Minister Hearn you are caught again!

Bureaucrats Run the Show - Loyola is just a new Student

Remember all the hooplah last week regarding Canada's success at the NAFO meetings.

Loyola's prepared News Release worded it this way for him:

"I made it clear before last week’s annual meeting that Canada would not wait another year for NAFO to institute meaningful reforms. We worked hard to get what we wanted, and I’m proud to say that our hard work paid off."

First of all let me share with you the opening sentence of a news story quoting Geoff Regan, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in 2005.

OTTAWA -Members of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) have unanimously agreed to reform NAFO and improve management of the fisheries outside Canada's 200-mile limit. The decision was made at the NAFO annual meeting, which wrapped up in Tallinn, Estonia.

"This is a move in the right direction," said Geoff Regan, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. "There is a strong global consensus to modernize the organizations that manage the world's high seas fish stocks, as demonstrated in the Ministerial Declaration of the St. John's Conference. NAFO is the first regional fisheries management organization to commit to reform, and Canada will play a leadership role in this important work."

Now let's get to what the Department said were Loyola's ideas and leadership for these changes.
These changes include:

• Vessels caught misreporting their catch will be directed to port for immediate inspection. Other serious infringements, including directing for moratoria species and repeat offences will lead to similar consequences.
• NAFO now has guidelines for sanctions when vessel owners are caught breaking the rules: countries will be obliged to impose a fine, suspend or withdraw a licence or catch quota, or seize fishing gear or the illegal catch.
• Captains on vessels that do not have 100% observer coverage will have to report their catches in real-time, so enforcement personnel can immediately detect at-sea patterns of misreporting and illegal fishing. NAFO will calculate catch data based on vessel monitoring system collection, lessening dependence on on-board observers.

In addition to these monitoring, control and surveillance measures, improvements were made to NAFO's decision-making process, especially regarding the objection procedure.

• Procedures for dispute settlement as outlined in the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement will be made part of the NAFO Convention so countries that object to a NAFO decision cannot simply set out to fish a unilateral quota. They must enter a dispute settlement process with an impartial panel.
• NAFO's fisheries management process must now take into account the precautionary approach and the ecosystem approach. This means basing its decisions on science, and considering fish habitat and marine sensitive areas, closer in line with Canadian practices.

The following is from the story featuring Geoff Regan as Fisheries Minister:

A working group within NAFO, led by Canada and the European Union (EU), will consider reform areas such as restructuring the organization, implementing an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management, changing how disputes between members are resolved, and ensuring that the use of the objection procedure does not negatively impact conservation.

Canada will host a meeting of the NAFO reform working group in April 2006. The group will make recommendations on changes to the NAFO Convention, its mandate, and operating rules at the 2006 annual meeting.

Of particular importance to Canada, and in keeping with the St. John's Ministerial Declaration, NAFO's committee on enforcement has also been instructed to dedicate its annual meeting to making recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness of the existing NAFO enforcement regime. These recommendations will outline comprehensive ways to strengthen the enforcement regime including the establishment of guidelines for sanctions and improving the vessel monitoring system, at-sea and in-port inspections, and follow-up on infringements.

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Effectively - Loyola's did what the team said - the same bureaucrats as when Regan was Minister - in fact Loyola seems to have achieved the Liberal policy agenda.

Now who runs the show Loyola - or is that a question only armchair philosophers would ask? Like you - before the election when you promised costodial management.