OTTAWA — The Newfoundland and Labrador cod fishery can be kept open if tough measures, including a bigger seal kill, are brought in, an all-party committee said Monday.

The committee of federal and provincial politicians presented a report to Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault which recommended that a limited fishery be kept going in some areas. Simply closing the fishery, as was done 10 years ago, "is not the answer," said Newfoundland Premier Roger Grimes.

In 1992, Ottawa imposed a moratorium designed to restore depleted groundfish stocks and in 1998 the moratorium was lifted to allow a drastically scaled-back cod fishery.

However, surveys during the last four years suggest the northern cod population has since declined, and the quota is currently 5,600 tonnes, just two per cent of what it averaged in the 1980s.

Ottawa is expected to announce a decision by early April on conservation measures for the 2003 season and could close the remaining fishery off the south coast of Labrador, the entire Gulf of St. Lawrence and waters surrounding Newfoundland, except its southern coast.

Earlier this month, George Rose, a member of the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, told fishermen that it may be time to take drastic action.

"It's kind of a last resort that we say we can't fish any more in Newfoundland," he said. "It's a last resort but maybe we've come to that."

John Efford, a Liberal MP who was chairman of the all-party committee, said Thibault assured them that no decision on closure has been made.

Grimes said the science of measuring fish stocks is debatable. While some researchers say the fishery has to stop if the fish are ever to rebound, others aren't so sure.

The committee said fishermen aren't wiping out the cod stocks. It said a growing seal population and foreign overfishing are doing the real damage.

The report suggested that the seal population be cut by half in certain areas.

Among the 19 recommendations in the report were calls for measures to protect capelin, the small, herring-like fish which is the main food for cod, as well as other fish and birds.

"A moratorium must be placed on the commercial capelin fishery."

As well, the plan would place limits on the kind of gear allowed in the fishery, close certain areas to fishing and impose strict enforcement of conservation measures.

Grimes said the fact that federal and provincial legislators from three parties put aside political differences to draw up this report shows how important the fishery is to the province.

"The issue is higher, above and beyond politics," he said.

The politicians said that Newfoundland without the cod fishery is like Ontario without its auto plants or British Columbia without forestry.