The press described the provinces who opposed the federal action the Gang of Eight, not a particularly positive initial description but one that would stick, given the press’s penchant of favouring the federal position and erroneously seeing the eight opposing provinces as obstructionists rather than concerned leaders about how our country was to evolve.
The actions of the eight were not simply to challenge the proposal in Canada but also in London, where Newfoundland made a submission to the Select Committee on Foreign Relations of the House of Commons, calling on that body to reject the Canadian government’s unilateral bill.
On March 31 (an ironic time given that Newfoundland’s entry into Canada occurred at the stroke of midnight March 31, 1949), the Newfoundland Court of Appeal in a unanimous decision ruled the federal resolution to be illegal and that the federal government could not unilaterally change Newfoundland’s Terms of Union with Canada. Then on April 8 the parties in the House of Commons reached an agreement to delay any vote on the constitutional measure until the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its decision on the constitutionality of the measure. Finally, on September 28, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the federal measure to be unconstitutional: “We have reached the conclusion that the agreement of the provinces of Canada, no views being expressed as to its quantification, is constitutionally required for the passing of the ‘Proposed Resolution for a Joint Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada’ and that the passing of this Resolution without such agreement would be unconstitutional in the conventional sense.”
To this day the federal government characterizes this major defeat this way:
In view of the opposition to this proposal, doubts expressed about the legality of the procedure and opinions given by the courts of appeal of Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland, the issue went to the Supreme Court of Canada. On 28 September 1981, the Supreme Court reached a majority conclusion that the federal initiative was legal; however, it expressed reservations about its legitimacy on the ground that it would run counter to the conventions and the spirit of the federal system. ( “The Constitution of Canada: A Brief History of Amending Procedure Discussions”)
And so this attempt by the federal government to fundamentally and unilaterally alter the Constitution of Canada went down to crushing defeat. Following this, Prime Minister Trudeau needed the provinces’ support to carry out his constitutional project. Is there another democracy where a prime minister has so brazenly tried to impose his personal vision unto the people? And to think, two provinces saw no problem with such an effort!
And so all parties were back to the drawing board for Constitution making, with thankfully a more reasonable federal government.
The momentous days were from November 3-5, 1981. On November 5, the Constitution of 1981 was born! Through the evening of November 4, meeting in the Château Laurier Hotel, the four premiers of PEI, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland, with senior designates from Premier Lougheed of Alberta and Premier Bennett of British Columbia, worked on a proposal presented by Newfoundland. By 12: 30 a.m., this proposal, with some changes, was agreed to and retyped. It was agreed that I would present this amended Newfoundland proposal to the Gang of Eight’s scheduled breakfast meeting that morning. Seven of the eight provinces agreed with the proposal without further amendment. Quebec opposed it. It was agreed by the seven that I would present this proposal to the full conference later that morning. Upon invitation from the prime minister, who was aware that there was a new provincial proposal, I presented the proposal and after a number of hours of discussion and additional amendments, the Patriation Agreement was born.
This series of events got very mangled later by various commentators, journalists, “scholars,” and authors, and for thirty years the real story of how the deal came together was submerged. Full elaboration on this sad state of affairs is explained in Appendix I.
The immediate, large issues of the day here enumerated only strengthened our resolve that as important as they were, they could not lead (alone or in combination) to the goal that we sought: real, fundamental change leading to a proud and self-reliant place—a “have” province.
* * *
1 Though NLDC was later disbanded by the Wells administration, and initiatives such as the Youth Entrepreneur Program were lost, it is interesting to note that the concepts developed at NLDC were re-introduced some years later within the Youth Ventures and Seed Capital programs promoted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Community Business Development Corporations. In 2010, the province, through the Department of Innovation, Trade and Rural Development, also “reintroduced” a Young Entrepreneurs and Innovators Program.
CHAPTER 7: THE BIG PICTURE—
THE GAME CHANGERS
CHANGE ISSUE #1—THE FISHERY
“The Newfoundland and Labrador cod, the so-called northern stock, are pretty fish with amber leopard spots on an olive green back, a white belly, and the long white streamlining stripe between the belly and the spotted back.”
— Mark Kurlansky
“The history of Newfoundland, especially its earliest annals, is essentially a history of the cod fishery.”
— D. W. Prowse
EACH TIME I THINK of fish I think of growing up in Marystown and how the cod fishermen cursed the crabs that would get tangled in their nets (a far cry from the lucrative crab fishery of decades later). I think of the older, retired inshore fishermen yarning in Thoms’s store in La Scie and of my visit to the Horse Islands in the spring as sealing gave way to cod fishing. I think of the Canning family of Englee, a highliner fishing family who did not have time to complain as they toiled each spring and summer morning at 4: 00 a.m., steering their trap skiff around the harbour headlands. I think of being in the trap skiff with the fishermen as we left Sandy Hook, southern Labrador, at 3: 30 a.m. to head to the fishing grounds. I think of the Wentzels of Tub Harbour, the Rossiters of Snug Harbour, the Bradleys of Indian Harbour, of George and Mabel on Square Islands, and my friend in Croque to whom I loaned thirty-five dollars for food so he would not be dependent on the merchant, along with the hundreds of other fishermen around the island and off the coast of Labrador. When I think of fish I think of my grandfather Peckford with his fishing rooms at the Battery in St. John’s, and others in Bay Bulls on the Southern Shore.
