Mi’kmaq bid for lucrative quota

The Mi’kmaq community in Nova Scotia hopes to break into the Arctic surf clam fishery in a big way.

“It will have long-term, lasting effects. It will change the economic landscape for us, our 13 communities in Nova Scotia,” Terrance Paul of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs said of all the First Nations in the province working together to submit an application for a lucrative Arctic surf clam licence.

“It’s very, very good news and we’re very hopeful that the minister will agree that our proposal is the one to go with.”

Dominic LeBlanc, the federal Fisheries and Oceans minister, announced in September that 25 per cent of the existing quota would go to a new entity after written proposals are received and reviewed this month.

Clearwater Seafoods of Halifax had held licences for the entire 38,000-tonnes of surf clam harvested annually offshore between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The bright red clam meat is exported to Asia, where it is used in sushi. Secondquarter sales of surf clams in 2017 were $25 million.

The Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq have partnered with Clearwater on the application but the licence would remain 100 per cent Mi’kmaq owned, Paul said.

“I think it is entirely up to the minister but I believe it would be before the new year, though,” Paul said of the timing of the federal decision on the application. The federal government has stipulated that the new licence holder be majority Canadian-owned and be an Indigenous entity based in Atlantic Canada or Quebec. The licence will be for 2018.

One other application has been submitted collectively by three Indigenous groups — the Miawpukek First Nation, the Innu Nation and the Qalipu First Nation — from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Paul said Clearwater would provide training and job opportunities for members of the 13 First Nations in Nova Scotia.

“It’s a big thing for us,” he said. “We’d be able to fish the species on our own, but (Clearwater) would help us build our capacity.”

He said the Mi’kmaq would have an opportunity to purchase a boat or a trawler. “I don’t want to give a figure but it would be millions,” he said of the cost of the trawler.

In the summer of 2015, Clearwater commissioned its new $65-million offshore clam vessel. The Clearwater freezer trawlers are ocean factories, facilitating the catching, shucking and freezing of clams on board. The clams are then shipped to Asia.

But Paul said the Mi’kmaq operation would take some of the haul to Clearwater plants in Glace Bay and Newfoundland for processing.