It was particularly busy session of parliament for South Shore – St. Margarets MP Bernadette Jordan.
Several months ago Jordan became the first woman to chair the federal fisheries committee.
She was at the helm for the creation of the new fisheries act and reviews of small craft harbours.
“”It was actually interesting – talk about baptism by fire, my first meeting was actually the clause by clause on fisheries act and having the (fisheries) minister in and asking him questions.”
Jordan says people responded well to the work they did, particularly the addition of owner-operator legislation.
“One of the things I’ve learned very quickly as a politician is you’ll never please everyone but for the most part I’ve heard from fishers up and down the shore that owner-operator had to be enshrined in legislation so a lot of people are very happy about that.”
The new legislation restricts the leasing of fishing licences and owners must now also be operators.
Much of Jordan’s work this past year has focused on the coast.
She also helped pass two bills to deal with abandoned vessels, both large commercial and smaller craft.
The small craft harbour reviews are also continuing and Jordan says she’s hoping to get an increase in funding for repairing wharves.
She says smaller repairs funds have gone up but not for the major ones so that’s what she’s looking for.
“I look at every vessel as a small business making close to a million dollars in some cases and … we the federal government own the infrastructure that they need and it needs to be maintained and it has not been, we’ve been putting bandaids on things,” she says.
That’s why she put forward the study of the harbours, which is ongoing.
Jordan says she’s looking forward to continuing with the fisheries file throughout the summer and in the next session of parliament.
Story by Brittany Wentzell
Twitter: @BrittWentzell
