Fisherman's Road

Michael Ferguson Auditor General of Canada 240 Sparks Street Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0G6, Canada Mr. Ferguson, I’m writing to request that your office investigate Government of Canada funds distributed to the Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW), a St. John’s-based union representing most fishery workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, for potential conflict of interest.  I also ask that your office review the awarding of a controversial snow crab quota by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to a company with close ties to the FFAW — also for potential conflict of interest and misrepresentation. The FFAW receives untold millions of dollars a year from various federal departments to administer/oversee various fisheries programs in the province, while, at the same time, the union is expected to hold Ottawa to account on its day-to-day management and overall policy decisions. The obvious conflict undermines the faith of thousands of fishery workers in

Dominic LeBlanc  Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0G6,  Canada July 20, 2016  Dear Minister, I write to you on behalf of inshore scallop fishermen from the south coast of Newfoundland (fishing zone 3Ps) who are requesting that fishing restrictions imposed on them be lifted immediately.  More specifically, the fishermen — who are restricted to fishing on the Northern scallop bed on the St. Pierre Bank — be allowed to once again fish on the St. Pierre Bank’s other two scallop areas, the Southern and Middle beds. Those beds have been reserved for the Nova Scotia offshore fleet since 2006, when — upon the recommendation of David Hooley — the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans implemented fleet separation for sea scallops.  Inshore fishermen, however, are having a harder and harder time making a go of it, particularly in light of the 22 per cent decline in the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for 3Ps sea sca

For years, NL’s largest fisheries union, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers, denied connection to a company awarded a crab quota in the mid-1990s, but information released in recent weeks through the Access to Information and Privacy Act reveals close ties. And while Offshore Fish Resource Harvesters initially billed itself to DFO as a co-operative, questions remain as to what happens with the profit. Find Saturday’s (July 2nd) letter to the editor of The Telegram here . TIMELINE June 12, 1995 , Ches Cribb — vice-president of the FFAW’s Deep Sea Sector — wrote a letter to Jim Baird with the licensing division of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in St. John’s.  “I am requesting that DFO give priority access to the developing offshore crab and scallops fishery to deep sea fisherman who have historically fished in that are,” Cribb wrote in the letter, obtained this past June through the federal Access to Information and Privacy Act.  “These men co

For years, NL’s largest fisheries union, the Fish, Food and Allied Workers, denied connection to a company awarded a crab quota in the mid-1990s, but information released in recent weeks through the Access to Information and Privacy Act reveals close ties. And while Offshore Fish Resource Harvesters initially billed itself to DFO as a co-operative, questions remain as to what happens with the profit. Find Saturday’s (July 2nd) letter to the editor of The Telegram here . TIMELINE June 12, 1995 , Ches Cribb — vice-president of the FFAW’s Deep Sea Sector — wrote a letter to Jim Baird with the licensing division of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in St. John’s.  “I am requesting that DFO give priority access to the developing offshore crab and scallops fishery to deep sea fisherman who have historically fished in that are,” Cribb wrote in the letter, obtained this past June through the federal Access to Information and Privacy Act.  “These men co