Email to RA Committee on Offshore Wind Development in NL

Good evening,

I am writing to express disappointment in the latest engagement effort by the Regional Assessment (RA) Committee on Offshore Wind in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). In particular, on the Committee's use of their 'Fishery and Other Ocean Users' advisory group to present their latest work that has identified "preliminary offshore wind licencing area recommendations" (attached for reference).

As a member of this advisory group, I recieved the attached presentation on the afternoon of Friday, February 23^rd and was subsequently provided an overview of its contents by the RA Committee at a meeting of the advisory group that next Tuesday, February 27. At this meeting, we were advised by the Committee that in order for our perspectives to be incorporated into the Committee's March 2024 interim report, we must provide feedback by March 1^st - a mere 3 days later. This is an absolutely insufficient and unacceptable turnaround time for our members to meaningfully contribute to this important work.

Not only is 3 days impossible under normal circumstances for us to analyse the infromation, meaningful consult our members, and provide a response, this is one of the busiest times of year for the fishing industry, with countless fisheries advisory meetings underway in preparation for opening of the 2024 fishing season.

Please understand that we are not against greener energy initiatives and we are optimistic that a healthy co-existence between our industry and the newly emerging offshore renewable energy industry can eventually be achieved. However, the road to a achieving a healthy co-existence must be paved carefully, with early and dedicated engagement. The fishing industry in NL has been the backbone of the Province socially, culturally, and economically for generations. We cannot be an afterthought in the development of advice and recommendations by the RA Committee for potentially suitable wind energy development areas in the very waters our industry has been operating in long before these new initiatives. 

Finally, we must highlight that the 'Fishery and Other Ocean Users' advisory group has not been used as an effective engagement venue. We observe that earlier meetings of this group were needed to discuss the Committee's planned approach for this analysis and to solicit input from our associations to better inform the constraints analysis and "potential future offshore wind licencing area recommendations". It seems much of this work has progressed without our feedback and has now been presented to advisory members with no real opportunity to meaningfully contribute in time to affect the March 2024 interim report. 

We recgnize that the March interim report is not the final RA Committee report; hwoever, the Committee has already gone quite far down the path of this analysis in one direction without integrating the perspectives of the fishing industry, where it has become much more difficult for the Committee to consider alternative approaches.

Given the insufficient time allotted to provide our perspectives in advance on the RA Committee's March interim report, our associations will not be providing written feedback to the Committee on the attached document.

We hope for better opportunities for earlier and more meaningful engagement in the near future.

Sincerely,