HALIFAX, MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2010

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

5:02 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Becky Kent

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay folks, at this point I will call our meeting to order. This is the Subcommittee on Supply and if the minister is ready we can ask for his opening remarks on Res. No. E-10. The time is 5:03 p.m.

Resolution E10 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $13,231,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, pursuant to the Estimate, and the business plan of the Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board be approved.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

HON. STERLING BELLIVEAU: Madam Chairman, I welcome my colleagues here and am pleased to be sitting here today to talk about the budget for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. In my role as the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, I am pleased to serve the people of Nova Scotia and bring forward our government's priorities which were outlined in the Speech from the Throne on March 25^th and in the budget announcement on April 6^th.

Again, I want to thank the honourable members for attending. I would like introduce my staff who are sitting with me at the table. On my right is Greg Roach, Assistant Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture; and Weldon Myers, Director of Finance and Service and Natural Resources. I can tell you that I have a number of other staff that I publicly want to take the opportunity to welcome here today. There are a number of them behind me and they are not only behind me, but they've been with me throughout the 10 months since our government's swearing in. I publicly want to go on record of knowing that I have a good staff of professional people around me and by me, so I just want to take the opportunity to thank them for their contribution.

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Our government is working to make life better for all Nova Scotians while ensuring we live within our means. We want to create a bright future for our young people so that they have an opportunity to live and work in communities that they grew up in. We are taking the challenge of getting our finances in order and making the right decisions now. We'll lay the foundation for lasting prosperity for our children and grandchildren. Although we have had to make adjustments based on the fiscal reality of our province, we continue to move forward with the priority commitments to Nova Scotians.

The fisheries and aquaculture sector are important contributors to the economic and social fabric of Nova Scotia. They play a significant role in the economies of rural and coastal communities. I would like to take the time to give you a snapshot of the fisheries and aquaculture in our province and talk about some initiatives we have been working on and that we will focus on in the coming fiscal year.

In Nova Scotia, fisheries and aquaculture includes naturally the commercial fisheries, the sport fisheries, aquaculture, seafood procession and fish buying. Over $810 million worth of fish and seafood products were exported in 2009. Sport fishing, the province's most popular outdoor activity, is valued at more than $90 million annually. Aquaculture sales, in 2009, was valued just over $53 million. Nova Scotia is Canada's leading seafood export province.

The affect of the global economy has certainly had an impact on Nova Scotia's fisheries and aquaculture. I just made note here that I was somewhat appreciative of the resolution that the member for Digby-Annapolis submitted a few days ago talking about aquaculture and basically endorsing that particular industry. It's good to know that regardless of our political stripe, we all recognize the difficulties that are going through the economic downturn now and we're all aware of the challenges that we face. Demands for market prices for more seafood products have been quite low in the recent few months, but we continue to work with the industry to market our high-quality products around the world.

The lobster industry exports approximately $400 million worth of product every year. This industry employs thousands of people in many of our rural coastal communities directly and indirectly. Lobster is important to our communities and is also important to our future. We must protect the resources and manage the industry for its longevity and we must continue to ensure it gives our young people a reason to stay and build a long life here in Nova Scotia.

Some of the work the department has done, including advertising and promoting Nova Scotia seafood products including lobsters at the European Seafood Exposition in Brussels and we've also carried out a lobster promotion in Brussels last Spring, which resulted in an increase in lobster sales by 14 per cent.

We continue our marketing efforts in the Boston Seafood Show as United States continued to be one that were key market players. I can tell you, I've been to the Boston Seafood Show as a fisheries critic, as a fisheries minister and also as a member of the fishing industry privately over the last number of years. I was so impressed this year to see that we had a winning team there representing the smoked salmon product that was introduced and they won a national award. I was very impressed with that, I was also impressed with all the clientele. It was a good opportunity to see a number of people that you haven't seen for a number of years. The Boston Seafood Show is a great opportunity and we've always supported that and it was good to see that.

As I mentioned earlier, Cedar Bay Grill Company Ltd., run out of Blandford, Nova Scotia, just took the prize for the top new retail product for its Cedar Planked Applewood Orange & Ginger Salmon at the 2010 Seafood Excellence Awards. I'll give you a little private note - I actually attempted to try that recipe this weekend and it's very delicious on my first attempt. I'm looking at my critics here and I'm sure they've got some recipes that they can share with me too. We'll leave that for their opportunity speak. The awards were held at the International Boston Seafood Show in March and Cedar Bay Grill's retail salmon product can now be found across Canada.

Major grocery retailers have been strategic. They have created partnerships to expand the distribution of their product and are set to begin selling in the United States. We have implemented national promotion programs in western and central Canada to increase product awareness. We have participated in joint promotion market programs with other provinces to raise awareness of the importance of the lobster industry to Atlantic Canada.

Madam Chairman, a Nova Scotia chef travelled to Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto, appearing on TV and radio and hosting a reception for the media and industry with lobster-cooking demonstrations. We have maintained our lobster science fund to assist industry groups in the stewardship and the science that's related to quality and stock measurements. Of particular importance, we have maintained support of the Atlantic Veterinary College Lobster Science Centre to address and monitor issues of quality in inventory.

We are also funding the MSC pre-assessment process for lobsters in the region to determine future options. We certainly have challenged and lobbied the federal government on the criteria for both the short-term and the Atlantic Lobster Sustainability Measures program regarding the eligibility criteria to help all lobster fishing areas or LFAs and the crew members who are affected.

We are continuing to seek change to assist all areas of Nova Scotia wherever possible. We are providing leverage funding to assist all LFAs in applying for and assisting some of the $50 million in the federal funding related to the development of lobster-sustainable plans. Department staff has been involved in many activities promoting and marketing of Nova Scotia lobsters. In many situations, we partnered with the other Atlantic provinces, ACOA, and Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada which allowed us to leverage more dollars for more dollar value.

Last Fall, the staff travelled to China to the second-tier Cities - those cities with seven million to 10 million people - to develop new and potential lucrative markets and we are hoping to see future outcomes for our industry as a result of this mission. The province's contribution was towards funding to support the lobster roundtable which has become the Lobster Council of Canada. The Lobster Council has been established to address genetic marketing and to create a sustainability strategy through the creation of a permanent office and staff. Nova Scotia has a large stake in the council and we will play a major role in its initiative.

The department is providing funding for a comprehensive marketing strategy as well as other marketing initiatives that will help our industry remain successful. A number of promotions for lobsters were carried out including the Clipper, an around-the-world yacht race; a visit for potential lobsters buyers from Belgium, Portugal and Romania; participation in the Atlantic Canada House at the Winter Olympics featuring Nova Scotia seafood; a promotion at the Tim Hortons' Brier in Halifax; and a joint promotion among Nova Scotians, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, Atlantic Superstores and Moosehead Breweries.

Madam Chairman, we will continue to work with everyone involved to ensure prosperity and sustainability of this resource. In the coming fiscal year, we are providing $250,000 for lobster marketing and recognizing its importance to our economy in our communities. We will continue to provide the lobster venue permit with no fee to ensure that our provincial high food safety standards - vendors selling live lobsters roadside are still required to have a permit. Storage conditions, especially on warm weather days, could pose a food safety risk for roadside vendors. The sellers still have to comply with the current food safety and report requirements when selling live lobsters.

The federal-provincial relationships have historically and occasionally been adversary. They are complicated by a number of competing provincial interests relating to the federal jurisdiction. For about 10 years, the framework consists of the Atlantic Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers, and the Canadian Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers. These federal-provincial forums work toward mutual goals on regulations, reform, trade and development. There has been some progress on federal-provincial relationships over this period.

The Atlantic Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers and the Canadian Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers are currently under review for their effectiveness and we will provide our input for improvements to this forum. Provincially, Nova Scotia deals with two DFO organizational units - the Gulf and the Maritime regions which are quite different. We have been and will continue to build stronger relationships with staff and form a ministerial perspective. I will be pressing our interests responsibly, co-operatively and aggressively at every opportunity to support our fishing industry as minister.

Madam Minister, I will work to ensure that the interests and the needs of the Nova Scotian fishing industry - and identify and deal with these necessarily. Many of our concerns affected by our industry are under the control of the federal government. So it is important that we keep the communications open and established between the province and our federal government. I will continue to meet with our federal minister and exchange correspondence with her as issues and interests and concerns arise.

The seafood industry is focused increasingly on meeting market demands for sustainability in food safety. My staff organized CATCH, a major seafood show in Halifax in 2009 to increase consumer awareness for Nova Scotia seafood. This year, the CATCH show will be held on June 19^th - 20^th at the Cunard Centre. I invite all members within the sound of my voice to come out and participate in this particular event.

My department will continue to evolve in the Select Nova Scotia campaign and we will increase awareness and purchases of Nova Scotia seafood and agri-food products in the province. The campaign includes a range of development activities including print, radio and television media and a consumer-focused Web site. Select Nova Scotia has had many accomplishments over the past year and has increased awareness and knowledge surrounding local foods. A major aspect of the campaign surrounds numerous events such as the IncrEDIBLE Picnic, the incredible February promotion which hosted community suppers across the province to deliver our message.

I just want to point out that some of these events happen in our own small community of Barrington, they call them the lobster eating contest. I challenge all my critics here to come out and I'll actually pay for the entry fee, but it's only a small fee. They have it every June and you go and pay a $5 or $10 fee and you can eat all the lobsters that you can during that contest. We've caught on very quickly that it's a simple way of spending $5 and you can get all the lobsters you can eat at a very reasonable cost. You can't beat it. I invite you all to come down and join the contest.

While these are some of the bigger events that we deliver, it is important to note that Select Nova Scotia is part of many other events such as the Saltscapes Expo, the Maritime Fall Fair, the CATCH seafood festival and numerous community events throughout the province. I know the members have a number of events in their areas, but I just want to plant a little seed here; I know it's a good opportunity.

We talk about promoting our own home grown food, our seafood products and I know the Speaker hosts a Christmas dinner every year. To me it would be a good opportunity to challenge all the MLAs across Nova Scotia to bring their own favourite dish - I think it would be an interesting evening to have the Speaker's dinner being hosted by each MLA bringing their own favourite dish. I know the member for Digby-Annapolis has some favourite seafood chowder recipes he may want to share with us later on. We'll look forward to some of his questioning.

As to our department, we currently have many things planned for the next fiscal year for Select Nova Scotia including annual events that the consumer has come to expect. Through ongoing feedback from consumers, producers and restaurants and representatives from the industry, we will continue to promote the importance of buying Nova Scotia products and how it benefits our local producers, the rural communities and our provincial economy.

Programs such as CATCH and the buy local program campaign are effective ways for the people of Nova Scotia to become more aware of the many products our province offers to consumers. The department continues to support branding initiatives such as Taste of Nova Scotia which promotes Nova Scotia as a source and a destination for top quality food. We will implement year three of a five year trade plan focusing on market development and diversification, product branding, strategic alliances, core marketing and target research and information.

The German market will be a focus for value-added opportunities and functional foods. This will mirror the success Japanese marketing developing projects from recent years. The salt fish industry development initiatives will continue with a focus on markets such as Mexico. The department will continue to promote value-added and quality development with a focus on initiative, products, service and technology.

Our department has also embarked on programs to help ensure boat building and the seafood sectors are able to grow and succeed. The Boat Builders' Market Assistance Program helps Nova Scotia boat builders identify, build and maintain new markets and develop a Nova Scotia presence in the international marketplace for pleasure, fishing and work boats. The program provides cost-shared support for quality boat builders to develop marketing materials, product market research and exhibit boats at boat shows around the world. For example, a delegation of Nova Scotia boat builders is expected to participate at the Sea Work 2010 International Show in Southampton in the U.K. in June, with support from this program.

To date, the program has assisted 22 companies in carrying out 110 projects in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, the Caribbean and Europe. This is the second investment of $220,000 which has showcased Nova Scotia-built quality vessels in new and foreign markets. The result has been an increase in sales of vessels and employment in our coastal communities and support for spinoff industries, such as rigging and electronic manufacturers.

Madam Chairman, the Seafood Sector Renewal Program, or the SSRP, helps Nova Scotia processors improve the competitiveness and sustainability of the province's seafood industry. The target areas include market diversification, new product developments and quality enhancement, innovation technology and providing productivity improvements and the third party eco certifications for commercially imported fisheries.

To date this program has committed over $1.9 million in the seafood industry, assisting 22 companies. The Seafood Sector Renewal Program has supported one fishery that has recently received its MSC certification and six more are currently in the MSC certification process. Ten companies have used the program to upgrade their processing facilities and innovative equipment that will allow them to become more productive and competitive in the global competitive industry. Five companies use the program to develop new markets in which they can grow and increase their export potential. The SSRP program supports Nova Scotia seafood processors to remain innovative and competitive in today's global seafood markets.

The quality improvement projects are also underway, using new storage, chilling, processing and packaging methods to improve the overall quality and reputation of Nova Scotia seafood. The department continues to represent Nova Scotia's interests in the development and implementation of a number of federal policy initiatives. The department is working with the federal and provincial department partners and industry to maintain and streamline a modern regulatory climate. We want to encourage investment and foster seafood industry growth and renewal.

Public expectation and demands for environmental protection, food safety and other issues are evolving. As a result, the regulatory pressures for Nova Scotia fisheries, aquaculture and sport fishing sector is expanding. The Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board has served the fisheries industry since 1936 by providing long-term, stable development funding. Since 1944 the board has loaned $650 million to the fish harvesting and aquaculture sectors in Nova Scotia, thereby enabling fishers and aquaculturalists to take advantage of economic opportunities at home, create jobs in our coastal communities and grow the economy.

One of the board's newest opportunities, the Loans for License program that was rolled out last April, has received 115 applications as of March 31^st of this year. The board has approved approximately 70 per cent of those applications.

The demand for the program is still as strong as when it was first announced. The staff of the board should be commended for the quality of the service they have provided to the fishing industry. The program helps finance fishing licenses for first-time entrants to the industry and new species for existing license holders. It will be easier for the new entrants to purchase boats, gear and licenses and for existing fishers to diversify if the options exist. Aquaculture continues to show growth in our province and provide many opportunities, including the development of niche products and certain species in eco-tourism.

Madam Chairman, as the industry matures and becomes more profitable, companies are looking at new places to invest and Nova Scotia is considered an excellent choice for expansion. The department is working to address the number of challenges and sector development, building public confidence in addressing environmental concerns are our priority. We will identify the directions we should take over the next several years for growing the industry and how we can achieve industry with the growth of this sector.

We are working on the development of a road map for the increasing investment in Nova Scotia aquaculture, as well as a plan of action for increasing public confidence in aquaculture. We need this kind of growth and we need to create opportunities for our families and our young people to live and grow and work in our rural communities.

I mentioned earlier here that to me I think it's a good opportunity to again point out the resolution from the member for Digby-Annapolis that was tabled a few weeks ago. I was really paying attention to that and when you read this paragraph about the potential growth for aquaculture and know that you have your critic's support, to me that is really a compliment. I just want to make sure to get that on record and hopefully we'll have some questions regarding that.

Madam Chairman, let's turn our attention now to sports fishing. Sports fishing in Nova Scotia is the most popular outdoor recreation activity. An estimated 70,000 Nova Scotians enjoy fishing every year. The sport contributes to the province's economic and social environmental health. We often refer to the sports fishing as a lifelong sport that can begin at a very young age and continue well into our old age. In fact, it is one of the few sports where your skills improve with age and experience gained on the water. The department continues to work with government and non-government partners to manage trout, salmon and other species in a sustainable manner while enhancing opportunities for anglers to enjoy the sport.

Last year, 2009, was the fifth year of the Nova Scotia Sportsfish Habitat Fund which was established in response to requests from organized anglers' groups to provide financial support to volunteer groups on habitat projects and access to sports fisheries. Nova Scotia anglers contribute directly to the province's recreation fishery through this fund. Funds are raised through the addition of a $5.00 fee on most fishing licenses in the province. I am pleased to report that Nova Scotia sports Fish Habitat Fund raised $260,000 in 2009 and supported 19 community groups carrying out projects to improve fish habitat. We are excited about the success of the fund for several reasons; first, it allows the anglers to share in the restoring and the protection of fish habitat and second, it helps sustain the healthy sports fishery in Nova Scotia.

