EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, November 5, 1996

.0910

[English]

The Chairman: We have a quorum. I'd like to welcome back our witnesses. Mr. Marcel Nouvet is executive director of special initiatives for the Department of Human Resources Development, and with him is Sharon Silver-Gitlin. Did I pronounce that right?

Ms Sharon Silver-Gitlin (Chief, the Atlantic Groundfish Strategy): Correct.

The Chairman: She is chief of the Atlantic Groundfish Strategy. Marie Tobin is also here. She claims no relation to the premier. We'll have to see from what she says if she has different points of view. We welcome her for the first time. She is new to the department and is director general of economic and policy analysis.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've waited a long time for this particular committee meeting. It has been at least a year since we have met and a lot of things have happened with the strategy since that time. I see we're facing a lot of different witnesses now too. Not only has the strategy changed, but the people in charge of the strategy have also changed.

Normally we invite statements from the witnesses. Mr. Nouvet, are you prepared to make a statement? After the statement we'll go to questions and answers starting with the member from the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Marcel Nouvet (Executive Director, Special Initiatives, Department of Human Resources Development): I just have a very brief opening statement.

When we met with this committee last November, a key issue was staying within the budget, and we also discussed quite a bit the objective of adjusting 50% of the TAGS plants out of the groundfish industry.

By way of update, I would just remind you that the shortfall estimate until the end of the strategy was $475 million, plus or minus $25 million. That would vary, plus or minus $25 million, depending on the take-up of the income support from the summer until the end of the strategy. Many options were considered by cabinet during the summer, including reducing the income support. Finally, a decision was taken in July on an approach to resolve the shortfall.

In summary, the key decisions made by cabinet were to maintain the income support level at its original rate and transfer $295 million from adjustment programming, capacity reduction and administration toward the income support component of the strategy, because that's the component that's incurring the shortfall by virtue of us having more clients than we expected in the first place.

In addition to that, we introduced measures to curb what we call perceived excesses. Simply put, there is an income cap of $26,000 beyond which clients can no longer receive TAGS. So if a client receives $26,000 in a given year, he or she cannot receive TAGS income support.

We also introduced a measure to ensure that TAGS clients who qualified for unemployment insurance - now called employment insurance - were not paid TAGS income support during the two-week waiting period of employment insurance. As you know, in the past when they qualified for unemployment insurance and served the two-week waiting period, during which no unemployment insurance benefits were payable, TAGS was paid to them. So that is no longer the case as of this summer.

In addition, the last measure cabinet approved was to end the strategy when the $1.9 billion budget was exhausted. That's expected to occur one year earlier than was originally announced. So it should end in May 1998, plus or minus some weeks, depending on the actual take-up of income support.

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What actions have we taken since that time? The funds for adjustment in administration have been transferred to income support. We have made no new adjustment commitments on TAGS since the announcement of July 22. I should say that about 50% of TAGS clients can still have access to the employment benefits and measures under part II of the employment insurance legislation, because, as you know, that legislation widened the coverage so people could have access to employment benefits and measures.

The measures cabinet decided on to curb the perceived excesses are in place and are working. The focus for the strategy now is really to provide income support to the eligible client until the end of the strategy.

In conclusion, I would say that the difficult decisions have been taken on income support and adjustment. As this committee knows, these decisions were debated for quite a while. Adjustment can continue for about half of the clients under part II of the employment insurance legislation. The income support levels are being maintained until the funds expire. About 13,700 people have been adjusted out of the ground fishery since its inception. The number of adjusted clients is expected to continue to rise.

That's about it, in terms of my opening remarks.

The Chairman: Okay. Thank you very much.

Ms Tobin.

Ms Marie Tobin (Director General, Economic and Policy Analysis, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): I didn't plan any specific opening remarks, but I have made available to the committee the results of the groundfish licence retirement program. Table 1 is obviously round one, which was decided in October 1995, table 2 is round two, which was announced in August 1996, and table 3 is a compendium of both of them. You have the figures there by vessel size and region, and for the total cost of the program.

Basically, we have been successful in retiring 455 licences. The clientele number was just over 6,000.

The Chairman: What was the goal?

Ms Tobin: When the strategy started, it is my understanding that $300 million was to be focused on in this particular program, so we have had to downscale to $60 million. From a value-for-money perspective, we've retired the same number of boats as we would have if we'd had $300 million.

The Chairman: Ms Gitlin, do you have anything to add? No? Okay, we'll begin our first round of questions.

Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier (Gaspé): First of all, for the members here and for the record, I would like to specify, Mr. Chairman, that we had hoped the meeting being held here this morning would have been held last spring so that the members of the Committee on fisheries and oceans wouldn't have to learn through the media that there were no more funds in the TAGS program.

So I was very surprised to hear, right in the middle of July, just before the holidays, that Mr. Mifflin, the minister, intended to put an end to the program a year earlier. That irritated me somewhat and I must say, Mr. Chairman, that we were expecting a meeting with the officials of HRDC far earlier, to know what was going on. Be that as it may, the harm is done.

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I would now like to ask you what is going to happen, and to give us the final date for TAGS.

It is said that the budget might be exhausted in early May, 1998. Is there a specific date as of which people won't be getting benefits anymore as all there is left in the TAGS program is the financial support to fishers? I'd like to know the specific date as of when fishers or plant workers won't be getting anything any more.

I'd also like to know if there have been discussions about those people who will not be receiving anything more because I believe the FRCC, or CCRH in French, is recommending fishing start up again in certain zones which, in any case, would only represent hardly 10% of what was being fished before.

So we can already expect that officials would be working and would have tried to finalize the situation for at least 90% of the clients on the list.

In short, I'd like to know as of what date, in 1998, people will not be getting anything anymore and I would then like to know if the cases of the 90% of people who will not be receiving anything anymore are already under examination.

Mr. Nouvet: I will address three points.

First, I would like to remind you that when we appeared before this committee in November, we did mention income shortfall. The fact was discussed and it was pointed out that it was expected that Cabinet would examine the matter and make decisions. Unfortunately, while awaiting the Cabinet decision, we could not discuss the different options which would be suggested by Cabinet. I think you'll find this in the record of your last meetings.

We expect the program to end in May 1998. However, it is impossible for us to predict the exact date because it will depend on the benefits received by our clients as well as all kinds of other things like the economic situation in the regions and the number of clients able to find work in other areas, continue holding those jobs on a permanent basis or draw employment insurance benefits. So it's very difficult to predict, like the whole budget situation of TAGS since the beginning.

According to our estimates which have not changed over the last five or six months, we expect it to happen sometime during May, 1998. It could be two weeks before or after, but it's really too early to give a definite date.

As for what will happen to those clients who have not come up with something in other areas by then, I can tell you we will do everything in our power to meet their needs as much as possible. We will continue doing this within the context of part II of the Act. Under this Act, we have the Transitional Jobs Fund and we are working at coming up with projects that will create permanent jobs in high unemployment zones.

At this point, it's hard to predict how many clients will remain without jobs when TAGS ends, but we are increasing our efforts to decrease this number as much as possible.

Perhaps my colleague from Fisheries and Oceans might like to address what might happen in their departmental area because I'm not an expert in those matters.

Ms Tobin: I can't make any decisions for the minister, but you are right in saying that the council recommended the minister allow some reopening of fisheries. It is limited, because we have to be very careful of the stocks. In any case, I think no one wants to say too much in advance on what the stocks may be. I'm not a scientist and I can't judge that aspect.

Mr. Bernier: Fine. Allow me a few questions.

If I'm not wrong, it is May 1998. You're telling me the date can't be determined today, but I would like you to at least tell me how your client will be advised. Will it be when he receives his last cheque? Is he going to be told sorry at that time or will he get a fortnight or a month's notice?

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Second, you're working with the new Employment Insurance Act and the Transitional Jobs Fund. I'd like you to describe the program for us. What concerns me is community participation.

I think the community participation rate is provided. I'd like you to explain that aspect. I suppose people living off income support for four or five years haven't managed to save up any money. How are they going to be able to avail themselves of the new Transitional Jobs Fund?

Finally, I would like to add that my criticism a few moments ago was not aimed at you, ladies and gentlemen of the department. If the minister told you not to say anything about certain things, I understand why we were not able to meet in the spring.

Is it politically correct to ask whether the minister suggested any orientations to get people working on the post-May, 1998 period? In my opinion, it's easy to foresee that people will be left up in the air and we should prepare for that second round. If you're telling us you got no orders to that effect, you do understand that we must put questions to you.

