The MP for Cape Spear says expanding the recreational food fishery is not as black and white as it sounds.
Tom Osborne was responding to a Private Members Bill introduced in the House of Commons last week by Conservative MP Jonathan Rowe.
It called on DFO to expand the seasonal recreational food fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador from the current 3 days a week to 7 – similar to that in the other Atlantic provinces.
All four Liberal MPs voted against it.
Osborne, who supports improvements to the fishery, says expanding it as was suggested, comes with a cost.
He says it would require people to register and report the number of fish caught. “With that increased bureaucracy there would have been a cost, which undoubtedly been passed on, similar to the days of TAGS.”)
He says with a commercial cod fishery now open for the first time in 30 years, careful management is required.
“We need to approach anything we do with the cod fishery based on science, and based on what’s going to keep that commercial fishery open.”
