After a year of upheavals in the fishery, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture Minister Gerry Byrne thinks 2025 will be a year the industry makes its own choices.
Byrne, who has served as a Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly since 2015, previously held the fisheries portfolio from July 2017 to August 2020. He was shuffled back into the position in July 2024, not long after Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union’s (FFAW’s) growing discontent over fish pricing — particularly in crab — resulted in the union and the province negotiating a “free enterprise” deal that would see increased processing capacity and new processing licenses issued within the province and more ability for outside buyers of catch to operate within Newfoundland and Labrador.
“There’s no doubt about it — 2024 was the year of snow crab and of the price-setting approach. But as well a strong and deep-seated view with many in the industry that there’s not enough capacity, not enough competition and not enough of the exercise of free enterprise,” said Byrne. “That was creating downward pressure on the price-setting process for fishermen, resulting in an industry environment that many harvesters felt was very unfair.”
To Byrne, the backing of free enterprise principles by not only the FFAW, but every other public sector trade union in the province, was marking what he saw as a stark change in tone from the unions of years past.
“It’s quite remarkable when you consider free enterprise has not often been the mantra and the insistence of public sector trade union bargaining agents,” said Byrne. “We can talk a lot about the issues, because the issues are substantive, but issues will get resolved and they’re already being resolved. So, if I were to really say, ‘What was fundamentally shaking and moving about 2024?’ It was the switch in philosophy about how our fisheries should interact with our harvesters, processors, communities, fish plant workers and how we view this resource.”
Having come into his current office in the latter half of 2024, Byrne said the biggest role he has played was releasing government powers back into the hands of those like FFAW, whether that be enabling the call for free enterprise or engaging with the union on the possibility of ditching binding arbitration in favour of traditional collective bargaining and a return of the right to strike and lock out.
“2025 will not be a decision of government. Nothing that will happen will be a decision of government, everything will be a decision of the FFAW, of the harvesters and potentially in concert with the processors,” said Byrne. “If the FFAW and harvesters do not want the panel processor for 2025, we’ve already passed legislation to extinguish it. All they have to do is just say the word.”
Byrne also pointed to his 10-point plan as a means in which the government has advanced the call of free enterprise, which includes increased thresholds for snow crab production, the lifting of pre-existing caps on snow crab processing licenses and the continued exploration of outside buyer opportunities through 2025.
In reviewing the year that was, Byrne felt he would be remiss to not mention Northern cod and the controversy surrounding the reopening of the commercial fishery by the federal government and what he sees as mismanagement of the resource by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This, he said, is a prime example of why the provincial government should have more power over how the province manages its fisheries resources going forward.
“Their clumsy, ill-informed, negligent approach to reopening the Northern cod fishery should spark the condemnation of every harvester and every non-governmental conservation organization,” said Byrne. “To Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, that is simply unacceptable. It’s one of the many reasons we are continuing to call our expectation of joint management of our fisheries resources with Ottawa. We need to be at the table. Harvesters have come to me, processors have come to me and community leaders have come to me to say the evidence is irrefutable — if we are not at the table as joint and equal managers of our own resources adjacent to our shore, we will never get the full value that we deserve and expect from our fisheries.”
