Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has scrapped its plans to perform big changes to its elver fishery after intense industry opposition.
The DFO and Canada Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Coast Guard Diane Lebouthillier announced the changes in December 2024, proposing a new policy that would hand 50 percent of the total allowable catch (TAC) to First Nations fishers and another 28 percent to a new pilot project that would shift how the quota was handed out.
Those changes were in response to multiple years of chaos in the country’s elver fishery, which Lebouthillier canceled in 2024 and shut down early in 2023 due to rampant poaching and media reports of violence related to the fishery.
The Canadian Press reported those changes were deeply unpopular with existing elver businesses and license holders who would lose out on their quota. Commercial elver license holder Stanley King told the media that those changes would have taken his business and given it to his employees.
“Some of our license holders have been cut so much that they will barely have more of the company than their former employees,” he told the publication. “It’s a slap in the face, and it’s completely anti-business.”
The initial plan, according to Global News, licensees in the fishery would have lost between 60 percent and 90 percent of their quotas with no compensation from the government. Many of the workers the proposal was supposed to benefit by receiving quotas from the licenses, meanwhile, said they would rather have remained employees to avoid additional complications and competition.
DFO was supposed to hold an informational session on the plan on January 21, but the Canadian Press reports that meeting was scrapped after the harsh feedback.
Now, Global News reports DFO has given up completely on the new round of reforms.
“Minister Lebouthillier is proud to have spearheaded the successful effort to add stronger regulations and enforcement mechanisms to the toolbox available to DFO for this fishery,” DFO Communications Director Andrew Richardson told the publication. “However, the 2025 elver fishing season will not include the pilot program to expand commercial access to this fishery.”
That news was welcomed by members of the fishery, including elver fishers.
Darren Johnson, who works with Neptune Canada – one of the license holders that would have been forced to give up quota – told The Canadian Press the decision is good news for him and other harvesters that would rather not have to start a new business to continue fishing.
“I’m happy to hear it ... I’d much rather fish for Neptune. We don’t have the infrastructure to hold the elvers,” he said.
In the meantime, the DFO still needs to figure out how to run a successful fishery in 2025 after two failed years. The Canadian elver season opens on March 1.
This article is posted with permission from Seafood Source.