May 2000

LOCATION OF MAIN LANDING PLACES

Figure 1. The top ten fisheries landing ports in Canadian Atlantic fisheries, ranked according to their landed value: (1) Lunenburg, (2) Harbour Grace, (3) Argentia, (4) Shippegan, (5) Yarmouth, (6) St. John's, (7) St. Anthony, (8) Lower West Pubnico, (9) Riviere-au-Renard, and (10) Meteghan. Adapted from the map of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) management area¹. Lines indicate major statistical areas. Note the French EEZ area around and to the south of the French Islands of Ste. Pierre et Miquelon; the USA border is to the south and the Canadian EEZ border to the east. Map courtesy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

In 1996, the top ten landing sites in the Pacific fishery in terms of landed values were Prince Rupert (US$ 29.5 million), Vancouver (US$ 17.4 million), Richmond (US$ 15.9 million), Delta (US$ 5.4 million), North Vancouver (US$ 4.5 million), Ucluelet (US$ 2.4 million), Parksville (US$ 1.6 million), Port Simpson (US$ 1.4 million), Port Moody (US$ 1.3 million), and Courtenay (US$ 1.2 million).

Locations of these port cities are plotted in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The top ten fisheries landing ports in Canadian Pacific fisheries, ranked according to their landed value: (1) Prince Rupert, (2) Vancouver, (3) Richmond, (4) Delta, (5) North Vancouver, (6) Ucluelet, (7) Parksville, (8) Port Simpson, (9) Port Moody, and (10) Courtenay. Lines indicate major statistical areas; the USA border is to the north (Alaska), and south (Washington), and the Canadian EEZ border to the west. Adapted from the map of management area for Pacific region², courtesy of Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Pacific Region.

FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

Overall strategy

Canadian fishery objectives are stated as safe, healthy, productive waters and aquatic ecosystems, for the benefit of present and future generations, by maintaining the highest possible standards of service to Canadians in marine safety and environmental protection, in scientific excellence and in conservation and sustainable resource use³ . The framework incorporates biological, economic and social dimensions and invokes the management of aquatic ecosystems as crucial goal. There has, over time, been general agreement that conservation should have precedence over economic and social considerations when there is a threat to the future of the resource. Recent Ministerial decisions and closures have reinforced this tradition. However, when the survival of the resource is not at stake, economic/social factors will often take precedence over biological reference points, whether it be MSY, F0.1, or biomass reference points⁴ . For example, section 31(1) 0f the Canadian constitution and the Sparrow decision of the Canadian Supreme Court in 1990 (see below) gives traditional Aboriginal use of fish first legal priority after conservation goals have been met.

A major objective of Canadian fisheries policy is to ensure that allocation of fishery resources will be on the basis of equity, taking into account adjacency to the resource, the relative dependence of coastal communities, and the various fleet sectors upon a given resource, and economic efficiency and fleet mobility. Phrases such as the foregoing are quite common in many of Canada's fisheries management plans. For instance, the Northern shrimp plan talks about "fair access to, and equitable sharing of the northern shrimp resource by all legitimate Canadian user groups, with particular emphasis on the needs of the people and communities most adjacent to the resource"⁵ .

The government department in charge of the day-to-day management of Canada's fishery resources, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), uses a variety of management measures to address instability and mitigate the common property problem in commercial fisheries. The choice of which measures to use depends upon species characteristics, specific fleet structure and location of a given fishery. Methods employed include regulating the type and size of gear used, vessel length, fishing times and areas, catch limits, limiting the number of licenses available to fish, and marketable harvest rights (individual transferable quotas).

