smaller communities, the parents and the grandparents are living there with very few support systems often within the community of their children or grandchildren. You’re absolutely right, that’s a social challenge that goes along with everything else.
It’s interesting. I was on another committee where we were studying Employment Insurance and it was actually seasonal work. The witness, who was also from Newfoundland, said that we’ll stop having seasonal work when we stop having seasons. I don’t think that’s going to happen, so I think we have to recognize that there is going to be seasonal work.
I was not surprised, but I was troubled by your comment that DFO is not enforcing the rules that are there. I think you were talking specifically about owner-operator. I wonder if you could expand on that because I think that would certainly be something that we could put in a report as well.
Mr. Dolomount: Simply put, if we go back to the PIIFCAF policy, which is the Policy for Preserving the Independence of the Inshore Fleet in Canada’s Atlantic Fisheries or some such acronym that I guess goes back a decade or more now, DFO made a policy commitment that they were going to uphold their owner-operator policy and give any person who was in a controlling agreement of those at the time — I guess 3,000+ core fishing enterprises in this province — they created a new title called independent core enterprises. They set about giving people seven years to get out of those controlling agreements, and many did.
But again, without pointing the finger at any person or anybody, if you go around any of the major fishing communities in this province and ask any fish harvester on a wharf if there is any vessel in this community that’s controlled by somebody other than the person who is actually operating the boat, the answer will be invariably yes. I think everybody close to the industry knows that it’s happening.
Again, I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know why. Presumably, DFO has received reports of this — they know it’s an issue in the industry, so, of course, they do. I shouldn’t presume that they’re not taking necessary action. Perhaps they are behind the scenes, but I see no tangible evidence that anything is being done other than the announcement of the PIIFCAF policy years ago, and again, through Bill C-68, the upholding of the owner-operator policy and a lot of good commitments that things are going to change. If you speak to people in the industry, I don’t think they put much faith in the fact that those policies are actually being followed through.
The proof will be in the pudding, as they say. We’ve got 2,700 and something enterprises now. I don’t know how many people control them, but it’s not 2,700 and something. It’s less, and that’s a problem.
Senator Cordy: Thank you so much for being here today.
The Chair: As a follow-up, I’ve been listening to your testimony, and thank you very much for what you’re telling us today.
I want to touch on a couple of things. I grew up in the small fishing community of St. Bride’s, as you know. When you talk about an industry of last resort, there’s no doubt that’s what it was. However, it has become a very professional industry in today’s world. I spoke to a young man in my hometown a few weeks ago who is interested in getting into the fishing business. He told me he approached two banks, and neither one of them would entertain his request for a loan to get into the fishing industry. He then talked to one of the processors and they were willing to assist him.
That kind of goes against some of the conversations that we’ve been having. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t look at different options. What advice would you give someone who approaches you with that dilemma? I think he’s Level I now working towards his Level II. He’s not Level II yet, but he’s trying to put things together. What advice you would give to someone of that nature?
Mr. Dolomount: Sometimes fish processing companies get a bad rap for helping fish harvesters with financing. You’re right, there are many examples around the province where fish processing companies have legitimately helped fish harvesters finance boats, licences, gear, et cetera, in a legitimate way that does not put them in a position of controlling the ownership of the enterprise. We can’t be quick to judge that that’s always a bad thing. I’ll say that upfront.
Again, Senator Manning, you’ve really hit on what I called earlier the biggest challenge that we’re facing, namely, affordability. When we say affordability, it’s not only the cost of the enterprise. How do you access the money? As you pointed out, when you go into a bank looking for a loan on a fishing licence that’s owned by the Government of Canada and there’s no way to determine from one year to the next what the resources or the price is going to be, it’s tough.
To answer your question, I really do think that, collectively, we have to start to think outside the box. Let’s just say that, tomorrow, DFO were to fully enforce their owner-operator policy. We have 2,800 enterprises left and we want to find a way for an efficient and smooth intergenerational transfer of licences from the aging-out enterprise owners to the younger generation, like the young man you just mentioned. We have to start thinking outside the box as far as how do we identify, first, who these young people are who are interested in taking over enterprises. We need to ensure that they have the training and the certification that’s required now by law in order to operate that vessel. How do we work with them to secure financing to be able to afford an enterprise?
I don’t think DFO can do that. Obviously, that’s outside the whole business of fish management, fish science and the owner-operator policy. I don’t think the provincial government can do it on its own without partnership with the federal government. I think we need to start looking at some kind of mechanism. Again, we talked about Farm Credit Canada. I don’t know if that model can be used here, but we need to try to establish some mechanism whereby people who are committed to this industry and who want to stay in their communities and fish, raise a family, build a house and provide for the next generation of harvesters to come behind them can access the capital to gain access to that licence.