Madam Chairman, in 2010 the Adopt a Stream Program has received a very significant increase in funding from the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission. The Nova Scotia Liquor Commission is supporting the Adopt a Stream Program with a commitment of $100,000 a year for five years and we certainly welcome him as a partner to this program.

One of our programs that I am pleased to mention today is the L2F or the Learn to Fish program. This program educates and teaches the skills our youth need so they can participate in and enjoy our fishery. There are two components of this program: the classroom presentation that introduces the youth to sport fishing in Nova Scotia and the conservation of freshwater resources in anglers' education, and an outdoor lesson that consists of fishing in a nearby lake that is stocked by our hatcheries.

To see all these different programs and how that kind of ties in with our youth, it reminds me of when I was a young fisherman. I remember the senior gentleman in my community, his name was Robert Devine. We all would go out Irish mossing, we were very young, the age of 10 or 12, and Robert would pull up his crate on the edge of the boat and gather all the community children around - probably 10 of us on the boat at the time - and he would begin showing us how to tie knots. I can boast - I've said this a number of times in public - I can tie an anchor knot or a rolling bowline with my eyes shut. There are reef knots, square knots and I can go on at great length, but Mr. Devine, and I picture him there - there was no such program like I described earlier, but Mr. Devine was the teacher and the program coordinator.

I would think that we need to get these programs out there and encourage people. I see a number of events across Nova Scotia - we're talking about catching the big ones, catching the big tuna or the big shark - but it's also about teaching the youth and teaching them how to catch fish on a neighborhood dock, so I'm sure we're going to have some comments regarding this program.

In 2009 we held 33 Learn to Fish workshops across the province. We see this education program as an opportunity to help recruit the next generation of stewards for aqua-resources by teaching safe and angling skills to our youth. In fact, the program is so successful - with the demand outpacing the ability to deliver the program - that we have trained volunteer instructors to help us deliver the Learn to Fish. With the help of these volunteers, who I would like to thank for volunteering their time and expertise, we will be delivering 40 classes in the coming year.

I guess it's a good opportunity to encourage my critics to come out and get involved in their programs because I'm sure that they know as many marine knots and many stories that they could help teach the youth of Nova Scotia something of a legacy that we could pass on, so it would be interesting to see that program move forward.

The Atlantic Salmon Enhancement program - developed in 2006 through a series of meetings with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and volunteer stakeholders - is providing increased opportunities to fish Atlantic Salmon. In 2009, the Atlantic salmon brood stock was collected from the Margaree River, the St. Francis Harbour River and the Middle Baddeck River. This year, 2010, we expect to see returns from these programs and we will be working with anglers to access the contribution to these fisheries.

I want to acknowledge the organizations across Nova Scotia that support the department's fieldwork projects, stocking programs and fishing derbies and much more. There are 72 fish and game organizations, municipalities, communities and watershed groups who volunteer to work on sports fish projects across our beautiful province.

The department continues to provide leadership on coastal zoning management and the coastal zone management framework was the first step in deciding how we would use our coastal areas. Our government is committed to a wise and sustainable use of our beaches, marshes, wharves, waters and coastal development. The Government of Nova Scotia publicly released the State of Nova Scotia's Coast Report on December 9, 2009. The report is the first of its kind in Canada and will serve as a foundation for public engagement and the drafting of coastal strategies for Nova Scotia. In this report the government identified several priorities or coastal issues on which we will focus our efforts. They are: coastal development, sea-level rise and storm events, public coastal access, waterfronts, sensitive coastal ecosystems and habitats and coastal water quality. The State of Nova Scotia's Coast Report is a starting point for discussing the issues that are involved in improving the management of Nova Scotia coastlines.

Madam Chairman, we will hold public sessions during May and June in several communities around Nova Scotia. I encourage Nova Scotians to review the State of Nova Scotia's Coast Report which is available on our Web site and to participate in these meetings later this year. I am also pleased to announce that the fisheries inspection unit will be transferred to the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture as of May 1^st. These eight full-time positions are currently part of the Department of Agriculture. This organizational shift will strengthen the ability of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture to meet these programs and legislation mandates. Seven of the eight positions are located in the offices located throughout our province, with one administrative staff position located in Halifax. It is expected that there will be no disruption to the delivery of service and duties.

The Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture is committed to eliminating agency overlaps, reducing duplication of efforts and increasing efficiencies and delivering a strong, integrated and accountable inspection compliance and enforcement program.

In closing, I want to state that there are great possibilities for the future of the Fisheries and Aquaculture sector in Nova Scotia. The Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture will work hard to achieve the prosperity that we deserve for tomorrow, where our rural coastal communities are thriving and young people have the option to stay and work and live in Nova Scotia.

I just point out, Madam Chairman, I did have the privilege of going across Nova Scotia and visiting a number of different communities and one of the highlights that I kind of point out here is one that I participated in at Owls Head on the Eastern Shore. I think the young fisherman there summed it out. After going out and doing the salmon farm and looking at the cages, they actually gave me an opportunity to drive the boat, which I hadn't done for a couple of years. The whole message was summed up when I had an opportunity on the way back to the wharf to sum up that event, the importance of that job. I was talking to a young, 30-ish aquaculturalist who was raising his family in the community and he just summed it up this way - he simply said that the importance of aquaculture was so important to him he did not want to move out west to have to financial support his family. He was very content in knowing that there was a sound economic future for aquaculture in Nova Scotia. He was actually participating in it - he was raising his family here and to me that was a ringing endorsement. So it is a very good opportunity when you have the opportunity to go across Nova Scotia and you meet firsthand with individuals like this. You can spend a lifetime in trying to write that particular story into words but that individual just captured it within 30 seconds when he said, I want to spend my life in these communities and raise my family. I think that was the endorsement.

Madam Chairman, I continue to say that we will work hard for the people of Nova Scotia to make certain that our future is bright when it comes to fisheries and aquaculture. I thank you for the opportunity to address you and at this time I'll entertain any questions from our critics. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. At this point the floor will be for the Liberal caucus, with one hour, starting at 5:43 p.m.

The honourable member for Digby-Annapolis.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Madam Chairman and thank you, minister for your presentation. I'd just like to start off by saying that I think you and I, Mr. Minister, might be setting an historical moment here in this House of Assembly tonight and for that reason of you being, I believe, nine or 10 generations in the fishery and myself being 14 generations in the fishery of this province. I don't know if this has ever been done before in this House of Assembly but tonight it is happening and I think we're setting history here. So with that, we're going to do some wharf talking on fisheries.

I'd like to start by thanking the minister for the years that we've been together through the fishery. We both were representatives of fishermen from our area for many years. I knew the minister back many years ago - I just haven't got the right count on my finger yet of how many that was but it was a long while ago. We always seemed to have the same thing in common, that we would do what was right for the fishery and for the people involved in it. That is the way we worked, to the best of our ability. For some strange reason we ended up in this House together, myself a bit before the minister and him after. Maybe after he saw me come here, he said I've got to get there. I'm not sure but it has worked out that way and the minister and I have a lot in common, even from our families' side, not only the fishery. We're French descendants and whether that makes any difference or not, I don't know but certainly the French were good fishermen, or fisherpersons I should say.

I guess we've always made a living from the sea and I'm hoping that many more generations ahead we will see that coming. I'm 13^th generation, my children are 14^th and my grandchildren coming on are 15^th. I hope my grandchildren, my great grandchildren and my great-great grandchildren can survive from the sea and feed the people on this earth from the sea. That's my dream and that's the only dream I've got. Well, I've got others but I won't talk about them. It's my dream in the fishery, I guess I should say.

Anyway, Mr. Minister, I see in estimates that the money going into fisheries is increased this year, from $11.3 million to $13.2 million, is that correct?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. The member asks - basically these are carryovers from the Community Development Trust Fund, the money that was allotted from our federal counterparts. It basically is just a turnover of money. We'll get you that detailed information. There's not actually an increase in our budget, it's just that the flow of money coming from our federal partners - projects weren't completed last year and it's just a rollover. I know that I'm not doing a great job here. I'll give you accurate detail but we'll get that for you and show you clearly how that is rolled over.

I just want to comment - basically when you opened you said you want to talk wharf talk. I don't know if everybody is familiar with that phrase or not but that is a very open - I can put my pen down here now and put all the budgetary numbers away and we can have a wharf talk. It is interesting that our paths - I think I'm going to jog the member's memory now - I think our paths first crossed back in 1983. We drafted the first terms of reference for the first Lobster Advisory Districts in Canada, which were 34, back in 1983, if you remember drafting the terms of reference for the Lobster Advisory Districts. I think that was our first participation and we were on that committee at the time. We also were involved in the Donald Marshall decision and I think we were chosen one of the four or five fishermen across Nova Scotia to come up with an interim solution to that situation, and we did.

I noticed you mentioned about the timing of my presence here in the House. On your first attempt you may not get what you want, but I can tell you that I took the walk along the beach and I think I have the same impression of the fishery that you do, that you want to make sure - whether it is 12 or 13 generations before you - that you want to know that when we have our opportunity at the helm, we want to be able to pass this industry on to the next generations in better condition than we received it. That was the full intent of the reason why I took the walk along the beach and I said, I want to do this, I want to have an opportunity to make a difference. I think that all of us around here, collectively, we can make that difference.

I can give you a number of examples that I think you'll be aware of. The Loans for Licenses, that was an initiative, that was a lot of work and if you go back to the terms of reference in 1983, and some of the things around that, we were actually talking about the terms for loans for licenses back then. It has actually been decades to achieve it, but that was achieved last year through the work of a lot of people, including yourself, and all members from all different political Parties and it was accomplished.

I am a firm believer of - we can put these documents away and talk wharf talk, we can achieve things here tonight and we can achieve things in the future by having that direct link to our fishing industry and knowing what is the right policy to put forward. I'm confident that we are going through some of these difficult issues, as you can appreciate, and our lobster industry is one of our main economic forces. I'm confident that we can address some of the things are we are in the right position to make a difference. Thank you.

MR. THERIAULT: Thank you, Minister. I want to read something here. In your platform, Mr. Minister, you used to challenge Ottawa to assure these fishery policies reflect the needs of the independent fisherman. First of all, I want to talk about the new council that has been set up - I believe the province is involved in it - the new council for marketing lobsters. We don't hear too much about it, we just keep hearing that it's being set up, being set up, that's all we've heard. We've heard it at the minister's conference.

Maybe you could give us a little rundown of just how that is going. I know that the province has supported that. Where are they and what is their goal going to be? Do we know that?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and to the member - first of all the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture has committed $100,000 over two years to this council. The council is up and running. I can tell you that I met with the chair of that particular board and in the last month, if I can back up roughly 60 days, there was a putting together of their executive and their chairman and picking the executive for that committee.

It is getting off the ground and they have met. Geoff Irvine, I believe is the gentleman's name who is leading that, and we've had meetings - I've met with him, I think twice in the last 60 days. So it's getting off the ground and they're working with - as I say, I met personally twice with them, so this committee is up and running and our staff most recently met with him today. So it's an ongoing process and I know that the member may be anxious, as myself, to see some development. To me, I don't want to speak for them, but I really believe that they are starting to look into different ways of promoting lobsters and marketing, and more of a long-term approach, but I think you're going to see some announcements from them in the near future.

MR. THERIAULT: Is this council going to be looking at markets around the world and what they're doing? For instance, I mean I've read a few reports and I've had other reports told to me and given to me, that the price of lobsters around the world hasn't changed a whole lot since 2006-07. I won't mention any prices but as a fisherman you can only imagine what some of them are. A lot of fishermen have gotten hold of these reports. So I'm just wondering if this council is going to be looking into the markets around the world and giving a report of how much they've increased or decreased in the past four or five years? Would that be something on their mandate?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Yes, this particular lobster council will be looking at the marketing strategy for all the different markets around the world. They'll be looking at new opportunities and they're in the process of meeting with all the different processors and stakeholders in the fishing industry as we speak. This is Atlantic-wide. So there's a lot at stake here and I'm very familiar with the price, but I also am aware that we have a very strong Canadian dollar now. In fact, it's in par with our U.S. friends.

I've said this a number of times since being elected here, is that this is not our grandfathers' fishery anymore. We've been so reliant on, dependent on that American market that we've faced this in the last two or three years. When their economy went through a crisis, we suffered from it and this is a slow process of picking ourselves up and what I can say is that there is a strong indication, as you know, the southwest district right now, District #34, is in the height of its season and there are very strong indicators that the stocks are healthy but, yes, they are going through an economic issue regarding soft prices. I think people are cautiously optimistic that they know that this lobster council - and there's other technology out there too, not only the marketing. There are new technologies where processors can move products to new countries for the first time by having some of these holding facilities that are new for traveling on air cargo and at sea.

So to me, there are some opportunities, it's on the horizon, and when we get out of this economic spin that we're in, I feel that we're going to be in a very strong position and we're going to capitalize on that. If you look over the last 150 years, there was an individual in Wedgeport, his name was Donnie Jacquard, a retired school teacher, who put together the history of the lobster industry over the last 150 years. If you had the opportunity to read that, you would see the peaks and the valleys of markets, the prices, and it has been consistent for 150 years - these peaks and valleys. I think one of our problems is that we're so reliant on the American market, when something happens there, we feel the effects immediately.

So by having this lobster council, I'm confident once they get different markets established around the world, it can only benefit our industry and with this new technology coming on and how we can transport that, it can only benefit. So, to me, we're on the eve of going through and seeing this new horizon where we can have the benefits of all the things that we just talked about earlier, and the industry is in good health. The biomass that's out there is healthy and when this economic crisis rebounds, I think we're going to have some positive feedback from that.

MR. THERIAULT: Yes, I just read this past few days that there is a new shipping line, Maersk and they are teaming up with - I forget the name now, I won't even mention it, but they're talking about putting aqua containers aboard ships and shipping them across to Europe. It would be a less expensive way to ship lobsters and that would be a plus, too. I believe that is taking place now, as we speak.

Another thing more that I wanted to touch on, and I touched on this so much that probably if you looked back in Hansard, it certainly has been touched on every year and it is not seals yet, that's coming. (Laughter) It's processing. For years and years, a lot of our lobsters go to the live market - we know from Nova Scotia to Europe somewhat, but mostly to the United States. But there is a lot that leave this province to the canneries. That's been a big issue, especially down in western Nova Scotia - a lot of lobsters there that are caught end up in the canneries, either going to P.E.I. or New Brunswick. The fishermen always ask and I've always asked - I know there was a plan in Meteghan and I've heard just lately that there may be a processing plant going into Meteghan, right away, which was good news to me. Probably, we would use a lot more around the province.

Do you know of anything? Have any applications come in to the Department of Fisheries about a processing plant , not only in the western part of the province but anywhere else in the province?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Madam Chairman, I can tell you that there is a processing plant in my hometown in Shelburne County, at Lockeport. There is a processor there but they actually use high-pressure air - they literally blow the meat out with high-pressure air - and I think there is one in Wallace and in Caribou. So there are some of these facilities around Nova Scotia.

I understand your point about shipping out and that is one of the things that I've struggled with and I have raised that with some of the processors across Nova Scotia. You asked me about applications and I don't want to get into the details but I think there is some interest out there, generally, about that. If you look over the last 10 or 15 years, we've increased the production that's sent toward the canneries, because of the gluts we have in our catching capacity in the first three or four weeks of our season. This is something that has always been troubling to me, personally. Why are we not creating that work in our coastal communities where that product is being brought ashore? I think that there is interest out there now, but I think you have to allow that to happen freely within that industry.

Again, I think our industry is not our grandfather's fishery. So if we're moving toward this high-tech capacity about how we can move product to foreign markets, I think the industry knows that we cannot continue doing the things that our grandfathers did two generations ago - just simply put them on the back of a truck and expect to get the best price in the Boston or New York market. That is a recipe for disaster. We've been very successful, we've benefitted from it, but if you look over the past 40 or 50 years, we've benefitted from it when we had a weak Canadian dollar. Whenever you get a strong Canadian dollar like we have now and you get a recession that we're in, you're in for some difficult times and that's exactly what we're going through.

But I do think that the industry has evolved in the last 10 or 15 years where we have a tremendous amount of holding capacity. We also have a global market and the people are looking at expanding their own markets. Where they were looking at probably Boston or New York before, now they're looking at markets in China or other Asian countries. They're participating in conferences, in different food shows and different opportunities, so there is a lot of attention about how we can take a very good product that we have and we can promote that around the world. I think that evolution is going on as we speak.

