Company fish quotas and overfishing

Maggy Carter

- March 14, 2012 at 12:09:08

To the company flack who wrote the post under the guise that "THE FISH BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE..." Nothing like the great lie! Next the processors will be rewriting history to claim that when the fishery in Newfoundland was under the thumb of the fish merchants, the people never had it so good. For the record, the era of the 'truck system' was among the darkest, most devastating, and bleakest periods of our history from a 'people' perspective. The fish plant owners would like to roll back the clock to those good ole times. Before governments roll over and play dead on this issue, they should understand one important thing. It is not possible to have a hybrid ownership structure in which plant owned boats, crewed by wage workers with company quotas, fish alongside boats owned by fishermen. Once you open the door of that pandora's box, the processors will use every underhanded trick in the book to put pressure on fishermen until they hand over their quotas, their licences and their boats for cents on the dollar. A fishery owned and managed by processors will also mean that, ultimately, there will be no inshore fishery and consequently very few fishing communities. The plants, boats, licences and quotas will be rationalized and concentrated to the point that there will be no more room for the little guy or the little community. What the processors want should be called for what it is - Resettlement, Part II. If allowed by government, this will become the final nail in the coffin of rural Newfoundland.

Submit a comment

• 

  if I had it my way

  - March 14, 2012 at 21:19:28

  I support offshore processing....either on the boats at sea, or by foriegners in foriegn countries. Essentially, I want the company to make more money so they can pay more taxes to support OUR social services. If that means the end of the inshore fishery and the end of some or all of the fishing communities, then that is okay with me. From business/management point of view, if Canadian businesses was access to foriegn resources, then we have to open our resources to foriegn business too. I am completely okay with giving control of the fishery to corporations if it provides a net benefit to all citizens. It acceptable if the citizens of NL benefit at a whole by giving the fishery to corporations even if rural NF suffers...as long as there is a net benefit to a majority of the people. Heck, the benefit need not even be in newfoundland.....as long as Canada sees a net benefit, I support giving control of the fishery to corporations. I understand you may disagree, but I am just stating my point of view, and will do what I can at election time to elect those interests that are alligned with mine.

Colin Burke

- March 14, 2012 at 11:16:07

Absolutely,F.B. All fishermen ever do is catch fish. If they had actually put the fish in the sea so they could catch them, then -- since people deserve the effects of what they do -- the fishermen would have the same rights as taxpayers and their government to benefit from fishing. Right?

Submit a comment

THE FISH BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE, NOT JUST THE fishermen

- March 14, 2012 at 09:33:30

This article fails to acknowledge that allowing big companies to have control over the fishery is in the best interests of the majority of people in the province, not just the fishermen. Big companies will be focused on profits, not people...this lead to greater profits which will lead to more taxes paid and fill the provincial coffers. By allowing big companies to control the fish, we do our part to ensure that our taxes and user fees dont go up. Health care costs are rising, energy costs are rising, so we must look our for our selves and make the decisions that will prevent the government from coming to all of us to get more tax dollars. SO I say lets let big companies control the fish, hire whomever they want, process where ever they want. This way, the government gets more tax dollars. Winners in this scenario: the big companies and the tax payers....the losers: the fishermen....in short, the greater good is achieved by allowing big companies to control the fish.

Submit a comment

• 

  Invested in the Fishery

  - March 14, 2012 at 12:09:21

  I could not disagree more with the post “THE FISH BELONGS…” I agree that the fish belongs to the people of this province but proposing that processing companies be permitted to “officially” own quotas (because they do own them indirectly although processors will not publicly acknowledge it) is short-sighted and naïve. If you think that allowing processors to own quotas will mean more tax dollars paid you are misguided and gullible. If the processors “win” this then it’s only a matter of time before they are allowed to process offshore and/or ship all their products unprocessed to Asia. These big companies have very creative teams of accountants who make sure that very little taxes are paid so you should think twice before you endorse such a ruling. You should stop by any wharf in this province and speak to the owner/operator of a 65 foot vessel as an example. One owner with a crew of 5 puts literally hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local economy on a yearly basis between wages, fuel, groceries, gear, electronics, wharfs fees, licensing fees, dockside monitoring, bait, ice…I could go on. All those expenditures and resulting tax dollars will be lost when the processors own the quotas and funnel their money to the Cayman Islands.