More equity towards the commercial fishermen requested

Fisheries and oceans grants $ 260 million to First Nations to expand access to licenses and fishing boats. The deputy for Acadie-Bathurst asks Ottawa not to leave aside non-Aboriginal fishermen who already have difficulty obtaining overpriced fishing permits.

In its economic statement last fall, the federal government has announced to offer renewed financial support to 34 First Nations as part of the Atlantic’s integrated commercial fisheries initiative. Thus, nearly $ 260 million over three years will be allocated to protect fishing duties from treaties with Aboriginal peoples.

Serge Cormier, Federal MP for Acadia-Bathurst, welcomes this initiative which is part of the era of reconciliation and which respects legal obligations towards First Nations. However, he judges that it should not be done to the detriment of commercial fishermen. In a letter, he challenges Minister Diane Lebouthillier not to forget them.

We ask for a similar program for commercial fishermen, succession fishermen, […] or those of the flotils in difficultyhe explains.

He explains that a lobster license is more and more expensive, between $ 1 and $ 2 million.

It is extremely difficult for young people to obtain these permits.

He therefore asks Ottawa to create similar programs to help the next generation continue the tradition and especially to keep permits in current fishing areas.

We want fair and equitable programs, which comply with First Nations obligations, but also respect commercial fishermen.

Ottawa financial assistance for commercial fishermen would be welcome and would avoid tensions between communities, he believes.

It creates uncertainty, it creates tensions that we do not need in our region. The field of peaches is vital for our communities, whether at first nations or commercial fishermen.

Help young fishermen

Terry Richardson, head of the Pabineau First Nation, includes concern in the face of Ottawa investment. He wants his community to obtain an additional lobster fishing permit, which currently has six.

However, he recognizes that times are difficult for new non -Aboriginal fishermen and welcomes the initiative of the Federal MP Serge Cormier. He also believes that Ottawa must do more and proposes that a low interest loan program be created for these fishermen.

It lacks things for the non -Aboriginal world, which wants to enter fishing, because it is really expensive to buy a license, but also you have to put mechanisms in place to make sure that prices are not too high from where they are currently returned.

The fear of an escalation

For his part, the director of the Union of Maritime Fishermen (UPM), Martin Mallet, fears that this program ultimately puts prices with First Nations which could afford to pay more for a fishing permit, or a boat.

We fear the escalation that it will create. It allows them to buy perhaps perhaps two, three times the value of the markethe said.

We could completely destabilize access to the resource for non -Aboriginal coastal communities which also depend on fishing for their survival.

Martin Mallet says it is important that First Nations have obtained the federal assistance to increase their share of commercial fishing in the last 25 years.

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However, the government must also take into account the challenges of all fishing communities, he said.

At some point, you have to ask the question, when will you have had enough transfer of access to the resource in the peaches? We think we did enough in the last 25 years.

L’UPM asks that this funding be immediately suspended.

We would like to propose, in the wrong offer, that there is a break on this new financing, the time that we take an exhaustive socio-economic study of all this license transfer program under [la décision] Marshall.

He adds that the federal part could use $ 260 million to deal with climate change or to help fishermen and fisheries industry if Donald Trump decides to impose customs tariffs on seafood.

In a declaration, the MPO Indicates having carried out public consultations with First Nations in connection with this funding and that it can be used for the purchase of access, ships and fishing gear.

Access acquired thanks to this renewed support will not increase the overall fishing effort, and fishery based on duties from treaties aimed at a suitable subsistence will continue to take place during the established commercial fishing seasonsspecifies the ministry.

With information from Katherina Boucher and Nouemsi Njiké