Nunavut groups applaud decision to change shrimp policy

Methuselah Kunuk, vice president of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, says the last-in, first-out policy for northern shrimp allocation was bad for Nunavut and he’s glad the fisheries minister has decided to scrap it. (FILE PHOTO)

The Baffin Fisheries Coalition celebrated July 7 after the July 6 announcement from the federal fisheries minister that Ottawa plans to change how they allocate the country’s shrimp quota.

Dominic LeBlanc, minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, announced July 6 that the last-in, first-out northern shrimp quota system which favours older, more established companies at the expense of new players, such as those in Nunavut, will be scrapped.

LeBlanc made his decision after considering a ministerial advisory panel report on the subject, a report which emerged from consultation meetings last May in Iqaluit, Newfoundland-Labrador and Nova Scotia.

“The panel determined that after being in place for about 20 years, ‘LIFO is not a sustainable instrument of public policy,’ and should be replaced by a system of proportional sharing for the future,” LeBlanc said in the July 6 statement.

Proportional sharing is more fair and ensures both inshore and offshore fleets, as well as Indigenous peoples, “continue to share in the economic benefits of this precious resource,” LeBlanc said.

“Sharing arrangements must also respect land claims agreements and the interests of Indigenous groups as well as the interests of adjacent coastal communities.”

Methuselah Kunuk, vice-president of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, which made a submission to the advisory panel urging Ottawa to scrap the last-in, first-out, or LIFO, policy, said it discriminated against new players.

Under LIFO, when the shrimp quota shrinks — as it has recently — quotas for new players are cut first while quotas for older players are preserved.

“This is good. We were the last to get in so if that policy applied, we would have been the first out. That’s good news,” Kunuk said.

The government now needs to increase Nunavut’s share of the northern shrimp quota in the water’s off Baffin Island’s eastern shore, he said.

Right now, Nunavut companies can only fish about a third of nearby northern shrimp stocks while the rest of the quota goes to southern-based companies.

“Up here, we only get 35 to 40 per cent. All the rest goes to outside, fishers from the South, fishing in our adjacent waters. It’s more than us right now,” Kunuk said.

“We fought to get rid of that because it doesn’t agree with the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.”

James Eetoolook, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.’s vice president, said he too was pleased that the fisheries minister was ditching the LIFO policy.

But he echoed Kunuk’s suggestion that Ottawa should now increase Nunavut’s quota in the waters adjacent to Baffin Island.

“We still have some concerns over the proportional sharing arrangements. It does not take Article 15 in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement into consideration,” Eetoolook said.

Article 15 says Ottawa should “give special consideration” to principles of adjacency and economic dependence when allocating commercial fishing licenses.”

“We have been short-changed on that,” Eetoolook said.

“Nunavut has been allocated only about 37 per cent of adjacent northern shrimp resources compared to 80 to 90 per cent in other jurisdictions.

“Hopefully in the future, once the policy [at fisheries and oceans] changes, we would like to see the Inuit and Aboriginal groups get their fair share of fishing resources.”

Eetoolook added that if Ottawa wants to see Nunavut become more economically independent, then it should invest in the fishery — namely marine equipment, training and port infrastructure.

In 2013-14, the total market value of Nunavut’s fisheries, including shrimp, was worth about $86 million and employed about 370 seasonal workers.

LeBlanc said in his statement that it’s early yet but he’s asking his department officials to examine next steps, keeping in mind the need for sustainability and long-term conservation of the industry, given shrimp stock declines.

In planning, LeBlanc said he will consider “community impacts and Indigenous commitments and obligations.”

Conservative fisheries critic, Mark Strahl, called LeBlanc’s announcement, “a betrayal of the offshore fishermen who built the northern shrimp fishery and entered into a deal with government in good faith to share that resource with their inshore colleagues after the cod collapse.”

In a July 7 statement released to media, he called the abandonment of LIFO, “both misguided and hypocritical,” since it was Jean Chrétien’s government which implemented the policy in 1997.