Management objectives and measures for specific fisheries

The Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) fishery

In 1923 the International Fisheries Commission, now the International Pacific Halibut Commission⁶ , was established by Convention between Canada and the USA for the preservation of the halibut fishery of the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. The commission answers to both governments and has a research and assessment arm, and a link to the industry. Regulatory measures applied to this fishery over time have resulted in the conservation of the halibut stock, unlike its Atlantic cousin. In addition to technical measures such as size limits and gear regulations, "In the halibut fishery the catch quota has been the regulatory measure with the greatest impact"⁴.There has been a trend recently to broaden the management objectives for the fishery to include economic and social (not only biological) considerations. This change has been made possible by the observation that "The management process for halibut has successfully accomplished the goal of maintaining the productivity of the stock but has failed miserably in managing the fishery or the people harvesting the resource to achieve an efficient use of human and capital resources"⁷ . Formerly managed using input controls such as a strictly controlled and brief season of open days that led to danger for fishers, in 1993 the Canadian Pacific halibut fishery switched to a form of output control, Individual Transferable Quotas, a management device that has met with some success.

The Pacific herring (Clupea pacificus) fishery

Herring were first caught in British Columbia in 1877, but a serious stock collapse of the fishmeal fishery in the 1950s led to a closure and a strong emphasis on preserving the resource⁹ . The current herring fishery¹⁰ is almost entirely for roe taken from herring when they migrate to shallow littoral areas to spawn in the spring. It includes a "roe-on-kelp" fishery, developed from a traditional aboriginal method and today practiced mainly by Canadian First Nations groups, in which ripe herring spawn on prepared kelp fronds and are released after spawning. Regulatory measures that have been employed in the fishery include input controls such as very short openings (some as short as 2 hours) and technical measures such as closures. Openings are determined at short notice by fish gonad samples and sonar surveys performed by government chartered fishing vessels that patrol the spawning grounds on a hourly basis. Regulations also include output controls like catch quotas, area-specific optimum target spawning escapements, licence limitations, a fixed exploitation rate harvest strategy, a CUTOFF¹¹policy and a constant escapement policy¹².

The Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp) fisheries

The economy of Aboriginal peoples on the British Columbian coast was largely based on abundance of salmon. There has been a large-scale commercial fishery for salmon in B.C. since the late 1800's, originally almost exclusively for canning, but now also sold frozen, fresh and smoked. Canada's Pacific salmon management is, in theory, guided by the Pacific Salmon Commission under a treaty with the U.S.A., the terms of which are renegotiated from time to time. Management of Pacific salmon is complicated by the distinctive life cycles of the six salmon species⁴ and problems are further compounded by the existence of numerous stocks endemic to each watershed. In total, there are about 300 stocks of sockeye, 700 stocks of pink, 970 stocks of coho, 300 stocks of Chinook, 1880 stocks of chum salmon and over 500 stocks of steelhead¹³. Because of these complications, regulations devised over the years for the salmon fisheries have also been very complex. Pacific salmon run a gauntlet of fisheries from troll vessels, gill netters, seine netters, and a variety of traps, river nets, fish wheels and spears from Aboriginal fishers, as they return to coastal waters and estuaries, migrating as much as 2000km up-river to spawning grounds. Each genetically distinct stock of each of the six salmon species has a characteristic timing for its migration up each river (known as a "run"). Management attempts to account for this, a complex task when runs overlap in species and in time. For example, steelhead (sea-going O. mykiss), still managed by the B.C. Provincial government because they were formerly classified as trout, form a significant by catch in sockeye and coho fisheries in the River Skeena in northern B.C. Because steelhead are an endangered species and bring significant earnings through catch-and-release fly fishing, all those caught in the commercial fishery are supposed to be released, a regulation that has meant the redesign of nets, and the construction of resuscitation tanks on the decks of fishing vessels. Management measures introduced have sought to reflect a compromise between biological objectives and economic and social goals. Clear-cutting of forests has severely affected spawning streams. Hydro-electric dams and both human-made and tectonic slides of rock have closed access to upstream spawning reaches. Coho and chinook salmon stocks have exhibited major 15-year decline, probably not entirely associated with fishing. Management of Pacific salmon has focused on an output control escapement: allowing some target or optimum number of salmon to migrate up river to spawn. The common strategy has been to harvest the surplus above the estimated optimum spawning escapement¹⁴ . In addition, technical measures and input controls like closed areas and seasons, mesh size, other gear restrictions, vessel limitations and license fees have all been applied to help ensure adequate spawning escapements. Two rounds of buy-back schemes have reduced the fleet size. Drastic conservation measures have been adopted in recent years; for example in 1999, the closure of the River Fraser salmon fishery and a complete coast-wide closure of the coho salmon fishery.

