Fight over emerging redfish fishery amps up as offshore sector bites back

A fight over access to what some are calling the world's largest biomass of redfish amped up in St. John's Wednesday, with a high-profile fisheries executive accusing a union of unethical and divisive behaviour.

In a highly managed media event staged at Memorial University's Signal Hill campus, officials from the Atlantic Groundfish Council, which represents the more than 100-foot offshore groundfish licence holders in Atlantic Canada, and Ocean Choice International, fought back against what they say is an attack that threatens the livelihood of people linked to the offshore sector.

"It's time this attack stops. It's negative. It's divisive and it's not good for the province," said Martin Sullivan, CEO and co-owner of Ocean Choice International, which operates five offshore fishing vessels and six onshore seafood processing plants, employing some 1,700 people in the province.

A growing stock

This growing feud between the offshore and inshore sectors centres on a fishing area in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and a portion of the Cabot Strait known as Unit 1. This fishing areas has connections to five provinces, and contains a redfish stock that has swelled to an estimated 4.5 million metric tonnes.

The average fish size is still too small to support reopening a large-scale commercial fishery, but all indicators suggest the stock may be able to support an annual catch of 50,000 metric tonnes within four to five years, to be marketed primarily in China as a head-removed, gutted product.

That's a significant increase from the roughly 2,000 metric tonne index fishery that's been used to monitor the stock since the commercial harvest was closed in the early 1990s.  

For several years, the federal Fisheries Department has been holding consultations to determine how to divvy up the quotas when the time comes, and that's ignited a fierce battle, with a coalition led by FFAW-Unifor, which represents thousands of harvesters and plant workers in the province, firing the first public salvo last week.

The union wants the federal government to rip up the long-standing quota sharing formula, which sees nearly 75 per cent of the redfish quota in Unit 1 going to the offshore fleet, consisting of vessels larger than 100 feet from throughout Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and allocate a much larger share — up to 50 per cent — to smaller inshore vessels. Currently, roughly 15 per cent of the quota is allocated to the under-65-foot inshore fleet.

"The fishery will be the economic driver of economic sustainability in areas that are badly impacted by a decline in northern shrimp. This will only happen if inshore harvesters and Indigenous groups in our province are given a significant quota when this redfish fishery opens," FFAW-Unifor president Keith Sullivan said a media conference in Corner Brook last week.

A war of words

That lobby effort has ignited a war of words that again boiled over Wednesday in St. John's, with Martin Sullivan accusing the union of attempting to expropriate quotas at the expense of an offshore sector that pioneered the redfish fishery.

"All of Ocean Choice's available supply of redfish quota, including Unit 1, has been purchased over the years at fair market value. And now this quota is under attack by the union, to simply be taken away," said Martin Sullivan.

"One species at a time, the  FFAW executive has vilified the offshore fishery and lobbied to have quotas taken from offshore harvesters and allocated to the inshore."

Martin Sullivan said OCI has invested $100 million into the fishing industry in recent years, including a new vessel called the Calvert, and envisions a time when the OCI plant in Fortune, which processes redfish and other species, will operate year-round. He said that investment was "premised on a stable supply of redfish from Ocean Choice's current quota shares, including Unit 1."

Under the proportionate quota sharing arrangement, various sectors, based on vessel length, are provided a percentage of the total allowable catch. 

Martin Sullivan and the Atlantic Groundfish Council argues these shares are meant to be permanent so licence holders can invest and plan appropriately.

As such, an eroding of the offshore sector's historical quota share in Unit 1 would be disastrous, said Martin Sullivan, who described the FFAW-Unifor strategy as a tactic that will simply rob Peter to pay Paul.

"We were able to make these commitments, these investments because of long-established, stable quota allocations, which are the underpinning of the Canadian fisheries management system. It is the basis upon which we are able to employ 1,700 people in this province," he said.

To underscore the point, a handful of OCI employees travelled from various parts of the province to attend the news conference, including Danny Hunt of Ship Cove on the Port au Port Peninsula.

Hunt, a senior crew member on the Calvert, fears his fishing career is under threat.

"I get a little disappointed in the FFAW when they go after the offshore fishery because this lifestyle provides a way of life for not only my family, but many families across the province," he said.

Martin Sullivan said more than half of his company's employees are members of the FFAW.

"This is not right, and frankly it is unethical for the FFAW to continue to threaten the livelihoods of their own members," he said.

In a media release issued Wednesday afternoon, the FFAW suggested a redfish fishery dominated by the the offshore will mean fewer economic benefits for the province.

"OCI has long promoted itself as one of the largest quota holders of wild fisheries in Canada. The company already has exclusive access to tens of thousands of tonnes of redfish in Unit 2, greysole, yellowtail, coldwater shrimp, turbot, and cod," said Keith Sullivan.

"OCI will never depend on Unit 1 redfish to be economically viable, but dozens of communities and a thousand workers in the inshore will depend on it."

The union said the majority of fish caught by OCI's trawler fleet is exported to low-cost processing countries in Asia.

"Instead of bragging about the minimal amount of work that OCI provides workers in Fortune, OCI should instead disclose what per cent of its offshore catch is processed on land in this province and what per cent is being shipped overseas where workers are paid a fraction of what they are here," Keith Sullivan stated.

The union also took aim at OCI's newest vessel, describing the Calvert as "a mess" with significant crew turnover after each trip "because of extremely low rates of pay and benefits," said Greg Pretty, FFAW-Unifor's industrial director.

"These significant inconsistencies in personnel do not bode well for safety, and it certainly does not do much for economic development. It's long been clear OCI is only after the bottom line and padding their own pockets."

In a followup statement, Martin Sullivan fired back, saying the Fortune plant operated 37 weeks this year and will be operational for 45 weeks in 2022.

"For the FFAW executive to state that this is a minimal amount of work is disrespectful to the hardworking Newfoundlanders and Labradorians employed at the plant," he said.

OCI produces products demanded by global market, he added.

"To characterize this as shipping our product overseas to benefit from cheap labour is yet another attempt at the FFAW executive to spread misinformation."

As for the Calvert, Martin Sullivan acknowledged there have been "growing pains," but said the vessel sustains 70 year-round jobs that "contribute significantly to the economy."

Consultations on Unit 1 redfish are expected to conclude next month.

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