11/13/2025
On Nov. 5, federal fisheries officers simultaneously blocked the roads leading into two plants owned by one of southwest Nova Scotia’s big lobster buyers.
Officers were seen leaving Independent Fisheries plants in Sable River, N.S., and Dipper Harbour, N.B., carrying boxes full of papers.
This latest “inspection,” as it’s being called by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), follows a series of raids on other big lobster processors over recent months that resulted in thousands pounds of lobster seized and released.
It happens as the change long called for by both commercial fishermen and frontline fisheries officers appears to be coming for DFO’s top brass.
Whether it’s a harbinger of repairs to the federal government’s damaged relationship with the commercial fishery and the coastal communities of Atlantic Canada that rely upon it remains to be seen.
“No comment, just a routine check,” Amanda Hemeon, office manager for Independent Fisheries, told The Chronicle Herald on Wednesday.
DFO acknowledged it had done inspections.
“During inspections, it is common practice for fishery officers to copy business records so that they may be compared to information previously reported by the business and via other sources,” reads a statement from Debbie Buott-Matheson, spokeswoman for DFO.
“Inspections are not searches or investigations; however, an inspection could result in an investigation if irregularities are discovered. The inspections conducted Nov. 5 did not result in the seizure of any lobster. As the process remains ongoing, no further details will be made available.”
Independent Fisheries’ lawsuit
According to Independent Fisheries’ website, the company processes $160-million worth of lobster annually.
Hemeon also declined to comment on the lawsuit against Independent Fisheries and its owner, Xiaoming Mao, by commercial fishermen alleging the company has been buying First Nations lobster harvested outside the commercial season from a federal government-owned wharf in Saulnierville.
After watching an unlicensed lobster fishery operating outside the commercial season by First Nations members claiming a moderate livelihood right grow over a decade with little federal or provincial intervention, the United Fisheries Conservation Alliance hired private investigators to track the movement of lobster.
According to the notice of action for the $10-million lawsuit filed by the UFCA last November, “The lobster obtained by the defendants at the Saulnierville wharf is not caught by a licence-holder and therefore cannot be legally sold. The illegal lobster is transported by various means to a fish plant owned by Independent Fisheries Ltd. in Sable River, Nova Scotia. Independent knowingly takes delivery of the illegal lobster and subsequently profits from its sale.”
The lawsuit’s allegations have not been proven in court.
Mao has become a big player in Nova Scotia’s seafood industry over the past five years.
Mao ran Atlantic Chican Seafood’s plants through a period when they pleaded guilty to charges of being in possession of egg-bearing lobster and then of importing 63,000 pounds of lobster from Maine for export to China relabeled as Canadian lobster.
Mao was “let go” from Atlantic Chican in 2019, according to John Crandall Nickerson, who was brought in to run the operation.
With capital from unknown sources, Mao bought Independent Fisheries and its plant in Sable River in 2020.
According to provincial property records, in 2023 he became a director of B.M.C. Seafoods Ltd., which owns a large plant in Meteghan. In April 2024, he became president of Oceans Edge Seafoods, which owns a plant in Salmon River.
The following month, a numbered company of which Mao is a director was one of three firms that purchased the American company Lobster Boys LLC, which owns the lobster-buying and processing facility in Dipper Harbour, N.B.
Unusual lawsuit characteristics
As of Wednesday, none of the defendants to the suit, which also include Fisher Direct Ltd., Sea Well Holdings Ltd., Jason Lamrock, Tyler Nickerson, Sandra Nickerson, Shawna Nickerson, David Nickerson and Wesley Nickerson, have filed a defence.
“Independent has sought to compel further details of the claim from UFCA and that has delayed matters,” said Michel Samson, lawyer for the UFCA.
“UFCA’s position is that Independent knows exactly what it has done and Independent does not need further information to file a defence. The court will rule on that question sometime soon.”
The lawsuit is unusual in that it sees private parties funding their own investigation and seeking redress for alleged violations of federal law (the Fisheries Act). Normally, that would be the responsibility of federal and provincial (responsible for fish processing licensing) law enforcement and prosecution services.
