Commercial fishing industry has largely become a high-cost, dead-end career full of perplexing and vexing rules. Industry veterans are worried that no youth is stepping in to take over. So, with help from the provincial government, the industry is commissioning a study on how to fix things. The main aim of the study is to help the B.C. commercial fisheries industry quantify, understand and work towards solutions to the labour market challenges in the fish harvesting industry.
John Stevens, a lifelong fisherman, said that there are few young people but many are out of fishing business as they see no future. He added that fishing is being overly restricted by the Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Stevens hopes to go after sockeye salmon within a week, taking his Ladner-based leased gillnetter to Barkley Sound off the west coast of Vancouver Island. It will be his first time fishing this year.
Kathy Scarfo, president of the Area G West Coast Trollers, said fishermen used to join the industry as teenagers. She told that the lack of newcomers for the salmon fishery is due to “ongoing decreases in catch and uncertainty about the future.” Commercial fishing contributed $135 million to B.C.’s gross domestic product in 2007, but there’s a public perception that this is a waning industry.
