The British Columbian Fishing Industry

The contemporary fishing industry on Canada’s west coast incorporates a variety of fishing techniques and target species. The most well know and, for much of the fishing industry’s 100 year history, the most important economically of which is the salmon fishery. Other primary species include halibut, herring, crab, black cod, and ground fish. The primary techniques of fishing include: net (purse seine, gillnet, trawl); hook and line (trolling and longlining), and trap.

Long before the arrival of European settlers the native peoples in British Columbia relied upon the salmon as a major source of food. Their entire culture and economy was built on salmon. Conservation of the salmon was a responsibility of leadership in aboriginal society. Through a detailed and complex system of fishing rights based upon family groups aboriginal peoples carefully managed their resource. One commentator has recently suggested that aboriginal groups on the important Fraser River harvested in excess of 6 million salmon per year for several millennium before the arrival of Europeans. Since the establishment of a commercial canning industry in the late 1880s, however, salmon stocks have suffered a major decline.
In the original aboriginal fishery fish were caught in the river near where they spawned with traps and weirs. In this manner aboriginal people were able to selectively harvest only what they needed to meet their social and cultural needs. Today’s commercial fishery is an "interception" fishery that targets salmon in the fjords and channels of the coast before they enter their home rivers and creeks. The primary methods of capture are by purse seine, gillnet, and troll. Gillnetting and trolling are typically done on vessels 10 to 14 meters in length with a crew complement of 2 or 3. Seining is pursued on larger vessels (16 to 24 meters) with a crew complement of 5 or 6.

The development of the salmon fishing fleet over the past several decades has resulted in the gradual reduction in fishing time due to the fleet’s greatly increased catching capacity and declining fish stocks. Ironically, the increase in productive capacity over the past three decades is the result of the interaction between resource depletion and government policies that were ostensibly designed to restrict catching capacity by limiting the number of vessels permitted to enter a particular fishery. In contrast with unregulated fisheries, in which competition between fishing enterprises results in the expansion (or contraction) of fishing boats, competition between fishing enterprises in situations of limited access results in greater levels of capital investment and the expansion of the existing fleet’s catching capacity. As fishing time decreased fishers were forced to modernize their vessels in an attempt to maintain their "share" of a declining resource.
Other major fisheries in British Columbia are the spring roe-herring, halibut, and ground-fish fisheries. The herring are captured by either purse seine or gillnet. The product is sold primarily in Japan. Halibut are caught by longline and sold in a North American fresh fish market. The ground-fish fishery is prosecuted by trawl. Over the course of the last 10 to 15 years the trawl fishery has absorbed a large number of the vessels previously engaged in the salmon fishery. The increase in fishing pressure has resulted in the introduction of an onboard observer system and detailed trip and season quotas.

The processing sector of the fishery is dominated by one large firm and three or four medium size firms. Between them these processors control more than 75% of the landed value of all fish produced in British Columbia. While the predominant form of vessel ownership is by individual fishers all of the major processing are involved in preferential financing arrangements that act to tie boat owners to the company.
Despite the many problems the British Columbia fishery has been experiencing during the late 1980s and early 1990 the is every possibility that it will survive as a viable way of life into the 21st century. The most difficult problem fishers are facing today are misguided government restructuring programs. The most recent Mifflin Plan (named after the current minister of fisheries) is designed to cut the fishing fleet in half. The Mifflin Plan will make managing the resource easier for the government. However, it is disastrous for coastal communities that are wholly reliant on fishing. A 1996 provincial government report places the fishing jobs lost directly attributable to the Mifflin plan at close to 2,200.