‘Tear down the wall’ and let family members inherit fishing enterprises in N.L. without jumping through financial hoops
In an open letter to the federal fisheries minister: Perhaps the most famous four words in history is Ronald Regan’s speech in West Berlin on June 12, 1987: “Tear down this wall!”
Never in my wildest dreams would I be appealling to the ministers of this great country, Canada, renowned for its freedom for which so many gladly gave their lives, using the words which President Regan directed to a totalitarian regime!
To my point and try to be as concise as possible, I have attached a photo of my sonin-law, Hardy, helping me haul my crab pots April 22 this year, 2024. I have a small, inshore, one quota enterprise which makes it very difficult, and impossible, really, for a crew member in such an enterprise to make a living on the usual crew member share. Therefore, most crew members in such an enterprise are either retired people, old-age pensioners, or people on turnarounds from Fort Mcmurray or such.
Hardy works at fabricating boats but usually takes the risk of taking a day off here and there to help me at the crab or the cod in August. Both Hardy, my son-in-law, and my son, Greg, are fully qualified and certified by Transport Canada as qualified to operate my inshore fishing enterprise inside 25 miles. My son spent earlier years in the wheel house of a 1,200-foot supertanker shipping oil from the middle East to Japan.
However, given the regulations of the Professional Fish Harvesters Board and legislated by the Newfoundland government, neither my son-in-law, nor my son, are qualified take over the family enterprise to set a lobster trap 20 feet from my dock on a calm day!
Even though, Hardy, for example, photo attached, is fully certified with hundreds of hours of sea time with me over the past 25 years, all safety courses completed, TC approved — even if he quits his job tomorrow, the Government of Newfoundland, through their endorsement of rules put in effect by the Fishermen’s Union almost 30 years ago, he would still need to fish two more years with 75 per cent of his income from the fishery during the months of the fishing season, normally April to October, for me to be allowed to designate him.
This means, if the cancer I am battling prevents me from fishing, Hardy would have to find some offshore vessel with a large enough quota for a five per cent share or thereabouts to make a reasonable living and put himself at the mercy of who knows what kind of skipper, as not all are safetyoriented, believe me!
So even though qualified right now to fish my enterprise, if I got sick, my enterprise would have to sit idle while Hardy fished with someone else to become qualified all over again! Unbelievable!
This is unconscionable in our democratic free enterprise country and, in my mind, a violation of civil liberties and and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We don’t expect to take a person off the streets of Toronto who has never seen salt water and put him or her in charge of a fishing enterprise, but if an individual has been accessed by Transport Canada personnel and acknowledged by the PFHCB as having more courses than required to be designated a skipper, then that individual should be permitted to at least be designated to carry on the family enterprise, especially in the case of illness of the elderly fisherman.
Intergeneration transfer of fishing enterprises, farms, family business, or whatever is critical to rural survival and is a given in our culture and our country – except in the Newfoundland fishery.
I am sharing this with what I hope is a concerned constitutional attorney to see if I can get a legal opinion on whether to proceed with a legal suit against the Newfoundland government and DFO in terms of a violation of individual rights and privileges under the Canadian Constitution. I have also asked a member of the Canadian Senate to intervene in this matter.