While the demonstration was peaceful in nature, the protestors were stopping Department of Fisheries and Ocean Employees from entering the road leading the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre.
There were few vehicles to impede, however, as DFO management had already planned a delayed opening and decided just after 8:30 a.m. to keep the building closed until noon.
RNC officers were briefly on the scene to speak with Gillett and his supporters.
Gillett, the vice president of Federation of Independent Sea Harvesters’s of Newfoundland and Labrador (FISH-NL) and former star of the Discovery Canada reality television show “Coldwater Cowboys”, is protesting what he considers flawed science and management of the province’s fishing industries.
He says he won’t end his hunger strike until he gets a meeting with the Dominic LeBlanc, federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, as well as an independent review of fisheries science and management and a review of the DFO relationship with the Fish Food and Allied Workers union.