FOPO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 22, 2001

• 0821

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting officially to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we'll be meeting on marine communications and traffic services in the Pacific region.

We do have a fairly heavy agenda today. Before we get to the witnesses, I just want to go around and introduce our members.

I want to thank James Lunney for first of all putting it to the committee that we have some people from marine traffic control come into Ottawa, of which we initially heard some fairly serious concerns with regard to the issue here. As a result of that, the committee passed a motion to travel to the west coast to hear specifically this issue. While we're here, we are also taking the opportunity to hear a number of other issues, from the hake fishery to a number of other things.

So we certainly thank James for his efforts in making arrangements out here for us and assisting us in lining up witnesses.

With that, I'm Wayne Easter, chair of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, and a Liberal member of Parliament from Malpeque, Prince Edward Island.

At the end, I'll turn the chair over to James to chair for this session.

John Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Canadian Alliance): I'm John Cummins, member of Parliament from Delta—South Richmond and vice-chairman of the committee.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis, BQ): Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc member of Parliament for Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis, in the province of Quebec.

[English]

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC/DR): Loyola Hearn, St. John's West, Newfoundland.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Peter Stoffer, member of Parliament from Nova Scotia, former British Columbian. It's good to be back.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Lib.): Rodger Cuzner, Liberal member from Bras d'Or, Cape Breton.

Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): Tom Wappel, Liberal member from Scarborough Southwest, a suburb of Toronto.

Mr. Georges Farrah (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, Lib.): Georges Farrah from Gaspé—Magdalen Islands, eastern Quebec.

Mr. Alan Nixon (Committee Researcher): I'm Alan Nixon. I'm the researcher with the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo—Alberni, Canadian Alliance)): I'm James Lunney, the member from Nanaimo—Alberni. I'm pleased to have my colleagues here from the fisheries committee.

We have already heard a fair bit of testimony on this first issue with Marine Communications and Traffic Services, both with witnesses in Ottawa and with our travels so far to the regional centre in Vancouver and the MCTS centre in Victoria. We were in Seattle yesterday and heard very good commendations about the centre here, I must say.

We're ready to hear from our witnesses today. I believe we're going to be led off by Julius.

Mr. Julius Smolders (Watch Supervisor, Marine Communications and Traffic Services): Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I'd like to welcome you here to Ucluelet and thank you for this opportunity.

The Chair: Is the translation not coming through?

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I have been very tolerant since the beginning of the trip. I accepted the tabling of all kinds of documents in English only. It did not bother me, but when it comes to the Coast Guard, I have a problem. I am asking that all these documents be gathered up.

[English]

The Chair: You're saying that the documents are only in English?

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I have been very tolerant from the outset, Mr. Chairman. I was aware of the fact that most of the people here did not have easy access to translation services, but the Canadian Coast Guard, which is a government organization, has no excuse for not preparing its documents in both languages. They have known that the committee was coming here for a long time, long enough ago to get these documents translated. I am therefore asking that all of these documents be gathered up.

• 0825

[English]

The Chair: Yes, Suzanne. They can do their presentation orally if they want, and we can get the documents translated and then send them to members.

I understand your concern. The coast guard is a federal government organization and their policy is supposed to be bilingual. It isn't translated, and we will draw that to the attention of various people, but I think we'll go through it with an oral presentation and we'll receive these later.

Thank you.

Larry.

Mr. Larry Pokeda (Officer-in-Charge, Marine Communications and Traffic Services): On behalf of the coast guard here, we do apologize that we did not get them translated. We were in sort of a hurry-up mode here and just refining our documentation. We discussed that. We had fully intended to submit it for translation. We just ran out of time. Our apologies.

The Chair: Thank you, Larry.

Julius.

Mr. Julius Smolders: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, bienvenue and welcome.

I would just briefly like to take this opportunity to thank you for being here to listen to our concerns. By way of formal introduction, my name is Julius Smolders. I am a watch supervisor with the Tofino MCTS centre here in Ucluelet. I am also a working watch supervisor, which means I rotate through the positions like everyone else, and as such, I am an MCTS officer. I am also the centre's training officer.

In the early 1990s, in an effort to regain control of the deficit, the federal government took specific measures to cut spending and to reduce the overall staffing levels within the federal public service. As a direct result of those measures, vessel traffic services and coast guard radio amalgamated into what we now know as MCTS.

Approximately one half of our middle and senior managers and one quarter to one third of our working-level operations staff either retired or took buyouts under the early retirement incentive and early departure incentive programs. Our station alone lost 9 of 22 operational personnel. At the operations level, subsequently, MCTS has been plagued with chronic staff shortages and unrealistic budgetary constraints. These shortfalls have resulted in the temporary reduction or suspension of services, as documented in Canadian Notices to Shipping.

Programs within MCTS, such as training, quality assurance, standards and procedures, etc., are all suffering from neglect. The department is unable to provide us with the appropriate training we require, and we are falling far short on our international commitments.

The number of middle and senior managers within MCTS continues to dwindle. Many of the managers who did remain after amalgamation have since retired or have chosen to finish their careers elsewhere, outside the realm of MCTS. I strongly suspect their decision to leave MCTS was due in large part to the continued pressures of unrealistic financial constraints; frustrations caused by their inability to effectively manage individual MCTS programs under such conditions; and the constant stress and dissatisfaction with the general direction of MCTS and the coast guard in general in recent years.

Presently, our MCTS regional headquarters in Vancouver consists of three people, and MCTS Ottawa headquarters also consists of three, or possibly four, people. These few remaining managers are overwhelmed with the multitude of tasks in trying to keep various MCTS programs and commitments afloat, all the while trying to ensure uninterrupted delivery of services at the operational level.

A recently released Auditor General's report identified that 70% of public service managers and approximately one half of public service employees will be eligible to retire without penalty by the year 2008; that is only seven years away. At MCTS alone, we will lose five people through retirement within the next five years or less, beginning with Mr. Godfrey at the end of this month, and an additional four people before the year 2010. More than half of our operational staff will be gone, along with their years of knowledge, experience, and expertise.

• 0830

It takes approximately one and a half to two years to hire new recruits, put them through the ab initio training program at the Canadian Coast Guard College, and complete the centre-specific on-the-job training. If we took staffing action today to replace Mr. Godfrey, we could not reasonably expect to have a qualified, certified MCTS officer before the fall of 2003, and only if he or she is successful at the final centre-designated checkout.

Our entire regional office MCTS management team is eligible to retire within the next six years, and 100% of our technicians will retire by the year 2010. We are rapidly approaching a time when we will be losing people through retirement and attrition at a rate much higher than we can replace them, and again, with them goes many years of experience, knowledge, and expertise.

The current formula for staffing MCTS centres in Canada is based on a formula of 5.5 persons per position. For Tofino that means with three positions, seventeen people. We have clearly demonstrated over the past several years that such a low-level formula of staffing does not meet our requirements.

Several countries in Europe, including Holland, Belgium, and Germany, are using a formula of seven or greater persons per position to staff their VTS centres. If we are to meet our needs and obligations, both internally as MCTS centres and nationally in keeping with international recommendations and standards, Canada must also adopt this same European standard of staffing levels within MCTS.

By adopting this standard, MCTS would be able to provide for the full staffing of operating positions and provide for the uninterrupted delivery of services. It would enable existing staff to rotate through refresher and requalification training. It would allow for the upgrading of existing qualifications and for career development training. It would allow watch supervisors to attend to their specific duties in a timely and professional manner. Finally, it would meet our international obligations to IMO and IALA.

Under the auspices of IMO, the International Maritime Organization, through their resolution A.857(20), and recommendation V-103 of IALA, the International Association of Navigational Aids and Lighthouse Authorities, standards for training and certification of VTS personnel have been established. The standards document includes the guidelines for the training and certification of VTS operators, VTS supervisors, on-the-job instructors, refresher training, and requalification or reverification. This is the standard we must meet or exceed in our training efforts. This is the benchmark by which we must measure our performance. We have fallen far short of this benchmark.

Even our own Public Service Staff Relations Act states that persons promoted to a supervisory capacity must receive supervisor training within six months of the appointment. And yet, despite repeated requests for this training, I personally was the watch supervisor in Tofino for three years before I finally received my training. We continue today to have supervisors on the floor who have not yet received their training. We continue to utilize people as on-the-job instructors who have not had the basic on-the-job instructors course. There has been almost no refresher or requalification training in recent years and there has been no career development training whatsoever to assist and prepare us to assume management roles of the future. As the lead agency in marine communications and vessel traffic services in Canada, we deserve the very best of training available.

The Canadian Coast Guard College in Sydney, Nova Scotia, is responsible in part for the training of ab initio MCTS officers, for the refresher and requalification training of existing staff, as well as the training and certification of shipmasters, deck officers, and engineers.

• 0835

Like MCTS, the Canadian Coast Guard College is also suffering from the same financial constraints and staffing cuts, and, with the resulting shortage of instructors, are unable to keep up with the demand. Like MCTS and the college, other marine programs are suffering, such as fleet operations, who have also suffered from financial cuts. As MCTS officers, it is extremely frustrating to not have adequate coast guard resources available in the form of coast guard ships or other search and rescue resources to respond to distress incidences in a timely manner.

Our technical staff is our lifeline in ensuring service delivery through the maintenance and repair of our highly specialized and complex radar surveillance and communications network. Unfortunately, the technical services branch has suffered the same financial constraints and staffing cuts, even restrictions on the purchasing of spare parts, all the while being saddled with additional responsibilities and duties.

Technicians no longer perform preventive maintenance on our equipment. Rather, they continue to scramble to make repairs as the equipment fails. Without the full support of technical services to maintain this equipment, we are dead in the water.

A report conducted by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in 1999, entitled “An Assessment of the US Marine Transportation System”, predicts commercial vessel traffic to double or triple over the next 20 years. Recommendations from this study included improved vessel traffic management services to ensure safety. Additionally, since the events of September 11 we have come to realize that the biggest hole in our national security defences are through our ports and waterways.

In 1992 Vancouver hosted the World Symposium on Vessel Traffic Services. At that time, Canada was a world leader in VTF and enjoyed the respect and admiration of the world marine community for our standards and procedures, for our training and certification programs, and for our delivery of service. In less than nine years, we have gone from that position of prominence and professionalism to a point whereby we cannot adequately staff our MCTS centres and our management positions, we cannot provide our MCTS officers with the training we require, and we cannot guarantee the uninterrupted delivery of service.

Canada's foreign affairs minister, John Manley, made reference to this. To paraphrase him, he said that we are riding on the coattails of a reputation that we no longer deserve. Over the course of the last several years, operational staff have voiced their concerns to our OICs and middle managers. Our OICs and middle managers have voiced these concerns to senior management, and I can only hope that senior management have taken these concerns to the executive level. The answer we consistently receive is that these are financially challenging times, and that we must learn to do more with less. As a result, over the past several years there has been a steady progression of crisis management and band-aid solutions.

Clearly, this is not working. We are reaching a point where we are soon going to begin to start spiralling out of control. If we do not take decisive and positive action, we will not have sufficient operational staff to deliver MCTS services and programs tomorrow, nor will we be able to draw from amongst the ranks of qualified and experienced people for our leadership and managers to drive MCTS programs of the future. We will not have experienced and knowledgeable technical staff to service, repair, and maintain our equipment, and in all likelihood we will not have engineers, deck officers, and masters to command our ships.

• 0840

As demonstrated in this brief, MCTS and coast guard are faltering, and the next few years are crucial to our existence and long-term stability. We are the keepers of the gate. We must not let our guard down but rather we must be fully prepared to meet these ever-increasing challenges and threats head on.

We are responsible to the people of Canada and we are obligated to the world marine community to provide for the safety of life at sea, the protection of the environment and our fragile ecosystems, and within the scope and framework of our jobs to help preserve our economic stability through the safe and efficient movement of vessel traffic and security of our waterways.

Every day when I go to work I am constantly reminded of the words from our national anthem: From far and wide, oh Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Merci. Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you, Julius.

Next we'll hear from Dave Godfrey.

Mr. Dave Godfrey (Watch Supervisor, Acting Centre Operations Supervisor, Marine Communications and Traffic Services): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is David Godfrey, and I'm a watch supervisor with the Tofino MCTS centre. I have been stationed her in Ucluelet since joining the coast guard over 24 years ago. I was one of the first employees of the centre at Amphitrite Point, and one of the original members representing Tofino traffic for the Cooperative Vessel Traffic Services Procedures Committee established in 1980.

I wish to speak to you today on the importance of the international CVTS agreement for the Juan de Fuca region. The purpose of the international agreement signed in December 1979 is to provide for a cooperative system of vessel traffic management in the waters of Juan de Fuca strait and its approaches. The objective of this unique agreement is to enhance the safe and expeditious movement of vessel traffic and to minimize the risk of pollution of the marine environment in the applicable waters of Canada and the United States by setting forth and harmonizing the standards and procedures to be utilized for this purpose.

These objectives are accomplished by providing a cooperative system of vessel traffic movement; ascertaining, through pre-clearance screening and subsequent traffic monitoring, vessel compliance with pertinent regulations, procedures, and practices; and where non-compliance occurs, alerting responsible authorities.

Under the agreement a joint coordinating group was established to oversee the development and issuance of vessel traffic regulations, and standard practices and procedures, to be used in the CVTS system. The regional JCG meets biannually to review the technical and operational details of the agreement. The CVTS procedures, equipment, and regulations in each country shall be compatible to the extent possible.

Through the CVTS agreement, Tofino MCTS provides support to Transport Canada marine safety, the marine safety office, Puget Sound in Seattle, and several other governmental agencies through offshore screening of vessels bound for Canadian and United States ports via the Juan de Fuca strait. The vast area of responsibility for the Tofino MCTS zone extends 50 nautical miles offshore from the northern tip of Vancouver Island down to 48 degrees north latitude along the Washington coast.

Although security has always been a part of the CVTS services, it was the events of September 11 this year that heightened the need for extra vigilance along our combined coastlines and the strategic entrance to the Juan de Fuca strait. Tofino MCTS acts as the eyes and ears of the international marine community for this region. We are considered by the United States Coast Guard as the gatekeepers for the entrance to the Juan de Fuca Strait, the gateway to most major shipping ports in the Pacific northwest.

• 0845

During several recent drug enforcement and migrant vessel incidents, Tofino MCTS provided a vital information link to DND, law enforcement, and customs agencies. Without the surveillance and screening services provided by Tofino MCTS, the agencies would be less informed of real-time advance notification of any suspicious vessel movements along our combined coasts.

Without adequate funding to provide modernized equipment and sufficiently trained personnel, our MCTS system will struggle to meet the requirements of the CVTS agreement, and its national and international security issues.

I would like to thank the committee for allowing me the time to address this important aspect of the Tofino MCTS responsibilities. Thank you very much.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you very much, Dave.

Next we'll hear from Terry Wedmedyk, please.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk (Watch Supervisor, Marine Communications and Traffic Services): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members, and ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Terry Wedmedyk. I am a watch supervisor with MCTS Tofino, and have been with the Canadian Coast Guard for 22 years.

What you have been hearing from our union members in Ottawa last month, and from my colleagues here today, is the frustration we're feeling as employees of this essential service, who have been dealt a large task to manage efficiently. We are responsible for monitoring all shipping movements, using radar, radio, and other tools to ensure safe navigation and passage in and through Canadian and U.S. waters.

The gateway to the entire Pacific Northwest is located within the zone of the Tofino MCTS. We simply cannot ignore significant intelligence because someone says it's not in the coast guard's mandate to provide security for the country. This is the issue I hope to speak to today.

If time permits, I would also like to be allowed to clarify some statements I read that were made in the October meeting in Ottawa, and that I thought were either inaccurate or misleading. Maybe I could shed some further light on them if we have the time.

The fact is, we are acutely aware of our potential for gathering significant intelligence that could benefit other government agencies. MCTS has been providing this service for many years now. Due to the nature of the work we are involved in, and the information collected, MCTS has proven to be a powerful mechanism for providing solid support to our national security programs. Information collected is not withheld from other departments. It serves no purpose for us. We're not a primary law enforcement agency.

MCTS is mandated to monitor, and ensure compliance with, existing Canadian and American regulations. All intelligence gathered is forwarded to the Department of National Defence, the RCMP, Canada Customs, or the United States and Canadian Coast Guard.

Our intelligence is collected from such things as informants, electronic surveillance systems, aerial, surface, or subsurface reconnaissance, and some other government agencies. It should be noted, however, that some agencies are reluctant to share their intelligence with us at times. This could be a problem.

MCTS Tofino screens all shipping movements entering Canada and U.S. waters for things such as: a lack of proper advance reports being filed; vessels of specific interest to other agencies; changes to flags of registry or ownership; last ports of call; the type of ship and the nature of the cargo on board; a lack of cooperation with Canadian or U.S. regulations; new ships to the area; last-minute changes to the destination; and unusual movement of the vessels whilst under radar surveillance.

• 0850

This information is then distributed via secure and non-secure voice and data circuits to the departments listed above. It becomes increasingly more difficult to relay sensitive information directly to surface or air units because of the lack of secure radio systems. Therefore, there is a requirement to have scrambled MF and VHF radio communications at MCTS, and to increase the number of agencies on secure landline circuits.

Vancouver Island offers an optimum staging area for illegal migrants or undesirable persons wishing to enter into the more populated areas of western Canada or the United States, where they can easily assimilate into the heavier population base. It is close to these areas and has road access from all our smaller ports. Vancouver Island attracts numerous foreign visitors year-round, so assimilation becomes easy to accomplish.

It would be more difficult to accomplish this along the north coast, where roads are not easily accessible or available. For example, 200 Asian migrants standing at a ferry terminal in the Queen Charlotte Islands would not go unnoticed.

This fact amplifies the greater need for additional radar surveillance off northern Vancouver Island. It currently has nothing. As you've heard from previous testimony, with the illegal migrant vessels, the majority of the boats came in just outside our radar coverage.

In addition to providing a safeguard for heightened security by observing and tracking suspicious contacts more readily, marine safety would also be enhanced through continued electronic surveillance watching for potentially dangerous marine occurrences. Lack of funding, staff reduction, and ongoing search for even more ways to cut costs has weakened our ability to deliver this necessary service effectively. Major cuts to the program have started a snowballing effect that is now being felt in many areas of the marine community, both domestic and international.

One of the issues raised during the October meetings was the use of AIS technology. AIS technology as a replacement for radar, from a security point of view, is not viable. The major problem with AIS is that the transponder can simply be shut off by the vessel owner at will, making its voyage undetectable. Radar provides a continuous coverage, regardless of what the vessel operator's intentions are.

It should be noted at this point that ATC, or air traffic control, transponders, such as those used on the flights that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, operate in a similar fashion to the AIS technology. The terrorists simply turned them off and the aircraft became lost to the ATC surveillance, where there was no radar provided.

Other methods of providing surveillance on our coastline, such as aircraft or ship patrols, are by themselves not practical alternatives. The coverage area is much smaller in the case of ships, and the cost of continuous patrolling is much too high. Ships are too slow, and aircraft are too fast, leaving a region quickly and moving into another region. Both methods are weather dependent, whereas radar would provide continuous coverage in a large area in all kinds of weather.

• 0855

Of the three systems, radar is probably the cheapest to maintain. Costs for the system do not necessarily need to be carried by any single department. Since other departments are benefiting from the information gained, perhaps some arrangements could be made to bear some of the costs of purchasing, installing, and maintaining.

Julius and Frank Dwyer, I believe, also mentioned that international commitments were not being met. In Canada, we're a signatory to the SOLAS agreement of the International Maritime Organization. In it we have agreed to provide mariners entering our waters on both foreign and domestic trade with a distress monitoring service. To deliver the service effectively, the international community has divided each nation's waters into four sea areas that require coverage. Out of the four sea areas, sea area A2, which covers some 40 nautical miles out to about 200 nautical miles, is not covered.

So the mariner who's transiting on an international voyage from overseas, following a standard route, coming through the Tofino traffic zone on his way to San Francisco, doesn't come into our territory per se, but he cuts through our waters, and he has every right to expect when he hits his medium-frequency distress alert that somebody's going to answer, because we've signed on and said we would provide a distress monitoring service. The fact is, we don't have that equipment, so we are not meeting that commitment, in my opinion.

Now, I can go on further, but I think we're on a time-limited basis here, and I do have this provided for everybody. There are some other points I had concern with that were mentioned, and maybe we could look at those later. I'm not sure how our time's doing here.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you, Mr. Wedmedyk. Perhaps some of the issues you'd like to raise will come out in response to questions. We are under some time constraints.

We have next Mr. Larry Pokeda, the officer in charge of our base here.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: Thank you very much.

Chairman, committee members, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, the three individuals who just delivered their presentations have a lot of expertise and experience, along with a lot of compassion for the job. As the manager of a centre, I would just like to roll out my concerns, and I think in doing so I will perhaps reflect those of my counterparts or my colleagues at other centres.

I've worked through the system. I was with the vessel traffic centre in North Vancouver in 1978-79. I've been an employee and VTS regulator, in the operational sense, until I assumed this position as officer-in-charge. So I have about 26 years of experience in the coast guard. I feel very compassionately about the coast guard, the direction it's taken and that sort of thing.

I've rolled this up into about four areas that I felt that were important to address.

First is the overall funding of the coast guard, which is affecting MCTS as well as other programs and departments. Integration of the vessel traffic services and coast guard radio under the umbrella of MCTS has provided a national saving of 209 full-time equivalent employees, $10.6 million in salaries, $2.9 million in operation and maintenance costs, for a total saving of $13.6 million nationally.

• 0900

The 1995 master plan for the integration of the vessel traffic services and coast guard radio called for a five-year implementation period. Subsequently, we were asked to achieve this integration in a span of four years. The integration in part was accomplished in 1999.

Much credit is to be given to the centre employees at all sites for their efforts and undertaking of the cross-training. The 1989-99 to 2000-01 national MCTS business plan called for a period of stability to give all employees an opportunity to become more comfortable with their new duties in the integrated organization. The very opposite appears to be occurring. There are constant financial pressures being imposed year after year, which constantly affect our ability to conduct mandatory training, modernize our equipment, hire new staff, and, most important, to carry out our operationally mandated task.

Second, on the MCTS staffing levels and recruitment throughout the Pacific region, prior to, during, and after integration, there has been no workload evaluation study conducted at any MCTS centre within the Pacific region. The determination of what staffing level would be required to perform the collective duties of the previous two disciplines has never been fully recognized. The staffing formula that was utilized in the master plan for integration requires revision. It is the general opinion of operational staff, including a number of management personnel, that the centres are currently understaffed and that it is urgent that a work study be conducted to determine the validity of this statement.

Third, ongoing studies and restraint measures are causing a great deal of stress and uncertainty within the workplace throughout the Pacific region. At a time when we need our employees keenly focused on their duties, especially during this new era of heightened security, there are a number of studies underway and restraint measures in place that could ultimately affect the way MCTS carries out its mandate now and in years to come. Although studies and reviews are a necessary process to follow, the timing has to be questioned in light of the financial dilemma we are currently in.

Fourth, aging equipment, lack of funding, and a lack of technical personnel is adding to our inability to repair, upgrade, and modernize our infrastructure in a timely fashion. This particular centre requires modernization of our operational equipment within the centre. A capital submission for an engineering study has been developed. The Tofino MCTS has the only 24-hour, 7-day-a-week darkroom operations area in the country. In light of the strategic nature of this centre, the importance that this station holds for Canadian-U.S. interests, and the health and welfare of the employees, it would be extremely beneficial to ensure that priority be placed on upgrading and modernizing the operational equipment without delay.

Technical personnel throughout the region are trying very hard to cope with the huge number of technical projects and priorities placed on them by our operational program and other departments. A lack of funding, in combination with a lack of technical staff, is preventing these types of activities from moving forward on a timely basis.

In conclusion, our MCTS program and coast guard in general need the required physical assets, human and financial resources, along with a period of stability—very, very important—to ensure we have an efficient, productive, and sustainable workforce and workplace within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

With that, I will conclude our presentation. Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you very much, Larry.

There's one other witness here, on behalf of the department, Andy Nelson.

Andy, we understand you're here primarily to answer questions on behalf of the department. Is there anything you'd like to say at this time?

Mr. Andy Nelson (Acting Superintendent, Marine Communications and Traffic Services): No, that's correct. Originally I was asked to go over the deck that was produced in Vancouver, but due to time and everything else here—and you've heard it over and over already—I don't think there's any requirement to go over that again.

There are a couple of things I'd like to mention. Just about everything you've heard so far has been echoed at all the centres we visited, so it's obviously a problem throughout our organization. The cutbacks have come down through DFO. We get our allocations, and it's always approximately $750,000 to $1 million less than what we asked for. This has been going on for the last four years. It's very difficult, as you can understand from the staff you've heard from, to maintain our services.

• 0905

Our main mandates—namely, distress, urgency, safety, and vessel traffic services—have all been mandated, as far as I'm aware. We have had cutbacks on some shifts due to staff shortages, but the primary duties of our jobs have been maintained.

I'd like to clarify one thing on our international commitments with GMDSS. A couple of gentlemen mentioned that we're not meeting our commitments. The document the union handed out yesterday has quite a few errors in it. GMDSS is an international distress and safety system, and signatory members of IMO... it's up to each country how they declare the waters around their country. In Canada we decided to go A1, which is VHF digital selective calling, and that's being implemented at this time. We anticipate having the system completed on both coasts by February 2003. That's what's been advertised for the last four years, and we're more or less on target with that.

The VHF coverage in Canada is out to about 40 nautical miles, while internationally it's only 20 miles. We have extended that because of our high mountain sites on the west and east coasts.

The carriage requirements are for all commercial vessels. In Canada there are approximately 17,000 vessels that have to upgrade their equipment to this new standard, and again, that will be in 2003.

As to the A2 DMS coverage they were mentioning earlier, Canada originally was going to go with A2 equipment, but the cost to the mariner was approximately $30,000 to $50,000 each. With input from the users, from our PACMAR meetings and our CMAC meetings, and from headquarters, they decided not to put that additional cost on the mariners and just go with the cheaper VHF. Most of our coast is covered by VHF, and that was the way it was decided we'd go.

Vessels operating outside of VHF range in Canada must have A3 equipment. That's the satellite equipment—INMARSAT C, A, or B. In Canada that only affects about 300 vessels that are outside international waters. Most countries in the world have A3 coverage, and some are putting in A1 at this time. A few countries have put in A2 coverage, and in the documents it talks about third world countries. I'm not sure which third world country has any GMDSS equipment at this time, but we are meeting our mandates internationally in that regard.

There are quite a few things there. Some of the documents are of course correct, but some of the statements that we're not meeting our international commitments are totally incorrect.

Regarding training, we're far behind in our training, as has been indicated, at all of the centres. As I mentioned before, approximately one-third of the MCTS staff in Canada are in this region. We have 118 positions, and there are just over 300 in Canada. The Canadian Coast Guard College cannot handle this number. We cannot afford to send that many people back for retraining, for cross-training. Our IALA commitment is that every five years they have to be recertified.

Just for your information, any staff member who goes on a training course must be replaced by another individual, which of course means overtime, approximately $500 per shift, and these numbers go up and up. When you have 118 people who all have to be classroom trained or upgraded, the cost is quite astronomical.

The staffing levels established are national staffing levels, the 5.5 that has been indicated. In actual fact you need only 4.4 to staff a position, but any kind of training, sick leave, annual leave, or anything else is above that. We have found the 5.5 does not meet our requirements on the west coast, and staffing shortages are a fact of life. Of the ll8 positions we have, at the moment only 108 are filled. We're 10 short, and our next course won't be until next September, as I mentioned, and it will be two years before we get trained staff to fill positions.

