LICENSING AND FLEET DEVELOPMENT POLICY 79 



The Davis Plan 



In 1968 the Minister of Fisheries announced an inno- 

 vative program to control the salmon fleet through a sys- 

 tem of restrictive licensing of vessels. Its purpose was "to 

 increase the earning power of British Columbia salmon 

 fishermen and to permit more effective management of 

 the salmon resource by controlling the entry of fishing 

 vessels into the fishery. . . ."'" The Davis Plan, named 

 after the minister at the time, was designed to prevent 

 further fleet expansion and subsequently to reduce its size 

 and rationalize its structure. 



The plan involved four phases. The first phase required 

 freezing the number of vessels by licensing only those 

 that could show a sigmficant dependence on the salmon 

 fishery (though some others were licensed as well). The 

 second involved reducing the fleet by purchasing and 

 retiring excess vessels. The third was concerned with 

 improving vessel standards and product quality. The final 

 phase, which was never pursued, entailed improving the 

 fleet's structure and relaxing some of the restrictions on 

 fishing effort of the reduced fleet. The structure and evo- 

 lution of the program is described in more detail in Chap>- 

 ter9. 



Today, after more than a decade of restrictive licens- 

 ing, the number of vessels in the salmon fleet is smaller, 

 the fleet's structure has changed significantly, and the 

 vessels are much improved in technical sophistication 

 and safety. But the plan has clearly failed in its main 

 purpose, which was to control and reduce excessive 

 fishing capacity. Investment in fishing power continued 

 as the value of the catch increased, and the capacity of 

 the fleet, already excessive when the program began, dou- 

 bled or perhaps trebled." 



In retrospect, the program probably initiated the first 

 difl^cult steps in bringing the fleet under control, but it 

 seems to have been overtaken by events, and it was not 

 developed suflficiently to achieve its basic goal. One group 

 summarized it in a submission to this Commission as fol- 

 lows: 



The Davis plan was successful in providing 

 one of the world's most eflficient and modem 

 small boat fleets. And therein lies the prob- 

 lem. The fleet has a tremendous increase in 

 catching power at the cost of a near total dis- 

 sipation of economic rents. '- 



At least one clear lesson can be learned from this his- 

 tory: fishermen and vesselowners will try to expand their 

 fishing power whenever they compete with each other for 

 an unspecified share of the catch of a common-propierty 

 resource, even if the fleet's capacity is already excessive. 

 When the value of the catch rises and governments fail to 

 capture the extra returns from fishing, the fishermen will 



reinvest them in expanded fishing capacity until the 

 higher costs absorb the higher revenues. Restrictions on 

 the number or dimensions of vessels will not prevent this 

 investment in greater fishing power. 



CURRENT LICENSING ARRANGEMENTS 



Despite its evident failures, the basic form of restrictive 

 licensing adopted for the salmon fleet was subsequently 

 adopted for the other major fisheries on the Pacific coast 

 in resfxjnse to similar problems of overcapacity and 

 excessive pressures on the stocks. 



Restricted Licences for Commercial Fisheries 



Today, restrictive licensing systems are in place for 10 

 Pacific fisheries. These are summarized in Table 7- 1 . Sev- 

 eral other fisheries are regulated under special Minister's 

 permits, which are not restricted in number. Excluded 

 also from Table 7-1 are the processor licences, packers 

 licences and personal commercial fishing licences dis- 

 cussed in Chapter 13, and the sjx)rtfishing licences 

 described in Chapter 15. 



As already noted, the various restrictive licensing sys- 

 tems have been introduced over the last decade in 

 response to particular problems facing individual fisher- 

 ies and they have been designed in light of accumulating 

 experience. As a result, the various systems differ in 

 fundamental resp^ects with no apparent rationale. The 

 terms and conditions of licences and the way they are 

 administered have not been well documented, so it has 

 proven difficult to sort out some of their complexities. 



General provisions for licensing are set out in the 

 Pacific Fishery Registration and Licensing Regulations." 

 Some of the regulations are common to all the various 

 licence forms: all licences are valid for one year and are 

 renewable; they must be renewed each year by May 3 1st 

 (except for roe-herring and sablefish licences, which must 

 be renewed by January 5th and November 5th respec- 

 tively); all vessels (except roe-herring gillnet punts) are 

 subject to some form of replacement restrictions; and 

 when a vessel with licences to fish in two or more 

 restricted fisheries is replaced by another vessel, all of its 

 licences must be transferred to the new vessel. All of the 

 limited-entry licence privileges are transferable between 

 persons by one method or another. 



These regulations also provide the Minister with the 

 discretionary power to grant a licence to an applicant 

 who would not otherwise qualify, but this prerogative is 

 limited to cases where failure to meet the normal 

 qualifications was due to factors beyond the applicant's 

 control. The Minister may also suspend or cancel a 

 licence, or refuse to re-issue one, if the owner of the vessel 

 is convicted of a violation of the Fisheries Act or regula- 

 tions. 