However, Senator Manning, if we were to give that young man that you spoke of an easy, low-interest loan with long amortization and access to half a million dollars, it won’t serve him at all if the second he goes out and makes an offer on a $400,000 enterprise, a guy down the road comes in and says, “Senator Manning, don’t sell it to that fellow for $400,000 because whatever he offers you, I’m going to give you $50,000 or $75,000 more.” We have to do more than just provide access to financing. It has to be a collective effort through the owner-operator policy being upheld, the identification of the people who want to own the enterprises and trying to provide the financing.
One of the big concerns that you’re going to hear from existing enterprise owners is that you cannot eliminate the competition for their licences. When it’s their time to step away and retire, presumably you can’t tell them what to sell their enterprise for. We have to try to keep the competition in there, but at least limit the competitors to people who are legally entitled to own those licences.
The Chair: Thank you for that. Early in your opening remarks, you touched on the fact that you were in British Columbia in the last couple of weeks. We’ve had discussions around this table and among ourselves in relation to how the fisheries operate on the West Coast of Canada versus how it operates on the East Coast for an owner-operator with regard to the fishery being in the hands of one person on the West Coast. Could you give us some idea, from your perspective, about how that works so that we’re clear on it? I’m not sure if you’re in a position to be able to do that, but we struggle with that here. We live in one country with, supposedly, one set of rules, but we have totally different operations on the East Coast and the West Coast.
Mr. Dolomount: There are two things that strike me as extremely concerning about the B.C. case. One is that the downhill slide of the owner-operator fishery in British Columbia doesn’t go back that far. About the time that we were bringing in our core policy that shored up our independent owner-operator fleet, out in B.C. I think the number they were throwing around before the Mifflin Plan was about 88% of their inshore fishery being owned by independent owner-operator fish harvesters; about 10% or 15% were owned by outside investors or corporations. Over a 20-year period, that completely flipped to the point where 10% or 15% are still operated by independent licence holders and 85% or 90% of the quota that is held by people outside of the industry that are what they call in British Columbia quota holders.
I may be repeating what you already know, but the way that system works in a lot of cases is you’re a fish harvester in a crew with a boat and gear, but you don’t own licences or have access to a quota. You have to go to a quota holder who’s living in Calgary or perhaps even Beijing and purchase quota, for argument’s sake, for $2 a pound, and you go and fish, and hope you can sell that product at the wharf for enough profit that you can actually pay your crew, pay your expenses and make a dollar at the end of the day.
The issue with that, of course, is that the value of the industry is sucked out of British Columbia before the fishing season even starts, so it never has a chance to stay in the communities or in families. One thing that struck me is how it didn’t happen that long ago, and it happened quickly through the stroke of a pen and through policy.
That leads me to the second thing that concerns me. I made this comment when I was in British Columbia when I spoke to the group: We have on the East Coast what B.C. is trying to bring back on the West Coast. What we have, they want. Yet somehow I don’t think we truly recognize the value of what we have here. But we are only a stroke of a pen away from being in the same situation that we are in British Columbia.
Some people think it’s an extreme way to think or is a Chicken Little scenario to say that if we don’t find a way to stop the erosion of the owner-operator policy, then over the course of a generation or two, we could very well see the value of our fishery here in the hands of a few. It’s not that far-fetched. If you look at the situation in British Columbia, it speaks to how easily it can happen. I don’t think anybody intended for it to have that massive of an impact on rural communities, but it certainly has. It should be a wake-up call to us in the east that if we don’t get things right, our small rural fishing communities don’t stand a chance.
I don’t know if that answers your question.
The Chair: That’s great. It’s something that we struggle with here, knowing that we operate in one country with supposedly the same rules everywhere.
Senator McPhedran: There’s a missing piece here for me that I really need an answer to.
Mr. Dolomount, you clearly have depth, breadth and expertise that we’ve all recognized here. It’s really impressive and extremely helpful for us, but here’s my question. You’re the head of the Newfoundland and Labrador Professional Fish Harvesters Certification Board. What’s the mandate for that board? We’ve been asking you all of these questions about the future and solutions, and you’ve been giving us incredibly helpful information.
Forgive me. I’m not trying to criticize in any way — that’s not how I feel at all — but where’s the scope for going forward, problem-solving and innovation that you clearly have such a strong handle on? Does your board have that within your mandate to be able to move forward in these ways?
Mr. Dolomount: I will explain the board’s mandate, what we do and the linkages.
First of all, the longer I’m in this industry, the more I realize how little I know about it because it is extremely complex. I’m always concerned when I hear people proposing simple solutions to what are extremely complex problems in our industry. Sometimes what people think are simple solutions will only exacerbate the problem, and we have to be really careful when we consider any proposed solution to ensure it doesn’t have an opposite effect.
