DFO's stacking of licences policy infuriates lobster fishermen in southwestern N.S.

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

Lobster fishermen in southwestern Nova Scotia weren’t just angry, they were infuriated as they recently sat in a room and listened to DFO officials explain a policy that allows for the stacking of two licences on one boat.

Through the new policy, the licence holder uses one boat and can fish 150 per cent of the normal trap limit of the two licences. The policy involves licence transfers and the option to split, or uncouple, the licences is available. Or at least it is for now. This could change.

DFO says licensing policy is being reviewed and the final policy could eliminate the ability to uncouple.

Should this occur, states DFO, licence holders who do not wish to continue owning and operating two stacked licences would be given a specified period of time to uncouple and dispose of the second licence.

The stacking policy is voluntarily so no one is obligated to take the Department of Fisheries and Oceans up on its offer. DFO says the policy is aimed at helping fishermen to reduce their costs and expenses by only having to maintain one vessel, as opposed to two. It thinks this may be appealing to fishermen giving the economic times. “The individual who looks at his cost structure of running one vessel with two licences, the reality that he’s going to face is his cost of operation is going to go down,” says Leslie Burke, DFO’s regional director of fisheries and aquaculture management.

But, adds Burke, his revenue will go down too because of the fact 50 per cent few traps are being fished than they would if they remained split as two licences. “So essentially, the people who will exercise this option are ones who, when they do that analysis for themselves, will find themselves basically saying the cost reductions that I achieve are going to make my final positions better than the revenue losses I’m going to suffer,” Burke says, who adds because the licence holder is catching fewer lobsters, those lobster will be circulating in the population and are contributing to the stock. “Or they’re going to crawl into somebody else’s traps and they’re going to add to the revenue that the other people are gaining,” he adds.

So it all sounds great, right? Not according to a majority of lobster fishermen who attended the fall meeting of the lobster fishing area 34 advisory committee meeting in Yarmouth, where they accused DFO of being underhanded in their policy. The fishermen argue that the stacking of licences undermines the owner operator policy they have long fought for where one fisherman owns one licence. DFO says the policy does not conflict with owner operator because the licence holder is only operating one vessel.

Fishermen disagree. They say the policy rewards people who control more than one licence and have been told by DFO that they have to get rid of their controlling agreements. “This did not do one thing to help the young fellow get into the fishery,” charged Wood’s Habour alternate port rep Sandy Stoddard. “This is only working in the big guy’s favour, not the little guy’s favour at all.”

Despite their efforts to do so – including stressing that a licence that is combined with another one must be held by an independent core fishermen – DFO could not convince the majority of those in the room that the policy will not result in more controlling agreement situations, or favour those already in them.

Stoddard also said the policy will lure crew away from fishermen who only have one licence because they’ll be more tempted to gain a share from the catch derived from 563 pots as opposed to 375. So aside from putting crew members out of work by displacing them through the combining of licences on one both, Stoddard and others argue it will also make it harder to find crew in the first place.

In an interview a couple of days after the meeting, Burke couldn’t say that wouldn’t happen, but he said there are many factors that weigh on where a person will work as crew. “I would say at the end of the day, if this is one incentive that causes somebody who is looking for a job to work for Party A or Party B…I wouldn’t argue that it might not happen in some instances…but in my view I don’t expect it to be big,” he said.

Aside from the concerns they raised about the policy, fishermen complained that this was never brought to the advisory committee table for their input. DFO says it has openly talked about making it more flexible for people to have more than one licence in the past, but LFA 34 fishermen said if this was talked about with them, they would have remembered it. “This makes a mockery of the system because it’s already been done,” said Steven Maillet, the alternate port rep for the Yarmouth Bar. “We weren’t consulted, we weren’t asked. Here it is boys, it’s done. This made the whole system a farce.” “As far as I’m concerned this has never been mentioned at this table,” added Shag Harbour rep Maurice Shand, who accused DFO of going behind fishermen’s backs.

Wayne Spinney, representing the area of Cape St. Mary, has written a letter to newly appointed federal fisheries minister Gail Shea, accusing DFO of blindsiding fishermen and asking for the opportunity for fishermen to brief Shea on this serious issue.

The fishermen also continue to display their distrust and suspicion of DFO saying for now the policy allows for the stacking of two licence and 150 per cent of the trap limit. Who’s to say in the future it won’t change to four licences and double the trap limit, they say.

For its part, DFO has also offered fishermen with other flexibility options that the fishermen in the room said they could have lived with. But this one, they say, has to go.

DFO says no one has to participate in the policy and they still think from an economic standpoint, it offers benefits to fishermen. Burke said officials were taken aback by how angry fishermen in LFA 34 are. “We underestimated the reaction that we’re getting to changes, that we’ve looked at and we can’t believe there is a downside to, but buy can they find one,” says Burke.