• 0910

Regarding equipment upgrades for the Tofino centre, a submission has gone in for 2003-04 to upgrade the radar. The consoles, the actual physical switches and stuff on the consoles, would be similar to what you saw in Victoria. It will be a touch-screen system, and that's also a national project. This region's upgrade will be over a two-year period, 2003-04 and 2004-05, and all our centres will have the new communications control systems. With those systems, we're also getting consoles. What you saw in Victoria will be similar to what all our centres will have in three or four years.

Least-cost analyses, best practices, and change initiatives were mentioned. All these programs were initiated due to our funding restraints. These were things we came up with to find possibilities for cutting costs to meet our DFO requirements and the budget cuts. Unfortunately, the money is not there at the moment. We're striving to make do with less. It will be affecting services, there's no doubt whatsoever on that, if we continue in this mode.

I'll leave that open for questions, because I know we are under a time constraint here.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you.

I'll go to Mr. Cummins first.

Mr. John Cummins: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations this morning. The evidence you have presented is quite compelling. In his remarks, Mr. Wedmedyk suggested that what we are hearing is the result of frustration of employees tasked with a huge responsibility without the equipment to do the job.

Mr. Nelson, in your comments just now, you suggested that there is a submission in with a timeframe of 2003-05 to replace equipment, if I heard you correctly. Then in the next breath you were suggesting that for some matters there were budget cuts and the money wasn't available.

Mr. Andy Nelson: There are two different subjects there. Capital costs are a different pot of money, one that comes from headquarters directly to the region. It does not go to our normal O and M, operating and maintenance. Approximately 80% of our O and M is for salaries and overtime. The other 20% is for upkeep of buildings, etc. Capital costs, replacements for radios, direction finders, radars, etc., are all capital submissions. They're over $1 million, so they go to headquarters.

At the MCTS and headquarters level, we allocate approximately $8 million per year for infrastructure upgrades across the country. We're vying for this with other regions as well. You put your submissions in, sometimes the money is not available, and it's carried over to the following year.

Mr. John Cummins: Isn't that really the issue, though? Someone up the line has assured you that this equipment is going to be replaced, but in fact until you see it, it's not there, is it?

Mr. Andy Nelson: That's correct.

Mr. John Cummins: So these types of promises, I'm sure, have been made in the past in various areas in which you've had experience.

Mr. Andy Nelson: With the rust-out situation we have on the west coast... of late, these items will come to the front burner. We haven't really had a big problem for the major projects. It sometimes takes two, three, or four years before the funding comes through, but it has always come through. Unfortunately, for that period of time it's a band-aid solution. We have a lot of outages. It's very frustrating for technicians because some of our equipment is 25 or 30 years old. It's not made any more, which makes it very difficult.

Mr. John Cummins: In your comments, Julius, you suggested the commercial traffic was going to double or triple in the next twenty years. As well, in his comments Terry suggested that traffic may not be destined for a Canadian or an American port in the northwest, but it travelled through your areas. So my question is a double one, in a sense.

• 0915

With that increased traffic, of course, is increased responsibility, but when you discuss the numbers of vessels that you have to interact with, do you take into account those vessels, then, that are travelling from the Far East through your area and continuing down the west coast of North America?

Mr. Julius Smolders: The doubling or tripling of traffic, is that your question?

Mr. John Cummins: Well, there's the concern, I guess, as you've suggested, that this doubling and tripling of traffic obviously means an increase in your workload. There's no question about that. The question is, when you talk about these numbers and when we see numbers for traffic movement... The suggestion in Seattle yesterday was that the traffic movement was movement that originated or concluded in the area.

These vessels that simply transit the area, travelling from the Far East, passing through your area, and continuing down the coast to San Francisco or Los Angeles or wherever—do you count those in the numbers of vessels that you have to interact with? Are they part of the puzzle here?

Mr. Julius Smolders: It's twofold. First of all, the numbers I referred to came from a U.S. secretary of transportation study. They have suggested that we can expect a doubling or tripling of commercial traffic over the next 20 years.

As far as interacting with offshore vessels is concerned, pretty much standard shipping routes for vessels coming from the Far East take them through the Umnak pass in Alaska, down along the coast of Vancouver Island, and then into various ports through the Columbia River, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, or wherever.

When we actually physically talk to those vessels, they are counted in our daily statistics of vessels that we have worked for the day. However, there are also times when we have vessels transiting through the system that we are not currently talking to.

There is an ongoing study now.

What is the name of that study, Larry, for the offshore... “Vessel traffic risk management”; is that what it's called?

It pertains specifically to those vessels that are in transit within both the Canadian exclusive economic zone and the U.S. exclusive economic zone that may be outside of our specific area of responsibility but still within, if you will, Canadian or American waters.

No, I haven't included that, and that is yet another ongoing study at this time looking at those specific numbers as well and the risk involved with that shipping.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: Yes, I believe the reference made in that statistic would probably apply to all the U.S. ports probably on the west coast.

Julius, just correct me, but is that a western U.S. port study, or an all-national one?

Mr. Julius Smolders: It's the one that involves the U.S. and concerns waters off the coast of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Colombia.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: I don't want to confuse you here. There is a study ongoing right now, called the “West Coast Offshore Vessel Traffic Risk Management Study”, that involves California, Oregon, Washington State, British Colombia, and Alaska. That study has to do with looking at all the traffic volume on the west coast of the U.S. and Canada, as well as possibilities for minimum distances off for vessels for transiting, looking at ballast water conditions, and that sort of thing. It's a different type of study. It doesn't really connect with this statistic.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you.

Madam Tremblay, please.

Mr. John Cummins: I think Terry was going to comment briefly.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Do you have a brief comment?

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: Yes, regarding the international commitment. This quote is taken directly from a Canadian Coast Guard publication, where it says:

After Feb 1, 1999, GMDSS ships will be maintaining an automated listening watch on VHF DSC CH70 and MF DSC 2187.5 kHz. This will create the situation during the transition to GMDSS where vessels fitted with traditional non-GMDSS equipment may have difficulty alerting or contacting a GMDSS equipped vessel. The Coast Guard is addressing this by monitoring both GMDSS and traditional distress frequencies...

• 0920

That is clearly not the case. We do not have MF DSC in Canada. So the Canadian Coast Guard Radio Aids to Marine Navigation publication is saying one thing, while we're telling you there's no such thing out there.

Mr. Andy Nelson: They're referring to VHF channel 16.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: No, it says right here, channel 70 and 2187 MF DSC are the two things we agreed to monitor in the transition period. And we don't have it.

Mr. Andy Nelson: We're monitoring 2182, of course, as is the U.S.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: It says MF DSC 2187. So that's what we're saying. For the third world, international country transiting through our waters that doesn't have that, what do you tell that guy?

Mr. Andy Nelson: We do not have MF DSC. We're not required to have MF DSC in Canada.

Mr. John Cummins: Are we meeting our international commitments?

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: I feel that we're not.

Mr. Andy Nelson: When you're outside of VHF range, you're in A3 waters, which is international waters, which is INMARSAT equipment.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: It was also stated that we consulted fishermen and other groups to find out what they wanted and the costs involved. How does that deal with the international community? We're talking to the national community on a problem that affects the international community. Did we really meet an international commitment by asking local groups how they felt about it? That's another point I had.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): I think, Andy, if you want to get in on this, we'd like to wrap that up and move on.

Mr. Andy Nelson: Okay. International vessels must have A3 communications equipment. They must have INMARSAT C, A, or B. That's mandatory for vessels outside of the 150-mile nautical range, and it meets requirements. If there's no A2 area identified by a country, it is A3 by default. In Canada we've declared we'll be A1 and A3. That's basically it. We are meeting our international requirements.

It's up to the individual country whether they're going to declare the A2 area or not, and Canada decided, no, we're not. But there's no international requirement for us to have A2.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Madam Tremblay, please.

• 0925

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to begin by asking that something be done about the heating system, because I do not see how we will be able to withstand the cold here very much longer. I am on the verge of freezing. Something will have to be done to help us warm up, because people are going to have trouble concentrating.

Several speakers have alluded to the fact that you do not have all of the necessary training and accreditation. I would like to know if you are getting the salaries that correspond to the positions you are filling, without however having the necessary training.

[English]

Mr. Larry Pokeda: I'm afraid I came in on that a little late—

The Chair: Larry, just to interrupt for a second, we do have to mention your name before you start, because we do not have anybody on the console. If we don't mention your name, when the record comes out, John Cummins' statement may be attributed to you, and I don't know whether or not you'd want that.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: All right.

I apologize. I came in a little late on that. Could you repeat the question again, please?

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: What I said was that several of you have mentioned the fact that your staff, in some cases, lack training and accreditation. You are not in a position to go and get the required accreditation because there are not enough of you.

I was wondering if you are being paid the salaries that go with the positions that you are filling without your having the necessary qualifications.

[English]

Do you get the money for what you're doing, even if you don't have the qualifications to do it?

Mr. Larry Pokeda: Yes, we do. We're being paid for what we do. That's correct. There's some mandatory aspects of the training program that we must have prior to going on the job. There are other areas such as refresher training and additional training on various pieces of equipment that occur after you're checked out at the station. But for the most part, the mandatory portion of your training is covered and we are being paid for that, yes.

Mr. Andy Nelson: Just as a clarification, when the individual is finished his training and checked out of the centre, they get the full salary—not until then. So while they're in training they earn a different salary rate than when they finish and finally check out after two years.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: That means that there are people filling these positions for three years who do not have the necessary qualifications but who are not getting the corresponding salary either. I view that as an odd way of doing things.

[English]

Mr. Andy Nelson: No. People are not in a position if they are not qualified.

Mr. Julius Smolders: Perhaps I can address that issue as well, Madam Tremblay. We have in place a system of graduated pay scales as individuals progress through various training programs. I made reference to the fact that we are falling short on our training requirements. As such, my reference is to the fact that our training is not being conducted in a timely fashion. Once we achieve a centre-specific checkout, then we progress to that level and everybody is at that level. There are individual pieces of equipment within our centre that other centres do not have—for example, the GMDSS equipment. I made reference to that specific training that we require. However, there are other centres in the country that may not have that.

As far as the supervisory training is concerned, which I mentioned too, under the staff relations act, again, it's a situation where the training is not being delivered in a timely fashion. I believe that is what your question was directed toward.

Across the board, in this country, we are all at the same staffing level of RO-03, at the working level, and RO-04, at the supervisory level. But there are many differences from centre to centre based on the equipment that we have at that centre and specific training requirements for individual centres. That does change from centre to centre.

• 0930

[Translation]

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Suzanne, this will be your last question, please.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: If I understand correctly, you are saying that it might take up to two years to train someone. If you hire someone tomorrow morning and it takes two years to train that person, what salary will you give that person during those two years? That of someone who is trained or of someone who is not trained? You have only one staff level. How do you go about paying that person?

[English]

Mr. Julius Smolders: Yes, that is correct. Individuals start at the RO-OO level when they are in training. It is a much reduced training salary. Upon completion of their college-level training, I believe they go up one increment level. They are still being paid at a much reduced level while they are doing their centre-specific training, and only when they have finally completed their centre-specific, centre-designation check-ride do they progress to the next level. It is a graduated scale based on their experience and their level of training at the time.

Included in that are the actual increments as well. If they are relatively new employees to the coast guard, they will start at the very bottom level. It takes a lot of years before they finally progress to the full salary level.

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Thank you, Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have five areas of questioning. If I run out of time, I would ask you to put me down for a second round, please.

Mr. Smolders, in your presentation—by the way, thank you, everybody, for your presentations—I would like just two points of clarification for myself, quickly. I'm being inundated all this week with acronyms, and they drive me crazy. Can you tell me what SAR means?

Mr. Julius Smolders: I'm sorry; I thought I said. It means search and rescue.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I should have known that. And OIC?

Mr. Julius Smolders: Officer-in-charge.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I should have known that, too.

That's good. That's the easy question.

I just want to make sure I have all your recommendations, or at least we understand what all your recommendations are. I would like to just list them and ask whether this is in fact correct.

Mr. Smolders, recommendation 1, as I see it, is seven persons per position, as opposed to the 5.5. Is that right?

Mr. Julius Smolders: That is correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Number two, more funds for the Canadian Coast Guard College in order to train more people to replace the retiring people. Correct?

Mr. Julius Smolders: That is correct. Not necessarily number two, but, yes, that is correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: It is just how I have marked them down.

Number three—not necessarily number three—an immediate hiring or beginning of hiring of people to replace the people who are about to retire.

Mr. Julius Smolders: Absolutely, yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Both at the management team and technician level. Is that correct?

Mr. Julius Smolders: At the centre-specific level or MCTS operational level, and from our existing staff we can draw on experienced people to move up into the management level.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Okay.

Number four, as I have it, from Mr. Wedmedyk, is increased radar facilities now. In the documents that were handed out yesterday, which Mr. Nelson referred to and which I had forgotten we had received and have now reviewed, there is a recommendation for four additional radar sites.

Could anybody on the panel tell us where those four additional radar sites should be located, in your opinion?

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: I would think, first of all, before we decide that, some engineering studies would have to be made to determine the best sites. Once the decision is made that, yes, we do need them, we do want them, and we will pay for them, then it would have to go to engineering—the technical services branch. They would have to make some studies to see where the best site would be. Clearly, it's the northern side of Vancouver Island, but where exactly, I couldn't say without that.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you.

I'm asking this question because you didn't use the number four; you just said “additional” radar sites. And the documentation says “four” radar sites. Someone must have thought this out, because they could as easily have said three or six. Someone in this audience should know why it is four.

• 0935

Mr. Chairman, at some point could we get someone here to explain why they came up with the number four?

Anyway, we get the point. There are increased radar sites. Of course, all of this costs money. We understand this.

Mr. Pokeda, you recommended modernizing, repairing, and upgrading equipment.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: That is correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: All right.

I now have all the recommendations you would like us to consider in our deliberations as to what we're going to recommend to the minister.

Am I missing anything?

Mr. Larry Pokeda: I do believe we touched on other resources within the coast guard. We talked about technical service. We can have all the money in the world and we can have all the equipment ready to go, but if we don't have the technical people to install it, we're still at a loggerhead. Technical support in that area is certainly desired. How that is achieved, again, is a matter for the technical department.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Is there anything else?

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: In addition to what you've heard already, I believe I also touched on MF or VHF scrambling equipment. The reason we have a requirement for this is that if we're going to be talking to other government agencies and ships, surface and air units, right now we have no secure method to talk to the vessels at all. We do have secure phones via landlines or telephones. Once we're talking to them out at sea, we've lost the security.

I believe scrambled equipment was mentioned in Ottawa by the union. They also requested it.

I would like them to take another look at our DSC commitment, but that's something else.

The other recommendation I would like to state is that perhaps the responsibility for providing security should be a more shared approach, rather than slapping it on someone's lap and saying it's your ball, so run with it. Everyone else doing this work is then left out of the picture. Maybe it has to be looked at again as to who is providing what.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: As a follow-up to what I said before about technical support, we did touch on modernization of equipment and of Amphitrite Point, in particular.

With the timeframe for delivery of new equipment, are we going to be able to keep our old equipment going? We're dealing with some pretty old, antique stuff there. We've heard it from our technical staff. We don't know; we're flying on a wing and a prayer, in some cases, with regard to some of the tubes for the radar display and such.

There is one other issue. This is an easy one. We need a period of stability within the coast guard when we start this process to accomplish what we want to accomplish. If we're constantly going through change on a regular basis, we're never going to get there.

Thank you.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Am I out of time, Mr. Chairman?

The Acting Chair (Mr. James Lunney): Yes.

The Chair: James, go ahead.

Mr. James Lunney: I have a brief question and a comment.

First of all, I wanted to mention, when we were in Seattle, Dave, your participation in the procedures committee was certainly recognized, as was yours, Larry, on the joint coordinating committee. I alluded to this earlier. In fact, one of the officers there referred to Larry as a mentor.

The cooperation between the centres in managing vessel traffic through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and down into the American waters is certainly appreciated at the Seattle base.

When we asked them, from their perspective, what their observations were from working with you, as I said, they had the highest commendations for the personnel and their expertise. They did say there were times when they called and felt you were willing to respond, but it was as if there were too many pots on the stove. You said you had six to do, then four to do, and would be right back.

• 0940

Is there any comment on staffing, cross-training, covering the plate, and your responsibilities? Would anyone like to remark on it?

The Chair: Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. Dave Godfrey: One of the constant problems we're faced with, as you observed in Seattle and in Victoria, they have the luxury, as it were, of a stand-back supervisor. We do not have the same capability here, as was mentioned in our presentation.

The supervisors at our centre, and at others in the Pacific region, are working watch supervisors. When an area of concern comes up between ourselves and the U.S. Coast Guard, in particular, the supervisor from the operation calls our centre to speak with the watch supervisor. In many cases, or in some cases, the particular supervisor may be involved with the incident or situation at the working position. It makes it very difficult. There's no opportunity to have the same connection.

I think it's a big concern, certainly on our side. It has been addressed from the U.S. Coast Guard side, as well. It could be alleviated, again, with increased staffing and allowing a possible stand-back supervisor capability.

Larry.

Mr. Larry Pokeda: I'd add to that one point.

In my position as well, they have the luxury of an executive officer who handles all operational matters. The duty falls on my shoulders. You can well imagine, as a manager, when trying to deal with operational issues, having to deal with budgetary issues and outside agencies becomes very cumbersome indeed. I don't believe I'm doing a favour to the position of the operations themselves.

If we had additional staff and could bump someone up into the role, it would be very beneficial to have an assistant to deal with the operational matters between centres and make sure the continuity continues.

Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Julius Smolders: I would add to that from a watch supervisor's perspective.

Each one of the supervisors in Tofino are given additional responsibilities to help make the centre run effectively and efficiently. I mentioned I am the centre training officer. We also have a watch supervisor who is responsible for procedures and involved with the U.S. Coast Guard. We have supervisors who are involved with the centre's operations information manual, with staffing, and with shift scheduling issues, etc.

We are not given the time we require to properly address individual portfolios. As the centre operations training officer, I am given very little time throughout the year to give any attention to the issues. When time is given, it is very fragmented.

To finish, Mr. Wappel, first and foremost, we need sustainable funding that will allow us to have increased staffing, appropriate training, and effective service delivery.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer, keep it short, if you could. We're going to run out of time.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations.

Mr. Godfrey, for a person who's about to retire, for you to even be here, to even give a shit, really, is really admirable. A lot of people who were about to retire would say, look, you guys deal with the mess, because I'm out of here. I've done my time. I've tried, and now I'm gone. So for you to be here is very admirable, and I personally thank you for doing it. I know you're thinking of the future of this establishment, even though you may not be a part of it. You'll be busy with the Lions Club.

Mr. Smolders, in Victoria we met a woman named Kathy, who was like a shining light.

When we met in Vancouver with Mr. Henderson, who's sort of your boss, he was asked by Mr. Easter, point blank, if he had the money to do his job. He said yes, money was not an issue. Then we get out in the field and hear completely the opposite.

I see you shaking your head.

Why would he say that?

Mr. Julius Smolders: Over the last several years, we have been trying to fit an operation to a budget. We need to have a budget that fits the operation. We cannot provide a service of this magnitude on a shoestring budget.

• 0945

I cannot speak for Mr. Henderson as to why he may have alluded to the fact that there are no problems, but I can clearly tell you, at the working level, looking up, there are major problems, and a great deal of that... We are just on the brink. It is about to get a whole lot worse if everybody continues to retire.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you. Right now, with Mr. Godfrey still employed, everyone's very busy at the centre. Is that correct?

Mr. Julius Smolders: That's correct.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: When Mr. Godfrey leaves, who's going to replace him?

Mr. Julius Smolders: It will take approximately two years for us to bring someone in. In the meantime, in that two-year period, the burden of responsibility will be on the shoulders of the existing employees to work additional overtime to fill in those shifts, and with that overtime comes additional costs.

The Chair: Last question, Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In other words, this is planned overtime, which is something no union, operational manager, or officer in charge would allude to, because planned overtime is something that creates burnout for employees. I spoke to a woman yesterday in your plant who said she worked 30 days in a row.

Mr. Julius Smolders: Yes.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: She makes around $44,000 to $47,000 a year, and her counterparts in the United States doing the exact same work make $60,000 U.S.

Mr. Julius Smolders: That's correct.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: So if you want to attract good people to the position—just like politicians, where you have to pay politicians to get good people in our field—you should pay good people to do your job.

Mr. Julius Smolders: That's correct. And if you look at it since about 1993 or 1994, when we started with wage and increment freezes, all the way through those years we have fallen far behind for our profession as far as American standards or world standards are concerned.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: It's just like anything else—

The Chair: Sorry, Peter.

Mr. Farrah.

Mr. Georges Farrah: I just want to come back to the presentation of Mr. Smolders on the second page, last paragraph. You are saying that the standards for training and certification of VTS personnel do not respect the international standards.

I know Mr. Nelson denied that, and I just want a clarification. It's a very severe statement you made there. I just want clarification on that, because it could have an effect on the coast guard's reputation and Canada's reputation also.

The Chair: Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Julius Smolders: Once again, I made reference to the International Association of Navigational Aids and Lighthouse Authority's recommendation V-103. Contained in this document are the standards for training and certification of VTS personnel. This is the international standard that is established. Andy made reference to the fact that it is up to each individual country to determine what level of standard or participation they will apply toward these standards; however, Canada is a partner of IALA.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me also thank the witnesses for being here, and especially Mr. Godfrey. I'd like to echo Peter's comments. I think it's laudable that somebody with five days to go hasn't been off on sick leave for the last year and a half, as a lot of people do. That shows dedication to the service.

When we compare our pay scales with those in the United States, again as Peter mentioned, it shows that people do jobs like this because they believe in what they're doing and they like what they're doing. Hopefully some politicians are also here not because of the money, Peter. We like what we're doing and feel we have a job to do.

However, there are a couple of questions. First, I think Mr. Smolders mentioned in his remarks that in the next 20 years our traffic could double, maybe even triple, yet at the same time, within the next seven years, we will be losing 70% of our management personnel and 50% of public employees generally.

• 0950

When we listen to the mechanisms involved in retraining people for positions such as yours, where are we going to be in ten year's time?

The Chair: Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Julius Smolders: I really don't know where we will be. Unless we are fully prepared to take positive, decisive action today, we are on the brink of spiralling out of control because of those very issues—we will be losing staff faster than we can replace them and traffic volumes will be increasing over the next 10 to 20 years. As well, there are the domestic security issues.

It scares me. It scares me where we may be in five years from now. By the time we finally replace Mr. Godfrey in two year's time, we have another individual scheduled to retire. By the time we can replace him, we have two more who are ready to retire. We have to take action now. We have run out of time. We have simply run out of time.

The Chair: Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a short while ago, I raised some concerns in the House to the minister, Minister Dhaliwal, because of cutbacks that were happening in the Newfoundland region. Our coast, of course, is like your own. We front the Atlantic Ocean and we have even less coverage than you have, radar-wise.

At the time, 11 lighthouses were being automated. Many of these have been in crucial areas where the lighthouse keepers are the eyes and ears, especially when you look at security. Two out of the four helicopters coast guards used to cover the area were being taken out of service, and one of the ships.

I'm told that this is all part of the plan to improve the system. I can't understand it. You people have been involved in this a lot longer than I have; can you understand it?

Mr. Julius Smolders: Again, no, we cannot. We cannot.

• 0955

As we speak today, we have one coast guard ship on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The coast guard ship Bartlett is anchored in Nootka Sound, and that's it. If that's an improvement, I cannot comprehend it. I do not understand it.

The Chair: Mr. Wedmedyk.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: I would like to just add to that statement about the cutbacks and what's out there right now.

During the Ottawa meetings, I believe Mr. Churchill made a comment that they had a 70-foot Canadian Coast Guard cutter based in Prince Rupert, on a 24/7 call at all times.

What he did not mention was the immense geographic area that one coast guard cutter is required to respond to. I'm sure you've seen charts of the Prince Rupert zone. It's huge.

Somebody needs to ask how long it would take for the vessel to reach the extremity of the range it's required to cover, from its base. How many hours would that take? I think you'd be in for a little surprise. And he said we had only one coast guard cutter, so we have a big problem that way, too.

The Chair: Thank you, Terry. We'll be in Prince Rupert tomorrow.

Tom, did you have all your questions answered? Can you ask one more? We are going to move on the next set of witnesses.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Mr. Chairman, you're a great chairman, but the reason we came here, primarily, was this subject matter.

The Chair: I know.

Mr. Tom Wappel: With all due respect to the other witnesses, it's very important that we get this covered off.

The Chair: Okay. A couple of questions. Let's go.

• 1000

Mr. Tom Wappel: You may not have an answer to this. In the union documentation, under the heading of Canadian domestic security, the following statement is made:

On a daily basis, MCTS Officers witness unidentified vessels proceed to Canada unchallenged by any other authority.

Is that statement factual, and if it is, could you give us some evidence of it?

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: That is correct, and as recently as a few months ago, I think, that situation was faced by me on a midnight shift, when I had a large contact show up on my radar. We tried to challenge the vessel, because it was proceeding towards another vessel that was involved in laying cable. That vessel required a two-mile clearance around it to do its job. And this vessel was proceeding right for it. He didn't check in with us and we didn't know who he was. We continued to call and call this vessel, and he didn't respond to us.

We ended up getting that cable ship to move out of the way, and the cable ship then identified the vessel because he could make the name out on it. We then called the vessel by name and he responded to my call. When I challenged him as to where he had been and what he was up to out there, because that was an unusual area for a ship of that size to come in, it's not a standard shipping route, he said he was out in international waters fishing tuna.

Well, my concern at that point was, how do I know that? He said he was proceeding for Tofino to unload his catch. I then called Canada Customs, because, again, our job is to alert other authorities when stuff comes up like that. I asked them, what's the requirement for a vessel coming out of nowhere heading to a Canadian port to check in with customs? He said there is no customs clearance; we have no requirement for any domestic fishing vessel that's in international waters to clear customs at any of these small ports.

“Don't you think that's strange?”, I asked him, and he said, “Yes, it is, but it's out of our hands”.

Mr. Tom Wappel: How do you know it's a domestic vessel?

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: Because after we got the name of the vessel we contacted them and asked them. He gave us his name, we checked that into our records and it did appear that it was a Canadian fishing vessel based in Tofino. But I don't know where he was; he could have been down in Mexico for all I know, loading up with drugs or something. We wouldn't have known that.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to give Mr. Wedmedyk an opportunity to correct some things. He wants time to correct some of the information given at the Ottawa meeting. He corrected one thing... or not necessarily corrected but offered us guidance on the huge area of Prince Rupert.

Mr. Wedmedyk, is there anything else there you wanted to offer?

And that's it, Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: Yes, I did flag a few things here. I'll just try to touch on some of them.

The Chair: Terry, I'll give you a chance in a minute to respond to that. Could we go to Mr. Cummins while you're looking them up? Then you can put them in order.

Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Nelson, you were advised that there was a submission to replace equipment. Are you aware, then, of any actions on the part of your superiors to actively train and replace existing staff?

Mr. Andy Nelson: You're talking about equipment submissions?

Mr. John Cummins: You suggested that there were submissions in place to replace equipment, and I'm asking whether or not you're aware of any submissions by your superiors, or any efforts by them, to replace the existing staff that is due to retire in the near future.

Mr. Andy Nelson: Yes, that's correct, the equipment submissions, I made them. That's part of my job. And in terms of the staffing situation, we have an individual in my branch who does the staffing. Next September we're putting out a competition for 10 to 12 staff members. Again, that's the ab initio training, and it'll take about two years before those people are trained.

