O P I N I O N

We Have the Right to Know

Changes to the Fisheries Act that the Liberals are trying to push through will be devastating for coastal communities and do not resemble at all the recommendations of an exhaustive panel study conducted by Doelle-Lahey. This study was supported by communities, commercial and recreational fishers, tourism operators and conservationists around the province.

The report which supposedly was even supported by the marine based finfish industry acknowledged the many concerns of all the stakeholders and called for a complete overhaul of the regulatory system and a change of attitude in government whereby community concerns would be heard throughout the regulatory process. The report also acknowledged that no trust would ever be built between communities and the industry/government which have acted as one unless the voice of Nova Scotians was heard.

Communities are again blocked out by this bill. The government is still promoting the industry with complete lack of regard for their regulatory role and the health of coastal communities. The Minister has called on lease holders of over 160 dormant sites to again make application without meaningful review and public participation. Many of these sites are not operating as they are failed experiments. Cooke is preparing to restock a site at Jordan Bay that just suffered a massive fish kill.

Meanwhile communities are living with dead and diseased fish on their shores, displaced lobster fishers, dead zones in their harbors which do not recover, equipment debris tangled in lobster traps and polluted harbors. To add insult to injury the government is proposing that the public have no right to know about fish health from the provincial government because they believe this would be a breech of business confidentiality rights.

We have the right to know how an industry impacts the health of our communities, our water and the food we eat. You cannot grow healthy food in polluted harbors. And we cannot sustain a healthy lobster and tourism industry when our harbors are used as dumping grounds. It took years and much suffering before the government decided to clean up Boat Harbor and the Syndney Tar Ponds. Do we have to wait until our harbors are dead before you hear our voices!

Wendy Watson Smith, President
Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore, Nova Scotia