Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to come here today to tell my story. I might need an extra 20 seconds.
With the time constraints, I will try to keep it short and sweet because to explain some of the grave injustices brought down on the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery by DFO would take hours on end.
When I first saw the topics the committee has begun to study on the agenda for this meeting, I felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time: hope. These topics, if made into policy, would bring the Newfoundland fishery in line with the rest of Atlantic Canada and put us all on a level playing field in terms of general policy. So, I give a heartfelt thanks to Mr. McDonald and members of the committee for bringing these issues to the forefront.
My story begins in the fall of 2016 when I commissioned a new boat to be built in Nova Scotia, a 39-footer with a 7-foot extension. I had heard rumours that DFO in Newfoundland was become increasingly difficult with regard to approving extensions, so I made a visit to White Hills to find out exactly what was being approved. The licensing department was very co-operative and informed me that as long as it was removable, it would not be included in “length overall”—fair enough. I went ahead with the proposed extension, working closely with the boatyard to ensure that the extension was fully “unboltable”. Twenty-five thousand dollars later, voila, I had my extension.
Let's fast-forward to January 18, 2017, when I arrived back in Newfoundland and submitted my vessel registration application to DFO. My extension clearly met the criteria, and also aligned perfectly with the diagrams on the application, for the extension not to be included in “length overall”. I also had a letter from the boatyard stating it was fully removable.
After submitting my application, a few weeks passed by, and something didn't feel right because this should have been a quick process, a swipe of a pen, if you will. I reached out to the area chief, and I was told that the definition of “length overall” was under review. I then explained that the definition of “length overall” was very clear on my application and that because I met all the criteria, my application should be approved.
The next few weeks proved to be very frustrating because I was being told that senior management was looking at it. However, never would they produce a name so that I could contact them to inquire about what was really happening. In Newfoundland, senior management are portrayed as a group of individuals who hide in the shadows and make major changes to policy without consultation. Fish harvesters often refer to them as “ghosts”.
Finally, in the middle of March, I received a letter from the area chief granting me a one-year temporary vessel registration because the definition of “length overall” was going to be changed and I would have to remove the extension for the 2018 fishing season. I was at a loss for words because I had just spent $25,000 on an extension that I could only use for one year and then would have to throw in the landfill. However, the fishing season was getting very close, so I pushed forward with the intent to deal with it in the fall when the season was over.
September 2017 came. It's difficult to fully explain in such a short period of time all the different scenarios, for lack of a better word, that DFO has incorporated into our fishery. In the 3L less-than-40-foot fleet, you needed to have a 40-foot vessel registration to participate in the crab fishery inside 25 miles. However, there are nine boats fishing crab in this sector that have a 44 feet 11 inch registration. In trying to solve my problem, I found one of these registrations to buy. I met with DFO to arrange the paperwork, and I was promptly told, “Sorry, the rules were changed last spring.” How could this be? How could there have been monumental changes to policy without anyone knowing? I decided to file an ATIP, and this is where the story gets interesting.
My ATIP turned out to be very intensive, so the request took longer than a normal period of time to process. In the meantime, I filed an appeal to DFO with regard to my initial temporary registration around the middle of November.
On December 27, 2017, an envelope was couriered to my house with the material regarding my ATIP—all 477 pages of it. There was no apparent order to it, but after hours of reading and sorting, it told a disgusting story of how senior DFO management colluded with the FFAW behind the licence-holders' backs to change the definition of “length overall”, and then pretended to hold consultations, which garnered no support for the proposed change.
Here is the chain of events of how this fiasco unfolded.
On January 18, 2017, I submitted my vessel registration application.
On February 9, 2017, Kim Penney, of DFO in Newfoundland, began circulating my vessel registration application to other DFO regional offices throughout Atlantic Canada to get feedback in order to help herself and Duke Tobin formulate a new definition of “length overall”. What was most disturbing was reading the emails back and forth between Kim and Duke. They were basically using me as a guinea pig while admitting that my boat met the criteria of the current application at the time. Please see appendix A for the proof.
On February 16, 2017, Kim and Duke met with a representative of the FFAW, where three applications with stern extensions, including mine, were laid on the table. It was then decided amongst those people in Newfoundland that Newfoundland would be getting a new definition of “length overall”.
Three cheers for consultation.
What is most disturbing about this is that the three applicants were not FFAW supporters. Speaking for myself, I had helped to start a rival union six weeks prior to this meeting and DFO still thought it was appropriate to bring the FFAW into the room and decide the fate of my boat. It's sickening, to say the least. Please see appendix B.
In March of 2017 at the crab and groundfish technical briefings, DFO announced to the few harvesters in attendance—because only a slight few were invited—that they were considering changing the definition of “length overall”. There was absolutely no support whatsoever for this proposed change. There were comments like this: “you only have so much fish to catch, so what difference does it make what the size of your boat is?” Also, safety concerns were a common theme—see appendix C. Unfortunately, even though there was no support to make the changes to length overall to remove stern extensions from the equation, DFO pushed on regardless.
In March 2017 I received my one-year temporary exemption. On April 11, 2017, DFO had inquiries from the boat manufacturers that make the 28-foot open boats that are used as a secondary vessel. They had grave concerns about the proposed changes to length overall, because most of these types of boats have an extension bracket to which the motors are mounted and, technically, the new definition would make the boats longer than 28 feet. The policy chiefs had a meeting on that day and decided that these boats were going to be used in the new groundfish fishery, saying that “this doesn't increase capacity, but maximizes it”.
Now, this is a direct contradiction of the reason for changing the definition in the beginning, because it all started over concerns about capacity. Likely, this exemption was made to accommodate the over 40-foot fleet, because the current groundfish fishery isn't feasible for a larger boat to fish, so a lot of guys use their secondary vessels, which are limited to 28 feet. Please see appendix D.
On May 23, 2017, five months after my application was submitted, the new vessel registration form was released. Please see appendix E. On March 2, 2018, I won my appeal.
To say this process was a fiasco is an understatement. The main reason there is so much discontent in Newfoundland towards DFO is due to instances like this. Major changes are being made without input from harvesters, and the result is putting harvesters in smaller boats that are usually not as seaworthy as larger ones.
The discontent will continue. As part of my ATIP, a document was attached, which was called “Changes to Regional Licensing Policy Required Prior to Public Release”. This outlines monumental changes to our fishery that DFO never bothered to bring to consultation because they were deemed minor changes, and an FFAW executive signed off on it. Please see appendix E.
Vessel length is obsolete in the modern-day fishery. All too often, we read transportation safety reports stating that vessel size was a factor in a tragedy. DFO uses vessel length as a crutch in its harvest control plans, but the reality is that it doesn't work. Vessel length was the primary tool of harvest control in the 1980s, and look what that led to: the largest layoff in Canadian history and a resource that is still in the critical zone. Bravo, DFO, for continuing on the trail to madness.
At the very least, Newfoundland should have the same base length as every other Atlantic province: 44 feet 11 inches. The regional director preached that changing vessel length will give some a competitive advantage. I would like the regional director to explain this: when a 2J3KL groundfish licence is exactly the same no matter what fleet you are in, how does an 89 feet 11 inch not have a competitive advantage over a 39 feet 11 inch?
Instead of spending untold thousands of dollars transforming the White Hills into a modern-day Alcatraz, DFO needs to treat harvesters with the respect they deserve, and then they can spend money where it's most needed: in science. The culture of “fishermen are too stupid to understand what's best for them” has to be abolished. I can speak from experience. The next wave of harvesters are oftentimes university- or college-educated, and they are keen business people. They never got their enterprise for free like some did in the 1980s. They bought a business, and they deserve to know when DFO is about to flip their lives upside down.
In closing, I have been fishing for the last 20 years. I have a fishing master, first class certificate, meaning that I can captain any size of fishing vessel anywhere in the world. I also have a Bachelor of Maritime Studies from Memorial University. But what do I know? I'm just a fisherman.
