J'int Management

In its 2003 election platform, Our Dear Premier’s Our Dear Party pledged:

In particular, a shared fisheries management structure should be developed that will merge federal-provincial policy and management responsibilities into a complementary process for better conservation and management of the resource… A Progressive Conservative government will pursue a Canada - Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries Agreement for a decision-making process in which the federal and provincial governments work in partnership for the sustainable management of the fisheries.

While still in opposition, on May 8, 2003, Our Dear Opposition Leader (as he then was) said, of joint fisheries management:

Although I welcome this, and I take great pride in the fact that it is now on the table and that we pursued it for so long, the timing concerns me. We want to make sure that this does not become political; that this does not simply become an election issue; that it is not simply grandstanding and takes our attention away from the important matter.

In its founding policy declaration, the federal Conservative Party set forth:

v) A Conservative Government will adopt, with any interested coastal province or territory, a system of increased provincial management over fisheries through a system of joint management and joint fisheries councils modelled on the system proposed by unanimous resolution of the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly in May 2003 and as detailed in the government of Newfoundland and Labrador's white paper on the subject as released in 2003.

And during the 2005-06 federal election campaign, the Harper Conservatives promised:

The Conservatives will also give the coastal provinces – particularly Newfoundland and Labrador – an increased role in the management of the fisheries. The Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly has requested greater involvement in the management of the fisheries around the province. This has been strongly supported by the province’s Conservative MPs.

Our Dear Leader should recall that the Harper Conservatives, with his help and tacit endorsement, when he wasn’t endorsing the NDP for some bizarre reason, won a minority government in the January 2006 election.

Then, suddenly, on the joint fisheries management front, nothing happened.

As Loyola Hearn told Alisha Morrissey of The Telegram, on June 7, 2006:

Joint management across the board, nobody wants it. The provinces certainly don't want (to pay for) it ...

Loyola’s assessment is borne out perfectly by the current provincial Liberal platform, which states:

A Liberal Government will aggressively pursue complete control over the resource management and licensing of our adjacent fishery resource, while leaving enforcement and science to the federal government.

Or, translated into plain English, we’ll take the powers, you pay the bills.

Which makes the current PC platform pronouncement on the subject all the more curious:

A Progressive Conservative government in its second term will:

• pursue a Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries Agreement for a decision-making process in which the federal and provincial governments work in partnership for the sustainable management of the fisheries
• press to ensure the federal government, in revising the Fisheries Act, continues to recognize the primacy of adjacency in licensing and allocation decisions and ensures Newfoundland and Labrador provincial representation on organizational structures for fisheries management and any co-management agreements with harvesters

The platform plank is doubly curious.

First, because of Our Dear Premier’s sudden pronouncement on Monday that he, unlike Gerry Reid, and contrary to Loyola Hearn’s assessement, is quite willing to take on the expense of fisheries science, in part because, apparently, Us make better scientists than those horrid Non-Usses out there. This is a major financial undertaking. It is a major departure from the province’s “historic demands”, such as they are, concerning joint fisheries management. And, most importantly, it is nowhere to be found in Our Dear Platform.

And secondly, it is curious because Our Dear Premier promises to “pursue” joint management in Our Dear Second Term, if We get one, despite the fact that for the second half of Our Dear First Term, with a federal government in office that was, at least on paper, committed to the whole Joint Management business, Our Dear Premier, Our Dear Fisheries Minister, Our Dear Minister of Intergovernment Affairs, and Our High Commissioner and Minister Plenipotentiary in Canada, did absolutely nothing to pursue this supposedly sacred and historic goal or Our Dear Nation.