The way we're going, we'll be hiring another course six months after that if the college has enough instructors who can put together a course. That's our problem; we need a whole class at the coast guard college to train our staff. We have so many people who we have to replace in the next 10 years or so.

Mr. John Cummins: Is there funding available for both that staffing and the equipment? Has that been put in place?

Mr. Andy Nelson: The equipment won't require further staff, it's just existing staff.

Mr. John Cummins: Yes, but has the funding been put in place for both the equipment and the extra staffing, and the training?

Mr. Andy Nelson: The funding is not in place as we speak, no.

• 1005

The Chair: Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. Dave Godfrey: I want to make one comment regarding staffing and the situation here in the Pacific region.

What is being referred to are replacement staff from the lower levels. I think it's important to bring to the attention of the committee that the Comox MCTS centre has been without an officer-in-charge for one year now. That officer-in-charge retired, as I did, one year ago, and has not yet been replaced through any staffing action.

Likewise, as you will find out tomorrow, the Prince Rupert system, out of six supervisory positions, has one permanent supervisor. They are presently running with five acting positions, and these acting positions have to be rotated on a three-month basis. You cannot be an actor beyond a three-month period. So it makes it very difficult for those operations to even meet their commitments to run efficiently, because they're missing the key individuals to manage those centres. That's a concern that I think should be brought forward.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. Smolders and then Suzanne.

Mr. Julius Smolders: I have one final comment to add. In all fairness, we just recently started an ab initio training course at the college in September. There are 12 individuals on that course. Nine are slated for central region and three for Newfoundland. That's not going to help us out at all.

In February we will be running a French-language training program, and all those candidates will be going to the Laurentian region. And there is another course tentatively scheduled for September 2002. Pacific region is going to have to fight it out with all the other regions to see how many candidates and how many seats we're going to be able to get on that particular course. But that is the soonest we can start putting someone in place to begin their training process, September 2002. And only then, if they're successful, can we hope to have somebody by the fall of 2003.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Smolders.

Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two small questions.

I would like to come back to a question I asked yesterday. When we were in the United States, we heard very positive remarks about you and the Canadian model, but we were also given comparisons between the American organizational chart and ours. Here, there are several decision-making centres and it is confusing. The hierarchy is unclear. Things move left and right. The same person may come under two or three different branches, or else the branch itself does two or three different things. In any event, we were told that there are problems with your organization.

Yesterday, I asked the people what they thought of a combined military and civilian organization. I got one answer that I have thought about and that I look at more as a caricature than as a serious response. What advantages would you see in having part of the services carried out by the military, with military and civilian cooperation? The people down there saw advantages to our system and they also saw advantages to their own. It is true that you are very busy and that you have perhaps not had the time to compare the two systems, but what advantages would you see in a joint military-civilian system?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Julius Smolders: From experience, from dealing with the U.S. Coast Guard, we know they have a mix of both military and civilian personnel. The problems we encounter with that, and the problems we foresee if we do that here—

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay: Excuse me, I'm not talking about problems. I'm talking about the advantages you can see. Can you see advantages?

Mr. Julius Smolders: No, but if I can address it, I do see some disadvantages, and that would be a lack of continuity. The advantage is in having long-term people with a great deal of experience. Where we can work much closer with our military is in sharing the information that we have with them, in having coastal patrol vessels from DND on our coast, at sea, whereby we can communicate with them directly and securely to share and pass information. As far as our operation shifting over to DND is concerned, no, I don't really see much in the way of advantages other than maybe increased funding.

• 1010

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. Dave Godfrey: If I may, Madame Tremblay, one of the problems I see, having been military myself in the early part of my career, is that, as was probably explained to you, part of the problem the U.S. Coast Guard experiences is the posting for military personnel is normally a three- to four-year period.

As was explained in part of the presentation yesterday, the problem with integrating military personnel into our type of operation would be one of training, as has been indicated, although these people would be somewhat experienced, presumably being navy personnel. They would have some marine knowledge and background, but they would still require a period of training to become qualified to do the job, and once in that position they would only be there for possibly one to two years before then being transferred out of the position, out of the community and so on. So I don't see that there would be a big advantage at the Canadian level to try to integrate any military personnel within our organization.

The situation in the United States is, as you know, that although they are referred to as military, the U.S. Coast Guard is paramilitary; they're a part of the military organization. Our coast guard is a public service. We are not part of the military. So we would have to try to find some mechanism to integrate a public service with a military organization.

I'm not saying that cannot be done. It is being done in Victoria and at other rescue centres across the country, because our rescue coordinators in the centres are sharing jobs between military and coast guard personnel. This is being done because of the resources that are required. The military personnel in those centres are primarily air force personnel, because of the air search and rescue aspects of it. The coast guard looks after the marine side.

But in our particular type of work, the Marine Communications and Traffic Services, I don't see any advantage in even trying to use that U.S. Coast Guard as a model.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer, you can ask a very short one.

Mr. Julius Smolders: If I can interject and make one very important key point here, in order to work as a marine traffic regulator, or now as an MCTSO, it is enshrined in the Canada Shipping Act that an individual must be certified as an MCTS officer. It is a very long and involved process to go through that training and receive that certification. To have military personnel go through that process only to be rescheduled, or to move on to their next posting, be transferred within a year or two, it would be a huge waste of time, money, and resources.

The Chair: Thank you, Julius.

Mr. Stoffer, quick.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: How many people in a training class actually are successful at the end of the training? Also, we heard yesterday from Lieutenant Devereaux of the United States, that the god of the MTCS was a Mr. McGowan, who invented one of the systems. For the record, I was wondering if you could briefly tell us who Mr. McGowan is and what he's done. As well, how many people actually are successful at the end of their training? Just because 12 people are in a class doesn't mean you're going to have 12 people here in two years.

Mr. Julius Smolders: From my training experience, traditionally, in years gone by, the success rate has been approximately 50%. About 50% of the people who came through the college level and then went on for their centre-specific training were actually successful. Those numbers have gone up in recent years, but not because the job has gotten easier; it's because we have become more desperate and lowered our standards of what is and what is not acceptable. And I say that from the heart. That is a fact.

Recently, we had two people come from the college to do their centre-specific training. One of them did not make it. They were “CT'd”—ceased training. And for the other individual, again, it was questionable, but we were desperate for people and so we pushed him through.

• 1015

As far as Mr. McGowan is concerned, that individual started as a marine traffic regulator in Tofino 20-odd years ago. He started with a very simple home computer—at the time—and started developing programs to help Tofino traffic run more effectively and more efficiently. Over the years he has continued to build on that, to the point where he has developed, pretty much single-handedly, our VTS system, which is a system of automatically or electronically plotting and tracking vessel movements, of sharing information between us, other MCTS centres in the west, and Seattle. He has done a very admirable job. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the resources and he doesn't have the people. If anything should happen to him, once again we're dead in the water.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Smolders.

Mr. Pokeda, in your original statement, you talked about, when integration occurred, there being some document that had stated there would be a period of stability to give time, and so on. You basically said the opposite was happening. Can you give us the name of that document or send it in to the clerk so we have it and can refer back to it?

Mr. Larry Pokeda: Yes. I just referenced it as the 1995 master plan for integration. We do have that document. We can make that available.

The Chair: Good. Thanks.

Tom.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Terry was going to give us some information.

The Chair: Yes, Terry, sorry, you were going to give us a run-through on some of the other points that maybe should be emphasized from the Ottawa meeting.

Mr. Terry Wedmedyk: Okay. I already brought up the problem with AIS as a replacement, that for security reasons it will not work because you can shut it off. That impression wasn't given in the original minutes. To me, it sounded like it was a perfect system.

The other issue was the coast guard cutter out of Prince Rupert. It was also mentioned by Mr. Churchill that the northern area is only covered by one U.S. coast guard cutter. His actual words were “I don't believe they have radar coverage in that area” and “Until recently the U.S. Coast Guard did have a small vessel stationed at Ketchikan”.

That's not true. The United States Coast Guard has probably the largest fleet in the world based in the Alaskan waters. They have numerous fleets based out of areas like Homer, Ketchikan, Seward, Kodiak—the large fleets—and then they have smaller fleets in Juneau, I believe. They have three air stations, one in Sitka, one in Kodiak, and I'm not sure where the other one is. They have communication stations up there. Plus, they have at least three high-endurance offshore cutters, the big ones you see on TV. Although they're not permanently based in Alaska, they come from Alameda in California, Seattle, and Honolulu. They're sent up into Alaskan waters and they patrol those waters on a regular basis.

All that information was available with a simple phone call to the U.S. Coast Guard's Juneau headquarters. That's where I obtained all that information. So that's another thing I want to point out.

He said there was no radar coverage. Prince William Sound, up in Alaska, does have vessel traffic services. That's where the tanker Exxon Valdez went aground. So I just want to clarify that they do have those facilities.

He said the reason we don't have radar in other areas is because of costs. I believe it was Mr. Desparois who said we can't put radar everywhere. It's true. You can't put radar sites in everywhere. But you have to look at strategic points and then decide what the costs are to cover those areas.

I had something just handed to me here, concerning radar for the west coast, saying the four points where they were looking to have radar were: Seymour Narrows for Comox; Prince Rupert harbour; the Queen Charlotte Islands, on the offshore side; and northern Vancouver Island. These are the four areas that I believe were identified by the union as ones where they would like to see radar sites put in.

The reason that the United States Coast Guard doesn't put radar at all their sites is that they have a budget problem, too, and they're looking to put the dollar where it's best applied in their case. They've opted to support a larger fleet than we have, so a lot of their waters are patrolled routinely by ships and aircraft, whereas ours are not. They've opted to purchase these extra ships in light of putting in an extra radar system somewhere on the coast.

• 1020

That wasn't said either, and that needs to be said. They don't have these sites because they have other facilities or resources that we don't have.

The last statement that I feel needs some amplification is where it was said that the United States Coast Guard is currently replacing 300 lifeboats with the 47-foot style, similar to what Canada is using.

I want to state that Canada's coastline is much greater than that of the United States. We need to know how many lifeboats Canada presently has to cover our area. I can tell you that it's nowhere near the 300 lifeboats that the Americans have right now. Again, we're lacking resources on the fleet side. I just want to bring that out, that although we are purchasing a few lifeboats, we have nowhere near what's required to give full coverage on any of the coastlines.

The Chair: Thank you, Terry.

Mr. Nelson has a point, and then I want to give Mr. Godfrey the last word.

Mr. Nelson.

Mr. Andy Nelson: Thank you, sir. I'd like to make a couple of points, for the record.

Regarding lifeboats, there are two lifeboats going to the northern Prince Rupert area. One is going to Queen Charlotte City or Sandspit, and the other one is going to Shearwater. That will be in the next two years. That's part of the national project that was awarded to a company in Victoria, to build these lifeboats. Also, there are nine going in, altogether, on the west coast, just for the record.

Regarding the competitions, the OIC competition for Comox will be staffed by June of next year. The competitive process takes that long because of the number of applicants we will have. The competition will be going out within the next two weeks to staff the vacant supervisory positions. Actually, the position I'm in right now, the superintendent's position, will be staffed by next June as well.

As well, regarding international waters, 12 miles offshore you're in international waters. The fishing grounds are 20 miles offshore, so virtually all the vessels fishing out here are in international waters. As a clarification, the 12-mile limit is a Canadian limit.

Regarding standards, it was mentioned that we've lowered our standards for hiring individuals. I do not believe we have. Our standards are still the same. Some of the people coming out from the college may not meet our standards on the west coast. That has been proven recently here, where some didn't check out. They go through a long process, and if it gets to a point where a person does not look like they'll ever make it, they're turfed. If that person has potential, they are carried on until...

Basically, that's it.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Nelson.

Mr. Godfrey, you've spent a great part of your lifetime in this. I understand you're retiring next week or—

Mr. Dave Godfrey: Shortly.

The Chair: —in the future, anyway. On behalf of the committee, we certainly want to thank you for your service and your dedication.

Based on your experience in your lifetime in the coast guard with marine traffic control, is it the best of times or the worst of times, and what would be your key thoughts on it?

I know you related to Tom's question earlier. We have that information, but are there any last words you want to say? The floor is yours.

Mr. Dave Godfrey: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I came into the coast guard from the air force. I was an air traffic controller at Comox in the beginning years of vessel traffic service here on the west coast. There was a great deal of challenge and excitement in my early career with the coast guard, and I've always enjoyed the challenge.

I can understand the department's decision to amalgamate the coast guard radio and vessel traffic services for efficiency and economic reasons. Unfortunately, as has been attested to, there has been a lowering of standards. In my mind, that is unfortunate. We continue to struggle, as was mentioned, to meet our commitment both nationally and internationally. It's a challenge, but it's not an enjoyable challenge, not like in my early years, when we were building the system and developing the procedures. We had a great deal of passion about our job and enjoyed going to work.

• 1025

As I've said to many of my friends and colleagues, many people who really have a passion for their work dread retirement; you want to keep going. You look at retirement as being put out to pasture. Unfortunately, when you get into a situation where fiscal restraints or other concerns suddenly change the whole texture of the job, as has happened here at this centre and at most centres, then that passion and enjoyment of the job... It's a sad statement to say that now I'm looking forward to retirement.

Looking ahead at some of the problems that have been identified and some that will continue to deteriorate the service, perhaps... and other people have mentioned to me that they wish they were in my shoes, because I'm able to get out of here. I don't feel comfortable in leaving my position open for further concerns. I would like to feel comfortable in knowing that the system will get the support—the extremely important financial support—to rebuild what has slowly deteriorated over the last 10 to 15 years. That's my only hope.

As was mentioned by Mr. Stoffer, I still have a great deal of compassion and passion for the position, and that's why I looked forward to the opportunity to be here and address you this morning. Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Godfrey.

Just for the information of the witnesses, the intent of the committee is to prepare a submission fairly quickly.

• 1030

To be honest with you, we had hoped to do this and have the information to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and others prior to the budget coming down. As you know, now the budget has been moved up and we probably can't meet that target. We will make a commitment to talk to Mr. Martin personally, but we will prepare a submission and table it in the House prior to Christmas, hopefully.

So that's how we'll deal with it. Once we have it prepared, we'll send you copies of that commission report. It will require further lobbying, I'm sure.

In any event, we do thank you for laying it before us. We wish you well on your retirement and we wish the rest of you well in terms of your responsibilities and futures.

Thank you.

We will hear about the problems in the Pacific hake fishery after a short break.

• 1031

• 1059

The Chair: Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans will meet on the problems in the Pacific hake fishery.

I believe we're going to start with Norm Sigmund. Go ahead, Norm.

Mr. Norman Sigmund (Individual Presentation): My name is Norman Sigmund. I've been a fisherman for 35 years. I'm the president of the Trawl Council of British Columbia and I've been involved in the hake fishery since we brought the first fish ashore. I appreciate this opportunity, and I hope to give you some valuable insights as to the state of the hake fishery on the west coast.

The irrational and dangerous demands of the so-called Canadian On-shore Hake Coalition must be addressed. The issue of onshore versus joint venture should not even exist. With the present agreement in place, if the onshore processors do the production, 80% of the fish goes onshore and 20% to the joint venture.

• 1100

The two fisheries differ in the way they harvest hake. The joint venture fishes for small tows throughout the day to feed the offshore factory fresh fish in an orderly fashion, only leaving the fishing grounds to refuel and grub up every ten days or so. The shore-based catcher would prefer to take one large tow of 50 to 60 tonnes and be on their way back to port, thus losing touch with the grounds on a daily basis.

This system works well for the shore-based catcher vessel. The joint venture catcher boat finds the fish, takes a 10- or 15-tonne tow, and the shore-based catcher can now move in and cream the school, saving hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars worth of fuel searching for fish. With over 1,600 square miles of hake grounds adjacent to Ucluelet, the need for a scout to stay on the fish is unmeasurable. The joint venture has also been used as an important market stabilizer and safety net for the fleet.

In 1997 Ucluelet Seafood Processors did not operate because of market conditions being very poor. Again, in 1999, Pacific Coast Processors failed to operate because of financial problems, returning next season as Canadian Seafood Processors. During the 2000 season, when the hake failed to return to their summer grounds off the west coast, and the cost of moving fish from the north end of the island proved prohibitive, the plants in Ucluelet again did not operate. In the 2001 season, 80% of the quota was demanded by the onshore processors, and when the final figures were compiled, 57% of the quota was left in the water—41,656 tonnes, and 83,395,312 pounds of fish were left in the water.

What did these four years have in common? The hake fleet was saved by the successful joint venture fisheries. If the entire quota had been assigned to the shore side, a large percentage of the trawl fleet would be in a dire financial state, including myself. With this kind of track record four out of the last five seasons, you can begin to understand the fishermen's fear of the entire quota being assigned onshore. The loss of the joint venture safety net would amount to economic suicide for the fleets.

Processors do not want a free-market condition. What they are demanding is a monopoly. The processing sector wants you to believe that a joint venture is the problem, when the reality is their market strategy has been their downfall. With the failure of the surimi market again this season, both companies are once again scrambling to find any market they could. They had done nothing to prepare themselves for any downturn in the surimi market yet again. Two weeks before the start of the season, the United Seafood Processors pulled some filleting machines off an old factory trawler, and we were supposed to be impressed at this new investment. Canadian Seafood Processors had done even less.

The processors are using misinformation to manipulate public opinion. They had indicated that the fishermen delayed the start of the onshore season. This was untrue. The companies would not negotiate in good faith until USP finished retooling their new equipment and were ready to process. CSP would not start production until we could guarantee full production.

One fact that should not be overlooked, the fishermen accepted a 30% price cut this year to allow the onshore plants to operate, while the shoreworkers remain the highest paid in North America.

Without the competition generated by the joint venture, you will never see premium products being produced at the large plants in Ucluelet. These plants are owned by international conglomerates that are here for one reason—cheap fish—and have proven that they have to be forced into higher quality, labour-intensive products. They will not do it on their own. If given the monopoly they want, you will not see the five or six months work that we should have at these plants doing premium products such as fillets, head and gut, or even hake sausages. It will be in their best interest to move in even more machinery and do the fish faster, with less labour cost—grind it into surimi in two months, wash down the plants, and you will not see them again till next season. Tyson Foods, USP's parent company, already does it in Alaska, and Daerim, CSP's parent company, needs raw surimi for their Kamaboko plants in Korea.

It does not matter to the village or to West Coast Reduction that the fishery is only two months long: surimi production uses huge amounts of water, and the village will get its revenue from its water tax. West Coast Reduction will do well with its offal contracts. The true economic impact will be felt by the shoreworkers' loss of long-term employment and the fishermen's loss of revenue due to the processors' monopoly.

• 1105

We have an opportunity to build a long-term fishery here on the west coast that will have a profound effect on the economic stability of the region if we slow down and develop it with proper care and direction. With a realistic, sustainable harvest of over 100 million pounds of hake a year, the community, fishermen, shoreworkers, plant owners—everyone—should be able to profit from this immense natural resource, but not at the expense of a few. These large companies have not shown the mature leadership qualities that one would need to be trusted with this great natural resource.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Sigmund.

Next is Diane St. Jacques, the mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor for having us in your town.

Ms. Diane St. Jacques (Mayor of Ucluelet): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to everyone.

I certainly would like to welcome you to Ucluelet, both as the mayor and as the chair of the Canadian Hake On-shore Coalition. The Canadian Hake On-shore Coalition was formed in the spring of 2000 to provide the members of impacted communities with a vehicle to express their opposition to the way the Pacific hake fishery is currently managed by DFO.

I know you've travelled a long way to be here, and we sincerely want to thank you all for making that effort. You'll be hearing from a number of people about the hake fishery and the impact of its current management here on the coast.

I want to address the same issue, but from a slightly different perspective. I'll begin by reviewing the impacts of the current system of management and explain from the perspective of communities why we are so opposed to the offshore processing. Then I'd like to talk about what the future of this industry should look like and how you, as a committee, can help get us there.

By way of background, you need to understand that the onshore processing of Pacific hake has grown to become an important economic activity in the whole Alberni-Clayoquot region.

This B.C.-based industry has provided over 500 direct jobs and more than $7.9 million in annual payroll; approximately $50 million total industry investment in the region; over $679,000 in annual purchases of services such as hydro, sewer, and certainly water; over $1.6 million in direct, annual contributions toward benefits such as EI, WCB, CPP, MSP, etc., for B.C. workers; and approximately $4.7 million in investments in environmental protections, which are so important to all of us.

This industry has also provided indirect business and employment opportunities derived from the production, sale, and distribution of value-added products worth over $40 million wholesale, and opportunities for spinoffs and new business, such as the West Coast Reduction plant in Nanaimo, which has the ability to employ up to 50 people.

While the fact that these benefits are threatened by the offshore processing is reason enough, there are other important reasons for our opposition. One is policy inconsistencies. I won't spend a lot of time here talking about the history of this fishery, because I believe others will be addressing this issue in more detail. However, I do want to point out that significant investment in plants and physical infrastructure has been made in our communities, based on DFO policies from 1992 and 1999 that indicated offshore processing would be phased out at the end of this season—which now may not be the case—and that during the sunset period for offshore processing, onshore processing, with its related benefits, would represent the priority fishery, while offshore processing would represent a surplus fishery. Again, this has not been our experience. In fact, deliveries of surplus hake offshore end up competing with priority deliveries, so priority hake is in fact diverted offshore.

As I have indicated, onshore processing represents a local value-added industry that provides much-needed jobs and benefits in communities like Ucluelet and Port Alberni. The economic benefits to these communities of offshore processing are negligible. Onshore processors are corporate citizens who pay taxes and water, sewer, and hydro charges, as well as benefits such as the WCB and CPP that I mentioned earlier. Combine these with the investments to comply with strict environmental standards and monitoring regimes, and you have the normal costs of doing business in B.C. These costs are not borne by offshore processors, who are exempt from the same requirements. Not only is this unfair in principle, but it also makes it impossible for onshore processors to be as competitive as they could be.

• 1110

The Canadian Hake On-shore Coalition is not arguing that onshore processors should be exempt from these charges or regulations, but that the playing field should be level.

Onshore processing needs are supposed to have priority. While this might be true on paper, in actual fact, the joint venture system works against onshore processors. The onshore season is artificially shortened, deliveries offshore compete against deliveries onshore, and onshore processors are prevented from receiving the consistent volume and quality of catch they are allocated.

The onshore processors have more than enough capacity to use the allocation. This is one of the justifications used to maintain the joint venture fishery—the supposed lack of capacity of the onshore processors. While this may have been true years ago, it is no longer accurate. Onshore processors have the capacity to process the Canadian catch. Again, I think you'll hear quite a bit more about this from the other speakers.

Many believe the argument that onshore processors can't or don't want to compete, especially on price. This is not the case.

First, onshore processors compete with each other and with American processors. There are at least five plants on Vancouver Island and three or four others within delivery distance in Washington State.

Second, onshore processors would be happy to compete with anyone, as long as the rules of the game are the same for everyone, and right now they're not.

Third, the price of hake is artificially high in our market precisely because the foreign fleet enjoys the advantages over the shore-based businesses.

From my perspective, the inequity here is striking. It is also urgent. I am deeply concerned that we will not have a viable onshore industry if we do not correct these inequities.

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I want to be very clear about one thing. In objecting to offshore or foreign-vessel processing, we are not advocating that government support one business or type of economic activity over another. Rather, we are demanding that all those who participate in this industry are treated equitably.

If the government's decision to allow deliveries of hake offshore is based on the desire to provide fishers with competition for their catch, that competition should not be subsidized, as it is now. If the joint venture partners—the Polish fleet and the fishermen—want to process hake, why is it that they cannot or will not undertake this activity onshore? Is it because staying offshore allows them to avoid the rules and costs of doing business that we impose on everyone else? Once again, we ask ourselves if this is fair.

You can see what this issue means, in terms of jobs and economic impact. Remember, bringing processing activity onshore creates jobs and value-added economic activity. For example, every 1,000 tonnes of hake processed onshore, over and above what comes onshore now, would create an additional four to six person-years of employment. So the question is really not which part of the industry should we choose to support and/or strengthen; it is quite simply, how do we ensure that there is an industry to support in the future?

Increasing and stabilizing the supply of hake available to onshore processors is critical to the long-term viability and success of the onshore processing industry itself. I cannot emphasize to you strongly enough that we need this economic activity onshore. Our communities need the jobs and the benefits that flow from the investments I described to you earlier.

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As our resource base shrinks—and it is happening across the board, whether you're talking about forestry or about fishing—we need to squeeze every last dollar of value that we can from those resources. This means we cannot simply export raw resources such as hake, which is effectively what we are doing when we allow hake to be processed offshore.

Let me make the point in another way. What position would you take if an auto manufacturing operation aboard a ship or a barge that employs foreign auto workers instead of Canadians was permitted to anchor in water just off Oshawa and was exempted from Canadian labour and environmental laws? If you find this too ridiculous, as I do, then think of an example in the forestry industry. What would our position be then? I imagine that you would be arguing against such a scenario, and if you were, you would be taking the same position that we are taking now.

I want to emphasize that bringing the hake processing activity onshore is not about taking benefits away from fishers. It is about building a sustainable economic base in our communities that can support an entire community, which includes fishermen, processors, suppliers, and related industry activity. It is about adding as much value as possible to these resources before we sell them. When it comes to hake, this means processing onshore.

How do we get to the future? Again, the answer is simple: level the playing field for all of those with interests in this economic activity.

There was a time when foreign processors played the important role of buying fish from our local fishers that was not purchased or processed onshore, but that was over 20 years ago. Since then, this industry and our economic base in coastal communities has changed. Isn't it time our management of the fishery changed as well?

I understand that you have many issues before you. I urge you to turn your attention toward this one. I urge you to go back to Ottawa and ask the Minister of Fisheries and his department why the planned review of this fishery has not gotten underway. Worse yet, if it has gotten underway, why are we not involved?

I urge you to get involved in recommending a fair solution to this problem, because I assure you, one does exist. This solution is to eliminate the offshore processing of our Pacific hake resource, to level the playing field between processors, and to bring this industry and the jobs and economic benefits it provides onshore once and for all. Most important of all, this solution is within our grasp if we work together.

In this regard, we've been talking to community members and leaders about this issue. We have limited time here today, so I can't share all of the responses we've received, but let me outline just a few.

We have a resolution and a letter of support from the First Nations Summit. We have also been working with the Coastal Community Network, as well as with a number of British Columbia MPs and MLAs. At our most recent annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, we passed a unanimous resolution supporting the position that we put forward.

Thank you for your time. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

The Chair: Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Mr. Bourke, with the USP.

Mr. Paul Bourke (Director, Ucluelet Seafood Processors): Good morning. I'd like to give you a brief history of how we got here.

Approximately 20 years ago, we put in a 200-mile limit to protect our resources and make them available to Canadians. The hope was that we would benefit from accessing these resources and that we would also be in a position to protect them. When the 200-mile limit was brought in, there were foreign factory boats out here fishing hake in the late 1970s. The hake consortium was formed, and the intent of the hake consortium was to bring this fishery onshore eventually.

The first goal was to allow Canadian fishermen to catch the fish. It took until approximately 1990 to allow all of the fish out there to be caught by Canadian fishermen. There was a lot of resistance to that and it took a long time to be able to do that, but that happened approximately ten years ago. In that ten years, we haven't been able to get our dues and get access to that fish onshore, and that's why we're here today: to ask you for your assistance.

