Canada: Federal court rejects union application to put a halt to N.L.’s commercial northern cod fishery

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The Federal Court of Canada has rejected an application from FFAW-Unifor for an injunction against offshore fleets being allowed to access northern cod. In a decision filed on Oct. 17, Justice Cecily Y. Strickland ruled that although the union representing inshore fish harvesters and plant workers in Newfoundland and Labrador had raised “a serious issue,” granting an injunction would not maintain the status quo of the 2023 stewardship fishery the union was seeking. Moratorium lifted The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) announced a moratorium on commercially fishing northern cod in 1992. Since then, there have been different forms of science-based fishing of the stock by inshore harvesters, with the most recent iteration being a stewardship fishery that had a 13,000-metric tonne quota. In June 2024, DFO announced via a press release that there would be a commercial fishery with a quota of 18,000 tonnes, including 1,080 allotted to Canadian ...