That investigation was being pursued last year as 35 frontline fisheries officers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick submitted “refusal to do unsafe work” letters under the Canada Labour Code, claiming a lack of support from top brass in their department. The letters cited violence against officers by armed unlicensed fishers and threats against their families.
“These have included physical acts of violence against officers, attempted assaults using vehicles and vessels, harvesters attempting to disarm fishery officers from their sidearms, and utterances of violence and death threats towards officers and their families,” reads one of the letters obtained by The Chronicle Herald.
The letter went on to state that officers have no support from senior management and public statements made by then-federal fisheries minister Diane Lebouthillier had made their jobs dangerous.
The officers sought body armour capable of stopping high-powered rifle rounds, body-worn cameras to document their interactions with unlicensed fishers and drug training.
Retired DFO area chief Alan Clark told The Chronicle Herald in a written statement last year that the problem stems from appointing “career bureaucrats” to top-level enforcement positions.
Jeffrey Pope, a senior investigator with Employment and Social Development Canada, ultimately agreed with the officers and directed DFO to “take measures to correct the condition that constitutes the danger immediately.”
DFO claims to have done that.
Last winter, a retired Mountie was appointed to DFO’s chief enforcement officer role.
Peter Lambertucci’s LinkedIn profile boasts of his having “developed increasingly senior roles leading Counter Terrorism, National Security, Serious & Organized Crime, Financial Crime, Money Laundering, and critical incident management” that brought a more law enforcement-oriented skillset than previous appointees to the role.
Through the summer and fall of this year, enforcement has picked up. According to DFO, since June 1 it has seized six fishing boats (all of which remain in DFO custody), 1,501 traps and nearly 28,000 lobsters (which were returned to the water) in southwest Nova Scotia. It has also done 65 fish plant inspections.
A large share of the catch, 115 crates containing 8,028 lobsters, was seized Oct. 16 at a commercial fish plant in Delaps Cove. One man was arrested for violations under the Fisheries Act.
While DFO refused to specify which plant was busted, there is only one commercial plant in the identified community, Delaps Cove Fish Products Ltd. According to the Registry of Joint Stock Companies, the directors of Delaps Cove are Allan Longmire, Patricia Longmire, Reginald Leblanc and Marcel Leblanc.
Both Reginald and Marcel Leblanc are directors of Wedgeport Lobster, a prominent Nova Scotia lobster buyer.
Neither Reginald Leblanc nor Allan Longmire responded to requests for comment.
According to DFO, the lobsters were caught under a First Nations food, social and ceremonial licence and are not allowed to be sold or bought. They refused to provide any other details as the “investigation is ongoing.”
Meanwhile, another bust happened on Oct. 16 at a plant in Queens County that also hasn’t been identified by DFO. The lobster had been caught in the St. Peters Canal area of Cape Breton, which is currently closed to fishing. DFO officers arrested a man in Port Mouton found with 6,466 lobsters for possession and for making false statements to a fisheries officer. All the lobsters were transported back and released.
On Thursday, DFO confirmed that its deputy minister, Annette Gibbons, has announced her retirement.
A successor has not yet been chosen.
Gibbons, along with associate deputy minister Adam Burns, regional director General Doug Wentzell and director of enforcement policy and programs Brent Napier, were raked over the coals by MPs during a special meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans last February over an alleged lack of enforcement of the Fisheries Act.
“You’ve had nearly a 50 per cent increase in your staff, over a doubling of DFO’s budget since 2015, since this government got elected, what do you need to get the job done?” asked Newfoundland and Labrador MP Clifford Small. “Is it possible that you can actually do the job?”
Gibbons responded that her department was working on traceability regulations that would enable DFO to bring fisheries in Atlantic Canada under control.
On Wednesday, UFCA president Colin Sproul welcomed the increased enforcement and changes at the top of DFO but also warned that the federal government has a long way to go.
“No matter what direction the fisheries minister or the prime minister want to take on this issue, they need to face the fact that for the last 10 years there is a bureaucracy from top to bottom at DFO that has facilitated illegal activity,” said Sproul.
“And the people involved need to be cleaned out from top to bottom. Not just to bring rational enforcement back and protect conservation of the resource but, and just as importantly, to rebuild trust with coastal communities who have none left with this government or with DFO to look out for their interests in any way.”
