DFO investigates fishing licences for outside control

SEA-NL is encouraging inshore owner-operators who have lost control of their commercial licences or fishing enterprises to contact DFO, which is actively investigating several cases.

“If you are not in control of your boat or licences then contact DFO and have it looked into and made right,” says Ryan Cleary, SEA-NL’s Executive Director.

In June, SEA-NL wrote then-DFO Minister Joyce Murray to request an investigation into the case of an inshore owner-operator who had lost control of his multi-million-dollar fishing enterprise to a fish processor.

The enterprise included boat, gear, and licences (including snow crab), and the fisherman in question and his family were left without compensation, or a reason as to how it happened.

DFO launched an investigation and has been investigating similar cases.

In 2021 a former president of the FFAW said the majority of some fishing fleets in this province are illegally owned by fish processing companies.