Our province, our federal counterparts and our neighbouring provinces have also endorsed that concept about needing to promote and market our products, lobster or seafood products, around the world and do a better job at it. So all that effort is being focused on our natural resources and I think that we're going to see the benefits as we move forward in the new few years.

It is going to be exciting. I looked at my opening remarks and when you talk about a second tier city in China, of between seven million and 10 million people, to me that is a considerable amount of people. To know that there are opportunities that you can bring different fish products in there, and the other one that has always interested me is going out and creating some new products, products that are not being utilized. The sea cucumber is one, the hag fish or "slime eel" is another one. There are opportunities there to get people working and getting new products. It is a slow process, but I'm confident that we're going to benefit in the near future.

MR. THERIAULT: I just wanted to talk on license fees for a moment. I know it is federal, but you stated that you would be going to Ottawa to deal with the federal minister every chance you got, to make sure policies were right for the inshore fisheries, especially. License fees, especially in the lobster fishery - and I haven't to tell you one thing about them, I know you know, but it has got to be stated - there is a big variation in some license fees, the yearly renewal fees, to the federal government, for this fishery.

It is something that I hear day in and day out, you know, when you got a fishing area next to you that does just as well as you are in your district, and one is paying 200 or 300 bucks and the next one is paying a couple of thousand bucks. I hear that in the area where I live, that's why I bring this up. I'm sure all over Atlantic Canada, it must be the same thing in the inshore lobster fishery and probably not so much in the groundfishery, but in the lobster fishery I hear it all the time.

What are the chances of you taking this issue to the minister in Ottawa and getting this policy at least clarified or changed, if possible, so the inshore sector is treated equally, especially if they're in the same sector? That's been an ongoing issue, as you know, Mr. Minister, for quite some time, but it never seems to get changed. It's been threatened. I mean, there was a group that went to Ottawa one time with all the licenses out of LFA 34 and dumped them on the Parliament floor, about five mail bags full of license fees, and that's as far as it went. They all got mailed back to the owners. (Laughter) So, anyway, it has been ongoing for quite awhile. What are your thoughts on that?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to tell the member opposite that our department, with myself, have asked Minister Shea to review that particular policy and we continue to ask. I also have met several times with my counterparts across the provinces. Taking over this job, that's the first thing I asked about, that I felt that we need to meet more often. That's one of the things that I keep emphasizing, that our province's neighbouring communities should be meeting more often to bring these issues forward more aggressively. We've asked the minister for a review and I can go back . . .

I actually went to Ottawa back as a private fisherman when this licence structure came out. I made a presentation before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, and I remember - I think it was Gardner Pinfold that created that structure. At the time, if my memory serves me correctly, a neighbouring province in Atlantic Canada could hold the same package of licences as in Nova Scotia, or particularly southwestern Nova Scotia, and the cost would be one-third less than in southwestern Nova Scotia. I think there were some guidelines in there saying that the policy would be reviewed within five years, and that's been a good number of years ago, if not 15 or a good 10.

I've heard this a number of times, and I think I agree with you. When that snapshot was taken by Gardner Pinfold 15 years or 20 years ago, it was a time when southwestern Nova Scotia or the opportunities for the crab fleet or the lobster industry - when they were in the most successful period and they were making some big dollars. So the snapshot was taken, and saying, well, if you're making $100,000 or $200,000 with that licence, you should be able to turn back $500 or $600 or $1,000 or $2,000 to the general revenue. That was the concept, and back then it was basically getting the house in order and everybody was talking about user fees and all this.

So basically everybody who was involved in the industry had to pay a fee, but what I thought what we were unsuccessful in arguing - there was no consistency about a lobster licence in southwestern Nova Scotia compared to Newfoundland or wherever, and that there has to be a review. As you know, there are sectors that have gone up since the last 15 years, and I think they're entitled to a review of that policy. As I have said, we continue to bring that to the minister's attention, and we'll continue to move that forward.

You alluded to the fact about challenging the minister, and to me this is something that we can work together collectively, and there's the challenge. If you have all your Atlantic Provinces working together and demanding that that should be reviewed, then to me there is the proactivity about challenging. People have actually raised that question to me - what do you mean by challenging the minister? - and here is a classic example. I think you can have a lot of co-operation from the other Atlantic ministers, saying that there are some flaws in this system and it's time to have this fee structure reviewed. To me, that's a classic example where you can go out and simply challenge the minister.

MR. THERIAULT: I want to touch on the licence issue here. Probably the minister remembers back in 1995 when we all gathered in Dartmouth over there for a week in a hotel convention room with all sectors of the fishery, and we came up with a plan for core licensing where there would be core fishermen. To be a core fisherman, you had to have so much percentage of your fishery, your livelihood, coming from the fishery, and you had to hold a major licence.

This past two or three years, I've had some older fishermen come to me and thinking about retiring - they're 60 to 70 years old, in that area. Mostly they hold a groundfish license, inshore groundfish licenses - longline, handline - with them always thinking, Mr. Minister, that one of those licenses was a core license. When they go to sell their license and their boat, they're going to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is saying you can't sell that, that license has to die with you.

How this mixup has ever happened, I don't know and I don't know how many there are out there. I know in the past year or two several individuals have come to me with this problem, thinking that they had a core license. Mr. Minister, you know how the core license works; I don't have to explain that to you. They are saying that these licenses aren't core, that one of them isn't core, handline and longline. That license, they call it a B license or whatever but it's got to die with him. So how this ever worked that they never became core fishermen and they were fishermen all their lives is a mystery.

They can't seem to get any answers out of licensing here in Nova Scotia, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' licensing can't seem to tell them. All they seem to know is that you never became core, you never had enough income to become core. Things like this they are being told and they are confused. Here they were, ready to sell their license for what little they could get out of it - it wasn't much - but now they realize that this license has to die with them. When they die, that license dies and it is done. I don't know how many that is going to take out of the inshore fishery of Nova Scotia. I think that's a question that needs to be asked federally, to find out how many licenses these are. Can you elaborate on this any?

MR. BELLIVEAU: You are raising a very interesting issue here. Actually we are in negotiations or discussions with the federal minister, not exactly what you've described. But in general, we are having a general discussion about one of the mechanisms about a fisherman having a license and the opportunity for fishermen to purchase a license; a lease-to-buy arrangement. Something that is more flexible than what we're talking about, the loan license that I described in my opening remarks, to have more flexibility.

I raised this with the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans during the last ministers' conference. The scenario goes something like this: a senior fisherman in the community is interested in selling his license and there may be a young fisherman in the community who would like to purchase that license, or lease-to-buy over a period of time. Right now under the present policy, that is not allowed to happen because you all know about the trust agreements arrangements that are presently under review by the minister. That is something we would love to have a discussion about and to be able to have that flexibility, to allow that scenario to go forward.

The point that you are raising about core licenses, I think that each one of them has to be identified on a case-by-case basis. There is some confusion here. I know what a core license is and I was actually at that conference back in 1995. I know that the inshore fleet - especially southwestern Nova Scotia - went to great lengths saying that they only had handline licenses. They basically lived all their life, for generations - they should be core license holders. I came away from there convinced that they would be recognized.

Not to confuse things here but I know that some people have raised the issues about a B lobster license, and we all know the guidelines and the rules put on a B lobster license that basically allows that license to die with that individual. The core license issue - you're raising an interesting point and I think that goes back to the initial question that I asked the federal minister, that we need to come up with mechanisms of getting these licences in the hands of the next generation. It has to be a method where there is no interference; it will have to be an opportunity for people in our community to benefit, for our communities to benefit and not to be a roadblock or hindrance, to allow this to happen. We're having discussions, and if the member has details about these scenarios I think we need to bring them forward to the minister at the appropriate time.

I'm convinced that we're going through this and we got here for a reason, and I'm being very up front here. I think the reason is to bring these opportunities forward in a diplomatic approach. These are only common sense policies that need to be adapted by the federal government. If we have the collective support of our colleagues from all Parties and across Atlantic Canada, we're going to make the change.

The federal minister is not going to hold that momentum of support and I've already had that discussion with her. What I'm convinced of is, we need to identify these scenarios that we're describing here and present those in a manner where we have the support of our colleagues across the Atlantic provinces and we can have some influence on changing those policies. That is what I intend to do, and we're here to listen.

MR. THERIAULT: Our inshore fishery, as you know, is bad enough as it is. I'm talking fin fish here. We won't talk lobster right now. I'm talking the groundfishery: haddock, cod, pollock, and whatnot. Our inshore fishery is bad enough, and with these licences, it's limited entry. There are only so many of them. This has all been established in all of our fisheries. If these older fellows, these fisherman who maybe have been at it as long as you and I have, minister - I see it as, if this is happening and it's widespread. I don't know how widespread it is, but I think the Department of Fisheries and Oceans knows, I'm pretty sure they do. I believe that if many of these so-called licences die off with the owners, it's going to make less access for our communities to have access to the fishery.

Our communities in western Nova Scotia, just the ITQ fishery itself, has harmed that area badly. The western area, Digby Neck and the Islands, was a booming place for years with the groundfishery. It had most of the fish draggers of any other area. I don't think there's one left there anymore. Most of it is concentrated down in the corner of the province where you know, Mr. Minister. There are some groundfishery licences left there, and most of the inshore, the lobster fishermen have those groundfish licences, but there are a lot that don't - all they have is the groundfish licences. As they die off, that is less access to the groundfishery for those coastal communities.

This is going to lead me into something that maybe you don't want to hear here tonight, but I'm going to speak about it anyway. Here we are going to let our communities die off from access to the fishery after 15 generations for a bunch of seals out there. Here we go. Eight million seals in Atlantic Canada - pretty close to it. I think that's probably a small number. They don't dare really tell us the true number. Here we are going to talk about putting - what do you call it, they're going to hunt the coyotes down. (Interruption) Put a bounty, excuse me, a bounty on, because they believe the coyotes are a little dangerous - and they did. I mean, they're wild animals. Any wild animal will attack you if they're hungry or frightened. It's just nature. I imagine if somebody fell off the boat out there around Sable Island, you would get eaten too. Nobody is really against doing away with coyotes or bringing them down to a smaller number.

Out in Saskatchewan, they had some gophers out there eating wheat up, eating the farmers' wheat. So the federal government supported them and sponsored them to put nitroglycerin down in the ground and blow them up. Propane - they pumped propane in the ground and lit it. It burnt the skin and the fur right off those tiny little gophers. Not a soul said anything about that. The wheat is growing well. In Australia, they're having a job to golf down there because the kangaroos are jumping on their balls and driving them in the mud. Delete them, get rid of some of them - they're in our way, we can't play golf.

So we have eight million animals out here on the Atlantic Coast. Of course, nobody can see them - they're not jumping on their balls or they're not eating their wheat - so they're all right, they're cute, leave them alone out there. They're just annihilating a few hundred thousand fisherman's ways of life, that's all they're doing. Get rid of those pesky fishermen. That's what brought me to that, what DFO is still doing to try to get rid of the inshore fishermen, and it's our fault because there's no fishery out there.

Well, Mr. Minister, there's nobody out there fishing inshore anymore. There are no fishermen out there. They still have their licences - they're trying to get rid of them - but there's nobody catching the fish because there are no fish there. I don't know how these animals out there are surviving, I really don't. They're soon going to be eating each other, at least. I think that's what's wrong with our coyotes here in the province: they've run out of rabbits. They eat rabbits and they've run out of them. The deer are getting gone, so they'll attack anything that's warm blooded and on two feet or four legs - it doesn't matter, they're going to try to survive.

We don't mind talking about a bounty put on them to bring them down to a proper balance where they can be handled - bring the gophers down to a proper balance where they can be handled, bring the kangaroos down to a balance where they can be handled. But when it comes to seals out here eating up our livelihoods in Atlantic Canada, we can't touch them. So what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of the Paul McCartneys of the world who think they're cute? Where's Paul McCartney with the kangaroos? What are we afraid of here, to go out there and have an all-out cull on these animals?

Mr. Minister, I don't want to put you in a position here because you haven't really got the say on it, but the federal minister in Ottawa has. I hope this can be part of your negotiations, to bring this problem to her. I didn't even really want to talk about this tonight, because I'm sick and tired of talking about it. I haven't spoken of it yet in that House in there, in the Chambre, this year. (Interruption) Well, you're hearing it tonight, because nobody listens to what goes on in here anyway, so it doesn't make any difference, but it's an issue, it's a big issue. We're talking about the livelihoods of human beings in Atlantic Canada and we're giving it up for animals.

Now that's not natural, that's not human - but by God, we'll kill the weasels, we'll kill the mice, and we'll kill the kangaroos because they're stopping somebody's golf game in Australia, but we won't try to reduce a group of animals so that we and our families can continue to make a living after 15 generations here. I don't know whether that was a speech or what it was, but I want to know, Mr. Minister, if you're going to bring this up to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa. That's my question.

MR. BELLIVEAU: You raise an issue that's certainly dear to a lot of people in coastal communities where they have a different perspective of it than some of the other people across Canada, but I can assure you from the minister and my background in the fisheries, I'm very well aware of this issue. Again, I raised this with the federal minister, and I continue to raise this with the federal minister, that we need to not only - and it was good to see the minister and our political colleagues in the House of Commons a few weeks ago, if not months ago, literally endorsing the industry and consuming seal products in the cafeteria in the House of Commons.

To me, when I first came here, and I'll be very blunt here - you talk about being frank and wharf talk, and we're almost at that stage. I was literally challenged by a constituent of mine saying, Mr. Belliveau, congratulations on your success in being elected to your Party. He said, I understand your background, but I'll tell you one thing - you will never have your Party endorse a seal harvest in Nova Scotia. I said, well, I thank you for your comments and I look forward to being elected.

That was back in 2006, and if the member opposite can remember, there was a resolution that was introduced in the House back, I think it was in 2007, and it was for a humane seal harvest for access to Hay Island - I think the member opposite from Digby-Annapolis introduced that. I remember talking in great length, one of my first discussions, and endorsing that resolution. It went through the House with unanimous support and it's interesting to note that back this Fall there was an amendment to the Wilderness Act that came through my department, the other hat that I wear as the Minister of Environment, to have access to Hay Island. It was interesting to watch that debate and just to reflect back to what that individual told me, and I remember him saying that you will never have your Party, your colleagues, support that.

Knowing that that resolution went through unanimously, that we had an Act, the Wilderness Protection Act - I believe it was Bill No. 50 when it was introduced and passed through. It went to the Law Amendments Committee, and it was an interesting turn of events because the Progressive Conservative Party, when it went to the Law Amendments Committee, had a split caucus. Okay, I understand that, I understand how things can happen, and when it came back to be passed through the House - and I thank the member for Digby-Annapolis for supporting it, and his caucus - it was supported by the Liberals, it was supported by our Party, but it was rejected by the PC Party.

To me, that message has to go out to coastal communities in saying we all know the history of the 10 million seals, how that population has tripled in the last two or three decades. I can stand here and talk about when I go down on the wharf and talk to the fishermen, knowing that when they went out in the summer for what little bit of groundfish they have left, they go halibut fishing and they have halibut that comes up - it's a prize fish of $6 or $7 a pound - that literally looks like an apple core after the seal have mangled or have their turn at taking their food source from that halibut which would be $5 or $6 a pound for that fisherman. To know all this and to know why that bill, that access for Hay Island, Bill No. 50, was not unanimously passed through this House, I have to stop and have to re-evaluate and I have to try to explain that to myself and to the residents of Nova Scotia.

I am also convinced that by meeting with Madam Shea and telling her that we do have the support of this government, we do have the support of what I just laid out here about the honourable member for Digby-Annapolis and all the work he's done. To me, there is some confidence moving forward. I also can share that same support from the members across our neighbouring provinces of the Maritimes.

There is some work that needs to be done when it comes to marketing of this seal product and we are there. We're committed to doing that, but to me it's the work that we need to do with our federal - again, this is federal jurisdiction, and I'm very familiar with the bounty. There was a bounty on seals back in, I believe, the late 1960s, early 1970s that was eliminated, but there was a bounty then. The resource was managed in a very humane way and they controlled it and our fish was plentiful.

