Preserving the Independence of the Inshore Fleet in Canada's Atlantic Fisheries

Public Consultations - Port Hawkesbury, NS - January 13, 2004 Draft Summary

Overall Summary of the Session

• The issue of trust agreements is a complicated one, with no clear solutions, although participants urged caution as DFO tries to solve the problem.
• There are strong links between trust agreements and intergenerational transfers of licences – many points were raised with respect to sources of funding; most participants supported trust agreements as long as they didn’t interfere with beneficial interest. Of major concern are issues with respect to young fishers buying into the fishery.
• Many issues were raised with respect to comparative tax treatment with other industries and there were calls for DFO to work more closely with CCRA to find solutions.
• Some other options proposed to deal with problems included property rights, issuing licences to inshore fishermen’s corporations and re-issuing licences to new entrants
• Owner-operator and fleet separation policies – support for status quo with some requests for flexibility on owner-operator to deal with designated operators.

Summary of formal written presentations

• An appreciation that DFO does endorse “the importance of maintaining an independent and economically viable inshore fleet” and encouragement for the Minister to use his absolute discretion to ensure that the licence holder is the only entity that holds the legal title and the beneficial interest in the licence.
• There is no need to complicate these policies with levels of flexibility; either the two policies get strengthened or they are lost. Losing these policies will do undue harm to the resource and the coastal communities.
• The lack of the owner-operator policy in BC has resulted in fishers having to lease quota from companies and work hard with little reward – rather like feudal system of long ago where properties were owned by lords and run by tenant farmers – we would like to think we are beyond that.
• The resource belongs to the people of Canada – conservation and sustainable use are of paramount importance - who better to grant the privilege to fish than those adjacent to it and who have an interest to care for it for future generations.
• Corporations in the fishing and fish processing industries already control the marketing of what is harvested; their responsibility is to shareholders who do not all live in coastal communities, and their main incentive is profit, not conservation.
• An owner-operator of a fishing enterprise is responsible for the way he fishes, the way he runs his business and provides for his family.
• Economically, it makes sense for licences to benefit the owner-operator; he/she can plan their fishing better, are not burdened by paying large shares, or lease fees, to someone who is not out there fishing. This translates into making the communities more viable, and the inshore fleets retain some level of independence.
• Because the operators of the licences have more responsibility for establishing rules, they are easier to follow, they have more responsibility to follow them and more incentive to conserve. The lobster fishery is an example of this – the most stable of all fisheries and the largest owner-operator fishery where fishermen invest in lobster licences for the long term. Peer pressure helps to enforce the rules; often more effectively and less costly than DFO can.
• Based on past experience, if the processing sector had more control, the fishery would likely become more over-capitalized, less sustainable and offer less to coastal communities.
• Too many times in the past DFO has attempted to rationalize the fishery, with goals of economic viability, and greater flexibility but these attempts have had the opposite effect. Offshore licences were given to large corporations which resulted in over-capitalization of fishing fleets, which were not sustainable. There was over-fishing, TAGS payments; meanwhile the multi-species inshore fleet went on to pursue other fisheries, even after suffering because of overfishing by the larger fleets.
• Inshore fishers are getting the message that DFO would like to privatize the resource in hands of a few large corporations.
• In the same discussion document which endorses the need to strengthen the owner-operator and fleet separation policies, there is a list of questions asking how to allow for more flexibility – which would simply weaken rather than strengthen these policies. Are these consultations actually looking for ways to undermine the commitment to preserve inshore fleet?
• The owner-operator and fleet separation policies have served the public well for many years and one would hope that DFO is sincere in its intent to preserve these two policies.
• This is not a complicated issue calling for complicated solutions – just plug the loopholes that allow for trust agreements and strengthen the regulations to abolish such practice in the future.
   