The Atlantic lobster (Homarus vulgaris) fishery

There has been an intensive lobster fishery in Atlantic Canada since 1845 and it is the most important inshore fishery in Atlantic Canada. In landed value, lobster is second only to salmon in Canada⁴. This small-boat (most are 12m long) fishery, largely operated by owner-drivers, has been very closely regulated. A wide variety of regulatory technical measures have been applied to the lobster fishery over time, although there are no output controls such as catch quotas. Technical measures include gear type restrictions (including mandatory release panels that eliminate ghost fishing in lost pots), minimum size limits, seasonal closures during moulting and mating periods, prohibition against taking egg-bearing female lobsters, division of costal areas into fishing districts, allocation of fishing seasons by districts, and input controls like the licensing of fishers and limitations on the number of traps. This fishery, along with its cousin in Maine, U.S.A., is of interest for informal regulations applied by the lobster fishers¹⁵ .

The Atlantic groundfish fisheries

Before the collapse of Atlantic cod stocks in 1992, this fishery accounted for 55% of Canadian fish catches, and 37% of landed value (1988)⁴. Management of the Atlantic groundfish fishery began with the establishment of the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (ICNAF) in 1949. Canada inherited from ICNAF in 1977 a system of management consisting of mesh size regulations, TAC controls and 1-year old fishing effort controls on non-coastal nation fleets¹⁶ . Canada continued to use these measures after taking control of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). New measures adopted by Canada included F0.1, rather than FMSY, as the reference point for managing finfish stock on the Atlantic coast. A central piece of Canada's management strategy was to maintain a moderate exploitation rate to allow the stock to rebuild. Unfortunately, this was not successful¹⁷. The failure led to the introduction of technical measures such as a minimum size of 16 inches for cod, haddock and pollock, adjusted in 1990 to 17 inches on the Scotian Shelf. The 1993 Groundfish Plan, in addition to output controls in the form very low TACs, incorporated provisions for mandatory landing of all fish caught. Different segments of the Atlantic groundfish fisheries came under Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) during the 1980s and early 1990s, starting with the offshore fishery in 1982. The midshore fishery implemented ITQs in 1987, the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1989, and parts of the Scotia-Fundy inshore fisheries in 1991. In 1992, a complete moratorium was imposed on fishing for Northern cod. The original plan was to keep the fishery shut for 2 years, but it had to remain shut for many more years because the stock has not recovered ³¹,³² In 1999, a small re-opening of the cod fishery was accompanied by controversy over whether stocks could withstand further fishing.

Institutional arrangements: the legal basis for management

The federal-provincial division of powers over fisheries in Canada is established in the Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly British North America Act, 1867)¹⁸ . Section 91.12 (Seacoast and Inland Fisheries) of this Act gives the federal government exclusive authority over the management of fisheries in Canada. This has resulted a situation where "… the federal government exercised unchallenged authority in fisheries matters"¹⁹ . Discontent with this situation caused a number of cases to go to the courts on the division of powers over fisheries (see list of various court cases in Chapter 2 of Parsons L. S., 1993⁴). The Canada Oceans Act, which received royal assent on January 31, 1997 re-stated the role of the federal government vis-à-vis provincial and territorial governments in the matters of fisheries and oceans management²⁰ . The Act aims to "…establish guiding principles and assign the authority to negotiate partnerships for the development of an oceans management strategy…"²¹ and a set of documents was published to outline the role of both the federal and provincial/territorial governments²². Many provincial governments now have a fisheries ministry that works in partnership with the federal Fisheries and Oceans agency.