I think if you talked with a lot of fishermen they have a different perspective of a seal and the population and know that has to be managed when it comes to our natural resources. There has to be a balance, and I totally agree with you that when a population - which you see in the seals - literally has exploded in the last two decades and needs to be managed and be more aware of that. We continue to bring that message to the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and we will continue to do that.

MR. THERIAULT: Mr. Minister, I don't see how it's ever going to happen if we try to wait to find markets for fur or even food. I know it'd be a wonderful food to get around the world to feed people - it's one of the highest proteins on this Earth - and with people starving to death everywhere, it seems to be a shame that this is happening.

I feel, in time, nature's going to take care of it. It's going to be one of the biggest messes we've ever seen on our shores in Atlantic Canada, because it all happened before in Europe. They get a disease in them, same as anything does, that's not taken care of. Anything that overpopulates in the wild is bound to get a disease in them and they'll die off. There'll be blubber blowing up the streets of this city, I guarantee you, when they start coming ashore. Long ago they found a dozen on the South Shore. I don't know what happened to them, but you're going to see massive, massive - I mean, there's 125,000 of those big 1,000 pound animals on Sable Island.

Back 200 years ago there weren't two dozen of them. I've read books of when they put the first people out on that island, to tend that island, to fend the ships off from running ashore on it. He wrote a book, and every day he would go look for a seal to feed the people out there - 150 years ago, whatever it was. He would say there was nine in that cove, 10 in that cove; I counted them all up through the book, there wasn't 100 seals 200 years ago on Sable Island. Now there's 125,000 on Sable Island alone, on that little tiny island, 1,000 pounds apiece.

You could just imagine how much fish one of them is eating a day. I could put away a few pounds at 180, 190 pounds. It'd want five times more than I could eat, that's for sure - common sense.

There's a scientist who sat right here not long ago, a month ago, and I questioned him - I won't mention any name - but he said they're not eating fish, they're not harming the fish whatsoever. I said to him, do you realize that from Halifax to Scatterie Island a fish cannot be processed out of those waters because there are so many worms inside their bodies? When they cut the filet off of that fish, the filet's going across the board. The worms are carrying it. I said, you didn't know this? You're a scientist here in Halifax and you didn't know? I said, it would make you a good project to go study that. He was saying the seals didn't hurt them. This is one of our scientists here in Halifax. Scares me.

How are we going to deal with this, Mr. Minister? You got the world, the big people of the world, the Paul McCartneys of the world, telling the world we're up here beating these little tiny white seals to death with a hakapik, with a big club with a big spike sticking out of it. He's got all Europe turned against us. I think they'll work at it until they get the Asian countries turned against us.

If we wait until there's a meat market or a fur market, it's not going to happen. Nature will take care of it first. I think we need to look into the bounty system. There was a bounty system on them before, just like they're looking into the bounty system for the coyote. They didn't put the bounties on the gophers; I don't know if they're putting bounties on the little joeys there in Australia there or not, but they're going to eliminate them, because they're bothering their golf games.

When you talk to Minister Shea, can you talk to her about a bounty that needs to go on these animals to bring it down to balance somehow, whatever way that's got to be - like you said earlier, it's happened before - or do we just sit here in these coastal communities and watch this happen, with our arms folded, and ask for more welfare cheques? Is that what we do?

MR. BELLIVEAU: To the member opposite, again, I go back to these discussions with Minister Shea, to the federal minister, I'm convinced that we need to have more consultation and ask for more meetings during the year, which we've asked for.

I have no problem bringing the bounty up because I know that my personal view is that there's a population that needs to be managed; there's literally an explosion of these animals. The numbers will back it up. But I do sense that research is showing the role the seals play in the system, regarding our food chains and how they impact on our fishery.

I think we all know, sitting around this table here, that seals do not go into McDonald's or they do not have some catering service bring out their food. They have to have some part of the natural food chain that they're being replenished by. I think it's obvious, and it's quite straightforward. We know they're eating fish and it can be managed in a better way.

My personal belief is that we're going through a situation where we have a resource that is being harvested on a white floe of ice and regardless of how you portray that, or put that into a picture or words, it's difficult to have those images broadcast all over the world and not have some kind of emotional effect on the media or on the viewing audience who sees them - the visual impact that those pictures have. To me, it's a workplace and there should be policies regarding - the federal minister should be looking at ways of managing that hunt in protecting the workplace. This is what we're dealing with.

To me, there are a number of opportunities to go out and do the research and find the markets and support this industry, because it is a renewable industry, a sustainable industry and the population can be better managed and, again, there is a resource that can benefit coastal communities. It's unfortunate we've had this media blitz that shows the other side of it and these are some of the things that we're managing with.

Again, I'll go back to all these points that we've raised here today with our counterparts across the Maritimes. If we collectively bring that forward to the honourable minister and her department, I think we can have some impact. That's entirely what I intend to do, and that's our strategy moving forward.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: To the member for Digby-Annapolis, there's just shy of a minute left for you.

MR. THERIAULT: I just want to end by saying, the farmers out west didn't wait to find a meat market for the gophers or a fur market. I'm sure we're not going to wait to find a meat market for coyotes that are harming people. So, Mr. Minister, I don't think we can wait to find a meat market or a fur market for these animals in our Atlantic waters that 99.9 per cent of the people don't understand one bit. But you and I do, Mr. Minister, we understand and we have a lot of people out there who have tried to make a living amongst them that understand them too.

So we can't wait for meat markets or fur markets to do something about this imbalance in our coastal waters of this province. Thank you.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Argyle.

HON. CHRISTOPHER D'ENTREMONT: It's a pleasure to spend a bit of time on the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. I will be sharing my time with the member for Cape Breton West in about one-half hours' time, so just to warn the minister, I'm not going to be at him too long on this one.

I do want to pick up this last discussion around seals. I might as well because I think the member for Digby-Annapolis was doing a fine job of representing his views on it, which are the views down on the wharf. You talk to a lot of people who are seeing animals in places where they've never, ever seen them before. It is called Seal Island for a reason, but you come in through the muds and flats and into the Tusket River system, you're seeing them way up further than you've ever seen them before. That's without talking to the hundreds of thousands of animals that are on Sable Island.

I want to sort of set the record straight here. I know the minister, when he brought forward the Wilderness Protection Act, did not get unanimous support to that one. I think if the minister would have brought in an issue that would have been just about Hay Island, he would have gotten unanimous support. Unfortunately, when that was brought in, it was brought in with a bit of a poison pill which is the issue of ministerial discretion for access to wilderness areas.

If there's ever another opportunity to discuss that on the floor of the Legislature where we will have an opportunity to vote on it, bring that in as a stand-alone and you'll get unanimous support. That was an unfortunate issue and it is one that I continue to explain in my riding, why did you vote against that? Well, I didn't vote against it, I voted against the ministerial discretion in wilderness areas which is one I know the minister had heard in his own riding when it comes to the issue of Tobeatic and the in-holdings as well as the issue of cottages or wilderness camps within that area. Again, bring it forward as a stand-alone and I'd be more than happy to vote for it.

I was lucky enough to be minister for the fisheries for a time and I have to say probably one of my biggest mistakes was to lobby for a fishery when it comes to seals. We wanted to look for a market and we wanted to find products, product development, research and all that stuff. Really, what we should have been asking for is a cull.

It was good to see the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans with her colleagues in Parliament trying these products. They're still very few and far between. They are hard to get hold of, there are not many companies that are actually doing it that I can understand. Quite honestly, apparently, they don't taste that great. Why do we continue to study something that we know without lots of sugar or flour or whatever you want to add to it, probably won't amount to much more.

I'm wondering, within this discussion, can we change it to a cull or can we change it to a bounty system rather than spending thousands if not millions of taxpayers' dollars on trying to develop a product or develop a market?

MR. BELLIVEAU: To me that is something our staff is looking at different types of market - Korea or China. There's a different attitude when you talk about these products in that particular population and it's something we're pursuing.

The previous speaker brought up the topic of - and this is one of the benefits of this exercise of going through this, bringing these points forward. I keep going back to this as something that's really a priority with myself and I know a lot of coastal communities have identified this as an issue that needs to be addressed. We'll continue to bring that forward with the federal minister and I spoke earlier saying that we need to have more meetings and more discussions and to me this is something we need to do.

You kind of made me homesick when you talked about the different islands that are off southwestern Nova Scotia. I can speak from experience knowing that over 30, 40 years that population has seen some of the ledges in the approaches to the previous ports you mentioned. Thirty or 40 years ago, you probably could see one or less than two on a given fishing day; you considered it a normal day. That population now on any given ledge you can see 10 or 15 of these animals so it's evident to all the coastal communities that the population has exploded.

I think that's something that, again, if we have the opportunity to meet with our neighbouring provinces and to meet more on a regular basis, we can come up with some of these ideas that have been presented here today and bring them forward and move forward from there.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: I'll pretty much leave it there on that issue. Again, as I say, the 12,000 animals that the fishery was originally supposed to bring in, we've always had trouble in even bringing in that amount because of the areas that we've been allowed to go and harvest these animals. There's always a challenge of trying to get these things in the water, it's not so much you can kill them in the water, it's the fact that they're really hard to pull on shore, onto the boat. You take a 1,000 pound animal, it takes a lot of work to bring that thing in.

Ultimately, you would have our support in any endeavour to try to manage this population. Again, it's probably one of my biggest mistakes was to look for that fishery or that hunt or that development. We should have been asking for a cull of the grey seal population. A lot of these things get mixed up together where you talk about the harbour seal, you talk about the grey seal and you talk about the harp seal. We have three large populations of seals in our area. The one the member for Digby-Annapolis, the one that I talk about and I know the one that you see on a daily basis is that grey seal population.

I don't know if you have any final comment on that. I saw Greg was taking your ear there, but if you want to say a few comments and then I'll move on to the lobster fishery.

MR. BELLIVEAU: A comment just for the record. I was informed by my staff here that we've had complaints as most recently as this week that seals are in the Bras d'Or Lakes and the seals have been eating trout and salmon in the mouth of the Bras d'Or and the Middle River. The local people are recognizing that more and more of these events are taking place. I'm very aware of your comments and it's something I think we could have - I'd like to sit down and have a discussion with my critics after this session and we could talk about the topic.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Thank you very much and I appreciate that offer and one that I'll take you up on anytime.

Let's go to the lobster fishery for a few moments, one that you participated in for many years. I represent an area right next door to yours so we'll probably hear a lot of the same stories, still a lot of questioning around lobster pricing. It seems like the catch is pretty good, but when you're only getting $4 or less a pound, it's definitely a buyer's market not a fishermen's market. I'm wondering, are there any updates on where we're going with pricing issues, what you're hearing as minister and maybe your advice to some of the fishermen?

MR. BELLIVEAU: I think that the ordinary fishermen are consumed with their everyday efforts of making a living and they may not be aware, but I can tell you a lot of work has been done in establishing the lobster council, Geoff Irvine is the executive director. There's a lot of work that's going to be introduced into creating or identifying new markets. Our initiative is working with the industry in doing some of the China tour and the first phase of that was last Fall. My understanding in talking with the federal minister is something that she was interested in and there are some great opportunities there as you can appreciate.

I mentioned earlier, that there is also new technology that's being advanced as we speak and to understand, basically we've called this our grandfather's fishery and I keep saying that it's not and we need to move forward. Our technology of moving our product, live lobsters, around the world is evolving as we speak. There are a number of companies that have come out with some ingenious methods of - basically it's a reduced or a miniaturized holding system. I think we're all familiar with the water flow that they can generate into a large, wharf box and aquarium. They can literally hold lobsters in that and move a thousand or two thousand pounds in an air freight cargo bay or they can install that and put it on a freighter that can be plugged in and go two weeks across the ocean.

There are a lot of exciting opportunities there for our markets to increase, which I think they will. I think we all recognize the struggle that we're going through, the recession that we've endured over the last two years. I'm confident, or my observation, for what it is worth, I think we're on the tail end of that and it appears as if we're moving out of that.

Because the lobsters and our fishing industry is mainly an export business, we are in direct competition with the American dollar, which is equivalent to our Canadian dollar and any time you see a strong Canadian dollar, it always seems to have a negative affect on our lobster. For instance if there was a 20 cent difference in our American dollar versus our Canadian dollar right now, we would have more than $6.00 or $6.50, which a lot of fishermen in coastal communities across Nova Scotia would be very well satisfied with, or somewhere in that neighborhood, but unfortunately the price is relatively low.

I deal with it every time I talk with the people on the wharf and I was down there for my monthly feed just this week. I said, you want to hold your head up because we have a strong resource and there is a good biomass of lobsters. I know that people out there are struggling to make ends meet. I know of stories of fishermen staying on the fishing grounds when it gives fine weather for the upcoming day. They make a business decision to stay at Seal Island so they can save the fuel or $200 or $300 a day in fuel, which is a considerable amount.

People are adjusting but they're also aware that they're going to have to get through these difficult times and they're adjusting their fishing patterns. They're bringing back the throttle to 60 per cent, trying to reduce that dependency on that large engine mechanism that sucks up the fuel. By just reducing the throttle by 60 per cent, they can reduce the consumption of fuel something like 20 to 30 per cent. They're paying attention and, again, I think with all of these advancements that we're having in identifying new markets, we're establishing promotional ideas with the lobster council, we've got new technology that's advancing and we're going to penetrate new markets. To me, if we're on that horizon where we get out of this recession there's going to be - I'll stop short of saying a bonanza, but there's going to be a benefit at the other side of this and I think that's the curve that we're eventually going to get to and I look forward to that. Thank you.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: The recession has hit our area very hard. Now with the dollar at par or above par, people in the United States aren't seeing the benefit of buying lobster, which, of course, is where we sell the majority of our products. So we do need to look further afield and we do need to make sure that the product gets there. It's good to hear the technologies that are coming along but, again, that has to happen the second that product comes out of the ocean. We do have some boats that use a spray system, but for the most part, they still throw them in an old crate and wait until the end of the day and bring them in. Quality is not there.

The other quality issue I worry about these days is that there are still some fishermen who have not sold all their product yet. You still have people who have their December lobsters sitting in a pound somewhere and God knows what that's going to be like when it finally does come out of that pound, depending on the type of pound system that it's being held at. Whether it's a pond or whether it's a fully filtered water system.

I'm wondering about that product that I know has been sitting around for awhile, how can we make sure that we're not going to hurt ourselves by bringing in bad product? That was a concern from last year, year before when we were bringing in the soft-shelled lobsters and things like that. The same thing can happen by bringing in a sub-par lobster. Is there any work being done on that side of things?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, through you to the honourable member, you're dead on the money here with your observations. I want to commend you for that. Our staff is working with the industry. We've asked for staff to sit down and identify stakeholders across the province and to have an ad hoc committee to address just the basic ideas you talked about - how we can have recommendations we can submit to the respective advisory committees by June 1^st.

This is a very complex issue. You talked about quality grading systems, but these are all recommendations that - what we visualize is having a group of a subcommittee and they're going to be meeting twice or three times between now and May and the perception is they all have recommendations that will come forward to the respective lobster committees in Nova Scotia. In conjunction, working with the newly established lobster council and these recommendations may be dealing with the question of, how can we improve on quality? How can we grade and make sure we have the soft-shelled lobsters coming out in the peak seasons of our lobster season going to the canneries and that we have top quality products that will do the endurance test - going to Europe and that difficult trip they have to make. We want to make sure we have the best lobsters to do that.

I think that if the stakeholders sit down and they put together some thoughtful recommendations, to me, there is a window of opportunity here, this needs to be done. If you look at the time frame, if we allow this to go through to September or October of next year, as the member opposite will appreciate, the window of opportunity will be narrow and it can close fast because the federal DFO has to have regulations in a time frame so they can allow for the regulations to be implemented and put into policy in case they wanted to adjust the season.

Some of these things must be put in place and we're suggesting that the recommendations come forward by June 1^st and move forward to the advisory councils so they can have a chance to be engaged and either be endorsed or rejected or whatever. That's something we've initiated and we look forward to moving it forward.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Just to sort of finish that thought off, a quality product should bring a quality price. Since everything gets sort of dumped together, we suffer from a low price. We need to find ways to get that market flowing and off.

