Dr. Phil Earle responds to Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield

Below please find a response to Federal Fisheries Minister - Keith Ashfield from Dr. Phil Earle

 

Dear Minister Ashfield, March 1/2012

Part 1  

I would like to respond to your letter in a step wise manner, and I would like for you to answer my comments for the people of this province.

First what does “..we are time and again being out-performed by smaller countries with less access to the resource” refer to? Are you talking about NAFO countries that fish on our shelf, such as Spain? If it is, the answer is Spain has one of the largest fishing fleets in the world which is subsidized nearly a billion dollars a year by the EU to fish around the world.

Further if you and the DFO are inferring that we should therefore increase our efforts to catch more fish it would be a totally wrong conclusion. Our ground fish stocks have never recovered and are at an all-time low of less than 10% of historic healthy levels. We need to stop the fishing destruction that is occurring at present so the stocks can be allowed to recover. That includes the fishing inside our 200 mile EEZ and that of NAFO fleets fishing on the nose and tail of the grand banks.

Quote, “everyone is demanding change in how we manage the resource.” This is a non-specific remark that can be taken in a range all the way from more of the disastrous federal government’s mismanagement that has, and is destroying the resource to reducing government involvement in management while letting more influence in management from improved, prudent, scientific input like is done in other successful countries like Norway and Iceland.

 
“Canadian fishermen remain among the lowest earners in Canada.’ This is because the bulk of our resource and its profits are in the hands of a few powerful, wealthy people who own processing operations, and own quotas which your government gave to them. They operate factory freezer trawlers which have taken thousands of jobs away from inshore fishers while they send unprocessed fish away from our shore planets, giving jobs to foreign nation. Many harvesters’ licences are owned or contorted by corporations so that fishers working at sea have been squeezed out of their incomes by the need of companies to increase their profits.

 
There are people, such as doctors and dentists and the like, living on the main land who have never stepped on the deck of a boat who own fish quota’s, they receive millions of dollars a year from royalties on fish being caught. There is only so much profit that can be taken out of each season of fishing, if large percentages of this limited profit is taken by such ‘outsiders’ there is less and less for our fishers and plant workers.

 
Consider that in 1992, the year of the moratorium, our NL fishery was worth some $350 million and today it is near $900 million but yet our situation is worst then in 92 as we are losing more jobs and plants, fishers and coastal communities. So it’s easy to understand why our fishers are among the lowest earners in Canada, it is just economics 101. You can understand that can’t you?

“Canada’s fishery is becoming a smaller and smaller player on the world stage. We are no longer seeing the abundance of fish that our country enjoyed in the past, so we can no longer rely on the quantity of this renewable resource to create economic prosperity; better management practices are required. Our government has been making strides in helping the fishery.’

Our fishery is smaller because the bio mass of our fish is at an all-time low, the stocks have been destroyed are not allowed to recover because of mismanagement of the federal government. Your government wants to create economic prosperity for the elite few who now control the fishery.

Part 2  

Continuing the same practices that you have created in the past for giant corporations that has destroyed, and is, and will totally destroy the rest of the resource in the future if you continue in the manner you are implying in this letter.

 
The only way you can create further economic prosperity for anyone from our depleted, dying resource is for less and less peoples and corporations to take more and more of the less and less fish. You know what that means don’t you. In 10 years there will be no fishers, no plant workers, no comminutes in coastal NL and lastly no fishing corporations..because there will be no more fish.

Your government has been making strides in one direction, not in the direction of helping the fishery, but in the direct of destroying it, destroying our treasured heritage and our coastal communities, our maritime culture and our family structure. That is a Fact!

In 62 years of confederation you have taken away our spirit fish, by giving it indifferently to foreign countries, denied its access from our coastal people, and allowed cooperate greed to privatize and garbage can our legacy. You and you alone, the federal government of Canada, have destroyed the spirit of my people, whose ancestors were once the greatest fishermen in the world, the greatest sea people that ever lived.

”We must find ways to make the fishery more valuable, profitable and respectful of the resource for future generations.” If by value you mean the economic success of a few large processing companies there will be no respect of the resource, the fish stocks that god gave us, and in a few short years it will be no more. Your concern for “future generations” in that case is not just hollow, political, empty words they are the insensitive, thoughtless comments from a government who conducts themselves with absolute power, that have corrupted it absolutely.

