Give us the facts Mr. Ashfield

The semblance of the plan was rolled out in June.

Ottawa plans to cut (save if you prefer that terminology) $56.8 million from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) budget over the next three years.

We've already seen the start of the cuts/savings. Earlier this year Ottawa announced the plan to close the Marine Search and Rescue Sub-Centre in St. John's, and have distress calls handled by the Halifax centre.

This past week more details have emerged about other changes within DFO.

The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC), is one of the victims in the aim to save money.

In its original incarnation, as an advisory group to the minister and with a clear mandate, the FRCC did good work. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the Council was its ability to bring fishers, DFO managers and scientists together to exchange ideas and opinions.

Through those dialogues - which were held annually in the years immediately after the moratorium - we saw both sides of the fishing industry come to a better understanding of the other. Fishers felt they were finally being heard by scientists, and scientists felt they were being understood by fishers.

Through the process, we saw development of mutual respect and appreciation for each other's work and knowledge.

Under subsequent ministers, and particularly since the Conservative government came to power, the work of the FRCC has been stymied to the point where the Council has become obsolete. There are no more annual meetings to discuss cod stocks. It's not because the discussion is not needed, but because recent fisheries ministers appear to have decided there is no use for the discussion.

People in the fishing industry tell us the FRCC won't really be missed. That's because fishermen are now at the table for stock assessment meetings, when scientists are laying out the information they have collected and managers are pondering quota limits.

They're satisfied with that process.

However, the real fear in the DFO plan to save/cut money is in how it will affect the information that will be available to determine the abundance and health of groundfish, pelagic and shellfish species.

In more than 20 years of fishing, Bill Broderick, inshore representative with the Fish Food and Allied Workers (FFAW), has seen many examples of mismanagement based on poor or missing information.

He's seen science work already "cut to the bone" and says fishers, fishing communities and government cannot really afford to cut any deeper.

As an example, he points to the herring fishery - or lack of a herring fishery. No one knows how much herring is out there, he says, because the DFO has not assessed the stock in years.

There are signs that herring is making a recovery, but without good science to guide management, no one can decide how much of it can be fished.

In recent years we have seen stock status assessments delayed, or reports that note 'lack of information', as a challenge to making a sound determination of fish biomass.

While we won't disagree that, as with any government department, and with the advance of technologies, there may be a means to streamline operations and save money, we are fearful - given the history of fishery science and management - that trimming the DFO budget will lead to reductions in science work.

Simply put, the DFO needs to broaden its science, to ensure the most information possible is gleaned from the oceans in order to ensure an environmentally sound fishery that can last for the long-term.

In the spring of last year, around the same time then fisheries minister Gail Shea was asking the FRCC to consult with the industry on a long-term plan for groundfish, particularly cod, another group issued a disturbing report.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), in May of 2010, announced that cod stocks were increasingly at risk. In fact, they classified four of the six cod units in Canada as endangered.

If there was any doubt that more science was needed to figure out what was going on with cod stocks, that report should have confirmed the importance of scientific research.

If Minister Keith Ashfield wants to allay the fears that are growing within the fishing industry, that Ottawa is writing off fisheries science, and fisheries, he needs to do more than offer up a few words about being committed to it.

He needs to spell out, now, exactly what science programs will continue to exist, and how they will be improved, under the government's budget-reduction plans.

All we want are the facts.

We are certain federal MPs like Ryan Cleary will continue to press the minister and DFO for that information.

Now that the dust is settled on the provincial election, we expect the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to do the same.

Push for the details. And if the budget cuts within DFO are to the detriment of fisheries science, it will be to the detriment of fishers and our fishing communities.

That's when the Dunderdale government must step in and lead the way to challenge the federal plan.

And we - community and business leaders, both within and outside the fishery - have to be prepared to back them up.

Barbara Dean-Simmons

editor@thepacket.ca