OCI Gets Approval for Yellowtail Exemption

Newfoundland and Labrador’s Fisheries Minister Clyde Jackman has  granted Ocean Choice International (OCI) an exemption in the size of un-processed yellowtail that can be shipped outside the province. But the minister says it is conditional.
Ocean Choice requested the exemption in January saying current regulations that require small yellowtail flounder must be processed in this province. Yellowtail is  the main species processed at the OCI’s Marystown plant but the company argues that processing in Newfoundland was economically unfeasible.
The company has left a sizeable portion of its yellowtail quota in the water for the past several years, because it wasn't feasible to catch and process the fish sop they asked for an exemption to the government policy.
The exemption will allow the company to catch the unused quota and ship out fish up to 450 grams whole and process the larger, higher profit-yielding yellowtail in the Marystown plant.
The company suggested the change would employ approximately 250 workers at the fish plant for 35 weeks.
OCI said that without the exemption they were forced to look at fewer workers and fewer weeks. Another proposed option suggested not operating at all in 2010.
The minister is granting the exemption for one year only, at the end of which another financial review will determine whether the situation has improved. He said they had a financial analysis done before deciding to grant OCI’s request.
As part of the conditional package attached to the approval, government wants the company to agree to unannounced inspections at the facility, for which he said reports would be made available to the employees.
Finally, he said OCI must immediately modify its harvesting plan to catch as much of the unused quota as possible.