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Since the mid-1980s, we've approached the department and various ministers of fisheries and basically said that if we could prove to them that we can use this resource and we can process it onshore, we want access to the resource. Every minister of fisheries told me, “If you make the investment, if you figure out how to do it, you'll get the fish. Don't worry about it. That's the way it is in Canada. These are our resources and they're for our benefit.”

In the early 1990s—1991, I believe—there was a series of negotiations and meetings with the department and fishermen. Basically the department came out and publicly stated that the intent of the fishery was to go onshore and that it was a sunset industry. The hake consortium, the fact that they were fishing and delivering to foreign factory boats, was going to come to an end when the capacity was there.

We proceeded on that basis. We needed infrastructure here. We needed an improved water system and a sewer system. Some years ago, we applied under the infrastructure program, the $6 billion program, for funding, the same funding that any community gets—Vancouver or anybody else in this country. The government said they would fund it if we made the investment. So we made the investment.

Just in this community here, amongst us, we've invested probably $20 million or $30 million. There's another $20 million in Nanaimo. The federal government and the provincial government have substantial investments here in our infrastructure system. I think the formula is one third for the federal, one third provincial, and one third for our local community here. It's a substantial amount of money.

The money that was put up by the village for the sewage system, for example, is actually paid for by the processors. We have charges against our property and a ten-year repayment program. We're paying $10,000 a month to use this system for three months of the year. It's a lot of money.

Since we've made that investment, we have not been able to get access to the fish we need. In the last two years, we have yet to get the fish that we've asked for on a daily basis. Not once. We operated this year at very limited deliveries. You cannot make any money on a high-volume, low-value fish unless you get consistent deliveries of fish.

Three years ago, Minister Anderson, who was the Minister of Fisheries at the time, after much negotiation with fishermen... We never got to meet with him, but we made a presentation. He announced a three-year deal. This three-year deal was never discussed with the processors. It was never discussed with the community. It just sort of came up. It was imposed on us at the last minute. We didn't agree to it. We weren't part of it. Since then, the story has been that somehow we agreed to the three-year deal, which is completely untrue.

So we put up with it for three years, and now the three years are over. We want this offshore fishery to come to an end. It's unique for a western country to bring people in from Poland and Russia to process our fish. We have the technology to do it. We have the equipment to do it. We've proven that. You've seen our plants. You've seen the investment that we have. Despite Mr. Sigmund's comment, I can assure you that we've spent millions of dollars on this equipment. We have very modern plants. We're very diversified in what we do.

Originally in 1991, when we started processing here at Ucluelet Seafoods, we produced fillets, and we did a pretty good job of it. But we were forced out of the business because the Polish fleet was dumping product on the international marketplace and in the market in Vancouver and all over the North America, at substantially less than the cost of producing it. They continue to do this.

We have to compete with these Polish companies all over the world. I go to trade shows and they're in the next booth. They don't have any of the costs that we have associated with doing business here. We're not trying to get out of the costs. It's just a fact of life. I mean, we have to protect the environment and we have to observe these laws, and it costs millions of dollars to that.

They have reduction plants on these boats that put stick water into the water, which is the most toxic form of waste you can get from processing fish. We're not allowed to do that. West Coast Reduction has had to spend I think $2 million trying to deal with just their stick water issue. So why are they allowed to do this on our doorstep in the middle of an international biosphere and our national park? It's a ridiculous situation. It's not a fair situation.

Generally, in Canada, fisheries don't provide a lot of profit to the government. They provide employment and indirect benefits to taxpayers. The only way this is going to work for everyone is if as many people are employed as possible. We have approximately 550 people who are employed in this industry now, and there's room for hundreds more. All we need is access to these resources.

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We hope you can help us, because we certainly haven't been able to get anywhere with the current minister and with the department. So we would ask you to do anything you can to influence the minister and anyone else in Parliament to make them aware of our situation.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Bray, with Port Fish, Port Alberni.

Mr. Jock Bray (Chief Executive Officer, Port Fish, Port Alberni): Good morning, Mr. Chairman, committee members. Bonjour.

My name is Jock Bray, and I've been in the seafood business in B.C. for more than 30 years. I'm currently a partner in Port Fish, which is one of the egg plants we're discussing in Port Alberni. I'm also the general manager of another seafood plant in Delta, called River Seafoods. River Seafoods processes groundfish into fresh fillets and sells them in the North American market.

Paul has reviewed some of the history on this file. I'd like to address the confusion and myth around some of the very critical issues: priority access to the fish, plant capacity, competition, and price.

Onshore priority for hake—theory versus reality... In theory, as you may have heard, onshore processors are given priority access to the egg resource, while offshore processors are in theory supposed to receive only surplus egg. The reality is that the fishery doesn't work this way. In fact, the opposite is true. Because offshore processors are allocated part of the catch at the same time as onshore processors, and because the offshore processors are in effect subsidized and can therefore offer a higher price to fishermen, the onshore processors are supplied with fish after offshore needs are met.

Does this sound like priority access to you? When my plant operates at a season average of 20% capacity due to the lack of supply, I know that as an onshore processor I'm not getting priority access.

Capacity—myth versus reality... Fishermen have often made the point, as Norm made this morning, that the onshore processors don't have the capacity to process their TAC. This may have been true years ago, but, as you probably saw last night when you toured some of the plants here, you can see that the industry has indeed measured up, made the investment, and has more than enough capacity to handle all the TACs.

There's a chart that I think you should have in front of you, “Onshore Processing Capacities-2001 Season”. This report shows the production requirements and actual volume delivered for basically the four main plants. There are more involved, but these are the main ones.

Actually, if you wanted to take a quick peek here, it's a little confusing at first. The initials across the top of each column represent the names of the plant: UFP, Utility Food Processors; CSP, Canadian Seafood Processors; Port Fish; and Robert Wholey Company. You can see month by month and day by day the volumes that were delivered, the volumes that were processed, the volume that was unused, and the total capacity and the percentage of that capacity that went unused. If you go to the month-end totals, it really tells the story. The percentage capacity in June, for example, the volume delivered versus total capacity, left 8,280 tonnes unused. The capacity used was only 1.43%. In July—

Mr. John Cummins: Jock—

The Chair: John Cummins has a question there, if you could, Mr. Bray.

Mr. John Cummins: Could you just explain these designations? Volume delivered and volume processed I think I understand. I don't understand “volume unused”.

Mr. Jock Bray: The “volume unused” is the amount of fish that we, the processors, basically said we would like delivered into the plants to meet our needs to make a season. And that figure for this season we've pegged at about 790 tonnes, I believe—is that right, Paul?—for all of us. So the “volume unused” is the difference between what was delivered and that magic number we were targeting.

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Now, that number doesn't represent our total capacity. Our total capacity is more like 900 and some odd tonnes per day. So that 790 tonnes that we were asking for was a figure we had determined we would need just to meet our minimum requirements to make a season.

Is that clear now, John?

Mr. John Cummins: The volume delivered on UFP in the month end in June is 100 tonnes, I presume. Then the volume processed is in excess of that. It's 120. So how do you process more than you deliver?

Mr. Jock Bray: A good question. It's probably a typo.

Mr. John Cummins: Okay.

Mr. Jock Bray: I'll double-check on that for you, John, but probably it's just a typo.

Mr. John Cummins: But it should have been the same—

Mr. Jock Bray: It should be the same.

Mr. John Cummins: —one would think.

Mr. Jock Bray: Yes.

Mr. John Cummins: “Volume unused” is the difference between processing capability and what was delivered.

Mr. Jock Bray: Yes, pretty much that's the story, yes.

Mr. John Cummins: Okay.

Mr. Jock Bray: As you move through the month here, you can see that the capacity that was used of what we determined our capacity to be in June was merely 1.3%, in July 56.82%. This is the capacity of UFP I'm looking at here. It must be total. It's not averaged out in here. In any case, you can see, as you go through the month, that really there was far less than half of the fish delivered than the capacity the plants had, or at least our target for a successful year.

Now, the fishermen have made the point that the plants don't have the capacity. Well, this clearly demonstrates we have more than the capacity. We were begging for fish all summer. At the end of the season, when the minister finally gave us the reserve, we begged for fish right through until there wasn't a fish left in the water. The fishermen certainly can't complain that we didn't take it, because we were open and ready for fish every day, and there just wasn't the fish in the water at that time.

I would like to clarify a point that Norm made earlier that we hadn't the capacity. The amount of the total TAC that was actually landed—I think Norm used a figure of 57%—could have been substantially higher had the fishermen delivered to the shore plants from the beginning of the season, typically the beginning of May. They held off delivering to us in May. They held off delivering to us June. The JV was scheduled to start in June. We complained. We made all kinds of requests to the minister and to DFO to rectify the situation. We even came up with a short-term plan on how to rectify the situation, and you can see that, if you don't mind looking here in a letter that I've distributed. This was a letter the processors got together. We sent this off on June 8 to Minister Dhaliwal and outlined the situation as it was happening at the time. I can read just a little bit of it here.

The Hake Fishermen's Association has tied up the fleet unfairly demanding a higher price to stall negotiations so that the shore plants cannot use the reserve.

For those of you who don't understand the reserve issue, when the total allowable catch is given out for the year, the minister allocates 50,000 tonnes of that to the shore-based plants. Last year, I think the total was 94,000 tonnes. The difference was divided in half, and half of that resource was allocated to the JV and half of it was held in a reserve. The reserve was to go to whichever side of this equation could use it, with priority given to the shore-based plants.

Well, this is a no-brainer for a fisherman. Believe me, if I were a fisherman, it would be a no-brainer for me, because if a JV is paying twice as much money as the shore plants can afford to pay, I want all the fish I can possibly get to go offshore.

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It just coincidentally so happened that July 1 was the date for the hake subcommittee that was targeted for a review of the landing for the shore plants. At that review time it was to be determined how much of that reserve was to be released to the JV if the shore plants couldn't use it.

On July 2 the fisherman finally agreed to go to work after stalling and being on strike, as it were. They finally agreed to go to work and deliver to the shore plants for a half cent more than we were asking, and we immediately agreed to it. From that point on, this argument, this fight, this disruption in the industry over the reserve fish became a huge issue because there was pressure from the fisherman on DFO to release that reserve to the JV. Obviously, they stalled off fishing for the shore plants for the two months prior to that in order to get the reserve fish into the offshore sector at the higher price. As they say, it's a no-brainer.

However, just to move a bit further here, the processers will never be in a position to compete with the foreign, in this case Polish, joint ventures who are subsidized by the government, who pay no Canadian social benefits and no workers compensation, who are not required to accurately weigh fish—the abuse is well understood here—and who employ no Canadians on board. The JV price of 14.5¢ per pound does not reflect the market. Canadian processors cannot compete in the same marketplace with the Poles as we are handicapped with high import tariffs.

Canadian processors compete effectively with our counterparts in the U.S.—or reportedly did at that time—who sell our hake products in a similar market while offering their fleet between 2.5¢ and 4¢ U.S. a pound. I think the average came up at the end of the year to 3.5¢ U.S. per pound.

The price offered by the Poles is artificially inflated in a bid coordinated with our fisherman to retain an ongoing allocation of the TAC. There was one plant in particular, our plant at Port Alberni, that offered 7.5¢ to the fishermen right from the get-go, which was what they had originally asked us for, and then they came back and said no, that's not good enough. If you add in the other things we were paying at the time, namely the cost of the validation, the licence fees, and a bonus for RSW, we were paying in excess of 8¢ a pound.

The real issue with our fisherman is how they can get more of the resources into the hands of the foreign fleet. They have little concern for Canadian workers sitting idle at this time—this was written June 8—and we weren't working. Even with the offer on the table with the fisherman's association, we had a couple of boats out fishing, they fished for a few days, and then all of sudden they phoned and they said “Jock, sorry, we've been told we have to tie up.” And I said “Listen, we're paying you the price, the fish are swimming, and you're missing an opportunity, because sometimes the biggest part of the year is at the beginning.” They said “Sorry, we can't do it; there's too much pressure.”

At the time we were suggesting a short-term remedy for the situation, and I'll read to you where this comes in:

Processors have repeatedly proposed that there be a 45-day period between when fishermen settle with the shore plants and the startup date of the JV to force meaningful negotiations on both parties at the beginning of the season. This would ensure Canada takes its share of the U.S.-Canada TAC

—which is a very important part of the negotiations each year between Canada and the U.S., that we actually use up that TAC—

and that early arriving fish are harvested.

The exact situation that we feared is now reality. The JV is reported to begin... and fishermen have stalled negotiations in a blatant attempt to move the reserve offshore. In meetings and telephone conversations with fishermen they have made it clear that if the shore plants were to sign over the reserve now they would be willing to begin delivering at our price.

It's blatant and in our face: you give us the reserve, and we'll start delivering fish to you.

The Chair: Could you run that one by me again? You lost me in the reserve part.

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Mr. Jock Bray: Sorry. This is the reserve issue again and why they stalled delivering to the shore plants at the front end of the season. As they say, it's a no-brainer for the fishermen, because if you're getting twice as much for the fish and the reserve is at issue here—

The Chair: Okay, now I understand.

Mr. Jock Bray: So you stall delivering to the shore plants until they have no opportunity to use that reserve because there's not enough time left in the season to actually fish it plus fish our regular allocation. We get 50,000 tonnes, and we have to use that up. You have to understand the timeline here. They stall off until we can't possibly use the reserve, then because the reserve issue is now firmly in their camp they say, oh good, we'll deliver fish to you now at your price. Each part of the season we sit down and meet over this issue, and as the shore plants report their landings, it's negotiated as to how much of this reserve might be let go to the offshore.

What we had said there was okay, we know that this game is being played. Why don't you, DFO, the minister, set some mechanism in place where it forces the fishermen and the shore plants to negotiate a fair price, get started, and catch the TAC. Make sure the fish has landed. That to me was a no-brainer, and it got nowhere.

As to this 45-day period, we said okay, for 45 days keep the joint venture out of our zone. Allow us to take the fish, get our plants up and running, and make sure everything is running okay. It just gives us that window of opportunity, and it takes away this mechanism the fishermen have to stall off delivering to us, and thus the reserve issue comes up. We just ask for a fair and level playing field. We said let's take the JV out of the equation for 45 days, and let us just get to work. The response from the minister was no, we're going to go according to plan. We got nowhere.

The Chair: Could we sum it up soon, Jock? We're going to run out of time.

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Mr. Jock Bray: Am I running out of time? I can do that.

I'll go back to the competition myth versus reality. In fact, there's a great of deal of competition on the shore side. There's no issue of competition. We've got close to ten shore-based plants that can compete for the fish, and with a shrinking TAC each year that competition is just going to intensify. I really think that negates anything the fishermen can say about shore plants not having the ability to take the fish or to compete internationally for the fish. We do it now.

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Regarding the price issue, we've just gone through most of it, so I won't get into that again.

Products and markets is another one that Norm brought up, and the myth versus reality. Another myth out there is that the market for our products, which is surimi fillets, H and G, sausage—we produce all of it, all the things that Norm mentioned—is somehow immature or unstable, and that the shore plant processors cannot or will not be able to market and sell the entire catch. I can tell you from my own experience, and I've been marketing this fish for a number of years, that we're sold out. We're oversold; we can't produce enough. I think the same is true for USP and certainly for the Robert Wholey plant. I know that for a fact. That's not an issue.

We have and we continue to be very competitive, and it's a worldwide market. We're not talking about selling downtown Vancouver or even down into Seattle; we're talking about export. Our product is almost 100% export, all around the world.

We do compete, and we compete very effectively with our real competition, with shore-based plants in the same situation we're in down in the states just across the line.

The best way for me to summarize how the current situation impacts our business is to... well, I don't want to get into that. We just got into that, and I want to wrap up.

If the onshore processing industry is to survive, what we need is a true onshore processing priority. In other words, we need to meet the needs of the onshore processors before the offshore processors are given access to the resource.

You people toured our facilities. You saw what we can do. All we really need, and all we're asking your help on, is priority access to these fish—we need the fish. We certainly hope we can count on your support. We ask you to take this issue back to caucus. Let them know the truth and the reality of what's going on here on the west coast, because I really think that message is not getting through.

Thank you very much. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bray.

Now we have a delegation from the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union, Garth Mirau, and you have people with you, I believe.

Mr. Garth Mirau (Island Organizer, United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union): Thanks, Mr. Easter, for allowing us to speak here today, and thanks to the committee for that. We didn't know you were coming to town, actually, or we would have tried to get on the agenda. However, we are, and I said we wouldn't take up much time.

I'm just going to talk for a couple minutes, and then there are two people who work in the plant, long-term employees, one from Canadian Seafood Processors, Lori Foster, shop steward in that plant; and the president of the local here, Emil Kristianson, who works at Ucluelet Seafood Products.

Some of you heard me talk before, and I've been very critical of fisheries policy in Canada. That's what this is all about. That's why we're here today—fighting over scraps.

There's a hell of a resource out here that's not being allocated properly. I was a 30-year fisherman. Norm has fished many things besides hake. We used to have access to all kinds of fish on the coast, and because of the licensing policies of the federal government, those opportunities have been lost to all of us, and they've been lost to the communities at the same time.

If you had come to this community as recently as the summer of 1995, you would have found as many as 500 boats fishing out of here, delivering to this community. You toured some plants last night, I understand. It's too bad you didn't go see the ones that have been shut down because of fisheries policy, and the jobs that have been lost from them.

So we're talking about a few jobs left in town. We represent between 350 and 400 workers at the two plants that are now reduced to processing hake. Ucluelet Seafood Products still tries to process shrimp, but they even lost that market last year because of an overreaction to a bycatch by a couple of boats out of the whole bloody fleet, and that kind of action by the managers of fisheries is absolutely unacceptable.

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These communities live and die with the resources, and this community is being killed because they don't have access to a resource. There's herring in their backyard. There's halibut in their backyard. There are all kinds of bottom fish in their backyard, and they're reduced to processing hake—grinding it up and sending it offshore.

I want to turn it over to Lori and Emil, and they're going to tell you just how this mismanagement of the fishery has affected their lives and the lives of their neighbours and their co-workers.

The Chair: Lori.

Ms. Lori Foster (United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union): I thank you for letting me speak. This is very hard and it's very emotional for me.

I've worked in the industry for over 25 years. We have processed just about every kind of fish in the ocean. As Garth said, now we are down to just hake. I know many of the people in the area and have worked on a CLIP program in Ucluelet called the community labour initiative program, trying to get jobs for people. It's devastating. I did a survey on the workers in our plant to see how they were doing because there was no work, and they were barely making it. Most of them could not apply for EI because they had not had enough work in the last three years to collect EI.

Here in Ucluelet there's no food bank. At least workers in Port Alberni could use the food banks, but now we are starting to get a food bank going.

My concern here is why are we not included as stakeholders in this industry? We are stakeholders in this industry. We work here. The fish is our livelihood. We buy homes here. We pay taxes here. We are stakeholders.

I'm kind of broken up. I think that's about as far as I can go for now.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Foster.

Mr. Kristianson.

Mr. Emil Kristianson (United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union): Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to speak here this morning.

A lot of what I had to say the mayor and Mr. Bourke and Mr. Bray and Lori and Garth have covered here, so I'll try to keep it short.

The bottom line here, representing the shoreworkers, is that it's pretty evident to us when we see that every hake that was caught in Canadian waters last year could have been processed in Canadian onshore fish plants... It's amazing that the joint venture is still going, a lot of us think, because it provides no benefits to the communities, no benefits to the province, no benefits to the country. In fact, it's probably detrimental because they're putting the processing water back into the ocean, and human sewage right off the shore of our park here, as was mentioned earlier.

We've been severely underemployed here. We could have used a lot more fish, and it was out there, it was being caught, but it wasn't being delivered to us. We feel like the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has turned their back on us, and we feel less Canadian for it. I think we deserve the right to process this common property resource a little more than the Polish fleet does. I have nothing against the Polish fleet. If we had surplus as we did in the past they'd be welcome to share it with us, but there's no such thing as surplus any more and we need all that fish for our communities.

That's all I have to say.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Garth Mirau: Could I interrupt for a moment?

The Chair: Go ahead.

Mr. Garth Mirau: I want to make the point that it was said at the beginning that the people who work in the hake plants are among the highest paid fish workers in the world, and it's true, as far as it goes, but what you should be aware of is that they don't work enough to qualify for unemployment insurance for the most part. We had a special meeting out here last year so some of those people could apply for welfare, and that's simply not good enough. That has to be changed. And it's more than just hake. It's about the whole fisheries policy. I hope when you consider the hake, you consider the whole fisheries policy.

Thank you.

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The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Mirau.

We'll start with Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

On that last point about the fisheries workers being the highest paid in the world, they're also the most efficient, I believe.

Mr. Garth Mirau: They're a highly trained workforce, very efficient.

Mr. John Cummins: Thanks to all the witnesses for their comments.

I think it's a classic discussion here and dispute over a resource and its allocation. On the underlying theme, and I think Jock referred to it as the myth that there was priority access given to shore-based plants, but the reality is somewhat different.

I wonder if we could just march through that again, so we clearly understand the issue. This year, Jock, what was the allocation—about 85,000 tonnes?

Mr. Jock Bray: It was 84,000 tonnes.

Mr. John Cummins: So the shore-based allocation right off the top then was 50,000 tonnes?

Mr. Jock Bray: Yes.

Mr. John Cummins: Then the balance, that 34,000 tonnes, was split into two components. Half was to go to the JV and then the other half was the reserve. A determination would have been made where that reserve would go.

The problem, as I understand it, was that no fishery took place in May or June, early on. Your contention then is that the fishery didn't take place because the fishermen were holding back, so the bulk of the fish would be caught over a shorter period of time and the plants would not be able to process the product in total. Is that a correct understanding?

Mr. Jock Bray: Pretty much so, yes.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: That was their understanding.

Mr. John Cummins: What would your response be then, Norm?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: Early in May, the fishermen were offered a price from the companies of 5¢ a pound. Last year's price was 10¢ a pound. They would not even come to the table to discuss a price increase until early in June. When they did come, within two to three days—the major companies in Ucuelet, USP and CSP, follow in line with each other—after the price was negotiated at 7.25¢, we were in full production.

It was only after Mr. Buston's plant had put in his equipment that they started to deal with us. As CSP went, they would not even... I was there ready to start production, but I was not allowed to start production until I could guarantee full production. We're talking about a fishery. To guarantee full production, I wasn't even allowed to go out and get a test fish because they were on such a strict budget.

So to say we stalled is ridiculous. On allocation, 80% of the fish goes onshore and 20% offshore. The problem's not allocation; the problem is they want a monopoly, period.

The Chair: Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: You're contending that the delay was due to a dispute over price and had nothing to do with trying to wait it out, if you will, so they wouldn't be able to process the fish.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: That's correct.

The Chair: John, Mr. Sigmund made the last point that was correct.

Mr. Bray.

Mr. Jock Bray: In reference to what Mr. Sigmund was just saying, our plant, Port Fish, was ready, willing, and able to take fish. We negotiated in what I thought was good faith with the fishermen. We explained the market. We went through the whole thing with them.

• 1210

I asked them, in the end, “What price would make it work for you, because we've got to get started. This is just ridiculous”. They said they would go for 7¢. I agreed and told them to start fishing. I got called the next day and was told, “No. We've had a meeting. It won't be ratified with the group; 7.5¢ is the number.” I had a meeting with my partner and we agreed to 7.5¢.

The boats went out. I can't remember how many days it was, but it wasn't more than two or three, when two of the boats that were fishing for us phoned me and said, “Sorry, Jock, we're trying up.” When I asked them why, they said they were being forced to by the association because they didn't want to see one plant working. The solidarity of the group was going to fail. So they shut us down. It was the end of us, even though we paid more than the price they were asking for.

So I don't know. I don't want to get into a battle here in front of you over this. If you read the letter all the processors got together and wrote on June 8, you can see the situation quite clearly.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bray. We don't want to get into a whole lot of history either. We're trying to look to the future.

Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: I don't want to get into the details of last season or other seasons, but the comment was made by Norm that there was a problem with competition; the JV provided competition for the fish, and somehow it resulted in increased price.

I guess if you go back in history, from what I've heard in the last couple of days, the fact that the onshore processors came onstream offered competition to the JV, and it boosted the price in the beginning.

What we have here now are ten plants, but they don't operate independently. There is a negotiated price and all plants must agree. Is that true or not?

Mr. Jock Bray: No. All the plants operate entirely independently.

The Chair: The problem we have at a hearing when we're on the road is we don't have somebody to record the names. Unless I say your name or you say your name, somebody will be misquoted with the wrong name attached to it, and it won't go down very well.

Mr. Bray.

Mr. Jock Bray: Quite clearly, we operate entirely independently. In fact, we've really made a point of it over the years not to even correspond with each other over what we're doing, in terms of the fisheries association. This year I went to a lawyer and said, “Look, we're having to deal with an association all the time and we're in fear of even discussing this on the telephone with each other.” The lawyer said, “In the Competition Act it says that fishermen and fisheries and fishing companies are exempt from this.”

I thought that was a strange one. It's funny, the fishermen must have known that a lot further back in history than we did because they've had their association for a number of years. We've acted independently.

We all end up paying a similar price, because in the end the highest guy sets the mark. That just seems to be the way it goes. Obviously, if fishermen are going to deliver to our plants, we can't offer them less than what people are paying at other plants; otherwise they're just going to come and say, “Hey, what's the matter with you?”

So the negotiations get set, in that sense, for the year, but they're set by the guy who pays the highest price, and everybody else follows.

The Chair: Thank you.

Last question, John.

Mr. John Cummins: Jock, could you explain the suggestion you had about a 45-day period of delivery to shore-based plants? There would be an agreement that there would be a 45-day period of delivery to shore-based plants before the fishermen would be able to start delivering to the JV. Is that my understanding?

• 1215

Mr. Jock Bray: Yes. Our interpretation of the joint venture has always been that it's supposed to be fishing on surplus fish. The three-year deal gave them an actual allocation of the TAC, which we never agreed to. In my mind, and I'm sure in minds of the other processors here, that doesn't fit with the understanding of surplus fish.

Surplus fish is fish that we can't use. We don't get an opportunity to use the fish to begin with, so how do you determine what's surplus? You can't determine surplus fish if we're not given access to it, and the people who are supposed to be taking surplus fish are taking it ahead of us. It doesn't make any sense to me.

That's the situation we were facing. So the 45 days was just a short-term, stop-gap solution that we asked for. We said, look, make it surplus fish. Give us an opportunity to fish on it. Why are you letting the Polish fleet, who are supposed to be taking surplus fish, fish within sight of the plant? You can see them not even two miles offshore here, boats delivering to them, and we have 550 shore workers sitting at home. What kind of idiocy is this?

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Bray.

Madame Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two questions.

There is one aspect I want to make sure I understand. Mrs. Foster, you mentioned that you are reduced to processing hake. When you say you are reduced to processing hake, this implies that there is nothing else, that you are scraping the bottom of the barrel, you are down to processing garbage.

The magnificent plants we visited yesterday evening, although we were very tired, seemed rather new and well-maintained. I thought they were magnificent. Would those plants we saw yesterday be able to process other kinds of fish than hake? And how come you only have access to hake nowadays? I should say that this is not a species of fish that I know, I have never tasted it, but it looked good yesterday.

[English]

The Chair: Ms. Foster, or anyone else who wants to answer, if they have the information...

We'll start with you, then, Mr. Sigmund.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: That's a very good question. For years we processed every type of fish in the sea. We had herring in this community, in Barkley Sound, one of the biggest herring fisheries in British Columbia. It all goes to Vancouver now. Halibut used to be brought here. We don't have halibut any more. Groundfish used to be processed at the plant Lori works at. It used to be called TransPacific; now it's called CSP. We lost that because it was economically unfeasible to do it here.

