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Rick Perkins

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • South Shore—St. Margarets
  • Nova Scotia
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $136,927.65

  • Government Page
  • Apr/24/23 3:08:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the DFO's elver science is done on the East River-Chester, the only river. Elver harvesters have been begging the DFO to monitor and enforce the law on that river, yet poaching is happening every night. I personally observed that for the last three nights. During the open legal season and since the closure, no one from the DFO has been on that river. If members can believe it, DFO enforcement proactively called the licence-holder this morning to say that it would not be monitoring the river for either law enforcement breaches or science. Why is this the case?
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  • Apr/21/23 11:06:42 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, elver licence-holders wrote DFO in January, stating, “Over the last 4 years we have heard every excuse in the book why C&P can’t enforce, including Covid-19, staff shortages, safety concerns, and the ever popular 'we’re working behind the scenes'. We see zero change in the enforcement strategy.” These Liberals ignored the pleas of legal licence-holders for years about poaching. Now, of the few DFO arrests of the thousands of poachers on the rivers this year, all have been released by DFO without processing because DFO enforcement staff are on strike, leaving no enforcement of any fishery in Canada. Hardware stores and Canadian Tire stores in my riding are telling me that the last few days they have sold out of nets, buckets and bubblers, which are all needed to poach elvers. The Liberals bragged about increasing patrols. Observing is not arresting. Now DFO is not even observing. I know the Liberals failed math, so let me help. Zero multiplied by any number is still zero. Lawlessness is on our rivers. Legal harvesters are paying the price. The Liberals are as effective as washed-out bait.
198 words
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