Mr. Nouvet: On one hand, people have already been informed through public announcements about the changes that have been brought to TAGS. On the other hand, everyone has received a special written communication on that summarizing those changes. I think that in the weeks following the announcement of these measures by the government, they learned that TAGS would probably be winding up a year early. Our intention is to give them approximately three months' notice and send out a last call indicating that based on our estimates, TAGS would effectively end in May, 1998.

So there would be three months' advance notice. Then, there will be two reminders, one of them accompanying the last cheque, to signal that this is the last cheque as announced.

I would like to say a few words about the Transitional Jobs Fund. This fund applies to all communities and workers whether or not they are eligible for employment insurance. This fund was set up to try to soften the landing or decrease unemployment in those areas where it is high. So this applies to the regions affected by TAGS.

What's positive with this fund is that people who otherwise would not be eligible under the Employment Insurance Act can participate in creating those permanent jobs. So that would also apply to TAGS beneficiaries who haven't worked since the beginning of this crisis.

There are other tools, under part II of the Act, that we will use as much as possible with those clients remaining in TAGS. The federal government has announced it would withdraw from training and would do so over a three-year period but until May, 1998, we will still be involved in training. So training remains an important tool for us.

Second, there are targeted salary subsidies allowing the government to subsidize, within the context of part II of the Act, those salaries that must be payed in situations where new jobs are created. So it's a positive tool we should be able to use.

There's also the tool to support those people trying to set up their own business. This tool was used under TAGS with the adjustment budgets we had. It's one of the tools that has shown the highest success rate. It's also a tool that remains available under part II of the Act.

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Are we preparing for May 1998 at this point? The best way to prepare things in the field at this point is to try as much as possible to increase the number of people who will find new jobs and manage to leave the fisheries sector.

I think that from the point of view of the public service, it would be premature to try at this stage. We were not asked to prepare any new plan or think on what would happen after May 1998 because there are many unknown factors. First of all, there's the number of clients we'll be adjusting. Then, we'll have the situation the fisheries are in at that point and, of course, all kinds of factors that might show up in the future. Right now, we're concentrating on maximum adjustment for the workers.

Mr. Bernier: Would you allow me one last question for Fisheries and Oceans? Ms Tobin, you are with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Ms Tobin: Yes.

Mr. Bernier: I've been scratching an itch since the very beginning. Maybe it would have made work easier for the HRDC people. When the minister announced the moratorium, he announced a wave of downsizing and said that work would begin to define what he called the core fishers, the ones at the heart of it. I'd like to know if the core fishers have been identified. If they have not, what is the process being set up to find out who will have to start understanding that there will be no more room for him or her in fisheries, in the future? If that had been done, people from HRDC probably would have already had three years to start working with those people.

So what's happening with this downsizing? Have the core fishers been identified? Can we target those people that might be considered as surplus compared to the future needs of the fisheries?

[English]

The Chairman: That's a big question.

Mr. Bernier: I hope I will have a big answer.

The Chairman: Sometimes you don't know the difference. Go ahead.

[Translation]

Ms Tobin: To my knowledge, this has begun and begun well. This downsizing wave does not come from the department itself. We left it up to the industry, to the Newfoundland union in particular as well as the Fisheries Council of Canada to come up with definitions sticking to reality.

To my knowledge, in Newfoundland in particular, there is legislation defining what are known as the core fishers. It's a movement towards the professionalization of the industry and TAGS, in most of its criteria and certainly in the licence retirement program had eligibility criteria for what are called the core fishers, people who have been in the sector for a long time and meet certain eligibility criteria. The department is facilitating discussions but has not imposed anything specific so far.

For the time being, it would seem there are only 13,000 fishers in TAGS. So there are others remaining and all the plant workers come under provincial and not federal jurisdiction. As far as we are concerned, we are concentrating on the wave of downsizing and professionalization affecting those fishers who are our responsibility. However, we have facilitated discussions and it is the people themselves, in the field, who are working at defining the codes of conduct and establishing the definition of "fisher", in other words who is a professional fisher and who is not. Everyone is involved.

[English]

The Chairman: Mrs. Ablonczy.

Mrs. Ablonczy (Calgary North): I don't know if I can display such eagerness here.

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We appreciate having a chance to look at this program now. The fact of the matter is that people's lives are involved, their future is involved, their well-being is involved. I know the three of you are concerned about that and have been working hard to make sure those things are looked after.

Just to recap the mandate of this program, as I understand it, in a nutshell - and perhaps you'll correct me if I make a mistake - there are really three aspects to the mandate of the program. One is to provide some transition to people who have been displaced out of the industry in the past. I understand that figure is about 30,000 ground-fishers and plant workers. Am I correct in that number?

Mr. Nouvet: It's 40,100.

Mrs. Ablonczy: So these people are out of the industry and there was a recognition that some transition assistance was needed so they could find new careers, new employment, a new place in the economic structure.

The second part of the mandate of the three was to reduce the people remaining in the industry by about 50%, in light of the fact that there wasn't as much fish to go around as there has been. Just over 40,000 people had already been displaced from the industry. How many people were left of those we wanted to reduce by 50%?

Mr. Nouvet: Let's start at the beginning. At the beginning we were expecting to have roughly 27,000 people qualifying for tax, half of whom we would adjust to other sectors. That gives us 13,500. To date we have adjusted 13,700, and we expect that number to go up.

I'm not sure, because it's too early to tell how many people we're going to be able to adjust by May 1998, but I think we're going to be very close to adjusting half the population in TAGS, as we understand it today. With HRDC measures, when we had the whole adjustment budget, we expected to adjust about 7,500 people ourselves, through direct measures, which could be training, self-employment assistance, green projects, and so forth. But given the budget cutbacks, we think we will reduce that by 2,000 and we'll adjust on our own, through direct interventions, 5,500 people.

The Chairman: Are those permanent adjustments? Are the 13,700 out permanently, period?

Mr. Nouvet: Whether they're out permanently or not is their choice. A lot of the people whom we have adjusted out today and who are not receiving TAGs benefits are still entitled to the program -

The Chairman: They still have a licence.

Mr. Nouvet: They still have a licence in some cases, but more importantly, for example if you talk about fish plant workers who adjusted out, if they run out of work, wherever they are in the new jobs they have found, they still have this TAGS eligibility available to them in some cases. So they could come back to it.

It's a fairly fluid picture, which can change, but to date it hasn't changed that much. If the fishery reopens in the future, who is to say whether or not people are going to gravitate back to this kind of employment?

The Chairman: Sorry, Diane.

Mrs. Ablonczy: No, I think those are helpful clarifications, Mr. Chairman.

One of the indicators of the people who have been affected under this second aspect of the TAGS mandate to reduce capacity would be the number of licences that have been bought out. I understand 455 licences have been bought out, out of a total of 6,000. That would reduce the capacity by only 7.6%, well under 10%, which is a far cry from 50%.

Mr. Nouvet: I'm not going to get involved in the licence business, because that's DFO, but we have to remember two-thirds of our clients are plant workers. Plant workers - they just work at the plant. They are the majority of our clients.

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Mrs. Ablonczy: But when we're talking about reducing harvesting capacity for the industry, in fact a minuscule number or percentage of licences has been retired under this program.

Ms Tobin: Well, 455 is a hard number. I think it's still -

Mrs. Ablonczy: Out of 6,000.

Ms Tobin: Yes, it's still important.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Then the third aspect of the mandate is renewal of the resource. In other words, for the people still left in the industry it would be nice if they had something to fish in the future. That has been part of the mandate, and we've had representations to the committee about how that's going, with some nice charts and graphs and so on. I'd like to leave that aside, but that was part of the mandate, was it not?

Ms Tobin: Not of the TAGS program or the groundfish.... It's part of DFO's generic mandate. Obviously conservation of the resource is very important, but this particular program was aimed at a specific clientele to help them adjust -

Mrs. Ablonczy: To help people who were no longer able to access the industry or who you hoped would be moving out of the industry.

Ms Tobin: Of course.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Then I'd like to know whether we could look at some study that has followed up with the people who have been forced out of the industry or who have been moved out of the industry through a few licence buy-outs, to see what kind of employment they've found, how their incomes compare with what they had before, their long-term employment prospects. The mandate of the program is to help these folks. How can you demonstrate to us what their future is now, as a result of the assistance they've been given under the program? Have you done such a study and can we look at it?