Your corruption of power and ego is so complete that not only will it destroy the opportunities of our “future generations” of children; it would destroy that of your own children. Take a bow to the world Mr. Ashfield; take one for Canada to the world!

And as for the World Bank suggesting what we should do with our fishery for more money, they have a great record of being concerned for the global economy and the plight of the world starving peoples, who are in the 100's of millions. Their 100's of billions in profits and 100's of millions of dollars for salaries to their CEO’s really show how concerned they are for incomes of subsistence fisheries and laborers all over the world. They are concerned because it’s off the backs of labor industries that they cream off their billions, all on the backs of the struggling poor. Take another bow to the world Mr. Minister, for figuring out that you can squeeze out a few more million for the rich by abusing the lives of the fisher people.

All this ”.. means more jobs and more economic growth in our coastal and rural regions.”
The audaciousness of this remark is beyond my ability to express. How dare you write a letter and say such a thing about our fishery and to my people, and put it in our paper the telegram. You talk about more jobs and more economic growth in our coastal communities when you and the federal government are directly responsible in 20 years for destroying our families, fishers and fisheries jobs by the 10's of thousands. 

Part 3  

What you, and the federal government, are advocating in this letter will destroy our coastal way of life. Our NL soldiers fought in the great wars for Canada and the free world. Fought to protect their children’s, and their children’s children democratic rights as written in Canada’s ‘Chartered Bill of Rights’. If there is an ounce of decency anywhere in the halls of parliament or in the hearts of any person or member who works there I ask for it to be used to do the duty they have sworn to do. Administer to the costal people of NL, and their fishery, the principles so outlined in our bill of rights. Save us from the impending future genocide of our coastal way of life.

You asked for my engagement in this letter, of how we can better manage our Fishery for the future and how our coastal people can improve and save their lives. I have given you my honest answer to the best of my ability, so help me god.

Will you answer these questions for my people? The fisher people, the sea people of NL?

Philip Earle
B.Sc., M.Sc., M.D

Darin King about to investigate OCI Operations? Fin in Mouth disease!

So our Fisheries Minister continued today - on a local talk show - to prove that his government is vindictive toward critics.

The Minister was all over the place unsure if he was against criticism or not - for punishment or not - in charge or not - or simply too frustrated to do his job.

The Minister now wants to restate his position from yesterday - when he informed Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that they may be punished if they criticize the government. Today he removed a million bucks from the FFAW because union chief Earl MacCurdy said the government was not spending it's money in the right places - within the industry.

So the Minister wants us to believe that of the over 50 million spent by government - only 1/50th of which is for special projects with the union - the only immediate concern was that of the FFAW. Darin you believe that Earl was saying that their projects were not worthwhile - so it was okay to start by cutting that?

No you did not believe that Minister King - do not lie. The FFAW was questioning how some investments of the government in the fishery might not be the best investments - so you - without any investigation cut the funds of the one group that spoke out?

Have you in any way contributed to the well-being of OCI? Have the people of Newfoundland and Labrador contributed any funds in any way whatsoever to that company? Has the government provided in any way - policy decisions - that were favourable to OCI?

I recall that OCI criticized King for denying its request for unprocessed export. The government has granted them exemptions in the past - right? Now that Ches and Company have criticized the Minister - how will they be punished?

King went on to talk about the frustration he feels when the FFAW talk about things that he (provincial fisheries Minister) does not have jurisdiction over (fish quota's). Minister - has the government stepped in on quota allocations before?

Where did OCI get all these assets anyway? Was FPI sold? What was sold? Buy it back.

While we are at it - now that OCI has criticized government - will you Minister King launch a full review of their operations and determine if government should be supporting anything at all that it asks for?

As for pointing the finger at the feds and saying it's them not us - and we can't criticize them because they punish critics - the same way you do - then we are all in a mess.

Perhaps it's time for Darin to be shuffled before he puts more fins in mouth.

What happened to Good Public Policy? Ask Tom Rideout!

The following is a statement made by Tom Rideout when in government and Trevor Taylor was the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. 

Do they still believe it is Good Public Policy?

