Love you Steve!

Stephen Harper is coming tomorrow 
and I am thinking about love

(Yup,  I cant even console myself on that one.)

 Why am I thinking about love when the worst PM ever comes to our door step?

Well, I reckin because Love has a face.
Love is kind, gentle, loving, forgiving, passionate, and has our best interest a heart.

Love is peace of mind.  Love is never about doubt.

I'm starting to get the connection ...

Love is everything that Steve hasn't show us. Steve is all about doubt.

Steve leaves us wanting more.

With Steve, there's always this void. What he hasn't given us? All the things he has taken away. His direct disrespect. His courting us because he has an agenda

I have read that mature couples don't need to seek reassurances, but with Steve ...man, even Davis wants reassurances. In a recent desperate letter, Davis wails,  Will you promise Custodial management, joint management, ditch LIFO, embrace adjacency, reinstate SAR,  honour the halibut sharing arrangement? Davis is pitifully pleading  "hey man, just notice  us!"

Those with  relationship-know will warn you  -  those in Immature relationships will display incessant worry that something’s missing.  Those within mature relationships will work it out face to face.  Harper (Steve) never wants to face us until he needs  to court us. Hence, why he is trekking to Avalon tomorrow.

Election 2015 is all about the vote. But really we should never  forget about the love. It's more important to going to the polling stations and give Steve all the love that's missing in his pitiful  life.

He needs love.  Just embrace him with wholesome love that he's been deprived of.   "Steve, you are loved" may heal the poor bastard.

Just DONT VOTE for the Frigger!

The MPR Trust Fund

Harper wants us to demonstrate dollar losses from the slashing of the long-standing fishery policy called MPRs if he is to advance us any of our hard-earned tax dollars.

Does Harper, even know what MPRs stand for?

Well let's simplify it for the Economist. MPRS are not about job losses.

It's about Respect.

So, Mr. Prime Minister, in case you haven't figured it out, MPRs stand for

M = Multiple
P = Pleas (for)
R = Respects = sir  

When have you ever, as the figurehead of our nation, genuinely tried to establish a decent relationship with us? When have you truly looked us in the eye and tried to understand our unique culture and contribution to Canada?

Your distasteful "Culture of Defeat" comment was clearly a foreshadowing of your distaste for our salty souls.

On the fringe of your Ottawa kingdom, we clearly barely register on the Ottawa Richter Scale. When we do, its an ongoing  backlash against our voice, our position and our pleas.

You soften only during election time.

Remember the expanded Goose Bay promise, Custodial Management and even the joint management of our fisheries?  You promised, but you couldn't and didn't put a ring on it.

Your own First Minister recently said you couldn't be trusted. Another one ABCed you right in the electoral heart for yet another broken promise over equalization payments.

You wiped out our fisheries science - the foundation of fisheries management and sustainable fisheries.  When you hurt us, you hurt the ability of the world to feed itself. Guess you didn't think it through?

You took away our Search and Rescue Capabilities.  When you lose fishermen, you lose people who can feed the world.

When was the last time you came for a visit? Yes, right  Election time.

Listen, sir (with a small s) we don't have to justify our losses to you. 

You, however, have to justify your distance, distain and disgust of us to US your employer.   Besides, that is what decent Prime Ministers do - they try to unify a nation and make all parts feel as one of the family.

In case you haven't figured it out, you're fucking up badly as the national Father!

MPRs is not about money. It's about giving our people and our province RESPECT and TRUST.

The Economist and Machiavellian in you may not believe this, but a "Trust" Fund isn't a dirty word in politics.   

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Merry "World Fisheries Day"!

Today is World Fisheries Day.

Better than Christmas for those focused on securing a strong, stable and healthy fishery.

Except the presents and the gifts are few and far between for this special occasion and special industry.

More often than not, it's coals in the stockings kinda-feeling.

More challenges than solutions. More talk than action. More short-term take than long-term planning, innovation and investment.