• The fundamentals are clear – viability, self-reliance and prevention of undue concentration of licences. However, the discussion document does not provide definitions of ‘viable’ and ‘self-reliance’.
• Concern is with succession planning, particularly the inability of prospective new entrants to enter the fishery by accessing capital through conventional means.
• Under current income tax act, a fisher can’t give his/her licence to children or someone else because they will be taxed based on a deemed evaluation at fair market value upon disposition of the licence. This is based on the principle that an asset cannot be undervalued in order to avoid legitimate taxation.
• Both enterprise and licence costs have escalated since the inception of limited entry licensing. Drivers include: inflation in the economy generally, improved economic performance of the lobster fishery, the use of more costly and elaborate vessels, DFO’s entry into the licence market to allow for Aboriginal participation in the fishery, and there are more buyers than sellers.
• The inability of new entrants to access the capital necessary to enter the fishery is in large measure the cause of consolidation of enterprises into the hands of fishing companies or individuals holding more than one licence.
• Banks will not extend financing due to the common property nature of the licence. Consequently, new entrants are entering into contractual arrangements with fishing companies (or others) as the next best option to not being in the fishery.
• A trust agreement, a discretionary trust (or a family trust) between the buyer and the seller is one of the few means for new entrants to obtain the funding necessary to enter the fishery.
• But, DFO should be careful – it is not reasonable or fair to make exceptions for families – all this does is punish the celibate.
• The discussion document goes to some length about trust agreements. The Courts have been clear in numerous cases that trust arrangements are legal and binding instruments in fisheries disputes. This is true in spite of the fact that DFO does not recognize trust agreements and that such arrangements may violate the owner-operator provisions and/or other regulations or policies of DFO and the Fisheries Act and Regulations.
• There is considerable debate around the desirability of the use of trusts to circumvent fisheries policy and it is likely DFO will be impotent with respect to doing something about this. The Fisheries Act is very clearly a federal responsibility, while the regulation of business is typically a provincial responsibility.
• There is certainly abuse in the use of trust agreements; but we must be careful that we understand the upside to use of such agreements as an instrument of generating financing for young people. By use of a trust, creating a corporation and divesting preferred shares over time, you can effectively create a mortgage for children or for whomever you sell to. Anything that DFO does should be thought through carefully, to avoid “throwing out the baby with the bath water”.
• The creation of such trust agreements may be perhaps the best mechanism currently available to support intergenerational succession and ought to be allowed to continue unless the Government of Canada is prepared to make a quantum leap with respect to changing the nature of the fishing licence.
• The alternative is to develop a statutory fishing right or property right in the fishery which is assignable to lenders. This would go a long way to levelling the playing field for new entrants.
• Some have argued that creating a property right will mean that licences will end up in the hands of corporations. But right now that is happening, to a greater or lesser degree in different areas, without such a property right. And, it is not just corporations that hold more than one fishing licence – the incidences of fishers owning more than one licence is increasing.
• As DFO moves towards intertwining legal title and beneficial use, they must recognize that this is heading towards a property right system.
   
