Publications 

Creating New Wealth from the Sea Vol. I

Creating New Wealth from the Sea

Policy alternatives for an economically, ecologically and socially sustainable Canadian fishery.

May 1996

What is the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters?

A National Voice for Canadian Fish Harvesters

The Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters (CCPFH) is a non-profit organization founded in 1995. The Council's mission is to ensure that fish harvesters have appropriate knowledge, skills and commitment to meet the human resources needs of the Canadian fishery, now and in the future.

The objectives of our organization are:

1. to represent the interests of professional fish harvesters across Canada in their dealings with the federal, provincial and territorial governments on national issues of common concern;
2. to provide, in collaboration with Canada's professional fish harvester organizations, the structure and leadership for fish harvester professionalization;
3. to act as a National Industry Sector Council to plan and implement training and human resource development programs for the fish harvesting industry in Canada.

The Council is a federation of the main fish harvesters' organizations in Atlantic Canada, QuÈbec and British Columbia. The Council is governed by a Board of Directors with representatives from all the member groups. Organizations representing First Nations harvesters and freshwater fish harvesters in other provinces and territories will soon be included. The major policies and action plans of the Council are decided at national conferences with representation from all affiliated fish harvester organizations. The Council received start-up funding from Human Resources Development Canada, but will become a self-sustaining, industry supported organization in the near future.

The founding members of the Council are: L'Alliance des pÍcheurs professionnels du QuÈbec (APPQ), L'Association des pÍcheurs professionnels acadiens (APPA), the Eastern Fishermen's Federation (EFF), the Fish Food and Allied Workers Union of Newfoundland (FFAW), the Maritime Fishermen's Union (MFU), the PEI Fishermen's Association (PEIFA), the Scotia Fundy Mobile Gear Fishermen's Association (SFMGFA) and the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union of British Columbia (UFAWU).

 

Setting the Record Straight

The fishing industry has been in the news a lot of late and the news hasn't been good. The disastrous collapse of Atlantic groundfish stocks and the sharp drops in key salmon runs on the West Coast have brought massive unemployment, government bailouts, and frightening visions of ecological catastrophe. The media often depicts the fisheries as a ``basket case,'' an industry with too many people, too few resources, and a management system that doesn't work.

Most damaging of all is the claim that the fishing industry as a whole is so badly structured and so mis-managed that its net contribution to the Canadian economy is negative. In other words, Canada would be better off with no fishery at all!

It's time to set the record straight.

The fishing industry is a vibrant , dynamic and vital contributor to the Canadian economy. Far from being a drain on the public purse and an economic backwater, the fishing industry is on the cutting edge of Canada's export-oriented economy.

As professional fish harvesters we share a strong commitment to building an economically viable and ecologically sustainable fishery, and we want to promote workable alternatives for the management of our industry over the long-term.Such ideas grossly misrepresent the reality of the fisheries today. Professional fish harvesters want Canadians to consider other views on the economic value and social significance of the fishing industry. We have a strong commitment to building an economically viable and ecologically sustainable fishery, and we want to promote workable alternatives for the management of our industry over the long-term.

In fact, in the midst of crisis the Canadian fishing industry has been growing. By developing new products, by opening up new markets, by innovating and diversifying, the fishing industry has demonstrated its resilience in the face of hard times.

Above all, the fishing industry has shown that it is a source of renewable wealth for the people of Canada. As professional fish harvesters we want to bring to Canadians our views on how this wealth should be nurtured, managed and shared.

Ours are not the views of the big fishing companies and vested corporate interests. We speak for people who earn their living on the water and who understand the true economic, social and ecological value of the fishing industry.

As professional fish harvesters we share a strong commitment to building an economically viable and ecologically sustainable fishery, and we want to promote workable alternatives for the management of our industry over the long-term.

We feel it's time we were listened to.

Facing the Management Crisis

'We are dealing here with a famine of biblical scale - a great destruction.'

The Report of the Task Force
on Incomes and Adjustment in
the Atlantic Fishery, 1993.

The crisis in fisheries management has been devastating for fish harvesters, our families and our communities. Nearly 15,000 fish harvesters have lost all or part of their livelihoods with the groundfish moratorium on the Atlantic coast. The economies of some 175 fishing communities have been heavily damaged, and another 200 have been seriously affected. On top of this the dramatic decline in salmon stocks on the Pacific coast threatens some 13,000 harvesters working out of 100 fishing communities, half of which depend almost solely on the fishery.

It wasn't supposed to be this way!

In 1977 when the federal government took over fisheries management within our new 200 mile zone it promised sustainable fisheries management.

The government did not deliver.

