When it comes to the FFAW’s concerns around the reopening of the commercial cod fishery, MP Seamus O’Regan says “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
The union is demanding that Ottawa reverse its decision and maintain a stewardship fishery for cod, citing what they believe could be the detrimental impacts of foreign draggers now having access to the stock.
O’Regan says once the stock goes from the critical to the cautious zone, and enough fishing has happened that it is essentially a commercial fishery, there are certain obligations that kick in.
He says the cod quota can’t be increased to the point where it crosses certain lines and then say ‘nothing to see here.’
O’Regan says that the NAFO agreements are binding, and if people want an increase to the quota there are obligations they have to keep.
Meanwhile, DFO is also responding to the FFAW’s concerns.
They reaffirm that the decision allocates 94 per cent of the TAC to inshore and Indigenous groups.
On the FFAW’s concerns that Prime Minister Trudeau broke his promise to allocate the first 115,000 metric tonnes to the inshore, DFO says that the decision prevents a situation where foreign offshore vessels are allowed to fish while offshore Canadian vessels are not.
They say if that 115,000 MT were allocated to the inshore, that is exactly what would happen—other Canadian fleets would be excluded while foreign fishing could still occur in the NAFO regulatory area outside the Canadian 200-mile limit.