Still, we are thankful for this day for it highlights the most serious problems not just facing NL, other countries, but the entire globe and our 7 billion earthling family members.

All those people need to be fed. And the wild fish population will be critical to this food provision. There is an anticipated increase in global food production in the years ahead and that's just one of the many reasons to step up our game.

World Fisheries Day is also a day to celebrate.

So, on this day I am grateful for our long fishing history and ancestors who  nurtured us to this time and place under the stars.

And I am thankful for the small things, like the recent news that our very own federal government plans to rebuild the Newfoundland Atlantic Cod in the area known as 3PS - on the south coast of our province. Yes, it's the same government that wiped out the world's greatest fishery. After 22 years of a shutdown in our fishery, to see inshore and offshore sectors and the processing sector come together to ensure the long-term sustainability of these stocks is like a very nice Christmas gift. (Let's hope they don't overfish the stock in the process.)

Not to be greedy, but we need more gifts like that.

Why the wild fishery? Well, the wild fisheries matter to people because they provide a truly organic resource; and they provide livelihoods, cultural identity, and a sense of place.

Most importantly, we need to be sustainable to ensure that fishing today does not harm fishing potential for future generations. A kind of fishery that comes around every Christmas for time immortal. 

Imagine if Santa would just stop coming how devastating that would be.  Same goes for the fishery.

 
Our fisheries also need the gifts of meeting rural development and local food security needs.

 

There is no doubt about it, the fishery needs a Santa.

 

Not for one day only but all year, all decades and all generations long.

 

So, here's to the day when our fishery stocking will be chock-ful with all the right gifts.

Have a Merry Wild Fishery Day!

I, amongst other things, will be eating my small stash of frozen Cod caught by a hard-working Newfoundland fisherman to celebrate!

"...for the Uplifting of the Fishermen"

On November 3,1908, the Fishermen's Protective Union (The FPU) was formed in this province after founder William Ford Coaker gave a two-hour speech in Herring Neck and signed up his first members.

Exactly 106 years to the day, McCurdy announced his retirement in St. John's after serving for over 21 years as President of a modern day fishermen's union, the FFAW.

Life, they say, is about cycles and patterns - a series of endings and beginnings; or is it, as the optimists like to advance, no endings, only beginnings?

Coaker was referred to as the Fishermen's Advocate and this is reflected even in the name he chose for his union with the word "protective" at its heart . The FPU dominated politics along the northeast coast of the island for a quarter-century. In fact, Coaker was eventually elected to the Legislature and in his maiden speech, he  stated  (a) revolution ...has been fought in Newfoundland. The fishermen, the toilers of Newfoundland, has made up his mind that he is going to be represented on the floor of this House."

In the end, the FPU ceased to be, but not before a ceaseless struggle of - as Smallwood termed it - "countless battles for the uplifting of the fishermen."

However McCurdy's tenure as Union president and advocate is judged will be for the history books.   As for Coaker, a sentiment offered by a supporter said it all.  "It didn't turn out to be a successful great ending, but he had the courage and the pluck to try, and that made him a hero in many people's eyes. "


In the Catholic faith, the patron saint of fishermen was St. Peter, a fisherman himself.  How did St. Peter die? - well, he was apparently "crucified with his head downwards"..  Perhaps that is why today McCurdy said his job was "not for the  faint of heart". Being the protector of fishermen through the centuries has never been an easy calling.  Coaker would no doubt agree.

The struggle for fishermen continues.  It has too - for they are at the very centre of our history, our here-and-now and our hereafter.  Our fishermen are the constant soul of our province, though various imposters knock at our door over time. Fishermen will always need advocates (like Coaker and McCurdy) for they are the tireless toilers that need protection against those with protection grand-fathered in, like the ol' fish merchants and current day versions.

The cycle continues this November as it did in November 1908. The endings, the beginnings ...

Incidently, Coaker was buried on November 4, 1938.  McCurdy's last day as FFAW President is November 17th, 2014.