A controversy arose over whether the Canadian government had manipulated scientific information about the collapse of the northern cod for political purposes, and consequently whether fisheries research should be moderated by, or even transferred to, an independent body²³. On Canada's Atlantic coast, a Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC), was established in 1992 as an independent organization at arm's length from the government with a mandate to provide stock assessment and make public recommendations to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on total allowable catches and other conservation measures²⁴. The FRCC is structured as a partnership between government, scientists and industry. On Canada's Pacific coast the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council²⁵ was set up as a similar independent watchdog body in 1998, but its mandate extends only to salmon fisheries.

Due to its wide-ranging nature, the aquaculture industry in Canada is managed through multi- and cross-sectoral involvement. Its operations are regulated by two levels of government²². An online document prepared by OCAD²² states that the provinces and territories have the responsibility for the majority of site approvals and for overseeing the industry's day-to-day operations. On the other hand, the federal role involves such areas as research, technology transfer, training and development, access to financing and environmental sustainability relating to the industry.

While Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is the lead federal department for aquaculture, as of February 2000 there are 16 other Canadian federal departments and agencies delivering programs and services to the aquaculture industry²², viz., Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA), Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Canadian Heritage, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Department of Finance Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), Environment Canada, Farm Credit Corporation (FCC), Health Canada, Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Statistics Canada. The Office of the Commissioner for Aquaculture Development (OCAD) helps to focus the federal government's aquaculture development strategies, and works collaboratively to ensure that programs meet the industry's needs. The Commissioner for Aquaculture Development reports to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

Delegation of certain responsibilities related to aquaculture from the federal government to the provinces has been conducted through Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs)²² which have been signed with several Canadian provinces. These include British Columbia, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories. In their online document²², OCAD noted that these MOUs deal with specific federal and provincial responsibilities and set out the role of each government. The MOUs are also customized to meet the needs of the aquaculture industry in each province and territory.

ROLE OF FISHERIES IN THE CANADIAN NATIONAL ECONOMY²⁶

Canadian fisheries landings were about just over one million tonnes in 1993, valued at nearly one billion Canadian dollars. Most of the landing came from the Atlantic coast (about 63%), and the Pacific coast (31%). Inland fisheries account for the rest. Nationally, fisheries account for only 0.3% of GDP. However, regionally and in some coastal communities, commercial fisheries are a critical source of employment and income. Prior to the collapse of the cod, fisheries were the mainstay of economic life in the Atlantic coast, in particular supporting about 1,000 coastal communities, primarily in economically impoverished regions with few alternative employment opportunities. The Arctic ocean supports primarily subsistence fisheries for Canada's native peoples. On the Pacific coast, the degree of regional dependence on the fisheries is less than on the Atlantic. Nonetheless, the fisheries are an important component of the British Columbia economy. In recreational fishery sector, which is mainly concentrated in the inland area, it was estimated that about US$5 billion in economic activity was generated in 1995, supporting over 150,000 full time jobs.

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES TO CANADIAN FISHERIES

Canadian fisheries receive a number of direct and indirect subsidies. Subsidies are defined as money paid to members of the fishing industry, over and above the proceeds of the landed catch, that has been collected in general taxation by the federal Canadian government and/or by the governments of various Canadian coastal provinces. There are many such schemes in Canada and it is difficult to estimate an exact amount, or for economists to agree on what constitutes an indirect subsidy to the fishing industry. An approximate overview is given here.

Subsidies to Canadian fisheries have been the subject of much debate. The definition of what constitutes a subsidy to fishing has also been debated²⁷. For example, the cost of research and fisheries assessment leading to the setting of quotas, and enforcement of regulations, are paid in Canada by the government out of general taxation and hence may or may not be considered a subsidy. These costs have been estimated to be approximately 20% of the catch value²⁸ . There has been recent trend towards a small amount of cost recovery and for fishers to pay for additional research services (e.g. Pacific groundfish²⁹).