We need help in this community to bring back not two months' work, but ten months' work. We need a full year's work here. I must commend Port Fish, because of what they do with their hake. They do surimi if the market is good for it. They do fillet if the market is good. They head and gut. They do sausage. When they're not doing hake, they do turbot. This is what I spoke about earlier. This is what I mean. We have to diversify so we can stay in any kind of market conditions, before we lose everything in this community. I'm not against bringing all the fish onshore. I want it brought ashore in the proper manner so that we get the longest term possible employment for our workers here.

I think R. Wholey Canada Ltd. was the plant you looked at yesterday.

The Chair: We looked at three plants.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: Wholey's is primarily a fillet product. The product leaves there ready for the retail market. It uses 132 people to process 50 tonnes to 60 tonnes of fish, whereas a surimi plant will use 30 to 40 people. Wholey doing fillets can do a maximum of 100 tonnes a day, where the surimi plant could do in excess of 300 tonnes a day.

• 1220

What I'm talking about is premium products coming from this community, not bulk fishing. It's not good for the fishing grounds; it's not good for the community. We have to get away from that.

That's a Canadian attitude towards fish. Because we've had so much for so many years, we bulk fish, pump it through; we waste the resource. We have to turn it into a valuable commodity. They speak about the joint venture markets. Those markets are still there. All we have to do is access them through shore-based operations.

I'm not here to destroy our onshore fishery, I'm here to build it. I was the first boat to deliver hake onshore to CSP, and I don't want to lose it, but we have in play here large entities that have a different outlook as to what this community should be. They want access to the fish. They can have it all. They'll bring in more machinery, do it faster and be finished.

I'm not against bringing the fish ashore. I'm just against bringing it in to be reduced to a paste product and sent away to some other place to be refined. Surimi is a raw product. It's just like a log.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Sigmund.

Sorry, Ms. Foster, go ahead.

Ms. Lori Foster: I didn't mean to interpret that hake was a low-lying fish or anything. We're very happy to have it. The only point I want to make is that we did all those other kinds of fish, but we don't have access to them any more. All we have access to right now is hake.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Foster.

Madame Tremblay.

• 1225

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: It seems to us, in Quebec, that Canada should promote the interests of Canada. When dealing with one province, the interests of all of Canada need to be considered.

How come Russian factory ships were given access to the Pacific? In Quebec, Russian fishing boats supply our processing plants, for example those that process cod. Has there been a deal made by Canada under which Russian ships are allowed here? In Quebec, our plants operate with fish caught by Russian ships. There are not too many of those left, but there are still a few.

[English]

The Chair: Who wants to answer? Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: In the past, primarily it has been the Polish fleet, not the Russian fleet. We've had Russian fleets here for two or three years at different times.

I took part in Polish bilaterals years ago. There was very definitely a trade-off between wheat, pork, and hake. The countries made bilateral agreements with Canada. They bought pork from us and were given our fish. They were basically given a free hand out here to satisfy other provinces' requirements.

With Russian wheat, for example, the Canadian Wheat Board put a lot of pressure on the federal government to give them access to this resource. It does work hand in hand.

Earlier you talked about the access of marketing. Poland is one of the largest markets in the world for hake fillets. Yet even though we give them unfettered access to our resources out here, they slap a 20% duty on Canadian hake. We can't get the hake that's processed in our plant into the Polish market. It is one of the largest markets in the world. They have a trade restriction against us.

Our government will do nothing about it. I brought this issue up for years in Ottawa. They won't bring it up with the Polish government. They will do nothing for us.

• 1230

Surimi, by the way, is not an unprocessed material. It's a very highly processed fish product. We buy raw fish, whole fish. We fillet it, we take these fillets, we remove all the bones, we remove all the skins, and at that point it's the same as the fillet that's produced in Wholey or any other that you buy in a supermarket. We take a fillet and we wash it, and we mince it, and we process it, and it's very much a value-added product when it goes out of our plant.

It's somebody else's raw material to make crab sticks, but I can tell you, it's a very highly processed form of fish processing, and it creates a lot of employment. We supply manufacturers in Canada. In Newfoundland for many years we supplied the plant there, and in Toronto. There's a lot of employment generated from it.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bourke.

I'll get to you in a second, Garth.

We're facing the same thing with shrimp. We had a hearing on shrimp in Ottawa with a number of processors and fishers, and we talked about the difficulty in getting into the EEC market. It's the same situation: they have a tariff on for fishing shrimp off Newfoundland and we can't afford to compete over the tariff wall.

But I disagree with you on one point, and that is the wheat versus the hake. I was involved in a former life in terms of the negotiations on wheat, and we were always told by our negotiator that it's fish for fish. That perception may be there that there are trade-offs between agriculture and fish or industry, but we're told very clearly that it's fish for fish. The bottom line, though, is we have to do a better job of negotiating on these tariffs. I'm not going to argue with you on that point.

Garth.

Mr. Garth Mirau: Thanks, Mr. Easter.

In response to Madam Tremblay's question, I think her question points out the absolute mismanagement of fisheries policy in this country when we are reduced once again to arguing about access to hake. We've squandered vast resources, not just on our doorstep, but also on the east coast, when you look at what's happened in Newfoundland, where we killed off the cod fishery, and where we can't sell the shrimp that are there in greater numbers than they've ever been. And in Quebec they're reduced to importing fish from Russia to process in their plants. I think this says a lot about the mismanagement of fisheries here.

That's the only point I wanted to make. I think that was a very interesting question, and should bring that to forefront in everybody's mind.

The Chair: Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you very much for your evidence this morning.

I'm from Toronto. The only fishing I really know about is the odd sports fishing, but we did get a briefing note on this issue from DFO. I read it and I'm a little confused about it, and I wonder if the witnesses could help me out. It says, and I'm going to quote it directly:

In 1998 Canada also established a sharing formula that allocated the Canadian TAC in the following manner. The first 50,000 metric tonnes annually was set for delivery to shore-based processors. The remaining portion was split.

And we've talked about that.

The way I read that is the first 50,000 tonnes is to shore-based processors. That makes sense to me; it's what I understood it to be.

They also provide us with the allocations and catches for the last six years. And according to the charts that were given to us by DFO, for whatever reason, the total catch, the total landings for the year 2000, was 21,259 metric tonnes. That's way below the 50,000. Simple me, I would have assumed that the entire landing would have gone to the shore-based processors, because the first 50,000 is supposed to go to shore-based processors. You keep saying “no-brainer”. To me, that's a no-brainer.

In 2001, 81,600 tonnes were allocated according to this, and what was actually caught was 53,154. I would have again thought that the first 50,000 would go to the shore-based. In fact, for some reason that I'd like somebody to explain, 31,500 tonnes went to the shore-based and approximately 21,500 tonnes went to the JV.

• 1235

Why is it that the first 50,000 tonnes don't go to the shore-based processors when it is supposed to go to the processors? And who makes that decision? Why, for example, are the factory ships allowed anywhere near the fishery until the first 50,000 tonnes is landed on shore?

Voices: Hear, hear!

Mr. Tom Wappel: And I say that as a Torontonian. I ask the fishermen, because Mr. Mirau said nobody benefits from the JV. The fishermen benefit because they get more money. And they spend that money somewhere and they put it in the bank, or they spend it in the community, or they buy bigger ships. So somebody benefits. It may be fewer people, the benefit may be concentrated, but the benefit is there.

So I want to ask the fishermen, why is it that the first 50,000 tonnes aren't processed on shore?

The Chair: Mr. Norm Sigmund.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: In the year 2000 the fish didn't return to their proper summer grounds. We found them off the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands, and I'm afraid there are no onshore processors up there. We couldn't get the fish down to them. And then the bulk of the fish was found with the help of the foreign fleets; they tracked the fish down for us up there.

Then we found another body of fish in Queen Charlotte Sound. And I personally tried to get the onshore processors going in Ucluelet. I sent 2 million pounds of fish here at a cost of $60,000 to myself to get these plants going, and it was not financially viable to do it.

Fish have tails. And if they're not in this particular area, within two or three hours of the plant, you can't harvest them and bring them here in the kind of condition where they can produce a quality product. So that is why, in the year 2000, most of the fish went offshore.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And what about the next year?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: The next year. As I said in my written statement, these plants cannot process 30 or 40 tonnes a day. The cost of washing them down and cleaning them up is prohibitive. Some of these plants are up to $10,000 for a complete cleanup. So we must guarantee them full production. Their machines can't be idle over a number of hours.

So at the beginning of a season, or at the end of a season, these large plants can't even produce fish, because the cost incurred by them to clean up, to continue processing, is too expensive.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Don't the JVs have to do the same thing?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: They can function on very little fish. These boats don't do a screened product, they do a fillet. On the other hand, one man can clean Wholey's up with a hose. But these giant screening plants, they press fish. Every little particle has to be cleaned out of every little screen. Every little nut and bolt has to be taken apart. It takes two days to clean out one of those plants properly. So there's your problem.

When these large plants cannot get consistent deliveries... And as I say, we have to have the fish within a certain area to do that. And to run a 200 or 300-tonne fishery for two plants, 500 or 600 tonnes a day, you need ten boats doing the maximum and having perfect fishing every day to do it. It's not an easy scenario.

An offshore factory can take 15 tonnes or 20 tonnes a day, in five-tonne increments, and process it. So without them you'd lose the beginning and the end of the season.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So what if we had one Canadian factory ship?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: It's illegal. We can't process.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Why?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: You should talk to DFO about that.

Mr. Tom Wappel: That's a policy issue. We could talk to them.

It's not allowed to have a Canadian factory ship?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: You're not allowed, no. You're not allowed to process in Canadian waters.

The Chair: Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: It's been DFO's policy for a decade or two, anyway, not to allow Canadians to process on board. We can't even tie a barge up at our plants that has a fishmeal plant on it or any kind of equipment. It's against the law.

In the 1980s there were one or two licensed vessels on the east coast, the last one being owned by National Sea in Lunenburg. And when that vessel was tied up, approximately ten years ago, I made a deal with National Sea to rent that vessel and have it come out here and fish and have fish delivered to it by Canadian fishermen, and have that factory boat deliver into our factory in Ucluelet and we would unload it and truck it to Lunenburg.

• 1240

I brought this up at international negotiations with the government, and the answer was “Absolutely not. We won't allow this.”

I told them, I don't get this. We have 16 foreign factory boats here from Russia and Poland that you're going to allow to fish in our waters. I'm talking about employing 40 people from Nova Scotia to work on this boat, and another 40 people, Canadian fishermen, to catch this fish for them. We get to unload the fish and process a little bit of it, and use our trucks to go to Lunenburg and establish a little closer relationship with them.

Absolutely not—they wouldn't allow it.

The Chair: Last question, Tom.

Mr. Tom Wappel: That's enough for now.

The Chair: Mr. Cummins and then Mr. Lunney. Sorry, we had better not forget you again.

Mr. John Cummins: Thanks again, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: I have to go to Mr. Lunney. Sorry, John.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You almost forgot me over here.

I have two things I want to ask about. The first one is on the economic impact in the community. We did hear from Lori and from Emil about the workers and the way they've been impacted through not having work they had expected to have. The city had also invested in infrastructure to supply for new plants, sewer and water, and so on.

I wanted to maybe have something said on the record, if someone would like to address this, of the economic impact on the community when many citizens, I presume, because of the shortages over the past two years, were not able to pay mortgages, not able to pay property taxes, and perhaps we've had citizens actually move out of this community. Would somebody care to comment on the economic impact? Perhaps the mayor.

The Chair: Madam Mayor.

Ms. Dianne St. Jacques: Thank you. Yes.

Thank you, James.

It's devastating for our community. We've been hit from many different sides, in the fishing industry and the forest industry. It affects our budget, because, as Norm pointed out, we do get direct income from the plants in water revenue and obviously from the folks who work there. But as a result of our budget this year, we had to lay off workers here locally within our district and we've had to pull in our belts severely. We're coping, but we certainly need your assistance in this.

I think I'd like to give a bit of a response to what was said by the other gentleman earlier, as far as the benefits are concerned. There are still benefits when the joint ventures are there, that is correct, to a small group of people. But I think as a Canadian community, we have expectations from our government and our politicians—and I would be one—that you are going to get the best value out of our Canadian resource in order to benefit Canadians.

To us here, it's clear and simple. To me and to the people who live here in Ucluelet, the question is what is the best value and the best use of that Canadian hake? It's bringing it onshore.

We compared it earlier to an auto plant. We can compare it to shipping out raw logs. It's not acceptable. And yes, the economic impact here is devastating.

The Chair: Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you.

I have a comment that I hope someone will want to respond to.

The joint fishing venture I understand was there to accommodate surplus. It originally happened because there was surplus in the fishery. Hake was a fish we traditionally didn't use in this area. I suppose that's where it all originated. We hear that in terms of the offshore being for surplus fish.

Just the other day we had a briefing from the department, who informed us that the scientists feel we have been overfishing the stock by 10% to 14%, and there are actually stocks declining. So that is a concern we're hearing from the scientists' side.

We understand that the shore-based facilities have made an enormous investment and commitment to accommodate onshore processing in this community and Port Alberni, and so on.

So with these two things happening—with the decreasing stock and with an increasing capacity onshore—perhaps we don't have a surplus to share any more in terms of a joint venture fishery. With the review underway, hopefully this is something to be considered.

Is there something you would like to say in regard to that equation?

The Chair: Who wants to respond? Anyone? Mr. Bray.

Mr. Jock Bray: That situation exists because it was decreed by the minister three years ago that there was going to be a three-year deal whereby the the total allowable catch was going to be allocated in the manner that was laid out. For the first 50,000 tonnes priority was to be given to the shore plants. Then that balance of whatever the TAC was was to be cut in half, the reserve set aside, and allocation was actually given to the foreign JV.

Priority is the issue. There was never priority given as a whole to shore plants. We never got the first 50,000 tonnes. We've never gotten the first 50,000.

• 1245

We've gone through the whole thing, with the delays and all the other reasons. The biggest fact is that the fishermen want to deliver to the JV because they pay a higher price. You'll see this in that Pender report, when you get a chance to read it. I have to apologize; I don't think it was translated. It's too thick. It will be provided in translation for you. If you go through the Pender report, he itemizes all the social benefits and all the costs to the shore plants, stacked up against the difference in what the JV gets paid. Believe me, those costs come out pretty much on a level playing field if the JV had to pay the same costs that shore plants do.

To fully answer your question, DFO gave an allocation to the JV. That allocation was never policed in terms of how it was caught. This was the reason for our letter of June 8, which you have in front of you. It was the reason that we've had this ongoing argument. Yes, we see the surplus fishing being caught before we're allowed to fish. It doesn't make any sense to us. It's a no-brainer.

In terms of the volumes, Mr. Sigmund referred to small volumes of fish being delivered that can't be delivered to the shore plants because they have clean-up problems and that sort of thing. Well, there are a couple of plants, ours included, that can take any small volume.

The second thing is that if you go to the record... This record that we passed out on the processing capacity is missing one fundamental piece of information that you really need to have. When you compare what the JV asked for and what the JV got from day one... They asked for 400 tonnes a day, and from day one, in June, they got 400 tonnes a day, with some minor exceptions for days when the weather was bad. Basically, they got their 400 tonnes a day from when they started fishing to when they caught their last fish in the allocation they were given. So in my mind, that argument doesn't hold water.

The Chair: Last one, James.

Mr. James Lunney: Do we have the capacity onshore to handle the total harvest?

Mr. Jock Bray: Yes, absolutely.

Mr. James Lunney: The point I was trying to make is that, in essence, there really isn't a surplus.

Mr. Jock Bray: The shore plants right now could handle in excess of 100,000 tonnes. That's just the main shore plants. I'm not including the ones in the U.S. that these fishermen can and do deliver to, or the plants in Vancouver that are starting to use more and more of the hake. It's not big volumes, but they process H and G and other things that they can do and get some small deliveries going in that direction. But it's all to the benefit of the fishermen anyway, because the price competition is just heating up.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bray. I have four people on—

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay: Did you get an answer to the letter of June 8?

The Chair: Mr. Bray, did you get an answer to your letter in June?

Mr. Jock Bray: I believe we did. I may even have it here. If I dig for a few minutes, I might find it for you. But the essence of the letter was “Sorry, the season has been decided. We're not going to do anything at this time. Please take up your position and your arguments with the hake subcommittee.” That is a committee of processors and fishermen and government officials who meet on a regular basis to discuss the allocation of the reserve, among other fishing issues that come up each season. Basically, we were just given a “No, we're not going to do anything about it”.

The Chair: The three-year agreement is effectively done now, right?

Mr. Jock Bray: It's finished.

The Chair: What's the timeline to make decisions for next year, and what's the process? You mentioned the subcommittee. I'm aware of that. Can you tell us, for the benefit of the committee, what the process is of getting to a new decision and what the timeframe is, so that we can, accordingly, make sure our work's done in time?

Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: We need a decision on this offshore allocation issue by Christmas. That's what we've been asking for for six months.

• 1250

In 2000, when there were no fish here and we had a disaster, we were assured by the minister that there would be an inquiry and officials would look into it and we would have an opportunity to present the case, as we are today, in the fall one year ago. We were never given that opportunity, even though we were assured in writing by the Minister of Fisheries that we would have it. Even though we brought it up on a monthly basis for six months, we never were given an opportunity to review anything. We're now looking at the last week of November, and the minister promised us this two months ago. Still, nobody has been appointed to lead this inquiry. No meetings have been scheduled.

We talked to the minister two weeks ago and asked what exactly we were waiting for. When are you going to do this? We still don't have an answer. We need to know by Christmas, because we need to make further investments in the plant, in freezing. We need to know where we stand. We cannot go on like this any longer. There's no compromise deal here. They have to go and we have to survive. We can't survive with this offshore fishery here. We want an answer one way or another by Christmas.

The Chair: Mr. Lunney, then the mayor.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In a briefing note that we received from the minister the other day, the department apparently is committed to carrying out a review of the current allocation. The review process should be conducted over the next three months, and that was just dated November 20. Three months is what the department is saying.

The Chair: And you are saying, Mr. Bourke, that you have to have a decision by Christmas.

Mr. Paul Bourke: We have to have a decision by Christmas or by the first of the year at the absolute latest. They've known that for a long time. We put it in writing to them. I don't understand what it is that takes so long to do. We're all in need here. We need an answer. We need some certainty. It shouldn't be up to the schedule of a bureaucrat in Ottawa to decide that.

The Chair: Madam Mayor.

Ms. Dianne St. Jacques: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To add to what Mr. Bourke has said, we met with our provincial Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries at the end of September. Just that week he had had a commitment from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that a committee would be formed and a decision would be made by the end of this year. That was the end of September, and our expectation is that will still happen. We haven't heard anything further on it. That's why I mentioned in my comments that we don't know if it's underway yet or not.

The Chair: Okay, we'll certainly see if we can move this along.

Tom, do you have a point?

Mr. Tom Wappel: Just one. It was asked whether they can process 100%. I believe Mr. Sigmund wanted to make a point on that question.

The Chair: Okay, sorry, Mr. Sigmund. You have to sometimes yell around here. Go ahead.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: I guess I'm just too polite.

Capacity at what cost? In 1977, 1999, 2000, and 2001, if we didn't have the joint venture, the fishing fleet would have suffered a terrible financial loss. These two big companies can do 25,000 or 30,000 tonnes each. If they fail to operate, where is that fish going to go? Where will we put it? That's what the joint venture has been and is—a safety net. It gives us an outlet. Four years out of the last five we've used it to save the fishery. We have the capacity. But if one of these players falls out because of economics and market situations, we're in huge trouble.

The Chair: Mr. Lunney, go ahead.

Mr. James Lunney: A quick comment. What you're talking about is before the plants had geared up for capacity. They didn't have the capacity then, and they do now. Isn't that a big difference?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: They had a capacity then. The economic situation was that they could not process or produce surimi at a profit.

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The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Bray, and then I'm going to have to go quickly to the rest of the questioners and close this session. Mr. Bray.

Mr. Jock Bray: I think the situation Norm is discussing is certainly one we've been aware of and that has been thrown in our face over the past few years again and again. Yes, the plants have more than enough capacity to handle the entire TAC. There have been in the past two situations of bankruptcies within the processing industry. There's nothing you can do about that; it just happens. These people tried their best, couldn't make it, and fell through.

In terms of the TAC and the surplus fish, this is the big issue. Even if there were a failure in the industry—which could happen, and certainly we don't want to discount the possibility entirely—let's make a mechanism whereby if there's a problem coming up in the industry and we become aware of it, as we would very quickly, we are given the processes or ability to go to DFO at that time and say that we anticipate a problem this year. Believe me, there's a lot of foreign processing capability that could be called in very quickly. Our biggest neighbour right to our south has tons of processing capacity floating around on the water. It could be brought in for surplus fish, if there was ever an occasion to have surplus fish. I don't think it will happen, but it could. I think it needs to be managed, and the way it works today is that there's an allocation given to a foreign nation at our expense.

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The Chair: Mr. Sigmund, do you have one last quick point on this?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: The answer to the statement that we can bring in U.S. processors is that it is illegal. The United States is not in our good books. We're not allowed to use their processor vessels in our waters. It's a long process to bring a foreign fleet in. It's not something that can be done on a week or two-week or a two-month basis. It has to be planned far ahead of the season.

The Chair: Mr. Stoffer and then Mr. Farrah and then Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Not to debate the issue, but you had said, Mr. Chairman, that there are no international deals—fish for wheat, for example. You say it's fish for fish. But I'd sure like to know what fish we're getting in these deals. That's just a little comment.

Mr. Sigmund, I think you said it absolutely. Coming from the Maritimes, as my colleague does and my other colleague from Atlantic Canada, we're accused of having seasonal worker bums who just want to put in enough days to get EI and then coast for the rest of the year. The problem with that, of course, is not seasonal workers; it's seasonal jobs. I think you're absolutely right.

I have a question for you, Mr. Bray. If you had every ounce of fish or hake to process onshore, how much work are we talking about? What's the length of that work and how many people? If you had every ounce, how much work is there?

The Chair: Mr. Bray.

Mr. Jock Bray: In answer to your question, it varies with each plant. Typically for our plant we have a target. We're working toward it. We typically work for about eight to nine months. I think we're working toward ten to eleven months. We're stretching it out. Our operation is capable of processing hake from the gulf, which is a body of water between Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

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As a matter of fact, if you were to tour our plant today, you would see a completely different situation from what you saw with the other three plants. Ours is going full steam ahead. There's processing going on 24 hours a day.

We have an advantage because we're close to that side of the island. We also have an advantage because we're set up to do a lot of different products. Some of the other plants are set up to do some other products, not to the same degree that we are, but I think that's coming. Even this past season we saw USP, which has typically been focused on surimi, set up an entire fillet line. They're capable of doing fillets, minced, and the regular surimi.

It's really hard to give you a definite answer from any perspective other than my own. Our target is to have people working at least 10 months, possibly 11 months of the year, and we're stretching it out with both hake and another species, turbot.

The Chair: Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: To answer your question, right now we employ as an industry around 550 people. If we had the entire TAC, I would expect that number to increase by at least a couple hundred people, and the season would probably last between three and eight months, depending on when the fish showed up and when fishermen were willing to catch them. I've seen fish here as early as April 15 and as late as December 22.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Bourque, you had mentioned something about stiff water?

Mr. Paul Bourke: Stick water.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Stick water. I plead ignorance on that. I've never heard that expression before. Could you could explain what that is, and can you prove that hazardous materials are being dumped in Canadian waters very close to a national park?

Mr. Paul Bourke: Absolutely, we can prove it.

Stick water is the result of cooking fish waste. It's a very highly toxic type of waste stream, and it's of grave concern to environmental regulators. In Canada and in most of the United States, you're not allowed to put stick water back into the ocean untreated. It's very difficult and very expensive to treat. West Coast Reduction in Nanaimo has spent $1 million to $2 million just on this one issue.

When you do put it back into the meal, it actually compromises the quality of the meal to some extent and limits where you can sell it. So being able to dump that stick water at sea is a real advantage in terms of marketing. It's worth about $300 a tonne more without the stick water than it is with it being recycled.

Our Minister of Fisheries is supposed to be looking after the environment. These vessels out here don't have a permit to dump this waste water. There are 500 people out there living on these vessels who dump all their domestic sewage, all of it, right into this body of water at Barkley Sound and Pacific Rim National Park. I can tell you, if we put an application in to dump our human waste untreated in here, Christ, you'd hear a hue and cry from around the world, but they're allowed to.

The Chair: Last question, Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Bourke, if you have any documentation on that, it would be very helpful for the committee, if it's possible to get that.

My last comment is really for the community, for the mayor.

There was a gentleman named Eric Tamm, who was with Coastal Communities Network. They did an awful lot of work not only for this community, but along with Russ Helberg, in many others, trying to provide economic opportunities not only in fish, but other areas.

I know we're getting off track just a touch, but besides fishing and plant jobs, what other opportunities can you see in terms of the overall employment benefit for all people in this area?

The Chair: Madam Mayor.

Ms. Dianne St. Jacques: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'm trying to give her a plug here, you know.

The Chair: The NDP has it tough, Peter.

Ms. Dianne St. Jacques: Ucluelet has been lucky, in that it has always had a diversified economy. In the past ten years, however, it has been much more of a challenge.

We obviously have a good federal government presence in our community with the Pacific Rim National Park and with the vessel traffic management centre, whose issues you were discussing this morning. We've always had tourism, and that continues to grow. We are working very hard at improving our tourism infrastructure, in putting trails in place, and hopefully the next time you come here you'll be able to walk along the open ocean of this peninsula on the wild Pacific trail.

• 1310

We are constantly working toward community forests and the opportunities that provides, not only in harvesting but in value-added opportunities, tourism and non-forest activities. We're working with two partners in that endeavour, the Toquaht and Ucluelet First Nations. We have formed in the last year an economic development corporation that is certainly working hard to provide opportunities to folks in our community, and that's what it's all about—and that is what this is about as well, providing opportunity to Canadians in Canadian communities.

If I may just add, Mr. Lunney had asked earlier about the infrastructure and our investment in water and sewer. I didn't address that, and I apologize, but for the record, based on the information coming out of the fishery, we did invest on the grant, the one-third, one-third, one-third grants that were available.

Approximately six years ago we put in place a water-sewer system. It cost $7 million. We had to pay one third. We pay interest of about $10,000 a month on that loan, and you can imagine the strain that is on a community of 1,800 people. We have community property, district-owned property for sale in order to cover that loan, but our investment here, financially as well as morally, is large.

I hope that helps.

The Chair: Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Mr. Hearn, you're the last questioner.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I should say that I could be sitting in any of my 15 to 20 communities in which I have a fish plant, hearing much the same thing from fishermen, on one end, and the plant owners and plant workers on the other. The problem you're facing certainly isn't unique to this part of the coast. The ignoring of your concerns isn't unique either, let me say.

In relation to that and a lot of your inquiries and concerns, you mentioned that you haven't heard from Ottawa, and Ottawa is slow. In your opinion, where are the decisions made? Are they really made in Ottawa, or are they made by the local bureaucrats, who really respond to the letters to the minister?

In my own case, several times when we have written the minister, we find out that the letters were sent back down the line. The answers are given by the local bureaucrats, and the minister signs off and really doesn't know or understand what's going on in a lot of cases. Are you finding here that you have problems, or are you getting cooperation from the local authorities? Maybe I could hear from both sides.

