Premier Susan Holt and Prime Minister Mark Carney
In what continues to be an escalating trade war between two typically friendly countries, another provincial Premier has entered the chat this month with a menacing idea of her own. While others have pulled American liquor off the shelves and threatened to cut off power to neighboring states, New Brunswick’s Premier has decided to float a ban on American hunters and anglers as the latest tariff bargaining chip.
Speaking in front of a crowd in the province’s capital, Premier Susan Holt ruled out the option of cutting NB Power exports into Maine while reaching for a different lever. Stating that the power ban would unfairly affect hospitals and the like, she called that type of move “exceptionally serious” and offered another one.
Americans, she said, come to the province “desperate to participate in our moose hunt or in our salmon fishing.” There are things New Brunswick can “preclude Americans from doing,” she added, along with a few other things it can stop sending south.
A follow-up from her government put what she was hinting at into writing, stating that NB officials are exploring whether moose licenses, salmon licenses, and even mining claims could be restricted to Canadians only. And while this season’s tags have already been bought up, she remains focused on next year, kickstarting a legislative review so Natural Resources Minister John Herron could get the authority to do it.
What the draw actually looks like
New Brunswick’s moose hunt is not an open season. It is a five-day window in which nearly every tag goes through a lottery. Naturally, residents get the bulk of it, which included 4,727 licences across 25 wildlife management zones in 2026.
Non-residents are offered a sliver of the pie which is made up of:
31 licences through the public non-resident draw
89 through the outfitter allocation
120 total non-resident moose tags
Those 120 can go to hunters from other Canadian provinces or overseas, but the majority of them end up in the hands of Americans. The licence itself is $548 before tax and accounts for roughly $66,000 in government revenue if every tag sells. But for local economies in New Brunswick, the real money is in the camp.
Under provincial law, non-residents are required to hunt with a licensed New Brunswick guide and local outfitters sell all-in packages that run as high as about US$20,000. That price tag gets hunters rooms, meals, a guide who knows the zone, and a shot at a moose in a province that still has a healthy population of them.
A New Brunswick bull | Professional Outfitter & Guides Association of New Brunswick
Salmon is an even bigger book. Last fiscal year the province issued over 6,300 non-resident angling licenses. Of those, 1,773 were salmon licenses and within designated “guide required waters” like the Miramichi and Restigouche country that built New Brunswick’s fly-fishing reputation, non-residents need a guide after a set date. The province's recreational sport fishing has been pegged around $60 million a year in direct activity, while hunting and sport shooting spending in the province has been cited near $500 million.
Outfitters are not confused about who pays the bill
Debbie Norton, president of the New Brunswick Professional Outfitters and Guides Association, has already been in government offices since Holt made the announcement.
“I have spoken to government on more than one occasion about this since those thoughts, and, from what I’m hearing, our province remains open to business and encourages tourism from around the world, which includes our southerly neighbour,” she said.
A ban, she added, would be “insulting” to the people who already come. Rural jobs sit on the other side of that insult and would only serve to alienate a good portion of the very people that bring money into rural New Brunswick.
Clay Harrison, executive director of the United Guides and Outfitters of New Brunswick, called a ban “devastating.” He said more than 85 percent of provincial outfitters’ business is American while Kyle Price, who runs Fins & Feathers Outfitting in Fredericton and chairs that group, put his own book at 75 to 80 percent U.S. clients.
“We certainly welcome American dollars to support the economy of New Brunswick,” Harrison said. “Many operators, businesses, families rely on this for their survival.”
Slaying salmon on the mighty Miramichi | Fins & Feathers Outfitting
What this really is
This is not a moose or salmon management decision. It’s yet another trade-war prop in what has turned out to be a theatrical display of empty threats along with the stacking of tariffs and counter tariffs. Rather than emptying the woods completely of hunters, Holt seems focused solely on a small, yet high dollar and deeply political slice of it.
And when that slice is restricted or gets wrapped in government red tape, it's not the bureaucrats in Ottawa and Washington who bleed first. It’s the local guides, outfitters, shops, hotels, restaurants and bars.
Fortunately for the locals, until the legislature actually sticks a citizenship line on a moose license, this hopefully will remain nothing more than a threat dressed up as policy.