In Canada, all licensed fishers receive unemployment pay of up to $30,000 (Canadian) per year when not fishing, irrespective of other earnings, provided they fish for 12 weeks of the year. Moreover, on the Atlantic coast of Canada, over 3 billion dollars were paid between 1990 and 1998 to minimize disruption caused by the collapse of the cod fishery (The Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Programme, AFAP, the Northern Cod Adjustment and Recovery Programme, NCARP, and The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, TAGS, and their successors). In addition, vessel buy-back schemes are operating on both coasts. On Canada's west coast, since 1977 large amounts of money have been spent on salmon hatcheries by the Salmonid Enhancement Programme (SEP) and its successors³⁰ . Over 600 million juvenile salmon are released from these hatcheries each year and its is estimated that about 10%-18% of the commercial and sport fishery catch derives from these fish. However, the cost/benefit ratio for SEP has been recently estimated at 0.7³¹ and the scheme is currently under review by DFO.

Estimated overall figures for government subsidies to fishing in Canada range from a "zero sum game", where public money equals the value of the catch (100% subsidy)³² , to 150% subsidy³³ and 170% in Newfoundland prior to the collapse³⁴ . Overall, the true subsidy figure is likely to be somewhere between 100% and 200% for present day Canadian fisheries.

Aboriginal fisheries in Canada

The general rights of aboriginal people are in enshrined in Canada's constitution. In 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada (in what is known as the Marshall decision) "recognized and affirmed" fishing rights of the Mi'kmaq Nation in the Maritime region for lobster, crab, cod and salmon under a treaty signed with the British Crown in 1760³⁵ . Unfortunately, many Aboriginal peoples in Canada, especially those on the west coast, did not sign fishing treaties with encroaching Europeans³⁶ . In early 2000, a new and historic treaty with one First Nation, the Nisga'a from northern British Columbia, was ratified³⁷, and includes rights to fish from the Naas river³⁸ . However, most Aboriginal peoples in Canada anticipate a long wait while treaty negotiations are resolved (the Nisga'a people were negotiating for over 100 years!).

Fortunately, a miserable history of conflict over Aboriginal fisheries³⁹ led, in 1990, to the Supreme Court of Canada's Sparrow decision. This defined Aboriginal peoples' right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes and the right takes priority over all other uses of the fishery, subject only to conservation of the resource. The Supreme Court also set out the necessity of consulting with Aboriginal groups when their fishing rights might be affected. Aboriginal fishing rights were further clarified by the Supreme Court's 'Delgam'uukw' decision, which requires the courts to avoid "traditional English common law interpretations" and to be "sensitive to the Aboriginal perspective on the meaning of the rights at stake." In 1995 the van der Peet decision further clarified the definition of hunting and fishing rights⁴⁰ .

Indeed, the perspective of Aboriginal peoples towards fishing rights is very different from the European tradition. In Canada, commercial fishing licenses originated from the European common property resource concept and hence are under legal control of the government, but under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Aboriginal rights cannot by law be abrogated or extinguished by regulation. Aboriginal rights are communal, while commercial licenses are owned by individuals or, increasingly, held by large corporations. And Aboriginal rights are restricted by tradition to their tribal territory (unless by formal agreement with another Nation), while, at present, commercial fishing licenses can be used in any First Nation's tribal territory in BC without their permission⁴¹ . From an Aboriginal perspective, loss of management authority is equally problematic. The status of chiefs in the hereditary government (Potlatch system on the west coast) derived from the wealth they were able to give away as a result of their good stewardship of lands and waters they had been trained from childhood to manage. Replacement of management authority by central government authority and diminishing fishing opportunities sidelined the hereditary chiefs and elders. Historically, educational requirements further marginalized chiefs and elders as educators and role models. Canada's Indian Act formalized this process by replacing hereditary systems linked to land and resources with elected governments with a two-year term and virtually no administrative support system.

The view of fisheries as a common property resource and consequent failure to appreciate the vital role of place in traditional management systems led to tragic, and occasionally ludicrous situations. For example, in the 1950s, the government fisheries agency dynamited a rock in Hagwilget Canyon on the Bulkley River in British Columbia, thinking that it was a barrier to migrating salmon. But the rock was the only fishing station of the Hagwilget people. In consequence, the Hagwilget were provided with canned salmon from elsewhere, much of it not to their taste⁴¹.

