Conservatives in Parliament have called on Justin Trudeau’s Fisheries Minister, Bernadette Jordan, to reach out and sit down with fishing communities throughout Atlantic Canada to assure them that the federal government has their welfare as its focus as Ottawa negotiates with First Nations. The Minister has repeatedly failed to do so.

To guarantee proper conservation, everyone fishing commercially must play by the same rules and regulations. You cannot have two different sets of rules apply to fishers in the same waters. As your Conservative MP, I have defended this position in Parliament and will continue to stand-up for one season for all.

The Liberal plan for Moderate Livelihood Fisheries in Atlantic Canada will put conservation at risk.

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Read the Conservative's Report submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries here: CLICK

• Indigenous participation in the fishery can only be achieved if the federal government and DFO recognize and ensure the intended purposes of licenses, to provide for moderate livelihood fishing, are respected by prohibiting the leasing of such licenses to non-Indigenous harvesters.
  
  
• The Minister of Fisheries engage personally in face-to-face, parallel negotiations with commercial lobster fishery organizations and Mi’Kmaq representatives to attain a mutual agreement on an acceptable new approach to developing a negotiating process for the moderate livelihood fishery that balances the requirement to accommodate Indigenous moderate livelihood fisheries as determined in Marshall I and Marshall II and to assess historic needs and economic impact of commercial fishers and rural communities.
  
  
• To protect the sustainable harvesting of the resource, the issuance of Moderate Livelihood lobster licenses by the Minister of Fisheries cannot add new effort to the fishery nor additional active licenses in any LFA above the 2020 numbers without scientific evidence that supports increased catches coming from increased license effort.
  
  
• Only DFO has both the regulatory and enforcement responsibility under the rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada. Any moderate livelihood fishery for First Nations must fall under DFO regulation and enforcement as outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada. Any co-management of the moderate livelihood fishery must fall under this structure and must balance mutually agreeable and mutually beneficial outcomes for non-Indigenous attachment to the fishery.
  
  
• Moderate Livelihood licenses are commercial fishing licenses, and as such must be subject to the same regulations including seasons as all commercial fishing licenses.