Quebec waived 1,200 fishing tickets over French-only document

Quebecwaived more than 1,200 tickets for fishing infractions last year after a North Shore lawyer successfully challenged their constitutionality.

The reason? The province's 586-page annual publication of fishing rules and regulations hadn't been translated into English.

It's likely nearly all fishermen ticketed for various infractions were French-speaking.

However, the province'sDirector of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) decided that the same rules applied to everyone, regardless oflanguage spoken.

As a result, the DPCP abandoned all infractions for which fishermen were issued tickets between the court's ruling in October2015 and June2016, when the publication was finally translated.

"Laxity led to the document not being translated to English," said Sylvain Roy, the Parti Qubcoiswildlife critic and MNA for Bonaventure, who brought the issue up at parliamentary committee meeting earlier this week.

Roy said because fisheries fall under federal jurisdiction, the North Shore lawyer successfullyargued that the unilingualFrench document was unconstitutional.

The DPCPconfirmed Roy's explanation, saying it had no choice but to drop all similar casesuntil the rules and regulations wereavailable in both English and French.

'Like a Jordan ruling for wildlife'

Roy. a sports fishing enthusiast,said he doesn't understand why provincialwildlifeofficersweren't told about the ruling immediately, in October 2015.

"Close to 400 wildlife officersin Quebec were working on cases related to fishing infractions, without knowledge that their work was completely useless," Roy said.

"They let offenders off the hook," he said.

"It's almost like a Jordan ruling for wildlife, where the capacity of prosecutors to do their jobs was hindered."

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The Minister of Forests, Wildlife and Parks, Luc Blanchette, told Radio-Canada that the decision to drop the cases was the DPCP's to make.

The spokespersonfor the ministry hasn't yet replied to CBC's request for comment.