Follow New Brunswick’s lead and get moving on fishery issues: Opposition 

Marshall Dean, MHA for the District of The Straits-White Bay North and Opposition Critic for Fisheries, is calling on the provincial government to be as proactive and practical as the government of New Brunswick in addressing fishery challenges.  

This week, the government of New Brunswick announced that it was offering $11 million in loans to purchase back 13 per cent of lobster fishing licenses, amounting to some 150 licenses. The move is an attempt to render remaining fishing enterprises in that province more viable.

“This was something the industry in that province asked for and the government there recognized it had a role to play in being supportive and they responded with something concrete,” says Dean. “This contrasts widely with the way the government here in the province has been responding to ongoing fishery issues.”

Dean points out that in the recent crab dispute, instead of offering solutions, government commissioned a NAFTA study to justify why they would not invest in the fishing industry to stabilize it.

“If New Brunswick can provide a buy-back program, I question why our government cannot offer some tools of stabilization at the present time while waiting for the MOU process to work itself out.”

The MHA questioned the minister in the House of Assembly today on whether government was prepared to offer interim measures until the MOU process was ready to address long-standing problems, but the minister remained non-committal. “The reality is that restructuring is happening now as we have seen with the closure of the plant in Jackson’s Arm. In the next year or so, a number of plant workers and communities will be affected by natural reshaping forces.  There is a need for an early retirement program, a meaningful workers adjustment program, as well as a community investment fund to entice other industries into communities that will lose their fishing economy.

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