The fishing industry is the heart of our economy
Happy New Year!
Normally it would be a wonderful time to reflect on the past and set new plans for the future. However, things will unfortunately look a lot different this year for many Canadians.
I say “normally” because this past year has been anything but normal.
The cost-of-living crisis is on everyone's mind these days. Things are getting out of hand. The skyrocketing inflation has put many things out of reach for many in our communities. Families are struggling to put food on the table, pay their rent or mortgage, and gas up their cars.
While the federal government takes its time to dole out payments in grocery and carbon tax rebates, all I can ask is for those of us who have the means, to help one another and to reach out to help the most vulnerable.
To make things even more difficult, our lobster industry is facing the worst lobster season in a decade according to some fishermen, perhaps the worst to date.
The southwest shore of Nova Scotia is dependent on the lobster fishery in LFA33/34. Everything that has been built here over the past 40 years has been done because of the strength of the lobster stock and the entrepreneurial spirit of our fishers.
These extraordinary men and women have worked hard to build a world-class fishery, one that was based on sustainability, innovation, and safety. Markets are around the world, and many are expecting our products for Lunar New Year Celebrations.
Unfortunately, catches are being reported at an all-time low. It's exceedingly difficult to pay your input costs like fuel, wages, and bait when you are catching a fraction of the lobsters required to be successful. Lobsters are everything in our small coastal communities and if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada does not wake up to its mismanagement, take its responsibility seriously, and quickly impose the necessary and appropriate measures to preserve the resource, our communities will slowly disappear.
DFO's primary responsibility is managing the fisheries in Canadian waters, to provide science, conserve and protect the resource, and to work those involved in the fishery. However, none of this is being done. Officials have turned a blind eye to the out-of-season, unregulated, and unreported fishery that has been taking place in the district over the last decade. The summer fishery has turned into another commercial fishery where thousands (or more, we don't know) of pounds of lobsters have come out of the water during an extremely sensitive time for the stock in the area.
I‘m also not naive enough to think that there are not other reasons that this fishery is facing such a challenge, but they all fall on the desk of the Federal Minister of
Fisheries, Diane LeBouthillier. She needs to understand the fishery in southwest Nova Scotia and should visit the area to speak to the fishers to truly understand how it works.
To help you understand the disconnect between the Minister's office and the reality and challenges that fishers in our area are facing, let me leave you with this story.
This past December, the Liberal MLA for Clare, Ronnie LeBlanc, visited my office in Ottawa. He had expressed that even he was having a challenge scheduling a meeting with the federal Liberal minister to discuss the fishery, when coincidentally, Minister LeBouthillier was walking by my office in West Block. I asked her to come in my office to meet my visitor.
She, as always, was happy to chat. Her thought was that the fishery in our area was going well and that fishers were content. She didn't realize that the season is make or break in the first few weeks and that things were certainly not going well. This situation deeply worries me. I have continuously challenged Minister LeBouthillier and her predecessors on this issue, and I will not stop doing so.
The fishing industry is the heart of our economy that makes Nova Scotia shine beyond our borders, and it must be respected and protected so that it can survive for future generations.
May the new year give us hope!