Ms Tobin: We haven't done such a study, but in the groundfish licence retirement program round two just finished. It was announced in August. It would be premature to do the study right away.

Mrs. Ablonczy: But we're getting assurances that these people have been ``adjusted out''. How do we know they have been adjusted out if there has been no follow-up on where they've gone?

Mr. Nouvet: The best proof you have that people are adjusted out is when they're entitled to tax benefits but they do not collect them. In other words, we have 13,000 people out there who could send in their report cards and say ``pay me my income support''. They're not doing it. They're not doing it because they have been adjusted out; they have other ways of earning a living.

Mrs. Ablonczy: But we're not sure what those are at this point.

Mr. Nouvet: Not really. Nor can we be sure of the extent to which that will be sustainable. Nor can we be sure of the extent to which some of these people would gravitate back to the fishery if it ever came back.

But the best proof is certainly people who are entitled to income support saying they don't need it. We have 13,000-plus in that situation right now.

Mrs. Ablonczy: But you have made the program more difficult to access by putting a cap on it and that sort of thing.

Mr. Nouvet: No. The eligibility, the 40,000-plus we qualified a couple of years ago, remain entitled. In some cases the program will end earlier, because they would have received an additional year, but none of the changes that have been introduced over the past couple of years have restricted the initial eligibility of people for the program. In fact, I think we have close to 50% more clients than expected.

Mrs. Ablonczy: But are you intending to conduct a follow-up study that would let us know how many people have been successfully retrained, where they've been able to find future employment, and that sort of thing?

Mr. Nouvet: Yes.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Do you have a timeframe on that?

Mr. Nouvet: That's evaluation. The good evaluations come two to three years after you have done a program. If you take a measure today, there's absolutely.... As you know, I don't think there's any point in trying to assess it. The proof comes a couple of years later, when you look at whether or not people have been able to stay in their employment and what kind of standard of living they have achieved.

Ms Tobin: Especially in the fisheries program, a number of people who have retired their licences are people who have retired from the business. They don't want to be.... Another point is that a program of early retirement was available under this assistance, and about 1,000 people have taken advantage of it.

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Mrs. Ablonczy: Thank you.

The Chairman: Mr. Dromisky.

Mr. Dromisky (Thunder Bay - Atikokan): Some of my concerns have already been answered. However, if we go back to 1994, there were some predictions made regarding the number of people who would become involved in the TAGS program. One of the figures given was approximately 26,500. As you just indicated, 40,100 showed up. Why was there such a large discrepancy in the predictions of the department? Were records so poorly kept in this part of the country that, truthfully, we really didn't have a handle or grip on the situation?

Mr. Nouvet: It's difficult to say and I guess I'm glad I wasn't there. It might be more difficult to explain if I was there, but I think other factors came in to play. There were further closings between the time the program was designed and the time it was implemented. It's very hard at the best of times to calculate how many clients you're going to have, but the situation got worse. At the beginning of the program, there were all sorts of closings announced by DFO. These affected more workers.

Mr. Dromisky: In the recent adjustment, there was a redirection of approximately$190 million that was originally budgeted for items such as training and administration. Now who is picking up the training and administration?

Mr. Nouvet: Fifty percent of the clients are still eligible under the employment insurance, part II.

Mr. Dromisky: Okay.

Mr. Nouvet: So if we haven't made a commitment to adjust them out prior to July 22 and they are now interested in adjusting out, in 50% of the cases we're going to be able to help them through part II of the employment insurance legislation because, as you know, this legislation enlarged the definition of the client.

Secondly, linked to this legislation is a transitional jobs fund. It's a fund there to create sustainable employment in areas of high unemployment. This fund is available to all workers, whether or not they qualify for EI. So maybe some of the people left who are not EI clients and became interested in adjusting after July 22 will be helped through the transitional jobs fund.

We are honouring any commitments we made prior to July 22. In other words, when we said by how much can we reduce the budget, we said we have people here where the process has started. They have a return-to-work action plan. We know we need a two to three-year investment with some of them. We're going to maintain this investment. We're not going to pull the rug out from under their feet.

Mr. Dromisky: If the provinces go in the direction where they're going to be totally responsible for retraining of individuals, would there be a major adjustment in your budget or your figures?

Mr. Nouvet: May 1998 is when the strategy will end. There could be some adjustment, but like us the provinces are interested in having people go back to work.

Mr. Dromisky: Is there any assistance being provided at the present time to have individuals from this area of the country relocate in other areas of the country? Do we provide any type of assistance?

Mr. Nouvet: We used to. We don't any more because we don't have an adjustment budget in TAGS. It's all income support now. We don't really have the tools to do that under EI, part II.

Mr. Dromisky: So if a person wants to leave a fishing village in northern Labrador, he is stranded if he hasn't got the funds to get out of there and take a helicopter or a boat and go to Toronto or some other part of the country.

Mr. Nouvet: Generally speaking, that's true.

The Chairman: Isn't there a regular program under HRD that would help? There used to be.

Mr. Nouvet: There used to be one called Mobility.

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr. Nouvet: We don't have this any more.

The Chairman: So part II funds it to $800 million.

Mr. Nouvet: No. The part II funds are just a touch over $2 billion a year. This is how much we have in part II for the whole country. This is part II of the employment insurance legislation.

Mr. Verran (South West Nova): How much is it, again?

Mr. Nouvet: It's roughly $2 billion a year.

The Chairman: So this is what is being talked about for transferring to the province. Where does the $800 million come in under the new EI changes?

.0950

Mr. Nouvet: This is the reinvestment fund. As we achieve savings to employment insurance resulting from our work, there is a reinvestment fund that kicks in and matures by the year 2000, at which point there'll be an extra $800 million a year.

The Chairman: So none of this can be directed -

Mr. Nouvet: There is some at play this year. I don't have the exact amount.

The Chairman: Is this directed into the TAGS?

Mr. Nouvet: No. It is directed under part II of the EI legislation. Half of our tax clients will be able to qualify for part II of the benefits and measures.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

Is there anybody else from the government side?

Mr. Verran: Chairman, some of my questions have already been asked by Mr. Bernier. I had zeroed in on some of the same concerns he had expressed. One of the things Ms Tobin brought up, and the way I understood her to relate this to the committee, is that people who work in plants were not eligible for tax. This is the way it came through, and I just wanted to make sure this part was put to bed and that the right determination was expressed to the audience and to the committee.

Ms Tobin: People in plants are eligible for tax. But when we were talking about readjusting them into the fishery, this is where it starts splitting between the federal jurisdiction and the provincial jurisdiction. When you reopen fisheries, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is targeted mainly at the licence holders.

The processing plants are under provincial jurisdiction. There's a major industrial renewal board in Newfoundland, where 70% of the clients are, looking at the question for the province of where adjustment can be made to rationalize some of the plants. This is my understanding, anyway.

Mr. Verran: Yes. In one area of this great country of ours - this is in the southwestern part of Nova Scotia - you have the largest fishery at the present time in North America, never mind just Canada. It is taken for granted that the province is responsible for fish plants. The province licenses fish plants. The province is responsible for everything except for inspection methods, which is carried out by the health department or the DFO.

Nova Scotia came in late. This whole thing was started with the crisis in Newfoundland. We came in late on this and it seems we're not all on a level playing field. We came in late and we're getting cut off at the same time as people in other areas of the country. So we are in it for a shorter duration.

Please take this as one piece of information I would like an answer to. The other part is this. I know this is for Atlantic Canada and for all of Canada - the west coast, B.C. and the salmon fishing - but there just isn't any relationship between what has happened in Newfoundland and what is happening in southwestern Nova Scotia. There are two different circumstances and two different types of fisheries.

My next question is this. What happens to the people in my area of Nova Scotia who have started courses? They are well into the middle of a course they find really beneficial to them and to their communities. They're going to be able to move out and obtain work that is not going to take a job from somebody else, which has happened so often with TAGS in other areas and even in some areas in my own riding. Now suddenly they find they don't qualify any more. The money has been washed up and there is nothing else going to be put out and they're going to be dropped. They're going to fall between the cracks in the middle of their course and in the middle of what was their dream. It was their dream and their family's dream to be sustainable. They want to be very valuable members of the community socially, in monetary terms and in terms of their family life.

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So what is going to happen to those people? Is anything in place now, or do you foresee something being put there to look after those situations? That's very important.

