Federal fisheries changes will hurt small owners

Ottawa’s notion of managing the future of the East Coast fishery casts aside the importance of owner-operator fishing businesses, Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair said Wednesday in Dartmouth.

It is a viable industry the federal government should leave alone, Mulcair said.

He was in metro to meet privately with the Eastern Shore Fisherman’s Protective Association about the Harper government’s plan. The federal NDP leader spoke with reporters after the get-together and was quick to denounce his political foes.

“Every time you talk about taking care of a resource, they say, ‘Oh, you’re trying to interfere in the marketplace,’” Mulcair said.

The government in January released a contentious discussion paper called The Future of Canada’s Commercial Fisheries. It proposes modernizing fisheries management but is lacking details.

Atlantic fishing families and their supporters fear reform would see corporate-led fishing replacing fishermen working as self-sufficient business operators. Rural communities will be hurt as a result, government critics say, if big-box fishing pushes the independents off the water.

The West Coast fishery was harmed by such a policy, Mulcair said. “If we go to this concentration of large corporations ... we will wind up with a situation like the one we saw in British Columbia; we will lose the protection for local communities.”

Mulcair said enforcing regulations would be more challenging if big business takes over Atlantic Canada’s owner-operator fishing enterprises.

“If you allow large corporations to move in and take over all of that, good luck enforcing” environmental and other rules, he said.

Mulcair and Robert Chisholm, NDP MP for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, had an afternoon sit-down with association members at a local hotel.

Association co-ordinator Nellie Baker Stevens acknowledged she is not too happy with the performance of most federal politicians. But she said Mulcair offered a sympathetic ear.

“It’s a help,” Baker Stevens said. “We’ve got somebody that sounds like he really cares.”

Baker Stevens is concerned large corporations — possibly headquartered outside Canada — could one day rule the East Coast fishery. “This could be China owning our fishery resource,” she said. “Is this something that we, as Canadians, want?”

Baker Stevens said her group and supporters will fight any plans to remodel the industry on the Atlantic coast with a public campaign promoting their cause.

Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE