The late American journalist Sydney J. Harris once said “history repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.”
Let us harken back to late 2013 when then Prime Minister Stephen Harper orchestrated more than $100 million in cuts to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).
At the time, Postmedia News reported that “More than $100 million in cuts are underway at the federal department in charge of protecting Canada’s water and oceans, despite recommendations from top bureaucrats that it needs to increase spending for both environmental and economic reasons. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is eliminating about 500 jobs at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans related to Coast Guard services, patrols to stop illegal fishing activities as well as scientific research to promote conservation, protect endangered species and prevent industrial water pollution.”
“The cuts cover 26 different areas of the department which has a workforce of about 10,000 employees. The downsizing also includes the shutdown of federal libraries and millions of dollars in reductions to climate change adaptation programs. In total, the department estimates it will cut about $80 million per year from its budget by 2014–15 and more than $100 million per year in the following fiscal year.”
Looking back now, the budget cuts proved detrimental to DFO and set back critical fisheries research by years. It took nearly a decade for the department to recover and bounce back to provide its critical services to the fishing and marine industries.
Now, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the same fisheries-related gutting is taking place at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. equivalent of DFO.
According to Boston-based WBUR, across the U.S., NOAA has lost more than 2,000 staff members or 20 per cent of its workforce to layoffs, buyouts and early retirement packages since January. Notably, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, which collects data on ocean conditions and the health of fish populations, has lost 27 per cent of its staff since President Trump took office. Reports state that the staffing cuts have already led to delays and changes to this year’s annual assessments, which track fish populations and help regulators set quotas and catch limits.
During the recent 2024 U.S. election, many fishermen along the Eastern Seaboard were quite vocal in their support of Trump’s promise to roll back regulations and scuttle the offshore wind industry.
But now, industry analysts say ongoing uncertainty and confusion at NOAA will likely lead to lower catch limits and quotas for local fishermen, at least in the short term.
Beyond the loss of staff, the Trump administration has proposed cutting more than $1.5 billion from NOAA’s budget, eliminating many climate research and grant programs and seriously undermining the organization’s data collection and weather forecasting, with potentially dire consequences for coastal residents.
Well-known seafood industry analyst John Sackton stated in his Winding Glass column that Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts to NOAA will cripple domestic fisheries.
“The fact that Trump issued an executive order promoting American fisheries is meaningless in the face of actual budget numbers and staffing reductions at the agency managing our fisheries. These cuts are ideologically driven, likely by an AI search simply looking for the word climate or ecosystem. They have no operational logic or purpose except to dismantle core agency functions. This is already having major impacts. In the same way the air traffic control system is collapsing due to lack of staff and failure to invest in maintaining infrastructure, NOAA’s core functions are collapsing due to lack of staff and investment.”
Sackton added that climate and fisheries are inseparable.
“Climate is the most important single driver of changes in fisheries abundance. Shifts in pollock, salmon, crab and lobster reflect warming and environmental changes. Adjusting management plans to protect depleted stocks or capitalize on surging ones depends entirely on timely scientific data. Removing the capacity to monitor these changes ensures that fishery plans will become less able to meet the goals of economic value and long-term sustainability. The U.S. fisheries model built on the regional council system is the envy of the world. As Ray Hilborn and others have documented, the core strength of the system is that it is based on science, not political calculations. The result has been that major U.S. commercial stocks are fully sustainable. Claims by environmentalists that strong commercial fisheries and a healthy ocean are incompatible have been thoroughly debunked. But this system cannot survive without the resources and public investments to support it. Fisheries are a public good. When total privatization is allowed, collapse follows.”
However, despite the criticism, confusion and backlash created by the NOAA cuts, the feedback is falling on deaf ears in the Oval Office.
On April 17, Trump signed another one of his Executive Orders — this one devoted to the U.S. fishery.
In his Order, entitled Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, the President said that “Most American fish stocks are healthy and have viable markets. Despite these opportunities, seafood is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the United States. Federal overregulation has restricted fishermen from productively harvesting American seafood including through restrictive catch limits, selling our fishing grounds to foreign offshore wind companies, inaccurate and outdated fisheries data and delayed adoption of modern technology.”
The Executive Order went on to state that “The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and with input from the United States fishing industry, shall immediately consider suspending, revising or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture and fish processing industries at the fishery-specific level. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce shall identify the most heavily overregulated fisheries requiring action and take appropriate action to reduce the regulatory burden on them, in cooperation with the Regional Fishery Management Councils, interagency partners and through public-private partnerships, as appropriate.”
Translation — things are going to continue to get more confusing and convoluted before they get better.
As the gutting of NOAA continues, fisheries officials on this side of the border are wondering where and when the cuts will stop, while at the same time speculating on the impact the contraction will have on research and policy here in Canada. It appears the days of mutual collaboration and cooperation between DFO and NOAA are about to become a thing of the past.