• Atlantic Canada’s small boat fishery has been built on the foundation of the family structure. The small boat fishery has been and remains the social and economic backbone of Nova Scotia’s coastal communities. There is an historical family bond within the structure of the inshore fishery.
• Over the past decade, the inshore fishery has changed; the owner-operator policy is but one that raises concern over how our fishery is being managed. Organizations and fish harvesters are realizing that management of the inshore fishery has resulted in more downloading on fish harvesters.
• The questions raised for discussion portray an uncertain future that could cause a change in the way fish harvesters are being recruited into the small boat fishery. The owner-operator policy must be strengthened to reflect that the small boat fishery is controlled by owner-operators.
• DFO must take immediate steps to enact a regulatory solution to the problem of trust agreements by incorporating the owner-operator and fleet separation policies into the General Regulations of the Fisheries Act.
• In particular, the regulations should include provisions to ensure that the legal title and beneficial interest associated with the licence are inseparable. The regulation should also state that if licence transfers occur in the context of financing transactions between fishers and corporate interests, control over the beneficial interest of the licence will remain with the licence holder.
• In addition to regulatory change, DFO should examine administrative measures such as licence conditions to prohibit the use of trust agreements designed to undermine the owner-operator and fleet separation policies. But before adopting such administrative measures, there should be consultations with fish harvester organizations. DFO should only proceed with administrative changes if, following the consultations, broad consensus emerges in support of the proposed measures.
• Elimination of loopholes in both policies is not sufficient to enhance independence and economic viability of inshore fleets. Access to finance and fair fiscal treatment for the owner-operator fleets are critical to enhance their independence and economic viability and are essential for smooth intergenerational transfers of fishing assets.
• Under phase II of the AFPR, DFO should develop a series of measures that the federal government could enact to provide fish harvesters with more equitable tax treatment. Owner-operator fishing enterprises are small businesses in nature and should have same treatment as other small business corporations or family farm operations, i.e. allow the estate to transfer property (in this case, the licence) to a child at a value between costs and fair market value and to allow harvesters the $500k capital gains tax exemption.
• DFO should examine issuance of licences to corporations wholly owned by professional fish harvesters that qualify for core status. Suggested assessment criteria are if such issuance would improve the fiscal situation of the harvesters without weakening the owner-operator or fleet separation policies. Particular attention should be paid to the possibility of new measures that could be enacted to recognize professional corporations.
• Before introducing any changes, DFO must consult extensively and proceed only when broad consensus for change exists
• DFO should also propose new measures to allow owner-operator fish harvesters to obtain financing from lending institutions or provincial loan boards to lessen dependence on financing from processing companies
• Any adaptation of the owner-operator policy must be constrained by the need to respect its underlying objectives – preserving and fostering a diversified sector of multi-species inshore enterprises headed by independent professional fish harvesters. In no way should any adaptation undermine or weaken the owner-operator policy.
• All must continue to demonstrate our commitment to the independence of the inshore fleet and the coastal communities. The Bonafide policy was introduced in 1982, written by fishermen for fishermen and continues to be the guiding principle for all fish harvesters in the Gulf Region.
• Before all else harvesters must ensure that their enterprise is or could be their children’s future.
• A number of documents were reviewed, and the single, most fundamental observation drawn from the review is that the documentation fails to define the problem clearly enough to effectively comment on what approach DFO should take to deal with it.
• Because the problem has not been clearly defined, if DFO rushes prematurely to put a solution in place it is likely the solution will not protect the independence of the inshore fleet.
• The discussion document, in numerous places, says there is “widespread concern that the fleet separation policy is being undermined by so-called trust agreements”. When you go back to the notes from the 2001 public consultations in Nova Scotia, the issue does surface at most of the meetings held. It is not the only issue raised at all meetings, but there is nothing that explains how trust agreements undermine the owner-operator and fleet separation policies.
• We do understand on one level what the concern is – some measure of control over these licences is being exerted by someone other than the fisherman in whose name the licence is issued. What we do not understand is exactly why this is a problem - what negative impacts it is having on fisheries management, on the viability and self reliance on the individual fisherman, and on coastal communities, etc.
• It is impossible to know the most effective solution for dealing with trust agreements when the problem is not well defined – this is a recipe for a regulation that will have questionable benefit for the fishery and possibly negative or at least unintended and unanticipated repercussions for fishermen.
• The Minister talked about the need to preserve the inshore fleet, to strengthen the viability of inshore fleets and the importance of a vibrant small business community of inshore fleets and the health and prosperity of hundreds of coastal communities. Taking the fishery as a whole, there is a role to play for processors, private investors, fishermen and support and spin-off businesses to contribute to these goals but there is a disconnect between the goals and objectives stated by the Minister and the problem with trust agreements.
• The broad essential elements of a self reliant, economically viable and self sustaining fishery are: effectively controlling access to the fishery, managing resources so as to maximize stability and predictability in quota allocations, and ensuring a reasonable rate of return on investment.
• Trust agreements in the discussion document are generally considered to be agreements between fishermen and processors. But these are not the only kind of trust agreements. There may be trust agreements with silent, private investors who, other than providing the financing, have little or nothing to do with the fishery, or they may involve agreements between or among fishermen sharing in the beneficial interest of the licence, or they may involve agreements or judgements that split the beneficial interest between spouses or former spouses. It is not just as simple as an agreement between processors and inshore harvesters.
• Most fish harvesters at one time or another obtain financing from somewhere other than regular lending institutions, for example local fish buyers, processors, other fish harvesters, family members and other investors, for a variety of reasons. While these financial arrangements were likely not all formalized with specific trust agreements, there was obviously an agreed-upon method of repayment - agreements such as this happen every day in the fishery.
• We need to know how many licences are subject to trust agreements and, of those, how many are between fishermen and processors, fishermen and private investors, fishermen and other fishermen, etc. Nobody at DFO could identify what agreements are out there, so how could DFO regulate and enforce them? This would drive them further underground.
• Tackling trust agreements as a single problem, while failing to recognize their complex nature and widespread application, could be opening a Pandora’s box.
• Parts of the discussion document (pages 5 and 6) provide classic examples of the disconnect between the owner-operator and fleet separation policies, and trust agreements. It is not clear how trust agreements undermine these policies.
• The discussion document refers to a “widespread concern” that the fleet separation policy is being undermined by trust agreements. The evidence of this concern needs to be more clearly and explicitly articulated.
• DFO says it is “intent” on dealing with trust agreements; this sounds similar to ‘weapons of mass destruction’ - how do you deal with something if you don’t even know what is out there?
• DFO will try and find ways in which trust agreements violate some fisheries management principles; it should be obvious that some trust arrangements have a positive impact in the fishery.
• Although the official DFO line is that fishing licences have no value and does not recognize the ‘sale’ of a licence, at the same time DFO purchases licences and quota, and both permanent and temporary access for the exclusive use of Marshall bands. In a number of cases, bands have entered into agreements with outside investors; they have also established corporations to hold licences – will DFO have a separate set of policies and regulations on trust agreements for Aboriginal bands?
• DFO must clearly define the actual problem and show industry specific examples of where the independence of the inshore fleet is being threatened by trust agreements.
   