I'm going to move to another issue, one I have brought to your attention on a couple of occasions and thought it might be a good chance to talk about it a little bit. It revolves around the Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia. There are a number of fishermen who have come to my office on this issue wondering what the Fisheries Safety Association of Nova Scotia is and who gives it its mandate and who has given its authority to make the dues mandatory for those companies that are part of the WCB system. I think there's a connection there. I'm just wondering what's your connection to this issue and what are you hearing from your fishermen? I'm hearing that people are not very happy with the mandatory dues.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, we have been briefed on that and apparently that's something that we're aware of, but that doesn't fall under our mandate.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Minister, it does fall under your mandate just a little bit because you are the Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister and you represent a fishery, as well as the processing in this province. It is a separate organization, it is a group that is made up of a board of directors and from that board of directors they are in the chance of setting up exactly what the association will be doing. I'll list off and then I can table these too, if I can get a copy: hire a full-time safety coordinator; act as a safety advocate for the fishery; communicate with industry and provide information regarding safety awareness; develop programs for employers in the areas of accident and prevention; develop industry specific training which can be offered at a reduced rate.

Basically what's going to happen is that membership to the Fishery Safety Association is mandatory for those companies paying into the WCB system. Well, pretty much all fishermen, if they've got two or three guys on their boat are paying into the WCB system. The fee can be anywhere, depending on their premium, from $50 to $200.

The problem that I'm hearing from fishermen is that they really don't know who the mandate came from, who within the LFA s decided upon it, if at all. I do understand the issue of safety and having to make our fisheries better, having to make our industries better, but if it's not your mandate then maybe you should be talking to the persons who it is, which I believe would be the Minister of Finance or the minister responsible for WCB. The best way to get a fisherman into something is to sort of hook him a little bit first, most them into the process. Don't all of a sudden say something is mandatory because the door goes up. That's what I'm afraid might happen here, so I'm just seeing if there are any more thoughts on this one before I move on?

MR. BELLIVEAU: I think what the member is bringing up, regarding the high rates of the Workers Compensation Board, and that's something that the industry is very aware of. To me this has been industry led, it's something that the industry wanted addressed and I can tell you that from past experiences a number of fishermen want these rates addressed. This was something that was led by the industry and has moved forward. I know the fishermen are uneasy with this notice that they're going to be billed an additional $200, but the main goal here is to create an industry that is safer.

I think the forest industry is one of the industries that went through this by having a safety association identified. I think that maybe there could be a lot more media around this suggesting actually what the outcome of this is trying to achieve. The forestry industry went through the same exercise and I can tell you in the fishing industry, where there is a high rate - we talked about the fuel costs here earlier - it's one of the major additional fuel costs and this Workers' Compensation rate is one of the major struggles the fishing industry is working through.

Anytime you have an association that can create more education, a better understanding of how to be safer in the workplace, it's going to benefit. The problem right now is the fishermen are just focusing on this initial $200 and there is the issue. I think there has to be more public relations saying that the end result is that we want to get these rates down. If that was something under my mandate, I would be bringing that one forward, but this is all about making the workplace safer and I think the industry needs to be aware of that.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Thank you very much and that's the point, it is not a bad idea. They've hired a gentleman by the name of Tommy Harper, and Tommy worked with the forestry association, they were able to drop their WCB assessment rates by about 40 per cent, which is about $4 million of savings for the industry.

I am not saying the idea is not good, but what I am saying is a lot of fishermen didn't know about it. Maybe a lot of fish plants did, maybe some other people did, but the fishermen themselves really didn't know about it; they just all of a sudden paid attention when they had to pay out $200. So if there's anything you can do to communicate and then talk to the minister responsible for WCB, I think would be a good one along this one.

Since my time is quickly coming to an end here, one quick thought, which revolves around salt fish - you said you were looking at new markets in Mexico - I've lived the salt fish issue over a couple of years. Just be very careful that you're not going to step on one of the other companies' toes. A lot of these guys have really well-established markets already in Mexico, in the Caribbean, and in other countries, so just try to be very careful that we try to open up a market that has already been tapped by one other company, that we're not going to jeopardize there. So that's just a quick thought there because I've still got the scratches from that one.

The question I have, one that is important for my area is, of course, the moratorium on Georges Bank. You had it in your election pamphlet as well and I'm just wondering what you're hearing about the moratorium because we are what, 32 months away from the expiry of that moratorium, so anything to fill us in here?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, this question was raised in the House of Assembly here last week. My understanding is that the decision has to be made by the Minister of Industry by June 1^st of this year. The particular moratorium does not expire until 2012, if my memory serves me correctly on those dates.

What our government has done is, we've gone out and we're looking to gather all the information to make an informed decision. I think the member opposite can appreciate that when you're in government, you need to gather all the information, and we're in the process of gathering that information and making an informed decision, based on good information.

One of the points that I wanted to make on that - and I'm very aware of the sensitivity and appreciation of Georges Bank, and I can tell you that my views have not diminished one iota. I remember NoRigs I, NoRigs 2 and I think we have NoRigs 3 now, so I'm very appreciative of the sensitivity of Georges Bank and the ecosystem, from the zooplankton right up to the breeding grounds for the sharks, the whales and the close proximity to the Bay of Fundy.

I was taught, or led very early by my father, that in the Bay of Fundy you can go twice as far on a flood tide than you can on an ebb tide, so you do the math. Georges Bank is on the approaches to the Bay of Fundy and you'll soon appreciate why it's actually being considered as one of the wonders of the world. So I'm very aware of Georges Bank.

I also want to point out that being in this position, you need to take the time to gather all the information, that's what our government is doing, and a decision will be made by June 1^st. I think that the member for Digby-Annapolis can appreciate this, if I can press the rewind button and go back 20 years, in a wheelhouse of a Cape Island lobster boat, and look at the technology that was there 20 years ago, you would see a simplistic electronic system, you would see a LORAN system that is more simplistic, you would see a radar system that was probably not as advanced as we are today. If you go into that same wheelhouse of an advanced boat today, you would see a plotter system that you could literally set a trap or an anchor in that bowl of water there. I'm confident, with the people I know and with the ability that they have, that they can literally put the anchor in that pitcher.

The point I'm trying to make here, Mr. Chairman, is that there's been a lot of advancement done in technology, and I think we have to be appreciative of that. We have to give that benefit of the doubt to the oil and gas industry; we have to go out and evaluate that technology, that information. As a government, we have to take all that information into consideration and make the informed decision at the appropriate time, and I think that is what we'll be doing by June 1^st of this year. Thank you.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: One final comment or question with it. I just want to make sure that, looking at the employment situation in the tri-county area: Yarmouth, Shelburne and Digby, that we don't make a decision predicated on finding jobs for people. I want to make sure that we don't make a decision predicated on technology and the way the rig system works today.

What we do need to make sure we're making a decision on is the science, but also not the science of the rig, the science of the seismic. Somehow I survived seismic testing off Cape Breton Island; it wasn't a fun situation. Data is still coming back, but data is data. Unless it is done right, the data can say one thing or another. That is what a lot of people are scared of when I talk to them. They're not worried about having one or two rigs on Georges Bank, what they're worried about is that as those air guns go across the Bank, that they're not going to kill off the fish that are there.

We still have one of the best haddock stocks in the world; we still have cod; we still have flounder; everything is still there and we don't want to affect any one of those little ecosystems that maintain it.

The final comment on Georges Bank is, if you lose a high-flyer on Georges Bank on the outer edge or along the edge, just wait 12 hours and the high-flyer will come back and go across your bow because the water just doesn't go up into the Bay of Fundy and come back down, it sort goes cyclical around the Bay. So, if there was some kind of ecological disaster in the Gulf of Maine, down further off the Georges Bank, that it would be very well contained, but it would destroy what is left of the inshore fishery, what is even further up into the Bay of Fundy and those areas. So we need to tread lightly, but I agree, the science has to come first.

I want to thank the minister for those comments and see if he has any final ones before I pass my time off to the member for Cape Breton West.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. You identified a number of sensitive areas. One of the areas you never identified was the haddock box on Browns Bank, which is to the east of the channel separating Georges and Browns. I'm very familiar with that.

The seismic testing that you talked about, I had the privilege of going to the North Sea and am very familiar with that. I've done a lot of research in knowing that seismic testing is very sensitive to larvae, especially the lobsters and all the different fish species in the area when they are in a larval state, so seismic testing can have an effect on those particular species.

I think that to understand that and to know that there are different technologies out there, we have to gather all that information to make the informed decisions, which we will be doing. I appreciate the privilege that I have, knowing my background and some of the questions that the members opposite bring to my attention, to have that opportunity to bring that knowledge, practical skills to our caucus and our Cabinet table. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. D'ENTREMONT: Again, I thank the minister for his comments. I do represent probably one of the richest fishing areas in Canada anyway. Many of these questions are very important to the people who work day-to-day there. I look forward to coming back maybe and asking a few more questions but at this time, I pass my time to the member for Cape Breton West.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Cape Breton West.

MR. ALFIE MACLEOD: I want to say first it is a pleasure to be here to speak to the minister and his staff and welcome them for an opportunity to ask a few questions. I guess where we'll start tonight is in the line item of grants and contributions. It has increased almost $1.5 million; what was originally $4.8 million is now about $6.5 million. Could the minister please give me an indication as to where he believes the additional grants were going to be used and what, indeed, benefit that will be for the overall program and the overall fishery?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, this question was raised earlier by one of the presenters and these monies are coming from the Community Development Trust Fund. These programs were approved but they haven't been rolled out yet, so it is a matter of timing. That is basically - it is a carryover from the previous year. Thank you.

MR. MACLEOD: Could the minister give us an idea when he hopes to have these things rolled out and when will they be of an advantage to the members of the fishery?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, these programs have been rolled out. An example of this would be like processing equipment that has been ordered and has not yet been installed. When that has been installed and properly documented, then money will be allocated.

MR. MACLEOD: Aquaculture has seen an increase in its budget from roughly $2.9 million to $3.6 million. Can the minister share some light as to where this additional funding for aquaculture is going?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to ask the member to repeat the previous question. I was trying to make a note here. What I was trying to do was get a list of some of the Community Development Trust Fund projects that you requested. We can get a list. I asked my staff to make a list, make a note of that and I ask the member opposite to repeat his question.

MR. MACLEOD: The list would be well appreciated, Mr. Minister, I appreciate that. The question was about aquaculture. It has seen an increase in its budget from $2.9 million to about $3.6 million. I just wonder if you could again outline a little bit as to where you see the improvements being made and give us a little outline of where we are with our aquaculture programs in Nova Scotia.

Aquaculture seems to be the way that a lot of people are moving and it's an important industry and I'd just like to get your sense as to where your department is, why the extra funding. Maybe some of the things that you see happening that aren't as well known to the public of Nova Scotia.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The member opposite is asking for some details and we're asking our staff to supply that to the honourable member. Basically what you're talking about, some of these numbers are again from the Community Development Trust Fund and monies that are being rolled over from the previous year.

What I can tell the honourable member is, as I see the potential for aquaculture, I am encouraged. I've said this and I'll say it publicly, when you know the atmosphere, you sat in the House and when the member for Digby-Annapolis - and I'm just bringing this to the floor here because I think it's a good example of how we're working together. The member for Digby-Annapolis put a resolution on the floor, talking about the potential for aquaculture and the growth of growing fish and I was so pleased to see that because of all the other resolutions in there sometimes; I'll let you form your own opinion.

To me that resolution, that endorsement is a ringing message because there is potential. I'm confident that there is a lot of potential in aquaculture, and I feel that you're going to see some growth there - if not this year, in the next few years - and I'm confident that we're actually experiencing this growth as we speak.

I also know that Nova Scotia is literally - if you look at it on a map, it is location, location, location. Aquaculture thrives on having good, healthy, clean water, a good environment to grow fish, and we have that. We have that in a number of places around Nova Scotia, the approaches to the Bay of Fundy, and we have some nice waters where all these shellfish that you want to grow. I can speak from experience from Shelburne County, to know that we have Acadian Sea Plant up there that's growing Irish moss, employing 70 to 90, 100 people, and it's literally on my doorstep.

We have finfish in Shelburne Harbour, one of the best growing, and I'm sure that the present owners may not want me saying this, but I know in my mind that that's one of the best grow-out sites in Atlantic Canada. They may want to keep that under wraps, but I'm confident that we have a number of these locations around our province. On Cape Sable Island, we have a halibut grow-out hatchery and we also have a halibut grow-out site in Woods Harbour. Those are just in one constituency across Nova Scotia, and I know, as members around this board, as we traveled around Nova Scotia, there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of places where we can locate aquaculture sites, and they can be a benefit.

One of the main important points of aquaculture is that it creates jobs in rural Nova Scotia. If you're going to have an aquaculture business, you're not going to be in downtown Halifax or Dartmouth; you're going to be out in rural Nova Scotia where you have all the opportunities to grow all these species. We have them right across Nova Scotia, on the Eastern Shore and right up to Cape Sable Island, the whole way around the Bay of Fundy, so I see - and some of the numbers came from Aquaculture in Nova Scotia, they're not my numbers - the potential is that they can double in the next five years. So a $50 million or a $53 million industry, to double that in five years, is a considerable amount of revenue and is a considerable amount of jobs that's going to be an opportunity to place in rural Nova Scotia.

As I pointed out earlier, the opportunity to visit Owls Head and the salmon operation down there - to me, the ringing endorsement came from the local 30-something fishermen, aquaculturists who said, I don't want to go out West, I want to raise my family here. So when you know you have that setting, that environment that we have, some of the cleanest waters in North America - there's great growth potential. We have the coastal shorelines to do all this. I think we're in a very good, strong position, and I look forward to the next few years.

MR. MACLEOD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister, it sounds promising - double the growth in five years. Is there any area in particular, any species in particular, where that growth will take place, and is there any area in particular where you see that growth taking place? Is it going to be in the Bay of Fundy, is it on the Eastern Shore, is it in Shelburne, or is there any place on Cape Breton Island?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I guess the opportunity is, like I said - I talked and I almost seemed like I was giving away a trade secret here, and I don't want to be, but the evidence is there - I know it is - that the potential grow-out sites in Shelburne County and western Nova Scotia are excellent. I think that the industry is well aware of that. It may not be out there in the media, but there are some good grow-out sites and good growth rates in southwestern Nova Scotia. I anticipate that you're going to see the opportunities for finfish, salmon in particular, in that particular area. The Eastern Shore, I mean, there's going to be opportunities for shellfish, and there are also opportunities in Bras d'Or Lakes for different species.

We're getting through this awkward stage of introducing aquaculture, knowing that opportunities exist, and going through this trial period of seeing some of these sites, they have to endure a lot of weather-related issues about making sure that they have the strength of their structures to withstand the rigors of the weather patterns that they are introduced to. But there are a number of protected harbours and ports, protected islands around Nova Scotia; we live in a coastal community where we have a lot of natural settings that these sites can be located. It's also an education process that we can share with our communities and we can create jobs. Like the member from Digby-Annapolis said, traditionally, our wild fishery is struggling but there are opportunities here in the aquaculture industry and I think that we are in a position where we can benefit, in the next short time frame.

MR. MACLEOD: Mr. Chairman, it's good to hear that there are so many opportunities. I guess what I'm a little concerned about is that we're talking in generalities. I'd like to know what programs your department has in place to help the aquaculture industry in Nova Scotia.

MR. BELLIVEAU: The member is asking a certain type of question here. What our department is doing is developing a road map for the best places for farm sites throughout our province. I mean if you look at, again, the numbers at the grow-out sites for finfish and stuff, the evidence in the site selection processes will show you tidal ranges, the depth of water that you need for certain species like salmon, and they can show you where some of the works that you need to do to go out and find these locations in certain harbours that need certain depth, salinity, and all these places.

Also, as you move to the Eastern Shore, you're going to see a different structure when it comes to our surface water temperatures and depths of water, and all that stuff can be identified on the site road maps. It can give the industry kind of a leading information base that they can have a lot of this work done for them in knowing what the salinity of the water, what the growth rates are for certain species. So, I think you're going to see the industry capitalize and take advantage of this and the potential is there to achieve this, thank you.

MR. MACLEOD: In at least three of your answers, you've mentioned the salmon, and yet the Salmon Retention Program in the department has been reduced by $200,000. I wonder if you could give me an indication why that would have taken place.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to ask the member opposite to re-ask the question because I just want to get clarification.

