Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Assoc.

The following response was written by Danny Arsenault (President, PCFA) and Clarence Mickey Fraser and was printed in the September issue of the Navigator Magazine.

DISAPPOINTED & DISALLUSIONED PEI FISHERMEN

Dear Jim Wellman,

It was with great interest and trepidation that we find ourselves with, after reading your July edition of the Navigator magazine, that being your comments in the Editors Notebook (Absolute Power) and the article, Gulf Halibut Quota Cuts (Anger Newfoundland & Quebec Fishermen).

First and foremost, our Province of PEI, boasting over 1300 fishermen, have been short-changed and mistreated over the past several decades by decisions made by previous Ministers of Fisheries from New Brunswick, Romeo LeBlanc and on down the line in regards to sharing of quota and granting of licenses and permits. On the rare occasions, over the years when our Fishermen’s Organization requested and was granted a meeting with the Federal Minister of Fisheries, issues were discussed relevant to our fishery and promises were made; however the vast majority of promises never came to fruition.

In regards to Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, our Province of PEI was never afforded any special treatment over any other province during her tenure. Nevertheless we were treated fairly, and promises of action were followed up promptly, contrary to what previous Fisheries Ministers stated and did not follow up on. After the cod moratorium of 1992 when several Newfoundland & Quebec fishermen were granted snow crab and shrimp licenses, we did not begrudge these fishermen; although we had our grounddfish dependent fishermen put out of business and were not granted any new licenses. An example of our mistreatment of quotas is; although PEI possesses 50% of the total Atlantic Bluefin Tuna licenses, we are only allotted 30% of the TAC, while 2 sectors in Nova Scotia, namely St. Margaret’s Bay (utilizing a weir fishery) with 4 fully fledged licences and south west Nova Scotia with 32 licenses allotted 11.27% and 21.7% of the TAC respectfully.

As for the halibut fishery quota your article Mr. Wellman is misconstrued as the following are the actual facts:
• Prior to 2007, quota was 250T, with 125T available until the end of June, with the remaining 125T available starting the 15th of July until full quota was caught. Newfoundland and Quebec were usually fishing first, because fish were available in the northern gulf earlier; however they usually overran the initial 125T quota. Quota overruns were so bad that in 2006 there was only 30T left for the remaining fleets to fish in the southern gulf.
• Then in 2007, the then Minister of Fisheries, Loyola Hearn did a review of the quota system and based on the quota shares mainly on historical landings for the years 1986-2004. Newfoundland requested the review include the years 2005-2006 when their landings were good as a result of their quota overruns. During these years 1992-2004 the Southern Gulf fleet, as a result of the 1992 ground fish moratorium, were shut out of the fishery, thereby were unable to establish much history. This method of sharing quota was totally unfair to the Provinces of PEI, NB and NS. Minister Hearn divided the quota as follows;

Province        # Groundfish licenses          % Halibut Quota*
Quebec                     810                                        57.70
NFLD                       791                                        32.03
NB                            674                                          5.17
NS                             813                                          3.64
PEI                            890                                          1.46
•
• In 2007, TAC increased 100T to 350T. In 2008, TAC increased 50T to 400T. In 2009 TAC increased another 100T to a total of 500T. This last increase was transferred from uncaught by-catch quota from the dragger fleet. Sharing was based on the above percentages.
• Then in 2010, Minister Shea divided the 100T dragger by-catch quota evenly among all regions. In 2011, a further quota increase of 80T was shared equally amongst all fleets, which was granted by Minister Shea.   This is where NFLD and Quebec have cried foul, because of the equal sharing of the extra 180T quota that was granted by Minister Shea. Based on the percentages only, because of this equal sharing; NFLD and Quebec’s percentages of TAC are slightly lower, while other fleets percentages of TAC are higher. Nevertheless, in actual fact, NFLD and Quebec have received more quota to catch. How can this arrangement be unfair to them???

The fact remains that PEI has the highest number of groundfish licenses of any other province and unfairly receives the lowest percentage of halibut quota at 1.4%!!! How is this fair???

Thank you for your time and space in including this rebuttal in your magazine.

Yours truly,

Clarence Fraser & Danny Arsenault
Two fishermen from Tignish, PEI

Figure 1: % Halibut Quota per province