An important report on the future of the province’s northern shrimp fishery is expected to land on federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Hunter Tootoo’s desk by the middle of this month.
In it a ministerial advisory panel will offer advice to Tootoo on whether his department should continue, modify or abolish the controversial Last In, First Out (LIFO) policy for that fishery. If abolished, it is expected to offer advice on what kind of sharing arrangement between the inshore and offshore fleets should take its place.
In the meantime, the organizations that represent each of the opposing fleets have been trying to persuade panel members that their particular fishery makes more sense for Newfoundland and Labrador.
Ongoing are public relations campaigns and presentations to the panel that has been holding consultation meetings around the province.
Television and online videos pit offshore and inshore fishermen against each other, talking about how important the northern shrimp fishery is to their livelihoods and how it benefits rural communities and businesses in the province.
The LIFO policy came into effect in 1997 to allow inshore fishermen caught up in the northern cod moratorium access to a then-growing shrimp resource in Shrimp Fishing Area (SFA) 6 off the island’s northeast coast and southern Labrador. The agreement stated that should quotas decrease, the inshore fleet — the last in — would lose a higher percentage of quotas as they are reduced due to the declining stock.
As the years passed, however, the inshore fleet’s stake in the shrimp fishery grew and with the shrimp stock in decline for a number of years, the LIFO policy has been looked at by those in the inshore industry as an unfair quota sharing arrangement.
In February, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans released a northern shrimp stock status update that revealed a sharp decline in the fishing biomass, particularly in SFA 6, and major quota cuts were expected to follow.
The result has been an urgent need to settle the LIFO issue, and to conduct a full stock status report before this year’s TAC is set and the shrimp fishery begins in Area 6.
That prompted the organizations representing both fleets to elevate their positions.
On May 3, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW-Unifor) outlined its television, radio, social media and print campaign at a news conference in St. John’s (www.choosehome.ca).
The union is promoting the idea that the principle of adjacency and rural economic sustainability should be the basis of a policy governing the sharing arrangement of northern shrimp in SFA 6.
The situation is so vital, FFAW president Keith Sullivan said, that it could be the last chance to save many rural communities.
“This panel is going to be faced with a choice, whether it’s to support corporate factory-freezer fleets or choose people at home,” Sullivan said. “We are suggesting this panel make a decision to choose home — the thousands of harvesters, processing workers, the businesses and all the people and rural communities that depend on that inshore shrimp fishery.”
The Canadian Association of Prawn Producers, the organization representing the offshore year-round shrimp fishery, had launched its public media campaign in March (www.WeFishForNL.ca).
The association argues that the year-round offshore fishery pioneered and built the shrimp fishery in the province and that most of the offshore vessels involved are 100 per cent owned and crewed by Canadians — 75 per cent of whom are residents of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Bruce Chapman, executive director of the association, told the St. John’s Board of Trade the year-round fishermen in the offshore have been painted as foreign, fishing during the spawning season and providing less benefit to the economy of the province.
All of that, he said, is not true.
“And for the hundreds of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who work year-round in harsh weather conditions to make a living as fishermen, and for the hundreds more, particularly in Labrador, whose shore-based jobs are dependent on a strong and viable year-round shrimp fishery, that’s incredibly frustrating.”
Inshore harvester Heather Starkes, who along with her husband runs a fishing enterprise out of Carmanville, said that inshore fishermen were encouraged by the federal government to invest in the northern shrimp fishery.
“Shrimp is a very intricate part of our enterprise. We do have crab but in the last number of years, we’ve had to reinvest (because of quota cuts over time), so we’ve took on a lot of debt load to keep our enterprise going,” she said.
“I have two shrimp quotas, my husband has two shrimp quotas and right now that’s our mainstay that keeps our season going generally from May until September or October, so if that’s gone, myself or my crew won’t have a livelihood.”
Starkes captains a 60-foot vessel with a seven-member crew, while her husband operates a 65-foot vessel with a seven-member crew.
“I have a small quota (of crab) that can be fished in a couple of weeks. And if I don’t have employment then to October, we can’t survive. We can’t pay our debt load and we certainly can’t put back into the economy of Newfoundland.
“We’ve acquired a debt load to build up our enterprises. Moving away and getting a job is not going to pay my debt load. We want to keep investing in the fishery and investing in Newfoundland and have work here.”
“I would like to think that they didn’t give us the opportunity to invest in a fishery that they now want to take away from us. They gave us the access, everything was put in place so we could invest into a fishery again, and to say a number of years later that, ‘oops, we are sorry, you have all this debt load and now we are going to take the quota from you’, that’s not good enough.”
According to the Canadian Association of Prawn Producers, the offshore year-round shrimp fishery contributes a 24 per cent higher GDP (per tonne) to the provincial economy than seasonal harvesting and processing combined.
It employs hundreds of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians from 116 communities and directly supports over 1,000 onshore workers.
“The year-round offshore shrimp fishery has been an important part of the provincial economy for about 40 years,” Chapman said.
“About 20 years ago, seasonal (inshore) fishermen successfully lobbied to enter the northern shrimp fishery. At the time an agreement was reached on how this would be done, with 90 per cent of quota increases going to seasonal (inshore) harvesters.
“In the largest quota area, their total allowable catch increased from nothing to a high of 60,000 tonnes, while the quota for year-round (offshore) harvesters increased by only 5,000 tonnes during the same timeframe.
“The condition of the agreement was that when future quota decreases were to occur, they would be applied in the same way as the increases had been provided. This agreement is what people mean by LIFO, or Last In-First Out. The agreement was put in place by a Liberal federal government, and accepted by all parties, including the FFAW. All federal governments since that time have supported the fairness of the LIFO policy for this fishery.”
Sullivan said the union’s campaign is not just about protecting the 3,000 direct jobs in the inshore shrimp fishery, but about whole rural communities and the local businesses and facilities that depend on the fishery’s boost to the economy.
“One thing I do want to be clear on is that the corporate factory fleet will survive no matter what. They have 87 per cent of their product in other areas that is not SFA 6 which is adjacent to Newfoundland and southern Labrador,” he said. “Inshore harvesters can’t survive without the fish that is on our doorstep.
“At a time when our provincial budget is tough on so many, we just can’t have another blow that will be the lethal blow that would kill our communities.”
As for the provincial government’s take on the issue, an all-party committee was formed and has been pressing the federal government to eliminate LIFO and provide an alternative based on adjacency and historical attachment, and that is fair to both the inshore and offshore sectors.
