Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Apr 22/02) - The Nunavut government says it is pleased a panel of Canadian fishery experts agrees the territory should be given better access to commercial fish stocks.

The Independent Panel on Access Criteria, struck by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans last June, was given the task of examining criteria used to grant access to new fisheries and to established fisheries undergoing quota increases.

Focusing on the fishing industry on the Atlantic Coast, the panel consulted aboriginal groups, politicians and members of the industry.

It made seven recommendations, one of which dealt with Nunavut's situation.

"The panel found that Nunavut does not enjoy the same level of access to its adjacent fisheries as do the Atlantic provinces," says the report, which was released earlier this month.

"The panel therefore recommends that: No additional access should be granted to non-Nunavut interests in waters adjacent to Nunavut until the territory has achieved access to a major share of its adjacent fishery resources."

Sustainable Development Minister Olayuk Akesuk said the recommendation should help the territory secure additional fishing quotas in the adjacent waters of Davis Strait and Baffin Bay.

Nunavut currently has 27 per cent of the turbot allocation in Davis Strait and 14 per cent of the shrimp in Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. Southern fishers hold the vast majority of quota percentages on both species.

The Nunavut government and Nunavut Tunngavik have been lobbying the federal government to make the allocations more equitable.

Akesuk said the recommendation brings the territory a step closer to realizing its fair share of the fishing industry.

"It supports our fishery here in Nunavut. We can use the report to promote and increase our fishing industry here in Nunavut," said Akesuk.

Carey Bonnell, director fisheries and sealing for the Department, said that, while ultimate approval for the recommendation lies with federal Fisheries Minister Robert Thibeault, it will be hard to ignore Nunavut's marginalization now.

"We've got a group of individuals who spent a good portion of a year putting the industry under a microscope saying Nunavut is excluded unfairly and should have any increase," he said. "This is going to do the industry very well down the road."

NTI president Cathy Towtongie said her organization will join lobbying efforts to convince Thibeault to act on the matters of adjacency in Nunavut waters.

"Nunavut is at the stage where we need diversity in our economy. We need the fishing industry," she said.

The panel's advice is particularly timely given the federal government's recent agreement in principle with Makivik Corporation on its offshore claim. That deal -- part of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement -- could give Inuit there first dibs on any increases in shrimp and turbot quotas adjacent to Nunavut. If the panel's suggestions are accepted by Thibeault prior to the finalization of the offshore final agreement, that article could be rewritten.