BFC boss says Commons hearing “positive”

Jerry Ward, the CEO of the Baffin Fisheries Coalition, says that despite the tough questions posed by some MPs, the BFC’s appearance before the House of Commons standing committee on fisheries last month was a “positive” experience that helped clear up various “misconceptions” about the organization.

“I thought it was an extremely good meeting,” Ward said.

Ward, and the BFC’s president, Ben Kovic, appeared before the committee on March 22, on the same morning that MPs heard from members of Qikiqtarjuaq’s Nattivak Hunters and Trappers Association, who broke away from the BFC last year.

Ward said he rejects suggestions made by Nattivak, and by the NDP member for Sackville-Eastern Shore, Peter Stoffer, that Kovic may have been in a conflict of interest when he moved to the BFC from his former job as chair of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board, which recommends fisheries quotas.

“Mr. Stoffer has his own agenda,” Ward said, pointing out that the NWMB finished making fisheries allocations by the spring of 2004, and that the BFC president’s job wasn’t advertised until August, 2004. Ward said BFC’s board hired Kovic in November after reviewing several job applications.

Ward also rejected criticisms made by Stoffer that the BFC is trading Baffin turbot for the right to catch shrimp that is then diverted to foreign fish plants.

“Historically, very little of the northern shrimp catch goes to Atlantic Canadian plants,” Ward said.