East Coast inshore fishermen—spooked by the federal government’s vague talk of “modernization”—fear for the future of their industry, and thus, the wellbeing of their coastal communities. Should the inshore fishery be left in its traditional state, or is the current setup an EI-subsidized relic in need of major restructuring?

“A fisherman may wonder if he, let alone his children, can continue in the industry. Others, perhaps some among you, believe the fishing industry already lives only from government subsidies. We in the government must therefore ask: is the fishing industry worth saving? And if not, I hope we have the courage to say so and get out. I for one believe it is worth saving.”

former federal fisheries minister the late Romeo LeBlanc, from a speech delivered in Halifax on October 22, 1974

Derek Butler is concerned about the future of the inshore fishery. His anxiety, however, stems not from the potential for change, as signaled last year by the government’s document “The Future of Canada’s Commercial Fisheries,” but from the lack of it.

Butler, executive director of the St. John’s-based Association of Seafood Producers, grew up in Newfoundland but moved away in 1988 after attending Memorial University, first to Quebec and then Ontario. In 1996 he began working abroad, living in far-flung locales such as Yemen and Madagascar while working for a Washington, DC-based NGO focused on democracy development.

In 2004, while in Brazil, he received an offer from back home to work for the Association of Seafood Producers, which represents local processors. Butler accepted, viewing the position, in part, as a way to spend more time with his parents. He also saw it as a way to contribute to the local fishery. “It’s culturally, economically, and socially a part of our fabric. That to me was an attraction,” he says.

However, returning home after 16 years, he was shocked by the fishery he found. “I didn’t think it would still be structured in the antiquated way that it is,” he says. “I thought the fishery would be modern and different.”

For Butler, the problems are many. For one, the inshore fishery is overly dependent on Employment Insurance. As well, too many harvesters are reliant on a fragile resource for their livelihood. With so many fishermen drawing “marginal incomes,” there’s an inevitable desire to pull more fish and crustaceans from the sea. That, Butler argues, is compromising our ability to manage the inshore fishery in a sustainable manner.

And then there are the coastal communities that depend so heavily on the fishery. As Butler sees it, anyone who boasts about the current state of Newfoundland and Labrador’s coastal communities is viewing life through rose-coloured glasses. “We have one of the lowest birth rates in North America. We have one of the oldest populations in Canada,” he says. “We don’t have strong rural communities because we’ve adopted a social model for the fishery as opposed to a business model. It’s a hand-to-mouth social model and some call that success. I call it failure.”

What would Butler change?

For one, he believes fishermen should be allowed to hold numerous licences and quotas, a move that would shrink the fleet but allow the remaining fishermen to boost their individual yields. Harvesters should also be allowed to sell shares of their operation to outside players, in order to bring in additional expertise and capital.

And new players should be allowed to hold licences. Butler’s group is comprised of more than 65 seafood processors, most of them located in coastal communities. He says those plant owners would like to own fishing licences, but are now prevented from entering the harvesting game because of owner-operator and fleet separation policies.

According to the owner-operator policy, the holder of a fishing licence must actually be in the boat doing the fishing. The fleet separation policy curbs corporate ownership of licences. (The current debate over the future of the inshore fishery started, in large part, because the 2012 Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ discussion document “The Future of Canada’s Commercial Fisheries” failed to mention the owner-operator and fleet separation policies, which led many fishermen’s groups to conclude they were being cut.)

When combined, the two policies act to prevent the corporate consolidation of licences; they also keep licence ownership out of the hands of processing companies. Processors, boxed out of the fishing side of the industry, have no say in how, or when, the resource is harvested. Simply put, Butler and his members want those “antiquated” policies to disappear. And he doesn’t buy the argument that Wall Street or Bay Street fat cats would buy up all the licences. It’s not like big corporations are buying up all available houses and selling them back to people at high rates, he notes.

But what about the prospect of local captains selling their boats to become hired hands on bigger boats, much like the arrangement in the offshore fishery?

Butler says those offshore fishermen, though not captains, are working year-round and making good money. “Most people in the world are employees. I’m an employee. Crew members are already employees—they work for a captain. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not serfdom,” he says. “The status quo has ensured that young people aren’t attracted to this industry. The status quo is a path to marginality and oblivion.”

That point was echoed in a recent independent review of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery. The 2011 report, commissioned provincially in response to a protracted strike by Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW), offered recommendations—including a radical downsizing—to ensure “the long-term stability” of the fishery.

More than 20,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador depend on the fishery for the bulk of their income. The province is home to 3,800 harvesting enterprises, which employ roughly 11,000 people across 500 communities. The province’s 102 primary fish plants employ a further 10,000 residents.

According to the report’s authors, that setup is unsustainable. The industry, they note, “may not be strong enough financially to withstand two successively poor fishing seasons.”

And a restructuring won’t be sufficient to fix the situation; the fishery must first be rationalized. The inshore fishery, the report recommended, should be downsized by as much as 80 per cent in order to be viable. Additionally, the report called for a 30 per cent reduction in the number of crab and shrimp processing plants.

“Rationalization... could allow the industry to improve its current financial position and ready itself for the more complicated and more fundamental restructuring that is required and that has been operationalized in fisheries in other countries such as Iceland,” the authors wrote. “If the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery is to survive and prosper, it must become more competitive internationally.”

