About

Photo: Skipper Otto

Local Catch Canada is a knowledge-sharing and support hub focused on building an equitable, community-based seafood system in Canada. Our efforts aim to bolster seafood sovereignty, sustain fishing livelihoods in coastal, river, and lake fishing communities throughout Canada, and centre Indigenous values and knowledge systems.

Our inspiration for this network

The network was formed in 2023 after recognizing the challenges in Canadian seafood systems, including Indigenous sovereignty and access, lack of local product available to Canadians, and regulatory barriers. The network takes inspiration from our membership in the U.S.-based Local Catch Network and our many years of work bringing together harvesters, seafood businesses, researchers, and nonprofits to successfully strengthen the viability of small-scale, community-based seafood systems broadly across North America. Local Catch Canada aims to bring this work into a uniquely Canadian context.

Our goals

  • Contribute toward decolonizing fisheries and food systems in Canada and Indigenous territories

  • Supporting small-scale seafood-producing livelihoods, food systems, and food sovereignty

Our values

  • Respect for Indigenous rights and treaty obligations 

  • Sustainability of seafood harvests and supply chains

  • Living wages and dignified, safe work conditions in the seafood sector

  • Solidarity and mutual support among diverse fishing communities and their allies 

  • Conservation and stewardship of marine and aquatic resources across Canada

Definition of “seafood”

The Local Catch Canada network includes any fish and shellfish from oceans, lakes and rivers as seafood.

We also acknowledge the diversity of definitions and meanings for the word “seafood” across the country.

Steering Committee member Leona Humchitt shares this example from her nation stating, “Seafood means our ocean relatives. The Haiłzaqv Nation have traditional laws that have been passed down through the generations that will be active, living laws in the constitution currently under construction.  Specifically, this law is ‘respecting and taking care of our ocean relatives’.”

Who is involved in the Local Catch Canada network?

The network brings together individual harvesters, practitioners, and their allies to form connections, deepen engagement, and tackle current day challenges in our community-based fisheries and seafood systems.

The current membership includes people from Indigenous and non-Indigenous fishing communities across Canada’s four coasts (west coast, Great Lakes region, Arctic, east coast), as well as environmental non-profits and scholars.

Our steering committee

Photo: Skipper Otto