Our Magnifcent Truth

Blessed am I to receive, this Thanksgiving weekend, an email from a passionately inspired and immensely proud Newfoundlander and Labradorian - Dr. Phil Earle.

He is amongst a small core of our people who still believes strongly in a fishing future for our province and whose soul is tortured by our falling away from our roots - our "failing path" he terms it. In this email-essay he expresses a poetic reverence for this place we call our home and how it has shaped us and is calling out for our respect and our action .  His words will reek of romanticism to those sold on the here and now and with little aptitude beyond the profit margin. To those with a sense of soul, sensitivity, history, depth, respect and vision, his words are indeed the "magnificent truth"... 


Hi Kim;

You know, maybe I just don't face the reality of this place... our past, EJ Pratt knew -  like we do and feel  - that our people were fired in danger and courage, in daring and ability, in self-reliance and venture. This rock and sea that forced us to make a pack with it ... infusing in us, in its process, with a character of love and trust.

The process of the outward journey into the inebriate Nord Atlantic which was really, in our seafaring fathers and mothers, an inward journey into their souls! Fact. How else can you explain how they had the greatest fiber woven into their beings? Tell me?

This reality, this truth, of who we have been, where we came from; and therefore, who we ARE... has another part today in that 90 goddam percent who now live on this island have forgotten this magnificent truth.

Our shame is not the destruction of our fishing resource ... our shame on this island is that we have lost the connection to the soul that made us the greatest seafaring characters and fisher people on earth. We have become a derelict culture.
Not to be taken out of context... but look around NL today... oil, mining, tens of thousands working in Alberta, aquaculture, etc. So are we blending into the melting pot of Toronto or Ft Mac or what Harper wants to do to us as fodder for the nations of CETA? What culture is this ... one like an Indian Reservation?

Our fishery has the ability to sustain a 10-Billion yearly economy, bigger then Norway's and that would completely change our province... restore our coastal heritage, culture and our Souls.  
 
Its not words that will bring the insight and passion that we need to change
our failing path... only the belief in one's heart of what can be - and action from it can make a difference.
phil  

The Canaries in our Waters

Sometimes, a single newspaper can tell a larger tragic story
without even intending to do so.

Such was the case on Friday, August 28th, 2014, when The Telegram featured several disturbing environmental pieces.

The first was front-page story of Gannets in Cape St. Mary's abandoning their young chicks in nests, leaving them to starve. According to seabird biologists, Bill Montevecchi, something similar happened two years ago and he calls the behaviour "extreme".

Over on page A5, another baffling find in our waters. Recreational divers fishing for scallops near Change Islands and Fogo Island found empty scallops in not one, but nine different locations.  A similar eerie find occurred less than a year ago in Port au Port area where divers there found high mortality within scallop shells and with rock crab.

One doesn't have to be a scientist to sense that something may be amiss in our waters. Are these findings the canary in the coal mine for our oceans? Are these unusual outcomes telling us something that we are overlooking?  Are there other unreportable environmental quirks happening that could lead to a comprehensive picture of what is affecting our watery coal mine like overfishing, pollution and ocean acidification?

Most importantly WHO is investigating to try and get to the bottom of both of these incidents and others.  The answer may lie in the same paper - this time on the editorial page in very insightful piece called "Science Inc."

This editorial highlights once again the war on science that Horrible Harper has launched since he landed in the PM's chair.  From slashing scientific budgets to undermining the independence of scientists, this corporate creature continues to drive a profit agenda, at the expense of the environment. His recent Aquaculture regulations attests to this reckless approach.

As the editorial so rightly states "Science should exists as a service to all facets of society, including environmental protection."

It goes on with a more powerful message "The world is more complex than oil and jobs."

It was telling in the scallop story that DFO, upon hearing of the empty shells, asked local  divers to bring in samples, rather than launching a full-scale investigation themselves. It's like the police saying  "Bring in the body - we'll have it analysed."