The collapse of Atlantic Canada's groundfish stocks and the crisis of BC salmon management is, first and foremost, the failure of our whole fisheries management system. It's obvious the system needs a radical overhaul.

The government has responded by downsizing the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), downloading costs onto fish harvesters and re-writing the Fisheries Act to allow for wholesale privatisation of fisheries management.

As fish harvesters we believe these reforms are driven more by budgetary concerns and ideology than by any commitment to real and positive change in the way the fisheries are run.

In our opinion the government has rushed into these reforms without answering two key questions: who will decide on the changes to be made, and who will they benefit -- fishing people and their communities, or large private interests?

As professional fish harvesters we oppose the extreme privatisation model being promoted by corporate fishing interests. This approach would turn over the management of all commercial fish stocks to quota owners on a permanent basis, and would encourage the concentration of fish quotas in fewer and fewer hands.

Such a system, we believe, would devastate coastal communities and, inevitably, the fish stocks. It is shocking to us that the very companies that bear the greatest responsibility for the destruction of east coast groundfish stocks are now pushing for even greater control over the remaining fish resources. As professional fish harvesters we accept responsibility for past practices that have contributed to over-fishing. We agree that reductions have to be made in fishing capacity. We are committed to a program of professionalization driven by the harvesters themselves to establish our professional status, to upgrade our management skills and, over time, to limit access to fishing to professional harvesters. We support the concept of co-management with industry shouldering more management responsibilities together with government.

We believe the goals for fisheries management should be:

• to rebuild depleted stocks;
  
• to identify and enforce sustainable harvesting approaches;
  
• to establish effective co-management based on the primacy of the independent owner-operator;
  
• to generate optimal employment relative to sustainable harvesting, and;
  
• to sustain coastal communities and their ways of life.

We believe these goals can be achieved through sound fisheries policy. Policy premised on resource sustainability, economic viability and social equity.

As fish harvesters we are committed to these policy goals and we won't stand idly by and watch as Canada's fishery wealth is used to create a few more millionaires while thousands of others are deprived of decent, sustainable livelihoods.

What is at stake?

By focusing on the catastrophes the media gives the impression that the entire Canadian fishery is an economic and ecological horror story. But, despite the management failures, the real story is that the industry has grown significantly in some key fisheries.

Between 1989 and 1994, the total value of fish landings grew from $947 million to over $1 billion in Atlantic Canada and from $440 million to $555 million in British Columbia. In fact the landed value of Canadian fish hit an all time high in 1994 while virtually the entire east coast groundfish industry was shut down!

On the east coast increased landings and improved international prices for shellfish -- crab, lobster, shrimp and scallops -- made up for the loss of groundfish. However there are fewer fishing licenses and less processing required for shellfish, so only a small percentage of the jobs lost in the groundfish sector have been regained, especially in Newfoundland. On the Pacific coast, improved prices for sockeye salmon, herring, shellfish and groundfish accounted for the growth in landed value from 1990 to 1994.

The decline of fisheries processing in Atlantic Canada

The net effect is that the total value of the Canadian fishery, including both landed and processed value, has been stable at around $3 billion throughout the period of crisis.

Despite the stability in landed value the fishery has changed enormously over the last few years.

A decade ago the fishery depended on a narrow range of species and competed for market share against cheap meats like poultry and pork. Today seafood is a high-value product. One important reason for the fishery's surprising resiliency is globalization --the development of a world market. Canadian harvesters and processors have responded aggressively to new market opportunities in Europe, Japan and other Pacific Rim countries, and have diversified their catches and products and improved their marketing skills.

New fisheries have opened to serve world markets. Species once considered of no value are now in demand--sea urchins, sharks, monkfish, silver hake, skate, lumpfish, offshore clams, dogfish, rockweed, silversides, whelks, eels, and a half dozen crab species, to cite just a few.

The revolution in communications has opened up world markets for fish. Producers and marketers are more aware of the demand for seafood products in foreign markets, and foreign buyers are aware of Canadian supplies. Technological changes related to processing, freezing, cold storage and transportation have increased the ability of our industry to supply high value products -- fresh, frozen and live -- to distant markets cheaply and in a timely manner.

Gone are the days when fish harvesters would land fish at the wharf and hope someone might come to buy it. Canadian fish harvesters are emerging as a sophisticated professional business class skilled in using technology and information to provide top quality products anywhere in the world where they are in demand.

The proof: in 1994 Canada exported $2.8 billion worth of seafood products, a 12% increase over 1993 and an all-time record for the Canadian fishery. Not bad for an industry that is supposed to be a basket case!

Fishing is a big Canadian industry.

