What is Professionalization?
Professionalization simply means recognising the special skills and experience
required to become a professional fish harvester. Professionalization
involves bestowing professional status on those who have a long-term attachment
to fishing. This is called "grandfathering". Professionalization
also means setting qualifying standards for new entrants.
The Council believes that professionalization must be led by working fisher
men and women. That's why the Council works closely with its member organisations
at the provincial and regional level to have professional bodies officially
recognised in laws, regulations and policies. Already professional certification
Boards are in place in Newfoundland and Québec and concrete professionalization
proposals are being developed in the Maritimes and BC.
Why is professionalization
important to fisher men and women?
In any occupation recognition of professional status gives an individual
a sense of pride, achievement and security.
In today's fishery, the need for professionalization is especially important.
The Canadian fishery is undergoing dramatic changes. At the same time
fish harvesters are expected to take on a greater role in paying for management
and fishing infrastructure.
To the general public the fishing industry is often portrayed as an economic
basket case. Our industry is all too often described in clichés.
If it's not "too many fishermen chasing to few fish" it is the
"employer of last resort". This situation has created an atmosphere
of uncertainty, insecurity and apprehension amongst fish harvesters. Many
are wondering if they will survive in the years ahead and where they will
fit in when the dust begins to settle.
Professionalization is the first step in securing the fish harvester's
place in the fishery of the future. It is a matter of fisher men and women
taking control over their future by standing together and making sure
that fish harvesters and only fish harvesters determine the path that
professionalization will take.
The time for action!
Given the dramatic changes that are now occurring in the fishery it is
critical that fish harvesters seize the opportunities that professionalization
presents. A lack of action or further delay will only widen the door for
the government to bring in policies and programs that fish harvesters
might not support. By moving forward on professionalization fish harvesters
and their organisations can take a pro-active approach in determining
who will be the professionals and what their rights and responsibilities
will be in the future fishery.
What's been done so far?
The initiative to set up a professionalization and certification programs
for fish harvesters was begun by fisher organisations in the early 1990's
and has been driven and sustained by their leaders ever since. After extensive
consultations at the community level, fish harvesters in Newfoundland,
and Quebec have formally established professional certification boards
for establishing grandfathering criteria and training and other requirements
for future new entrants to the fishery. In the Maritimes separate professionalization
proposals are being developed for the Gulf and Scotia Fundy regions; while
in British Colombia, the British Columbia Council of Professional Fish
Harvesters is leading the process for a professional certification program.
Some guiding principles
The Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters has put forward three
principles that must be respected if the professionalization initiative
is to be successful over the long-term:
1/ professionalization must be led and controlled by legitimate fish harvesters
organisations;
2/ professionalization must be developed on a regional basis to reflect
differing organisational structures, priorities and timetables;
3/ the knowledge, experience and de facto professional status of fishers
already active in the industry must be recognised by new professionalization
and certification systems.
The future...
The Council hopes that the future will see major breakthroughs for professionalization
and that professional certification bodies will be established in all
parts of the country and recognised as such by the provincial and federal
governments.
Something new
Links to Web sites and E-Mail related to professionalization
Strategic Plan