Council wants fish quota for Burgeo

BURGEO - The Southwest Coast Joint Municipal Council is asking the provincial government to buy a fish quota to get the Burgeo fish plant back on its feet.

The joint council, formed two years ago to represent seven member municipalities in the province's southwest corner, passed a resolution to make the request during its annual general meeting held in Burgeo last week.

The council said the request for a fish quota for the nearly-idle fish plant in Burgeo would be basically along the same lines as the quota purchased for Arnold's Cove.

"Burgeo has been hung out to dry for over a decade and it is time the province purchased a fish quota for Burgeo, and leased it to the operator," said Peter Fenwick, the council's newly elected president. "Several years ago, when the Arnold's Cove plant was faced with closure, the province bought a quota that it leases to the operators. Yet, the people of Arnold's Cove were within commuting distance of excellent employment opportunities on the Avalon and at Clarenville. "Burgeo is 150 kilometres from the Trans-Canada Highway and relied almost solely on the fish plant. If anything, it should have been rescued well before anything was done for Arnold's Cove."

Burgeo has lost almost half its population since the onset of the moratorium, added Fenwick, and over the years has been snubbed by both provincial and federal levels of government.

"Quotas were purchased for towns in similar straits on the east coast and on the Northern Peninsula, but Burgeo, with one of the oldest attachments to the fishery, has been consistently neglected." said Fenwick.

The joint council also supported the allocation of a federal fish quota for Burgeo, but if that failed there was a feeling that the province should be used to purchase a quota that could be leased to the operators of the town's fish plant.

"Burgeo deserves better treatment than it has been getting," said Fenwick. "And if our council can apply pressure on both senior levels of government to get better treatment, we will."

At the council's annual meeting, John Dawson of Kippens was elected as secretary/treasurer and Gerard Merrigan of Port aux Basques remained vice-president.