MR. MACLEOD: The Salmon Restoration Program has been cut by almost $200,000. It was $525,000 and now it's $330,000. What's the logic behind that? I mean, three times you've mentioned about potential of salmon and yet the program is cut.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, we will get that information for the member opposite, but what that is, is just simply a realignment of money or funds. It's not a loss of money, it's just re-identifying programs, and we'll get that more detailed information for the member at our convenience.

MR. MACLEOD: I appreciate that you'll get the information, but even where I went to school, if you start out with $525,000 and you lose $200,000 that is a reduction. That's not a realignment, that's a reduction, and that's what the line item says. It will be very interesting to see how that comes back and how that plays out.

In your talk about aquaculture, you mentioned the Bras d'Or Lakes and the opportunities that may be there. There have been some issues and problems with the Bras d'Ors Lakes in the past. I wonder if the minister could give me an indication of whether some of those issues and problems that have been there in the past - for example, with the oyster industry and Eskasoni and those types of places - if there has been some change in the challenges that are there with disease?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, the oyster you talk about in the Bras d'Ors Lakes is one of the issues that we've asked to waive their fees, which we did. I haven't got that number; I know it was a considerable amount of money, roughly $46,000 for fees. We waived that fee knowing the difficulties that the industry was going through with that issue.

Again, any time that we can enhance a program or deal with salmon or anything like that - there's a lot of work being done by our department and, like I say, I'm encouraged with some of the numbers and the potential that we're hearing. Again, going back to waiving the fees, as a government we removed the fees for the roadside vending permit for the lobster fishermen who come to town or come to the city who want to sell their live lobsters - and that's only for live lobsters. We also waived the fees when it comes to oysters in the Bras d'Ors Lakes, when that particular industry is struggling. We're trying to address when people have some difficult times doing the right things and we're also doing the right things when it comes to enhancement programs.

I was encouraged when I had the opportunity to go to the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters meeting just in the last three weeks, knowing all the work that they're doing across the province, and it's exciting to know that they've got youth and they're actually doing programs to encourage training youth in how to fish. It's exciting to be part of a department that's doing all the above.

MR. MACLEOD: Yes, I was very pleased when the former Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture was part of removing those fees that were attached to the oyster license for the people of Eskasoni and surrounding areas. I think it was the right move to make, and I'm glad that you're continuing on in the vein of what was there by the previous government.

However, one of the questions I did ask you was, what is taking place? Do we know what the health of the water in the Bras d'Ors Lakes is now? Are we getting closer to the day when we will see oysters back there? Is there any other potential in the Bras d'Ors Lakes for the aquaculture industry? We have such a large volume of water and it's the largest inland sea in Canada. I'm just wondering if there's anything that the minister and his department are doing to, first, help monitor the situation there regarding the oysters, and plus if there's any potential of other industries there and if they're promoting that with the members of the aquaculture industry?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, the water quality is excellent there, but our vet is working with the industry and hopefully they'll be moving forward. I'm optimistic, just like any time we have an opportunity to meet with people in the community or meet with their MLAs and say, let's go out and create this road map identifying places it would be good for, whether it's oysters or salmon or whatever. I think there are opportunities, and again, for rural Nova Scotia, and for people who want to stay in their communities, they want the opportunity to have good paying jobs - these are all of the above. I'm very encouraged with what I'm hearing and what's taking place and look forward to the coming year. Thank you.

MR. MACLEOD: What you're saying is positive, and yes, we want people in rural Nova Scotia to stay in their areas. I guess one of the questions I would have for you is, is there any kind of work being done by the department to find a strain of oysters that could survive in the Bras d'Ors Lakes? Are we working towards that with the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Eskasoni, for example, who has one of the finest labs around?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, one thing that we're doing is that we're trying to get some hatcheries down there dealing with rainbow trout. But as you know, oysters - I mean, this takes time, to make sure that can find how the disease works and make sure they get the right breeding process, that they get the strongest oysters that will survive in that area. That is a painstaking exercise.

We have veterinarians working on that. They have identified with the industry, and hopefully they will be able to move forward. If we do succeed in doing that, to me there are ideal water columns there, and to find the right species that can actually evolve within places, and to me it is pretty straightforward.

I think a number of times we've talked about domesticating farm animals and stuff that society has done. I see that we can do that in the wild; we can do that in aquaculture. It is not a new process. It is something that has been going on for generations, thousands of years, and when you know that you have one of the best grow-out sites in North America with our water column around Nova Scotia, this stuff can be done. We have the expertise in Nova Scotia. These are qualified people who understand how this system works, and if we get the right species, and if we marry that together with the right location, we're going to have a very successful product and we're going to have a very successful industry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Member, you have about five minutes left in the PC time frame.

MR. MACLEOD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe we'll just switch gears a little bit and we'll talk about St. Ann's Bay and the mussel farm that is there and the fact that at one point there was talk of a factory to be developed right around that site. I am just wondering if the minister or anybody in his staff has heard anything lately as to the possibility of that going ahead - again, keeping in mind what you were saying about keeping rural Nova Scotians working in their own communities and making sure that it is a good product. We were told that in St. Ann's Bay, some of the finest mussels in the country come from there. We're told that there's potential of a factory and there was a time when there would be an opportunity for people to stay in the community and work.

We actually had some people come back from out west, from "Fort McMoney", to work in the St. Ann's Bay area with this mussel farm. I'm just wondering if there was an update or if there is anything new that the minister could add to that? I would appreciate hearing his answer on that.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that St. Ann's Bay - is that the mussel operation? I don't have an update, but we can ask the staff to get that information for you. I can tell you that the mussel operation - I actually did that for about 15 or 20 years, so I'm very familiar with the industry. I know that from just reflecting back on that - and I'd always be encouraged by going into different restaurants and different eating establishments now and see that mussel appetizers are actually one of the leaders in appetizers, and to see how that industry has grown over the last 15 to 20 years. We will get you an update on that particular company and what the potential is there. The question you asked, I'll try to get that information to you through our staff. I can tell you from practical experience, the mussel industry is, again, an opportunity to grow and it is a good product . . .

MR. MACLEOD: No pun intended.

MR. BELLIVEAU: That's correct. There are some opportunities there and I know some of the people who have really toiled away over the last 30 years, actually. It's good to go into a restaurant and see that we have appetizers and mussels are leading that particular program.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One quick question and a quick answer, perhaps.

MR. MACLEOD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess one of the things that I want to do, Mr. Minister, is I actually want to throw a bouquet at you, because when you were in Opposition, you talked about the seal hunt and where you stood, and when you became minister you did take action towards that. You not only talked the talk but you walked the walk, and I want to be on public record congratulating you for doing that.

The unfortunate part, it didn't work out the way it needs to work out. I guess I'm just wondering if there are any thoughts on how people can get prepared, starting now and not waiting until the final hour for next year and what was going there. I do understand that the department was supportive of helping some people who wanted to send up a processing industry, but is there anything else? You started down the right road, what a lot of people believed to be the right road, at least. Again, we chastise people when they don't do what they say they're going to do, so I want to be on record as saying that you did walk the walk, and I just hope that there is a way that we can make this work a little better.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, to the member, I think I understand what you're asking here. We have talked with different groups regarding the potential seal harvest. I encourage the members to come forward. It has to be a partnership. There has to be an application form; we have to have something in writing to pursue if we're going to assist in marketing. We want that to be a partnership, hopefully with the federal government, and if there are other partners out there with industry or whatever, but there has to be a process that we actually have a document. We can't simply walk up to a microphone and say, yes, I support that, here's X number of dollars. I don't think anybody would want to do business in that climate.

I encourage the member, if you want to take that back to the industry, and I encourage the industry and my critics to bring forward ideas, bring forward proposals, but we need to have a document or an application and we need to have partnerships to move forward if we're talking about marketing or seal products. That's something that we can also bring and increase the federal minister's awareness that we want to do that. There are opportunities to do that and, like I say, I will not back away from that initiative. I look at it as an opportunity, as working with our neighbouring provinces also. That's kind of the atmosphere where I'm coming from, but we need to have much more than just a yes, I agree, I support that. So I look forward to that consideration and that consultation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired for the PC caucus.

The honourable member for Digby-Annapolis.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Mr. Chairman, you led me right back into the seals, Mr. Minister, where I wasn't going to go again, and you talked about partners of dealing with the seals. I've probably talked to you about this before, when we have wild salmon and we're spending a lot of money on trying to restore the wild salmon fishery in our streams in Nova Scotia and in all of Atlantic Canada. People keep wondering what is happening to these salmon that leave our rivers and try to get across the Atlantic to Iceland and then try to get back and get up these streams again in the Spring and try to get through those 8 million seals. It must be quite a battle, I would imagine.

You talked about partners coming onside with this to come up with an answer, maybe even without looking for meat markets or fur markets. What does the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters think about the situation of the seal population?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, I think we just made note of that. That is the first time that I've been made aware that the anglers are very concerned about the Bras d'Or Lakes and the presence of seals in that area and the consumption by seals of salmon and trout. I'm sure the locals may have some recollections of that, but I don't recall reading that in any of the literature that I've been made aware of. You're raising a very good point, but I think where the member is going is that where you have anglers and hunters who frequent inland waters - basically I call that inland waters, the Bras d'Or lakes and the surrounding areas - and when you see seals documented there, that is really getting people's attention. So I think that's a point that the member opposite is trying to get and if I'm missing the point here, he may want to clarify.

MR. THERIAULT: No, you're taking the point very well, Mr. Minister, very well, because there are other people out there who never mention why the seals are after these salmon. They use different excuses such as aquaculture. I know of places around Nova Scotia where there's no aquaculture around the rivers and there's no salmon going up into them. That puts that idea off the table, that's for sure, but I can imagine those few hundred thousand salmon trying to get through those few million seals. I can picture that, you know. I can picture them swimming into them, but I can't picture them swimming out of them, because they're hungry, they're fast, and they're a lot faster than salmon can swim.

So I'm just wondering what the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters thought of it. I've seen where they - I've read it before in different documents. I'm just wondering if they mentioned it to you lately. You said you met with them a few times, and I'm just wondering if they brought that to the minister's attention at any time, about the seals and the seal problems around our coast.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, what I can tell you is that the anglers have brought this complaint to our staff. They haven't formally brought it to me personally, but I'm aware of that through our staff. To me, the point documented very well here is that these are inland waters, and for that practice to be noted, you know, there is a change afoot here. The anglers are very concerned about it and I think we all need to be concerned about it. Again, I'll go back to the point I made earlier, that all this information that we'll gather at these Budget Estimates is a good opportunity for me to be aware of the issues that my critics are bringing forward, and this is really a good opportunity to be part of that process and to know that I can tell with confidence here that I'll be taking these issues forward to our federal counterpart and addressing them in the appropriate manner.

MR. THERIAULT: It was mentioned here by the member for Cape Breton West that the restoration funding was cut, and you really didn't answer that, but I can understand why. I mean, why would you try to spend funds from this province, from the taxpayers' money, into restoring something, knowing that this restoration will never work until the problem that's taking these fish out of the water is solved? Why would you spend thousands and thousands of dollars to restore something that you know is going to be destroyed? I mean, it doesn't really make sense and it shouldn't make sense to the taxpayers to have to put money into restoring something that you know is going to be destroyed. That's not very good common sense, I don't think, so that would have been my answer to the member for Cape Breton West, why restoration money is reduced to trying to restore a wild salmon fishery until the problem that's destroying it is taken care of. Now, that's my opinion, that's my opinion.

Leaving that, I want to jump to another one: sharks. I would like to talk about sharks, that the minister knows all about too. We've seen lots of them in our lifetime between the Bay of Fundy, Georges Bank, and LaHave Bank, clear to Scatarie Island. It seems like there are quite a few sharks around the waters. There seem to be more than there used to be. I don't know why that's happening, but maybe it's because we're going after them more because of the groundfishery being down and things. I just wanted to bring up, being on sports fishing, do you believe it's a good thing to hold a sports fishery in the shark fishery? I mean, it has been documented worldwide that the sharks are being depleted - not so much here, I don't think - but a lot of these sharks in our waters, like the blue shark, for example, it's not a big shark. I caught one one time - 250 pounds, a good size animal - and I'm sure those 250-pound blue sharks could make a good lunch out of a small seal. That would be pretty tasty food.

So if we keep taking those size sharks out of the water, is it not helping to throw the ecosystem off balance out there? I've been asked that a lot over the last I-don't-know-how-many years, and I really can't answer it, because I really don't know how big the shark fishery is in this province. I know there's a sports fishery involved in southwestern Nova Scotia. I'm not too sure about any other sports fishery that's held for shark, but I'm just wondering. I just want to get your opinion on that, Mr. Minister, and maybe as a fisherman - we're back to the wharf here, aren't we?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, we're involved in some wharf talk, so I just want to make you aware that . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm sure we'll enjoy it.

MR. BELLIVEAU: No, I'm glad you brought this up because I've actually got a picture - I can't use a prop, but I think I can use it here.

MR. THERIAULT: Yes, there are no cameras here.

MR. BELLIVEAU: There's no cameras here.

MR. THERIAULT: You'll have to describe it, Mr. Minister.

MR. BELLIVEAU: I will, here, but you're talking about the shark scrambles and I really think that they add to the flavour of rural Nova Scotia. I've participated or been at several of them, as an elected official, my duties there, and I know that in Lockeport, Nova Scotia, in Wedgeport - and I see this as a great community event that people come in for a day or two, their families come in, and the whole community is alive.

Just talking about the sharks, for instance, there's a lot of information that can be gathered from the scientists. DFO has endorsed it, and that's one thing that I really recommend to the federal minister, to have more quotas allotted to, like Wedgeport and Lockeport, for tuna and stuff. To me, there should be a special allotment for festivals because it actually brings in a lot of community members, people who set their vacations around these particular festivals, and to me - and I'm going to send this around. I'm going to describe this little prop I brought in. This is an old photo of the Wedgeport Tuna Festival back in the early 1950s. It's got an individual there and he talks about the tuna festival. Franklin D. Roosevelt participated there; Kate Smith; hockey legend Jean Belliveau participated in it.

Mr. Chairman, you can't see that photo, but I'm going to describe it. It's got something like a 700-pound tuna and it's got an elderly gentleman - maybe middle-aged, our age if not older - very proud with his rod and reel, and he's showcasing the beautiful tuna that he has captured in that day's event, but also down at the bottom right is an individual, a small child, somewhere around eight to 10 years old, and he's actually holding up a mackerel, a mackerel fish. If you look at the picture closely, I don't know who has got the most enjoyment on his face. I'm considering that the small child has the most excitement.

I've brought that picture deliberately because it leads right into the question that you asked. I believe that these festivals also bring the excitement of our heritage. It's an opportunity to bring people in our communities as a good fundraiser. It shows people how the fishing is part of our culture and part of our heritage. To me, these festivals we all thought were about the older people, the senior people - that's not what it is about. I finally got that after I went as an elected official to Wedgeport this summer and Lockeport and I saw the large group of senior people come in and view the pictures of the sharks and the tunas. I looked at the joy on the people who were actually conducting the festival in parallel to the large shark festival, they had a small fishing derby for the juveniles and for the young in the community that were actually catching the pollock or the mackerel at the end of the wharf. They showed them how to bait a hook, they showed them how to rig the line. At the end of the day those juveniles got more enjoyment out of that festival than all the seniors and all the people that promotion.

It was all about the youth. I finally understood that and to me, that's what I talked about in our opening remarks, that we as a province and we as an industry, we should be promoting more of that. We should be asking the federal minister to have our own allotment, our own quotas when it comes to festival events. I think you can make the case very successfully. You also can take - the seniors should be taking the time, as I talked to about Mr. Robert Devine in my opening remarks, that he taught us. I can tell you a bit, I caught a few fish or a few large fish in my life but the memory of Mr. Devine teaching me how to teach or teaching me how to tie those knots is etched in my memory bank forever. So that young boy that caught that little mackerel, he remembers that event and to me, that's what it is about.

We need to get out there and promote these festivals, I think they are a magnet, they will be drawing people to our community. If we have the juveniles or the young people in our community fishing off the end of the wharves and the seniors teaching them how to tie the knots, how to use the reels, I think it is a great opportunity of bringing some of these exciting programs back to our communities and we're going to benefit.

We talked about tourism, that we want to attract people to southwest Nova Scotia. You can't get a better example so to me, I'm kind of excited about that. I'm sorry if I kind of went off on a little episode of myself but to me, there's an interesting message there, so thank you, Mr. Chair.

