Dear Minister King, Jan 10/12
As you can see, and not surprising, the quick response from OCI to our government’s announcement of refusing their request to ship out more unprocessed fish is one that can be likened to blackmail.
As you can see, and not surprising, the quick response from OCI to our government’s announcement of refusing their request to ship out more unprocessed fish is one that can be likened to blackmail.
Their reaction is typical of the philosophy of the ASP corporations which are all about their own concerns of bottom lines and profits. If these corporations are permitted to continue dominating our provinces fishing industry and have inordinate influence with governments the future of the fishery and any hope of saving costal NL is doomed. The first, and main, duty and philosophy of our government should be to protect the jobs and peoples of our coastal fishing communities and not companies whose success appears to be also the success of the ‘industry’. How can their ‘industry’ success be success if at the same time it destroys the fisher people, their communities and the resource itself? The government must step in now to protect the resource for the future of our people.
Everything under the sun has been done and given to corporations for the holiness of saving and protecting their success and propagation. To the point where what was zero unprocessed fish shipped out a few years ago by FPI, is today 75% of shell and 80% of ground fish being shipped out. This fact alone is enough to explain all that has befallen our coastal plants and their workers in the past four years.
Stopping the exemption, as you have done, is the first step, reversing all the rest of the ‘unprocessed exemptions’ must be started, it is the only way that will give any air to the chance of restoring our Industry. This action may appear to be what would break the companies, if some can’t handle it then they would fold but that would only create the chance for others, smaller operations with different approaches, to be successful. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Regardless of my rambled, incomplete, remarks one over all description of the whole situation can be truthfully summarized. What OCI pertains to in the Industry is that group of corporations which cry out in every possible manner and way, at any cost to anything else or anyone else in their way, to continue their selective, personal or collective existence. On the other side of the balance scale in this situation is the survival of the fish stocks and the dependent fishers and their communities. That’s a fact.
We have been watching the tipping of these scales for 20 years, where stocks have disappeared, not recovered, 80,000 people lost from coastal NL and 40,000 fisheries jobs gone to hell, and a great part of this is due to what governments have allowed corporations to do on their end if the scales.
If you are really serious about wanting to protect the welfare of our fishers, our coastal peoples and saving our fishing heritage and culture you, our government, must act now and show the leadership that can save it. You are the government, you are the people. You cannot be directed by the chosen, corporate powerful, wealthy few, you must take your direction from the people. The people who are Newfoundland and Labrador. God be with you to do the right thing.
Respectfully
Philip Earle
2 comments:
I want to Thank Dr. Phil for all the work he puts into making sure that those politicians and bureaucrats, who are responsible for the demise of the Fishery, are informed that Justice will prevail over the loss of that coveted resource.
Hey WM - you have numbers - send them along. I will be posting some additional numbers - like since the moratorium that should have ended 10 years ago.
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