- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Courtenay—Alberni
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $148,159.67
- Government Page
- Jun/16/23 10:31:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no debate that I do live in the most beautiful riding in the country.
To my colleague, who is also from British Columbia, I say that there was a really important study done by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, called “Sharing Risks and Benefits”, and it was by commercial fishers, to ensure that their needs are being met, because we have a broken commercial fishing industry in Canada. On the east coast, we have a local ownership model. On the west coast, we have a concentration of commercial interests.
One of the top asks of commercial fishers in this study was to ensure that we know who owns the quota in our public fishery.
Can my colleague assure that commercial fishers in Canada would know, through this legislation, who owns the quota, so we can better manage our fisheries and ensure that the concentration of wealth actually ends up in the hands of those fishing—
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- Nov/29/22 2:17:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Doug Kimoto spent almost 60 years dedicated to commercial salmon trolling and his family's livelihood on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He was a tireless advocate for the salmon trolling industry and for salmon enhancement.
In 1985, Doug's industry was sacrificed in Canada's Pacific Salmon Treaty with the United States, which resulted in a 50% cut in the Chinook catch for which the Government of Canada received $30 million in compensation.
Doug Kimoto passed away last year, without receiving one cent of this compensation. He equated his treatment by the Canadian government in his fishing career with the way his own Japanese-Canadian family was treated in 1942.
To this day, DFO has still not spent more than $10 million of the Pacific salmon treaty settlement, while Doug Kimoto lost half of his income from 2008 to 2019 as a result.
Doug Kimoto was a proud Canadian who fought hard for the commercial salmon trolling industry and the compensation he and his fellow fishers were owed. Their treatment by the Canadian government has been a national disgrace. Doug is gone but not forgotten. His fight will not end until there is justice for the west coast commercial salmon fishers.
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- May/31/22 12:14:14 a.m.
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Mr. Chair, other industries, such as forestry and agriculture, have also faced massive upheavals for the same reasons that fisheries are being forced to restructure, such as climate events and newly developed conservation policies, yet workers and owner-operators in these resource-adjacent industries have been heavily supported both federally and provincially with funding to withstand the transitions, retrain into other vocations and pay out to bridge to early retirement.
Why are commercial fish harvesters being treated inequitably compared to workers in other impacted industries? There is a man in my riding, Leith Selvie, who is a commercial fisher in Parksville. He has not gotten any support since the government shut 60% of the fisheries on the north coast. Will the minister speak about bailing out these fishers and supporting them like other sectors?
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- Apr/4/22 3:43:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing that we put in a supplementary report around this motion is that Canadians are within only $200 of being able to pay their bills, and fishers really comes to mind for me right now. Fish harvesters are absolutely being impacted by climate change. We are seeing in other industries that there is $360 million to help support those who have been impacted by climate change in the agriculture sector and in forestry, but we saw a cut of 60% for the salmon harvesters on the north coast and absolutely no support for those harvesters. They are not $200 away from making ends meet; they are actually well over $200 under making ends meet. Now we hear that crab harvesters are going to lose half of their quota because of really important reconciliation, which we support, but reconciliation should be shared by all Canadians, not just by a handful of fishers on the west coast.
Does my colleague agree that there should be money to support fish harvesters and fishers who are on the verge of bankruptcy?
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- Mar/24/22 3:10:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in December, the government announced the reallocation of crab fishing licences in my riding in an effort to reconcile the loss of constitutionally protected indigenous fishing rights. It is absolutely essential to correct historical wrongs in the allocation and management of this fishery. The government has failed to properly consult the impacted fishers or first nations. As a result, many fishers will lose the income their families need.
Will the government do the right thing and fully compensate these crab fishers?
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