A translation by Judith Turcotte
Lobsters from the state of Maine are invading the Gulf of St. Lawrence in search of cold water. During this time, our Nordic shrimps are disappearing partly due to the warming of the water of this same gulf. My first reaction in the face of this phenomenon is to try to find out what the governments are doing about this. It is an old reflex. I lived through the years of the Quiet Revolution followed by years of a paternalistic state where the politicians and the civil servants made us believe that they had solutions to all the problems. Today, we all remain skeptical before a government who still attempts to make us believe that they have a solution to all the problems.
The reality is quite different. Facing the unexpected and unpredictable consequences of climate change, the governments have lost their wherewithal. Despite this fact, the government continues in trying to preserve its paternalistic state. There exists in Québec a Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs. In short the MELCCFP. Bureaucrats love acronyms. This ministry’s mission is ’’to ensure protection of the environment and natural ecosystems with the aim of contributing to the well-being of present and future generations.” With climate change raging around the world, I would not like to be in the shoes of Minister Benoît Charette, responsible for a ministry with such a mission.
I asked myself what the government would do facing the migration of lobsters from the state of Maine to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I had my answer when Diane Lebouthillier, the federal Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Coast Guard announced the granting of 25 so-called exploratory lobster fishing permits on the North Shore in a zone between Tadoussac and Natashquan. She explained that these permits are granted in order to assess the abundance of the resource and to know a little more on what is happening on our riverbed. This is not reassuring.
In certain cases, before the granting of these exploratory permits, there is the granting of an experimental fishing permit. The process is complicated and seems to only have one goal: to assess if there are enough lobsters for the issuing of new commercial fishing licences. The government’s objective is to grant commercial licences which would result in the creation of direct and indirect jobs in the regions that need them. What about the protection of the lobster population?
All these people seem to forget that the abundance of lobster and snow crabs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is a relatively new phenomenon. We must live with climate change and this warming could continue in the St. Lawrence and eventually force the lobsters to migrate to Labrador as was suggested my one of my readers. Nature is changing and this is not a new phenomenon. Not so long ago, in 2008, the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation (MAPAQ) granted a loan of 4.8 M$ to purchase 30 lobster fishing licences over a period of six years. The lobstermen of the Gaspé Peninsula had seen their catch decrease by 30% since 1995. This situation may repeat itself. The abundance of lobster and snow crabs could, once again, be a temporary phenomenon.