HiYa Folks,

The battle over access to this once common property resource has now commenced in earnest. Should the situation continue the way it is, recreational halibut fishing will most likely be cut off for all by some time in July. Not at all due to "conservation concerns" as this resource is doing better than most. Nope, the reason for the closure is completely due to the Dino having GIFTED 88% of the annual Total Allowable Catch (TAC) to 436 commercail operators. Many of which do not even bother to set foot on a boat, far preferring to lease their "Gift" at exorbitant rates to those who actually fish.

There are a series of town-hall style meeting being scheduled up and down the coast. Newspaper and magazine articles are out, and there are more to follow.

What the Government has done in the case of this once public resource is WRONG! Turning a public resource into a private commodity to the benefit of a handful of "Armchair" or "Slipper Skippers" must not be tolerated. This is the first step to privatization of all our fisheries folks - a VERY Dangerous trend!

Time to stand up and be counted Folks! Attend the meetings, get your buddies to do the same, write a few letters to your MP's, and get the message out there: We WILL NOT stand idly by and watch our access to common property fisheries be stripped away in favor of the already fat wallets of a handful of Fat Cat commercial harvesters!

A few items of note here:

http://www.canada.com/2010+halibut+season+...5310/story.html

http://www.canada.com/Dear+John+make+call/3955308/story.html

Related Poll in the Island Courier: http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/index.html

Nog - Engaged Firmly In This One!

Keep an eye on this site: http://www.sfibc.com/

Methinks we can make a difference. It will be very much an Uphill Battle, but one we can win if we stick to our guns, and get a LOT of involvement!

Cheers,
Nog

Analogy #1= the gifting of the Stamp Somass system to commercial guiding interests. Also an uphill battle with little chance of significant change.

Analogy #2 = the gifting of the WCVI including the big bank to sport fishing interests for most of June, July, August and September.

Should one pick and choose which gifts to keep and which ones to reject or should one just accept that some gifts are more desirable than others.

Also of note

Bag fishing= undesirable

Troll fishery = desirable

Salt water sport guiding = desirable

commercial halibut fishing= undesirable

sport halibut ( a large % that is guided for ) = desirable

The desirable and the undesirable seem to coincide with ones point of view, and ones point of view directly correlates to how they earn their income. Just some observations about human nature and all, methinks.

Thank you Nog I agree with you 100%. My letter to Gail Shea; Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has already been sent with copies including a cover letter to the Members of Parliament for all west coast ridings to follow after researching exactly who they are. I wonder about the effectiveness of petitions (remember the HST petition?). Does anyone have any thoughts about this process or is there already a petition in circulation? I do believe if the sport fishing community stands up and lets their dissatisfaction be known we can see a change.
Downtime

Good idea about the petitions, I wonder if Bill Vanderzalm is a Halibut fisherman? haha. Seriosly though, it seems ridiculous that we can head to the grocery store and buy as much Halibut, Red Snapper and Lingcod as we want but, we aren't alloweed to catch our own?

the way i see it is FOOD on the table first...as far as commercial goes...don't buy their product....I remember years ago the price per pound going down while fleet was out fishing{price fixing}...tons were dumped ..once you fill quota your done...so try again when price goes up...you've paid big bucks for lease so you gotta play this game to make any money...the armchair boys run the processors and buy the fish too...they win both ways...FISH LOSE...WE LOSE

If I can put my 2 cents into this discussion I would suggest that as everywhere else in the world it's money that talks....so to reach the ear of those who make these decisions you need to collect a useful amount of money to start the conversation (say $1000), as well as the petition, and with a cheque/petition in hand the holder of the cheque should have coffee with a local federal Conservative party chairperson, pass them the cheque/petition and outline how seriously we feel about this issue, and that we are prepared to support that party which will agree to our concerns and produce results for us.
So if everyone who signs the petition is willing to throw in 10 bucks.....?? and if you can't get 100 fishermen to donate $10 each we are blowing smoke anyway.

sij,,,well said,,,so how does this get started? and who will represent the local people? i wonder if other groups and networks have the same thought?

Interesting proposal sij except under no circumstances could I ever see myself personally supporting the Conservative Party or the Liberals for that matter. I guess that I have just revealed my personal political leanings - oh well.

Downtime

It may be more important to support the fishing and not the party...

If both sides are contacted and they know the issue is fishing, then both sides will pay attention as an organized group of folks...

If there is no organized group, then why should they lsiten? They do not have to and they will not...

Let both sides know that our issue is fishing and not party, the petiton would go further...

Mine two cents...