What the last few years have shown is that the fishery remains a staple of the Canadian economy despite its ups and downs. Commercial fisheries contributed an estimated $1.84 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1993 -- roughly the same as in 1989.

Nfld	PEI	NS	NB	PQ	BC	Total
15,360	2,900	11,430	3,760	1,540	10,550	45,540
33.7%	6.4%	25.1%	8.3%	3.4%	23.2%	100.0%

According to Revenue Canada's tax returns there were over 45,000 self-employed vessel owners active in the Canadian fishery in 1993. If we add in their crew members, the total number of people working in the harvesting sector increases significantly.

In 1990 the Atlantic fishery alone generated 55,000 person years of direct employment, half in harvesting and half in processing. Another 60,000 indirect and induced person years of employment can be projected outside the fishery. Roughly half of these spread-effect jobs would be in the Atlantic provinces, 24% in Ontario and 20% in QuÈbec. Overall the Canadian fisheries generate $1.5 billion in gross output in the wider economy including buildings and vessel construction, fuel and vehicles, fishing gear, electronic equipment, insurance and financial services, and so on.

But the fishing industry does more than stimulate the Canadian economy through demand for goods and services. Fish harvesters also provide the raw materials for a processing industry that in 1993 employed some 21,000 workers in over 400 plants and paid $433 million in wages in Canada. Four fifths of these processing jobs were in Atlantic Canada. Seafood processing accounted for approximately 15% of total value added for all food processed in Canada in that year!

The human face of the fishery

Population	NS	NB	PEI	QUE	NFLD	Total
<1,000	338	133	59	105	570	1,205
1,000 - 3,000	19	19	6	16	43	103
3,000 - 10,000	7	4	1	6	16	34
Total	364	156	66	127	629	1,342
% Provincial Populations living in Small Fishing Communities	17%	12%	26%	N/A	54%	25% Atl Regions

In British Columbia there are 50 communities that depend heavily on the fishery, and 50 more where fishing is important. Most are distributed along the less populated areas of Vancouver Island and the northern mainland coast, and many are the major source of employment in their areas. The following table shows the distribution of fishing vessels among home ports in the southern metropolitan region (Vancouver/ Victoria/ Nanaimo) and in the coastal region.

Our fishing communities are beautiful, safe places to live and raise a family where the quality of life is high and the community social ties are still strong.

But fishing communities are more than places of great physical beauty and unique ecological value. The industry's social and economic infrastructure also supports important tourist destinations such as museums, recreational fishing centres and national and provincial parks

The fishery is also a strategic national industry. Many areas of Canada's vast coastline are populated solely because of the fishing industry. Without the fisheries there would be no-one there to assert national sovereignty and to provide surveillance over the marine environment.

Fishing people have long been used to isolated and rugged environments, to long winters, and to dangerous seas. They have learned to live rich and satisfying lives in close knit communities along the coast.

Just a generation ago our communities and the industry were considered backwaters. But today they are reaching out to the wider world through advanced communications technologies and global trade links. From these communities Canadian fish harvesters use the most sophisticated catching methods to produce seafood products that are second to none in the world in quality, diversity and value.

Under New management....

The stock failures on both coasts highlight the present management system's inability to maintain a sound fishery. Everyone agrees that fundamental change has to happen. But radical changes in the Fisheries Act and in the structure and operations of the DFO are now being implemented by government without the meaningful involvement of fish harvesters. While the DFO talks about the importance of consultation with fish harvester organisations, in practice, it tends to make the big decisions unilaterally and then propose talks about co-management and full consultation.

The past management system is based on a top-down bureaucracy, and the use of threats and coercion to make fish harvesters follow rules over which they have no say. It is rife with political interference and lacks any tradition of real collaboration among scientists, government regulators and harvesters.

As professional fish harvesters we favour a new management system based on the principles of participatory co-management, and the goals of resource renewal, sustainable harvesting, optimal employment and economic viability to guarantee a bright future for coastal communities.

To achieve these goals a whole new set of fisheries policies must be developed. Policy, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It is guided by basic principles. Before re-writing Canada's fisheries policy, government must sit down with industry and reach a consensus on what principles should guide our future fisheries policy.

As fish harvesters we believe the following four principles would guarantee a future fishery that would be ecologically, economically and socially sustainable.

First Principle

Fisheries policy must be developed through real fish harvester participation.

First, the top down, bureaucratically inspired fisheries policies that continue to favour powerful corporate interests must end. The decision making process around fisheries policy must be opened up and democratized to make room for the opinions of fish harvesters. All of the basic policy changes that will be implemented in the future must be based on an industry consensus developed with the full participation of fish harvesters through their organizations. Policy that hasn't been developed in this way or that doesn't have the broad support of fish harvesters should not be implemented.

