moved that Bill C-237, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act (Atlantic groundfish fisheries), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, the collapse of our cod fishery was over 30 years ago. Stocks are up and even commercial fishing has begun, yet my family and I cannot go out and fish on a Thursday afternoon. Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are fed up and unfed. Other parts of Atlantic Canada can fish seven days a week, yet we are restricted to only weekends. That is why I am here today with Bill C-237, the recreational food fishery equality bill.
This bill does not have a 40-fish limit, but it would do five crucial things. It would apply the same rules to all of Atlantic Canada so that we can catch five fish every day of the week during the season, like the rest of Atlantic Canada. It would encourage the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, commonly known as DFO, to have better enforcement and stricter penalties to eliminate the few bad apples that ruin the bunch. It would tie a season to spawning dates, avoiding arbitrary regulations. It would require DFO to post any new rule changes online at least two months in advance. It would also encourage DFO to organize a monitoring system to better understand how, when and where fish are being caught.
Newfoundland and Labrador was built on the cod fishery, and the Liberals need to recognize that and vote for this bill. They are always talking about the importance of working together to build Canada strong, so this is their chance and opportunity to show Newfoundland and Labrador that we are moving forward. It is our fish, it is our waters and it is our way of life.
I would like to take a minute to clarify something. Over the summer, I had many constituents tell me they wanted to fish seven days a week. After conversations with industry leaders and locals throughout the riding and province, many of them suggested a system with quotas. Discussions started about what a possible quota would look like. Many conversations led to the number of 40 fish, or about 80 fillets, which sounded like a reasonable number to start the conversation. For a family of three, that is 120 fish, 240 fillets and more than two meals a week.
In August, we created a petition. A petition does not change the law and it does not change policy. It is simply a survey for our district to start conversations. It was evident very early on that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador were dead set against a 40-fish limit. What they really wanted was to be able to fish seven days a week and catch five fish per day during the whole season, like the rest of Atlantic Canada, so I began to work on a bill that would do just that.
On September 22, I tabled this bill. Unfortunately, my petition got caught up in the Canada Post strike and did not land on people's doorsteps until weeks later, causing mass confusion throughout my riding and the province. For the people at home, let me be clear: forget my petition and read my bill. I think they will like it.
Here is a bit of history. For hundreds of years, cod was our lifeline. It fed our families, paid our bills and built our communities. The world came to our shores, and the same fish became the cornerstone of North American colonization. From when Humphrey Gilbert landed in 1583 to 1949, Newfoundland had control of its own fishery. That is nearly 400 years with a sustainable fishery.
After 1949, Ottawa took control of our fishery. A city with no ocean decided what was best for Newfoundland and Labrador. It used our fishery as a trading chip, allowing foreign trawlers to wreak havoc on our fishery. By the time John Crosbie became the fisheries minister in 1991, there was nothing left. While he did not take the fish out of the water, Ottawa certainly did. Somehow, Ottawa managed to ruin a 400-year-old sustainable fishery in just four decades.
Although overfishing in international waters did tremendous damage to northern cod, Canada also failed to maintain the sustainable fishery within its 200-mile limit. The government ignored warnings from inshore fishers and university scientists that cod stocks were in danger and chose to maintain quotas instead of scaling back on the fishery.
Whole towns shut down overnight when the cod moratorium was announced. Overnight, 30,000 people, like plant workers, fishers and even truck drivers, lost their jobs. It was the largest industrial layoff in Canadian history. Next to 5% of our province's GDP was lost with the stroke of a pen, overnight.
When the recreational food fishery reopened in 1998, it was a moment of relief. People finally got back on the water, not to sell or get rich, but to provide healthy food to their families.
Since then, the recreational food fishery has become one of the most cherished traditions. Hundreds come from across Canada and around the world to spend a few days on the water. In the early 2000s, a tag system was introduced, requiring us to pay to receive tags. Yes, we had to pay. Imagine that: Ottawa ruins our fishery, then makes us pay them to receive 30 tags. This system was despised by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, who viewed this as bureaucratic and certainly unfair given our long tradition of fishing to feed our families. After many protests, petitions and outcries, DFO finally allowed us to catch fish on weekends, limiting us to five fish per day. That sounds great until we realize that other parts of Atlantic Canada can fish seven days a week. Here we are, stuck on land during blue skies and calm waters while our families are lined up at food banks.
Here is a glimpse of the current system. In 2025, the food fishery ran for only 45 days, with a daily limit of five fish. With a doctor's note, some seniors and people with mobility issues could get someone to fish their fish for them. This year, a new pilot program was implemented for tour boat operators. Tour boats could provide a licence and two tags, allowing passengers to catch two fish each. Here is where things go wrong.
First, 45 days open does not mean 45 days of fishing. If anyone here ever goes to Newfoundland, they will quickly find out that there is immense fog, high winds and high waves. Many people in my riding are struggling to buy groceries, but they are forced to go out and face that danger because they cannot go out on a Thursday afternoon to catch a codfish to feed their family. We have lost thousands of people in Newfoundland at sea, and we do not need Newfoundlanders and Labradorians continuing to risk their lives just to put food on the table.
