Saving Seafood

The story behind an alleged fraud worth millions in Nova Scotia’s lobster industry

May 23, 2017 — In June of 2015, three men stepped out of a summer day thick with flies and into the Beaverdam Lake, N.S., cottage of lobster dealer Wayne Banks.

It wasn’t a casual visit.

They had arrived unannounced at his doorstep, claiming that in the space of about 10 days, someone had ripped them off to the tune of $1.6 million.

“Have a seat, you fellas,” said Banks. “I think I know why you’re here. But there ain’t nothing I can tell you.”

The secret recording of that conversation, later provided to CBC News by one of the men, offers a glimpse into a large alleged fraud case, one that reveals the money and high stakes at play in Canada’s most lucrative lobster industry.

Only later would local RCMP team up with the federal Serious and Organized Crime unit to launch a joint investigation into what they called a complex criminal operation, one some feared could have broader ramifications on the industry.

But on that June day two years ago, one name threaded its way through the conversation — Wayne Banks’s younger brother, convicted fraudster Terry Banks.

“How many families get destroyed because of Terry f–king Banks again?” said one of the visiting men in exasperation.

“I don’t understand why Terry’s still alive. I don’t.”

Last week, RCMP charged Terry Banks, 51, with four counts of fraud over $5,000 and three counts of theft over $5,000 involving allegations he was part of a scheme that stole about $3 million from four different seafood companies.

His 69-year-old brother, Wayne, faces six fraud and theft charges. A third man — Chris Malone, 52 — is charged with one count of theft and one count of fraud. All three men return to court Aug. 24.

None of the allegations has been proven in court.

RCMP Supt. Martin Marin said Tuesday that those charged had a “substantial reach and influence on the local, national and international seafood market.”

“Had this fraudulent activity continued, Nova Scotia’s economy and seafood industry could have been negatively impacted,” he said in a news release.

Read the full story at CBC News

Maine fishermen could feel impact of proposed undersea cable

April 25, 2017 — A Canadian company is proposing a 350-mile, sub-sea power transmission cable that could interfere with commercial fishing along the coast of Maine.

If the project is approved, the Atlantic Link cable would be buried about 25 miles offshore of Harpswell, running between New Brunswick, Canada, and Plymouth, Massachusetts. It would affect about 400 lobstermen from Cape Elizabeth to Phippsburg, according to spokesman Gerald Weseen of the Nova Scotia-based energy services company Emera.

Weseen and other project representatives, and staff from the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, conducted a meeting about the project April 21 that drew only two area lobstermen.

“Most of the (interference) is pretty workable,” Glenn Rogers, a Mackerel Cove fisherman from Orr’s Island, said Friday.

Late last month, a collection of Massachusetts utility companies sent out a request for proposals targeting clean energy services in response to a clean energy procurement mandate from that state’s Legislature, Weseen explained.

He said Emera’s plan to channel 900 megawatts of hydro and wind power is the only sub-sea option competing against about a half dozen other proposals.

Read the full story at The Forecaster

SEAN HORGAN: Fisherman on hunger strike to protest rules

April 17, 2017 — Stop us if this sounds familiar.

Last Thursday, Canadian fisherman Richard Gillett, a vice president of the Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters of Newfoundland and Labrador, decided enough was enough.

Gillett had had enough of the regulations and enough of scientists telling him that six critical fishing stocks in the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries were in dire shape despite what he and other fishermen were witnessing on the water.

“There’s fish there,” Gillett told The Telegram newspaper. “We’ve never seen fish like it before. The fish are overrunning our crab grounds, eating our shrimp, eating our crab and we’re still at one-third of the level (regulators) would like to see.”

So Gillett went rogue. He camped out in a tent and began a hunger strike he said will continue until representatives from the Fish-NL organization get to meet with the federal minister of Fisheries and Oceans and receive an independent review of the science and management of the region’s fisheries.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

Lobster industry fears lost sales from ramped-up Canadian exports

March 20, 2017 — A new trade deal looming between Canada and the European Union is setting off alarm bells in the Maine lobster industry.