• The Issue is more a question of which is the primary fishery – the inshore represents about 10% of the total area fished, has the most people and resources, but has never been established as the primary fishery.
• Canadians have a right of access to the resource; the Marshall case has brought First Nations up to the same level of right to participate.
• The financial part of the owner-operator question has to be separated from licence issuance which must remain a federal jurisdiction - if DFO winds up downloading to provincial governments, some would have 6 different governments to face every morning.
• DFO has to be clear that the licence holder is where the buck stops; whole bureaucracies have been built to try and manage financial implications of licence transfers.
• Every day we see young people trying to buy licences; but ultimately there is only one person who decides how to turn the wheel while out there fishing.
• This is really an evolving circle; government cannot keep economic benefits of the resource as diversified as it currently is, without the benefit of the owner-operator policy. We have to keep this policy, and put the financial implications off to one side.
   
• When the bonafide policy was created, trust agreements were virtually unheard of. We have to recognize that flexibility is already built into the owner-operator policy which allows a fish harvester to designate a substitute operator in certain circumstances
• Trust agreements result when new entrants are faced with the high cost of licences and no access to traditional funding mechanisms which results in them having to fish to service debt and living expenses.
• It is recognized that a fishing licence is the property of crown and not transferable; however, through licence retirement programs, the amount associated with the retirement of the licences has translated into retirement packages for fishers.
• The next generation will continue to have an insurmountable debt because of the excessive prices of licences.
• DFO could create a fisheries loan board for new entrants and could place a lien on licences if payments defaulted.
   
