Mr. Speaker, today marked the opening in Toronto of the meeting of the Canadian Council of Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture.
Quebec's minister of agriculture, fisheries and food plans to use the occasion to remind the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans of a few principles, one of them being that intergovernmental agreements between responsible governments must not be ignored, as they were when the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans made his recent decision to give 18% of the turbot quota to fishers in Newfoundland, when historically their share had never exceeded 8%.
In 1995, the department established a share which, it said, was temporary. Since then, Quebec's share represents a loss of 2,000 tonnes of turbot, worth $6 million post plant, and at least 100 seasonal jobs.
The Bloc Quebecois is calling for mechanisms to manage the fisheries that will limit political influence and the discretionary power of the minister so that management of the fishery is more transparent, fairer and more consistent.