Senators' Statements
East Coast Fishery
September 20, 2017
The Honorable Senator Stephen Greene:
Honourable senators, I rise today in defence of Canada’s East Coast fishery.
The lobster sector in southwestern Nova Scotia is at the heart of a billion dollar export fishery, making lobster Canada’s most successful seafood product and the most important export industry in my home province of Nova Scotia.
Despite its success, or maybe because of it, it is now under attack by the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
The southwest Nova Scotia fishery is an innovative entrepreneurial fishery based out of mid-sized ports and based on mid-sized family businesses, many of which have been operating in their communities for centuries. One family I know has been in the lobster industry for seven generations.
In a speech to fish harvesters this summer in Chester, Nova Scotia, Mr. LeBlanc specifically targeted this lobster fishery, saying that their licences were overvalued. He also suggested many were circumventing the rules on licence ownership. What these businesses are actually doing is helping the communities thrive in what would otherwise be a very tough rural economy.
The harvesters in this fleet, together with the other family businesses which buy their catch, are the same people who volunteer at local fire departments, support local churches and hockey teams, give money to local charities, keep local processing plants busy, buy from local stories and keep our most important resource, young people, employed in rural communities.
How does Minister LeBlanc intend to lower the value of licences? He hasn’t really said. But he wants to turn the clock back to a time when his father was the Minister of Fisheries, a time when social considerations trumped economic viability as the main objective of fisheries policy. He said that he wants to “bring . . . the middle class to life through a progressive fishery . . . .” A progressive fishery — I hope we never find out what that actually means.
In his speech, he hinted darkly at change that is “fundamental to your business” and used threatening language no less than eight times in a 10-page speech, while conducting public consultations that were more like private conversations with carefully selected groups. Two weeks ago, his department cancelled a consultative session in Yarmouth after it became clear that a few critics might show up.
Enough, Mr. Minister, stop attacking success and start dealing with the very real problems of the fishery.