Iqaluit HTO rep slams Baffin Fisheries Coalition

PHILLIPE MORIN

OTTAWA – Feeling “like a lone ranger” in Parliament, Iqaluit fisherman Sytukie Joamie blasted the Baffin Fisheries Coalition before a Senate committee last week, saying the group isn’t doing enough to encourage Nunavut participation in the Arctic fishery.

Joamie, the chief negotiator for the Amarok Hunters and Trappers Association in Iqaluit, testified before a panel of 11 senators on Feb. 24.

He told senators that the Baffin Fisheries Coalition must change its practices, and argued against the presence of Norwegian fishing interests in Nunavut waters.

He accused the BFC of neglecting northern interests by out-sourcing work to regions outside Nunavut, and by selling fishing licences to foreign companies, which are free to keep profits on the condition they pay royalties and hire quotas of Inuit.

“When I was on a Norwegian longliner,” Joamie said, “we had a crew of 13. Only two were Inuit, and the rest were Norwegian. In this case, the product, fish from our waters, was labeled as Norwegian product. It is safe to say that the Norwegian interests benefited more than the interests of Nunavut.”

The Baffin Fisheries Coalition is a non-profit entity established in 2001.

Joamie said the BFC’s measures are short-sighted, because they produce only jobs, but not long-term investment, and he said more effort should be made to engage northerners in the Arctic fishing industry. This includes processing plants, and also fishing boats, so that more Inuit can fish through independent companies.

Though the BFC is legally obligated to spend 30 per cent of its royalties on a boat-buying fund, Joamie said it was “unclear” whether this was actually being done.

He said that local fishermen often have “no access” to written documents from the BFC, and that Inuit fishermen are often refused fishing allocations without being given a reason, while allocations are sold to outside companies.

Joamie also accused the BFC of being unaccountable to the communities it represents, as its headquarters are based in Newfoundland. Though official documents state that the group should have 11 members, he said it currently functions with five main decision-makers, of which three are “lawyers from Ottawa.”

This structure of governance was said by Joamie to be “not transparent enough.”

Since 1999, Joamie says he has campaigned for the interests of local fishermen in Nunavut, and has been a strong critic of the BFC.

“There are two kinds of people in this business” said Joamie. “The fishermen, who earn their money, and the other people, who are fishy.”

In the past year, he and 25 other members of the group did not receive fishing allocations, and were not given a reason. “We call ourselves fishermen, we are indigenous to the region, we thought we had a good chance,” he said. “Yet we are on the sidelines.”

According to Joamie, Nunavut stands to gain much revenue by building fish processing plants and investing in boats, since most revenue from commercial fishing ends up going outside the region.

“The emerging fishing industry has great potential.” said Joamie. “But currently, the great majority of benefits are enjoyed by interests outside of Nunavut.”

Though workers are paid for time at sea, most fish are shipped out, and processing jobs are given to other parts of the country.

Nunavut currently has one fish processing plant, in Pangnirtung, and Joamie says it could easily benefit from three or four more. He says that processing jobs often attract older people and women, while only young men typically work on boats.

“The fishing industry is well established in other parts of the country, such as Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and B.C.,” he said. “The federal government should build the infrastructure so that the industry could benefit northerners. The vast majority of the benefits are going out of the area, and even out of the country.”

Senator Joan Cook of Newfoundland, seemed to agree with Joamie on the need for northern participation in the fishery industry. If Nunavut is “to grow and develop its own business,” Cook said, efforts should be made to localize production. She agreed that “the plants should not be somewhere else.”

Throughout the meeting, many senators asked questions and praised Joamie’s “wisdom” as a fisherman, and the session extended well beyond its scheduled time.

The standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans is to submit a final report by May 31.

It will review federal policy toward fishing and quotas in Nunavut, and is expected to modify current fishing rules established by the 2001 memorandum of understanding, which established the current governance structure of the BFC.