The Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW-Unifor) has appealed to Canada’s federal fisheries minister Joanne Thompson and minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) Sean Fraser to support small-scale harvesters hit by China’s crippling 25% tariffs on Canadian seafood.
The union is asking ministers to adjust parameters for federal support eligibility to assist sea cucumber harvesters who have lost the bulk of their 2025 fishing season.
‘Current tariff relief programs for businesses inexplicably exclude owner-operator fish harvesters, despite them being small businesses in the eyes of CRA,’ explains FFAW-Unifor Secretary-Treasurer Jamie Baker.
The federal government’s Regional Tariff Response Initiative, administered through ACOA promises $80 million over three years to help small and medium-sized enterprises impacted by tariffs.
‘When our union tried to assist harvesters in applying for this program, we were told they don’t qualify—despite suffering catastrophic losses—and that the fund explicitly excludes compensation for direct tariff-related damages. This is unacceptable,’ Jamie Baker said.
In a letter to the federal government, the FFAW has highlighted the desperate need for targeted assistance amid a fishery that has been effectively wiped out this year. Harvesters, who have invested upwards of $1 million in gear, vessels, and operations, are facing bankruptcy and mounting debts as a direct result of the tariffs – imposed in retaliation to Canadian trade measures and exacerbated by unreasonable demands from seafood processors.
The initiative’s funds remain accessible to large seafood processors—the very companies that contributed to the crisis by delaying the season’s opening, insisting on unfeasible prices unsupported by market evidence, and attempting to bypass the Newfoundland and Labrador Fish Price Setting Panel. These actions, combined with the tariffs, have left independent harvesters as the sole victims in a fishery that typically covers critical bills and seasonal debts.
‘Fisheries have always had their ups and downs, but this one was killed by the processors’ greed and the federal government’s failure to meaningfully counter the Chinese tariff regime,’ Jamie Baker commented.
‘If harvesters can’t access this ‘Tariff Response Initiative’ or alternative support, what’s the point of it? We need Minister Thompson and Minister Fraser to intervene immediately: expand eligibility to include harvesters, allow access to cover losses, or establish a dedicated relief fund. Without action, viable enterprises will collapse, and rural coastal communities will pay the price.’
Image: Fisheries and Oceans Canada
