Since 2013, the date for the recreational cod fishery has been announced on or before May 20, but so far this year, there has been no announcement, and businesses and people anxious to get onto the water want to know why.
Shawn Williams, an avid fisherman, started an online petition to get answers. The petition has been signed over a thousand times.
“(The recreational fishery) is huge for the Newfoundland economy,” Williams said. “What happened to our brains?
“(Businesses involved in the industry) have to book in January or last year to get in queue for what they need. … (If) they announce the fishery today, there’s not a truck just waiting outside Blue Water Marine, saying, ‘OK, now by’s, bring that in, we are going to buy that.’”
Michael Williams, sales manager at Blue Water Marine, agrees.
“We can’t wait until it’s announced,” said Williams, who is not related to Shawn Williams. “Our stock orders and our boat orders we have to order back in January and February for the spring and the summer.”
Blue Water Marine stocks $150,000 to $200,000 worth of boats for use during the recreational fishery.
“That’s definitely a huge portion of our income for the summer directly attributed to sales from the food fishery,” Michael Williams said. “Besides that, there’s the rods and reels and lures and jiggers. … You’re talking about maybe $40,000 or $50,000 in that. That’s still something we have to order five or six months ago.
“If there is an issue and they need to cut back, that’s fine. But they need to have an announcement out before this. … Waiting until you’re in the season is not doing anybody any favours.”
Media relations personnel for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) said there will be an announcement in early June, but as of Thursday there was still no announcement.
“This is useless,” Shawn Williams said. “My big thing is, why early June? Why isn’t it February, why isn’t it January?”
Referencing the fisheries in Greenland and Iceland, Shawn Williams wonders why the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery is lagging so far behind.
“Why can’t DFO tell us, ‘This is what has to exist for the recreational fishery to go to the next level (and) for the commercial industry to come back’? It’s always … ‘We don’t have enough research.’ But it’s been 25 years.”
