The Standing Committee on Fisheries, Transportation and Rural Development is concerned that PEI continues to receive less than its fair share of quota in the Atlantic halibut fishery.
“There are over 800 halibut licenses held by PEI fishermen,” says MLA Sonny Gallant, Chair of the committee, “which is comparable to the number of licenses in Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. But what’s not comparable is the quota that PEI has, which is less than 5%. Quebec, for example, has over 50%.”
PEI fishers are currently permitted to catch 20.66 of the 720 tonnes that form the Total Allowable Catch in the Atlantic halibut fishery. The system of allocating halibut quota dates back to 2007 when the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans determined that historical landings between 1986 and 2004 would form the basis for distribution of shares among the participating fleets. This approach did not account for the fact that PEI fishers could not fish halibut during twelve of the eighteen years due to
protective measures imposed by the 1992 cod moratorium. Provinces that could fish during these years also overran their quotas in some years, without penalty; this enabled their historical landings to be inflated.
As a result of the historical landings method, in 2007 PEI’s quota was set at 1.46%. The three Quebec regions participating in the fishery received roughly 58% combined, and Newfoundland and Labrador received 32%. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick regions also received percentage shares in the single digits, but PEI was the smallest.
“There are other ways of distributing quota in this fishery that would be much more fair to fishers in all five provinces,” says Gallant. “Using historical landings alone presents a skewed picture, and to restrict it to a period of time when not every province could participate only makes it worse.”
This past spring the Department of Fisheries and Oceans commissioned Ernst & Young to review the methodology of the 2007 sharing allocation decision. As part of the process, several fisheries organizations and provincial departments submitted suggestions for how Atlantic halibut quota could be more fairly shared. The Ernst & Young report, however, did not make specific recommendations for quota sharing in the future, and thus share allocations have not markedly changed.
The standing committee unanimously agreed that Island fishermen deserve more access to the Atlantic halibut fishery, and has sent its concerns to Hon. Keith Ashfield, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.