Ashton Spinney

Leader Among Canadian Lobstermen

by Sandra Dinsmore

Ashton Spinney. “An absolutely warm and wonderful person. He always did a fantastic job representing the lobstermen in his area.” – Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.Richard Stern photo

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia lobster fisherman Ashton Spinney, 72, has represented all 986 of his fellow Lobster Fishing Area [LFA] 34 license holders for over 30 years. He also represents the crews on those 986 boats. Since each vessel carries a crew of three or four, this means Spinney also speaks for an additional 3,000 to 4,000 Nova Scotia fishermen. Asked what that means, Spinney explained, “I make sure with issues that arise that fishermen get an opportunity to voice their opinions and make their opinions known to government officials or wherever they’re applicable.”

Spinney spent most of those years traveling back and forth to the U.S. as the LFA 34 representative, but he has needed a new hip for two years now, and until that happens, he said, he can’t manage those long trips. On the other hand, during the period of research for this story, Spinney attended three meetings. Spinney’s wife drove him almost 200 miles to the first meeting in Halifax and another 200 back to Yarmouth again. And, as it’s been for all those years, Spinney paid his own way. He paid for the gasoline, lodging, and meals. Apparently, the LFA 34 fishermen have to vote to pay Spinney’s travel expenses, which they seem unwilling to do. Asked what it costs him per year to represent the LFA 34 fishermen, Spinney replied, “Some years, it’s been $10,000 to $15,000. Sometimes a little bit more for meetings going to the States and the other provinces.” That’s $10,000 to $15,000 or more a year for what Spinney, in all seriousness, calls the privilege of representing his fellow fishermen.

“You never satisfy everyone,” he admitted, “but you try to do what’s best and represent them honestly.” Spinney found again and again that there were a lot of good fishermen he could turn to for opinions and advice. “Really,” he said, “what I did most of the time was listen to their directive.”

He’s still listening. He had a meeting the afternoon of the interview, saying, “There’s all kinds of things coming at us. You see it; you hear it in the United States.” And he’s been active in the U.S. He was asked to speak at a Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association meeting on lobster trap tags. Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, calls him, “An absolutely warm and wonderful person,” and said, “He always did a fantastic job representing the lobstermen in his area.” In 2000, she asked Spinney to speak at an MLA meeting at the Fishermen’s Forum, where he spoke about trust. Spinney said afterward an Australian fisherman told him he had “hit the nail right on the head. Wherever you live,” the Australian said, “fishermen are always concerned about the trust of their dealers or whoever they’re dealing with.” Spinney said, “You know what, the problems with fishermen over there [the U.S.] and the problems here [Canada]: all the difference is the twang in their voice. The same challenges are there.”

The same challenges may be there, but there are differences. Spinney considers having the license to fish a privilege because, he said, “The DFO [Department of Fisheries and Oceans] can take that away at a moment’s notice.” Spinney explained, “That’s the way it is. It’s not the same as it is in the U.S. In the U.S., fishermen’s licenses die with them. At the end of their years of fishing, the license no longer exists. Canadian fishing licenses exist in perpetuity, but,” he stated, “it’s a privilege that is granted by the federal government. The Federal Minister of Fisheries has the power to take your license away. We have to pay for that privilege: $1,890 a year for boat access: for the privilege to go lobster fishing. We pay $50 a year for a personal fishing license, and $50 a year for the boat license.” That’s a total of $1,990 a year.

On top of that, Spinney also has to pay a wharfage fee of $1,000 to $2,000 a year just to tie up and $600 to $700 to hook up for electricity.

Cutler fisherman John Drouin, when asked what fees and taxes he has to pay in order to fish, came up with a total of $1,028. Urban fishermen probably have to pay more than Cutler fishermen, but Spinney made his point.

Ashton’s cousin René Spinney’s 50-foot long by 30 feet wide Dyson & Marissa. A typically beamy Canadian design. Richard Stern photo

Asked the hardest thing he’s had to do representing fishermen, Spinney replied, “Problems always come up, and a lot of times people want to get up in arms over it. But I look at it this way: What can we do to make it better, to resolve this difficulty? The other perspective I’ve tried to take is that if it has to be a No—a definite No, I try to come up with a workable solution.” In other words, this veteran negotiator explained, “People like to save face. If you’re dealing with government or whatever, if you give them a way out, you solve a situation, make everybody happy.” He added, “Generally, if you listen to them, fishermen themselves will give you that answer.”

Told that Maine fishermen think Canadian fishermen get help from the government, Spinney laughed and said, “I hate to blow their bubble, but we don’t get anything. There are no monetary gifts there. They [the fishermen] go for help, but they don’t get it.”

What bothers him more than anything are the costs that keep young fishermen from entering the fishery. If Spinney were to sell his boat, it would cost a buyer between $700,000 and $800,000 for his boat’s access license and $200,000 to $300,000 for his vessel itself. (Spinney said most boats cost an average of from $300,000 to $700,000. His boat, a Goreham hull he built in 2001, is 44 feet, 6 inches long and 20 feet wide.)

“But that,” he said of the double cost of access license and vessel, “in all fairness, is making it pretty well prohibitive for young men to get in the fishery. It’s way too expensive for a young man to come out of school and fish for two years, which would qualify him to buy a license. But when he’d go to a bank, he’d have no collateral.”

Fortunately for Spinney’s son, now 50, who has been fishing with his father since he finished high school, his father years ago opted for a “family exemption” offered by the Canadian government that allows him to pass his boat on to a family member without that family member having to pay the tax on the vessel, a privilege the Canadian government gives the new vessel owner.