Tag Archives: Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans
It’s time for Canada to relax fishery closures around right whale sightings, committee says
The standing committee on fisheries and oceans is recommending that the federal government relax the fishing closures it imposes when endangered North Atlantic right whales are sighted in Canadian waters. In a report released Tuesday, the committee said the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada should modify its rules for the 2023 season in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Bay of Fundy and Roseway Basin off southern Nova Scotia since most single-whale detections are animals in transit and not staying to feed. It also says season-long closures should rarely be imposed. >click to read< 07:20
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
B.C. harvests 196,000 tonnes of fish a year. Most of it is exported and that’s a problem
There are about 4,000 fish harvesters scattered across the province who harvested about 196,000 tonnes of wild seafood in 2018, worth $476 million, everything from salmon to crab to geoducks. Most of that seafood didn’t stay in Canada. The province exports all but about 15 per cent of its annual catch each year and, like most of Canada, imports between 70 and 90 per cent of the seafood British Columbians eat, according to federal data. The licensing policies that give fish harvesters the right to fish the B.C. coast have privatized access to seafood and put them on the open market. >click to read< 07:50
Bill C-60: Reviewing the Fisheries Act – B.C. North Coast residents to Ottawa: ‘We can’t make a living fishing’
Lax Kw’alaams Band Mayor John Helin called for more consultation as he painted a grim picture,,,“In my community we have a fleet of 70-80 gillnetters that can’t make a living,,, Prince Rupert resident, Chelsey Ellis,,, Ellis grew up on the East Coast, where she’s seen the benefits of the owner-operator policy for fish harvesters. In her statement, she said this is not the same in British Columbia, where there has been a steady increase of licenses and quota being transferred from fishermen and away from coastal communities.>click to read<15:44
Fisheries committee calls for ‘rebuilding plan,’ information sharing on northern cod stocks
The once-mighty northern cod stock off Newfoundland needs an immediate “rebuilding plan,” according to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. The federal committee on the fishery also chastised the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for not yet establishing a fully-developed rebuilding strategy, almost 25 years after the commercial cod moratorium. In a report released Monday, the committee wrote it was “astonished” to learn that DFO had not yet fully implemented recommendations from a 2011 report, which called on DFO to set reference points for the stock. The committee cited expert opinion that warned without a plan, the stock was doomed to perpetual underperformance. While the committee did write that work was underway, it called on DFO to “immediately” create a plan, which should restrict fishing of northern cod until the stock leaves the critical zone, and manage availability of prey like capelin. continue reading the story here 12:15
Burn the gillnets?
As we move ever closer to a revival of the commercial cod fishery, insiders say it’s essential the focus be on quality over quantity, and that means there may be no place for the controversial gillnet. That was one of the messages delivered Monday in St. John’s to members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, and no one said it more forcefully than John Efford. “Take every gillnet in Newfoundland and have a bonfire,” Efford, a former provincial and federal politician with deep ties to the fishery, told the committee. The committee is studying the northern cod stock, and preparing for a day when the resource is once again healthy enough to sustain a large-scale commercial fishery. There’s different opinions on when that might be, but there appears to be unanimous support for a fishery that delivers premium quality products to the marketplace, therefore yielding the highest possible price for those who take part. Efford says there’s no place for gillnets in such a fishery because quality suffers, and the market will not tolerate it. Read the story here 16:16
Comox C.G. Base closure supported by Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans – UNIFOR responds
A review by Members of Parliament has failed to save a Canadian Coast Guard base on Vancouver Island. Critics hoped the review by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans would lead to a reversal of the decision to close the Marine Communications and Traffic Services (MCTS) centre in Comox. Instead, the committee found the closure would not impact the emergency marine response on the West Coast. “I’m very pleased that the standing committee on Fisheries and Oceans has recognized that marine safety remains a top priority, even with the consolidation of Comox,” said Fisheries and Oceans Minister Hunter Tootoo. However, the committee did find there are problems with coast guard radio communications in B.C. Read the rest here UNIFOR Response – Liberals on fisheries committee turn their backs on BC coastal communities Read the press release 11:43