Ms Tobin: It's really an HRD question. I thought Mr. Nouvet said whoever already had a plan agreed on with their employment counsellor was not cut off by the stopping of the training component of TAGS. That's what I understood my colleague to say. So anybody who was in motion, had a plan and had started it, was not going to be cut off and was going to be permitted to go to the end of that plan.

Mr. Verran: That's where the questions arise. I do have people.... Maybe I'll take them up on an individual basis. I know of at least three people in my riding who have been told and really believe their funding is cut and they are not going to be able to continue.

Mr. Nouvet: I could say there was a bit of confusion after the July 22 announcement. It took us a couple of weeks to resolve the confusion and make sure everybody understood that where we had made a commitment that was documented in our systems to help someone in their training or whatever measure they were undertaking to find other work we would maintain that commitment and we are carrying over funds to do that. If you have individual cases, we would like to know about them.

Mr. Verran: I'm very pleased to hear that. However, when you say there has been communication with everybody, so often it happens with HRD, and especially with DFO, that we are told as members and as representatives that consultation has taken place and everybody knows, but.... You may feel, as head of the department, sitting in an office here in Ottawa, that this has happened in two weeks, but I guarantee you it didn't happen within two weeks. That's the reality of it. The conception is one thing but the reality is something different altogether. I would just like to make sure you're aware of that and you check with the people under you.

Mr. Nouvet: We will reinforce the message with our regional and local offices. In the meantime, if you have individual cases, we would be glad to look at them.

Mr. Verran: There was a time when you couldn't come up with any policy, because it seemed, as I've understood again from remarks this morning, maybe cabinet had certain facets and they didn't act during the summer or for some period and that held you back from doing the work that probably should have been done on behalf of the people who were out there in a kind of vacuum, not knowing what was happening. When you're in a fishing community - this is all about fish - a coastal community, and day after day goes by, it may add up to only five days and a week, and then you get between one and two weeks and it seems like eternity, because you don't know where your income is coming from, you have a family....

Have measures been put in place that would enable you to respond to the coastal communities and the fisher people in a more direct and quicker way? Has this ever been discussed with DFO or government officials? I know we're talking about two departments here and it complicates it a bit. I guess that has been one of the problems from the start.

Mr. Nouvet: In a way you're asking for impressions. This is one of the times when one would be glad to be a public servant and not a politician having to make the tough decisions.

TAGS has been a very challenging file. I just remind you that we have adjusted TAGS all along. We had an adjustment to TAGS within twelve months of the strategy being launched. We reduced the amount of active programming we would do to make sure we would not incur a deficit in the first year, and we did that with cabinet support. We had further adjustments in the second year, to make sure we wouldn't incur a deficit in the second year. Again, cabinet made that decision. The milestone decision was really this summer, when cabinet decided how they were going to deal with the whole piece, the strategy from now until the end.

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We do have in place now the measures that, while they are tough, I think are best from the point of view of allowing clients to predict where they are at with TAGS and when the strategy will end for them. Then we will avoid the shortfall.

Mr. Verran: Like Mr. Bernier, Mr. Chairman, one more short one.

The Chairman: Harry, you go ahead.

Mr. Verran: This isn't directed at you or any of the people with you at the table, because you're from two different departments, but it certainly looks to the people in the coastal communities who are involved in this thing. You know, we talked about strategy in our last remarks and earlier. What the people in the field and the people who are unemployed and wanting to be employed, or just don't know how long they're going to be employed, feel very strongly about is that the strategy has already been put in place. They feel strongly that DFO and HRD in some instances already have the strategy and that they're going to find out about it a little bit at a time and that is really your strategy. That is really their concept. It's not just their concept, it's the reality of what people feel who are being affected in the fishery. I can only speak for the southern part of Nova Scotia.

Somehow, a better job has to be done - first, to make sure that there is no strategy in place that they're going to find out that they're going to have to live with and later on find it may not be in their best interests and the best interests of the coastal communities; second, to bring them back to having some faith and some hope in government, or in DFO and HRD. That might be a bit of a statement. Nevertheless, that's the way it is.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Thank you, Harry.

Is there a response to that? Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: I'd like to come back to where Ms Tobin and I left off. I must say, I guess there will always be Tobins in my life.

I'd like to be sure I've understood this properly. Right now, on the federal side, it's Human Resources Development Canada who is paying out the $1.9 billion. Those who are downsizing, at Fisheries and Oceans, say that's it's been given to the industry. Of the two, who has the legislative power? You're telling me that the plant workers are a provincial responsibility. So if I understand this correctly, there's no link between the party paying out and whoever can get things moving. So the party paying out, the federal government HRDC, was condemned at the very outset, through its own process, to waste $1.9 billion. Don't try and tell us the downsizing has been rational from the start. You've kept no levers, unless I've misunderstood.

What I do understand is that we're being told this morning, Mr. Chairman... Our colleague on the other side says that he's not blaming the officials, but someone, somewhere, made the decision to set up this system like that. So it's your very own colleagues, Mr. Chairman, because the government is made up of the majority.

So from what I've understood, the federal government is paying and leaving the downsizing up to the industry in the case of the fishers themselves and to the provinces in the case of the plant workers. So there's no link between the provider of funds and the movers and shakers. So I have a right to think that there was no way you could get anyone out of TAGS.

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Ms Tobin: In my opinion, you have restricted the downsizing programs somewhat. There are two TAGS programs for downsizing: the licence retirement program which allowed downsizing in the groundfish fishery and the program targeted at older fishers allowing them to retire. These are the two programs that were part of TAGS.

You asked me if, once TAGS was over, there would be other initiatives to help downsize the fisheries. In that context I replied yes, there was a move to downsize or professionalize fisheries and more specifically the groundfish fishery. Instead of dictating from on high how this would work and all the codes that would have to be followed, we thought that the industry which is close to the fishers was in a better position to elaborate its own codes of conduct and professionalization. The core fishers have now been defined.

Mr. Bernier: If they have been defined, we haven't seen the list of people nor the criteria. You still have great responsibilities. If the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Human Resources Development Canada have sent you as a delegation to meet us this morning, it's because you are duly qualified representatives. You're not schoolchildren.

The only lever we had to get people moving in the direction you wanted them to move, and I agree with you on this, was money, but nowhere was the power of money linked to a legislative power to get things moving. That's the question I have.

You said that Human Resources Development had the money, but the responsibility for downsizing... At that point, when the moratorium was announced, what was announced was a political will. Mr. Tobin, the minister, said that the government was going to try to decrease fishing by 50%, but nowhere was there any legislative power tied in to that. That's the question I have.

If the legislative power hadn't been in the federal camp, would it have been appropriate to negotiate the transfer to provinces right away? You're saying the legislation is there, at least in the workers' case. It could have been: "Of the $1.9 billion, there are perhaps $1.4 billion for the plant workers. Dear provincial authorities, we are now saying mea culpa and we're shouldering our responsibility." That's what they did when they said they were putting up $1.9 billion. "Now, we're giving you the money so manage it and just take for granted that after these $1.9 billion, there's no more money." The provinces would have had the money and the legislative power and things could have moved along.

Maybe it's a political question, Madam, but do you recognize that the power of money, in this case, should have been tied in to the legislative power if there was really a will to see things moving ahead?

[English]

An hon. member: It is a very difficult question.

[Translation]

Ms Tobin: Yes, and I might not be able to answer exactly with the words you want to hear.

Fisheries and Oceans is still the department responsible for the implementation of the Act specifying which fisheries will be open or closed. It's extremely important when we're talking about fishers and, indirectly, about the plant workers. There is no doubt as to the existence of the Act. The Act my colleague is working on deals with unemployment insurance or training. It exists. These are federal Acts.

Mr. Bernier: You have the necessary jurisdiction to decide which fisheries will be open and which will not be. You had the legislative power over the catch and could indicate to the fishers what should be done.

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Why did you leave it up to the industry to do the cleaning up in your stead? You are the ones who had the money in your hands. I'm still trying to make the link between the money and...

Ms Tobin: It's not the industry who is going to decide which fisheries will be open or which will be closed.

Mr. Bernier: No, it's you. But why leave the downsizing to the industry? It has no legislative power. You have just told me that you have the legislative power over the catch.

Ms Tobin: Over the catch, yes.

Mr. Bernier: Why, then, did you leave the downsizing up to the industry?

Ms Tobin: Because labour laws come under provincial jurisdiction. If the fishers decide that the best thing to do is to agree amongst themselves to become a professional industry, the professionalization of this industry will happen through provincial legislation.

