Beneficial owners: Individuals “who directly or indirectly own or control (in whole or in part) a [fishing] corporation or an entity. Beneficial owners are not the corporations or entities.”[1]

Beneficial Ownership Survey: Mandatory online survey conducted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada for certain commercial fishing licence holders completed between 31 January 2022 and 30 April 2022. The survey aimed to “gather information about who is benefitting from having access to commercial fishing across Canada, including the amount of access allocated to small and medium sized businesses, concentration of access, and foreign ownership.”[2]

Commercial communal fishery: A type of commercial fishery where the fishing licence is issued to an Indigenous organization instead of an individual or enterprise. The sale of the catch is permitted for these fisheries, similar to commercial fisheries. Communal commercial licences are issued by Fisheries and Oceans Canada pursuant to the Aboriginal Communal Fishing Licences Regulations. Programs allocating commercial communal licences include the Allocation Transfer Program, the Pacific Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative and the Atlantic Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative.

Terminology Specific to the West Coast

Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ): The proportion of the total allowable catch (TAC) of a specific fishery that is allocated to a licence holder for a specified fishing season.[3] On Canada’s West Coast, owners of individual transferable quotas (ITQs), or quota licences, can sell or lease them on the open market and are not required to fish the quota themselves.

Licence-holder: A person who has leased access to a fishery from a licence owner.

Licence stacking: On the West Coast, a situation where “[m]ore than one licence of the same species category has been placed/designated to the same vessel at the same time. In some fisheries, once licences have been stacked, they then become married and take on the overall length of the vessel upon which they are held. Some fisheries have applicable deadlines and special stacking provisions; such as a vessel may not hold more than one licence for the same area.”[4]

Party-based licence: An individual, a company or a First Nation are all eligible to hold a party-based licence. Examples of fisheries eligible for party-based licences include Herring, Rockfish, Clam, Sea Cucumber and Sea Urchin.[5]

Pacific Integrated Commercial Fisheries Initiative (PICFI): A Fisheries and Oceans Canada program designed to “increase First Nations' access to commercial fisheries in British Columbia and Yukon”. The program seeks to build First Nations communities’ capacity to fish and operate commercial fishing enterprises, to improve business and operational capacities and strengthen community economic self-sufficiency. PICFI investments include “support for new business and training opportunities and increased fisheries access” for eligible First Nations commercial fishing enterprises.[6]

Vessel-based licence: A licence “issued ‘in respect of a vessel’ as the licence eligibility must be attached to a vessel. The reported vessel owner(s) may apply for the licence and have control over licensing transactions for that licence. Vessel based licence eligibilities include Salmon, Schedule II Species, Geoduck and Horseclam, Halibut, Sablefish, Shrimp by trawl, Groundfish Trawl, and Prawn and Shrimp by trap.”[7]

Terminology Specific to the East Coast

Controlling Agreement: An agreement “between a licence holder and a person, corporation or other entity that permits anyone other than the licence holder to control or influence the licence holder’s decision to submit a request to DFO for re-issuance of the licence to another fish harvester.” Controlling agreements can compromise “the independence of fishing licence holders” by moving “the rights and privileges conferred under the licence away from the licence holder” towards third parties.[8]

Elver fishery: A fishery with a restricted number of commercial and communal commercial licences executed in parts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Elvers are young American eels less than 10 cm in length. Licences are river-specific, and harvesting is carried out without the use of vessels in most cases, often using dip nets.[9]

Exempted fleet: A fleet fishing one or more of 12 specific licences granted an exemption from inshore policies by the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. Exempted fleets include those fishing for herring using a purse seine, groundfish using mobile gear and a vessel with an overall length of less than 65 feet or groundfish using fixed gear and a vessel with an overall length between 45 and 65 feet.

Fleet Separation Policy: Fisheries and Oceans Canada policy introduced in 1979 in Atlantic Canada for inshore fisheries and eventually applied to the coastal sector establishing that licences “could only be issued in the name of an individual fish harvester. It was intended to promote locally owned, independent fishing enterprises and to support and grow fishery-dependent communities. It was also intended to prevent corporate concentration of inshore licences by aiming to ensure that inshore licences were not issued to corporations, in particular those involved in the processing sector, and to curtail any potential advantage given to fish processing corporations through the control over both the price and supply of catch.”[10]

Inshore fleet: Licence holders are restricted to using vessels that are 65 feet length over all (LOA) or less. In Newfoundland and Labrador, licence holders may be permitted to use vessels 90’ LOA under specific conditions.[11]

Midshore fleet: Licence holders are permitted to use vessels that are 100’ LOA or less.[12]

Offshore fleet: Licence holders are permitted to use vessels that are longer than 100’ LOA.[13]

Owner-Operator Policy: Fisheries and Oceans Canada policy “formally implemented across Atlantic Canada and Quebec in 1989 for inshore fisheries and eventually to the coastal sector as well. It established rules requiring the licence holder to be on board the vessel while a licence was being fished. The Owner-Operator policy limited the horizontal integration of the sector by requiring that a licence holder fish the licence issued to them personally (i.e. be on board the vessel authorized to fish) and limiting licence holders to holding only one licence per given species. The policy’s intention was to ensure that the individual who holds the licence is the one carrying out the activities authorized under the licence, and is the one who benefits from the fishing activity.”[14]

Policy for Preserving the Independence of the Inshore Fleet in Canada's Atlantic Fisheries (PIIFCAF): Fisheries and Oceans Canada policy introduced in 2007 which aimed “to strengthen the Owner-Operator policy and the Fleet Separation policy with the goal that inshore fish harvesters remain independent, and that the benefits associated to fishing licences flow to the licence holder and to coastal communities.”[15] Under the PIIFCAF policy, the Independent Core (IC) licence holder category was created and requires licence holders to sign a declaration stating they are not party to a Controlling Agreement. A seven-year implementation period, ending in April 2014, allowed IC licence holders to terminate or amend agreements to bring them in-line with the PIIFCAF policy.