The Chair: Does anyone want to respond to that? Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: We don't get much cooperation from DFO in Vancouver, which manages the Pacific region. In the last five years, I would say there have been maybe one or two officials involved in the offshore fishery who even visited our factories out here.

Mr. Dhaliwal was here last year at a meeting with the native community in Port Alberni and refused to meet with the mayor and the mayor of Port Alberni and the mayor of Tofino, the fisheries committee, Clayoquot Regional District. We were in Port Alberni that day. He drove right by our office and wouldn't give us five minutes of his time.

The officials in Vancouver rarely travel. We've had one senior official from Ottawa come out here in three years, I guess. They live in a dream world at 200 Kent Street in Vancouver. They're not part of this community. We have very little involvement with the local fisheries officer on the issues we deal with.

The letters are always answered by bureaucrats. There are two streams: the political stream—when the letter goes to the minister, it goes through the political stream; and the bureaucratic stream, and 99% of the time it's the same bureaucrat you're dealing with every day, who you get nowhere with, who answers the question.

The minister... rarely. I don't know whether he even reads this stuff. And that's why we're in the situation we're in now. That's why we write letters in the middle of a crisis situation, and we get responses three to six months later. In what other industry could you spend $50 million of private money and get no response from a cabinet minister? Unfortunately, that's the situation we're in. We just get no respect.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bourke.

Loyola.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: I have a brief question, Mr. Chairman.

• 1315

In listening to the problems you've discussed, and having been involved for several years with fishing groups, fishermen, plant workers, and whatever, I find that when you have a problem such as this—plant opening dates being so important, catch and allocation delivered at the proper time—with hopefully some leadership and organization from the government or the unions at the beginning of the year, many of these problems that both of you face, on both sides of the equation, can be worked out, and the whole community would benefit.

I'm sure the fishermen would rather land and provide jobs onshore than sell offshore, given a reasonable choice. Again, I think if government were properly involved, you shouldn't be facing some of the problems that you are.

What about stocks? Getting back to the fact that we're reduced to hake, because hake, at home, is sort of the lowest of the low... Nobody bothered with hake or a species like that when we had lots of cod, capelin, and herring. We are reduced now to shellfish, and if anything happens to our shrimp and crab stocks, we are in a severe state, because we've lost all our groundfish.

How are your stocks in this area holding up? Hake is okay. What about the other stocks? You say you can't access them because of markets, or whatever, but is part of the reason also the decline in the stocks?

Mr. Norm Sigmund: Our bottomfish stocks are in fantastic shape, but they're controlled by licence holders who take them where it's most efficient to process them. We used to have an olympic fishery, where you could go out and get as much as you could and bring it in on an ongoing basis. Now everyone has a set quota, an IQ, and they're not held under specific time restraints. So they can go and maximize their market position and take it back to Vancouver to have it processed, and that's where we've lost out. We've lost all that. We have that in the halibut, herring, and black cod. Every other species is gone. So to get it back here to process is something that we have to talk about eventually. But the stocks are in good shape.

The Chair: Mr. Cuzner.

Sorry, Garth, you wanted to make a point?

Mr. Garth Mirau: I just want to make the point that Norm certainly understands the groundfish fishery better than I do and has hands-on knowledge of the stocks out there, and he's well respected. If he says there are fish there, I have to believe there are fish.

This year there's a perception that there's a shortage of salmon in British Columbia. For instance, the Skeena River, for three out of the last five years, has had absolutely record returns of fish. The Fraser River this year has the fourth highest recorded number of fish in the history of counting the fish—in excess of 30 million fish. The inlets on Vancouver Island and the mainland are absolutely full of chum salmon, and there's no opportunity for fishermen to access those fish. By extension of that, there's no opportunity for shore workers to process those fish.

This industry used to be diversified, not just in the shore plants, but by fishermen. Because of the licensing policies of DFO, the federal government, that diversification has been taken away. Now we fish individual species, and it's killing everybody. It's killing the fishermen and the processors, and the shore workers are finding themselves without any work at all. Now we're reduced to the point where the managers who are left in the fisheries department no longer know how to manage a fishery. They only know how to manage closures. That's the real story about what's going on here.

The Chair: Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: For the benefit of the committee, would it be of benefit to access the original joint venture plan, for reference, I would think, anyway? We're looking at some companies here that have made sizeable investments in processing because the capacity hadn't been there in the past, and they've gone out on a limb financially so that they're able to develop that processing onshore. So maybe it would be worth while to at least access that document.

Mayor St. Jacques, you made reference to your contact with the provincial member with regard to the committee that will develop the new plan, and you've been given the timelines. Have you been given any indication as to what the makeup of that committee would be and who would be involved in that?

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The Chair: Madam Mayor.

Ms. Dianne St. Jacques: Thank you.

No, unfortunately we haven't been given any further information, which is a grave concern. We certainly took it to be true when we heard it from the provincial minister of fisheries. I didn't even consider it likely that if DFO had made that statement to him that they would not follow through. But unfortunately we haven't heard anything further on it.

The Chair: Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: On this we also have grave concerns about the way this review is going to be conducted and who is going to be in charge of it.

If history is any guide, DFO usually gets to appoint their own bureaucrats to review the decisions these same bureaucrats make themselves. In our situation here we have bureaucrats who have a very long history with this offshore fishery. They're very attached to it. To ask them to go and review their work and its effectiveness is really unfair.

We've asked the minister, and we would ask you on our behalf, to try to get someone to chair this thing who's not directly involved in the fishery. It should be someone, whether it's an academic or someone else, who's unbiased, who doesn't have any history, and whose employment doesn't depend on the outcome of this.

Bureaucrats live off us too. If they didn't have us fools running around, trying to process this fish and trying to catch it, they'd be out of work too. But we really need someone to be the chair, who we can make presentations to and talk to, who's going to be willing to listen and is coming to this with a clean slate.

Somebody who's an employee of DFO is certainly not going to cut it, in our opinion. We need someone else involved in the process.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bourke.

You had one question, John. We're going to leave it at that John.

Mr. John Cummins: I want to get back to that issue of the JV as a safety net. What if the fish aren't in adjacent waters? Do the processors have contingency plans to deal with that kind of thing now? Or what's the story on that?

The Chair: Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: Yes, we do.

We've traditionally purchased fish over most of Vancouver Island. Hake is very perishable. It has to be handled very carefully. But we think we can deal with it.

There are also processors in the United States that are closer to the border than we are. I don't see that as being a problem. If it was a problem and it was a catastrophic problem, we should deal with it at that time.

If there was a need to bring in a factory boat at the end of the season, or something like that, then we should deal with that as an industry. But it shouldn't be a situation where they're dealing with it up front just before there's even a problem.

Mr. John Cummins: I was thinking of—

The Chair: John, if I could interrupt for a minute, Mr. Sigmund wants in. Mr. Sigmund.

Mr. Norm Sigmund: I hate to keep bringing up these four years, or the last five, but these problems do occur. These fish are perishable. It's not economically viable to bring them down the island. There's not enough money in it for anybody. The product quality deteriorates. That's why we stopped bringing them. Two years ago, in the 2000 season, they were processing mush. For Mr. Bourke to say they have a contingency plan in place is, in my opinion, totally false.

As I said earlier, in terms of bringing in a fleet as a safety net, you can't snap your fingers and a joint venture fleet appears. It takes a lot of preparation; permits; contracts have to be struck. It's not something that magically appears because you want it to.

We've been in this situation year after year, after year. In 1999 David Fiddler, a friend of mine, almost went bankrupt because of PCP's failure to operate. Several other boats were in the same position. So my answer is that, no, they don't have a contingency plan.

If the fish are in the Queen Charlotte Islands, there is absolutely no way to harvest them. If the fish are in the...

I was travelling 24 hours to the fishing grounds and 24 hours back. The shelf life of a hake is 24 hours to 36 hours. My travelling time was 48 hours. It's impossible to harvest the fish in that kind of scenario.

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Mr. John Cummins: The other issue I want some clarification on is the notion that there's a floor level of product that must be achieved before a plant can operate and open. I understand with Port Fish that you have a multifaceted process, with surimi, H and G, sausages, and so on. Do you have a floor level you require before you can process hake?

I'll ask that first of maybe Port Fish, and then I was going to ask the same of Mr. Bourke—or whoever wants to go first.

The Chair: Mr. Bray first, and then Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Bray.

Mr. Jock Bray: Thank you. Our floor level's quite low. We can probably handle a 24-tonne or 25-tonne delivery. We have in the past. Again, it's a problem of clean-up, even in a small way, for us. It's not something we would like to do on a long-term basis. We do it quite frequently—you know, weather chases the boats in, or whatever happens. We're quite capable of handling five tonnes, if that's all that comes in.

It's just when you set up and gear up to run a process, it's ongoing. Our plant normally runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It doesn't shut down. That's the most efficient use of the plant and the best recovery, because you lose recovery every time you shut down and clean up. You have to clean out the machines and all the rest of it.

Yes, we can make fillets, we can make mince, we can make H and G, we can make sausages. There are lots of different things we can do with the product. Small volumes aren't necessarily a problem, but they are not the best efficient use of the plant.

The Chair: Mr. Bourke.

Mr. Paul Bourke: In our case, we can process around 300 tonnes a day for surimi. With our fillet operation—we just put in a new operation this year—we can probably process 50 to 100 tonnes, at a minimum.

You should know that when you're fishing, fishermen don't always catch a full boatload either. At the beginning of the season and at the end of the season we contract a boat to take fish from them. If they don't get enough, we unload that fish and sell it to Jock's company and Wholey, and we parcel that out to the other processes. It doesn't get wasted, but there is a level at which you have to operate, just like a dragger. You can't have a dragger with a capacity of 200 tonnes a day going out there and getting 10 tonnes. It's impossible.

We originally put in a fillet plant in 1991, and then the fishermen said, “You can't take any more than 50 or 75 tonnes. We need 200 or 300 tonnes.” So we put in a surimi plant and they said “Geez, you're only doing surimi.” Now we have both and we can do H and G.

One of the reasons we need a decision here is that we need more freezing capacity so we can run the surimi factory and the fillet factory at the same time. If we get a decision by Christmas, we can do that; we'll have the time to put in additional freezing. But if we get a decision in the last week of June, which is probably what'll happen, it won't happen. That's why we need some answers.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bourke. Thank you, John.

We have to end here. I want to thank the witnesses for bringing the position forward. I think we understand the urgency of the situation, in terms of getting a decision. I don't know when we're going to get a full-fledged report together. We'll try to do it over the next couple of weeks.

When we get back to Ottawa, we will certainly impress upon the minister the urgency of the timeline and having the decision made by Christmas. Then we'll file our report as quickly as we can. That's the best I can tell you at the moment. We'll inform the minister on Monday morning of the urgency of getting a final decision made.

James, do you have any last words?

Mr. James Lunney: I have a last comment.

Dianne, did you mention you had a letter or an agreement from the B.C. minister of fisheries about having a review concluded by the end of the year? If you have a document, that would be helpful to us.

• 1330

Ms. Dianne St. Jacques: Sorry, James, there are no documents. It was at the UBCM, at the meeting we had with Mr. van Dongen, who's very much an ally to the communities in this process. He and his assistants had just had meetings that morning with DFO and that's what they had been told, because they share the same goal as we do.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

For the purposes of the committee, members, there's an absolute firm rule that we have to lift off by four o'clock or we're not going to get to Prince Rupert tomorrow. We have two groups of witnesses to hear from. We will not leave here for a lunch break. We've asked the food to be brought here and we've asked committee members to take ten minutes, pick it up, bring it back here, and we'll go to our next witness, because we absolutely have to be done by 3:10.

The Alberni group will be first on. We will reconvene in ten minutes. Once again, thank you.

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• 1336

The Chair: All right. I call the meeting to order.

For the purposes of the record, this meeting will be on the problems in the Port Alberni fishery. We have four witnesses, I believe. We're going to go to a very tight questioning, as we have to be out of here at 3:10 p.m. and we have one witness following this. So we'll go to three- or four-minute questions for members.

We will start with Mr. Darren de Luca with the Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association.

Mr. Darren de Luca (Director, Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association): Thank you, Mr. Easter.

I will turn your attention to this submission. I think it's just getting handed out. It's a submission to the parliamentary Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

On behalf of the Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association, thank you for allowing us to appear before you. We regret that we are here to criticize the management of the recreational fishery, yet we feel the seriousness of the problem requires the review and intervention of this committee.

In 2001, the west coast Vancouver Island recreational fishery was faced with severe management measures to protect the WCVI chinook stocks. The Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association supported these measures and worked with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to design recreational fishing plans that achieved DFO management goals.

It was clear that the only reasonable opportunity for Port Alberni to have a viable fishery would be on the healthy sockeye run returning that year. With shock and concern we watched DFO management actions destroy what little opportunity existed. The decision has had far-reaching and negative impacts on future relations with DFO and on the economic health of our region. A lot of the sockeye management plan comes through this one document here.

Is everyone here familiar with the Sport Fish Advisory Board? Is anyone not familiar with it? The Sport Fish Advisory Board is a board that was struck by the minister to provide advice on recreational fishing. It's a province-wide consultation structure. We're the local committee of that larger structure, just for reference.

On the Somass sockeye management plan, on July 13, 2001, DFO fisheries managers summoned AVSFA representatives and advised them that DFO would be reducing the sockeye bag limit to two fish per day on Tuesday, July 17. Justification given was that the recreational fishery had exceeded its limit identified in DFO's Somass sockeye management plan, and it needed to be ramped down.

We protested the move on several counts. First we pointed out that the tourism season was only at the mid-point and our fishery was just getting under way. Second, we pointed to the fact that the problem was in the DFO-developed Somass sockeye management plan, which had far underestimated the number of fish required to meet DFO obligations for recreational fishermen under the existing allocation policy.

Third, we pointed out that there was no conservation problem. Fishermen reported plenty of bright silver fish, environmental conditions were positive, and pending rain meant migration would improve substantially. We saw no need to panic. We agreed that should escapement numbers not improve by the July 19 re-forecast, the recreational bag limits would be reduced to two per day.

The decision to close the fishery on July 20 to meet Somass sockeye management plans and objectives was DFO's alone. Why the decision was made as it was remains a mystery. Escapement during the week in question hit record proportions. From July 13 to July 20, over 133,000 adult sockeye migrated into Sproat and Great Central Lakes. A further 107,000 adult sockeye migrated the following week. We now understand that over 500,000 adult sockeye and 300,000 jacks entered the system this year, far exceeding DFO management objectives.

• 1340

The next heading is “A New Direction: An Allocation Policy for Pacific Salmon”. I believe you've been provided that allocation policy. It's a DFO document, and I'm drawing references from it. The points I'll be making next come directly from that document.

The above-noted DFO allocation policy comes with clear criteria and guidelines for the development of recreational sockeye fishing plans. They are as follows:

Recreational sockeye fisheries will only be conducted after conservation needs are met and first nations section 35—food, social, ceremonial, and party—needs have been addressed.

The recreational fishery will be managed to provide stable and predictable opportunities for recreational harvest of sockeye.

Management activities will allow for the orderly expansion of recreational sockeye fisheries, yet minimize impact on commercial fisheries.

The recreational harvest of sockeye will be limited to a maximum average of 5% of the combined recreational harvest over the period 1999-2005. That's a coast-wide cap. If there were 10,000 fish caught in the total pack, 5% of that would be averaged to the recreational fishery.

Based on the above guidelines, a daily limit of four salmon a day shall apply.

Unfortunately south coast fisheries managers broke both the spirit and intent of this policy.

“Economic Fallout and Long-Term Impacts”: The impact was both swift and severe. Fishing effort dropped from 500-plus boats per day to under 40 overnight. Tourists who were here left immediately. Tourists who were just arriving were outraged, having booked their holidays well in advance and having spent considerable sums of money to get to Port Alberni. Campgrounds, marinas, guides, and service businesses were staggered by the impact.

If the lost fishing effort is quantified at only $100 per boat per day, Port Alberni had over $50,000 per day in lost revenue. The fishery never recovered, and the entire season was lost, putting losses possibly in the millions. Markets have been destroyed, with tourists refusing to come back next year, and new investment in the industry is non-existent. Recovery will be slow and unsure.

“Rebuilding Our Credibility”. I think this is the most important part here. The Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association is requesting this committee's assistance in repairing the damage that was done and in ensuring that it does not happen again.

We have three specific requests:

One, have this committee support the commissioning of a study to assess the economic impact of the recreational fishery on the Alberni-Clayoquot region. The report will be used to inform DFO decision-makers of the importance of the recreational fishery to the community's economy and to the businesses and infrastructure that rely on it. We are requesting a contribution of $17,500, or 50% of the cost, from the federal government. We've committed to raising the remainder of the funds and we're a long way towards achieving that.

Two, have this committee support the funding of a substantial market recovery program for Port Alberni to regain market share lost as a result of the DFO decision to close the fishery mid-season.

Three, have this committee request the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to direct his staff to redevelop the Somass sockeye management plan, to respect the “New Directions” allocation policy, and to provide for stable and predictable opportunity and four fish per day for the Alberni Inlet recreational sockeye fishery.

On behalf of the Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association and the community of Alberni, thank you.

The Chair: Thanks, Darren.

James mentioned this to me, but just go through the timeframes again. The fishery was closed and opened a week later? Could you just give me the timeline?

Mr. Darren de Luca: It was closed on Saturday, the 20th, and I believe it reopened on the 27th.

The Chair: But basically it was closed immediately—

Mr. Darren de Luca: That's right. It was—

The Chair: —and I can understand you have outraged people. I've seen that kind of thing happen in other areas, not related to DFO.

And then it opened a week later.

Mr. Darren de Luca: Yes.

The Chair: Okay. I was just wondering.

Mr. Darren de Luca: It was closed on a Friday afternoon, so everybody, essentially, was in transit.

The Chair: Thank you, Darren.

Next is Mr. Kramer, with the China Creek Marina.

Mr. Bruce Kramer (Owner, China Creek Marina): Thank you very much.

Here are just a few facts and figures, going up to what Darren just had. You should have a copy of this short paper.

Basically I manage one of the three marinas in Port Alberni, and it's owned by the Port Alberni Port Authority. I was at these meetings through the summer with Fisheries and our meeting just a week before the total closure, which came July 20. Everything seemed to be on line with all the user groups that were at the meeting. Everything was running fine. People were having a great time.

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As you can see by my list, we have approximately 260 campsites. On July 20, the day they announced the closure at noon, we had 17 empty sites. Twenty-four hours later we had 207 empty sites.

The figures continue like that right through until the end of August, where you can see that the fishery never recovered. We estimated a loss in that 41-day period of approximately $72,000, and that's just one campsite out of many in that area.

So under the impact this decision had, as Darren said—made on a Friday at noon, closing it Friday at midnight—we faced a severe amount of irate tourists who came off ferries, spending thousands of dollars to get here with two-week vacations planned, and who were very irate.

We called town meetings and had Mr. Lunney there as well as our deputy mayor. Fisheries was asked to attend. They did not make it, for whatever reason—I don't know—to explain their position.

What I'm trying to say is, what I'd really like—we can't do anything about this lost money now, but what I'd really like in the future—is a commitment that if these things are going to happen, we have to have some notice. And they should never happen when we have those numbers of fish. Basically, that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Kramer. We'll go to questions later.

I believe it's Mr. Cole now. Mr. Cole is with the Port Boat House.

Mr. Bob Cole (Owner, Port Boat House): I own a marine business, Port Boat House, and I'm the vice-president of the chamber of commerce. I'm here on behalf of both.

I think Mr. Kramer left a short report because I'm fairly long-winded, so hit the gavel any time you require.

You've been circulated a fairly substantial document stapled together, and there are some appendices to it—

The Chair: You're not related to Peter Stoffer, are you?

Mr. Bob Cole: No.

The Chair: He's long-winded too.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Bob Cole: I just met the gentleman and invited him back.

Our area has been savaged economically by the downturn in the resource-based industries, as was indicated in earlier submissions, and tourism, and especially sport fishing tourism, has been our best alternative, as here in Ucluelet.

After several years of restrictions and closures in area 23, as well as habitat restoration and enhancement by local volunteers, we were beginning to see traditional salmon returns and the economic benefits of an ample resource.

Confidence and enterprise were rebuilding amongst local guides, campgrounds, hotels, and related sectors, including my own marine business, as tourists and fish returned in numbers.

Just as the tourist season was getting in full swing with local stores, restaurants, and shops burgeoning with business, the DFO unilaterally shut down the sockeye fishery without notice and without bona fide justification.

The closure was instituted against the recommendation of the local co-management committee. First, the decision was based on totally inaccurate and rightfully disputed stock assessment information. I suggest you look at appendices 1 and 2. They may be hard to follow, but we see them all the time. It's Somass sockeye escapement, and there's an arrow on July 20—“7/20”—and it shows the escapement on that date of 20,534 fish. On July 17, three days previous, 19,300 passed through the counter.

In fact, in the information that was used in the closure notice—appendix 2—at July 17, it said, 90,000 fish had gone through escapement, and typically that's close to the halfway point of the total run. We anecdotally, through all the people who were fishing and all the people who were coming into the marinas and the weigh scales, were telling Fisheries, “There's lots of fish out there. Your one test boat is wrong. We're right; the fish are bright out there. There's fresh fish in-filling every day.” We had 500 boats a day on the water, according to DFO statistics, giving us all the same information. Many fish were being caught.

The fishery was closed down on July 20, although we asked them to go to the re-forecast date of July 19. The figures were in and available to me, and I'm sure they'd be available to Fisheries, that showed another 80,000 fish passed through between July 17 and July 20 at the counter—adult fish.

That's double the number, or just about double the number, they had to make the closure decision.

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Also in that July 17 document, it shows the river temperatures are down about two degrees, since they peaked earlier that month. Escapement had improved considerably. Yet in this document, dated July 19, they chose to close the sport fishery. Further on I'll get to another basis for the closure.

Secondly, there was no consideration by DFO of the immediate and long-term economic impact of such a quick closure.

Thirdly, there has been no admission of an error in the decision nor of the statistics used at the time to justify the closure—all of which scares the heck out of local businesses so drastically affected this year, considering it could happen again next year unless something is done.

The impact of the closure was instant and devastating. The tourists evacuated the valley, many of them attempting to salvage their fishing holidays elsewhere, others just going home disappointed and disgruntled. The boat counts are testaments to the instant and lingering damage from the decision. On the second page, in appendix 2, there are Department of Fisheries boat counts. These start August 1. But if you refer to the first page, boat counts—effort counts—range from 321 to 443 per day up until that July 19 date. Thereafter the largest number of boats out was 84 boats—appendix 2, page 2—and that was the long weekend Monday in August. The fish effort never recovered even though the fishery was reopened. We keep pointing out to the Department of Fisheries that you can't stop and start a recreational fishery as you can a commercial fishery. The tourists just don't take it.

Most businesses have reported to me—and my own is an example—40% to 50% reductions in sales, overnight, between Friday, July 19, and Monday. These include places such as Gone Fishin', which sells sport tackle—a 40% reduction and never recovered. These are also China Creek Marina's numbers. My own business had record sales up until the closure in July. We were just starting to see the return to business on the back of the sport fishery and sport fish tourism. Our August sales were off 40%. That's a 55% reduction from typical years, because August is normally 15% higher than July in the last ten-year average. Our September sales were off 68%, another 58% variance from the ten-year average. And I'm just on the edge of it. The people who are absolutely directly involved—the guides and charter fishermen and resorts that fish—some of them are off more than that.

Despite reopening a week later, business never recovered. In fact, most of the rest of the province considered our area closed to fishing for the balance of the year. I was in Kelowna in August and had several people say to me that it was too bad we were closed to fishing. I said we reopened a week later. We did our best efforts and best attempts to get the word out that we were reopened, but it doesn't happen. If there's a fishery notice closure and if it's supported by headlines that say, “No Reopening Considered”, nobody reads the paper the day after when it has changed.

I have already discussed August, the worst in ten years, with 40% off, and September, with 68% off in my own business.

As well as my association with business through the chamber of commerce, I've been involved as a member of the Alberni Sportfish Advisory Committee since the early 1980s and have a distinct understanding of the sockeye fishery, which is quite unique to our Alberni Inlet, and have noticed an almost systematic dismantling of this fishery by DFO regulations over the last few years. Darren alluded to it as “ramping us down”.

Appendix 3 is multiple-paged. If you wouldn't mind following through with me on this, the first page is a summary of sockeye catch plus escapement in Alberni Inlet from 1980 to 1998. If you go to the middle of the page, there is Somass River total run, and there are amounts varying there from 987,000 up to over 1 million in the heydays of 1981, 1983, 1984, and, again, in 1991 and 1993—great years for the sockeye fishery, for commercial sport, first nations, and everybody's fisheries. Throughout those years—further along the columns, in the middle, three-quarters of the way down is expected sport catch. On each of those years except for the superabundant years, our expected sport catch is approximately 10% of the run's return, all the way down to 1998, where it still shows that.

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If you turn the page, you'll see the 1999 Somass River sockeye management plan, and if you go down to where the arrow is—I've used it because of the estimated run size this year, underestimated even at 600,000—you'll see that we were reduced to 54,000 or at least a percent down from traditional.

If you turn the page again to 2000 and go to 600,000, and go across the columns to sport catch, you'll see we were reduced to 42,000 of the expected sport catch in 2000.

If you go to 2001 on the next page—I'm sorry they're in a different format—and go down to 600,000 and go across, you'll see we were reduced to 36,000.

In the document that closed this fishery, it stated we were over our catch allotment. Well, it was a reduced catch allotment. If they reduce it next year again, similarly we'll be over it before we start.

The sockeye catch and escapement summaries show the historical sports catch, and, as you can see, it has been reduced. From 1980 to 1998 it was fine. From 1998 through 2001 we've been reduced from 10% to under 6%, with no justification. These are on increasing run sizes in the last two years.

Local frustration with DFO is manifested by a 700-name petition that was signed by locals and tourists alike in the few days following the closure. This was presented on the Wednesday after the closure. These names were collected in four or five days—700 names asking the minister to intervene on the closure and to review it. A copy of this was sent to the minister, and you're welcome to flip through it and see where the people are from—many locals, many tourists, and many long-distance tourists. We have California, New Mexico, Idaho, Alberta, and many interior B.C. tourists in our community. Some of them, we fear, we may have lost forever.

Also in your package is a series of media releases or stuff that came out in the paper and on TV. You can see that the community was outraged in general and got very involved. People who never speak out spoke out to the media and complained about the short notice, the unjustified closure, and the economic effect on the valley.

The city and the chamber of commerce hosted a meeting, referred to earlier by Mr. Kramer, that our MP and our acting mayor attended, and from it came a letter from the city. It's in here. The very last page of your appendix is a letter from the acting mayor supporting the sport fisheries' representation to him. It talks about an attachment and it's available to you. It was from the Alberni Valley Sportfishing Advisory Committee to that public meeting.

We need to quantify the impact so that an economic factor can be considered in future DFO decisions. If there's a need to ramp down the conservation, if there's a need for political or any other reasons to change a fishery midstream, we need to have an economic factor valued in—it's going to cost the economy a million dollars or it's going to cost a dollar. We need to do that. We've undertaken a draft of a study and we'd like Department of Fisheries participation in the study so that the information gathered is valuable to everybody.

We need to develop, as Darren's presentation made out, a sport fish portion of the Somass sockeye management plan that meets the communities needs and the spirit and intent of the allocation policies. That's not difficult. We pretty well had one for eight years, and over the last three or so it has diminished.

Most of all we need to rebuild and repair our credibility and confidence for sport fishing in area 23, and that includes all species. We have fish coming back, and some in major record numbers, as was asked earlier about the state of the stocks. We need to have target marketing, invite people back, have an early sport fish catch and bag limit announcement to the tourist base we chased away last year.

