BFC breakaways pitch local fishery

The Nattivak Hunters and Trappers Association of Qikiqtarjuaq went fishing for political support last month, landing meetings with two members of Parliament and officials at the prime minister’s office, as the association continues to seek allies in its struggle to establish an independent community fishery.

The Nattivak HTO is one of three or four Baffin organizations whose members say they want to break away from the 11-member Baffin Fisheries Coalition.

In a press release issued last week, Nattivak says that by April of 2005, it plans to get its own vessel and fish independently from the BFC.

That’s because the Nattivak HTO, along with Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd. and Cumberland Sound Fisheries Ltd. are — for various reasons — opposed to the BFC’s plan to purchase a deep-sea factory-freezer vessel to gain better control over Nunavut’s offshore turbot and shrimp stocks.

Koalie Koonieliusie, Nattivak’s chair, and Sam Nuqingaq, Nattivak’s secretary treasurer, took that message to Ottawa and Halifax last month.

In Ottawa, they met with Loyola Hearne, the Conservative party’s fisheries critic; Peter Stouffer, the NDP fisheries critic; Jeff Copenance, an advisor on aboriginal affairs in the prime minister’s office; and Nathalie Lachance, executive assistant to the prime minister’s chief of staff.

In Halifax, the two men from Qikiqtarjuaq attended a meeting of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization — the international body that regulates commercial fishing in eastern Canada’s offshore.

But there’s just one problem: it’s unlikely that the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board will give them more turbot quota next year than what they have already.

Ben Kovic, chair of the NWMB, said in an interview this week that until December, 2005, the Baffin Fisheries Coalition will continue to receive 100 per cent of Nunavut’s 4,000-metric-tonne turbot allocation in northern Davis Strait, known as division 0A.

That means that for next year, Qikiqtarjuaq won’t get any more turbot than what they’ve been getting for several years now: a small 330-tonne allocation in southern Davis Strait, known as division 0B. Until now, that quota has been fished for the HTO by a Nova Scotia seafood corporation called Clearwater, in exchange for royalties paid directly to the HTO, and some jobs.

“They can plan to do anything they like, but if they don’t have any fish, there goes the plan,” Kovic said.

The NWMB participates with the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., in an informal fisheries working group.

In 2001, that working group formed the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, after the federal department of fisheries and oceans announced that Nunavut interests would receive 100 per cent of the total allowable turbot catch in division 0A. The NWMB then awarded the entire 0A quota to the BFC.

The BFC is made up of the Qikiqtaaluk Corp., six community hunters’ organizations, and some small, mostly government-backed fishing companies.

“I tried to explain to them at the time that it’s like a co-op… and they all agreed,” says Kovic.

But recently, some members of the BFC have been threatening to back out. In Nattivak’s case, it’s because its members believe the BFC’s plan threatens their goal of creating a community-based fishery.

“We now have a chance to achieve what our members have always wanted in the past few years, to create employment for our people. Unemployment in Qikiqtarjuaq is around 80 to 85 per cent,” said Sam Nuqingaq, Nattivak’s secretary-treasurer.

But for Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd. and Cumberland Sound Fisheries, it’s because Panniqtuuq interests want more free fish from the BFC than the BFC is willing to give.

Between 2001 and 2003, the BFC landed 605 tonnes of turbot — gutted, and with the heads and tails cut off — to the Panniqtuuq fish plant, an effective subsidy worth more than $1 million. Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd. then turned the frozen fish around and sold it to southern interests.

Ironically, the money-losing fish plant in Panniqtuuq is majority-owned by the Government of Nunavut. Its operator, Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd., is a partnership between the Nunavut Development Corp. (51 per cent) and the community-owned Cumberland Sound Fisheries firm (49 per cent).

As a DevCorp subsidiary, Pangnirtung Fisheries Ltd. already enjoys generous subsidies from the GN. And Kovic said that this year, the BFC will still give the Pang plant between 300 and 400 tonnes of partially processed turbot.

Kovic wouldn’t speculate on how division 0A turbot quota will be allocated after 2005.

But with the solid political backing that the GN, the NWMB and NTI have provided, the BFC seems unlikely to weaken.

Despite that, members of the Nattivak HTO believe that they’re setting a precedent, and that their community-based plan could be a model for other communities.