Baffin Fisheries Coalition pleads case with new minister

Canada’s new minister of fisheries and oceans was lobbied hard to push for improvements for Nunavut’s fishing industry and marine infrastructure when he attended the Boston Seafood Show recently.

The pitch came from Malito Lyta, chairman of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition and staffers Ben Kovic and Jerry Ward. They managed to arrange a meeting with Loyola Hearne, the new minister, as well as Johnny Mike, chairman of Niqitaq Fisheries.

“Considering the busy schedule of the minister while he was at the show, we were extremely pleased that he took the necessary time from his schedule to meet with us,” Ward said in an email.

The BFC told Hearne that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans needs a plan to address the lack of marine infrastructure in Nunavut.

Nunavut, they told him, has the largest coastline in Canada, but doesn’t have adequate docking facilities.

Lyta also said the DFO needs a strategy to make sure Nunavut receives its fair share of its adjacent turbot fishery.

Nunavut now has a 27 per cent share in the turbot fishery in the southern Davis Strait region.

The turbot zone, known as division OB, lies offshore Nunavut, but the BFC is lobbying for a much larger share of the fisheries off its coasts — “the same treatment its southern neighbours enjoy.”

The turbot zone quota for OB was mostly handed out to southern companies like Seafreez Foods Inc. in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Further north of division OB lies division OA, where the BFC has had 100 per cent of Nunavut’s 4,000-metric-tonne turbot allocation in recent years.

Division OA, which starts just south of Qikiqtarjuaq, hugs the Baffin coast, and stretches north as far as Ellesmere Island. The fishery is shared with Greenland.

The BFC wants Hearne to make a commitment to give 100 per cent of any 2006 increase in OA turbot to Nunavut.

The BFC also told Hearne that DFO needs to spend more money for research and scientific work in northern waters, so that someday there will be commercial fisheries in species other than turbot and shrimp.