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Prince Edward-Hastings MPP Ernie Parsons says he believes the Ministry of Natural Resources has begun a bid to put a segment of the commercial fishing industry in dry dock on the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario.
“I attended a meeting in Belleville (Tuesday) at which the MNR advised the local commercial fishing industry that they intend to severely reduce, or totally eliminate, their quotas for the taking of whitefish,” said Parsons, who’s also Liberal critic for the natural resources ministry.
“While neither the fishermen nor I want to see the whitefish stocks depleted, MNR data presented at the meeting was certainly not sound enough on which to base a decision.”
Parsons noted at the meeting that the ministry has a poor track record concerning fish management.
The MPP says, while the ministry claimed last year there were as few as 160,000 breeding walleye in the Bay, they have refused to date to release the numbers from their 2002 surveys. The MPP said he believes this is because the numbers will greatly embarrass the government, as unofficially he has learned that the actual numbers may be as high as 500,000.
“With only a little more than a month before licences are renewed, I find it truly offensive that MNR personnel from Peterborough come into town, speak to a ‘by invitation only’ meeting to tell them that they have made their decision to decimate the industry, without any opportunity for meaningful input,” Parsons said.
“If their data and plan is sound, it will withstand public scrutiny. This ministry is clearly not prepared to do public business publicly. The fact that neither political leaders nor the media were told of the meeting speaks volumes about their lack of openness.”
Parsons said the ministry has acknowledged that they don’t have accurate numbers of whitefish in Lake Ontario.
“Whitefish are the mainstay of our fishing industry,” he said. “There are hundreds of jobs at stake because of the ministry’s high-handed decision making practices. Clearly, they have a responsibility to provide scientific evidence of the current state of whitefish stock and they have an obligation to do their business publicly.”
Members of the fishing community have already told Parsons that they have lost all confidence in the data and methods that the ministry is using relating to the numbers of fish in the waters of the Bay of Quinte.
The MPP has already asked the natural resources minister to commission an independent study to produce accurate fish data that is current and able to stand up to scrutiny by the fishery industry.
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