Bruce mentioned on the way down here that he had customers come to him—regular customers of 20 and 30 years—and say, “That's it, I'm not coming back; you've done this to me more than once and this one's the worst.” I've had 20- and 30-year customers of mine, such as a gentleman from Spokane—he promised me a letter to this event and I haven't received it yet—who said he's just tired of it and he's going to take his fishing elsewhere, most likely Alaska. That's something that's really of concern to our local community.

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With that, I thank you for your time. I'm very willing to answer any questions.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Cole.

We now have Mr. Lochbaum, area manager with DFO.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum (Area Chief, Resource Management, South Coast Area, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): Yes, thank you.

The Chair: Go ahead, Ed.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Would you like me to respond to all three, or...

The Chair: Well, do you have a presentation?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I can speak from the handout that was provided to everyone here.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: For the year 2001 our stock forecast for Somass sockeye returns was in the order of about 550,000.

The Chair: If I can just stop you for a second, this is the handout here. It says “Presentation to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans: Barkley Sound Sockeye 2001 Review”. It's in French and English.

Go ahead, Ed. Sorry.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I'll just quickly go through the objectives of the plan. The pre-season forecast was 550,000. Contained within the document you will see a catch allocation guide. I stress the term “guide” here. Managing this particular run is not quite an exact science, as I'm sure you all appreciate.

The objectives of our management plan for 2001 are the following: provide an interim lower bound to harvesting; provide contrast in escapement levels to learn more about the productivity of the stocks; provide more consistent fishing opportunities with reduced variability of catch; ensure first nations section 35 FSC requirements are met; provide sport fishing opportunities when returns are low; and provide opportunities for commercial fishing interests beyond those.

By way of background, I would like to share with you all that I've been part of a management group managing Alberni Valley sockeye since 1974. I was around in the days when people used to catch and release sockeye because they were in pursuit of chinooks.

It's been my great pleasure to work with a number of individuals through all these years to elevate that particular sport fishery to a level where it has created a tremendous economic benefit to that community. Having been a resident of that community for 12 years, I fully appreciate where our three witnesses are coming from.

The management structure is contained therein. We do have in-season stock assessment mechanisms to try to track the pre-season forecast. Given the new era of conservation, we follow our science advice far more closely, I believe, than we have in the past. When we receive advice that run sizes in season are going up or down, we try to react accordingly.

In this particular case, during the week of the 20th, when the in-season weekly stock assessment information was looked at, it appeared that we were either at pre-season forecasts or falling below. We've used this methodology for quite a number of years, and it has proved to be a very useful in-season guide.

When we feel we were going to go at or below the pre-season forecast, the obvious in-season decision rules are to close all fisheries because of the catch to date and the escapement that's desired. There was an attempt to seek some common ground with our sport fishery. Unfortunately that failed. The department took the position that we were going to have to close all fisheries, including the native fishery, which we did.

Subsequently, the run emerged the week following with a little better picture. Not a whole bunch. But to be on the cautious side, we did reopen the recreational fishery at a reduced limit.

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Again, I can't stress enough that my background gives me a tremendous appreciation of the disruption this thing caused, and I for one would not want to see that again.

In an attempt to prevent that kind of situation from reoccurring, we've committed to the South Coast Advisory Board and the community of Port Alberni through the then-acting deputy mayor, of a review of—if you will have it—the rules of engagement for next season and beyond, so that we can avoid this kind of disruption.

I want to quickly comment on the numbers that were put forward by both Bob and Darren. Historically we've always looked to about a 10% ceiling in the recreational catch on this particular stock. The reason it came down—or it appears to have come down—within the allocation table is that historically we've never hit 10%, although we've modelled our management procedures into that. Despite all the disruption that did happen this year, the recreational fishery in our creel survey estimation still captured about 11% of the stock. One of the reasons we were nervous as managers is because rarely, on average, has this particular fishery hit the 10%. This year they were going gangbusters right off the bat.

That suggests one of two things: tremendous fishing success or a higher abundance than we had expected. It's a subjective call in season, and given that on average it was never more than 10%, and considerably less, we felt we had to be cautious. The ethic of conservation was driving us at that point, and that's the decision that was taken.

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Having said that, I think you'll find contained in the package pretty well all the facts and figures as the run finished off for this season. Despite the anecdotal information we had in season—and I say this with all due respect to Bob—the run size came in at only 100,000 more than the pre-season forecast. So the forecast wasn't too far off the mark, but the fact is, when you're dealing with a number of legal obligations for commercial and sport fisheries on a run size of 550,000, then as a manager I have no other ethic than to be cautious.

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Having said that, I'll certainly answer the questions I can surrounding the fishery and the disruption. I would again emphasize that we have committed with the community to do a review of the rules of engagement for the future.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ed.

Turning to questions then, we'll thank all the people for their presentations and start with the local member, Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd just like to begin by going back to that day at the end of July when this fishery was closed so suddenly—there was an emergency town hall meeting, as has been alluded to here, called by the acting mayor and also by the chamber of commerce, I believe, which I attended. I have to say there were certainly many outraged and irate citizens present there, but there were also visitors who had not yet left the vicinity: outraged vacationers, campers, and tourists who had come into the area because of their continued enthusiasm for sport fishing, which some have not yet lost.

Some of the stories we heard there will illustrate what I think. A gentleman had come from Saskatchewan, and he'd been coming for years to this community. He talked about having been up in the area and having bought a boat while he was up here because he had historically come to this community year after year with his family for fishing. He said he doubted that he would come back again.

Another one was from somebody who talked about hauling their camper and trailer across... You have to realize we live on an island here, though it's big enough that we sometimes forget we're on an island. To get over here, for the tourists who come up from the States hauling their camper and their trailer, it costs them about $200 to haul their rig over here on the ferry and back.

The third was from a woman who promotes tourism, and this illustrates what these gentlemen have said. They have to market their venue in advance. One of the tour marketers was talking about a group of doctors who were on their way up from California. They had been coming up year after year, and had already left their practices and had locums come in to take over. She had to call them through cell phones and managed to catch them somewhere in Oregon to tell them that the fishery was now closed. When you know this and when you consider the lives that are impacted by this kind of decision-making, it's shocking.

The other thing I think needs to be mentioned is the value of the sport fishing sector. Now, there are people here who could perhaps address where these figures come from. When you consider the value people put into the community—paying for campgrounds or hotels, going out on charters, renting boats, paying for gas for their boats, and buying tackle—the value is about $100 a fish, I understand, which cannot be compared to any other sector of management of the fish stock.

Given that this community is one that used to be known as the salmon capital of the world... There's still a sign up there on the way into town, one that has been an embarrassment, unfortunately, for a few years. There's also another community on Vancouver Island that considers themselves as the salmon capital of the world.

We have to remember this is a community that struggled through the loss of forestry, a terrible downturn economically in this community. This community was just beginning to see a bit of economic light because of the good return from the tourists who were coming, and some economic activity was happening when the door was slammed so suddenly by the ministry.

The question I have, first of all, is—and when I heard this was pending I tried to call Mr. Kadowaki, who's a colleague of Mr. Lochbaum, and senior, I believe, to you, Ed, if that's right. It seemed to me there was some question of revising this based on your creel-count numbers, and then suddenly the doors just slammed shut, and we all know what happened. My first question is, who made that decision, Ed?

The Chair: Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: That decision was taken on advice from our management team between Mr. Kadowaki and myself.

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Mr. James Lunney: Okay, thank you.

It's interesting that when I tried to contact Mr. Kadowaki immediately after this happened, he had suddenly gone on holidays. I believe I spoke to you somewhat afterwards. It's very frustrating for people in the community when there are things going on and we try to contact officials. As soon as difficult decisions are made, they're not available.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Certainly, I do recall speaking with you. Mr. Kadowaki did not go on vacation as the result of this, I can assure you. It had been planned for quite some time.

In terms of dealing with senior people beyond that, well, of course you spoke with our senior people yesterday, and you know who's in charge in Vancouver.

I certainly was available. The evening of the chamber of commerce meeting, unfortunately, I was away. I didn't find out about it because I was working in Victoria for a day or two. Certainly, had I known it was going to be called on such short notice and had I been informed earlier, I might have made an effort to be there to explain this stock assessment regime.

Again, I can't underscore enough my appreciation of this particular fishery through my 27-year involvement in it. I know those disruptions. I was managing this fishery long before China Creek was even built. Seeing it grow and seeing this run size flourish and the fisheries develop over the years has been extremely rewarding. We did not take that decision lightly, I can assure you.

Mr. James Lunney: Can I ask you why, when the numbers came in far above what you were expecting, you didn't go to a reduced fishery that would have allowed the tourist at least to take a half-catch, a limit of two per day, rather than slam the door to zero?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: That particular common ground was sought. The advice we received was that a reduced bag limit was unacceptable to the sport fishing community. It's not something I say we could have implemented, but we could have at least had a dialogue around that. There was a flat refusal to discuss that common ground.

Mr. James Lunney: Does anybody else have something to say about it?

The Chair: That refusal would have come from where, Ed?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: That would come from the sport fish in-season advisory group.

The Chair: Thanks. Does anybody else want in?

Mr. de Luca.

Mr. Darren de Luca: I have a question on that common ground, and I referred to it in my submission from our July 13 meeting. Fisheries and Oceans wanted to go to two fish a day on July 17, which was a Tuesday. We wanted to wait until the Thursday forecast. We agreed at that time that if the run didn't evolve, the migration didn't happen, and all these things they were concerned about—warm water in the river—weren't addressed, we were quite happy to go to two fish a day on Friday. That was the advice we left them with.

What we did oppose on July 13 was how they developed the sockeye management plan. This is really what this comes down to, the continuous reduction and systematic dismantling of our fishery. Even today they just don't get it, I'm afraid. The comment that for the first time in history we're at an 11% harvest rate on this run is inaccurate. What they do is they count jacks in our fishery, and they don't count them in their escapement numbers.

There were—and I'll let someone correct me on the numbers—probably 30% jacks, so the 60,000 fish we caught were really only 40,000. Not only were we ramped down on fish, they were upping our catch at the same time.

We're saying, look, guys, you're killing us. Our fishery is just getting started. It's very difficult to sell a two-fish fishery, for a fishing guide to charge $60 an hour to take sport fishermen out so they can catch two fish and then to send them home. They can only keep four fish, so both their possession limit and their bag limit have gone down. And they catch them right away. There were tons of fish. You'll catch two fish in 15 minutes. I certainly invite you to come out fishing.

The Chair: Mr. Cole.

Mr. Bob Cole: I was present at that July 13 meeting, and Mr. Kramer and Mr. de Luca were, I believe, both present. We said that our anecdotal information was that there were fresh fish all the way out to Banfield. Guides on the outside had never seen so many sockeye slipping off Whale Rock and even Cape Beale.

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Their test boat said there were only 15,000 fish remaining in the lower inlet. We assured them they were wrong. We asked them if they could wait until the reforecast—they get their numbers on Thursday—and if indeed the numbers, the escapement, didn't increase... There'd been an intensive net fishery in the river and the escapement numbers were not high to that point, but there'd been intensive net fisheries going on. When the net fishery was reduced, the commercial fishery was curtailed at that meeting... and it started to rain. As you can see by the details, the numbers went up.

In fact, I think on the 21st or thereabouts, we had a record escapement. In fact, I don't know that they've ever had 33,000 in a day through the counter that I can remember. That was on the 19th, by the way, the day the fishery was closed. We said we'd gladly go to two, but we think you're wrong on your numbers. We told them to just tread softly, wait until next Thursday, and, if you have to, go to two on Friday.

They chose to stop counting on July 17 and went to zero. I don't want to think it, but I almost feel it was punitive. It was either punitive or political. It wasn't based on reason or rationality, and that's what concerns me. In such a fragile economy, we cannot afford to have anything that's politically or personality motivated. We need to deal with actualities and the reality of the economies of these communities; we have to consider them very seriously before we make a decision.

I admit I have rose-coloured glasses. Keep it open as long as you can. Do what you can. But if you can prove to me that there isn't the return or that we have a conservation problem, then I'm willing to bite the bullet with anybody. But I will take a little dispute... My quick numbers show a total run size of over 750,000 on the numbers that I'm party to and an escapement of 579,000 adult fish, which is 219,000 or 214,000 over what they call optimum or expected escapement into the two systems. So we had a substantial return. It was wonderful. But—

The Chair: I know James has another question, but one thing about looking back at the numbers is to recognize that hindsight is always 20:20. It's not that easy on the day the decision is made, and I take Mr. Lochbaum at his word in terms of having 27 years in the area. I think it would be a damned tough decision to make.

Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you.

It's a given that there's always an element of risk in assessing stocks, but considering the increased value of the sports fishery, with the 10% limit that you're trying to control the sports sector to, it seems that where the greatest value is there should be greater effort made, especially in a community that has struggled, as Port Alberni has, to give it a chance to survive.

Based on that, your creel numbers, Mr. Lochbaum, when there are hundreds of boats out there, it suggests that there's lots of fish in the water, and when everybody's repeating and reporting that to you, how can you possibly, based on one test run, support closing the fishery on the basis that your numbers are down?

The Chair: Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: It's a methodology that we've used for many years, and generally, within pretty good confidence limits, it gives us these in-season numbers. I don't have any reason to dispute the methodology, because of its past successes. Of course, when you do have particularly good abundance at the peak of the run, your anecdotal sports fishing information always generally suggests that you have a lot of fish. But that's not the way you manage fisheries.

In terms of the value of the sports fishery, I think if you go back in history, you'll see that the department has cottoned to that notion, particularly in this area. As I mentioned at the outset, sockeye were never even a sports consideration a number of years ago. We have raised the profile with the community on that fishery and we're going to continue to do so.

Fifteen years ago, pretty much the entire catch would have gone to the commercial fleet in this particular fishery, and as you can see, the split has dramatically changed over the years.

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I feel we're quite strong proponents of the value of the sports fishery, as evidenced by previous Minister David Anderson in his prioritization of the number of species, and I believe we're going to continue to do that. I support that.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lochbaum.

Suzanne, do you have any questions?

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay: No, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Then we'll go to Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Lochbaum, I'm referring to “Barkley Sockeye Bulletin #2001 - 5”. Do you have that? That's appendix 2 in Mr. Cole's paper.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I want you to help me understand something under the heading “Recreational Fishing”.

The Chair: Has everybody got that? The appendix—

Mr. Tom Wappel: It's appendix 2 in Mr. Cole's documentation and it's under the rubric, “Recreational Fishing”.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I don't know the terminology of Fisheries and Oceans or anything, I'm just reading it:

Daily average catch success has ranged from 4.7 to 8.3 sockeye per boat this week. Effort counts (expanded) range from 321 to 443 boats per day.

Is that right?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So what do you do? Do you multiply the number of sockeye by the number of boats?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Pretty much.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So if you multiply 8.3, which is the top number of sockeye, by the top number of boats, you get 3,677 fish.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Right.

Mr. Tom Wappel: How do you get the 61,500?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: How do we get to there?

Mr. Tom Wappel: Yes.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: That would be the cumulative catch since the fishery started.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Well, if you divide 3,677 by 61,500, you would get 16.6 weeks, which is four months. Did the sports fishery start in March?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: No.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Then how do you get to it?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I'll have to think about that for a minute.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Well, I would suggest that you should have an answer immediately, because you closed a sports fishery to zero, obviously based on miscalculation.

Let me ask you this question—and maybe this is completely stupid—why would you not go to one fish a day, as opposed to zero? That way, at least someone who had dragged their boat onto the island for $200 would get the pleasure of catching a fish, especially when your numbers, according to your own charts and your own material, are 550,000. In June, for the same numbers, you were allowing four per day; in July, for the same numbers, you were allowing four per day; then a week later you go to zero, as opposed to one, for example.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Right.

Mr. Tom Wappel: After 27 years, you would know the devastating impact that would have on the community.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Those are both very good points. We have a protocol, if you will, or an in-season management process where we deal with the Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association. We attempt to work together on these things and, as Darren has mentioned, we try to find some common ground. But also, as Bob mentioned a minute ago, I believe, to take the fishery from four down to two is even a major disruption for that particular part of the economy of the fishery, the guiding side of it.

I, for one, don't have any problem with going to one a day. But I don't think it's acceptable—

Mr. Tom Wappel: It's better than zero. It's better than a complete shutdown.

Do you know what it looks like to me, and I may be right off base? It looks to me as though you put a suggestion to the advisory council, they didn't like it, and you said, “Okay, I'll teach you a lesson, it's zero. Next time you'd better like it.” That's what it looks like. Now, that may not be what it is, but that's what it looks like. That is devastating to a community, and I'm not even the MP for the area.

I can't believe it, and I would like you to get back to the committee on how you came up with a 61,500 catch—

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I will.

Mr. Tom Wappel: —based on your own figures, top figures, of multiplying the top estimated catch with the top estimated boats. That still only works out to 3,677 a week.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I'll have that for you.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you. That's all I have to say.

The Chair: Thank you, Tom.

Mr. Lochbaum, if you can undertake to get that for us, it will be fine.

Do you have anything further to add, Ed?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: No, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Okay. Mr. Stoffer.

• 1435

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Lochbaum, you said that a way to avoid this type of problem in the future is to set up another board. You're going to set up another board?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: No. We want to undertake a review, with the existing advisory process over there, to establish a different set of rules of engagement so that we can make sure the expectation and opportunity that's out there, for people who come to fish, is there throughout the year, unless there is a major conservation issue.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

Gentlemen, how long has the advisory board been in effect now, the one you talked about?

A witness: Twenty years.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: And it's joint, between DFO and the community?

A witness: Correct.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

A witness: It's called co-management, where we get together in a room with fisheries officials to discuss the recreational fishery and try to come to a consensus opinion.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: We are under the understanding that if there has to be one arbitrated decision, regardless of what it is, DFO has the hammer. Is that right?

A witness: Absolutely.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

In this regard, you want to set up a review board. To me, following Mr. Wappel's line of questioning—and that was a great question, by the way, Tom—it appears that DFO doesn't like the current advisory board, the one that's in place now, and so if we have a review and water it down a bit, we won't have this nasty problem of co-management.

We have the same issue in a town I don't represent, but just below me, in Sambro, a co-management that's working very well, and DFO wants to change it for some reason. Am I off base on that assumption?

The Chair: Mr. de Luca.

Mr. Darren de Luca: Certainly, the Alberni Valley Sport Fishing Association is one of the most active of all the subcommittees within the Sport Fishery Advisory Board, largely due to the nature of our fishery, which includes Barkley Sound and everything.

My concern, going into a review committee of when we shut our fishery down, which is essentially what I understand this to be... we would like the first issue of this whole mass sockeye management plan addressed in the allocation policy, doing first things first. Let's see how many fish belong before we start talking about shutting it down, and we feel that sufficient fish should be put into that management plan to meet the minister's obligation, which is four sockeye a day under traditional run sizes, in the 500,000 to 600,000 fish range. That would be the first thing.

The second thing I'd be concerned about, and this is why we haven't met with the department since that day, is if we go into a review committee meeting and say we want to go to two fish a day when it's at the 300,000 fish range, or something like that, and they disagree, who knows what they're going to do. We're very concerned about meeting with the department. We have no idea what type of action they'll take based on our recommendations. They may decide, well, we'll show these guys another trick.

So certainly I personally, individually, wouldn't participate in that type of process until some of these other problems have been addressed, and I think there are serious management problems within DFO. I know you guys hear it every day, the hake guys sounding like they were singing our song.

The Chair: Last question, Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes, for sure.

Mr. Lochbaum, when you made the decision to reduce it to two, and the sports fishery said, “Well, hold off before we make that kind of a decision; let's have a little bit of time, and if indeed by the 19th”—it's two or three days?—“you're right or the indications are correct, we'll go to two”, sir, after 27 years in the industry, knowing the devastating impact it would have on the community, and because it's risk management, always in terms of stock assessments and that, why wouldn't you have accepted the advice of the fishery industry, and I assume the advisory board as well, which is a joint effort? It said that. Why wouldn't you have accepted that advice, for example?

The Chair: Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: That's not the interpretation of the advice I got.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

How long has the committee been in place?

A witness: About 20 years.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: How well has it worked up until now? Is this the first major problem you've had?

• 1440

Mr. Bob Cole: With diametrically opposed views, we've obviously crossed paths before. But typically we haven't had anything quite this instantly devastating dropped on us.

We've had closures before, and we've had openings and times and areas we've disagreed on but have been able to live with. It's just that this one was so substantial, so short, and so unjustified. That's what prompted our reaction to it and why we're here before you.

I cannot understand the justification in going to zero, other than that there were other fishery interests at the July 13 meeting who wanted to access the run that we felt was in relative abundance. I don't know if it's worth getting into that. We're only concerned with what happened in the economic—

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Could you tell us who the other interests were?

Mr. Bob Cole: The July 13 or July 11 meeting was fairly large. In that room there were representatives of both the seine and gillnet fleets, the first nations fisheries, and pilot sale fisheries in the room. There may have been political motivation to shut the sport. That's the most obvious. If you have 400 boats a day in your face in the inlet, it looks like it's just buzzing along. I'm not sure if that was part of the motivation for the decision.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Where does the recreational fishery place? I know at home the commercial fishermen are always upset with the recreation people, because they're blamed for putting them out of business. Where does the recreational fishery rate out here? Are you top on the totem pole or at the bottom? I guess everybody I ask would probably give the same answer, but where do you consider yourselves?

• 1445

Mr. Bob Cole: We're very aware that escapement and conservation are the first issues. We're very aware of section 35 and we know where we sit relative to it.

We're in the Somass sockeye management plan, although there are three or four different versions of it here—2001, 1998, whatever. There's a management plan in which a native pilot sale fishery, which is fairly unique to Alberni, and a commercial fishery, which has been traditional in Alberni on sockeye, both have numbers factored in—I hate to use the word “quotas” or “ceilings”, but that's basically what they are. We are concerned that ours have been systematically reduced, although the others have remained static or increased with the varying run sizes.

But the minister's document explains that in an average run size we should expect four and eight—stable and predictable fishing. Although the run size was considerably more than average, we don't consider this year... in fact, there have only been three, five, maybe seven, years larger since 1980 of total escapement. But more than half the year it was higher than the 20-year average by a long shot. We don't believe anything other than four and eight now... If there was a conservation, or a pre-spawn mortality, or a river temperature problem, we were very willing to drop to two.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: I have just a final question.

The Chair: Hold on, Loyola, Mr. Lochbaum wanted to come in there as well.

Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Thanks.

I'd like to address this point. My marching orders as a manager are very clear. Conservation is first, aboriginal FSC is second, and, in order of priority, the recreational fishery is managed third in this province. Commercial interests with respect to salmon are fourth.

The other thing I want to say is I know where Bob is coming from. I've known Bob a long time.

For a number of years, when many other areas on the coast were suffering from downturns in low stock sizes, including the sport fishery, the Alberni Valley was one of the very few places where we maintained opportunity with regard to this sockeye run, particularly in the mid-1990s when the chinook stocks were very depressed.

• 1450

To underscore this statement, although in the advisory process you have your ups and downs, compared to other parts of the coast where I've worked, the one in the Alberni Valley works pretty damn good from a manager's perspective.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: I have just a final question, Mr. Chairman.

In light of the general success of the board's work in the past, what went wrong this year? And have we learned from it—if there was anything to learn from—so we can make sure it doesn't happen again next year?

Something must have happened this year. If every year things went relatively okay—good times, bad times—and this year we've had this tremendous short-notice blow-up, then something went wrong somewhere along the line, from both points of view, I'd guess.

The Chair: Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I've mulled this one over in my mind a number of times. I've come to the conclusion that it's this in-season definition of conservation. We seem to have taken a bit of a quantum leap towards this. For the lack of a better explanation, if with the science advice in season the numbers aren't generated to create any opportunity, then we're just on the road to precautionary management. Consequently, you've probably heard in your deliberations in other areas of the coast that some of the decisions taken with regard to this ethic have caused some major disruptions.

The Chair: It's still a little unclear. In terms of precautionary management, you're saying?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes.

The Chair: Yes. We've heard this loud and clear.

Bob.

Mr. Bob Cole: We have learned something. I'd really agree.

Following this closure, Ed Lochbaum said on CBC radio that we do need to consider an economic factor in fisheries decisions. Were those your words, Ed?

I believe that's what I heard on CBC radio, and I agree totally with it, because when we just work in science in the fisheries, only in absolutes—count the whites of their eyes or whatever—then we run into the problems where closures occur either prematurely or for the wrong reasons and without consideration of all the downstream economic impact. Your earlier presentations said the same thing.

In fisheries we have to look not only in absolute numbers or tonnes, or thousands or hundreds, but we also have to look at the dollar factor. We have learned this and we're trying, in our presentation, to establish an economic factor so that a fishery's closure, whether it be sockeye in Alberni, coho in Campbell River, or chinook off Ucluelet... we'd have an economic factor in the sport fishery somewhat based on some reality.

We know we'll never get it to the dollar or the penny, but if a boat day is $100 or $500, we'd like to quantify it to come up with an average. Then when we sit down in these meetings we can say what the consequences to the economy will be of this decision and ask how else problems could be dealt with.

I think we all agree on this. There's no question of it. I'm not sure the Department of Fisheries has in their mandate a column where it can include the economic factor, and that's my concern.

The Chair: Georges Farrah says it's risk management.

Mr. de Luca.

Mr. Darren de Luca: In response to Mr. Hearn's question about what caused the breakdown this year, I think basically Mr. Wappel hit it.

We've looked at this year after year, and they just keep ramping down this fishery, reducing the catch and reducing the catch, and finally we said, look, you can't drag one or two of us out of the community into a back room in Fisheries and Oceans and keep reducing this catch and eliminating this economic opportunity from this community—which is why we disagreed with them going to two. Maybe it had to go to two on the re-forecasting, and we agreed to it. And it sounds to me like Ed has received some false information on what our recommendation was, but it was very clear what it was.

In my view, it's punitive action because we didn't accept the recommendation of the DFO, who then said, “We'll show you who has the ultimate authority to make this decision”, and we see the fallout that's resulted.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. de Luca.

• 1455

Before I turn to John, I have a question for the recreational people. When somebody is coming here from the States or wherever to fish and the fishery is cancelled like this, is there a rider to protect yourself legally from being sued because they get no fish?

A witness: Not that I'm aware of.

The Chair: It might be a good idea to find one.

Ed, did I catch it right, when you were making your initial comment, that you closed the native fishery as well? Is that what I heard?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes.

The Chair: So when the recreational fishery was closed, the native fishery was closed as well.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes.

The Chair: Okay, thanks.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Also, I think I have the answer to the arithmetic Mr. Wappel wanted here.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: If you take that hypothesis or the information you drew there, that's catch per day, not per week. That would be about 3,600 fish per day on the high end. Divide that into 61,000 and you'd have slightly over a 20-day fishery. All right?

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Cole and then Mr. Cummins.

Mr. Bob Cole: Darren mentioned that in the sport and recreational catch, they did include jack sockeye in that 61,000. I fished sockeye twice this year, and I came close to catching our limit twice. The fishing was great, and amongst them were the three jacks that we caught. So of eight fish, three were jacks. I think that was pretty typical of the sport catch.

In that number, I do believe the creel survey asks how many sockeye you caught; it doesn't ask recreational fishermen whether they're jacks or not. There were 200,000 or 300,000 jacks that went into the systems as well, which bodes well for a sockeye return next year. I think it will be even better than this year.

The Chair: Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our guests from Port Alberni. It is a great place to fish, either sport fishing or commercially, and I've done both.

