The following statement was issued today by Trevor Taylor, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. It was also read in the House of Assembly:

Small-scale cod fishery in 3Pn4RS

As my fellow members of the House are aware, on April 24, 2003, the federal government announced a closure to the Northern Gulf cod and Northern cod fisheries. This impacted over 580 people in the processing sector and up to 800 harvesting enterprises on the west coast of Newfoundland and in southern Labrador.

Last spring our province's All-Party Committee on Cod Fisheries took the position that a complete moratorium on cod fishing in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence is unnecessary. It was, and remains, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador's view that the cod stocks in 3Pn4RS can be rebuilt by introducing additional conservation measures while a limited fishery is ongoing.

In November the Premier wrote to the federal government to express our province's position about the importance of re-opening the cod fishery in 3Pn4RS. The Premier also raised the matter when he met with the new Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Mr. Geoff Regan, last week in St. John's. I too raised the issue when I met with Minister Regan in January and did so again when we met last week in Boston. In our initial meeting, I asked Minister Regan to request the advice of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, or FRCC.

Earlier this month, Minister Regan did indeed ask the FRCC to provide him with a recommendation on cod in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence. Information available from the DFO research survey and sentinel fisheries suggests that the stock is in better shape than what scientists believed last year. We are again calling on the federal government to open a small-scale cod fishery in 3Pn4RS, in conjunction with conservation measures to help rebuild the stock.

2004 03 22                                        1:50 p.m.