October 17, 2016
Tribute to Captain Tony Carter
By Sara Roach-Lewis
On September 22, PEI lost an important and
universally respected leader in the PEI fishery. Tony Carter, a fisherman out
of Red Head Harbour in Morell, was just 47 when he died suddenly. Tony was an
active volunteer in the fishery for almost 15 years. He was the president of
the Eastern Kings Fishermen’s Association, a member of the board of directors
of the PEI Fishermen’s Association and a long-standing member of both the LFA
24 Lobster Advisory Committee and the Groundfish Advisory Committee.
More than that, he was well known as being a fair and honest representative for all Island fishermen. Like many of us, Tony’s fishing roots run deep and wide, and he started fishing after he graduated high school. Tony was passionate about fishing - he loved to be on the water, working with his hands and seeing the results of his hard work. Over the years, Tony brought that love of fishing to the many boards and committees he sat on. And some of the most recent work he did on the halibut fishery is considered historic and groundbreaking by those involved.
“Tony was the most passionate person I ever met when working on a particular issue,” said Craig Avery, President of the PEI Fishermen’s Association. “He was a true leader, and he will be missed.”
“I always called him Gentle Ben,” said his close friend and fishing partner, Terry Squires. “He was a great guy to fish with. He never got too worked up about anything. He was the type of guy who didn’t have enemies.”
Peter Boertien sat on the board of the Eastern Kings Fishermen’s Association with Tony. “Tony became chair about a year and a half ago and was working hard to build the strength of the organization. He was a quiet guy, but when he talked, he always made sense and people listened to him.”
Steven MacLean sat on the Lobster Advisory Committee with Tony for almost ten years. “Tony was very honest and straightforward. He treated everyone with respect and at the same time wasn’t afraid to stand up for fishermen.”
While Tony brought the voice of Island fishers to the table, he left his opinions at home. “You never really knew what he was thinking,” said Scott Bruce, Harbour Rep for the EKFA. “He never pushed his own agenda. He tried to give people as much information as he could, have a vote and what the majority decided, that’s what he went with.”
Over the years, Tony was involved in some of the most contentious issues facing the PEI fishery and regardless of the issue, his sense of fairness was a common thread in all his work. He worked extensively not only with fishermen on committees and in his harbour, but also with the staff of the PEIFA, Department of Fisheries & Oceans and the provincial Department of Fisheries & Agriculture, particularly on the halibut fishery.
“Tony wanted to do the right thing for the fishery and fishermen,” said Provincial Deputy Minister of Fisheries John Jamieson. “He was always thinking 3-5-10 years down the road. He saw the lobster fishery as a good basis for making a living and was always asking how do we build on the lobster season with other species and have fishermen on the water as much as possible. In that, there was always an environmental component - he wanted to protect what we have, while still maintaining a living for people.”
“What I always got from Tony was it was never about himself. It was always about doing the right thing. He would always say, ‘John, we need to do the right thing here.’”
Figuring out what the right thing to do is not always an easy task in fisheries management with so many fishermen, competing interests and limited resources for research. Tony became particularly involved in halibut work over the past five years. Like many fisheries, halibut quota allocation is rife with political involvement and interference, but Tony believed there could be a different way.
In 2012, after another devastating allocation decision, the Groundfish Advisory Committee decided to take another approach. Island fishers knew there was an abundance of halibut in their waters and needed to prove it. The committee also questioned if there was a separate stock of halibut in the Southern Gulf like there are with cod. By the time the research project came together, it was November. The halibut tagging wasn’t supposed to start until the following season, but the committee was keen to get started. Tony offered his boat, found the bait and he and other volunteers went out on an unseasonably warm day in November to start the tagging project.
“It was an amazing day,” said Laura Ramsay, Research & Liaison Officer, with the PEI Fishermen’s Association. “After all the ups and downs, it was so great to be on the boat catching halibut to tag, seeing their hard work in action.”
The halibut tagging project is just wrapping up with the researcher writing his final report. As with a lot of fisheries research, it asked as many questions as it answered and the PEIFA hopes to find funding for the next phase of research.
In addition to the research project, Tony’s influence on the halibut fishery was felt on many levels. He was generous with his knowledge and showed other fishers how to rig their halibut gear, he worked with DFO to change the management of the fishery and was the key PEI representatives at the special meeting of the Gulf Groundfish Advisory Committee last year in Montreal.
DFO works with the local fisheries advisory committees to develop management plans. Chris Mills is the Chief of Resource Management for PEI. “Tony was great - very respectful and level headed in the way he approached the department in the negotiations,” he said.
A few years ago DFO needed fishermen to come up with a new type of management for halibut. The PEI fleet routinely went over their quota, and the department wanted the problem addressed. While there are still kinks to work out with the new system, Chris was looking forward to working with Tony to sort them out this winter. “We are still trying to find solutions to other issues that have come up and Tony was very much a leader in doing that,” said Chris.
The work to re-imagine a management style for
halibut was ground-breaking, and Tony’s work bringing together the Southern
Gulf fleets around halibut is historic. “Tony led a collaborative effort between New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI to find common ground on which the provinces
could begin a shared approach to halibut allocation,” said PEIFA Executive
Director Ian MacPherson. “To anyone’s recollection this has never been done before, and it
takes a special kind of person to head that up.”
Tony worked for many years to build relationships with fishermen and associations in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.“It was a testament to his character,” said Laura. “These groups have such a rich history of pissing each other off and Tony played a major role in keeping them at the table. He had the personality to do it - he was someone you could talk to, share stories and your two cents with. There was a trusting way about him. It was only a few points of agreement for the three provinces, but he helped bring us together, and that is an incredible feat.”
Halibut continues to be a work in progress with more downs than ups for the PEI fleet in this past year. Tony was committed to keeping the conversations going, building the relationships and doing the science they needed to understand the fishery better.
Melanie Giffin from the PEIFA worked closely with Tony to prepare and present PEI’s perspective at the meetings in Montreal last year. “He wanted to see change and was committed to helping push that change. He had such a huge heart - fishing and family are what he cared about. Halibut, Helen, and Emma are what I heard about when we met. He raised the bar high for being a volunteer and what he put into the fishery. He will be missed.”
His legacy will live on, though. When Tony died, his family suggested memorial donations go to the PEI Halibut Research and Development Fund. A commitment to not seeing Tony’s hard work go to waste seems to be shared by many.
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