Tag Archives: Liberal MP Ken Hardie
Fisheries and Oceans Canada faces deluge of calls to improve ‘suspect’ science
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is being flooded with calls for change after a parliamentary committee examined how the federal agency conducts, interprets and acts on its own science. The investigation ended with 49 recommendations to address concerns about how DFO science is presented to the fisheries minister and the public before important political decisions are made — particularly those involving B.C. salmon farms or commercial fisheries on either coast. Insufficient funding for critical research, not incorporating data from Indigenous people, fish harvesters or independent academics, and a lack of transparency about DFO’s scientific research and outcomes also surfaced as key issues in a recent report from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO). >click to read< 08:07
Sweeping reforms to licences, quotas, and equal footing, Standing Committee urges massive overhaul
The committee is recommending sweeping changes to the way commercial fishing licences and quota are owned in B.C. to address concerns of monopolization — including quota ownership by foreign investors who might never have set foot on a fishing boat or in Canada — that has turned commercial fishing in B.C. into “a modern day feudal system.” While commercial fishermen in B.C. applaud the committee’s recommendations, it may not sit well with corporate owners such as Jimmy Pattison’s Canadian Fishing Company, which owns a significant amount of fish quota in B.C. >click to read<12:55
Sweeping reforms to West Coast fisheries recommended
Canada’s West Coast fishery could be in for a sea change, if Parliament accepts and implements 20 recommendations being made by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.,,, recommending sweeping changes to the way commercial fishing licences and quota are owned in B.C.,,, including quota ownership by foreign investors who may never have set foot on a fishing boat or in Canada – that has turned commercial fishing in B.C. into “a modern day feudal system.” “The direction that the industry is going is driving the independent harvester – the small boat fisherman, the Ma and Pa operations – out of business on the coast.” The ownership of licences and quota in B.C. is different from Atlantic Canada and Alaska, where the people who do the fishing – commercial boat owners – tend to own the licences and quota. >click to read<23:14
Canfisco hopes to defend quota system at Ottawa committee
Richmond-based Canfisco hopes to present to a new Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans examining West Coast fishery regulations come next February, at the latest. Rob Morley, vice-president, production and corporate development at Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco), told the Richmond News Monday that the present licensing and quota system so often criticized by the likes of independent fishers and environmental groups has merits. There is growing concern — including Liberal MP Ken Hardie, who requested the committee — that licenses and quotas are becoming too expensive to lease and prohibitively expensive to purchase. As such, capital-rich companies and investors are taking fishing profits from community-based fishers. >click to read<08:25
