FFAW has presented its report to the Newfoundland/Labrador government in September with title “Will our future includes outports?” The report has subtitle “Strengthening and sustaining rural communities through fisheries restructuring,” which raises concerns about the future of outports but also offers steps that should be taken by the federal and provincial governments.
FFAW president Earle McCurdy told that the Newfoundland gets its distinctive character from these small rural communities. The fishery and the province itself are built on the population of the outports. He added that the question of support for the Newfoundland fishery and the outports from the Conservative government in Ottawa was thrown into sharp relief by the Canadian election on October 14.
The report mentioned that the current status needs measure to address the high costs and over-capitalization in the fishery, and to “finish the unfinished work of fisheries renewal. McCurdy calls the current situation in the fishery as “a house of cards.” He further adds that a “fatal flaw” in the federal response to the fisheries renewal program was that the total bill for rationalization was passed to industry.
McCurdy also pointed to the impact of skyrocketing fuel prices on fishing enterprises. Solutions in the report included cost-sharing of fleet reduction and early retirement programs, and a commitment by government to help finance retrofitting of fishing vessels to make them more fuel-efficient. McCurdy noted that Fisheries Loan Boards are currently in place in Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and that Quebec has developed a financing program to finance the combining, transfer and acquisition of licenses.
