O’LEARY
The Prince County Fishermen’s Association is seeking to have a resolution voted on during next month’s annual meeting of the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association calling upon the lobster advisory committees in this province to work towards a long-term plan for a uniform lobster carapace measure.
The resolution, moved by Howard’s Cove fisherman Jim Cooke during the PCFA’s annual meeting Monday morning at O’Leary Legion, was accepted by a membership vote of 66 to two. There were approximately 115 fall lobster fishermen in attendance for the meeting.
It is one of three resolutions the PCFA is looking to have voted on at the PEIFA’s annual meeting.
Fellow Howard’s Cove fisherman, Shelton Barlow received unanimous support for two other resolutions he wants the PCFA to raise, that the PEIFA fight for stronger fines for illegal fishing activities, especially for repeat offenders, and that the PEIFA and its locals press for more Department of Fisheries and Oceans manpower in West Prince. The provincial board still has to decide what resolutions will make it to the floor of its annual meeting.
Lobster carapace remains a sore point with the Island’s fall fishermen who have seen their measure increase by three millimeters in two years without any movement for fishermen in the two spring districts around P.E.I.
Spring fishermen in LFAs 24 and 26A have voted in favour of a one mm increase this year, but the measure is scheduled to increase another two mm for fall fishermen.
Cooke argued fall lobster fishermen are not adequately protected. “We throw them over; we can protect them in our district and in our season, and, after that it’s free game,” he said in expressing his frustration to Egmont MP Bobby Morrissey during the meeting.
“We went through this before, Bobby. Nine years it took to get it squared away,” he said, referencing a size difference that existed between the fall and spring districts in the 1990s. He also challenged PEIFA president Bobby Jenkins on the provincial board’s ability to adequately represent the fall fishery on the carapace issue, and Provincial Fisheries Minister Alan McIsaac, for not pressing the spring fisheries to catch up.
“We can’t stop what the Feds are doing, because of the lobby in New Brunswick but we’re acting, very, very strongly on the lead of yourselves and the PEIFA,” the provincial minister responded.
He pointed out those districts are moving up this spring. They might pause after that, he said, or, based on the increased landings in LFA 25, they might decide to keep going. “That’s movement, though, isn’t it?”
Past PCFA president, Danny Arsenault waded into the fray, complaining that DFO does not pay as much attention to enforcing the North Cape line during the spring lobster fishery as it does during the fall fishery.
Fisheries officer Kelly Gillis said that might have more to do with the fact officers have a larger zone to patrol during the spring than it does in the fall.
Despite his concern over line enforcement, Arsenault opposed Cooke’s resolution. “We have no right to tell the other areas what to do, and that’s what they’re going to tell us when this goes to them,” he said.
PCFA president Lee Knox said his association has sought from Fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc a slowdown in the carapace increase schedule. He said LeBlanc gave no promises but indicated he would consider the request if the spring districts put their measure up.
The PCFA, meanwhile, is waiting survey results from its members on the carapace issue and will wait for those results to be known before sending a follow-up request to the federal minister, Knox said.
