Amanda Vaughan
Northern News Services
Published Friday, December 7, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - A judge dismissed a charge against a musher for setting unmarked fishing nets after ruling nets are not fishing gear.

"Whenever net is used it seems to be in conjunction with apparatus and not fishing gear," Judge Brian Bruser said of the federal Fisheries Act.

Dog musher Brent Beck had been charged with setting "unmarked fishing gear" in Yellowknife Bay.

Beck was charged after officers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) discovered the nets near Burwash Point on Yellowknife Bay in September 2006.

The two DFO officers testified Beck had come to the department's dock looking for his nets.

According to the two men, they informed him that the nets had been set in violation of the Fisheries Act, and that they would be charging the owner.

Beck tried to claim the nets anyway.

The judge pointed out that in several sections of the Fisheries Act, the phrase "seines, nets or other fishing apparatus" is used, and he drew the conclusion that nets were "fishing apparatus" and not gear.

He said his interpretation was further supported by the fact that in all other references to equipment, the phrase "any fishing gear or apparatus" is used, creating a distinction between "fishing gear" and "fishing apparatus."

"If they have the same meaning, then why go to all this trouble?" Bruser said.

The trial stretched over two days.

Though he said in his decision that he believed Beck had set the nets, Bruser also ruled that the Crown could not prove the nets had been set within the past two years.

Had the nets been set more than two years ago, the statute of limitations for the offence would have expired.

"What this means is that fishing nets are not considered fishing gear, and if Parliament wants to change that, they will need to amend the legislation," said Crown lawyer Shelley Tkatch outside the courtroom.

Tkatch said she had proceeded with the prosecution of the case on the basis that nets were fishing gear, but said things can change as courts consider every aspect of the law.

"Regulatory offences can get quite technical," she said.