The provincial government’s reaction to the document was swift: then fisheries minister Clyde Jackman rejected the report just one hour after its release.

“How many places depend primarily on the fishery? I have no study to present to you that counts up the furniture stores and grocery stores and boatyards that would close without money from fish… But we all have access to maps. And a road map from the nearest service station, showing an enormous number of coastal towns and villages ringing blank areas at the centre of almost every Atlantic province, tells quite a story about the importance of Atlantic fisheries.”

Romeo LeBlanc

If you own something, you take better care of it

Norma Richardson lives in wharf-speckled Harrigan Cove, one of the many fishing communities that dot Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. Richardson, a long-time harvester, is past president of the Eastern Shore Fishermen’s Protective Association. The association’s 230-member fishermen haul traps and nets in the bays and coves spanning from Halifax Harbour to Canso.

Richardson’s father was a fisherman. As children, she and her two brothers helped prepare his bait; upon his return to the dock, they put bands on snapping lobster claws. During herring season, their small hands helped clean and salt the catch.

In 1964, Richardson married a fisherman, Glen. The 18-year-old bride soon joined him on his boat. A year later, however, she was rejected for unemployment benefits. “So I bought my own lobster licence, and fished on my own. I had to take a young guy with me for a while,” she recalls with a giggle. For four years she fished independently, mainly for lobster.

Eventually, though, she re-teamed with Glen and fished with him for two decades. “It was something to do,” says Richardson, now in her 60s. “Getting up in the morning. Spending time together.” The only drawback, she says, was seasickness.

Richardson doesn’t fish as often as she used to. Ten years ago she and Glen sold their boat and licences to their daughter, Donna, and her husband, Glen. (Richardson giggles again when revealing the lack of variety in their husbands’ names).

“For most of us that’s the goal: to make sure there’s something there for your family to move into if they so choose,” she says. But Richardson believes that will soon change. She says the federal government appears to be pushing a “big box approach”—one that would replace the region’s thousands of inshore fishermen with a small group of consolidated fishing companies.

“The small guy would have to go to work for those companies, or they would end up unemployed or moving away. A lot of our guys are already moving out west, the young people especially,” she says. “There would be no incentive for the young people to get into the industry. You’re not going to own it. You know it’s not going to be yours. It’s just going to be a job. You’re not going to put your heart and soul in it. That’s what most of the fishermen do.”

Richardson isn’t opposed to change; she acknowledges that adjustments are inevitable. But she’s not open to changes sent from on high via Ottawa bureaucrats.

“They send people to talk to us who have no idea what it’s like to live in a small, coastal community,” she says, her giggles now replaced with a serious, concerned tone.

For Richardson, an independent, captain-owned fishery is essential for the survival of Atlantic Canadian coastal communities: it provides jobs and encourages residents to stay at home, instead of moving to Alberta.

“It’s a way of keeping the communities together; keeping them alive and vibrant,” she says. “If you own something you take better care of it. You make sure it lasts.”

“To the tourist, the fisherman seems free. There may be freedom in his life, but on a rough ocean at 5 a.m. in the fog, with no sure knowledge where the fish are, there may also be desperation. The fisherman never knows how good his family’s Christmas will be.”

Romeo LeBlanc

How do we survive?

On PEI, Mike McGeoghegan—a fisherman and president of the Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association—is preparing for the upcoming fishing year. For many of the association’s 1,200 member captains, this begins in May, with lobster season, and ends in mid-December with scallop season—just before ice begins to form on the Northumberland Strait.

At 63, and after more than three decades on the water, McGeoghegan is eyeing the end of his fishing career. Last year he sold his lobster licence, part of a government buyback program, though he still harvests crab, mackerel, herring and scallops. His slow transition from the industry is part of a larger trend. In his community, Pinette, the number of local captains has dropped from about 80 to 8 over the past 30 years.

That number, McGeoghegan says, would be completely erased if the government proceeds with its “modernization” agenda and the changes that most fishermen predict are coming. Despite former DFO Minister Keith Ashfield’s assertion that the fleet separation and owner-operator policies in Atlantic Canada would remain intact, McGeoghegan believes the government is determined to pound ahead with a consolidation movement. “They’re just waiting for the heat to die down so they can come back at us from a different angle,” he says.

McGeoghegan ponders what life would be like in his community without a captain-run fishery. “It would be different. It’s been going on for 100 years. When you have no captains….” He requires a few extra moments to contemplate the prospect. “I don’t know. It would be hard to envision that,” he says finally. “Fishing is the lifeblood of the community.”

McGeoghegan isn’t happy to be contemplating such scenarios. But he’s not entirely surprised it’s come to this. His 35 years in the industry have corresponded with a period of significant change, particularly in recent years.

The price of both fuel and bait is going up, yet fish and lobster prices are steady or in decline. (This past May, fishermen across the region tied up their boats and refused to fish—a protest against low lobster prices.)

And then there’s the increased attention the fishery receives from provincial, federal and international regulatory eyes.

“Years ago nobody cared about fishermen. It was just something you’d see on a calendar,” McGeoghegan says. “But now we seem to be under the spotlight for some reason. And it has put a lot of pressure on the industry. It’s still one of the best jobs in the world. There’s no question about it. But I’m worried about the current state of the industry—how do we survive in today’s conditions?”