The deal between Canada and the EU – the largest seafood consumer market in the world – would eliminate tariffs on Canadian lobster exports into Europe and give the Maritimes a competitive advantage over their American counterparts, who would be stuck selling lobsters with tariffs ranging from 8 percent for a live lobster to 20 percent on processed or cooked lobster.

A weak Canadian dollar, which is now valued at about 75 percent of a U.S. dollar, will only make Canadian lobster that much more attractive to importers in the 28 member nations of the European Union, which is the second biggest importer of American lobsters, second only to Canada, according to trade data. In 2016, the EU imported $152 million worth of lobsters from the U.S., most of it from Maine.

“This is a big deal,” said Annie Tselikis, director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association. “Canada recognizes that it is an export nation. They are putting their money where their mouth is and adopting a very aggressive trade policy. They are also developing a very aggressive, smart marketing campaign abroad. It is going to be very difficult to compete with that because we sell the same product.”

The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, has been under negotiation for years. The United States was negotiating one, too, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, but it has stalled. The Canadian-EU deal appears likely to get its final OK in May, and the first phase of the deal, including the trade tariffs, would go into effect in June.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Fishing fatality prompts call for safer vessels

March 13, 2017 — The brother of the 51-year-old fisherman from Alert Bay who died when the Miss Cory capsized is calling for safety improvements to the industry.

Mel Rocchio was in the engine room when the vessel took less than two minutes to capsize Monday afternoon after listing in calm waters near Comox, off Cape Lazo. It was the first day of the commercial seine roe-herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia.

Four other crew members survived.

Rocchio’s brother, Jim, also a veteran of the commercial fishing industry, said a 19.5-metre-long boat doesn’t sink that fast unless there are “catastrophic failures.”

He said he wants to see a full investigation into his brother’s death.

“If anything, we need to learn from this,” he said. “I really feel in my heart that no one else should have to go through this. Identify the problem and correct it so other people don’t lose a brother, or uncle or grandfather.”

Glenn Budden, a marine investigator with the Transportation Safety Board, said witnesses reported the boat was alongside another boat and hauling up the catch when the accident happened.

Read the full story at the Times Colonist

Family identifies missing fisherman as Mel Rocchio of Alert Bay

March 10, 2017 — Mel Rocchio of Alert Bay has been identified by family as the fisherman who is missing and presumed drowned after a fishing boat capsized Monday off Comox.

WorkSafe B.C., Transport Canada and the RCMP are investigating what caused the Miss Cory, a 19.5-metre wooden vessel, to capsize on opening day of the commercial seine roe-herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia.

The four others on the boat were rescued by vessels fishing in the waters off Cape Lazo.

Rocchio had been fishing out of the Campbell River Fisherman’s Wharf for about 15 years, according to Phyllis Titus, manager of the Campbell River Harbour Authority.

Titus, who met Rocchio about seven years ago, said he was the type of person who became instant friends with anyone who crossed his path.

“He always made you laugh while being as quiet as a mouse or as loud as an ox,” Titus said. He was the type of friend “who’s willing to help anyone, any time.”

Rocchio was married, and while the couple did not have children, he treated his nieces and nephews like his own children.

Read the full story at the Times Colonist

U.S. seafood group bristles at comments by Canada’s fisheries minister

February 3, 2017 — An American seafood industry association is disputing statements by Canada’s fisheries minister that Canadian producers need to “raise their game” in order to meet new traceability rules for seafood imported into the U.S.

The Washington-based National Fisheries Institute, which opposes the new rules, says Canada has nothing to do with the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) catches the new Seafood Import Monitoring Program was brought in to stop.

​”Canada is actually a leader in the fight against IUU and is globally known for its expertise in digital forensics, used in major international investigations of IUU,” the institute’s vice-president communications, Gavin Gibbons, said in an email statement to CBC News.

