Clearwater Foods co-founder and chairman John Risley may be mellowing in his disappointment with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Dominic LeBlanc’s decision to award a new license for Arctic surf clams to a rival bidder.
Risley has been in Newfoundland telling politicians and employees that they, Clearwater, are “solution-finders,” though he declined to give specific details on what those solutions might be.
"I'm not going to speculate on that,” Risley told the CBC. “You don't negotiate those kinds of things in public."
This is a change in tone from his threats to sue the government over LeBlanc’s decision in February 2018 to reallocate 25 percent of the surf clam quota, or 8,924 metric tons, from Clearwater to the Five Nations Clam Company.
The cut in quota reduced Clearwater’s revenues from a highly lucrative fishery, and has meant less work for the 150 employees of company’s Grand Bank plant, one of the few year-round seafood plants in Atlantic Canada. It has also meant less time at sea for three vessels that Clearwater had devoted to the surf clam fishery, including a new, specially-built vessel that Clearwater built for CAD 70 million (USD 54.2 million, EUR 48.3 million).
The redistribution of the quota was part of the Canada’s plan for reconciliation with its indigenous people by providing employment opportunities in the fishery. Risley has said he is not opposed to the government's attempts at reconciliation, but questioned the government’s decision to redistribute its Arctic surf clam quota.
"I just don't think that you achieve reconciliation by taking something away from someone in an involuntary manner and giving it to someone else,” he said.
Grand Bank Mayor Rex Matthews was also irked by the minister’s decision.
"This isn't creating one new job at all. All it's doing is taking full-time jobs from Grand Bank and making them part-time, and putting other part-time jobs in Nova Scotia,” he said. “If that's the minister's answer to reconciliation then I don't see much hope for the reconciliation process."
Equally furious was Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries Minister Gerry Byrne, who thought LeBlanc should have done proper consultation and offered to buy part of the quota from a willing seller, instead of "confiscating" it from Clearwater.
"There is absolutely no way, shape, or form that this will be a 12-month-a-year operation in Grand Bank,” he said. “We've taken a 21st century model plant and moved it back to the 19th century."
Despite his earlier fiery rhetoric against LeBlanc, Risley’s new comments may suggest quiet negotiations are underway with the Canadian government to achieve a resolution to the dispute.