The editorial points out that the decimation of the East Coast fishery shows the federal government does not have the right stuff, nor the right moral fabric to take care of our fish and our waters.

Tragedies are happening. The canaries are dying.

And there is little or no stewardship priorities in the political corridors of DFO. 

But future generations depend on what we do today.  So do what you can.

Speak up 
Vote up
Vote out

Be on the right side of history.

Rejigging Youth back in the Fishery Boat

Notwithstanding a loss of life,
two bits of good news have been harvested from this summer's food fishery.  

First, reports of the larger Cod is encouraging as it appears our fish are winning the battle against all that has ailed them the past quarter century or more.

The other reassuring aspect is the number of young people featured in social media photos out on the water, getting the smell of the house off them and catching a feed of Cod with their relatives.

If our fishery is ever to rejig itself into a full-fledged sustainable commercial fishery, we need the next generation eager and engaged.

 

And young people out in the boats during the annual food fishery is a dandy way for them to get in touch with their heritage and acquire skills and some understanding of fishing and conservation.
 

For a number of years during the Cod moratorium, young people didn't see a future in the fisheries, let alone see themselves involved in this industry. For these post-moratorium young citizens, the fisheries was something that happened in the past, something their grandfathers did.  Our young people also learned in school that the Newfoundland fishery has been a failure, that it was overfished & no one cares about it anymore. "Our fishery went away" is all they know.
 

Sometimes, children need leadership and positive messaging to lead them into areas where they see no hope or a future.  Thankfully, there are voices trying to push a positive message about our fishery and inspire passion for its future.

Our province's Cod Doc George Rose once stated that: 

We need our children to grow up knowing the benefits
that our fishery brings to the province & their community.
Our children should grow up knowing the benefits to the
biological, social, cultural and economic benefits of our great resource"
 
Kudos also to CURRA (Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance) which kick-started the dialogue a number of times (and even held workshops) to highlight the issue of re-engaging youth in our fishery.  Lead Researcher Barb Neis produced a report on CURRA's 5- year project as it concluded, entitled "Moving Forward - Building Economically, Socially & Ecologically Resilient Fisheries & Coastal Communities". 

 

One of Neis' key messages was that the fisheries is NOT broken and that we must encourage youth in the fisheries.  "Governments, schools and other institutions should encourage young people's interest in,and entry into fisheries ... Our school curriculum is strangely devoid of information about marine ecology and about fisheries as a way of life and as a business. There is also next to nothing in it on fisheries culture and heritage."

In her DVD "Cod, Renewing a Bountiful Catch",  Invervale Founder and President Kathleen Blanchard encourages our young people to take an active interest in Cod recovery. The DVD  shares the following advice:  "take young people out on the water, share their enthusiasm for what they discover and  encourage their sense of wonder about the ocean." 

Over in Norway, they have a strategy of providing a youth quota to address intergenerational succession in the fisheries.  It's an idea worth looking into for our province and would need the enlightened support of all sectors.

 

The collapse and downsizing over the years in the fishery has had a dysfunctional effect on our intergenerational continuity in the fisheries. Transfer of skills and knowledge through the generations is how we sustain industries and culture, and the fisheries more so than most.

 

Of late, the news have warned us of NDD (Nature Deficit Disorder) and its effects on our young people.  Here in Newfoundland and Labrador we need to guard against  FDD (Fisheries Deficit Disorder) in our youth. Getting them on the water during the food fisheries is a wonderful place to start, but there's a boatload of other initiatives to consider and implement.

 

In fisheries lore, it is well-known that the older female Cod is vital to recruitment efforts, but when it comes to industry, it is our youth that is important to its sustainability.

 

This recent twitter post by a local journalist is an encouraging sign our youth may still be interested in one of Newfoundland's oldest industries:

 

Son, who's 4: "Dad, do I have to get married & become a husband? "

Me: "That'll be up to you."

Son: "I think I'd rather be a fisherman.

 

Amen to that!
 

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