‘Fishing is where my heart is,’ but young people aren’t welcome in the NL fishery. Here’s why:

I was mailed this note today (Nov. 11th), and the writer asked to remain anonymous.

Hi Mr. Cleary,

I just wanted to write you to let you know that I and my family support you 100%. 

My father is a small-boat, inshore fisherman who has fished since he was eight years old, and had his own boat since he was 16. 

My father came from a family of 10 — five boys, five girls. His father was also a fisherman, and two of his brothers currently fish for a living as well. Unfortunately, neither of his brothers have children who fish; I am the only one — the only one of my generation who has followed in the family footsteps. 

I have fished with my father every summer since I was 14 years old (I'm now 30). Both my mother and father live off of their fishing income, so as I got older I was forced to seek employment elsewhere in order to make a living. 

I currently work as a 4th-year residential electrician, and plan to write my journeyman exam next year. However, I have still continued to fish every single year from April to June with both my mother and father (the entirety of our crew). 

Although I enjoy working in the electrical field, fishing is where my heart is. I dearly love being on the water fishing, and have always dreamed of turning that passion into a livelihood. 

As my father gets older, and closer to retirement — like many other fishermen in this province — I hold on to hope that I can one day make that dream a reality, but every day it becomes more evident that it may never be possible.

I would love to take over my father’s enterprise one day soon, but the current regulations make that virtually impossible, especially for small-boat fishermen. 

I'm sure you are aware, but as it stands right now, in order to obtain a Level 2 certificate a person must have earned at least 70/75% of their earnings from fishing for five consecutive years. 

This is absolutely impossible for me as my father is an inshore fisherman with only one crab quota, which, as I mentioned above, both my mother and father live off of. I would never be able to survive on only fishing income. 

It would be so sad to see all of these generations of fishing come to an end, heartbreaking actually, due to a technicality such as this one. 

I hope that you can make a change before it's too late. I am sure that I am not the only one in this situation, and it would be devastating to lose rural Newfoundland and the small outports that this province was built on. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The story of Samantha Walsh

Image
Samantha Walsh, a 13-year-old, Grade 8 student from Fleur de Lys on the Baie Verte Peninsula, disappeared one Sunday evening when walking home from her Grandmother's house, and I traveled to the community to research her story. The following feature article was published in The Telegram in February 2000. ••• "Sam, who had stripped off her ski pants when she got to her grandmother’s house, didn’t bother to put them on for the three-minute walk to her house. She went home wearing her coat and hat and long johns covered by flannel pajama pants, pink with black and white lambs, bought the day before at Value Village. But Sam never made it home. 'Loves you, Mom,' were her last words to her mother." ••• Samantha’s story By Ryan Cleary, The Telegram FLEUR DE LYS — The voice is that of a child, rising with a soft and sweet delivery from a room of living hell. It’s a haunting sound, the words of  Salt Water Joys , sung by a very talented and pretty littl
Read more

Nov. 7th, Telegram letter to the editor

Making this a better place I applaud Ryan Cleary’s letter in the Oct. 31 Weekend Telegram (“Time to act, not talk”) touting teamwork as the key to forging a future for rural Newfoundland: it was eerily reflective of the premier’s front-page interview. It’s a prime example on how we all could, and should, put partisan politics and prejudices aside to perpetuate the one commonality that binds us — passion for the promise of this place. The power of that unified front is visible with the government’s prioritizing the H1N1 vaccination roll-outs this week, in light of the international crisis for Newfoundland and Labrador with changes proposed to the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) convention, and the national crisis with Quebec and the Lower Churchill quagmire. The people of this place must come first and we personified that this week. Thus, there is hope for the future. Rise to the occasion Having said that, like the tide, we need to rise to the swell of occasion as well,
Read more

SEA-NL calls on federal Fisheries Minister to reverse decision to limit increase to 2021 northern shrimp quota

Image
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—Wednesday, May 26th, 2021 The Seaward Enterprises Association, Newfoundland Labrador (SEA-NL) calls on the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to reverse her decision to limit the increase to the 2021 northern shrimp quota off southern Labrador and northeastern Newfoundland.   “DFO went outside its own rule book to limit the increase to this year’s quota, which will translate into the loss of more than 2,000 tonnes of shrimp to the province’s inshore fleet,” says Ryan Cleary, interim Executive Director of SEA-NL, a new association to represent the province’s more than 3,000 independent owner-operators. “Enterprise owners are being punished for their sacrifices and Mother Nature’s turnaround. SEA-NL calls on the minster to revisit her decision.” Cleary wrote federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Bernadette Jordan Tuesday regarding her recent decision to institute a year-over-year limit of 15% to this year’s northern shrimp quota off southern Labrador and nor
Read more