It was a hard life, but a good one and a special one. Yet we were just not making it.
Two of Newfoundland’s biggest long-term resource mistakes concerned fish and water power.
I remember Gordon Winter, who was lieutenant-governor during my first three years as premier. He was one of the signatories to the Terms of Union with Canada in 1949. He, of course, had been reading the debates I was having concerning fish, water power, and the new offshore oil and gas potential.
Mr. Winter was not one to speak brashly or quickly. He gave everything a lot of thought. One day he and I were alone in his office at Government House reviewing some matter of mutual interest when he changed the subject and began asking me questions about my position on the fishery. A very interesting discussion ensued as we both debated the merits of federal versus provincial control of the fishery. Of course, I was quick to point out that it was not a matter of either/or, but a shared issue, truly in the spirit of the Confederation and the British North America Act of 1867 where certain matters were exclusively federal or provincial jurisdiction. But in other areas there was a dual responsibility between the federal and provincial governments. I could see that Mr. Winter had been mulling over this whole matter for quite some time and was uncharacteristically exercised about it. At the end of the discussion, which must have lasted a couple of hours, he looked directly at me and uttered, “Yes, I agree now. I think we made a big mistake in the Terms of Union concerning the fishery. We should still have some real say in the fishery.”
It is an irony not lost on those of us who are interested in Newfoundland resource history, and the fishery in particular, of that which h
ad helped mould our culture and make us who we are, that throughout our long history (1497 to 2012, spanning 515 years) we were virtually in control of our fishery for only thirty—yes, thirty— years.
From 1497 to 1587 Newfoundland was visited by several nations who fished its surrounding waters and took the fish back to their countries. The English did the same, with, however, an increasing number of English fishermen squatting on land in the various coves and inlets on the eastern part of the island, but always controlled by the English merchants and fishing admirals. After Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for England in 1583, the same mode of operation continued, with settlement legally prohibited, but with some English staying. The fishery was totally controlled by England and other countries.
The Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 gave the French certain fishing rights, and although they were unable to legally settle, the French in Article 13 were allowed “to catch fish, and dry them on land, in that part only, and in no other besides that, of the said island of Newfoundland, which stretches from the place called Cape Bonavista to the northern point of the said island, and from thence running down by the western side, reaches as far as the place called Pointe Riche” (Noel, 11).
So from 1713 onward both England and France were fishing legally the waters off the east coast of Newfoundland, with the French, as S. J. R. Noel says in his book Politics in Newfoundland: “France had nevertheless retained for her subjects important rights of easement upon a thousand miles, or roughly one-third, of its [Newfoundland’s] coast” (11).
And the great democratic movements that brought Representative Government to the island in 1832, and full Responsible Government (self-governing dominion) in 1855, still saw this treaty in full force. And although changes were made in 1783 through the Treaty of Versailles that excluded the French fishing rights to two bays on the east coast, such rights were extended on the west coast of the island, which really gave the French more coastline than under the agreement it replaced.
Noel makes the important point:
Since the colony of Newfoundland was entirely dependent upon the fishery, responsible government was inevitably weakened if the colony could not regulate its most vital natural resource. In such important matters as Fisheries conservation the French could ignore colonial legislation with impunity. Also, Newfoundlanders bitterly resented the fact that the government-subsidized French fishery, by selling its produce at an artificially low price in southern Europe, tended to depress the value of Newfoundland’s stable export in its largest market. (12)
In one of the truly great moments in Newfoundland history, further changes in French fishing rights were made (1857 convention between England and France), ostensibly to relieve the present tensions between Newfoundlanders and French fishing interests, only to see the French gain a more secure foothold through such arrangements. This caused an uproar in the country and led to a special resolution in the legislature condemning
[a]ny attempt to alienate any portion of our fisheries or our soil to any foreign power, without the consent of the local legislature. As our fishery and territorial rights constitute the basis of our commerce and of our social and political existence, as they are our birthright and the legal inheritance of our children, we cannot under any circumstances assent to the terms of the convention. (Noel, 13)
As a result of this resolution, the prime minister and the Leader of the Opposition went to London and persuaded the British colonial secretary, Henry Labouchere, to withdraw the convention and later in a communication to the governor of Newfoundland conceded:
The rights enjoyed by the community in Newfoundland are not to be ceded or exchanged without their consent, and that the constitutional mode of submitting matters for that consent is by laying them before the colonial legislature; and that the consent of the community of Newfoundland is regarded by Her Majesty’s government as the essential preliminary to any modification of their territorial and maritime rights. (Noel, 14)
Of course, the previous French fishing rights of the Treaty of Versailles prevailed, and hence Newfoundland continued to try and succeed as a society, even though the reason for its existence, its fishery, was not truly under its control.
