'You can't touch the union boat'
Former Fishery Officer alleges DFO kept quiet 2012 conviction
against Katrina Charlene so as to not embarrass the FFAW
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| The trawler Katrina Charlene, a.k.a "the union boat." |
The Katrina Charlene and the crab quota it was built to fish have been in the news for almost 20 years for their connection to the FFAW. The story made national news in February when a Fishery Officer alleged DFO kept quiet a conviction against the trawler, so as to not embarrass the union. Today, there’s news the quota sold recently for $1 million, a fraction of its estimated value, to Conne River First Nation. The boat and quota have been sold, but questions remain. What happened to the tens of millions of dollars generated by the crab quota? Fisherman’s Road lays out the story as it’s never been told.
First of a three-part series.
By Ryan Cleary
This story begins in late June, 2011 when Fishery Officer Jason Bateman crossed paths with the so-called “union boat,” the nickname by which the trawler Katrina Charlene was best known on wharves and stages around the province.
As far as Bateman knows, it marked the one and only time the 104-foot trawler was ever inspected.
The wharf in St. Lawrence that morning was flat out with fishermen and workers offloading, monitoring, and grading the 75,000-pound catch, the vessel’s trip limit. Pans of crab fresh from offshore fishing grounds were hoisted from the boat’s belly, and carted off by forklift to feed the nearby plant.
Bateman and fellow officer Ryan Legge were carrying out a vehicle patrol in the area when they “had the chance” to carry out an inspection of the Katrina Charlene, according to the Violation Report the two officers filed that same day.
But Bateman, who regularly acted as field supervisor for the Marystown office of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), said he had also heard complaints that the vessel had been landing a high percentage of small crab, which are often female.
Bateman said he was familiar with the Katrina Charlene. The trawler’s fishing gear was often stored on the property right next door to DFO’s Marystown office. Bateman said he and other Fishery Officers referred to the building/warehouse as belonging to the Fish, Food, and Allied Workers’ (FFAW) union.
The Katrina Charlene was built in 2001 by the private company, Offshore Fish Resource Harvesters Inc., to fish an offshore snow crab quota. The company, boat, and quota were closely linked to the FFAW, so that the nickname “union boat” had been around for as long as the vessel itself.
Bateman recounted the conversation on the St. Lawrence wharf on the day he approached the Katrina Charlene for inspection.
“‘What the fuck are you doing?’” the fishermen asked.
“‘You’re wasting your time, b’y — that’s the union boat,’ they said to me. They were laughing, meaning to say the union boat was untouchable.”
“Listen, I’ll treat them the same as I treat you,” Bateman responded. “There are no favourites with me.”
Bateman and his colleague, Legge, proceeded to inspect the boat, including collecting random samples of the catch to ensure the size complied with licence conditions.
Of the 2,727 crab sampled, a “large number” were deemed to be undersized, although the exact percentage was blacked out with marker on the Violation Report.
In an interview, Bateman said almost 10,000 pounds (13 per cent) of the crab aboard the union boat were undersized, “a hell of a lot of baby crab.” Had the percentage of undersized crab been much higher, then DFO would have seized the vessel’s catch.
“It was gross neglect,” Bateman said. “It looked like they just shovelled the crab from the pots into the live holding tanks aboard the boat without picking out the small ones.”
The Violation Report, which was obtained under federal Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) legislation, noted that Bateman and Legge asked to speak, in private, to the boat’s skipper, Lot Short, as well as Ches Cribb, the licence holder who was on hand when the boat landed.
They did so, according to the Violation Report, because there were “a large number of fishers on the wharf.”
‘“You’re wasting your time,”’a fisherman told Bateman when he left the Katrina Charlene that day. ‘“You can’t touch the union boat.”’
At the time, Batemen didn’t think those words held weight, but he soon began to question whether the union boat was indeed untouchable.
Looking back, Bateman said the series of events that followed that fateful day “ruined his career,” and he alleges he was later targeted for harassment by certain DFO supervisors as a direct result.
Bateman has other serious concerns about DFO Enforcement and Conservation (specifically in eastern Newfoundland) that he wants investigated — including allegations Fishery Officers were pressured to target certain harvesters for violations, psychological abuse by senior officers, racism, and illegal searches.
In recent months, Bateman has made certain posts on social media (Facebook specifically) that could be seen as vindictive against his long-time employer, and certain supervisors.
Bateman, 49, officially left his position with DFO in February of this year, but he had been away from the job on medical leave since 2017. Bateman has multiple sclerosis, and has been fighting bladder cancer.
Prior to Bateman and DFO severing ties, the department had sent Bateman warning letters regarding his online commentary, asking him to stop.
In his defence, Bateman — a former fisherman, Canadian Forces veteran, and current member of the Qalipu First Nation — said he wants to set the record straight.
Former Fishery Officer Jason Bateman is also a Canadian Forces veteran.
He said he felt strongly that all inshore harvesters should be treated equal. Bateman made it a point to say that even before signing on with DFO in 2007 he asked not be stationed near his hometown of Port aux Basques, where his family still fishies, so as to avoid any potential conflict of interest.
“When I was a fisherman, I saw how Fishery Officers treated fishermen, and I always said I would treat everyone exactly the same no matter who you were — fishermen, union, whoever,” said Bateman, whose request was granted, and he was posted a nine-hour drive away in DFO’s Marystown detachment.
On Feb. 27th, 2012 — eight months after the charge was laid against the Katrina Charlene — the vessel’s skipper, Lot Short, pled guilty to a single count of possessing snow crab less than 95 millimetres in length, and was fined $25,168.72.
Bateman said he prepared a press release — as he routinely did when court convictions were recorded from charges he had a hand in laying — and forwarded it to his DFO supervisors.
Such publicity could deter other fishermen from breaking the law, but Bateman said it was also important to him that the fishermen who were on the St. Lawrence wharf the day the charge was laid knew of the eventual conviction and fine “so they knew no one was above the law.”
“I wanted to let fishermen know that I treated them all the same way as the skipper of the union boat, there was no difference.”
Despite months of follow-up requests, Bateman said a press release about the conviction was never issued.
In a Feb. 19th Globe and Mail article headlined, “Is politics an obstacle for sustainable fishery?” Bateman said his supervisors chose not to publicize the conviction, contrary to protocol — proof in his mind DFO was hesitant to embarrass the FFAW.
“I wanted the public to know there was no favouritism, and we treated everyone the same. But they hid it. They swept it under the rug,” Bateman told The Globe. “It should have been a huge deal. It was a big violation.”
In an interview, Kevin Guest, a communications advisor with DFO in the province, said at the time the department was “transitioning to a national process for posting convictions,” the intent of which, ironically, was to provide “increased transparency with regards to convictions.”
Guest said it was important to note that the skipper of the Katrina Charlene was convicted and fined $25,000, with the court proceedings a matter of public record at the court house in Grand Bank.
In an official DFO statement, Guest also said, “We want to reiterate that affiliations with various organizations do not factor into decisions related to enforcement follow-up, associated policies, and processes.”
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Part two tomorrow: “The FFAW crab licence.”
With files by Jenn Thornhill Verma.
Ryan Cleary, the author, was a St. John's-based journalist for 18 years before serving a term as a Member of Parliament, following which he was elected President of FISH-NL, which made two unsuccessful attempts to break inshore harvesters away from the FFAW-Unifor.
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