Canada Urges France to Back Off Plan for Snow Crab Fishery Off Coast of Newfoundland

Canada’s fisheries minister is encouraging France to abandon its plan to launch a snow crab fishery in waters near Newfoundland and the French territory of St-Pierre-Miquelon. In a post on social media, Joanne Thompson says she’s disappointed that France is acting unilaterally. The news comes after Prime Minister Mark Carney visited French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this month in St-Pierre-Miquelon, a small archipelago about 25 kilometres from Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula. According to French news outlet franceinfo, Macron promised an exploratory snow crab licence to a local fishing company during his visit to the islands. Thompson says the promised licence is in waters beyond Canada’s 200-nautical-mile economic exclusion zone, in a region Canada has claimed through the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.