Letter: Time to park partisan politics and unite for our fishery

As the MHA for the district of Mount Pearl-Southlands, I’m probably one of the last elected representatives you would expect to be writing about the fishery. I would suggest that the closest thing you’ll find to the fishery in my district is the seafood section at Pearlgate Dominion.

That said, we must all recognize that the fishery is a billion-dollar industry in our province that impacts us all. While the fishery obviously has a more direct impact on many of our rural areas, it also affects our urban areas.  For example, there are many businesses within Donovan’s Business Park that provide products and services to the fishery, thus creating employment and generating taxes for the City of Mount Pearl. The very same can be said for St. John’s, Corner Brook, Gander, Grand Falls, Clarenville and all of our other urban centers.

Related story:

Fisheries minister’s decision to divvy up Arctic surf clam quota slammed by Clearwater, Town of Grand Bank

As we all know, ever since entering into confederation with Canada, we’ve seen a steady decline in our fish stocks while under the watchful eye of Ottawa. I have no idea as to the amount of our natural resources that have been traded to foreign interests by our federal government over the years to the benefit of Central and Western Canada, but I’d imagine there would be a lot of zeros at the end of that number. Is that to say that all of our woes have been Ottawa’s fault?  Of course not. I think anyone who takes an honest look in the mirror would acknowledge that we ourselves have to shoulder a portion of the blame although it is likely miniscule in comparison to the decades of mismanagement perpetuated by DFO.

Over the years we have seen politicians of various stripes who have taken different approaches in dealing with Ottawa. Our former administration tried taking down flags and referring to our Prime Minister on a first name basis. This current administration is using the honey versus vinegar approach as they laud their amazing relationship with their federal cousins. While these approaches may be diametrically opposed to each other, the result has been the same as far as the fishery has gone, as Ottawa continues to thumb their nose at N.L.

This of course recently manifested itself with Fisheries Minister Dominic Leblanc’s ill-advised decision to remove 25 per cent of Clearwater’s surf clam quota to the detriment of the people of Grand Bank specifically and the people of N.L. generally.

Now, in fairness, our provincial minister of fisheries has been very vocal on this issue and the MP and MHA’s for the area have denounced this decision and called upon Leblanc to change his mind.  Unfortunately, Leblanc remains steadfast in his desire to see this quota processed in Nova Scotia in a facility whose CEO is coincidentally the brother of a Liberal MP from that province. 

So what should we do about it?  What do we expect from our leaders? How about putting petty partisanship aside and coming together in a united fight for our fishery?  

Why can’t our premier, the leader of the Official Opposition, the leader of the NDP and our seven MP'S (in consultation with our stakeholders in the fishery) go to Ottawa as one united group to fight for our people?

In addition, why not have each of our 7 MP’s sponsor petitions in the House of Commons re: the N.L. Fishery? Why not organize a huge rally at the Confederation Building and/or outside DFO (peaceful of course) and have all of our Leaders, provincial and federal, speak up for our province?  Why not initiate an email/letter writing campaign to the federal Minister of Fisheries and the Prime Minister, with the very first letter coming from our Premier's office?

We don’t need to take down flags or be disrespectful, but we also don’t have to sit back and watch our resources leave our shores to the detriment of our people. 

We need to fight for our people and our communities. We need to fight for the principle of adjacency. We need to fight for increased fisheries science, fairer quota allocations and a plan to deal with the growing seal population that is ravishing our fish stocks. We need to fight against policies that would see our fishers going out on the ocean in potentially unsafe vessels, cut into pieces, in order to conform to some ludicrous DFO policy.

We need to fight against dumping fish overboard while many of our people are lining up at food banks.  We need action on these critical issues. 

We need our leaders to lead.

Paul Lane

Independent MHA, District of Mount Pearl-Southlands