But to the mandate of the board, in its simplest terms, the value of the board is its linkage to the DFO licensing policy in this region. DFO has recognized provincial certification to say that we will only grant licences — the transferability of licences — to those individuals that the provincial certification board has recognized as having the minimum levels of experience and attachment to the fishery and minimum levels of training and education.
The board is limited, I suppose, in its mandate. The system itself — if you were to look at the system as far as the policies that DFO has in place in the Newfoundland region and the linkages with provincial certification, you’d probably sit back and think it’s a pretty locked-tight system to make sure that licences go to independent, working fish harvesters, and everything should be tickety-boo.
But the board, as I pointed out earlier, has established, maintained and continue to upgrade an adequate number of Level II fish harvesters who are eligible to hold those licences. They all have the experience, education and certification to hold enterprises. At that point, in many ways, we’ve fulfilled our mandate, other than the fact that we do have a mandate to lobby provincial and federal governments on policies that are for the common good of all fish harvesters.
At the point where we upgrade a young harvester at Level II, they get handed off into the wonderful world of DFO licensing policy. In a perfect world, they would be the only people in this province who could rightfully own a core fishing enterprise. But, as we know, from the last hour or so of discussion here, that’s not the case.
I don’t think we would have as much of an issue. We have 2,000 Level II harvesters. Many of them are aging out of the industry; I’m not naive. But the 500, for example, that I referenced earlier who have gone to the Marine Institute, done some training and upgraded over the last three years, they didn’t go to school and punch their time on the back of a boat just for something to do. They’re committed to this industry, and they want a part of it and they want to be part of it. I presume they ultimately want to own their own enterprise.
If they were only competing against their classmates who went to the Marine Institute and are out in their communities in the region where residency limits to whom licences can be transferred — if they were only competing against that pool of people, that would probably be a good thing, but they’re not. They’re competing against other wealthier, much better capitalized entities that, according to the policy, are not supposed to be competing against them.
It probably sounds like a cop-out on my part to say it’s outside the mandate of our board, but I’ll flip it around. It’s why I suggested earlier that if we’re going to solve this accessibility issue, it very much has to be a multi-party, multi-level of government approach to try to figure out a way forward. It’s not going to be easy. Anybody who’s been in politics knows that you’re never going to please all of the people all of the time. There may be some people, like under any policy, who will lose out.
But at the end of the day, we’ve got to ensure that whatever recommendations that are made and whatever policies stay in place are done with a goal — and hopefully a mechanism to achieve the goal — of whatever that principle is that we’re trying to achieve. It’s there. The goal we’re trying to achieve is written right into the laws of this land: That independent owner-operator licences are supposed to stay in the hands of independent owner-operators. It doesn’t get any simpler at the highest level. But somehow, through the policies and the enforcement of those policies, it’s not always upheld.
Let’s not kid ourselves: The vast majority of fishing enterprises in Eastern Canada, including Newfoundland, are still held by working men and women who live and fish in small fishing communities throughout the provinces. This isn’t a massive consolidation of ownership, but it certainly has the potential to be.
I don’t think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think we still have a very good industry with very good policy that’s worth saving. Hopefully, through recommendations like what your Senate committee is going to make — at least hopefully — and with the support of fishermen, organizations, the provincial government and DFO, we can maintain those enterprises so that they continue.
The industry is going to be worth billions. The fishing industry in Canada has the capacity to serve us so well — hopefully to the maximum benefit. I just think it would be such a lost opportunity to allow it to slip into the hands of a few millionaires.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you. I appreciate it.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Dolomount. I’ve been around this table for quite some time, and I have to say your testimony to us this morning has been very insightful and informative. Certainly, your experience and knowledge of this industry came forth in a great way.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank Jason Spingle from the Fish, Food and Allied Workers, or FFAW, who suggested you to us as a witness. It was certainly a great suggestion and proved to be this morning. On behalf of all the committee members here this morning, thank you for taking the time to join us and to lend us the opportunity to question you on this very important topic. I say, with confidence, that you have given us a boatload — pardon the pun — of information here this morning that will benefit us greatly as we continue on with our work on this particular topic.
I’ll let you have a closing remark and then we’ll say thank you and say goodbye.
Mr. Dolomount: Thank you very much, Senator Manning. The only closing remark I’ll say is that I appreciate the opportunity. If any of you, either individually or collectively, want to follow up on any of those issues, I would welcome that at any time and be happy to discuss any of it — to the best of my ability, anyways. Thank you so much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Dolomount.
Senators, the second item on the agenda is the consideration of future business. I suggest that the committee proceed in camera for this consideration. Are there any objections to proceeding in camera? Seeing none, we will suspend for two minutes as we prepare the room for in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)