However, many harvesters are still not organized and cannot participate effectively in fisheries policy development. Governments must recognize professional organizations where they do exist and provide legislative mechanisms that will ensure that all fish harvesters are members of duly constituted harvester controlled professional organizations.

Furthermore the professionalization process begun by fish harvester organizations must be continued. Fish harvesters must be given control over the setting of standards for new entrants to the fishery and responsibility for training in the areas of conservation and responsible fishing practices.

Just as importantly, the vital role played by women in the fishery must be recognized and their participation in fisheries management encouraged and expanded.

Second Principle

The fishing must be left to independent professional fish harvesters.

This change of focus was described by the heads of two major fish processing companies in Atlantic Canada as follows.

Ownership of fishing licences and vessels must be kept separate from ownership of processing plants to ensure that wealth from the sea is shared as broadly as possible. Access to licences, quotas and fisheries support programs must be reserved for independent owner-operators who meet professional standards developed and agreed upon by fellow fish harvesters. The current loopholes which encourage companies to buy up licences through under-the-table deals and the policies which allow fishing licences to be owned and traded by non-fishers must be eliminated.

Also, harvesters historically attached and adjacent to fisheries that are now shut down must have priority access to available fishing opportunities when the stocks recover. The same approach should govern access to non-traditional fish stocks on traditional fishing grounds. Finally, issues of appropriate harvesting methods and gear types should be considered separately from, and after, rights of access have been determined.

Third Principle

Fisheries management must be based on conservation and ecological approaches.

The narrow and costly specialization policies promoted by government must be re-examined. Diversified or multi-licence enterprises must be encouraged to provide fish harvesters a broader base upon which to make a living and to reduce over dependence on vulnerable stocks. Gear conflicts must be dealt with through scientific research with full harvester participation to determine the most sound harvesting practices from a conservation perspective.

Fish harvester-scientist co-operation must be expanded. Fish harvesters must become full partners in stock assessment processes and their ecological knowledge used in the formulation of scientific advice and research priorities.

Fourth Principle

Fisheries rationalization must be fair.

Everyone agrees that fishing capacity must be reduced or rationalized to use the government's word. But excess fishing capacity must be reduced in a fair way. It is mis-guided government policy which encouraged over-capacity to begin with. Governments, therefore, must bear a fair share of the costs of capacity reduction. Income supports and adjustment programs must be provided for harvesters who will be displaced from the fishery by declining stocks and by industry restructuring. For those professional harvesters that remain, unemployment insurance must be maintained and strengthened to provide stability over the long term.

The Bottom Line....

There is no doubt that Canada's fishery needs fixing. But before the Department of Fisheries and Oceans organizes a giant fire sale of the country's fish resources we should take stock.

As professional fish harvesters we want Canadians to realize that the fishing industry is a source of sustainable jobs and renewable wealth that starts in our coastal communities and extends well into our industrial heartland.

We want also want Canadians to consider our view on how this wealth should be managed and shared.

It is not the view from Bay street.

It is the view of the people who earn their living on the water, a view that brings together the economic, social and ecological significance of the fishing industry.

We are as concerned as anyone with the profitability of enterprises. And we understand as well the workings of the market, we deal in it every day. We know its strengths and weaknesses. We know the market alone will not ensure that our communities are sustainable nor provide the quality of life that we seek. The market doesn't care about our families, our communities, our independence, our attachment to particular localities or whether there should be fish in the water for future generations.

We can't let the market set fisheries policy.

It is up to us and our governments to put in place the policies that best promote a socially sustainable use of our last common property food resource.

We believe the fishery should remain fundamentally a public resource, governed by public policies that will ensure that the wealth is shared as broadly as possible.

We believe that Canada's fish resources should be used for the broadest social good. That those who depend on fishing for their livelihood, the professional fish harvesters, must be given a real say in how the overall industry is managed. We believe that the right to fish must remain in the hands of individual professional fish harvesters; in other words, people who fish for their livelihood. The policies that have allowed fishing licences to be turned into another form of capital speculation on both coasts must end.

We believe that the sustainability of the resource and the communities that depend on it require a fishing strategy that can flexibly respond to the natural fluctuations in the resource and market conditions. As such the new fisheries policy must promote the development of multi-species fishing enterprises.

Lastly, the government must accept its share of responsibility for the disastrous mistakes of our past policy and deal fairly with those who will bear the brunt of the necessary fleet reduction.

These simple principles will require a complete about-face in our fisheries policy but will go a long way towards sharing the wealth from the sea and providing sustainable livelihoods to the greatest number of Canadians.

 

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