• If the inshore is really the backbone of the fishing industry, why have past and present DFO Ministers done nothing to stop the practice of trust agreements?
• Financing the cost of certain fishing licences is virtually impossible; allowing a capital gains tax exemption for fishers would allow them to retire with a pension and let new entrants into the fishery.
• DFO should open the industry up to more fishers instead of making millionaires out of a few; one way of doing this would be to set up a fisheries loan board to provide funding to younger fishers.
• A vibrant inshore fishery will contribute to communities, but DFO Ministers have ignored fishermen’s pleas to conserve the resource and have listened to the large, multi-national corporations who rape the oceans. These large corporations should not be allowed to acquire licences in the inshore.
• The discussion document refers to the argument that the owner-operator and fleet separation policies “impair the ability of the fishing industry to compete in the global market” – DFO should get bureaucrats strong enough to stand up to multi-nationals and preserve the oceans for future generations.
• If the Minister of DFO has absolute discretion under the Fisheries Act, he/she also has sole responsibility for existing trust agreements and is as involved as the two or more signatories of the agreements, which is probably why DFO is unwilling to deal with this in effective manner. It is obvious that courts will consider trust agreements legal because DFO has not taken a stand against them. Laws with stiff penalties are required, and this takes a Minister with backbone.
• The biggest problem facing inshore harvesters is the lack of funding. DFO will have to step in and set up a system where existing fishermen and those wishing to enter the fishery can secure funds. These funds should be made available to fishermen to acquire licences, to upgrade gear and equipment, etc. That way, fishermen would not have to approach processors for funding.
• DFO should stop corporations from wiping the ocean clean and should establish a buffer zone to protect the resource from near shore oil exploration.
• DFO should introduce sanctions and penalties for infractions.
• Fish farming is also a problem – it is growing hand over fist and affecting inshore fisheries; there are no obvious restrictions on location of fish farms and this is having an adverse impact on the inshore harvesters.
• The owner-operator policy should be kept in place to preserve independence of inshore fleet.
• The questions posed in the discussion document are pretty vague and, when you get into trust agreements, you are really in muddy water. DFO should not spend a lot of money trying to deal with trust agreements if the final decision will be that they are loan agreements.
• DFO should still play a strong role in what happens in any fishery and should bring enforcement back to what it was before DFO started scaling back.
• There is also an issue of transparency in DFO. We understand there was a deal made between DFO and small number of fishers that will have negative impact on fishery in general but we were not informed of it. On the question of lobster conservation measures, DFO never told us the biomass estimate and implemented different conservation measures for different areas, without any continuity or fair application of conservation measures. Given this, it is hard to say if the conservation program is helping or not.

Following presentations by registered speakers, a round table discussion of the issues raised in the discussion document was held. The following is a summary of that session.

