Fisheries committee  In the communities that I work for, many of them have lots of young people who are interested in engaging in the fishing business and the community fishing enterprises. One of the challenges is the cost of the vessel. There's also opportunity and the fact that they need to learn and relearn some of these skills, just like they do on the east coast, where they're re-engaging and participating in commercial fisheries.

Fisheries committee  That's a complicated situation. That's a situation that I find myself in, as a person who runs a business that is based on leasing licences to fishermen to drive revenue into an economy for first nations for their bottom line. That's the challenge that I'm up against—providing opportunities for those fishermen who don't own licences and can't afford to buy one.

Fisheries committee  As part of an organization that's based on owning and managing licences and quota for fishermen to participate in the fishing business, I try to buy or access more licenses and quota for our company so more fishermen can participate in the fishing business. I can't buy licences and quota in the current market without a subsidy from the federal government in the form of a grant that offsets the cost.

Fisheries committee  I'd say a very small percentage is still owner-operator. One challenge we're up against is that fishermen, rather than retire and sell their licences.... That licence itself has enabled them to stay on as, essentially, a landlord. They become a landlord rather than an active fisherman and they derive revenue from a piece of paper they had the opportunity to buy because they had the capital at the time it was for sale.

Fisheries committee  Well, fishers who are buying or leasing their access through companies are often either leasing.... They may come to me to lease a licence from my PICFI CFE, for example, and then go to the fishing company to borrow the money. That company then controls the fish. That company is going to tell that fisherman how much they're going to pay for that fish at the end of the day.

Fisheries committee  It's going to take some complex work. One thing you need to think about is this: A licence is an opportunity to go fishing. We can look at it as an opportunity to go fishing, which is what it should be. It's like a driver's licence. You get a driver's licence and you get to go drive your car, because you've taken the test and paid the fee.

Fisheries committee  There's a reason that they want to control access to the food. It's because they know they need food in other places. They want to control it so they can be assured that they're going to have future access and control of those resources one way or another. Through the harvest, the processing or through value-adding, whatever it takes, they're going to control every piece of that action.

Fisheries committee  Thanks. My name is Andy Olson. I'm the CEO of Nuu-chah-nulth Seafood. We're a commercial fishing enterprise that is owned wholly by five first nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island. We're part of the PICFI program. Our company also owns St. Jean's Cannery in Nanaimo. I'll begin by speaking about foreign ownership and corporate control in the Pacific region.