Today, many Aboriginal Nations in Canada are working for a restoration of traditional fishing rights⁴². For example, in British Columbia the Aboriginal Fisheries Commission works to protect and enhance aboriginal fishing rights . And since 1994 the Haida Nation from Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands in northern British Columbia) has its own fisheries programme of catch recording and cooperative management with DFO. DFO has its own Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy which has a mandate to deal with these issues⁴³ .

SHORT DESCRIPTION OF MAIN FISHERY REGULATIONS, ALSO THOSE CONCERNING FOREIGN FISHING ⁴⁴

The constitutional framework for fisheries management in Canada is defined in the Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly British North America Act, 1867), and is further re-stated in the Canada's Oceans Act, 1997. This latter Act encompassed re-assigning of power division between the federal and provincial/territorial governments. On a federal level, "The federal mandate to manage fisheries, basically has been exercised primarily through two statutes, i.e., the Fisheries Act⁴⁵ , which is the primary source of authority for managing domestic fisheries, and the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act⁴⁵, which is the primary authority for managing foreign fisheries under Canada's jurisdiction within its 200-mile fisheries zone". These two Acts provide the basic foundation of the Canadian fisheries management system. Although the Acts provide wide-spread discretionary powers to the federal Minister and the federal Cabinet, to establish a flexible fisheries management system and to modify it almost at will; the Acts are generally silent on the direction of fisheries policy and leave a wide latitude as to how these policies may be implemented²². In the mid-1980s, there was a government-wide regulatory reform which required advance notice of proposed regulations to allow time for public comment⁴⁴.

Since the establishment of the EEZ⁴⁶ , foreign fishing in Canadian waters has been increasingly discouraged⁴⁷ (down from 350,000 tonnes in 1975 to less than 2000 tonnes in 1999) . Moreover, the rule has been for Canadian vessels to catch fish inside the EEZ and to land the catches for sale or processing in Canada, although some trans-shipments at sea are licensed in the Pacific hake fishery. On the Pacific coast, American fishing vessels are allowed to make passage from Washington to Alaska but are not allowed to fish en route. The British Columbian Government imposes a passage tariff on these vessels from time to time. On the Atlantic coast the main issue concerns Canada's claim to extend its managerial jurisdiction over fish stocks that straddle the EEZ on the tips of the Grand Banks, which lie in international waters (see Figure 1). In 1995 Canada arrested a Spanish trawler, the Estai, for fishing undersized turbot outside of its EEZ, sparking an international controversy⁴⁸ . In recent years, extensive surveillance⁴⁹ and arrests have continued in this area. In 1999 Canada set up a licensing scheme for snow crab outside of the EEZ⁵⁰.

Canada is a member of several organizations that are responsible for the assessment and allocation of internationally important stocks; the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO); the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT); the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO); the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC); Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC); and the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC).

Canada has been instrumental in several rounds of negotiation over the United Nations Agreement on Highly Migratory and Straddling Stocks (UNFA: UN Fisheries Agreement), and played a lead role in the 1992 Cancun agreement⁵¹ which, in 1995, led to the instigation of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries⁵² . Canada signed the Ministerial Declaration on the Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries in Rome in March1999⁵³ , supporting the implementation of the FAO Code. Canada, however, has not adopted the FAO code, which has broadly cast conservation objectives, but has set up its own voluntary Code after a series of workshops held with the fishing industry⁵⁴ . The Canadian code is restricted to fishing operations (such as by-catch reduction devices), and states "… this is a Code … built by the industry, for the industry"⁵⁵ . In the Pacific groundfish trawl fishery about 10% of the quota (managed by complex output controls of Transferable Vessel Quotas by species and by area) is reserved for vessels most in compliance with the Canadian code⁵⁶ .

