Environment Fishery Links

Letters  and op ed opinions to various media continue, objecting to the early closure of the recreational halibut fishery.

Courier Islander
Robert Alcock

Halibut decision hurts economy, communities

While this decision will have a substantial impact on the economies of
hundreds of businesses and dozens of coastal communities that depend on
the recreational halibut fishery for economic activity, it might be
understandable if commercial quota holders were actually required to
utilize their licences and quota shares.

Northern View

Bruce Wishart

DFO fails Canadians with closure of the Halibut fishery

Even before the closure, DFO stopped a lot of people from booking trips this year by announcing their intent and creating massive uncertainty. DFO created this allocation system. They had no idea how it would work. They didn't allow for growth, and they didn't even have accurate information to begin with. They've created a situation where a publicly-owned resource is being bought and sold by private interests. None of it made any sense to begin with - as just one example, when the sport fishery didn't catch their allocation the commercial fishery was allowed to fish it, but the reverse was not allowed.