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CHAPTER 13 



OTHER INDUSTRIAL 

 DEVELOPMENT POLIQES 



. . .we are pinning our faith in ... a stable, 

 secure future in a prosperous industry. 



UNITED FISHERMEN AND ALLIED WORKKRS UNION' 



The preceding six chapters have dealt with govern- 

 mental policies for licensing access to fish resources and 

 regulating commercial fishing fleets. In this chapter I con- 

 sider other areas of governmental intervention that 

 influence development of the fishmg industry. These 

 include additional controls on commercial fishing, aid for 

 vessel construction, regulation of the processing industry 

 and controls on marketing. 



OTHER COMMEROAL FISHING LICENSING 

 ARRANGEMENTS 



The main instruments for regulating the commercial 

 fishery are the licences that provide access to the 

 resources. But in addition to these, dealt with in earlier 

 chapters, the Department has evolved other types of 

 licences that warrant review. The most important are the 

 personal licences required of all commercial fishermen 

 and the licences issued to vessels that transport fish. 



Personal Cunuiiercial Fishing Licences 



A long-standing element of the regulatory system for 

 commercial fisheries is the licence required of all persons 

 who fish on commercial fishing ves.seis. The regulations 

 under the Fisheries Act specify that to qualify for one of 

 these licences a person must be a Canadian citizen or, if 

 not a citizen, one who has served in the Canadian armed 

 forces or has been a permanent resident in Canada for 

 less than three years. The number of licences issued is 

 unrestricted. 



In my Preliminary Report I reviewed the rationale for 

 these licences and suggested that a strong case could be 

 made for abolishing them, but I postponed making a firm 

 recommendation until this report. Since then, the com- 

 mentary I have received on this question has strength- 

 ened my conclusion that the licences serve no justifiable 

 function. 



First, these licences were introduced many decades ago 

 under quite different circumstances from those that pre- 

 vail today. Apparently, they were onginally intended to 

 exclude certain ethnic groups, who were denied citizen- 

 ship, from the fisheries. Today, the original policy objec- 

 tive no longer exists. Regulations for governing the 

 employment of noncitizens are provided under the Immi- 

 gration Act, so special rules for the fishing industr\- are 

 redundant. 



Second, the licences are no longer needed as an 

 enforcement tool. Today, with all fishing regulated under 

 specific privileges in the form of licences and permits, the 

 full onus of responsibility for any infractions should be 

 on the holders of these fishing privileges, not on the indi- 

 viduals employed by them. This, of course, is the practice 

 in other industries that use Crown resources. 



Third, these licences are not appropriate means of rais- 

 ing revenue from the fisheries. The fee for these licences 

 was recently doubled from $5 to $10 on the grounds that 

 the former fee (which yielded a total revenue of roughly 

 $95 thousand) was insufficient to cover the cost of admin- 

 istering them. Today the cost is undoubtedly greater. The 

 revenue could be raised at much lower cost as an incre- 

 ment to other fees and charges proposed in this report, 

 and the manpower and financial resources now expended 

 in administering these licences could be directed to much 

 more useful purposes. 



Finally, testimony at my hearings and meetings has 

 revealed that the personal commercial fishing licence is 

 the source of much inconvenience, especially to fisher- 

 men in communities where there is no resident issuing 

 officer. Fishermen must often travel considerable dis- 

 tances to an oflFice of the Department and then, if an 

 officer is not readily available or if the fisherman is 

 unable to prixluce sufficient evidence of citizenship, they 

 are inconvenienced further. Moreover, cases recur of 

 fishermen being unable to produce their licences on 

 demand because they have misplaced them or deliber- 

 ately refrained from carrying them in wet fishing condi- 

 tions. This has led to charges, or more often, to friction 

 with the authorities. 



In short, these licences can no longer be justified and 

 should be abolished as an anachronism of fisheries pol- 

 icy. I therefore recommend — 



1. Persona! commercial fishing licences should be abol- 

 ished. 



I understand that some of these licences were issued last 

 year for five-year terms. Holders of these should be 

 rebated their unused portion. 



Regulating Fish-Packing Vessels 



Packers are vessels that transport fish from the fishing 

 grounds and fish camps to processing plants. Packer 



