By Darren Campbell -- Nunavut fishing companies want a bigger portion of the existing turbot quota so the industry can grow. But sinking its hooks into a larger share is proving to be frustratingly difficult.

It’s never a good idea to get fishermen angry. They’re a tough lot, used to working long hours in harsh and sometimes dangerous conditions to earn a living at sea. They aren’t afraid to speak their minds if they feel they’ve been wronged. And do something that affects their livelihood in a negative way and you’ll be sorry you did. In short, messing with fishermen is not recommended.

This spring the federal ministry responsible for managing the Canadian commercial fishery, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, finally sent some fishermen in Nunavut over the edge. In late May approximately 50 people, a combination of fishers, politicians and curious onlookers, took to the muddy, rocky streets of Iqaluit. There they set an old wooden fishing boat – with “DFO” scrawled on it in bright orange letters – on fire on Iqaluit’s waterfront. The boat burning was staged to protest two recent cases in which DFO had allocated 2,500 tonnes worth of turbot quota to southern Canadian companies in waters adjacent to Nunavut. Not a single fish went to Nunavut interests.

The protest was significant, perhaps even a turning point of sorts, signalling the parties interested in growing Nunavut’s turbot fishery are no longer content to patiently wait for DFO to one day increase the territory’s annual quota in its adjacent waters. “It’s not been the Inuit way to be more vocal,” says Jerry Ward, CEO of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, a not-for-profit corporation that is the biggest Nunavut-owned player in the turbot fishery. “But we have to lobby more and be more vocal. We’re not going to give up. The pressure will continue.”

While Arctic char and Northern shrimp are two of the other species fished commercially from Nunavut waters, it’s the turbot stock (also known as Greenland halibut) that’s the cause of all the recent unrest. The turbot is a deep-water flatfish found in the cold Northern waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and it’s very abundant in the deep coastal bays and fjords of western Greenland, east Baffin Island and off the continental shelf of Baffin Island.

Rich offshore turbot-fishing areas lie in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. The two zones where Nunavut has quotas are in what’s known as division OA and OB. Division OA, the more northerly of the two areas, was only opened up to commercial fishing in 2001. The quota was originally set at 3,500 metric tonnes and was increased to 6,500 in 2007. Nunavut has always had 100 per cent of that quota.

However, the situation is vastly different in the OB zone. The quota there is also 6,500 metric tonnes,s but Nunavut interests only have the rights to fish 1,500 tonnes of that quota offshore – a meagre 27 per cent. Southern companies fish the remaining 5,000 tonnes.

Ward, the BFC and its 11 Nunavut partners want to change that. Since the BFC was formed in 2001, it’s invested in training for Nunavut fishermen with the goal of getting Inuit into managerial and technical positions in the fishery. It’s also worked on acquiring vessels and now has a majority ownership position in two factory freezer trawlers, plus it also owns a fixed-gear vessel. However, now that the BFC has the vessels to fish turbot, it needs quotas to keep them busy year-round, which in turn will create more jobs for Inuit and more earnings for Inuit companies from a fishery where the annual turbot allocations in Nunavut’s adjacent waters equates to an annual market value of $40-million. “How can you build a fishery when you don’t have the quota to do it with?” asks Ward.

And that’s what the May rally in Iqaluit was all about– a protest organized by Ward and BFC. It came on the heels of two controversial decisions by the DFO where turbot quotas in the OB area changed hands and Nunavut interests came out of the transfer empty-handed. In March, DFO Minister Loyola Hearn approved the transfer of 1,900 tonnes of annual turbot quota in OB from Seafreez Foods Inc. to two other non-Nunavut companies. Then in May, Minister Hearn allowed the Groundfish Enterprise Allocation Council – a non-profit association representing offshore groundfish fishing companies in Atlantic Canada – to reallocate 600 tonnes of turbot quota in OB among six of its members. Once again, Nunavut interests were shut out.

When word of Hearn’s actions in the latter case became public, it proved to be too much even for the often-timid Nunavut government to take. Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik was furious with Hearn, calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to fire his fisheries minister and telling the Canadian Press that, “Whatever I ask for, he [Hearn] does the opposite and tries to harm our interests completely.”

