A Canadian parliamentary committee says that Canada should withdraw
from the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization because of foreign
overfishing on the Grand Banks. Federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Robert
Thibault isn’t so sure.

In a report presented to Thibault in June, the House of Commons Standing
Committee on Fisheries and Oceans recommended: “That the Government of
Canada inform NAFO and its contracting parties that Canada will withdraw from
NAFO and proceed with the implementation of custodial management on the
Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and on the Flemish Cap no later than one
year following the September 2002 NAFO meeting.”

Despite reports that Thibault had rejected the committee’s recommendations
out of hand, spokesperson Sophie Galarneau said that wasn’t quite the case.
When pressed about the news reports, she said, “The Minister has given a
certain number of interviews, in which he outlined the efforts he himself and the
Department have engaged in to gain international support for conservation off
the 200 mile limit,” she said. “During these interviews, he also pointed out that a
unilateral move by Canada to extend its jurisdiction over fisheries, either through
custodial management or outright extension, would be seen by the international
community as inconsistent with accepted international law.”

Galarneau added, “The Department and the Minister are presently reviewing
the report closely and we will be preparing a detailed response during the next
few months. Under the Standing Order of the House of Commons, the
Government has 150 days to table a response, which would be sometime in
November. “The Minister has not officially responded to the report. There are
no official statements or press releases available on this at this time.”

The committee, chaired by Wayne Easter, Member of Parliament from
Malpeque, Prince Edward Island, held hearings in Ottawa with officials from DFO
and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It also traveled to
St. John’s, Newfoundland, and to Labrador in March to hear from witnesses
representing the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the
provincial legislature, municipalities, fisheries organizations, and “individuals with
a long-standing interest and expertise in the issues.”

Witnesses before the committee were blunt. “I guess if you want to look at
what happened at the last NAFO meeting back in January [2002], it becomes
obvious that NAFO is not working for the benefit at least of Canada, and
Newfoundland and Labrador in particular,” said Newfoundland/Labrador
Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister Gerry Reid.

“NAFO is clearly not working as it is presently structured. NAFO is a useless
organization because of the objection procedure,” said Earle McCurdy, President
of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union.

And John Efford, M.P. from the Bonavista-Trinity-Conception riding and who
— as former provincial Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, was often at
loggerheads with his federal counterpart — said NAFO isn’t working “because
the enforcement is left to the member nations. Clearly, they feel that they can
flagrantly violate the regulations and rule. They can go and vote the quotas, and
participate. The conservationists can be outnumbered by those with self-
interest.”

Efford added, “It fails on two levels: it fails because the rule setting is not in
compliance with scientific advice; and secondly because the enforcement is left
to the nations who are violating it for their own benefit. They are not enforcing it.
Clearly, if you can be as flagrant as they have been, if you can fail to file your
reports and still go fishing out of these countries, then it’s just not being taken
seriously.”

Among the other committee recommendations were that observer reports
should be timely and clear; “the Government of Canada amend the Coastal
Fisheries Protection Act to empower it to implement Custodial Management of
fisheries resources on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and on the Flemish
Cap; that the Government of Canada conduct a targeted public information
campaign to increase awareness of violations of NAFO conservation measures
by vessels under the flag of member states and to canvass for public support to
end the abusive exploitation of the fisheries resources of the Northwest Atlantic.”