A shady deal involving Canadian Atlantic Fishery (h/t Jeff Rowsell)
Something is rotten with the state of the fishery in Canada’s Atlantic provinces and family members of Canada’s Liberal Party using a back-room deal to corner a lucrative chunk of the harvest of Arctic surf clams, giving indigenous interests competition by non-indigenous interests.
It is not that federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc did not know about the shady deal being made:
Tories ask ethics commissioner to probe fishery bid they say favours Liberal insiders
Company behind winning bid is run by the brother of Nova Scotia Liberal MP Darrell Samson
John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: May 07, 2018 6:10 PM ET
Last Updated: May 7
….In his letter to Mario Dion, the newly appointed ethics watchdog, Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty alleges the government’s effort to diversify ownership in the fishery — by clawing back part of an existing quota held by Clearwater Foods and handing it to a group with Indigenous representation — violates the Commons conflict of interest code because it enriches the brother of a sitting Liberal MP and a former Liberal MP.
“I am concerned that the relationship between Five Nations Clam Company and its partner, Premium Seafoods, could have played a role in (federal Fisheries Minister Dominic) LeBlanc’s decision,” Doherty wrote in his letter to the commissioner, obtained by CBC News.
“For one, Premium Seafoods president and CEO, Edgar Samson, is the brother of Nova Scotia Liberal MP Darrell Samson. Moreover, the president of NunatuKavut, the First Nations partner in Labrador, was only announced weeks after Five Nations won the bid, and is former Liberal MP Todd Russell.” More….
That is not all.
“We are talking about a group of Liberal family members who had no boat and were not even incorporated until after the announcement was made.” – Conservative MP Todd Doherty
—ibid.
Can things with that deal really be that bad? Perhaps not, because Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condones those machinations and insists that,
“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives’ habit of pitting Canadians against indigenous Canadians is, quite frankly, disgusting.
Our decision to increase indigenous participation in fishing is based on our government’s commitment to developing a renewed relationship between Canada and indigenous peoples. Enhancing access to the Arctic surf clam fishery broadens the distribution of benefits from this public resource and is a powerful step toward reconciliation. This will significantly enhance indigenous participation in the offshore fisheries in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and allow the benefits of this lucrative fishery to flow to more Canadians.” —Justin Trudeau, Fisheries and Oceans – Oral Questions, March 28th, 2018 / 3 p.m.
There you you have it, right out of the mouth of a trusted politicians, the top-ranking one in Canada. The deal is on the up and up. It is not to enrich relatives of sitting members of the Liberal Party. It will instead “significantly enhance indigenous participation in the offshore fisheries in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, and allow the benefits of this lucrative fishery,” by giving it a handicap in the form of some real competition from outside, non-indigenous interests under the control and ownership of relatives of sitting members of the Liberal Party.
Even Justin Trudeau says so. Therefore, it must be true. Surely, no one can be so dense as not to be able to see the truth of that. 😉
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#AtlanticFisheries
See also:
- Canadian budget makes Andrew Scheer unhappy
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, …Bureaucrat, Bureaucracies are forever