Read the full story at CBC News

55 deaths in 15 years: Report highlights remarkable danger of commercial fishing in Canada

January 23, 2017 — HALIFAX, Canada — A new report details the frantic, fruitless attempt to rescue a deckhand pulled overboard just hours into the lobster season — one of a series of deaths on both coasts that demonstrate the remarkable danger of commercial fishing.

“The loss of life on fishing vessels is simply too great,” the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said after its probe on the November 30, 2015, death of a deckhand on the Cock-a-Wit Lady near Clark’s Harbour, N.S.

The unidentified deckhand was a veteran of eight years on the boat, but made a brief mistake that killed him two-and-a-half hours into the trip, according to the TSB’s report.

A lobster trap got stuck on a port-side railing, and he attempted to free it with his feet. He stepped into coils of rope attached to several traps, and was hauled quickly over the stern when it was freed, the report says.

“The deckhand was still standing in the coil of rope, and when it became taut, he was carried overboard and underwater by the weight and momentum of the traps,” the TSB report said.

“The crew of the Cock-a-Wit Lady determined which of the multiple lines was attached to the deckhand and passed it around the stern and up the starboard side to the trap hauler. They rove the line around the hauler directly over the bulwarks and attempted to haul up the deckhand.”

But the line was at an extreme angle, and broke under the weight of the traps and the deckhand, who was wearing an inflated flotation device.

Read the full story at the National Post

Fishing industry cautiously optimistic about potential haddock boom

January 23, 2017 — Exactly how many of the haddock that hatched in 2013 are still swimming off the coast of southern Nova Scotia is not certain, but researchers agree the numbers are potentially massive.

Biologist Monica Finley recently completed a population assessment for the southern Scotian Shelf and Bay of Fundy.

She estimates 264 million haddock were hatched there in 2013 and survived their first year, making it an “extraordinary” year-class.

“This 2013 year-class is five times higher than the next highest on record since 1985,” said Finley, who works at a Department of Fisheries and Oceans research facility in St. Andrews, N.B.

Her report predicts 100,000 metric tonnes of haddock will reach adulthood in 2017 and 2018.

Bring on the boom

On Georges Bank, the population is predicted to be even bigger, with Canadian and American scientists estimating the 2013 hatch at 1.3 billion fish.

This month, fish plants in southern Nova Scotia are starting to process their first catches of 2013 haddock, forerunners of what industry members hope is a boom for years to come.

“We’re seeing signs of it now, but we would expect to see the fish at the larger, more commercially harvestable sizes in a couple of years,” said Alain d’Entremont, chief operating officer at O’Neil Fisheries in Digby.

“We are taking a cautious path to that harvest.”

Read the full story at CBC News

Lobster prices high as catch drops and China imports climb

January 11, 2017 — Lobster lovers are used to adjusting to high prices, but this winter, they’re shelling out even more for the cherished crustaceans because of a lack of catch off of New England and Canada and heavy exports to China.

Winter is typically a slow season for U.S. lobster fishermen and an active one off Atlantic Canada. But catch is slow in both countries this year, in part because of bad weather, industry sources said.

And the winter months are also an important time for exports to lobster-crazy China, which celebrates its New Year holiday Jan. 28. It’s increasingly popular to celebrate the Chinese New Year with American lobster. That’s causing demand at a time when supply is low.

American consumers who were paying $9 to $11 per pound for a live lobster in September — already higher than the previous year — are now sometimes paying upward of $13 per pound. There are enough lobsters to go around, but China’s demand is likely to only grow, said Bill Bruns, operations manager at The Lobster Company of Arundel, Maine.

“They are building infrastructure to meet more demand,” Bruns said, who added that China’s middle class “hasn’t stopped growing, and they keep eating.”

American lobster exports to China have topped 12 million pounds and $85 million in value for three years in a row. The country imported a fraction of that amount as recently as 2010, when it imported less than a million pounds of the crustaceans.

Meanwhile, prices charged by wholesalers in the U.S. are rising, too. The wholesale price of a 1 ¼-pound live hard shell lobster rose about a dollar in the New England market from December to January, when it was $7.75 per pound, according to Urner Barry commodities publishing service.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times