Court says Fish Licences are Private Property

On Friday, Canada’s top court ruled that fish licences are, in effect, private property. The Supreme Court of Canada unanimously sided with the Royal Bank. "A fishing licence is unquestionably a major commercial asset," it said in a case involving a bankrupt fisherman trying to prevent the seizure of his licences.

A study of worldwide fisheries published last month in the journal Science found that individual transferrable quotas (ITQs) greatly reduce the collapse of commercial fisheries. ITQ fisheries harvesting stocks in an orderly fashion, when demand is strong, can even reverse stock declines. [thechronicleherald.ca...]