MR. THERIAULT: No, that's good, we're wharf-talking here because I remember my first fish, too, as a child, aboard my father's boat, catching a 15 or 18 pound codfish on a jigger and trying to get that up. I thought I had a shark on there. That was a big fish for a six or seven-year old boy - I'll never, never forget. it

I just hope, Mr. Minister, that can continue. If we don't - getting back to the balance out there again - if we don't make sure we have that balance, the right amount of sharks, the right amount of seals, it will create probably the right amount of fish and right amount of fish being caught by humans. That's the challenge, the balance we've got to find. Getting rid of the fishermen, like DFO has tried to do for years, is not the right balance. We have to get back to that balance. It echoes in my head many, many times back in 1995 - too many people chasing too few fish. That came from DFO in Ottawa. That still echoes in my head and that's not right. Getting rid of the old timers, that their license dies with them, a jigger that will catch a codfish, is not going to find balance in our fishery. I'm sorry, Ottawa, but it's not going to find balance there. You can get rid of every hook in Atlantic Canada and it's not going to get rid of the problem, but that's the way it is going.

I want to see my great-grandchildren, just like I said before - I want to see them with a 15-pound codfish on a hook, too, or a mackerel. That's my goal in this place too, Mr. Minister, and I know it is yours. These are the stories that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa has to hear and use some common sense and work toward that goal. Anyway, thank you for the answer on that, that was good.

I want to talk about the loan board for a bit. I want to talk about what has happened here to help our young fishermen. It was a good move, a great move. I know the minister and myself both worked on that. We worked together and talked about it many, many times, of helping the young fishermen get into this fishery, especially these past 10 years or whatever, since 1999, since the Supreme Court ruling changed their fishery in Atlantic Canada. It was tough for the young people to get into the fishery because the prices of licenses and stuff went so high.

The banks didn't seem to want to touch it for the longest while. They were afraid of it, they didn't know where it was going to end up, but there was a vision there, Mr. Minister. You had part of that vision, to see that this can somehow be corrected and it has to be corrected or we would have no young fishermen left in the fishery at all, so it was a great move.

I brought this up before to you and I need to bring it up again. We're on the wharf talking here, we're going to talk about fishermen and the problems they've got. After 1999, the prices of licenses went sky-high. There were a few fishermen who went out to try to get into it. They did whatever they had to do to get into it. They took trust agreements from people outside the fishery, used trust agreements from fish buyers and what not. I believe that as of right now, that is being worked on, these trust agreements. I think there's a time period for them to get out it.

Then you have another, which these people in the trust agreement are going to need help financially to get out of them, I believe a lot of them are. Then you have the young fishermen who went and mortgaged their homes and their trucks in their driveway and their house, they mortgaged everything they had, they even mortgaged their family, to get into this fishery because that's the only way they could see to get into it, they would have to mortgage everything they owned to get into this fishery. They weren't going to stay out of this fishery because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans helped inflate the price of these licenses three-fold, which they shouldn't have been but it happened. It happened because of the Supreme Court decision.

It is correcting itself slowly but you have young men for the last 10 years who got into this fishery and they are mortgaged to the hilt. The banks took on some of that responsibility and they gave them six or seven years to pay back $600,000 to $1 million, to pay these loans off.

A few years back the lobster fishery - you know, Mr. Minister - the price was fairly good. They worked on a $5, $6, $7 lobster and that's what they based it on. Well, if they sold all the lobsters they were catching for the next six or seven years and off love itself - they never had any money to live off - they could make these huge payments of $100,000 or $120,000 a year, plus interest. They could swing it if they didn't take anything out of it.

Then the market got bad these last two or three years. You know, I'm telling you everything you know anyway but I need to tell the story again to try to get an answer out of this. So here you have a group that is into trust agreements, that somehow they have to get out of them in the next six or seven years, according to the federal government because they are illegal. Then you have the group that is into the banks. I don't know how many there are that are close to bankruptcy. I personally know some young fishermen who are close to bankruptcy. I imagine, Mr. Minister, you know some too.

These people are going to need some help. The loan board has worked with the first-time buyers who didn't quite get into it through that mess of the Supreme Court ruling. They weren't quite old enough to get in it or they would have been in it, too.

By the time the loan board made a policy that the young fellows could borrow money, this group just before them couldn't get in on that because they had a licence and they weren't considered a first time buyer. So you have quite a few young fellows in the fishery, the inshore fishery especially, in Nova Scotia that's close to bankruptcy. I've asked this question before, how can our Nova Scotia loan board help these young people out?

I don't know how many there are, I'm sure your department could find out through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. There are quite a few of them because I know quite a few myself personally. There has to be a lot more than what I know. I'm not sure where the banks are going to go with this, whether they're going to go take their homes and everything they have or just what they're going to do. Somehow they need help like the first time buyers. I think they need to be considered somehow.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, I think all that group needs to be looked at as first time buyers. They were in that mess that was created from it and that creation started this first time buyer thing. But it just didn't go deep enough to help them all.

I believe the Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board somehow has to look into this to try to bail some of these young fellows out by at least taking over the price of the licence for 20 years, like you are the first time buyers. Somehow they have to be considered. Go back eight years, that should take care of it. Let them borrow enough money to buy that licence, the cost of that licence and pay that bank down and give them 20 years mortgage to pay that licence off.

Somehow, that's got to happen to help these young fellows because until we turn these markets around - how long will that take, Mr. Minister? I don't know, it's a world recession that we're in. They could be all bankrupt before it turns around until they even get back to the $5 or $6 lobster that they based their payments on.

I don't know how big an issue it is, but it's an issue there. I think we have to look at that as helping part of this first time buyer generation. We have to look back 10 years and take a look at this. Is that possible?

MR. BELLIVEAU: The member opposite has a good understanding of the industry and what took place in the last few years and I think he's summarized it very successfully.

First of all, this particular loan program is very successful, it's been very welcomed by the industry and it's directed towards new entries, as you can appreciate. It's been a very successful program. Some of the areas that you're looking at is, loans for fishermen who are presently financed through banks; I understand that. I understand that the six or seven years the banks have basically outlined that they need to repay that when they were structured on a $6 or $7 lobster - it's something we've asked our staff to look at. We're looking at other options like loans for fish quotas, people who have no licences but may want just the quota and loans for doubling up. Like in 33 or 34, for instance, the fishermen want to double up and form a partnership so they want to have access to money to buy another licence.

One of the other scenarios we've asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa about this lease to buy from a senior fisherman is a form of trust agreement. My understanding is that trust agreement runs out in 2012, if my memory serves me correctly (Interruption) I'll say 2012-14, just to cover myself. There was a seven year window that was allotted to deal with these trust agreements so there are a lot of things that needs to be done and one of these things is the issue you raised about fishermen who are trapped with a commitment from the banks that they've signed to pay back this payment over six or seven years. It's impossible to do the math on a $4 lobster.

We're aware of that, but we need to come up with - we also want to ensure this is a successful program and we want it to continue on. We don't want people to default, we don't want to create a program that's going to be a black eye for our government. We want it to be a successful program and I think it can be.

I think that we should have an open discussion in the upcoming months to further investigate some of these things we've talked about here tonight. We're not going to get the total blueprint of what we want to achieve in these Budget Estimates, but I think we can get a foundation for where we want to go. I'm open to that. I'm hoping to have dialogue with my critics and to bring that message forward.

I think we all have the best interests of our communities at heart. That's what we're here to do. We are talking wharf talk now because we're on the same wavelength when we know we want to create a policy that will have a positive effect on our communities and that's what we were elected to do. That's my goal and my staff is committed to working with the minister, that negotiation is ongoing as we talked about some of the policies about a lease to buy.

I was encouraged when the minister at the last provincial ministers' conference actually showed the opened dialogue, that she wanted to be a part of that. I'm encouraged with that. I'm encouraged if we can share that co-operation and share it with our critics in our own province and we can take that and expand on it to our neighbouring provinces. That's how we get the public policy changed and get the right public policy that's going to have the right approach and the right protection of our coastal communities. That's what I intend to do and hopefully my colleagues will endorse that. Thank you.

MR. THERIAULT: I think if it comes down to financing, you mentioned that being afraid for this province to get a black eye, to get into the financing too deep could cost too much money. But I think that's something your department could soon figure out what that cost would be. I'm sure that there's a list of how many licences are in trust agreements and how many are into the banks in this province.

If it does come down to money, that there's not enough money in the system of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board, maybe your trip to see the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in Ottawa, that can be on your agenda. This is where, that is where, they all stem from. This whole thing stems from Ottawa. It's what created the financial mess that these young fishermen are in.

I shouldn't say all Ottawa, but they are partly to blame for this. You know the story on this Mr. Minister, I don't have to tell it to you - they artificially inflated the price of some of those licences to get them to satisfy the Supreme Court ruling. Simple as that. They didn't care what they cost as long as they satisfied what the Supreme Court ruling was. There's no reason why this province can't go to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans with these facts and say we need help financially here. You used financing to create this, you use some financing to help us out of it. That would be my question to her.

Would the minister be willing to do that, if need be, if when you crunch the numbers on this, it is too steep? Is that something the minister would be willing to do?

MR. BELLIVEAU: I think the answer is already there within the discussion tonight. I'm more than willing to approach the minister. If you look at the success of this program, the loans for new entries, my instinct is telling me that when we are going through a recession and when we get through the other side of that, you're going to have more of a demand on the present budget for the loan board and that particular pot of money that's there.

My instinct was telling me that we need to have policies in place and this is one of the reasons why I asked the minister to enter into discussions with the lease to buy from senior fishermen. To me, if you could create that policy, which would be very friendly, they would actually be the banker for that particular licence and it would free up the money that we have over here for the loan board to go after other licences, quotas or other things that fishermen, the other population of the fishing industry could use.

I think we're already going down that same path because the other part of the equation is that we have an aging population that the majority of fishermen are in their mid-50s, if not older, and they're going to retire in less than a decade. There will be a lot of demand for making sure we have the right policies in place so there can be a smooth transfer of licence. There has to be access to capital and this pot of money is going to enlarge or inflate very fast.

The common sense approach is asking the federal minister to adapt the policy changes that you can do that and it does not have a negative effect on your community which I think this lease to buy would not do. If we incorporate some of these things that we talked about earlier about access to capital for quotas or access for people that have gotten into a financial bind.

I agree with you on the Marshall decision. The Marshall decision came out in 1999, the federal government came out and they paid the price to go along with the Supreme Court decision. They actually paid $750,000 or $1 million for a lobster licence in southwestern Nova Scotia to satisfy the Supreme Court decision dealing with Marshall. We had a couple of successful years following 1999 which put the cost of that enterprise through the roof. What happened from 2004, it's called a correction. There's a correction in the jungle, there's a correction in the mortgage situation in the United States and there was a correction when it came to the loan board or to the buying of licences in the Atlantic fisheries in 2004-06. That correction is what we're going through now.

The market is stabilizing, it's finding itself, but it does not eliminate the people that went out. You accurately described from 2006 until about 2009, if they went out and got a mortgage that was less than 10 years, they got themselves into trouble because they took a snapshot on a lobster that was $6 or $7 and the correction is here now.

I think, as elected officials, we have to take that message, and I intend to, through to our federal counterpart and I think with the co-operation of our elected critics, our colleagues across Nova Scotia and the other trump card - all elected officials, senators included, and our neighbouring provincial politicians, fisheries ministers on the same page. When we go after the federal minister, that's what my intent is, that's what my strategy is - here are the policies, this is what we need to do - and I believe our community will be stronger for that.

MR. THERIAULT: Going through the Marshall decision - we did a good job of correcting that. You were there. You were there with us, there were five of us from western Nova Scotia that brought First Nations to our table - or we to their table - all at the same time. We worked that out. At the time we didn't realize the cost it would be financially. We knew what the cost would be if we didn't correct it. So we said, join us, come go fishing with us. Don't fish against us, fish with us. That's what we asked for.

That's what they agreed to. So the federal government started spending money like crazy and nobody disagreed with that, really. The only ones who disagreed with it these past few years were these young fellows, since they got into the mess with it. As far as the general public, there was no big outcry about the millions and millions that was spent to correct it. So why would there be any big outcry to help these young fishermen that got caught up in this mess? I can't see there being any outcry publicly. So I wouldn't be scared of it one bit to try to help these young fishermen. It's the right thing to do. Just like it was the right thing to do when we helped First Nations to get into this fishery. We said it was the right thing to do.

I think a lot of that stemmed back from our families, our French Acadian families that they helped us earlier and we worked together in this province so I can't see anybody going against us trying to help these young fishermen that got caught up in the middle of this mess financially. If they do, I'd like to know who they are and I'll help you take them on, whoever it may be. I've talked to you many times about this before. I'm passionate about it because we live on the wharf together.

I want to talk about aquaculture; I haven't got much time left. You remember the trip to Chile, it was a wonderful trip with the former Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. We went to Chile and we saw something that opened my eyes, that's for sure - how many fish were being grown in that third world country. Ever since they had that terrible earthquake there, I keep asking around and I can't seem to get many answers about it because maybe no one knows too much of what's going on there.

I know it did a lot of damage around the coast. I saw pictures on CNN and CBC, of boats and nets and stuff being torn up and put ashore. I know Chile was a big aquaculture country, grew 600,000 tonnes per year. When we were there, they talked about increasing that. Have you heard anything about the damage it may have caused that country to their aquaculture industry?

MR. BELLIVEAU: My understanding of Chile and the earthquake - I was appreciative that you had the opportunity to visit there. I think there was very minor damage actually that the earthquake inflicted upon the industry there but there was a disease in effect four or five years ago that probably set their industry back about 70 per cent. I'm aware of is that Chile basically visited Nova Scotia about 30 years ago and came and understood our technology and they participated in aquaculture and it shows you how successful they were in 30 or 40 years, how they grew that industry.

The member opposite, Mr. Chair, was there present. I can tell you one of the best stories that I kind of - heartwarming moments while I was there in Chile. I've seen a lot of fishing vessels in my life and there's nothing any more pleasing than to see a loaded fishing vessel. When I was in Chile, there was a large seiner there that was actually taking the fish out of the seine or out of the trap that they grow them in. This was a 150 foot seiner and she was literally scuttled in the water with about a foot of her top boards awash. To me, she was literally full with 200,000 or 300,000 pounds of salmon which they grew there.

That was a very satisfying moment to know that there's a checkmark, there's a success story that this particular country had taken aquaculture, endorsed it and accepted it. I'm sure that they have some issues regarding diseases and all that, but they've managed it and learned how to become one of the leaders when it comes to aquaculture in the world.

Just to know that we have similar growing sites here in our province and we can benefit as well as Chile can - we can do that. I'm encouraged and I'm very fortunate to have the trip to go there and see that firsthand.

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is exactly 15 minutes left in the Liberal caucus time.

MR. THERIAULT: Thank you. It was a memorable trip. I really enjoyed that trip. It seemed funny that a third world country could come ahead that fast. We noticed while we were there, all the Canadian technology that they had. It just amazed me, you know - 52,000 people working directly in the aquaculture industry of Chile. I think they just got ahead of themselves when it came to the diseases that were happening.

They did that out on the prairies at the turn of the century, they started growing too many cattle when the buffalo died off, but now, today with the technology around, I think you'll see Chile expand more into the fishery. The fish is being touted around the world as, eat fish. Every medical person that you run into - I mean, I've been running to my doctor for the past few months quite often for some problems I had with my heart and he's even telling the people, eat fish, eat more fish. I'm eating more sardines nowadays, a nice light snack, cheaper than a chocolate bar and they're good.

This is being promoted around the world, to eat fish for Omega-3 and good fatty acids. All the doctors, any doctor you talk to - eat fish, eat fish. This is going to grow and grow. I know Chile will rebound. I know when we were there they had a veterinarians' college that just went up there, I think they had 1,000 veterinarians that were going to go through that school. It was big.

I guess my question is - I know we're just getting off the ground here - this province grows about 5 per cent of the fish of this whole country, British Columbia being the leader at 50 per cent. Out in the prairies, they even grow 1 to 2 per cent of all the fish. I don't know how they're doing that; some kind of a frog pond out there they're growing them in. Ontario grows 3 per cent of the aquaculture fish in this country. We only grow 5 or 6 per cent.