Second, the government partially realizes the economic value of tourism fishing, but what is interesting is that these tour boat operators, oddly enough, are allowed to fish seven days a week. To me, this sets a great precedent, a precedent that we should all be allowed to fish seven days a week. In addition, many of our tourists are Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who have moved away to work and want to come home for a week of deep-sea fishing, but they often decide not to come home because finding a weekend with good weather is almost impossible. We can imagine the number of Newfoundlanders who would want to come home from Alberta and everywhere else in this world if they could catch a fish seven days a week. The economic value of that is almost unimaginable.
Third and most importantly, we can catch fish only three days a week while the rest of Atlantic Canada can catch fish seven days a week.
Here are the statistics. By the early 1990s, after decades of unsustainable fishing, the northern cod stocks collapsed. The spawning biomass of northern cod had dropped by 93% in only 30 years, from 1.6 million tonnes in 1962 to 100,000 tonnes in 1992, but things are on the rise since the moratorium. By 2024, the cod biomass had moved out of the critical zone and into the cautious zone, the highest levels in decades. Ottawa agrees that there is more fish in the waters, and the evidence is that the northern cod quota has doubled.
The total allowable catch for 2025 northern cod has been set to 38,000 tonnes, which is more than double the 2024 quota of 18,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, the recreational food fishery only consumes 2,500 tonnes a year. Compared to the 38,000 commercial tonnes, it is peanuts. Many people say that more fish are dying from natural causes than what is harvested in the recreational food fishery. The biggest thing to keep in mind is this: The seals are estimated to be eating 9.7 billion tonnes of fish a year. It does not take a calculator to see that the easiest way to restore our fishery is to harvest more seals, not starve more Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
Let us talk about a monitoring system. The bill would direct the minister to create, within one year, a new monitoring system. It should record the number of fish caught by species, as well as the time and place. It should use modern tools and best practices. It should be funded, where possible, by existing fees and penalties. It should reward compliance, not give out punishment, with incentives for timely reporting. This data can be used to improve science and help determine fish patterns and quantities. We see similar reporting systems in Newfoundland and Labrador with our moose hunting return slips. The monitoring system should be developed by conversations with locals. Too often we see that decisions are made way too far from the wharves and coves that they affect.
The bill is not about fish; it is about respect for Newfoundland and Labrador. For far too long, our people have felt like an afterthought in Ottawa's decisions. We have had our shipyards sit idle, our oil projects stall, our mines close down and our seal fishery laughed at. Now even our food fishery, the simplest, most traditional act of all, is tangled up in red tape that no one else in Atlantic Canada has to deal with. The bill does say it all. It says that we would no longer be treated as an exemption. It says that we deserve the same opportunities and the same respect as our neighbours.
I want to talk about another part: stability, predictability and respect. One of the new clauses would add a line to the Fisheries Act, recognizing “the importance of stability and predictability for those who engage in recreational fishing for groundfish”. This might sound like a lot of bureaucratic language, but in plain English, it means this: People deserve to know the rules and to know when the season opens.
When a man or woman hauls a boat down to a slipway, they should not have to wonder if this is the weekend the season is going to open. We should all know well in advance. Fisheries management should be rooted in science and fairness, not in politics and not in frustration.
When I travel my district and the province, I see what the fishery means to people. I see grandpas teaching grandsons how to tie lures. I see grandmas teaching grandkids how to filet cod. I see families hanging out together and heading out on the water, just as the sun pulls up over the ocean. We cannot put a price on that. That is culture. That is identity. That is Newfoundland and Labrador, so when Ottawa tries to limit that, it does not just take away our opportunity; it also takes away who we are.
My bill is not a partisan bill. It is not Liberal, it is not Conservative and it is not NDP. It is Newfoundland and Labrador, so I hope, at the very least, I will have my colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador join me and join us in voting for the bill, because it is about all of Atlantic Canada standing together for fairness.
We talk a lot in the House about the mental health of Canadians. The whole country contributes to important initiatives like Bell Let's Talk and other mental health initiatives that emphasize the importance of people's connecting with one another, and especially of men's connecting with other men. Some of the toughest and warmest conversations men have happen on the water. Many of the toughest conversations, the ones we do not want anyone else to hear, are the ones that happen in between the “I got one” moments. These are the conversations that have guided my life, whether they have been with my father, my grandfather or my uncle.
A good day on the water can change a man, improve a man and improve our outlook on life. In the same way, it is a way for daughters to connect with fathers, and, quite frankly, for the whole family and community to connect. The fish do not care what our problems are, what gender we are or what race we are. Fishing is a safe space where Newfoundlanders and Labradorians get together, sometimes returning from all around the world, to talk, to laugh and to heal.
To restore equality, we need the Liberals and all members of the House to vote for the bill. Let us pass the bill. Let us give Newfoundlanders and Labradorians the same opportunities as our Atlantic neighbours, because back home the fishery runs deeper than the ocean; it runs through our veins.
It is our fish. It is our waters. It is our way of life.
