Harvesting gets the attention; processing and distribution capture the value. Across 551 facilities, Canada's processors turn $7.8 billion in revenue into an export trade that runs on certification, cold-chain capital, and currency risk.
Industry Profiles
Canada’s fisheries exported CAD 8.47 billion in seafood in 2025. The industry behind that figure runs on shellfish, leans on a few foreign markets, and is quietly aging out of its own workforce.
Industry Profiles
From the dock, a fishing business looks like boats and gear. Its biggest cost is usually neither: it is the license, and the money to buy one. And its richest market can sit in China one year and disappear on a tariff the next. The money side of Canadian fisheries is stranger than the boats let on.
Industry Profiles
Two Supreme Court rulings settled that Indigenous fishing rights are not the Crown's to hand out or take back. A quarter century later, who actually gets to fish, and where the money goes, is still being fought over on both coasts. The deals that hold are the ones that start there.