Mr. Bernier: What obliged the fishers to try to define themselves and...

[English]

The Chairman: Do you want to intervene there? Do you have a -

Mr. Nouvet: I'm fine.

The Chairman: You looked like you wanted to enter the fray.

[Translation]

Ms Tobin: Fisheries and Oceans still has the power to grant licences.

Mr. Bernier: Yes, but in this case, the department announced a 50% downsizing. You're telling me the Fisheries and Oceans left this downsizing up to the industry.

Ms Tobin: No. I think my colleague gave you all the figures at the outset. He was talking about 50%. If memory serves, Marcel said there were about 26,500 clients identified at the outset, in answer to Ms Ablonczy, and that the Human Resources Development programs had allowed over 13,000 to adjust.

Mr. Nouvet: Even if, based on what you're saying, we don't have all the support we might wish for from the provinces, we're still heading in the direction of a downsizing of the number of people working in the fisheries sector.

For the two years I was in charge of this file, I never perceived the provinces as being interested in taking on that responsibility. They never said: "Give us money, not just for income support but also for worker adjustment and we'll take care of the plant workers and downsize that industry."

I never perceived the provinces as having that concern.

Of course, TAGS could have worked better if, for example, there had been a move to downsize the fish processing plants in certain provinces. But that dit not happen and, meanwhile, we still had an obligation to assist people affected by the crisis. Even in the absence of clearer provincial decisions concerning fish processing plants, the workers were quick to understand that TAGS would end four or five years later and that they should take the opportunity to adjust to other jobs as much as possible. To date, 13,000 have done so and I expect more to be doing the same thing.

Of course, with hindsight, we can see how things might have worked better, but there were problems not only at the provincial level but everywhere in the system.

Mr. Bernier: Without putting the blame on the provinces, it was easy for them, just as it was for the fishers. The dollars are in the federal hand and you give the others... They were under no obligation to move. What was forcing the fishers to try to agree amongst themselves to define the concept of core fishers and say who was redundant? They had no interest in that.

Four or five years ago, they knew the program was there. The objective was to delay and fight for time. Everyone knows how that works. In any good trial, you're always working with time. But it so happens that time represents $1.9 billion for us this morning. The legislative responsibility was always DFO's as far as the catch is concerned. That was the catalyst for the rest of the game.

Why did DFO hand over that responsibility to the industry knowing full well that the industry's game was to draw things out over time to be sure they'd get the last dollar out of the pot?

I don't have any answers to that. I'll come back later, Mr. Chairman. I still have two major questions on that.

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Ms Tobin: We made use of the period when there was no fish to do the downsizing. I don't understand this link you're making.

Mr. Bernier: You say that you gave industry responsibility to downsize itself.

Ms Tobin: Instead of dictating everything to them, taking away all the licences and saying it was all over.

Mr. Bernier: No, but you were the ones paying the piper and you had the money in your hands. You knew that the money would run out.

Ms Tobin: But there are no licences for groundfish because there are no groundfish, at this time, Mr. Bernier.

Mr. Bernier: Yes.

Ms Tobin: So, there are no licences.

Mr. Bernier: There are no licences, but the fishing will start up again and we'll be in exactly the same situation in May 1998 as we were in 1993.

Ms Tobin: I don't think we're in the same situation. First of all, I repeat that as far as we're concerned the program has had positive effects. There are people who left the fisheries, there were licence withdrawal programs and there were early retirement programs.

These things do exist. There are fewer licences than there were and we've asked the fishers to get together to find the best way to do things and determine when we'll be able to deliver new licences. We have identified our core fishers.

Mr. Bernier: You say that you have identified them?

Ms Tobin: The industry has identified them, in particular in Newfoundland. There are about 10,000. They've been identified based on the licence criteria. If you look at the eligibility criteria, you will see what is a core fisher. That is what is written.

[English]

The Chairman: Mrs. Ablonczy.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We do appreciate having the expertise of the witnesses available to us, but I think we all sense that we're struggling with some of the same concerns about the program, so I'd like to talk about that for a minute and get their response.

Here we have a program administered by these departments spending nearly $2 billion. I don't see any of the members on the committee from Newfoundland here this morning, but if they were here they could confirm that this is almost two-thirds of the entire provincial budget of Newfoundland for a year. This is a lot of money. Yet you seem unable to give us any indication as to how the results of all this spending have been evaluated. The best I've gotten so far is that three or four years down the road there will be an evaluation and then we'll know.

Surely, if we're spending nearly $2 billion to help people, there should be some criteria. We should be able to satisfy ourselves on an ongoing basis that this is useful, that it's not just being handed out in a handout way with no viable results.

You have said some licences have been bought out. The fact of the matter is that 7.6% of licences have been bought out. You said some people have retired. You said it was 1,000 people out of 27,000 people in the industry, which is only 3.7%. Those are very paltry results for such a huge expenditure.

I guess the question is, what is your measurement, what has been your measurement for success or failure of this program - or have you had one at all?

Mr. Nouvet: The main measurement is the number of people who are adjusted out. The best way to tell whether someone is adjusted out.... And until the program is over, we can't tell in a definite fashion. I think the most logical way of looking at whether or not you're having success is by keeping track of the number of people who could get that money if they wanted to, but don't. They don't ask for it. They don't ask for it because they've got other jobs and they don't need it.

We have close to 14,000 people who could qualify for income support who are not drawing that income support. They have been accepted into the strategy. All they have to do is send in their card every two weeks, and they don't do it. They don't do it because they've got jobs and they are staying with those jobs. They don't need us. That's a sign of success.

It takes a couple of years, two to three years after any program to do a meaningful evaluation. Of these 13,000, 15,000, 20,000 people who did not draw TAGS income support, how many of them have really adjusted, and what types of jobs have they adjusted to? We can't do an evaluation before we're ready to do one because it might be self-serving.

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Mrs. Ablonczy: If we look at those figures, 41,000 people were thrown out of work because of the reduction in fish stocks. In addition to that, there were 27,000 people remaining in the industry - these are the figures you've given me - whose numbers we wanted to reduce because, again, there wasn't the resource to give them a livelihood.

Out of all of that, you've said that there are 13,500 people who could be accessing this particular program but aren't. But you're not sure exactly where they've gone or what they're doing or what degree of permanency they've been able to achieve in moving into other economic sectors. Essentially that's the situation as I understand it.

Mr. Nouvet: That's the situation. And when I give you those figures, I must say that to some extent we have taken a conservative estimate, because we could come here with larger numbers.

For example, in terms of the numbers that we can't adjust out through our measures, we discount them by about one-third to build in a margin of error. We don't want to come back to this committee in six or nine months and say the figures have gone down, so we're conservative in what we're estimating. I still think the best proof a citizen doesn't need government help is that a citizen who is entitled to it if he needs it doesn't ask for it.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Then who are these people and where have they gone? There needs to be some assurance on the part of elected representatives -

Mr. Nouvet: I agree.

Mrs. Ablonczy: - who are responsible for some of this.

Mr. Nouvet: I agree. This is a five-year strategy. We're jumping the gun. We need an evaluation, and the evaluation will come, no question about it.

Mrs. Ablonczy: But there's been nothing ongoing to let us know that this expenditure is having any positive results.

Mr. Nouvet: If the 13,700 people who could collect benefits and don't were collecting benefits, I'd agree with you that there is no sign that we're making any progress. But I think those who could collect and don't is a pretty good sign.

Mrs. Ablonczy: With respect to the retraining programs that have been started and of course were cut back significantly, has there been an evaluation on the results? In other words, has there been a follow-up on people who obtained the retraining under TAGS to see whether that training enabled them to find permanent relocation in other economic sectors?

Mr. Nouvet: It is too early to tell. We have success stories we can point to, but those are what I would call anecdotes. We need a full-fledged evaluation, and it's too early to have a full-fledged evaluation of our program in terms of the sustainable employment that people have derived from our measures.

Mrs. Ablonczy: When you say that there are some people who could access the programs who are not, as you know, there have been concerns raised in the past that people were accessing the program who had an extremely high income or certainly a very comfortable income. How many people accessing the program actually required the kind of transition income support provided by the program?

Mr. Nouvet: I talked of the measures we have introduced, measures we call ``perceived excesses''. I don't have the numbers with me, but a very small number of people are actually earning in excess of $28,000 and $26,000 and should be cut off. There are 3,090. We expect that 3,000 people will be affected by that measure in 1997.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Just to wrap it up, if you're saying that the only measure of success you have in the program so far is that there are people who could access the program and choose not to - but you really have no way of knowing why they're not accessing the program - do you have any idea at all of the part this program plays in the fact that the individuals you're speaking of are not asking for government assistance? In other words, what correlation does this expenditure under TAGS have with the results you're pointing to?

