Norigs 3 says how vocal it becomes will depend on if process moves to a review panel

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewNow.com

There are no bumper stickers this time around (at least not yet) but the message is the same as one driven home a decade ago. A coalition of fishermen, aboriginal groups, processors and environmentalists don’t want to see gas and oil rigs on Georges Bank.

They’ve formed Norigs 3, the latest effort aimed at keeping a moratorium in place after the current one expires in 2012.

Just how vocal Norigs 3 becomes will depend on if a decision is made to go to a review panel. If that is the case says Denny Morrow, volunteer chair of the group, then Norigs 3 wants to see a panel report written in 1999 used a starting point to decide if the risks and recommendations outlined then should be re-examined, and if the moratorium should be extended another 10 years.

The federal and provincial legislation that extended the moratorium to 2012 says the two governments must decide if another panel review process is warranted, and they must decide before June 1, 2010.

This latest discussion on Georges Bank starting last winter when Yarmouth MLA Richard Hurlburt, also the province’s energy minister, said it was time to start looking at whether fishing and oil and gas discovery on Georges Bank can co-exist.

“I never said let’s go drilling on Georges, or let’s lift the moratorium,” says Hurlburt. “What I have said is let’s get the information and let’s let the people of South West Nova have all of the information so they can make a good decision based on the facts.”

About the coalition Hurlburt says, “All I’m saying is I hope they have an open mind.”

Regardless of where people stand on the issue – and Hurlburt says he hasn’t made up his own mind, nor his he trying to sway anyone in one direction or another – what he, like everyone agrees on, is the people of southwestern Nova Scotia have the most to gain or lose. Morrow agrees.

But what Morrow says the coalition doesn’t necessarily agree with is if oil and gas exploration happens, it will be a jobs bonanza for the region. They worry new jobs could come at the expense of fishing jobs, which do still exist. Yes, Morrow admits, fishermen are heading west for work, but so are plumbers, carpenters and electricians.

Georges Bank is located at the entrance to the Gulf of Maine and Bay of Fundy. It is one of the most productive spawning and feeding areas for fish, shellfish, marine mammals and seabirds in the Atlantic Ocean. It falls under the jurisdiction of Canada and the United States. Neither country has control over what the other decides with the bank.

The smaller Canadian portion produces commercial landings of scallops, haddock, cod, lobsters and other species that provide fishing and processing jobs concentrated in the southwest Nova Scotia region. It has seen a recovery of groundfish stocks and the biomass of haddock is now the largest on record for the last 50 years.

So yes, fishing jobs do still exist, Morrow says, and they’re important. He points to Guysborough County and the promise there of jobs related to the offshore.

“Guysborough County didn’t become Fort McMurray, there’s no reason to believe Yarmouth County would become Fort McMurray…If the pipeline didn’t come ashore here, where would the jobs be? I can’t blame people for wishful thinking, everyone would like to see a utopia come with jobs for everybody. But if you hurt the industry that we have here, what have the people of southwestern Nova Scotia gained?”

Members of Norigs 3 include: Acadian Fish Processors Ltd., Charlesville Fisheries Ltd., Ecology Action Centre, Groundfish Enterprise Allocation Council, Inshore Fisheries Ltd., Maritime Aboriginal Peoples Council, Maritime Aborginal Aquatic Resources Secretariate, Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association, Nova Scotia Swordfishermen’s Association, Seafood Producers Association of Nova Scotia, Shelburne County Quota Group, the co-chairs of the lobster fishing area 33 and 34 advisory committes and Xsealent Seafood Company.