This is the fish province of the country, always was, with the wild fishery. We know that wild fishery is going down so like I said about the prairies - their buffalo disappeared. So what are we going to do? What are we going to barbeque, we got no meat left, all gone. So we grow cattle. Out in the prairies, it's one of the biggest industries going - growing cattle. They have veterinarians galore watching them every day. The odd disease comes along like the hoof and mouth, whatever it was. That was dealt with, got corrected.

We all get diseases and we just went through the H1N1 here in this country - we dealt with it. Diseases come along all the time, there's diseases in all things. It's like disease is going to come in that seal herd out there. Shame to lose all that wonderful protein but it will happen. We have diseases in our aquaculture, in our fish too because, especially if you get them too crowded.

There are sites around this province and I'm not sure just how many, but that's one of the questions I'm asking - how many sites do we have in Nova Scotia for growing fish? I know it's only 5 per cent of the 100,000 tonnes. I believe this country grows 100,000 tonnes, something like that and we grow about 5 per cent of it. How many sites do we have and how many sites are active?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, the question regarding how many sites are in Nova Scotia, there are roughly 330 sites and one-half of them are active as we speak. The contribution that they make toward the industry is roughly around $53 million. The encouraging part of that is there is a potential to double that over the next five years.

MR. THERIAULT: Do we have any disease problems around the province in the aquaculture? I know in New Brunswick they do because they went a little big there, too fast years ago, something similar to Chile. They grew a bit fast and New Brunswick grew a bit fast and I don't think they had the knowledge they have today and they had some trouble with disease over there. Do we have any trouble with any disease much here?

MR. BELLIVEAU: With the salmon, I think they have an issue in New Brunswick similar to what they do in Chile. As you are aware, one of the questions was asked about the oysters and there is a disease issue in the Bras d'Or Lakes and we've addressed that by basically waiving the fees for the aquaculture in that area. It was basically on the list that I have in front of me. We've been fairly blessed here in Nova Scotia with all the potential problems that's possible out there. I think we're fairly blessed with the environment that aquaculture exists in Nova Scotia.

MR. THERIAULT: Out of these three hundred and some sites, how many did you say were being used?

MR. BELLIVEAU: If you were asking how many sites is 330 sites that are approved in Nova Scotia aquaculture sites, there are one-half that are active. The other part of the question was around some of the issues in Nova Scotia - we do not have the packed density of sites. They're very disbursed over a much larger area across Nova Scotia so that may be one of the reasons why we don't have the disease issues.

MR. THERIAULT: Isn't that a new policy in the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, that they've got to be kept spread farther apart so we don't have the same problem that they did in New Brunswick?

MR. BELLIVEAU: My understanding is that is an issue that's been raised in New Brunswick and I think the federal DFO is looking at potential in the future to spread them out more to make them be aware of by not packing them in too densely. But that's not in an issue in our province and I think federal DFO is aware of that.

MR. THERIAULT: Don't we have a policy here now that keeps them spread out farther than they did in that province?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Our policy is that we are very conscious of how many are in a certain bay, a certain location. I don't want to talk for New Brunswick but I think that they're trying to correct that now and you see their policy is trying to solve that. We're very aware of it and we're very fortunate that we have more open areas and not the densely populated problem that they do have in New Brunswick.

MR. THERIAULT: I think a lot of the problem around the province - and I've heard from a few people about being afraid of aquaculture because of the unknown and because of what they heard of Chile and what they heard of New Brunswick - is the fear of the unknown is there around putting sites around the coastline. They think that they're going to poison everything around them. I think that's a fear that's there and I think it's a fear that needs to be dealt with more properly but what sites? I've seen some sites started up around our coast. Some of these aquaculture sites are formed by big companies, companies from outside - like with New Brunswick - that people are saying, well, there were over there, destroyed all that area so now they're going to come here and do that. I hear that all the time so they don't want them around their coastline, but some of these sites were started up by local people. Local people started them because they trusted the local people not to do harm. The local people started the sites and then they sub-lease them to these companies to grow fish in. Is there a policy change being made in the department that is going to do away with this, take the sub-leases away? Is that something in the making?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, I can tell the member opposite that I haven't been approached for that particular scenario that you're describing there, but I can tell you that some of the things that we're talking about. Our department is working for a road map about identifying aquaculture sites. I think by having the engagement we're having tonight - a good, open discussion or wharf talk - it creates a public confidence that people want us to have as you move forward with an industry like that and it needs to be promoted in that light. I think any time you have an opportunity to educate the public about the benefits of aquaculture, that it is a source of protein and that we have one of the better grow-out sites in North America - to me it's a natural fit of creating jobs in rural Nova Scotia.

I'm encouraged by the comments I'm hearing tonight and before the member opposite concludes your remarks, just one more time, compliment him on the resolution about identifying aquaculture and the support that I feel in that resolution that you see the benefits of aquaculture and I think we all share that same and common goal where we can benefit our community and we can make Nova Scotia a better place for our children to live in and raise their families.

MR. THERIAULT: I think my point there was that it's a hard job to get aquaculture going in this province so I think the more local communities are involved, the easier will be to get aquaculture going. We need to grow fish. I mean, our wild fishery is not going to feed the people, it's not going to feed the masses, we've experienced that so if we don't grow fish, we're going to be in trouble on this earth. One of the best proteins in the world and we're not going to grow fish in one of the most best fishing provinces in the country with the most coastline? I don't know just how much coastline Nova Scotia's got but it's got a lot. I can see a great proper fishery being done here of growing fish and I think our coastal communities can thrive with it.

I just wanted to make that point about the sub-leasing that if local people can help get these sites going in their communities, even if there's some kind of a partner, whatever you want to call it, with other people with money that want to come in and grow the fish, maybe call it a partnership or whatever you like but you need to have the local people involved to make it go. Do you think that's the way that we need to go?

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, I think the member opposite, with his knowledge of the industry - I think he's on the right path here because our coastline basically encompasses roughly around 7,500 kilometres. We're practically an island. To me, it looked like it's as if you had a manmade object that you were putting out on a fishing pier to go fishing. If you look at Nova Scotia, it looks like somebody made that deliberately so you could have access to the fishing industry. Kind of looking at it as a space shuttle hovers over top of our continent but it's a perfect location and I agree wholeheartedly, you're right, you have to have local support and when you want to have aquaculture being part of your community there's nothing better than to have the local municipality or the local entrepreneurs in that community being involved, being partners and I endorse that concept. That is the part we need to encourage and there are great opportunities.

Again I go back to the guy I met in Narrow Head, the 30-year-old who didn't want to go out west to feed his family, he wanted to stay in the community and raise his family where he was born and brought up. To me, knowing these opportunities exist, I think as elected officials we should be working to achieve that and hoping that maybe more individuals like that 30-year-old stay in our communities.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Member, there's probably not time for another question and answer, but there's time for a minute shot of some kind, there's just about a minute left.

MR. THERIAULT: I want to thank you, Mr. Minister, for allowing me this time to ask these questions. I had a lot more, we could go another few hours on the wharves, but anyway, it was wonderful. I know, like I said earlier, you and I have a lot in common, right back to the early days of the 1600s in the fishery in both our families, Belliveau and Theriault. It has been good to be able to ask you these questions, I want to thank you very much. I think if you keep going ahead the way you are and if we all work together, all of us in this province, I think we can build quite a future around our coastal communities at least and that's where the help needs to be now because of the downturn in our fishery. We need to take a good look at them and help all we can to make them thrive again. With that, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, member. You're right on the money, time-wise; it's perfect. There are 20 minutes remaining, the closing time will be 9:03 p.m. The NDP caucus has two or three questions, however.

The honourable member for Antigonish.

MR. MAURICE SMITH: Mr. Minister, I won't be able to do the wharf talk that you had with your fishing colleague, but I will tell you that I have a little family background in fishing, my dad was a lobster fisherman. He had 125 traps, a 14-foot aluminum boat with a 7.5 horsepower motor and he made a good living for us. He did other things as well, but that was one of the things he did. The licence at the time was 25 cents, that's what they paid for their licences, so times have changed.

I have an interest in the lobster industry just because of that small background that I have. I also remember being a little boy in that boat jigging cod and it's an experience that you don't ever forget. But enough about me.

I ran in June, which happened to be the middle of the lobster season in Antigonish and, of course, I was not successful. I ran again in October in the by-election after the lobster season and did get in at that time. I managed to be knocking on the same doors both times, in June and in October, and some of these were people who were fishers. In June they were a little bit afraid and concerned about the situation of the lobster fishery, but by the time October came some of these people were really quite panicked, they were in a bad state. I guess my question is, Mr. Minister, what is the department doing to address the problem in the lobster sector? When I go knocking again, and I want to do that, I'll be able tell these people what my government is going to be doing in helping out in that sector. I don't know if that's too general a question, but I'd like to have some answers for them, so if you could help me out with that?

MR. BELLIVEAU: First of all, you're bringing back some memories of the 25 cents, I actually remember that and the introduction to the limited fisheries was introduced in 1968, so I can share a number of those little stories. But the answer to what we are doing for the lobster sector, I mentioned this earlier about the marketing initiatives such as promoting live lobster in China and promotion of lobster at the Brussels seafood show, with support with the development of live-lobster marketing strategy, with the Lobster Council of Canada which we talked about earlier in leading support in the Canadian city lobster promotion.

Again, I talk about this lobster council and to me, that is kind of the main cog in the gear that goes out and markets and promotes our product. Just before you coming to the House, in my previous role as the Critic, I can remember clearly back in the Fall 2008 - now I have to get my dates correct, I hope I have them correct - I stood in the House in December just before the lobster season opened and we predicted that this particular situation, you talk about the fear on the doorsteps when you went with the fishermen, and they had the fear because they knew what was coming.

Back in November 2008, I knew what was coming down the road and we had an emergency debate -I think the member for Digby-Annapolis introduced that emergency debate - about the possible collapse of the lobster industry. We recognized at that time and I remember very clearly asking the Premier and minister at that time, who was in the role that I am sitting in today, to get on the plane - and we can check Hansard to get the dates right, but asked him at the time, we need to get on the plane - to go to Ottawa to tell the minister at that time that there is a crisis on the horizon. This was dealing with the soft-lobster prices which started in Maine, it came up to Grand Manan and as we moved into the Fall of 2009, we were very aware of the economic downturn in the economy.

Your question about fishermen wanting to know, because they had the same fears as we had in southwestern Nova Scotia and the difference there is that in southwestern Nova Scotia the lobster season is roughly four or five months ahead of your season in Antigonish and around that area. The indicators were there, the antenna were up and people were very aware of the situation coming their way. We stressed at the time and I remember in the debate - you can check Hansard - we asked for a lobster task force, there was something that needed to be done to address these issues.

The wisdom of the day, the Premier or the minister, declined that request to go to Ottawa, but I can fast-forward to where we were at after the election on June 9^th. I was very appreciative of being in the position that I am and one of the first things that we did was make a commitment to have financial support for our lobster council. It wasn't called a lobster task force, it's called a lobster council, but it's one in the same name that has been established. We talked about that tonight in the estimates debate tonight and that is laying the foundation for a marketing and promotional council that can address the issues right across the Atlantic provinces, not only in Nova Scotia, but across the Atlantic provinces, which this is a major issue.

I'm very confident that we are going down the right track and when you go back to your constituents and knock on the same doors, you can tell them that this is being established, we have done a lot of work talking with the lobster council, we've talked with our federal counterparts and we're taking a proactive approach. We can assure those people that yes, there is a struggle, there is some difficult times that we're all going to go through. The other issue is regarding our strong Canadian dollar, but when we get over the curve of this particular problem, we're going to be in a very strong position with the new technology we have dealing with how we can market our lobsters and get them to markets. I'm confident we're going to be in a very strong position and the fishers in your community will benefit from that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the member for Antigonish, I have a signal from the member for Guysborough-Sheet Harbour that he would like to ask a question. I will certainly go with one more question from the member for Antigonish.

MR. SMITH: The other question I wanted to talk a little bit about or ask you a little bit about is the initiatives with reference to the sports fishery. That too, I see that as a lucrative industry and just what are we are doing in that area? I ask that question because in my county, we do have one of the fish hatcheries at Frasers Mills and I know that's used for stocking for sport fishery and that kind of thing. I think they do trout there now.

Two things, I guess, just generally the kinds of initiatives that the department is doing and I've often been asked how local people get to access the use of the fish at Frasers Mills at the fish hatchery there? At one time, people could call up and ask to have their ponds or their lakes stocked but I don't think they can do that anymore. Is there any thought of that at all?

MR. BELLIVEAU: My understanding is that we stock about 400 lakes across the province and if you have a special request we can actually sell them to individuals that may require that.

MR. SMITH: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Guysborough-Sheet Harbour and if there is enough time, we'll come back to the member for Antigonish.

MR. JIM BOUDREAU: Since everybody's talking about their boats, I may as well say something about a boat as well. I can certainly remember when I was a teenager, I guess, and being able to go out in my 14 foot boat with a 9.9 engine and you could go out at that time virtually anywhere along the coast and jig a few cod. I can remember doing it because it was a way I could get gas for my boat for the motor. This was something we did quite regularly and that part of fishing is not available to many like it was to us when we were growing up.

Like Mr. Theriault over there, we were talking about this earlier with regard to the lineage. My family has a long lineage in the fishing industry as well. Like most of us after 1755, many of the French families ended up in places like the islands off Canso where my family was and places like Port Felix and Charles Cove where you could hide out pretty good in the fog, most days. The attachment to the ocean and to the fishery is very important.

One of my concerns, obviously, is sort of a renewal or an advancement in the seafood processing sector. I know that there has been some movement on that in the last number of years. I wonder if the minister could talk about some of the areas that are target areas, I suppose, that we're looking at and maybe give us some examples of where these advancements are taking place and how successful they are. That's a pretty open-ended question.

MR. BELLIVEAU: We're getting a lot of little stories here about our childhood days and the 9.9 Evinrude brings back memories because that had a flat top and it was a perfect seat when you would go Irish mossing, you could just sit on it and I did a number of times. You're bringing back a few memories here.

You asked about the renewal in the seafood processing sector. The renewal program or the SSRP administrated by the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture helps Nova Scotia's processors to improve the competitiveness and the sustainability of our province's seafood industry in the core target areas of this program includes market diversification, new product development, enhancement, innovative technology in providing productivity improvement and third party eco-certifications for commercially-important fisheries.

To date, the Nova Scotia program has invested or is committed to invest over $1.9 million in its seafood industry. The investment has assisted 22 companies carried out by 29 projects. Presently the SSRP has supported one fishery that has recently received the MSC Certification and six more are currently in the MSC Certification process. Ten companies have used the SSRP to upgrade their processing facilities and innovative equipment that will allow them to become more productive and competitive in the global competitive industry.

One of these opportunities, similarly related is the program that was supported by Economic and Rural Development in Tusket is JHS FishProducts, if I got that name correct, but they basically take the technology of drying fish waste and what we call the rack of the fish and they utilize that, they dry a drying process and they ship it to different countries like Africa.

Basically what they've done is take a product that we discard and they're utilizing it and they're creating something like 60 or 70 jobs in southwestern Nova Scotia and 60 per cent of that product comes from the traditional fishing industry across our province. One of the side notes of that is that 40 per cent of their product is basically importing, trucked in from our neighbouring provinces, the New England States. I see that as a win-win situation where we can have this technology, we can have all these different technology that can actually take a product that we use as discard or waste and we can improve that and create jobs and as related to our industrial or fishing sectors and we can improve that and create jobs. To me, I think that's a win-win situation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, it is exactly 9:00 p.m. I invite the honourable Minister of Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture to close the debate and offer any closing comments.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Chairman, before I read the resolutions, I want to thank my critics from the two Parties tonight for their participation in this discussion. I also want to thank my colleagues, my members of caucus for attending tonight and participating. There were a number of stories here and I was very encouraged to know that we could have the wharf talk. I'll leave it at that. It was very encouraging to know we have this very open and sometimes we can be very serious in this particular Chamber but also we can also have some flexibility and freedom and I enjoyed the wharf talk we had tonight.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall Resolution E10 stand?

Resolution E10 stands.

Thank you minister, thank you staff, thank you members.

[The subcommittee adjourned at 9:02 p.m.]