Searun, this was never about conservation, it is about allocation.
DFO has really created one big halibut mess
By D.C. Reid, Times ColonistDecember 11, 2008
You will recall the DFO giving the public's halibut to commercial interests for zero dollars by creating individual vessel quotas. And you may remember the sector, just like an oil cartel, rationalized the 435 quota boats to only 214, with half of those, now choosing not to fish, but lease their quotas for six figure amounts and spend the winter in Hawaii.
There were two studies along the way: One, an economist's view on what the public should receive of its own fish, and another that simply picked up its suggestion: 12 per cent. Neither was a scientific study, but this did not stop the DFO capping the public's catch. They did this even in the face of figures of 20 per cent for the public in Alaska and 36 per cent in Washington state.
Then the Ottawa mandarins figured if the sport sector ever got to 12 per cent we could lease unused commercial quota through a 'market mechanism', something that works for economists at desks but is next to impossible to translate into real fish in a real world. Who, for example, gets to hold the dollars? Then minister Robert Thibault, stated in 2003: "I have also made a commitment that there be will be no closure of the sport fishery in-season."
Now, what you don't know: Ottawa used the dressed halibut size of about 25 pounds to compute the public number, added in the amount of halibut taken by Americans, illegally, on Swiftsure Bank, and landed in Neah Bay, and that put us near the 12 per-cent ceiling. Sport fishermen complained and with southern creel survey data, this was reduced to 12- to 15-pounds dressed, meaning we could catch a few more.
Three summers ago, the DFO instituted creel surveys in northern B.C. They found, not surprisingly, that when they added those numbers to the southern data that sporties were over 12 per cent, and we had to buy some of our fish back from the commercial sector, who had, in the interim, put money aside to deal with such an issue.
In 2008, the Hugh Gordon report hammered out an agreement among the sport, commercial, First Nations, provincial and federal stakeholders. Prominent features were a share of 20 per cent for the public and excess quota purchased by DFO, with recovery from increased licences. Before the paper made it to the minister, David Bevan, ADM, rejected the report.
Some quota was leased this past summer -- $3.50 to $5 per pound -- to meet the inflated catch statistics, but when talk moved to purchasing quota, the sector high-balled the value to $37 to $60 dollars, effectively killing a long-term possibility of buying quota and leasing it back to the commercial sector when not used. And it makes a lot of dollars and sense to the province for sporties to catch more fish because the value is $18.63 per pound for public-caught fish; it is $3.60 for commercial caught. And, get this, the commercial sector, wouldn't 'pay' any more money to us unless the public agreed to fishing in a prescribed way. Not surprisingly, the sport negotiators got up and walked out on this completely un-market mechanism.
Then, the DFO, reneged on Thibault's promise by closing, for the first time, sport halibut from the end of October through November, December, adding the month of January, closed for some years now, and probably the month of February, too, when, no doubt, they will allow one week later, a long liner to commercial fish off Victoria.
But wait, there's more. Two recent federal Supreme Court rulings -- Saulnier, and Comeau Sea Foods -- found there is no legal underpinning for commercial individual vessel quotas -- the practice that has resulted in all the problems. So, can the public get any of our own fish back? Sure, but we have to take the DFO to court, because they know they don't have to change anything if no one makes them. How much will this cost? About $5 million. Where will it come from? Good question, but doesn't this convoluted situation make you lose respect for DFO?
