Maritime elver fishery closure penalizes legal fishers, committee hears

Legal elver fishers are the only ones being penalized by the federal government's decision to shut down the Maritime fishery, the standing committee on fisheries and oceans heard on Tuesday in Ottawa.

The meeting was about plans to prevent violence during the 2024 elver fishing season.

The committee heard from the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the RCMP, the Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery, and a legal elver fisherman with Shelburne Elver.

"I lost my partner to cancer a few months ago," Zachary Townsend, the elver fisherman, told the committee. "It's been hard and unbearable at times. But to now be unemployed and facing an uncertain financial future is simply a challenge I didn't need.

"And I don't share such sad news to vote your pity, but instead to remind you that each of us 1,100 [Maritime elver fishers] has a story and a unique set of circumstances now made worse by the minister."

The elver fishing season was cancelled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick after Fisheries and Oceans Canada admitted it couldn't control poaching or the export of baby eels, which sell for thousands of dollars a kilogram. The baby eels are shipped live to China and grown out for food.

Zachary Townsend, a legal elver fisher with Shelburne Elver, spoke at the standing committee on fisheries and oceans Ottawa on Tuesday. (House of Commons)

The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs last week condemned the cancellation of the season, and criticized DFO for making the decision without formal consultation, calling it a "clear disregard for Mi'kmaw rights."

In recent years, an increasing number of Mi'kmaq have claimed a treaty right to fish for elvers outside of DFO regulations. But this week, the assembly warned those intent on fishing this year that it did not have the resources to "support court cases that are not set up to be successful."

In a public notice Tuesday, it said while the Mi'kmaw have a treaty right to fish for a "moderate livelihood," DFO can justify the closure of a fishery by using "legitimate public safety and conservation concerns."

"Since the elver fishery is closed to all users, defending charges and seizures in court stemming from the 2024 elver fishery will be extremely difficult and potentially damaging to future interpretations of the treaty right," the notice said.

The closure, the assembly said, will hurt many community members who had planned to earn money from the fishery, but it also alluded to concerns that have been raised about conservation.

"The American eel is a part of our legends, our traditions and who we are as Mi'kmaq," the notice said. "We cannot lose sight that conservation and protection of the species come first."

Federal minister criticized

In Nova Scotia, the latest closure of the fishery is the third in five years. But illegal poaching is still happening.

Townsend told the fisheries committee in Ottawa it was particularly hurtful to read tweets from Fisheries and Oceans Canada Minister Diane Lebouthillier promoting Canadian seafood in Boston last week shortly before the season was cancelled and elver fishers found out they wouldn't have a job.

"Her unawareness and lack of empathy cuts deep," Townsend said.

Genna Carey of the Canadian Committee for a Sustainable Eel Fishery told the committee that Lebouthillier has refused to speak with the people who work legally in the elver fishery "despite the gravity of her choice."

"Perhaps this is because the department and the deputy, the minister's office in general, have made a concerted effort to paint the elver industry as greedy eel barons rather than 1,100 hard-working women and men — mostly Indigenous — who make up this industry under commercial or communal licences," Carey said.

A researcher with the group Coastal Action measures an elver caught in the East River near Chester, N.S., on June 18, 2019. (Richard Cuthbertson/CBC)

Carey said the species is not at risk, traceability programs don't take years to implement and enforcement is possible.

She said cancelling the elver fishery over the years has cost Maritime rural economies more than $100 million since 2020. Not opening the season for 2024 "is nothing short of dereliction of duty by the minister," she said.

Carey said the industry has been asking for a program to track elvers for years and even offered to pay for it themselves. She said she found two companies that were able to do it, but she was told it went against procurement procedures when she presented that information to DFO.

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