Open Discussion – Trust Agreements

• Scallop licences are being issued as recreational licences, without any catch restrictions; DFO has to make sure that either restrictions or regulations are put in place to make sure that the commercial fishery is not suffering because of the recreational catch.
• DFO maintains that the Minister has complete control over licences; how then can trust agreements be happening?
• There are no government funds available to assist new entrants. Look at the Marshall agreement - funds were made available (which is fine) but similar funds should be made available to traditional or younger fishermen.
• It has been a tradition that licences are passed from generation to generation; DFO has to make a distinction between these arrangements and others who acquire licences for the purpose of reaping a profit without being on the boat.
• The owner-operator policy should stay in place and if it is tinkered with, it should be for the benefit of traditional fishers
• DFO created this mess and now they come to us to help them solve it. Somewhere there is somebody who knows what is going to happen and they won’t tell you, or you won’t tell us, and by the time we find out will be too late.
• The price of a licence has increased fivefold over the past few years, making it impossible for young people to enter the fishery; if the Minister was serious he would take steps to ensure that funds were made available to fishermen. There seems to be money for everyone except us.
• DFO takes the position that a licence is a privilege, issued annually, that can be cancelled at any time, but fishers need to make a long term financial commitment. Can DFO recognize that unless there is a conservation issue, the licence holder should be entitled to continuity of licence?
• The loopholes in the fleet separation policy, detailed in the discussion document, refer to agreements that are principally at arm’s-length, out of the community. DFO should distinguish between arm’s length agreements and those that involve control of a licence.
• All this links to the CCRA regulation that does not allow fishers to take advantage of tax provisions by incorporating.
• We need a firm, clear commitment from DFO on where it stands with respect to maintaining global competitiveness and maintaining viable coastal communities. DFO must be clear on whether or not it believes inshore fisheries owned by small operators can still be globally competitive.
• An interim way of improving a fisherman’s tax situation could be to issue inshore licences to professional corporations; this would need to be coordinated with CCRA to afford the same treatment to fishermen as farmers; DFO can’t do alone.
• Government can change the nature of the licence; the Fisheries Act is totally outdated with conservation measures being the only reason to cancel a licence.
• Provincial jurisdictions can play a large role to develop vibrant communities, particularly because of their responsibility for the processing sector.
• The requirement for associations to attend more and more meetings called by DFO has become a financial burden. DFO should consider issuing licences to non-profit organizations who could use the proceeds from the licence to finance their operations. A condition of licence could be that any revenue over and above that need to run the association be given to community organizations (food banks, Lions Club, etc.).
• Since the Minister has ultimate power to issue licences or to take them away, why can’t he ensure that when a fisherman wants to leave the fishery, the licence could only be transferred to another individual so a corporation name would never be on licence?
• It would be a step forward if we had allocations to set up a fund to let new entrants get into fishery but this is pretty complicated and not the forum that will solve this problem. We need new, imaginative answers, the suggestion of allocations being used for the good of the community is a good one.
• If we are honest, there is not a fisher out there who could come up with finances to buy in today. The only reason someone goes into a trust agreement is because financial institutions will not lend money on the value of a licence.
• My generation would love to point finger at DFO and say it’s your fault that the cost of a licence is so high, but I don’t think it is. It all comes back to fishing is privilege and should we be entitled to make money off that privilege when we transfer to next generation? I think I should be entitled to market value for the boat and gear and should pass the licence on to the next generation for what I paid for it. If we cannot put some money away for retirement, how can we expect the next generation to pay for our retirement, while at the same time paying for their home and family?
• I don’t know what answer is, but it is a fisherman’s problem. If we don’t find the solution, it will be the fishermen who will be eliminating the next generation. Not the banks, not DFO
• Finance is now directing fishery, instead of other way around. When fishing licences were inexpensive, the tax man was not after us. Now that we are dealing with higher prices for licences, the tax man is after us. The Department of Finance and CCRA have escalated problem, and I don’t see them coming to the table to help us come up with solutions to save the fishery.
• When we talk about fleet rationalization, it is really a form of licence concentration which drives the price up.
• This appears to be a tax problem. If we had the same treatment as farmers it would certainly help because right now we are being treated like second class citizens, operating under a different set of rules.
• Trust needs to be re-developed between fishermen and government. We are a greedy lot! I didn’t buy into the fishery to make a retirement package, I do hope to make a good living out of it and would like to pass it down to son or daughter or someone in the community without being taxed to death.
• Trust agreements would not be necessary if the next generation had access to financing and could afford to buy us out. We shouldn’t expect to be millionaires, but we should expect to make a living, put some away for retirement, and get fair market value for our product and our boats and gear.
• DFO is at fault – it has control over licences and allocations. In the crab industry, DFO had the chance to issue more licences and refused to do it because it wanted to make millionaires out of a few fishermen. DFO was warned for years about the cod fishery, about how multi-nationals were raping oceans and should accept that DFO is the sole cause of what is happening to this fishing industry here.
• The failure of DFO to listen to fishermen is the problem; DFO must accept responsibility for its bad decisions and accept the advice of fishers’ groups that approach DFO with good data.
• Youth can buy into the fishery; it will take them a number of years to pay off the debt, but it can be done. When I want to retire, I want a decent price for my licence and enterprise because that will be what I have to live on for the rest of my life.
• Not all trust agreements are bad, it is to be accepted that if a processor is funding an enterprise, there will be some provision about landings and fair market value for the catch. And, when the debt is paid, one is free to move on.
• Everybody seems to be against trust agreements, while lawyers make money off fishery. The commitment should be to training our younger generation and by limiting entry into the fishery.
• The value of licences has been blown out of proportion for some reason. The reality is that the fishery cycles up and cycles down; some licences have substantial value while others have none. This is a free-market driven business - “you pays your money, you takes your chances”.
• In reality, this has become a lawyer’s business. When you buy stocks, you sign a trust agreement with the broker; when I tried to get rid of enterprise, my accountant said I couldn’t do it; lawyer said I’ve got to have trust agreement to avoid paying excessive taxes. It is hard to pass the enterprise to the next generation without a trust agreement and these types of agreements should be supported. The ones that should be eliminated are the agreements that are used to concentrate licences.
• Is this a problem across the Atlantic or just in certain areas? I would be totally opposed to the government imposing a cap on the value of a licence or enterprise.
• The basis of this problem is CCRA and tax implications; they are one group not at table that seem to be dictating agenda. The Bonafide policy of 1982 started the process of stabilizing the fishery. If we are going to maintain control over the agenda, government has to maintain status quo over the value of a licence. CCRA has to come to table and let us know how they are going to allow us to sustain ourselves – we need financial solutions, and DFO’s mandate is conservation.
• We’re first generation with disposable income and don’t know what to do with it!

