Quota transfer to Maritime First Nations prompts Federal Court challenge

Commercial licence holders in the lucrative Maritime baby eel fishery have launched a Federal Court challenge over the decision to take 14 per cent of their quota and give it to Indigenous groups in 2022.

The quota of baby eels, or elvers, was worth millions of dollars.

It was reallocated without compensation to fulfil First Nation treaty rights to fish.

The elver redistribution raises broader questions about what licence holders in other commercial fisheries can expect if their allocations are cut in favour of First Nations.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) said it was an interim cut, but the department notified the industry in January it proposed to reallocate 14 per cent of the quota without compensation again in 2023.

"We at least deserve to be reasonably treated," said Brian Giroux, a member of the board of directors for the Shelburne Elver Group.

Shelburne Elver was one of three commercial licence holders in the Federal Court of Canada last week seeking to set aside the 2022 redistribution ordered by the minister of fisheries and oceans.

"It's expropriation without compensation," Giroux said outside the courtroom.

DFO said it was entitled to take approximately 1,200 kilograms of quota from the eight commercial licence holders to increase Mi'kmaw participation in the fishery. It said the licence holders are owed nothing.

Elvers are netted in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rivers each spring and shipped to Asia, where they are grown for food.

Elvers sold for $5,000 a kilogram in 2022.

Each licence holder is given exclusive right to harvest on assigned rivers.

In 2020, DFO was forced to shut down the entire Maritime fishery after a series of riverside confrontations between department officers and Mi'kmaq netting elvers on rivers.

The Wolastoqey in New Brunswick were given 200 kilograms and the Kwilmu'kw Maw-klusuaqn Negotiation Office (KMKNO) in Nova Scotia was given 400 kilograms in 2022.