Sale of Clearwater Seafoods
November 5, 2020. Demonstration for moderate
livelihood fishery outside Clearwater facility in
Bedford, prior to the sale.
On November 9, the media announced the sale of
Clearwater Seafoods, the largest private Canadian
seafood monopoly in Atlantic Canada, to a
partnership of Premium Brands Holdings Corporation
based in Vancouver, BC and a group of Mi'kmaw
First Nations led by the Membertou First Nation.
The buyers agreed to pay a purchase price of $1
billion and to assume Clearwater's debts. Each of
the partners will own 50 per cent of the company
which is the largest holder of shellfish licences
and quotas in Canada. According to business
analysis firm Dunn & Bradstreet, Clearwater
Seafood Incorporated has U.S.$539 million in
assets, a net income of U.S.$31.31 million on
U.S.$462.81 million in sales in 2019, and 1,941
employees in total. It holds major offshore rights
to harvest clams, crab, lobster, scallops and
shrimp off the northeastern coast of Canada.
Clearwater Seafood operates its own fleet of
ships, along with offshore and onshore processing
facilities.
Clearwater Seafoods came into existence in 1976.
It was made possible as a result of the Kirby
Report -- Navigating Troubled Waters: A New
Policy of Atlantic Fisheries --
commissioned by the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Liberal
government in 1982, which attacked the livelihoods
of small inshore fishers as a "rural-romantic"
approach to fishing. The Kirby Report justified
the handover of millions of dollars in subsidies
and hundreds of millions in offshore seafood
resources, which rightfully belong to the Mi'kmaq,
the people of Nova Scotia and Canada, to a small
group of private monopolies, including Clearwater
Seafoods, which has become the biggest seafood
monopoly in Atlantic Canada.
Clearwater Seafoods has had the blessing of the
Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to
self-regulate, make up its own rules, and fish
year-round to maximize profits, while small
independent fishers and the Mi'kmaq are bound by
DFO's rules, regulations and quotas. Currently DFO
officers are seizing and destroying the lobster
traps and nets of Mi'kmaw lobster fishers who are
affirming their sovereign right to trap lobster in
pursuit of a "moderate livelihood."
According to media reports Clearwater has been in
talks with the purchasers for months. A March 2020
press release said: "Clearwater's board of
directors has determined it is timely, prudent and
in the best interests of the company and its
stakeholders to commence the strategic review in
light of the company having recently received
several expressions of interest."
Media reports say the Mi'kmaw coalition will
invest $250 million, financed by a 30-year loan
from the First Nations Finance Authority (FNFA).
The FNFA was created by an act of Parliament in
2005. Its stated purpose is to enable First
Nations to borrow private money through banks and
other lenders at "preferential rates" to finance
infrastructure projects. Since its founding the
FNFA has financed almost $1 billion in loans to
112 First Nations. It is noteworthy that on June
2, the federal government announced that First
Nations with existing loans with the FNFA will
receive "interest payment relief" to the tune of
$17.1 million.
On November 10, the FNFA put out a press release
noting: "FNFA has approved a $250 million loan to
the Mi'kmaq First Nations Coalition to purchase
Clearwater's Canadian offshore fishing licences.
Under the announced agreement, the First Nations
will receive contractual revenues on a quarterly
basis from Clearwater which will have a
significant impact by creating revenue and
boosting their economies."
The sale was announced right in the midst of the
current battle being waged by the Mi'kmaw First
Nations to assert their sovereignty and conduct
their own self-regulated moderate livelihood
lobster fisheries. Chief Terry Paul of the
Membertou First Nation said that the purchase of
Clearwater was "strictly a commercial transaction"
that will not impact the efforts of the Mik'maq to
establish their own self-regulated moderate
livelihood fishery. He described the purchase as
"a generational acquisition that would be felt
across our communities for the next seven
generations."
Just one week earlier, Chief Paul had resigned
from the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs,
where he held the Fisheries portfolio for many
years. The CBC reported on October 28 that Chief
Paul said that he could no longer work with the
chief's assembly because the DFO was successfully practising a
divide-and-conquer strategy and undermining the
unity of the Mi'kmaq.
Additionally, the Membertou First Nation recently
bought two of eight lobster-harvesting licences
from Clearwater Seafoods for $25 million. These
licences enable the Membertou First Nation to fish in an
area designated Lobster Fishing Area 41, a vast
area 80 kilometres off the southern tip of Nova
Scotia which has been the exclusive preserve of
Clearwater Seafoods for decades.
Following the announcement of the sale of
Clearwater Seafoods, Dr. Rick Williams, Research
Director for the Canadian Council of Professional
Fish Harvesters and author of A Future for the
Fishery: Crisis and Renewal in Canada's
Neglected Fishing Industry, expressed
concern that the deal could rekindle tensions
between Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishers. He
pointed out to the CBC that "Clearwater has had a
history of conflict with owners of smaller,
family-owned fishing enterprises." He noted that
while the company has pushed for a more
monopolized corporate fisheries model, inshore
fishing groups have urged the federal government
to maintain harvesting in local communities. "Now
that Clearwater is perceived to be a First
Nations-owned company, that adds to the mistrust
about the expansion of Indigenous fisheries. It
will add to fears that a large company can buy up
lobster licences through First Nations that they
weren't able to buy as a company," he said.
From start to finish, the Canadian state bears
responsibility for the destruction of the
livelihoods of the fishers in the Atlantic fishery
and for state-organized violence to deprive the
Mi'kmaq of their hereditary and treaty fishing
rights as sovereign peoples. Financing
partnerships between Indigenous nations and
private interests is both an attempt to extinguish
Indigenous rights and to integrate Indigenous
peoples into the globalized fisheries industry
which has brought nothing but despair to fishers
at home and abroad, and to abrogate the Crown's
fiduciary responsibility to Indigenous peoples'
rights and claims.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 46 - November 28,
2020
Article Link:
Sale of Clearwater Seafoods
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
