Canadian fisheries policy: Challenges and choices

Canada faces grave challenges in its ocean fisheries. The problems include the collapse of Atlantic groundfish stocks in the early 1990s, international disputes over shared and straddling fisheries, conflicts among competing fishers, and low incomes and overcapitalization in many important fisheries. We assess the present state of Canada's ocean fisheries, evaluate past and current management to address the problems and propose policies to help Canada realize the full potential from its marine resources.The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and are grateful for the comments and sugges-tions of Gordon Munro, Timothy Sargent, and three anonymous referee