A Primer On Fisheries Offences

Framework

The federal and provincial governments have established a complex regulatory scheme to govern the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada and elsewhere.

The principal statute governing the industry is the Fisheries Act. Under the Act, the federal government has created more than two dozen sets of regulations.

The Minister of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has a wide-ranging discretion to issue and renew fishing licences and impose conditions on those licenses. Licenses often contain extensive conditions which outline, among other things, where a fisher can fish, at what time, and detailed prescriptions about the size and shape of species which may be caught. The most common form of fisheries offences involve violations of license conditions.