Is It Time to Say "Out"?

Fish stocks are in severe decline all around the world. There are simply far too many boats chasing a steadily shrinking quantity of fish.

The obvious solution is to stop the overfishing, let the distressed fish stocks recover. To do this, maritime nations may have to ban foreign fishing in their territorial waters. That sounds selfish and perhaps it is. Unfortunately the foreign fishing fleets will happily fish in another nation's territory and fish to extinction.

Monitoring foreign fishing fleets is expensive and ineffective. Problems include overfishing and use of illegal nets. The most viable alternative is to ban these ships from our waters.

Let's let Canadian fleets catch the quotas we believe can be taken and still allow our fish stocks to bounce back. Canadian fish packers can export what we don't need. Co-operative arrangements will have to be made with the United States but this is in their interests as much as our own.

World fishing fleets are irresponsible. Overfishing has to be brought to an end and maritime nations, such as Canada, have a duty to safeguard their own fishery.