Tag Archives: Susan Beaton
Why a clash over crustaceans is roiling Canada
It’s a battle about jobs and livelihoods, ethnic identities and cultures, and deeply embedded family and social traditions. Yet it’s also a clash about something else: the future of what was once one of the most fecund fisheries in the world. Both sides recognize they have a shared interest in keeping the industry thriving in a place that has been traumatized by declining fish stocks. This is especially true at a time when the pandemic has temporarily cut off customers for the area’s succulent crustaceans. >click to read< 19:05
In Nova Scotia, we seem to have forgotten that fishermen are all in the same boat
What a strange province I live in. The top commodity export in Nova Scotia is lobster, part of an industry that has employed tens of thousands of Maritimers, fueled more than 9,000 small businesses and driven $2.2-billion to the East Coast economy, as of 2016. And yet no one outside the industry seems to know a thing about how it works. What a peculiar view Canadians seem to have of us now amid the conflict with Mi’kmaq fishermen over lobster fisheries in Nova Scotia,,, By Susan Beaton >click to read<13:46
Gulf lobster fishermen offer to give up season
“Three dollars a pound is what we’re hearing,” said Susan Beaton. The Cape George, Antigonish County fisher was working on her new tiny home on Thursday. It looks out over the grounds she fishes each spring from her boat The UnManned. Water she doesn’t know if she’ll be fishing in two weeks. None of the 600 lobster fishermen along most of the Northumberland Strait and the Eastern Gulf of St. Lawrence do. “We need an answer last Friday,” said Duane Boudreau on Thursday. The president of the Gulf Bonafide Fishermen’s Association wants a ruling from Fisheries and Oceans Canada on whether there will be a season this year. >click to read< 10:06
Susan Beaton: Our markets gone, call fishing season off
I read that the provincial fisheries ministers from the Atlantic provinces and Quebec met recently. I was slightly heartened, but also worried. Is their intention to support our spring lobster and snow crab fisheries, or is their focus on ensuring they won’t have to, by making the case that we should fish, come what may?,, My hesitation occured when I read, “… adapt to maintain their livelihood.” Let me say, here and now, as a lobster fisher in the Gulf for 20 years, I have no interest in staying ashore, but I doubly have no interest in being a canary in the coal mine to test the theory that fishermen/women will fish, no matter the cost. We shouldn’t be put in the position of having to go to sea when there is no reasonable chance we can succeed. Fisheries from around the globe are shutting down because there is no market. more, >click to read< 06:56
Federal fisheries minister says he’ll ensure fishermen leave a ‘minimum amount of rope’ on the water
As federal fisheries officials consider changes in the industry to avert whale deaths, some lobster fishermen are concerned about the potential effect on their livelihood. Last week, Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the federal government will bring “absolutely every protection to bear” to prevent further deaths of North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.,,, LeBlanc said he’s mulled changes in fishing gear, including ensuring fishermen leave a “minimum amount of rope” floating on the surface.,,, But some fishermen say longer lines are necessary to make sure balloon and buoy markers, which are connected by rope to the traps, remain on the surface in strong currents. Susan Beaton agrees. Beaton said she’s worried a decision will be made too hastily. click here to read the story 21:51
Controlling Agreement? Labrador fisherman Kirby Elson is ending his legal challenge filed with the Federal Court
Nova Scotia fish harvester Susan Beaton is breathing a little easier now that a legal challenge that could have overturned the rules protecting the independence of Atlantic Canada’s inshore fishery appears to be over. “I think it’s very good news, at least for those of us who care about the owner-operator policy,” said Beaton, who is from Antigonish. The federal government’s owner-operator policy stipulates the main benefits of inshore fishing licences must go to the licence holders. Kirby Elson, a fisherman from Cartwright N.L., a small fishing town in Labrador, had launched a legal challenge, appealing a decision by the federal fisheries minister to take away his commercial fishing licences. But the case ended quietly and abruptly this week when Elson notified his lawyers Jan. 10 that he wanted to “immediately withdraw from this litigation,” according to documents filed with the Federal Court. Elson had refused to obey a DFO requirement that he exit a so-called “controlling agreement” with two Newfoundland and Labrador fish processors. Read the story here 19:31