PROJECTION OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY

Unlike developing countries, where the World Bank 1990 fisheries sector review has made projections of the future supply gap, for developed countries such as Canada, projections of supply and demand for fish and fish products are hard to find⁵⁷ . A projection for Canada is made here from trends in fish supply, demand and human population over the 10 years from 1988 to 1997 (FAO's food balance sheet of fish and fishery products). Figure 3 presents the supply and demand for fish, based on the population of Canada from 1988 to 1997. The left part of Figure 3 shows what is already well known, that Canada has been net exporter of fish and fish products, as it demands less than it supplies (or lands) from its waters. But in addition, the gap between demand and supply has been narrowing over time. On average, supply has been declining at a rate of 4% each year in the period analyzed, while demand and population have been growing by an average of 1% over the same period. Now, if we make the assumption that the trends in demand and supply are an indication of future trends, we can project demand and supply of fish for Canada, as shown in the right part of Figure 3 to the year 2022. Hence, if current trends continue, Canada will cease to be a net exporter and become a net importer of fish and fish products by the year 2007. Furthermore, the projection shows that from this year onwards the gap between what fish can be landed by Canada and what the Canadian population will demand will continue to widen.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF FISHERIES AUTHORITIES AT NATIONAL LEVEL (ORGANOGRAM) ⁵⁸

The organizational structure of the management fisheries in Canada has gone through numerous statutory and structural changes since 1867. From 1979 onward, fisheries management was administered under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which consisted of four primary components each headed by an Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM), and eleven regional Directors General (RDG), whose geographic, but not functional, mandates overlapped. Major changes in February 1986 and in the early 1990s aimed at streamlining the Department. Under the Minster and Deputy Minister ( = Parliamentary Secretary), the organization now includes a Senior ADM and four staff ADMs to cover science, fisheries operations, regulation, policy and international issues. Regional operations are consolidated into six geographic regions, i.e., Newfoundland, Maritimes, Gulf, Laurentian, Central and Arctic, and Pacific. An organization chart for the senior levels of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is outlined in the following organogram⁵⁹:

INTERNET LINKS TO THE NATIONAL FISHERIES ADMINISTRATIVE AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

Fisheries and Oceans Canada http://www.ncr.dfo.ca/
Department of Fisheries and Oceans regional sites:
Newfoundland http://www.nwafc.nf.ca/
Maritimes http://www.maritimes.dfo.ca/
Laurentian http://www.qc.dfo.ca/
Pacific http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/pbs/
Central and Arctic http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/regions/central/FishMgmt/Locations_e.htm/

British Columbia Ministry of Fisheries http://www.gov.bc.ca/fish/
Fisheries Renewal British Columbia http://www.fishrenewal.gov.bc.ca/
The British Columbia Aboriginal Fisheries Commission http://www.bcafc.org/
The History of the Northern Cod Fishery http://collections.ic.gc.ca/cod/
Ransom Myer's Stock-Recruitment Database http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~myers/welcome.html
Fisheries Resource Conservation Council http://www.ncr.dfo.ca/frcc/
Canadian Stock Assessment Secretariat http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas/
Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council http://www.fish.bc.ca/main1.html
Pacific Salmon Commission http://www.psc.org/Index.htm
Office of the Commissioner for Aquaculture Development http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/ocad-bcda/index.html
British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association http://www.bcsalmonfarms.bc.ca/default.htm
Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization http://www.nafo.ca/
International Pacific Halibut Commission http://www.iphc.washington.edu/halcom/default.htm
Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia http://www.fisheries.com/
Institute of Fisheries Analysis, Simon Fraser University http://www.sfu.ca/~ifa/
Marine Affairs Program, Dalhousie University http://www2.dal.ca/mmm/index.html
Marine Institute of Memorial University
of Newfoundland http://www.mi.mun.ca/
The Eco-Research Program, Memorial University
of Newfoundland http://www.mun.ca/ecoresearch/
Institute of Social & Economic Research,
Memorial University of Newfoundland http://www.mun.ca/iser/