LICENSING THE SMALLER COMMERCIAL FISHERIES 129 



larger landings should ease the burden of management 

 and inspection. 



It is to be hoped that some licensees will experiment 

 with gillnetting and trawling for food herring. With a 

 longer season and assured opportunities to make a catch, 

 they will be in a better position to test the superiority of 

 these gears in terms of recoverable values, stock manage- 

 ment and product quality. Small processors and spjecial 

 product producers should benefit from being able to 

 guarantee buyers the quantity and quality of product 

 they need, and from being able to contract with licensed 

 fishermen to supply the herring. 



With the help of the proposed advisory committee, the 

 Department should consider certain additional measures 

 for the future. One is a systematic grading system for the 

 product to provide foreign buyers with better assurance 

 of the quality offish they are buying. Another is specify- 

 ing quotas by areas within zones instead of attempting to 

 manipulate the distribution of the catch by openings and 

 closures. 



GROUNDFISH 



The groundfish fishery referred to here excludes halibut 

 and sablefish, discussed above. It is limited to the trawl 

 fishery that depends on other groundfish species, mainly 

 Pacific cod but also rockfish, sole and a variety of other 

 bottom fish. Like sablefish, the Canadian Pacific coast 

 groundfish fishery has expanded significantly in recent 

 years. Canadian landings have doubled since 1971, 

 increasing fairly steadily until 1979, as illustrated in Fig- 

 ure 10-2. In 1980, some 32 thousand tonnes were landed 

 by trawlers for a landed value of approximately $12 mil- 

 lion. 



Figure 10-2 Landings and landed value of groundfish 

 other than halibut since 1970 



90 



70 



60 - 



50 



U 

 z 



c 

 z 



2 



40 



Landed VaiiK' ; 



Landings 



_l_ 



_!_ 



_1_ 



1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 197H 1979 1980 1981 



Sources: Fisheries Statistics of British Columbia . Department of Fish- 

 eries and Oceans. Vancouver, various years. 



Like both the halibut and sablefish fisheries, the 

 groundfish trawl fishery is now depressed and structurally 

 unhealthy, the licensed fleet having been permitted to 

 expand well beyond the capacity required to efficiently 

 harvest the available stocks. 



Background 



A Canadian groundfish trawl fishery has existed for 

 more than four decades. It first emerged as a dogfish 

 fishery in response to a strong demand for dogfish livers, 

 which are a rich source of vitamin A. The market for 

 dogfish gradually declined, but for foodfish species it 

 expanded until the mid 1960s. At that time 80 Canadian 

 trawlers were active, but only half were full-time 

 groundfish vessels. They were mostly small vessels, only 

 10 of which exceeded 100 gross tons, and nearly two- 

 thirds of their catch was Pacific cod. A fleet of U.S. 

 trawlers from Washington State also operated off the 

 Canadian coast and took about half the groundfish catch. 

 Amercian vessels tended to operate in deeper waters and 

 concentrated on rockfish, especially Pacific ocean p)erch. 



Circumstances changed radically after 1965. In that 

 year a fleet of 60 to 80 Soviet trawlers arrived, and over 

 the following decade caught almost as much as the U.S. 

 and Canadian fleet combined. They initially concen- 

 trated on rockfish (mainly Pacific ocean perch) but 

 switched their attention to hake after 1968. Japanese 

 trawlers fishing mainly rockfish, and longliners fishing 

 blackcod. entered the fishery a year or two later, and 

 were soon taking more than the Canadian catch. 



In 1975 they were joined by Polish trawlers seeking 

 hake and rockfish.' Since 1977 and the extension of Can- 

 ada's fisheries jurisdiction to 200 miles, foreign fishing 

 has been substantially phased out; the major remaining 

 activity of this kind is a hake fishery, discussed below. 



As foreign fishing was phased down, the Canadian 

 groundfish fleet expanded enormously, stimulated by 

 what were unnecessary and excessive subsidies. The ves- 

 sel construction and improvement subsidies described in 

 Chapter 13, coupled with tax incentives to construct 

 fishing vessels, encouraged construction during the 1970s 

 of large boats suitable for this fishery. In addition, the 

 Minister introduced a price subsidy for groundfish in 

 1975. Somewhat contradictorily, further entry to the 

 fishery was prevented by restrictive licensing introduced 

 the same year. 



Typically, entry controls were introduced too late. The 

 capacity of the Canadian licensed fleet had been allowed 

 (indeed encouraged) to expand to at least double the 

 capacity needed to harvest the available catch. Having 

 met the requirement of past landings, 146 vessels 

 qualified for licences and were grandfathered in. More 

 significantly, the average size of vessels engaged in this 



