Codfish found on Fisherman's Road

Until now, the only image on this blog has been the street sign — Fisherman’s Road, where I grew up in the 1970s in Riverhead, Harbour Grace.

Today, another image has been added — that of a codfish (see above), which is actually a link to an enormous amount of fishery information.

The link takes you to Making Waves: A discussion about the future of the NL fishery.

In December 2011, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development — an officer of the House of Commons who reports directly to the federal Auditor General — released a study for managing fisheries for sustainability. One section was entitled, “What questions should parliamentarians ask?”

Here are the specific questions:

“What past audits have been done of these fisheries by Parliament, by the Office of the Auditor General, or by the Departmental Internal Audit Groups? Have the problems identified in those reports been addressed successfully?”

My office took the challenge of answering those questions. But my office took the challenge one step further — we not only reviewed the fisheries reports identified by the Auditor General’s Office over the past almost 20 years. We also reviewed the fisheries reports — specific to the East Coast — produced by the Senate, and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

Between the AG’s office, the Senate and the House of Commons, 21 fisheries reports have been produced in roughly 20 years, for a grand total of 197 recommendations.

On the site you’ll find links to those 21 reports, as well as the list of the entire 197 recommendations.

We’ve also broken out the Top 20 recommendations that haven’t been acted on — which is particularly interesting given one of the key criticisms against the call for an inquiry into the NL fisheries has been the need for yet another report when there have been dozens carried out over the years.

Further, you’ll find a link to a 1996 independent report — Is scientific inquiry incompatible with government information control? (The short answer is no.) As well, we’ve posed the 2012 damning report by a panel of eminent Royal Society of Canada marine scientists that finds Canada has an incredibly poor record of looking after fish stocks.

Which should be obvious to everyone.

Check out the link — and join the discussion.