Question Period Note: Commercial to Communal Commercial Licence Reissuance (Flow of Benefits)

Commercial to Communal Commercial Licence Reissuance (Flow of Benefits)

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is committed to ensuring that the economic benefits from the inshore fishery in Eastern Canada remain with coastal and Indigenous communities.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada thoroughly reviews all licensing requests. When making licensing decisions, the Department considers many aspects, including who would benefit from the licence, as well as broader socio-economic objectives.

We remain committed to advancing reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, in part by expanding opportunities to participate in inshore fisheries.

Industry concern about requests to relinquish an inshore commercial licence, conditional on a communal commercial licence being issued

Representatives from the inshore fishing industry in Eastern Canada continue to express concern over a perceived “loophole” in new inshore regulations. The new regulations fully came into force in April 2021, and include a requirement that inshore, commercial fishing licences only be issued to independent owner-operators, as well as prohibitions related to the separation of title from the rights and privileges under the licence (i.e., who holds the licence vs. who benefits from the authorized activity and makes licensing decisions). It has been suggested that this has created an incentive to request that inshore commercial licences be “re-issued” to Indigenous communities as communal commercial licences. Communal commercial licences are issued under a different regulatory framework (i.e., the Aboriginal Communal Fishing Licences Regulations), to which the new inshore regulations were not intended to apply.

The Department is aware of this concern and is carrying out policy analysis related to the interaction between the two regulatory regimes. In the interim, the Department is using all possible levers to apply the inshore regulations when requests of this nature are presented. Agreements or arrangements between licence holders and third parties may also be reviewed to ensure that economic benefits resulting from fish harvesting in the inshore sector flow towards independent licence holders and Indigenous communities. Each case is thoroughly reviewed prior to a decision.

Changes to commercial inshore regulations – 2020/21

Over the last 40 years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has developed a suite of policies (i.e., Owner-Operator, Fleet Separation, and the Policy to Preserve the Independence of the Inshore Fleet in Canada's Atlantic Fisheries (PIIFCAF)) that apply to the inshore and coastal commercial fisheries in Atlantic Canada and Quebec. The aim of these policies is to promote viable and profitable operations for the average fishing enterprise by keeping licences and their associated benefits in the hands of independent, small vessel owner-operators.

However, over time, inshore harvesters, fleets, and industry associations expressed concern that a licence holder’s ability to make independent decisions in their own best interest was being compromised by the proliferation of agreements and arrangements between licence holders and third parties, such as fish processors and buyers. In these agreements or arrangements, third parties, who are ineligible to hold inshore licences themselves, gain access to the fisheries resource and assert control over fishing activities and/or the proceeds from those activities. This undermines the exercise of the Minister’s discretion to issue licences in a manner that achieves desired social, economic, and cultural objectives.

In December 2020 and April 2021, changes were made to the inshore commercial fishing regulations in Atlantic Canada and Quebec to respond to these concerns. These changes were designed to limit third party control over commercial licences, and largely enshrine existing policy intent (i.e., Owner-Operator, Fleet Separation, and PIIFCAF) into regulations. They also provide for a new enforcement component.

Communal commercial licences

Communal commercial fishing licences may be issued to “aboriginal organizations” under the authority of the Aboriginal Communal Fishing Licences Regulations (ACFLRs). The ACFLRs establish a regulatory framework for the licensing of “aboriginal organizations” by DFO, consistent with the communal nature of Indigenous fishing. A communal commercial licence is issued to an Indigenous community rather than to an individual. An Indigenous community may hold multiple communal commercial licences, and is permitted to sell the catch harvested using these licences.

The ACFLRs are a separate regulatory regime from the regulations that govern the broader commercial fishery in Atlantic Canada and Quebec (e.g., Atlantic Fishery Regulations, 1985; Maritime Provinces Fishery Regulations). Neither the new inshore regulations nor the policies that predated them were designed to apply to ACFLR licences, as many of the concepts are not transferrable to the community-based nature of communal fishing (e.g., requirement for an individual to personally fish the licence).

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