BFC president Johnny Mike also had harsh words for DFO and Hearn at the time. “This year alone, Nunavut has been totally ignored and treated unfairly,” Mike said. “It has been very frustrating. Hopefully, this will send a message to the DFO office.”

At the heart of the dispute is Ward’s contention – a contention fully supported by the Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. – that when existing quotas owned by southern companies in waters next to Nunavut’s are being transferred or reallocated, Nunavut companies should have the right of first refusal to acquire those quotas. Despite letters and meetings with DFO officials in which they made their views clear on this issue, Ward insists Hearn and his department have ignored the wishes of Nunavut fishing interests.

It’s an opportunity wasted in Ward’s view. He points out that if BFC had acquired some or all of that 2,500 tonnes of turbot quota, the amount could have kept its vessels busy in Nunavut waters an extra two to three months during the winter season. The fishing season runs from late July until mid-November in OA. Once that quota has been caught, BFC boats move on to the OB area. But depending on ice conditions, fishing there can end as early as January.

Barry Rashotte has found himself defending Hearn’s decisions and DFO’s handling of the turbot quota. Rashotte, the acting director general of the DFO’s resource management board, says that rather than ignoring Nunavut’s requests, his department has been consistent in its dealings with fishery interests there. “They’ve been told from day one the minister will not take quotas from one interest and give it to another,” Rashotte says. “That’s not fair.”

He says Hearn’s and DFO’s objective is to increase Nunavut’s share of the turbot quota. But it’s been doing so by giving Nunavut 100 per cent of any increase in the turbot quota in the OA and OB areas. Rashotte says that organizations like BFC could have also approached Seafreez Foods Inc. and made a deal to transfer their quota to BFC. That was never done. Nor should it have been done, says Ward. “Why should Nunavut have to buy what should be theirs?”

It’s doubtful anyone envisioned there would be a fight over turbot quotas when the commercial fishery here was hatched back in the 1980s. At that time there was very little interest in fishing the stock – either from Nunavummiut or southerners.

But then came the collapse of the cod fishery in Atlantic Canada in the early 1990s and interest in the Nunavut turbot fishery from southern companies spiked. These companies subsequently secured quotas and invested money in the fishery. By the time Nunavut got organized and had the capacity and willingness to take on sizeable quotas of turbot in its own waters, those quotas were already spoken for – at least in the OB area.

Ward admits it’s unlikely Hearn or any future DFO minister will have a change of heart and to take away any of the 2,500 tonnes of quota transferred to southern companies this spring and hand some of it over to BFC or other Nunavut fishing interests (“That ship has sailed,” he says mournfully.)Rashotte says one option for acquiring more quota in the OB area would be to trade some of Nunavut’s turbot quota in OA with companies that have quotas in OB. However, Ward is looking for larger quotas in both.

It seems the only solution to this divisive issue is to increase the turbot quota from the 13,000 tonnes currently allotted in both OA and OB and give Nunavut interests all or part of it.

It could happen. The North Atlantic Fisheries Organization – an intergovernmental fisheries science and management body with jurisdiction in the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay – revisits turbot quotas every year. But increasing the quota won’t be easy. Not only does DFO have a say on the issue, Nunavut’s neighbour to the east, Greenland, does as well. Rashotte says Nunavut and Greenland fishing industry and government representatives from both jurisdictions will meet this fall to decide what the turbot quota will be for 2009-2010 in Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait.

“BFC and others seem to think there is an argument to increase the quota,” Rashotte says. “But we’ve got to make sure conservation of the stock is respected.”

Ward is keeping his fingers crossed, hoping Nunavut interests will one day get a fairer share of the turbot quota. “I’m very optimistic,” Ward says. “Look how far we’ve come from 2001 to now. We’ve got three large vessels – all Inuit-owned. We’re fishing the entire OA turbot quota. It’s the unanimous view that something has to change and we have to get a larger share of the quota. In time we’ll overcome this.”