Lately when I fish there, of course, I think of fish cops and the RCMP. A few minutes ago, I looked at the back of the room and there were a couple of RCMP guys there. I thought maybe Ed had brought them along, but they've gone. They didn't want to—

The Chair: They heard you were in town.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. John Cummins: There's nothing outstanding, is there, Ed?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: No.

Mr. John Cummins: Good.

Anyway, I just want to say at the outset, Ed, that you've spent basically a lifetime working in the Alberni fishery, and you're the kind of guy I like to see. You're a man who has basically dedicated his working life to developing that fishery in Port Alberni, and I'd like to see that around the coast. I like to see that continuity there. In the 20-odd years that you've spent there, you certainly know the fishery and you have an understanding and a feel for it that you just can't develop by bringing people in and pulling them out. So I just want to acknowledge your great work over the years and say that I do appreciate it, and I'm sure we all do.

The difficulty we have before us today, it seems to me, is not just a Port Alberni difficulty. It seems to me we're experiencing similar difficulties in fisheries management, although the context may be different. It may be in a commercial fishery as opposed to the sport fishery that we're talking about today. That being said, the commercial fishery in Alberni this year was shut down early, in the view of many people, but it's almost been a trend for the last few years.

Have you and fisheries managers on the coast been given different instructions in the last few years? Have you been given different guidelines for managing the fisheries?

In asking that question, I bring this whole notion of the precautionary principle to the fore again, because it seems to me that it may have taken over fisheries management. Is it the case that somehow you're looking at these things in a different way now?

The Chair: Mr. Lochbaum.

• 1500

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I think you're right, Mr. Cummins. I wouldn't say it's been explicit, other than that we've adopted it since 1995, since the John Fraser inquiry on Fraser sockeye. I think it's almost inherent in our minds at this point, and I think there are some times when things like this happen and we ask ourselves what it means. You know, what are the metes and bounds of this precautionary management?

As you know, we've had a lot of downturns in a number of stocks, and I don't think that was due to mismanagement. We know for certain that sea survival has been very low, particularly with some species. I'd like to think that we're not fishing recklessly, but the ethic of being very cautious, compared to ten years ago, is really in the forefront when I reflect back. I won't suggest that we were reckless in the old days, but it seemed to me we tended to look at things in a little bit more of a flexible fashion.

If you set a target goal of x fish, if you're one fish short, have you failed? As a manager, I don't think so, but I think there are critics out there who do think that. There is a much more powerful public voice in fisheries management these days than there was a number of years ago. In an effort to appear cautious, perhaps in some cases we haven't defined the metes and bounds of what “cautious” means.

The Chair: Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: Well, I agree with you; I don't think we were reckless in days gone by. Look at the success you've had managing the fishery and developing that fishery in Alberni over the years. Look at the success in the increase in returns that we experienced in the Fraser River over the last 50-odd years. I think the department has done a good job in the past of managing the fisheries, but it seems to me that in the last few years, there has been an unwillingness on the part of managers to accept a little risk. I think that notion is probably the concern we're hearing today.

I think Mr. de Luca mentioned that they said, “Well, why don't we wait two or three days, until you get some mid-season numbers? Then we'll reassess, and maybe we'll cut back to two.” The risk there wasn't great—it was a matter of probably a few thousand fish—but there seems to be this aversion to taking risk with fish managers in the last two or three years that I don't particularly understand, and I guess it's difficult for these folks to understand. Is that the reality, or is that just a perception?

The Chair: Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I think it's the reality. As well, you probably know that internally we've had a number of changes in our organization. I think some of our newer members in management are becoming more comfortable now with the management regimes we employ. I think our senior people trust us field managers; I would like to think they do.

I don't know whether we have gone through a period of being overcautious, for lack of a better term. We are going to maintain that, but my personal intention in the area I'm responsible for is to look at that and what it really means in terms of managing the public resource. I think we have to build in these flexibilities regardless of what fishery it is, so that you give yourself a bit of confidence on the right or a bit of confidence on the left, trying of course to get down the middle. You're not going to destroy a public resource with that kind of management, which we've employed in the past.

Mr. John Cummins: On that same notion, I think there's a difference—and I think many people in this room would suggest there's a difference—between managing a fishery stock to allow for sport fishery and managing a fish stock to allow for commercial fishery. In a commercial fishery, the impact on the fishery can be great over a very compressed period of time, but when you're managing a sport fishery on a day-to-day basis, it's not a huge number. The impact may take a week.

• 1505

So you have more sloth in managing it, but it seems to me that at times the department doesn't acknowledge that there is a real difference between managing a sport fishery and managing the commercial fishery. They maybe look at it in big chunks of time, rather than on a day-by-day basis.

The Chair: Thank you, John. That's your last question.

Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: I would have to disagree with you there. I think we're fully cognizant of the ramifications of managing either of those fisheries.

By way of example, if you look at the depressed west Vancouver Island chinook stock complex, through a prudent management plan we had access for the sport fishery this year when a very similar stock size in 1996 literally closed the whole coast for chinooks. So I think we're cognizant of the differences, and I think we have made tremendous gains in providing the opportunities.

Had this been 1996, with virtually the same stock size return, there would have been no recreational chinook fishery. But with the way we worked with the group and the stock assessment information we had, we were able to fish chinooks literally all summer long—albeit not to historic levels, but there was still expectation and opportunity.

That's one example of two things: the sensitivity that we as a department have to the value of the recreational fishery,; and the willingness to work with groups of people to craft those kinds of plans.

The Chair: Thank you, Ed.

Mr. Stoffer, you have 30 seconds.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Knowing the decision and how volatile it may have been, with your experience, was there any opportunity to advise the minister, who just lives in Surrey, of that decision? Or was he at all advised?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: To my knowledge, no, he wasn't advised. In the current regime I work under, I wouldn't have advised him. Our senior people were aware of the decision we were taking.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Chair: James Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: I just have a comment on that one. The minister certainly got some advice from my end. He was up in the Yukon at the time, and I got a call through to him up there. I did get a response from his administrative assistant, who said he would pass on our concerns, and that was the last we heard of it, just for the record.

The Chair: I have one last question for Ed, on the line of questioning from John and the decision that's been made. What about the support staff? I'm thinking of stock assessment people, research people, whatever, who help in evaluations. Are there enough people to assist, as compared to a few years ago? A manager can only make decisions based on good information. Is there enough support within the system to provide that information for you to make those decisions?

Mr. Ed Lochbaum: Yes. As an old-time manager, I feel that maybe we have too much information at times. In fact, with our stock assessment group for the south coast that would work with this run here, the staff size is adequate and the intellectual capacity is vast. I'm comfortable with it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You talk about 550,000 salmon coming up one river. What a thrill that would be for all of Atlantic Canada. We don't even get half that coming up in Atlantic Canada. Well done, guys.

The Chair: Thank you for your presentations. You did make some recommendations in the beginning from the recreational fisheries group. We will take those forward. Thank you all for your presentations, and especially for your frankness, Ed.

We'll take a five-minute suspension, and we have to wrap up in 30 minutes.

The group from Tofino is next. I believe we met with some of you yesterday.

• 1510

• 1520

The Chair: All right.

Next are Warren Bernard, Ian Howat, Dan Haley, and Ken Gibson.

For the record, in this group of witnesses we're dealing under Standing Order 108(2) on the marine infrastructure, Small Craft Harbours. We will start with Warren Bernard, I believe.

Mr. Warren Bernard (Director, Tofino Salmon Enhancement Society): It's all right if you call me Whitey.

The Chair: I believe we met almost everyone yesterday for a little while, which was very informative. We have about half an hour in total.

Whitey, you're first on the list, go ahead, from the Tofino Salmon Enhancement Society.

Mr. Warren Bernard: Yesterday I outlined the history and most of the participants in our society. Today I'd like to dwell on where we go from here. I brought up the question that one of the rivers, Tranquille River, that we enhanced will probably be back to historic 1930s levels within two years.

We have suggested to Fisheries that we move to the Bedwell-Ursus system and begin enhancement there. DFO has told us that is an index stream. They're going to monitor it and they hope it will return without any enhancement effort on it. We don't agree with that. We're well-located and well-situated to move into that stream and hopefully have the successes there that we've had on the Tranquille, Cypre, and Kootowis.

The other area we want to move into with our facility and our group is to reintroduce pink salmon into Clayoquot Sound. The native people and some of the old-timers tell us that pinks were at one time abundant in the sound. We are also aware that they are an excellent fish to introduce into a coho stream, and they help in the production of coho.

So we are asking the committee if they could clear a little deadwood away from Fisheries and Oceans' thinking and maybe let us get on with these particular projects. I don't think I have to go back into our good history and all that sort of stuff. I think I blew that yesterday.

The Chair: Thanks, Whitey. I guess we'll go through all the presentations first. We made some notes on yesterday's information as well. I think that's a good way of putting it—clear a little deadwood. There seems to be a fair bit around in getting something done sometimes.

We'll go to Ian Howat. Ian's the district administrator.

Mr. Ian Howat (District Administrator, District of Tofino): That's correct.

Yesterday we spoke a little bit about the Transport Canada wharf divestiture program and how it's affecting the district of Tofino. The problem we see is that the federal wharf that's currently in Tofino isn't really Tofino's wharf; it's Clayoquot Sound's wharf. Clayoquot Sound has a resident population that exceeds Tofino's.

• 1525

There's a very close link among the four communities within Clayoquot Sound, yet Transport Canada is insistent on divesting this facility to Tofino or to one of the first nations communities within the Clayoquot Sound area.

We think that wharf belongs to everybody in Clayoquot Sound, and everybody in Clayoquot Sound should have the benefit of its use and the burden of its maintenance. The easiest way to continue to do that is through a senior government, such as the federal government. Transport Canada seems to be the logical solution, as this is a transportation corridor.

To date, we haven't had any success in relaying that information to Transport Canada. They're insistent on following through with their policy of divesting that facility. In doing so, they've put what we consider to be some undue restrictions on the divestiture, the big one being the five-year restriction on compensation.

They have a formula for determining operating and maintenance costs on that wharf. They use a five-year projection to determine it. Then they award funding to carry out maintenance and operations. At the end of the five years, the money that has not been expended on the wharf is expected to be returned to the Treasury Board.

Our argument is that small communities have typically become very efficient with their funding. They don't have a lot of money to work with, so they create very effective means of getting things done with very little. Through very careful financial management, we could probably stretch the funding that Transport Canada is offering us over 20 years and make it affordable for the community to maintain that facility without burdening the taxpayers.

However, as I said, Transport Canada feels that if we're frugal with our money we should return it to Transport Canada at the end of the five years.

That's it.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ian. As we said yesterday, James and I will certainly make a commitment to follow up with Transport Canada on that, and see what we can find out. It seems to be different from the way it's done in my own area.

Mr. Ian Howat: If I can just say one more thing, Mr. Cliff Rhodes is the name of the gentleman you were asking about yesterday. He's the regional manager for property services.

The Chair: Thanks a lot. We needed that.

Dan Haley is next. He's also a councillor.

Mr. Dan Haley (Councillor, District of Tofino): Thank you very much.

The thing I'd like to discuss here is that Tofino's waterfront is very small and takes a very small portion of foreshore out of the Clayoquot Sound. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans continues to throw up small roadblocks in front of everybody, such as the eelgrass one we have. We would like to see some of the laws relaxed a little bit, so we can actually use our waterfront and have easier access on the water commercially and for sports.

The Chair: We're still talking about a no-net-loss policy, which we talked about yesterday.

Whitey, do you want to add something there?

Mr. Warren Bernard: That's the other thing I was going to try to deal with. Basically the problem is DFO's no-net-loss policy, and the eelgrass situation is part of that policy. Whether it's re-colonized or original, any time anyone mentions eelgrass, red flags come up.

The Chair: Thanks.

Ken, you've given us a paper. If you just want to make mention of it, then we can turn to questions.

Ken Gibson is here as an individual. Go ahead.

Mr. Ken Gibson (Individual Presentation): I'd like to welcome the members of the committee to the west coast. As a long-time resident of the west coast, it's always good to see people like you come out here.

• 1530

All I ask—this is going to be the shortest of all your presentations today—is that you read what that says about what you have to be to join the corporation on our waterfront. I'm sure you'll see that it's an iron fortress that you can't penetrate. There's just no way you can get on that board. If you say something that's contrary to what the board says, you can be done away with at the next meeting.

There are no minutes. They issue their own contracts and remunerations. Just read the whole thing and see if what our soldiers died for in the Second World War is being carried out by that document.

It's almost unbelievable that the waterfront my father gave up years ago for public use has fallen into the hands of a bureaucracy—a corporation it's called—that can issue its own contracts, issue its own remunerations, direct its own directors, appoint its own members, and carry on in that manner.

By the way, it took me two and a half months of continuous writing and sending a sum of money to Ottawa to finally get that copy of the letters patent out of Ottawa. That shows how much Fisheries and Oceans has to hide, sometimes.

Thank you. That's all I have to say.

The Chair: Thank you, Ken.

We will go through that, starting with Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

On the salmon enhancement, just for the record, we heard yesterday that the Tofino business association and a local group there have been very... We actually call it the Tofino Salmon Enhancement Society, which involves a lot of members of the Tofino community. They have been very active in salmon enhancement. We heard some of that yesterday.

You've been very successful in seeing those salmon restored to some streams. I think you mentioned there, Whitey, that one of those streams is nearly at historic levels.

Mr. Warren Bernard: Close—it's back to the 1950s level. I think we'd like it to be back to the 1930s level. We have records of counts on those rivers that were done by commercial fishermen hired by DFO in the early years. But we know they didn't go all the way up the streams, because in those days there were no logging roads to allow access.

Mr. James Lunney: There's the other issue that Whitey raised about a stream that the enhancement society would like to progress to in the community. It has been called an index stream, and DFO wants to watch that to see if it'll come back on its own. Perhaps there are other more remote streams that could be used as index streams.

If they want to enhance this program, especially since the sports community is dependent on these fish coming in—here's a community trying to make this work—we would think that DFO would want to cooperate to the extreme in making them successful—just so those issues are understood.

Ian, we've already made a commitment to look into this divestiture on the other wharf in the community that benefits everybody. Wayne and I will certainly pursue that.

There's Ken Gibson's issue that was brought up at the end. For the benefit of others here, his family was one of the pioneer families in the community. They've been around quite a while. We took our committee by Ken's home, which is internationally recognized for being on the hill there. His over 2,000 rhododendron plants are internationally recognized and written up in international journals on that species.

The Chair: We had difficulty stopping Suzanne from digging some up and taking them home.

Mr. James Lunney: As Ken has mentioned, one of the wharf issues here has to do with another wharf that was off-loaded by either DFO or Transport Canada.

A witness: It was Small Craft Harbours, I think.

Mr. James Lunney: Did Small Craft Harbours sell that to a community group?

A witness: Yes, they sold it to the harbour commission.

The Chair: Was it the Tofino harbour authority?

A witness: It's not sold yet. The small craft harbour authority is just managing the floats for them, in the interim.

Mr. James Lunney: So who owns that dock?

A witness: The Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Mr. James Lunney: There's a society now that manages this.

A witness: That's correct.

• 1535

Mr. James Lunney: It manages the wharf right next to Ken's property. The wharf is on property that Ken's father had committed to the community for community access.

For the record, is that correct, Dave?

A witness: The dock itself is on the foreshore in front of Ken Gibson's property. The actual approach to the dock is at the end of Forest Street. It's not actually on his property. It's on the foreshore lease with the provincial government. It's crown land.

Mr. James Lunney: Ken still has a dock that he accesses from his property on the waterfront. There's a conflict between the two with access for Ken's boats getting in and out and for the community group. Is that correct?

A witness: The situation here with the conflict is Ken Gibson's float in front of the foreshore is on the foreshore lease that belongs to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This particular conflict is on the area in the foreshore of the floats themselves.

Mr. James Lunney: Can you help us understand what the conflict is in this particular issue? I'm not sure it's one we can sort out as a committee.

Is it the boats when they tie up at your dock, Ken? Sometimes they doubly tie up at the neighbouring dock and it blocks your access. Is the buoy in the way? What's the problem on this issue, Ken?

The Chair: Ken.

Mr. Ken Gibson: I was going to avoid this issue. I thought the issue I really brought up was the issue on how the corporation is set up. Now the issue has been brought to the table, I'd be happy to speak to it.

We've lived in harmony for 50 years since my father verbally gave us his riparian rights to have the boat harbour located directly in front of his property. He never put it in writing. I don't know how much the folks here know about riparian rights. Under riparian rights, the upland owner has access to the full length of his property at all points along the property.

If you have 200 feet of property, as I do, then you have access at all points from the property out and to the navigable waters. This is defined under the provincial laws as being 60 feet from the low water mark to the nearest obstacle, be it a log boom or a boat.

In my case, it's lucky it's 20 feet. There's absolutely no way out. The floats go completely across the front of the whole length of the property, blocking the property off and encompassing it completely. There is no access out.

We've got along all these years by the fact that my access has been over in the corner of the foreshore. I don't want to block the progress of the harbour or anything. As long as I can get out in front of my property, I have no quarrel with you. I'll stay over in the corner and out of your way.

We have this new corporation that has ultimate power. They have decided to wield the big stick. They're now telling me I have to leave, what they call, their foreshore.

I'm turning around and asking them where my riparian rights are. If you want to do away with the floats numbered two, three, and four, fine and dandy. You leave and I'll get out. We have a disagreement there.

Personally, it is a Fisheries thing in that Fisheries is responsible for this through the corporation. If the corporation was accessible and accountable, I could go to the corporation and speak to them. If you could attack the iron fortress in some way, you could get some sense out of this. You can see by the document there is absolutely no way you can go to the meetings. There's no way to find out what they're doing. There's no way to find out anything.

I've offered to appear before the board. They've turned me down. They don't want to hear from me. I guess they'll have to hear from my lawyer.

I think, Mr. Lunney, it's very nice of you to bring up my case, but it is more a question of my riparian rights versus Fisheries'.

Since you people are on the fisheries committee, you might find there's going to be a lot more of this.

• 1540

Recently in Newfoundland, I think, or New Brunswick, a case was before the courts. Small Craft Harbours told fishermen they had full rights to do things. An 83-year-old lady took them to court. The judge told them to get the floats off the lady's riparian rights, get out of there, or make compensation within six months.

I think they'd be very well advised to read what riparian rights entail, but there's no way I can get it across to them.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thanks, Ken.

On riparian rights, we deal with it every day in P.E.I.

Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you.

Sir, those letters patent you have, were they issued under provincial or under federal legislation?

[English]

A witness: It is federal.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you.

I have another question. Mr. Bernard, you told us you received $7,000, I believe, from DFO for your enhancement work on the river. Have you ever thought of applying for funding to the agency that looks after economic development in Western Canada?

I know that the sports fishing association of the Rimouski River received funding from Atlantic Canada Economic Development, which is the eastern counterpart of the western agency. It is a federal agency. What is yours called?

[English]

The Chair: It's called Western Economic Diversification Canada. Ron Duhamel is the minister.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Did it ever occur to you to apply for funding for the enhancement work you do?

[English]

A witness: At this point, we haven't. One of the reasons is we have managed to fund ourselves at current levels satisfactorily. We're a non-profit society. Under the rules of the Province of British Columbia, we have to spend what we take in. We've already been able to meet budget.

If we expand our operations, we'll probably be looking into the various funds. You have to remember, every time you apply for one of these things, there's a commitment. The applications are onerous and take a lot of paperwork. I do the paperwork and my wife does the books. Sometimes what you get and what you have to live up to aren't worth the effort. I guess you could put it that way.

The Chair: I think the key concern too was not funding. They're doing well in raising the funds and doing the job in fact very successfully. The problem is getting DFO to allow you to expand the program in the areas you want to expand. Is that correct?

A witness: It's correct.

The Chair: Okay.

Is there anyone on this side?

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks, gentlemen, for your presentation.

I have a couple of things here. Can you put on the record the size you want to work on in terms of the eelgrass replacement? How many feet by how many feet is it?

A witness: I have one business affected by this particular rule. In the area between Method Marine Supply and Ocean West Industries, the two companies I own, we would probably be removing an area 60 feet wide by 100 feet across. It takes in the approach to the field docks and the entrance to my marina.

• 1545

The other businesses are looking at areas maybe 60 feet by 100 feet; in the case of the airlines or of North Sea Products it may be a little larger area.

I know one of the fish farm companies is looking at putting in a scow-loading grid or a scow-loading facility. And where they're going to put it, I happen to know from the studies of my own property—because it's adjacent—there's eelgrass, so they're all going to fall into the same problem and they're all going to have to, according to DFO, do the same studies, transplanting, bottom surveys, etc.

Something I didn't mention yesterday when I talked about this is that when I questioned DFO on why we were doing this on previously dredged ground—this plant is re-colonized on that ground—they said: “Okay, you only have to do it once. Then forever after you'll be able to dredge that area any time you want.”

Now, I don't trust DFO, because I inquired of them in 1995, when we built the new fuel facility in Tofino, if we could reuse some of the creosote pilings that were there when we tore the old facility down. They informed me the use of creosote pilings would be prohibited and there wouldn't be any more facilities built in Tofino Harbour out of creosote pilings.

Well, lo and behold, in 2001, Small Craft Harbours has built a whole dock—a whole dock—of creosote. So when DFO tells me, “Oh, you won't have to worry about this any more if you just do it this time”, it's ridiculous enough doing what we're doing now, but I just know that something will come up. Historically, they speak with forked tongue.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Bernard.

Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'll be very brief, with more or less a comment, I think, rather than even a question.

The Chair: That's typical.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: From experience, more or less, and looking at some of the things we heard just before you came—I'm sure you all heard the concerns between the committee and DFO, where just because people didn't get together we had a problem—times are tough in this country, and in small rural areas, I think, more so than anywhere else. The only way we can hope to survive is by pulling together.

It's unfortunate when you run into bureaucracy that stymies investment or people trying to help. It's worse, perhaps, when you have agencies, for whatever reason—or individuals—fighting agencies, or vice-versa. I think it's time we cut out the foolishness and sat down and worked out our differences collectively. That's the only way we can help the little communities grow and prosper, and perhaps it's a learning experience for all of us.

Mr. Warren Bernard: Can I respond to that?

The Chair: Mr. Bernard.

Mr. Warren Bernard: Our business organization, TBA, paid $10,000 to have a report done reflecting on DFO's no-net-loss policy, which is restricting and handcuffing development in our harbour. We presented that report—senior DFO people came with the local technician who enforces these things—and we sat down and debated it with them freely. They admitted the policy was unworkable in Tofino's case.

The next thing that happened was the aforementioned performance concerning re-colonization of the eelgrass: the studies, the whole thing. So we tried, and we paid $10,000 of our membership money to have a report done by an independent person.

The Chair: Mr. Bernard, is it possible for us to get a copy of that?

Mr. Warren Bernard: I'll see that James gets a copy of it.

The Chair: Give it to James, and we'll get a copy for committee members.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Can we also have a copy of where and when that creosote dock was put by DFO?

Mr. Warren Bernard: You probably saw it. It's brand new.

The Chair: We saw it yesterday, Peter. We drove across it yesterday afternoon when it was raining.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: But you're not allowed to put deleterious substances into the ocean?

• 1550

Mr. Warren Bernard: I was working for a major oil company when we put the new Tofino fuel facility in, and they were paying the shot. Now Chevron Canada is a pretty large corporation, and they told me, “Anything DFO wants, you make the arrangements and do it.” So I went and, in the company's name, asked what we had to do to rebuild the 75-year-old fuel dock. They said to take the whole thing out and pull every single creosote pile out of there and leave a riparian zone at the end of the rockfill, which we put in in place of the dock. They said to build the dock out of steel and concrete, which cost probably in excess of $700,000.

The Chair: I think one of the problems here—and it came up in an earlier discussion on the precautionary principle—is that the department seems to deal with absolutes: this is the number; that's it; you can't cross it. There's no common sense and no flexibility. It doesn't enter into the equation. That's a problem we have to address.

Mr. Gibson.

Mr. Ken Gibson: I would just like to add to what Whitey said about this eelgrass. I think he could have added that besides the eelgrass that was transplanted, nowhere can they point to it being a success. In almost all cases it has died; it's never been a successful transfer. If it wants to grow there, it grows. And it grows in huge abundance. I would ask you, as your airplane roars off the runway today, to look out the window and see the thousands of acres of eelgrass we have growing in Tofino Inlet, and you'd wonder why they worry about ten square feet here and there.

The Chair: Thanks, Ken.

If we're going to roar off out of here, we've got to be done very shortly. Mr. Cummins.

Mr. John Cummins: I have just a quick question on that dredging business, Whitey. Has the harbour authority itself tried to get some kind of blanket dispensation, or is that possible?

• 1555

Mr. Warren Bernard: The harbour authority is something relatively new on the waterfront. Most businesses dealt directly with DFO. Municipal council hasn't really gotten involved in foreshore development. You deal with the B.C. lands office, DFO, and MOE—the Ministry of Environment—on those subjects.

Mr. John Cummins: Is there no way you could go as a collective to DFO and prove that an area had been developed before, and seek a dispensation?

Mr. Warren Bernard: If the eelgrass is there it doesn't seem to concern them that this is a recruitment that's been done, or a natural colonization.

I've been on the waterfront there for 40 years—I think I mentioned that—and I know of areas we dredged, probably illegally at the time, in the sixties and seventies—never even thought about it, as a matter of fact—booting all this stuff out of there. It's been done subsequently three or four different times, at the airlines, at North Sea, at the old B.C. Packers plant, at my dock. I had a big tug do it one time.

The stuff silts back in and the grass seems to like it when the bottom has been disturbed. Any farmer, I'm sure, would understand that. You plough it up, it grows great. But they don't seem to pay any attention to that kind of common sense, and I guess that's the point.

• 1600

The Chair: Ian, did you want in?

Mr. Ian Howat: I have a comment from a local government perspective. Tofino has designated our harbour as a working harbour in our official community plan and it doesn't seem to be recognized by DFO.

Our impression is that their goal is to restore everything to a natural state and there's no recognition of structure being habitat. And I think that needs to be noted. Structures that are developed in a harbour are in fact habitat for fish.

A witness: The key to the marina I developed is this. It's probably the best place for the kids in town to go and fish for crabs, bullheads, dogfish, and perch since we put the marina there. Prior to that, it was a tidal flat with nothing on it, sour ground, and now it's just loaded.

In this net loss thing I've never heard them once come back and say, isn't that great? There are 120 by 200 feet of great habitat here for small fish; they have floats to hide in; there's water there all the time. Nobody ever gives you any credit for that.

The Chair: We will. We'll give you credit.

If there's no further comment, I certainly want to thank you for your presentations this morning.

We heard more detail yesterday. You're on the record and we can refer back to that.

Also I want to thank you for your hospitality yesterday. That was great.

On behalf of myself and perhaps the other committee members, we've appreciated coming in here. We think James made the agenda a whole lot too tight so we really didn't get much time to enjoy the area, but it's a beautiful area and we were pleased to stay where we stayed last night.

So, James, do you want to close?

Mr. James Lunney: I did try to talk them into a second night here, but our flights wouldn't permit us, so we do have to get out to that airport in order to take off before dark.

I would like to express my appreciation to the witnesses who have come today on all of the areas we've addressed. I would also like to express my appreciation to the committee members and to the chairman for being willing to take these issues on, to hear the witnesses from MCTS who came to Ottawa to hear these issues today.

We will do our best as a committee to advance the cause and bring a measure of resolution to these issues that have been brought forward. So thank you very much.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.