General discussion – Owner-operator and Fleet Separation Policies

• DFO should clarify what is means by “proposals must not resolve in undue concentration of licences”; as it reads now, it implies there is some due concentration of licences.
• The discussion document refers to a “significant number of licence holders” - what proportion of licence holders is significant? Perhaps it should be broader and we should look at our ability to define region or sub-region. We should also define fleet component, community, or community of interest.
• Under vessel replacement, no one got what they wanted, and IPAC went nowhere. We should be able to sell a licence more openly for whatever we want to sell it for. This should not be defined by CCRA. We should look at other ways to solve these problems if we agree they are problems; to go through this murky process to deal with this is not good.
• Whatever road we go down, we can’t undervalue an asset to escape taxation – right or wrong, we are stuck with that.
• In the future, will DFO determine what is a reasonable income for the gear an enterprise head has? If DFO has to step in, instead of giving fishers a higher quota because of biomass, maybe they should be issuing more licences instead; this will drive the cost down and spread the wealth.
• Issuing more licences does not solve the problem
• It is easy to give out licences when the resource is abundant or on the increase, but then the licences have to be rationalized when the resource goes down. There has to be other solutions.
• We should maintain the status quo from a licensing perspective until CCRA comes to table and offers solutions to some of the problems they have created.
• In terms of DFO stepping in to create more licences for the ‘greater good’, it is important for new entrants to understand that when there is a surplus, DFO does not give all increases to existing licence holders, there are also temporary sharing arrangements.
• Right now, under the owner-operator policy, I can put a designated operator on a boat to fish my pre-88 groundfish licence. I believe in inshore fishers owning a licence, but I should be allowed to put a crew onboard one boat while I fish another. This would be the concept of multi-species licences. As long as companies don’t get inshore licences, I’m happy.
• Things vary from region to region, there should not be just one policy for the whole Atlantic.
• The wealth from this public resource should be more evenly distributed.
• How the licence was purchased should be taken into account – for example, if it was purchased under the owner-operator provisions, it should stay that way.
• The owner-operator policy is the only hope for transferring to the next generation; without this policy, the fishery will just become big business and will be a huge problem for communities. If you have two boats, it puts more pressure on a fishery. Shouldn’t be allowed to hold more than one licence of a species, it puts too much pressure on resource.
• It is not clear how DFO will recognize legitimate organizations. A process already exists in the Gulf Region to deal with the whole process of accreditation.
• A working group should be established to deal with a number of these issues and should be involved in reviewing all documentation sent to the Minister.
• We hope DFO has received the message from inshore fishermen to maintain both the owner-operator and fleet separation policies, and the recognition of some flexibility when we talk about designated operators.
• Are things really broken, and if so do we need to fix it? Be careful - in trying to change things for the better, we may erode what we have.