Liberal Fisheries Critic Jim Bennett says the provincial government should stand behind its election slogan and “stand strong” for the people when it comes to the recent move by Ocean Choice International (OCI) to again control the direction of the fishing industry in the province.

The MHA for the District of St. Barbe was reacting to the news that OCI has boldly locked out the crew of the shrimp trawler Newfoundland Lynx and intends to replace them with non-unionized employees.

“One has to question why this company would be engaged in such a brazen move when they are trying to secure a positive decision from the province on fish export exemptions,” said Bennett. “I would suspect that they are trying to create a diversion to take attention away the plant closures in Marystown and Port Union and from their request to ship out whole round yellowtail and redfish.”

“First, they threaten to have redfish go to Nova Scotia and now they are locking out our trawler crews.  I urge the provincial government to see this for what it is and not cave into this company’s strong-arm tactics that are steering our fishing industry away from what it should be – the people’s resource.”