Finally, a half-century later in 1904, with international events elsewhere in play involving England and France, an agreement between the two countries was reached, which saw the fishing rights of France in Newfoundland exchanged for previous English territorial rights in West Africa.
I will let Noel have the last word on the end of a sad tale that lasted centuries, on the one hand, and the optimism that the new agreement engendered:
With the signing of the convention the prolonged struggle of the Newfoundland colonists to control the island’s territory and resources came to an end. Newfoundland was at last master of its own house, politically as well as constitutionally, the equal of the other self-governing dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. St. John’s was en fête for several days and Newfoundlanders everywhere looked forward with Prime Minister Sir Robert Bond: “to the time when even the memory of the French presence will fade like a fevered dream before the brightness of a new day.”
So from 1904 to 1934 Newfoundland had control over its fishery. Sadly, 1904 was just seeing the results of the great railway fiasco, and a year later the beginning of the Grand Falls mill giveaway, to be followed, early in the 1920s, with the Corner Brook mill sellout.
There had emerged in the last few decades of the nineteenth century the view that the island was laden with resources and that a railway would tap this great potential, unleashing a great prosperity across the country. The vast timber resources would be seen for their great wealth and further prosperity could be assured. The problem with this notion, as I pointed out in my earlier book, The Past in the Present, was that if this were the case, why in heaven’s name did we have to give so much away to get the Grand Falls and Corner Brook mills and the railway? It either made economic sense or it didn’t. Hence, in the midst of this great industrial push, little was done on the real resource on which the country depended. The Amulree Commission’s Report, which led to the suspension of self-government, tellingly points out: “We have already emphasized the fact that the fishery is the mainstay of the country—policies pursued by successive governments in recent years have tended to obscure this essential and all-important consideration.”
And prophetically, given the later Smallwood government debacle of the Upper Churchill Falls contract and other concessions to Brinco, the Commission stated, “Unless this process [of major concessions to outside interests] is checked, similar results may be expected to follow in Labrador, which promises to become a favourite resort for concession-hunters.”
And so the thirty short years of fisheries control saw us squander the first opportunity in our history to be masters of the very reason for our presence in this part of the world. Whiteway, Morris, and Squires had spun their toxic political rhetoric upon the country.
A report that I had commissioned after I became premier and that was conducted by Nordco, entitled, “It were well to live mainly off fish,” makes a valid point on page 25 when it states, “The conspicuous lack of development of Newfoundland’s fishing industry, during these early decades of the 20th century, left her in a disadvantageous position to compete in the world markets against rapidly developing fishing industries of nations like Iceland and Norway.”
One would think that with the opportunity of Confederation with Canada in 1949 being the option that Newfoundlanders chose (at least according to what we know), our negotiators would have realized that Newfoundland needed another opportunity on doing it right on the fishery.
But it was not to be.
And now looking back on it, how could it be, really? I mean, what is thirty years, especially when you spend most of your time on other things like giving away forest rights and mineral rights? And look at the Newfoundland representatives who negotiated the deal: Albert Walsh, who had been a supporter of Squires, did
well off the Commission of Government and became the first lieutenant-governor after Confederation; Philip Gruchy, manager of the Grand Falls mill, hardly an expert in the fishery; John B. McEvoy, a St. John’s–born lawyer, trained in Halifax, worked as a legislative librarian in Halifax and later as a lawyer in St. John’s—not your rural fisherman type; and Gordon A. Winter, St. John’s-born and of the urban merchant class, unconnected to the fishery.
And then there was Joseph R. Smallwood, a Squires admirer and author of the 1931 book The New Newfoundland with its opening statement: “After more than three centuries’ existence as a remote and obscure cod fishing country Newfoundland in the past decade or so has entered upon a new march that is destined to place her, within the next dozen years, in the front rank of the great small nations of the world. That new march is toward modern large-scale industrialism.”
And so Confederation saw, for the first time by our own hand, the transfer of all meaningful say in the fishery to the bureaucrats on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa. And things did not get better. Smallwood, true to his philosophy of the 1930s, proceeded to fulfill his obsession with industrialization. A long series of enterprises was started and failed, and all the while the federal government was improving the social condition of the people through family allowances and old-age pensions but doing little of substance with the fishery. As a matter of fact, significant increases in northern cod catch by foreigners were beginning to occur; Nordco points out in their report that it rose from 40,635 tonnes in 1953 to a whopping 659,000 tonnes in 1968. In contrast, in 1968 the total inshore and offshore catch by Newfoundland was 121,000 tonnes.
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