What’s happening?!!!

Well, in the world of provincial fisheries not much of any value to people in the fishing industry.

In July, the provincial government announced it would start spending cash duplicating scientific research on some fish stocks that was already being done elsewhere. “Study” is what some government’s do when they lack the political mojo to do something concrete. Nothing screams impotence like the July fish science announcement.

Somewhere along the line, the provincial fisheries department hired Fred Stubbs to handle media in the department.

Hence Friday’s announcement of an announcement previously announced.

And they will be studying a fish stock which is – in case someone missed the announcement in 1992 – under a fishing moratorium.

Odd they missed that little tidbit of information. 

It was in all the papers.

Anyway, there are two bits of actually useful information in this vacuous POS from the fish department:

First, we now have a date when the Irish will send us their boat.

Second, we also know of yet another junket to Ireland that produced nothing other than expenses that the people of Newfoundland and Labrador will have to cover.

There is a third thing, but that isn’t really in the release.  It’s what’s not in the release. The provincial government is going to spend bags of taxpayer cash to study cod, a species that is commercially extinct and that could easily become biologically extinct as well if we aren’t careful.

What isn’t in the release is a mention of species that people in this province depend on to earn a living and about which the scientific and commercial fishing community know relatively little.

Crab.

Shrimp.

Stuff like that.

If we are going to spend public money, surely we should be spending it to gather information we don’t have on fish stocks that are commercially important.

Hiring out-of-work Irish crews to study cod seems like a monumental waste of time.  Well a waste of time unless you want to distract attention away from the government’s complete impotence when it comes to fisheries issues that matter.

Someone check Clyde Jackman’s luggage and make sure he didn’t lose the memorandum of understanding file in some Galway motel.

That’s the last thing fishermen need.

Okay.

The last thing they need other than a $14 million study of northern cod.

- srbp -

Edit:  removed question mark not needed.