MR. RIDEOUT: Mr. Speaker, again, I cannot control the flights of fantasy that the Leader of the Opposition might engage in, but the fact of the matter is, he knows, everybody in Newfoundland knows, the people in Harbour Breton know, the people in Fortune know, the people in Marystown know, the people in other communities around know, that those quotas are assigned to a company. They are not assigned to a community.

Now, should there be community quotas? Maybe, but the fact of the matter is, the reality of the matter is, right now the quotas that used to be assigned to National Sea, we were able to purchase and have them repatriated to Arnold’s Cove. I think that is good public policy. When we speculate on doing that, in terms of the FPI operation, the Leader of the Opposition comes down on us like a ton of bricks.

Mr. Speaker, you cannot have it both ways. You are either for that as a public policy option or you are not. So, yes, that is one option and there are many others that we are exploring.

Giving away that last lonely fish...

That's the title of a column today in the Chronicle Herald - Nova Scotia.

The story is a continuation of the concerns expressed by Bob Applebaum and Gus Etchegary over potential changes to NAFO.

This piece is worth reading if we care at all about our fishery. Something which our provincial politicians are not "con"vincing me they are.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from the column by Jim Meek:

Ottawa, in short, has severely weakened its ability to manage and conserve trans-boundary stocks in the area of the Grand Banks. It is cold comfort that there are so few fish left to protect in what were once the best fishing grounds on the planet.

And it’s colder comfort that this is the federal government that came to power promising to extend Canada’s "custodial management" of fish stocks beyond the 200-mile zone.

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As for Loyola Hearn - what should we expect?

Eliminate Low-Margin Products

I'm left to wonder - how I should take a message from an FPI News Release this week. If I'm a shareholder - and I'm not - I would be delighted. But if I'm involved in the fishery - the words would spell gloom and doom. I would be angry.

Beverly Evans - Chief Financial Officer - of FPI said this of the company's over 6 MILLION DOLLAR QUARTERLY PROFIT:

"Profitability has improved through the execution of our strategy to eliminate low-margin products from our portfolio"

FPI's profits are up 3 1/2 MILLION DOLLARS from the same quarter last year.

Understand - that this news - while great for shareholders - is a reflection of human suffering in Newfoundland and Labrador. Communities in peril - fighting for their existence - people packing up and moving away before they lose everything.

When Beverly talks about eliminating low margin products - to you and me those products - in reality are people and communities. And all that to ensure that when Ches Penney - Nova Scotia and Iceland Corporates take over the company - they will not be the villains.

How do they all sleep at night? It's takes a special breed to fill your own arse pockets while you watch families and communities suffer. That is the mark of a "successful" business person - not necessarily a "good" one.

This is where the government of Newfoundland and Labrador had some control - had the ability to operate with a 2 million dollar profit instead of a 6 million dollar one. The shareholders should have been and should be the people of the Province - until some corporate entity would have accepted a couple of million a quarter - and communities and people (society) could have carried on.

You see this is not a swipe at the corporate elite - it is their swipe at us. The government neither has the vision nor the guts to do what's right. This will be another Williams' legacy.

Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks Fish

Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks Fish to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters during the 150th Anniversary Symposium “Politics and Law – Energy and Environment in the Far North” held two days ago.

First let's look at how Academics play a role in Norwegian Success. Minister Jonas Gahr Støre had this to say:

In my view, knowledge drives development. Knowledge made available to all drives societies and individuals towards freedom and more responsibility. Therefore, the creation of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters – Det norske Videnskaps-akademi – 150 years ago stands out as a major sign of progress – an important step towards Norway’s independence, towards the establishment of the rule of law in a democratic sovereign state, and even towards an awareness of the need to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner.


When it came to discussing fish - the Norwegian Minister demonstrates how that country has learned from Newfoundland and Labrador - are we really ready to learn from them? Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said this:

The depletion of important fish stocks is easily achieved, as we have repeatedly seen. In fact this phenomenon ranks among the leading threats not only to global ecosystems but also to our ability to feed a growing world population. Faced with the challenge of illegal fishing in the Barents Sea, it is as tempting as it is frightening to remind our audiences of the fate of the cod stocks in the waters off Newfoundland. We know this all too well: The restoration of fish stocks is not easily achieved.

To read the Complete Speech Press HERE