Jose Manuel Muniz, president of the Spanish Association of Maritime Professionals, has accused NDP MP Peter Stoffer of taking part in a “xenophobic” and “anti-Spanish” campaign by raising suspicions about the cause behind Sunday’s sinking of a Spanish fishing trawler off the coast of Newfoundland. Muniz also said that Stoffer was spreading falsehoods by questioning whether the sinking of the Monte Galineiro was really an accident.
Spanish news-agency EFE reported that Stoffer’s statements were part of a campaign to blame European fishers for exhausting fish stocks in order to double Canada’s jurisdictions over North Atlantic Ocean fishing grounds. Stoffer told that it was unclear how and why a modern, 30-metre fishing vessel could sink so rapidly — the trawler went down in 20 minutes — unless it hit an iceberg or there was a massive explosion near the steel hull.
The authority is ready to prove the sinking of the ship. The captain, 20 crew members and an international fisheries observer, abandoned the sinking ship last Sunday about 400 kilometres from St. John’s. They were rescued within minutes by the crew of the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Leonard J. Cowley, which was on a routine fisheries patrol near the Grand Banks.