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Mr. Nouvet: I think the moratorium, the introduction of the program, the fact that the government said this was a strategy, it was a finite budget, designed not only to provide income support to affected workers but to provide these workers with an opportunity to adjust out, because at the end of the strategy we did not expect everybody would be able to go back to fishing, motivated people to take advantage of the adjustment opportunities they have under the program, and that's why some of them, a significant number of them, have done so. The reason they are not drawing benefits is that they don't need them; they're not entitled to them. If they were entitled to them, if they were not working, they would ask for those benefits.

The Chairman: I think what has been puzzling everybody, Mr. Nouvet, including commentators, over the past number of months is that we're continually being told on both coasts there are too many fishermen chasing too few fish. Now, in this case there were no fish. We all hope the fish will come back, and maybe they are coming back to a certain extent, but what happens if they don't come back, or if they don't come back in large enough numbers that the fishermen who are left can go and get them? We're still going to have far too many fishermen chasing too few fish.

So the reduction of 455 licences.... If the recovery is slow, or if there is a recovery - in the worst-case scenario there may be just a partial recovery - what do you do with all those fishermen who are left when there's no fish for them to go get? We're right back where we were five years ago.

I think that's what puzzling everybody. Why are more fishermen coming out of the industry if the department is saying there are too few fishermen, too few fish, and all the rest of it, and we still have reduced the number of fishermen by only 450 people? Is there an answer to that?

Ms Tobin: Maybe you should ask the fishermen why they're not taking more advantage of some of the programs.

The Chairman: Well, fishermen.... Hope springs eternal.

Ms Tobin: That's correct.

The Chairman: But if at the end of the program there's still no place for them, there's still no work for them, there's still no fish for them to catch, what do we do then?

Mr. Nouvet: What will they do then?

The Chairman: What will they do then and what will we do then?

I think that's what's bothering everybody. Through the whole five-year exercise, and for longer if you include the first moratorium, the partial moratorium, even at the end of it we still have all these people in the industry and there may not be any fish for them to catch.

Mr. Nouvet: It's a good question you ask. Fishing is a way of life for these people and it's hard to give up that way of life, even though it's one of the most hazardous occupations we have in Canada.

We know from consultations we have done with communities that last spring, for example, people were more understanding of the fact that the fishing was not coming back than they were at the inception of TAGS. When TAGS was thrown in, a lot of people had hoped things would be back to normal five years later. We know that's not the case, or it wasn't the case this spring.

TAGS really is a bridging strategy that gives people time to get over their denial. Some people were ready to move right away. They moved into adjustment activities right away, and I think that's why we have 13,000 today. Other people take more time. The five-year period - now four years - is an opportunity to give people the time they need to understand they had better develop either a new type of permanent employment or at least an alternative employment they can rely on if the fishery doesn't come back at the end of the strategy.

So it's work in progress and we're satisfied with the numbers we have got so far. We would like to have more, but we're pretty satisfied with what we have got. We certainly would be extremely unhappy if everybody eligible were still drawing benefits.

The Chairman: Mr. Regan.

Mr. Regan (Halifax West): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You referred to consultations in communities in that region. Which communities did you consult, and how did you determine whom to consult in those communities?

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Mr. Nouvet: We hired consultants. I can't give you the names of the communities, because I don't remember them, but we could provide them to you. They did all the five provinces and then came back with feedback from plant workers and fisher people as to what they thought of the strategy, what types of changes they would like. One of the messages we got in the spring was that people said get on with it: you have adjusted TAGS a couple of times, but tell us what the last adjustments are to take us to the end of the strategy; we want to know how this strategy is going to be adjusted to stay within its $1.9 billion envelope.

Mr. Regan: If I'm correct, your target was to cut the number of licences in half, to about 3,000. Is that right? What was the target for licences?

Ms Tobin: There wasn't necessarily a target for licences. The target clientele is 6,000 core fishers. When we had $300 million the target was 2,500. If you look at the proportion of $60 million versus $300 million, then 455 is within the target, in proportion.

Mr. Regan: I guess what I'm trying to get at is what do you think is a sustainable fishery and how would you come to a conclusion on what you feel can be a sustainable fishery? Obviously it's hard to predict because of the situation in Newfoundland with the cod, but surely you have to make some kind of educated guesstimate about what the targets ought to be. If you have targets, or if you can set targets, what is needed to move toward those targets, in your view?

Ms Tobin: There are 13,000 fishers on TAGS right now. There are other plant workers, but there are 13,000 fishers. The core that has been identified is about 6,200. So half of them have to adjust out, and we're working with a core of 6,200. Obviously there are more licences than that, since fishers have more than one licence. Basically it depends on how fast the cod stocks recuperate.

The Chairman: But when you're talking about core, you're not talking just about ground fisherman.

Ms Tobin: No, you're not.

The Chairman: You're talking about every fisherman in Newfoundland, if we're just talking about Newfoundland. You're talking about every other fishery, plus groundfish.

Mr. Regan: I hope you're not just talking about Newfoundland, Terry says.

The Chairman: There are some other parts of the country that have fish.

Mr. Regan: What about plant workers? What are the numbers on plant workers?

Ms Tobin: It's a two-to-one ratio.

Mr. Nouvet: It's two to one. It's around 26,000.

Mr. Regan: What about idle licences? Do you have any strategy in view of the fact that people out there have licences they aren't using and they haven't used for years but they're still out there and they could use them? What strategies should there be to deal with those licences?

Ms Tobin: This is a fisheries management issue.

Mr. Regan: You don't feel it's related to the overall strategy of reducing the fishing effort? It's not TAGS?

Ms Tobin: Lorne could give you some more figures.

The Chairman: Lorne Anderson.

Mr. Lorne Anderson (Acting Director, Program Assistance Branch, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): I'm in the policy branch as well, but I can speak a bit on the fisheries management issues. None of us are in fisheries management.

Just to give it more perspective, because there is a little confusion about this whole licensing thing when people talk about TAGS, and to put the broader fishery unit in perspective, as Marie said, only 13,000 to 14,000 fishers were approved on TAGS and there are 26,000 or 27,000 plant workers, so TAGS per se is not really.... It's a fisheries issue, and we're looking at a 17% client group in Newfoundland.

About licences, I think the numbers are that there are 60,000 PFRs, personal fishing registrations, in the Atlantic, and about 16,000 groundfish licences are out there. Some of those are frozen. There have been no transfers. Off the top of my head I don't know all the details on the core fishery, but as Marie said, the target for the core is around 6,200 or 6,400 people.

There are different criteria in each of the four Atlantic provinces and regions. Basically, a core fisher has to meet certain minimum income and attachment-to-the-fishery criteria. It's not just groundfish, as you've said, but a great number of those people.... If you're looking at Newfoundland, almost everybody had a groundfish licence. So we're talking again about 70% of the client group here in Newfoundland.

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In terms of the core fishery and the restrictions there, now that the core has been identified, there are a number of other issues tied to fisheries management. One is the transfer of licences. Now the transfer of licences is restricted between core fishers. So if you were a non-core fisher, those licences will never be passed on, and hopefully some of them will die. People who leave can't get rid of them now. Licences can only move between core fishers. So you'll have this smaller pot of concentrated.... The minister's idea there is that you have a multi-specied, more viable enterprise.

Another thing to note is we have to talk about crew members here too. We talked about how many licences we took out in licence retirement; we probably took out about two crew members for every one of those licences. In this core fishery, the same effect will be there. You're reducing the number of core fishers and adjustment is being forced on some people.

I'm just trying to give you a better handle on how many people were involved here.

Mr. Regan: I have one more question.

I realize it's challenging to take a workforce that's been trained in one area of the resource industry - the fishery, for example - and try to train them to do other things in jobs where there is growth, as in the knowledge-based industry. It's hard to switch from being a fisherman one day to being a computer scientist the next day. The challenge is obvious.

The description I've heard of the training project efforts that have taken place in relation to Newfoundland in particular is they've been somewhat of a disaster, or at least unsuccessful, in terms of getting people trained to do things where they can actually find work.

The challenge is you can't go from one thing to something else totally different overnight, but what adjustments have been made in those efforts to get better training systems that result in people actually getting employment?

