No, Canada's Lobster Fishery Doesn't Use a 70/20/10 TAC Split — The Numbers Don't Add Up
“The inshore fleet receives 70 per cent of the TAC (approximately 41,000 tonnes), the offshore and mid-shore fleet receives 20 per cent (around 11,800 tonnes), and Indigenous and special allocations account for 10 per cent (approximately 5,900 tonnes)”
The argument in brief
A claim circulating online says Canada's inshore fleet gets 70% of a lobster TAC (~41,000 tonnes), offshore fleets get 20%, and Indigenous allocations get 10%. This is partially false on multiple counts: Atlantic lobster is not managed by a Total Allowable Catch at all, and the tonnage figures implied by the claim are roughly 35,000 tonnes short of what Canada actually lands each year.
Data: DFO Commercial Landings Statistics
Why it spread
Fisheries access is a genuinely contested political issue, touching on Indigenous rights, coastal livelihoods, and conservation. In that charged environment, people on all sides are hungry for hard numbers to back their positions. A claim with specific percentages and tidy tonnage figures sounds authoritative and travels fast — especially when it seems to confirm what someone already suspects about who gets what.
The claim describes a tidy 70/20/10 percentage split of a national Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for what appears to be Canada's Atlantic lobster fishery. The verdict: partially false. The structure described does not exist, and the numbers don't match reality.
The most fundamental problem is that Atlantic lobster is not managed by a TAC. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), lobster is managed through effort controls — things like trap limits and season lengths — applied separately across dozens of Lobster Fishing Areas (LFAs). There is no single national tonnage cap to divide up. A 70/20/10 percentage split of a unified TAC is simply not how this fishery works.
The tonnage figures also fall apart under scrutiny. Add up the three numbers in the claim — 41,000 + 11,800 + 5,900 — and you get roughly 58,700 tonnes. But DFO's own commercial landings statistics show actual Atlantic lobster landings have ranged from about 88,000 to over 96,000 tonnes in recent years. The claimed total is off by tens of thousands of tonnes.
On Indigenous allocations specifically, DFO's framework for moderate livelihood fisheries — rooted in the Marshall decision — involves negotiations conducted separately by treaty area and First Nation. There is no published DFO framework that fixes Indigenous lobster access at a flat 10% of any national figure, as confirmed by DFO's own Indigenous fisheries documentation.
What the claim gets partly right is the general picture: the inshore fleet (vessels under 65 feet) does historically dominate Atlantic lobster access. The Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters Federation and Senate fisheries committee reports both confirm this. But dominance in practice is not the same as a formal, codified percentage allocation — and no government or industry source has published the 70/20/10 structure described.
This kind of claim spreads because fisheries policy debates — especially around Indigenous rights and fleet access — are contentious, and precise-sounding numbers feel like proof. Watch for claims that cite specific percentages and tonnages without linking to a DFO management plan or IFMP document. If the source isn't traceable to a published allocation framework, treat the figures with caution.
Sources
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada – Atlantic Lobster Fishery Overview
DFO manages Atlantic lobster under Integrated Fisheries Management Plans (IFMPs) by Lobster Fishing Area (LFA). There is no single national TAC for lobster; lobster is managed by effort controls (trap limits, season lengths) rather than a unified tonnage-based TAC, making fleet percentage allocations of a single TAC figure inapplicable.
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada – Indigenous Fisheries and Marshall Decision
Indigenous moderate livelihood fisheries allocations are negotiated separately by treaty area and First Nation, not as a fixed 10% of a national TAC. The figures cited do not match any published DFO allocation framework for lobster.
- Senate of Canada – Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, Lobster Industry Report
Senate committee reports on the lobster fishery confirm that the inshore fleet (vessels under 65 feet) dominates Atlantic lobster landings historically, but allocations are not structured as 70/20/10 percentage splits of a single TAC. Lobster is not managed by TAC in Canada.
- Fisheries and Oceans Canada – Atlantic Lobster Landings Statistics
Published DFO landings data show total Atlantic lobster landings in recent years ranging from approximately 90,000 to over 100,000 tonnes, not the ~58,700 tonnes implied by the claim's figures (41,000 + 11,800 + 5,900). The total TAC figure cited appears inconsistent with actual landings.
- Canadian Independent Fish Harvesters Federation
The inshore fleet does hold the dominant share of lobster fishing access in Atlantic Canada, but no published industry or government source confirms a formal 70/20/10 percentage allocation structure for lobster specifically.