Enforcement & Compliance #1

With the commercial fishing season in full swing and an inquiry from a Member on this very topic, I thought we'd delve into the issue of enforcement and compliance amongst the commercial fleet. Compliance and non-compliance are the terms used by DFO to describe how well commercial fishermen follow the rules and regulations.

This is an important aspect of fishery management, as Fishery Notices that announce commercial openings have very precise restrictions or requests as part of the rationale for giving the fishing opportunity. If fishers dont follow the rationale for the opening, it sort of makes a mockery of the whole system. A recent example of this is the Area 3 Nass sockeye openings with the requested release of chum salmon, which are a depressed stock. The opening actually caught and killed more chum salmon than the target Nass sockeye...so fisher compliance could be deemed 'low'. Theoretically, there should have been a penalty to the fleet for not following the request, but another opening was planned shortly afterward with the very same requests....no penalty..no accountability. In fact, it appears being 'not in compliance' isnt the same as breaking the law in DFO-speak.

As we saw in 2006, compliance rates can vary greatly and for a variety of reasons. In 2006, the Enforcement arm of DFO North Coast was severely depleted with only a few Fishery Officers on patrol and fisher compliance dropped dramatically. Another reason for low compliance rates in 2006 was fisher dissatisfaction with a coho sportfishing derby run by Tourism Prince Rupert. The fishers took umbrage at having to release coho while sportfishermen not only kept coho but were encouraged to do so by monetary rewards. So the commercial guys chose not to follow the rules as a show of displeasure.

But they really dont need an excuse to not comply with any regulations, it seems it is an entrenched historical thing based on the lack of enforcement. It is basic human nature to not follow rules if there is no threat of penalty or being caught, especially in a business enterprise. Moreover, alot of the rules relating to selective fishing for both gillnetters and seiners take time and effort to execute properly. And in this free-for-all mad dash type of fishery, time equals money. Losing fishing time to doing things properly begins to not look so good when the boat with the operator who doesnt care next to you is catching two or three times as many fish as you.

To illustrate some of these points, let's look at some statistics provided by the North Coast DFO Enforcement folks. For this inital post we'll just look at the amount of patrol time Fishery Officers put in: (this is the total number of patrol hours for commercial salmon net, commercial salmon selective, aboriginal salmon, Nisga'a, sport- recreational,and illegal sales in the Prince Rupert area)

2000 - 870.75 patrol hrs.
2001 - 487.25
2002 - 370.50
2003 - 544.75
2004 - 433.25
2005 - 329.50
2006 - 167.50
2007 - 343.25

As you can see, due to various budgetary and organisational cutbacks within DFO, the number of hours on patrol has been reduced quite a bit from the year 2000. The low patrol numbers in 2006 really stand out. So, if there's not many Officers and the ones present dont patrol much....you can see why compliance rates are low.

Next post we'll look at how many charges were laid for various offences over the same time period.