Mr. Nouvet: The problem you described is a problem we discussed in this committee at the first or second hearing around TAGS. As a result of the first Price Waterhouse report, we changed the criteria to say that the determining factors in deciding whether or not we should invest towards adjustment of a client were these.

First, we wanted the client to be committed to adjusting out - not simply committed to going on training, but committed to adjusting out and committed to pursuing the labour market opportunities. We would verify, first of all, that there were labour market opportunities given that training, and then we would make sure the client was committed to pursuing those job opportunities once the training was done.

We would establish all these things up front. Traditionally one would have the tendency to say we have training courses and you go on them if you're interested, and that would be the end of the story. But because we knew the budget was reduced, we put these things in.

Whether or not we are going to succeed in 100% of the cases I don't know, but there's a better focus when those decisions are made. In some cases the investment you make in a client who, for example, is illiterate or doesn't have adult basic education could be a three-year commitment. It could be three years before you can establish that so and so is committed to leaving the community and doing this and that. But it's very hard to predict the future and to know whether their commitment is going to be as strong at the end of the three-year period. It is a challenge.

The Chairman: Before we go to our final round, I have a question.

Recently a lot of concern has been expressed over labour force attachment of people who are on TAGS and coming off, in that they need to qualify as new entrants using 26 weeks. Could you explain that a little more thoroughly? Some people say you only need 12; other people say as new entrants you need 26. Is there any hard and fast rule for people coming off TAGS, whether or not they're taking training courses?

Mr. Nouvet: Yes, I have something here. Just give me a second.

Maybe you can go on and we can come back to that one. I'll check. I know the answer generally, but not in detail.

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The Chairman: Mr. Bernier.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernier: I see that my committee colleagues are also becoming concerned about what has been done over the past three or four years to streamline. That's a good sign.

The moratoriums on species began earlier in Newfoundland and a little later in Nova Scotia. Redfish was the last species to be subject to a moratorium. If my memory serves me well, that was in the spring of 1995.

The redfish stocks take longer to recover than cod stocks. While you can expect cod stocks to rebuild within four to five years, redfish stocks take more like 10 to 14 years. What would be the answer to those people who have nothing as of May 1998?

You're telling that in the case of cod, you are hopeful and you will see, but for these people it's a known fact: it is certain that there will be nothing for at least ten years, if that is what should be understood from the bits of information that biologists are currently giving us.

I'm using this example to try and understand what might happen in other fishery sectors, even to cod, that will not be reopened. The answer is that currently the department has nothing. It has no money and it is not working at its drawing board to develop scenarios. Is that what I should understand?

Ms Tobin: I think that my colleague has already answered that question. Currently, the Department of Human Resources Development, like ours, is not actively working on new programs, partly because there are too many unknowns.

That does not mean that we are not doing up-to-date analyses, but in terms of actively working on this and telling fishermen today what will happen in May 1998, we just don't have the means to do that right now. There are too many unknowns.

Mr. Bernier: One last question. I do not know if I should put this to Fisheries and Oceans or to Human Resources Development. Fishermen whose licences are bought back are automatically excluded from the TAGS and no longer receive financial assistance. Is that correct?

Ms Tobin: Yes.

A member: That applies to early retirement as well.

Ms Tobin: Yes, also those who take early retirement. You cannot receive funds from two sources at the same time.

Mr. Bernier: I know of people who have had their licences bought back. At first that seems fine. The amount is approximately $275,000, but $130,000 of that is taken in taxes. It would appear to be $140,000 but that person can no longer benefit from the TAGS program and he is 58 years old. What is he going to do to get to 65 years old? He has $145,000. At today's interest rates, he doesn't have much. If I were in his shoes, I would have been better off staying with TAGS.

Ms Tobin: That is a voluntary choice that he made. The licence buy-back was a voluntary program and all the conditions were very clearly stated. Someone who applies for licence buy-back does it voluntarily. Second, if their offer is accepted, when the offer is received, that person has the right to accept or refuse.

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Mr. Bernier: You have spoken extensively about the number of licences that were bought back, but how many fish were those people landing? Given that you do not have much money, I imagine that you have tried to do more with the money you have. Was more made by buying more boats or did the number of boats bought eliminate part of the catch potential? If I had a boat, I would obviously bring in less fish than my neighbour who has been doing it for 25 years and knows more about the business than I do.

In terms of statistics, you perhaps were given the order to have the maximum number of boats appear. Can you tell us how many tons these people were landing? We will then know if the number of boats bought back corresponds to 10% of the past landings or less.

Ms Tobin: I do not have the figures with me, but I could obtain them for you. One important criteria in this buy-back program was value for money. For each fishing vessel that was offered, the boards looked at the licences, how much fish those fishermen had obtained over the previous years and they then linked that to the price that was being asked for the licence. That was one of the assessment criteria. The boards tried to obtain the best value for their money and it was based on fishing that had been done over the past few years by these boats. I can send you the figures on the average number of tons obtained.

Mr. Bernier: Earlier on, we were talking about the definition of core fishery. You mentioned that that had been left up to the industry, but you're saying that something was-

Ms Tobin: Yes, that was done.

Mr. Bernier: I would like to have that information.

Ms Tobin: The criteria?

Mr. Bernier: Where are the criteria? Where are they spelled out within the Fisheries Act? I'd like to see that.

[English]

The Chairman: Do you have any questions, Diane?

Mrs. Ablonczy: Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Go ahead.

Mrs. Ablonczy: How many people who left the program re-entered at a later date?

Ms Tobin: In the program that we administer, the F-1, retirement did not allow for re-entry.

Mrs. Ablonczy: I understand that.

Mr. Nouvet: I don't have the answer for that, but I think we can get it and get back to this committee. I would expect that the number would be minimal.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Okay.

Mr. Nouvet: If you're asking for the number of people who we deemed to be adjusted out and who came back into the program later, the number of people adjusting out has been going up. That's why I'm saying I don't expect many of them would have come back in. It's going up, it's not stable or going down.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Will you get that number for us?

Mr. Nouvet: Yes.

Mrs. Ablonczy: We appreciate that.

I understand that people who entered the training programs were required to sign a sworn statement saying that they intended to leave the program once their training was completed. I also understand there were follow-up telephone calls to these individuals to remind them of this commitment and to remind them that they were not to re-enter the program or to re-access the program.

Following up on our discussion earlier, you said the only measure you have of any success of this program is the fact that people could access it but are not doing so. I wondered what role this statement and commitment, along with the efforts of the department to hold people to that commitment, would have played in keeping people who would otherwise qualify for the program from actually applying to access it.

Mr. Nouvet: It's not a national policy to get a statement from people when we send them on training. Once that training is completed they don't have access to TAGS. In fact -

Mrs. Ablonczy: But it was done.

Mr. Nouvet: What I'm saying is that it's not a national policy. There could be exceptions.

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Mrs. Ablonczy: Well, it's not a national program.

Mr. Nouvet: TAGS is a national program. It applies wherever there's a groundfish moratorium, so it applies in five provinces.

It's not a national policy. I'm not aware of any cases where that was done. We talked about early retirement and licence buy-back. There's a commitment up front from clients that they're exiting TAGS and they won't come back to it once they have made that choice. So I believe that probably takes the form of some kind of statement.

We also have something called the employment bonus, which we pay to people we subsidize into jobs. At the end of a certain period of time, which I think is 26 weeks, if they want it we will give them a lump sum payment, which is an employment bonus. They get that against their commitment not to come back to TAGS. So they have a choice to make. It's voluntary, again.

Mrs. Ablonczy: I'm just curious why there's no policy to get a commitment from people being trained. Why were letters sent to these individuals and why were phone calls made to them?

Mr. Nouvet: I'd be glad to look at any individual cases you have.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Are you not aware of this letter?

Mr. Nouvet: No.

Mrs. Ablonczy: Where did it come from then?

Mr. Nouvet: I'd like to see the letter.

The Chairman: Do you have a copy of the letter?

Mrs. Ablonczy: Yes, I do.

The Chairman: Could you provide that to Marcel?

Mrs. Ablonczy: Yes, and I'd like an opportunity to have some explanation of it.

The Chairman: That's right. Okay, thank you.

Are there any final questions? Stanislas.

Mr. Dromisky: Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I see this whole TAGS program as being a gigantic band-aid, and boy, are there going to be a lot of screams heard from the Maritimes when it's pulled off very quickly in May 1998. It's going to hurt.

