Too foolish to talk about -
Most people think that highly educated people are smart. Some of them are smart. But where do they go after they finish their education. The only smart ones that I know are buried below the sod. That is why you can never have one in the government.
Hmmm, I'm wrong there. We do have a few in our provincial government. We have to give the Devil his due, Danny Williams is a very intelligent man. Now I must pull in my horns and take back some of the things I said about him. And I must say, he is the best Premier we ever had. He has brains, and he can put them to good use. The only thing he's got against him is the fact that he is a townie.
If he was born between Bonavista and Ladle Cove, he would be like Christ to the outports. He would be doing what we expect any baywop would be doing, and that's standing up for the outports. With Danny's brains and our get up and go, everything would be booming.
Now don't count me as one of the get up and go. I lost mine when they sliced open my head. When the sawdust leaked out, I lost some brains to.
Danny William is the kind of man we need as our provincial Minister of Fisheries. He might not know a codfish from a sculpin, but he has the brains to get the right thing done. And right now, in the Newfoundland fishery, the right thing is badly needed.
To began with, if there is no cod out there, why the recreational fishery? If there are no cod out there, why close down a fishery, for example, turbot, because too much is being caught. It just doesn't make sense.
A fisherman knows when there is fish out there. Now how does someone who works in a office know where the fish are? They might be able to add up one plus one equals two, but they can't add up Chard's Rock plus Middle Banks equal lots of cod.
Being highly educated doesn't mean that you know the fishing grounds. Only a professional fish harvester can do that and that harvester doesn't know it all.
When they closed down the cod fishery, they said it was gone. I asked a few old sea salts about it. They said they'd seen it all before. I was told about the time the fish left this area, and they all had to go to the Labrador.
This fishery was good and some people made it a way of life, to pack up and head North every spring. But then the cod disappeared from the Labrador and became plentiful up here again.
Why did the cod leave and come back? We'd leave to if conditions weren't to our liking. Hmmm, the people of the outports have been doing that since they first come here. Over the years, some have moved to the States. Most had moved to Ontario and Alberta. But most of them have come back.
Fish have tails and they can swim. If the conditions are not right, they will leave. They have the right to find a better place to live. And we all have the same basic rights. Do politicians cross the floor when things are not to their liking? If you study history you would find out that John Crosby did that a couple of times.
Now I will get back to the recreational fishery again. Now, this is one thing I just can't fathom, and I'm going to stomp on people's toes. Now, I don't want to, but I have to speak my mind.
We often heard our Union say, the fishery is our livelihood and a business. Now if it's our livelihood and a business, how come we are giving it away? Now, five fish a day for two weeks comes to 70 fish. If his wife went out with him, it would be 140 fish. Take along one child and it would be 210 fish. That's a lot of fish to be losing.
What would happen if we go to some supermarket for two weeks and take five chickens per person per day. Why can't all business give stuff away to the public.
Now, if fishing is a business, why can't they buy from the fishermen? And have a catch and release for the sportsmen. Go out there and spend the whole day hauling in fish, record it on cameras, then release it.
I can feel it coming. They are getting ready to bad mouth the fishermen. And you know what? The fishermen themselves are just as bad or worse than the sportsman.
Know what? Not even Danny Williams can straighten out the fishermen and the fishery. Only God can do that, and He will have a hard time of it.
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