In 2003: a bevy of promises designed to restructure and rebuild the fishing industry. Heady days were those: “The industry must be restructured and managed to avoid the disasters of the past and adapt to the opportunities of the future.”
In 2009, the provincial fisheries minister can only defend his government’s policy by saying they have come up with the best make-work scheme ever:
This is the first time that the province has provided a CEEP program for harvesters and it is the best program the province has ever provided for plant workers. [Emphasis added]
Could there be any more astonishing an admission of the abject failure of the provincial government to deal with the fishery?
Well, that would be the laundry list of subsidies, money and other spending on the fishery in lieu of that restructuring and management promised in 2003.
Hand-outs are – by their nature – evidence of a government that has run out of ideas and/or political ability.
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