Editorial: Hold DFO staff accountable for season's cancellation

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The cancellation of this year’s legal harvest of baby American eels is a failure that must have consequences at Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The federal department, still known by its former short form DFO, has been aware of the problems with poaching of baby eels for several years. And yet a month ago it suddenly announced there was likely not enough time to pull together a plan to properly regulate the fishery.

It’s a capitulation – not to any particular stakeholder group, but rather to the culture of the department itself, where delays and inaction appear to be prized as evidence of consultation and commitment to sustainability.

The department needs a wakeup call. DFO exists to regulate fisheries for the good of Canadians. Consultation, meetings and scientific data gathering are part of that, but so is actually crafting a plan and executing it.

Defending her decision, Minister Diane Lebouthillier claims: “By not opening the fishery, our message is crystal clear: do not travel to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to engage in elver harvesting.”

But the notion that poachers will roll over in the face of a federal press release is farcical. Prices run in the thousands of dollars per kilogram, and are unlikely to drop if supply is further diminished as the legal fishery is eliminated.

Moves to increase enforcement this year are welcome, and frontline fishery officers should be empowered to do their jobs.

We nonetheless urge Minister Lebouthillier to hold DFO staff accountable for the appalling lack of a roadmap at the eleventh hour. And we trust that next year, the minister and her department will not dare trot out the embarrassing fiction that there simply wasn’t enough time to make a plan.