'The only time we feel like Canadians is when we pay our income tax at year's end'

Delegates at a three-day fishing industry symposium in Iqaluit last week passed two resolutions that lambaste Ottawa for ignoring Nunavut's need for more small craft harbours and more commercial fish quota.

"The only time we feel like Canadians is at the end of the year when we pay our income tax," said George Qulaut of the Qikiqtaaluk Corp., a company that's made big investments in the offshore shrimp fishery in recent years, including the acquisition of a factory-freezer trawler.

Delegates passed the two resolutions in unanimous votes held late in the afternoon of March 14, the final day of the symposium.

In the first one, delegates denounced the recent transfer of 1,900 tonnes of annual turbot quota in southern Davis Strait from a Newfoundland firm called Seafreez to two other non-Nunavut companies.

Seafreez, a subsidiary of a well-known Newfoundland company called the Barry Group, has held that quota since the mid-1990s.

Because Nunavut interests hold only 27 per cent of turbot quota in that area, known as "0B," they're insisting that Loyola Hearne, the fisheries minister, rescind the transfer and give Nunavut companies a right of first refusal over its purchase from Seafreez.

It's believed that Seafreez will transfer most of its 1,900-tonne annual quota to a Nova Scotia firm called Clearwater Fine Foods, and a smaller amount to a Labrador company.

Nunavut groups say the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, by failing to consult Nunavut interests, violated section 15.3.4 of the Nunavut land claims agreement by allowing the quota transfer.

Jerry Ward, the chief operating officer of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, says he understands that various firms from Atlantic Canada made legitimate investments when they developed the 0B turbot fishery in the 1990s.

But he said that when companies like Seafreez are ready to move out and sell their quota, Nunavut interests should get first crack at it.

"Should these quotas become available, the right of first refusal should go to Nunavut interests," Ward said.

Johnny Mike of Pangnirtung's Cumberland Sound Fisheries Ltd. was far more blunt, saying he's tired of reading reams of negative social and economic statistics about Inuit while Ottawa ignores the Arctic's basic economic needs.

"This is an example of how Inuit are being excluded from economic opportunities," Mike said.

In the other resolution, delegates called on DFO to immediately carry out a long-delayed plan, worth at least $43.9 million in 2008 dollars, to build small docks in seven Nunavut communities.

The scheme, in the works since 2004, would take a longstanding DFO project, the Small Craft Harbour Program, and extend it to Nunavut by building docks in Pangnirtung, Clyde River, Qikiqtarjuaq, Pond Inlet, Chesterfield Inlet, Repulse Bay and Kugaaruk.

But in his budget speech last month, Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, announced that only Pangnirtung will get its dock, at a cost of about $8 million.

Though delegates said they're happy for Pangnirtung, which houses Nunavut's biggest fish plant, they say the absence of docks in Nunavut is blocking development of inshore fisheries near communities.

"I find it strange that no one is complaining and shouting that there are no wharves and docking facilities. Without infrastructure, it will be difficult to develop an inshore fishery," said Jerry Ward, the chief operating officer of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition.

Nick Illauq, a hamlet councillor in Clyde River, said rich turbot stocks lie close to his community. But he said Clyde River has seen three different dock construction proposals arise and disappear.

Lootie Toomasie of the Nattivak hunters and trappers association of Qikiqtarjuaq reminded other delegates that it's the U.S. government, not Canada, that built most of the basic infrastucture in the Arctic, such as airstrips and radar stations

"We might be better off if the Americans had stayed," Toomasie said.

Last week's fisheries symposium was organized by the Government of Nunavut and Memorial University's Marine Institute, based in St. John's, Nfld.

It brought together a wide variety of delegates representing Nunavut hunters and trappers associations, governments and private companies such as Qikiqtaaluk Corp. and the Baffin Fisheries Coalition.

Jerry Ward, who manages Nunavut's biggest fishing enterprise, the BFC, said Nunavut leaders must lobby harder and louder on behalf of the industry.

For starters, he suggested that Nunavut organizations work towards gaining a seat on the board of the Fisheries Council of Canada, a move that would cost only $5,200 a year.

"If you're going to be a player you have to be seen and you have to speak up," Ward said.

And he also complained that Nunavut politicians aren't well-informed about the problems of the fishing industry and don't provide enough support.

For example, he said the Nunavut-Northwest Territories Workers Compensation Board refuses to cover Inuit who work aboard ships operated by the BFC, forcing his company to buy private insurance at great expense.

"I say to these politicians, get off your arses, as we say in Newfoundland," Ward said.