A lot of thoughts are going through my mind regarding the whole situation. I've toured the Maritimes. I spent a lot of time this summer in fishing villages and so forth. Certain things pop into my mind. I talked to a group of people about customs and traditions, and the whole fishing industry is based on customs and traditions. People say ``This is the way our forefathers did it and these are the kinds of things we have. We have expectations.''

But people are not in harmony with mother nature. In other words, we think these things are going to happen. We expect this because of custom. We expect that mother nature is going to revive and everything's going to be hunky dory. Changes will not take place unless we do something - unless research and education are taking place. Customs will have to change. This is what I'm really concerned about.

I was talking to a group of people and asked them why I can't buy Atlantic herring from the Maritimes in Thunder Bay. Why do I have to buy it from Poland, Holland, Sweden, Norway or Finland? The people told me they would never eat herring. I was shocked that they don't like it. They have customs, you know, about the prime fish, the best fish and so forth.

What research is being done with the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans regarding the other fish that are classified as secondary, you might say, as far as personal tastes are concerned? What are we doing to salvage some of the fish we throw back into the ocean dead, simply because there's no market for them?

What are we doing regarding the seal problem? There's a great lack of protein all over the world, and yet I ate seal meat this summer and didn't see anything wrong with it.

Are we doing any kind of experimentation to help bridge the gap? Are we working with any other ministry to try to help this change take place, or do all ministries work in complete isolation of each other without cooperation?

I've asked you a lot of questions, but you can see where I'm heading. It's a global problem, there's no doubt about it. But if we just keep attacking this problem with these band-aids, the problem is never going to be solved for the adjustment and preparation for the future. Is there any response to the things I've said?

Ms Tobin: I'm not from the science part of the department, so it may be difficult for me to answer, but I do not believe the science program of the department is focused only on groundfish. I think it's focusing on many species, including new species.

It is my understanding that new species have been fished since this moratorium started and a number of fishers are experimenting with several species that are very popular in Asia, for example, but not in Canada. That is happening, and I think our scientific program is covering some of that research. But for a detailed plan on all the scientific research that's going on, it would be better to have somebody from the science part of the department here.

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The Chairman: Mr. Regan.

Mr. Regan: So we have 40,000 people eligible for TAGS, 13,000 who are not collecting and there are 27,000 active claims or thereabouts. Of the people who are out there in active claims, how many are eligible for training or green projects, particularly when this comes to an end? That's the first question.

Secondly, how many people are just on the income supplement and not doing training or other things, or green projects? What happens to them in May 1998? What programs does HRD presently have that can be available to those people if they come off TAGS in May 1998? Obviously the program has been set up to be there in an emergency. You can't put all the dollars you'd like into training because you have to deal primarily with the sustenance problem, and I understand that. But what do you see there when this is over?

Mr. Nouvet: Could you just repeat the three questions, if you don't mind.

Mr. Regan: How many of the people who are out there on TAGS or active claims are eligible for training or green projects? How many will be eligible for those things when the program ends?

Secondly, how many are just on the income supplement? What happens to them in May 1998 when the program ends? What HRD programs do you expect will be available to them when this emergency assistance comes to an end?

Mr. Nouvet: My best estimate is that 15,000 people are totally dependent on TAGS income support. We'll verify it and come back to this committee and confirm it all or correct it.

How many of those are eligible for training? If we have not made a commitment to them - and I suspect that would be because perhaps half of them were not interested in adjusting out until July 22 - our estimate is that we would be able to deal with 50% of those eligible under part II of the employment insurance legislation.

What programs do we have available for them under part II of the employment insurance legislation? We have training, although, as you know, we will be out of training within a couple of years and it will be a provincial responsibility.

We have self-employment assistance. We have job creation partnerships. These are job creation schemes we might develop in cooperation with communities and the private sector. We have targeted wage subsidies. Where a new job is created by an employer, we are ready to subsidize the salary by 50% for a certain period of time in order to encourage that employer to take on the clients. So those are the main tools we have under part II.

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And under the transitional jobs fund, we can help not only those clients who are EI eligible, but those who are not, theoretically, the 50% that are not EI eligible.

One thing that must be said about the transitional jobs fund, because we don't have green projects any more - we stopped green when we converted everything to income support - is that the transitional jobs fund requires a partnership in the funding. Human Resources Development can fund up to 50% of the project costs. The remaining funding must come from other parties. It could be the province. It could be other federal departments. It could be employers. In some cases, I've even seen workers investing in a project in order to get a project going and create sustainable employment.

Those projects have to be developed at the community level. If they are developed we are ready to fund them. That's the kind of help that's available to people.

And what happens at the end of the May 1998 - is that the question?

Mr. Regan: Yes.

Mr. Nouvet: That's a good question. Interestingly enough, when we started TAGS we did a study of the people who were at home and then got six or seven months on TAGS. That ended on December 31 of the first year of TAGS. Less than 10% of them went on to social assistance. The rest found ways to earn alternative income. I think that people can adapt if they're given sufficient notice.

The Chairman: I think we have to start concluding here. Do you have an answer, then, on the workforce adjustment and -

Mr. Nouvet: Yes, I do. It's just a question of finding it. I had it here a second ago. Excuse me. This happens to me all the time, but it shouldn't take long to find it.

That in a way answers part of the question on what happens to people who remain on TAGS at the end of the day, at the end of May 1998. Under the employment insurance legislation, we distinguish between people who have a labour force attachment, people who have worked or have collected unemployment insurance in the past two years, and those people who have not.

With respect to the people who have worked or collected employment insurance in the past two years, if we look at self-employed fisherpeople, for example, they will need $3,000 in fishing earnings in order to qualify for EI. That's the equivalent of about 490 hours of work.

Somebody who hasn't worked or has not collected employment insurance in the preceding two years will need $5,500 in fishing earnings, which is the equivalent of about 910 hours of work. There is a higher entrance requirement for people who haven't worked or have not collected employment insurance in the preceding two years.

Mr. Regan: I beg your pardon. What was the second figure? It is $3,000 for the -

Mr. Nouvet: For the labour force attached -

Mr. Regan: And then the next is -

Mr. Nouvet: The next one is $5,500.

Mr. Regan: Thank you.

Mr. Nouvet: That's an average. It varies by employment region, but it gives you an idea. If you look at people who are regular employees, like plant workers, if they are labour-force-attached they will need 490 hours of work. If they are not labour-force-attached, they will need 910 hours of work.

The Chairman: How do they become labour-forced-attached?

Mr. Nouvet: You become labour-force-attached either by working or collecting employment insurance.

The Chairman: Or by training.

Mr. Nouvet: No, not by training and not by being on TAGS. And there are no exceptions right now in the legislation.

The Chairman: I see.

Mr. Nouvet: So there's a built-in incentive for people to try to put in as many hours of work as they can, and the people we have referred to who are not collecting TAGS right now are people who will meet the lower entrance requirement.

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Mr. Dromisky: Mr. Chairman, can I get a copy of all those programs he was referring to?

The Chairman: A copy of all the programs?

M. Dromisky: I would like in detail some of the -

Mr. Nouvet: You want to know the difference.

Mr. Dromisky: Yes, the different ones you have listed.

Mr. Nouvet: I could give you this, but I'd prefer to perhaps inject a little more detail into it. We'll then send it back to the committee.

Mr. Dromisky: Okay, I'd appreciate that.

The Chairman: Okay, that's agreed.

Mr. Verran: I have one more thing on that.

The Chairman: Go ahead, Harry.

Mr. Verran: You know, it doesn't really matter a lot when you're in a community and there are no jobs there. How are you going to get into the labour force? Someone from the southern part of Nova Scotia can't afford to go to Toronto or to Ottawa or Vancouver. So if being part of the labour force is one part of the criteria, it really doesn't mean much to a person in the southern part of Nova Scotia when he's in a coastal community with no industry other than the fishery. Those are the things we and the department have to wrestle with.

The Chairman: I think we all remember the confusion that was part and parcel at the TAGS program when Marcel first took over a year ago. We must compliment these people on the things that have been straightened out. A lot of positive things seem to have happened over the past year.

Mr. Nouvet: It's been two years now, Mr. Chairman. Time flies.

The Chairman: Yes, time does fly.

Our meeting on Thursday is cancelled because it's a first reading. We don't get it until after that, so private briefings on the food inspection will be substituted. The department will give private briefings to each party, and not to the committee as a whole.

The meeting is adjourned.

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