Some Day the Sun Will Shine and Have Not Will Be No More

by Brian Peckford

  There were many studies, but little real progress was made of addressing the fundamentals of the industry. The Nordco report (page 48) highlights this issue: “Within five years of the 1967 Royal Commission, the ‘fisheries–rationalization’ policy was in shambles.”

  And David Alexander in his book The Decay of Trade expresses a similar view:

  What seems utterly absurd is that Newfoundland’s restoration as a major producer of fishery products has not been accomplished during the breathing space provided through union with Canada. Integrating with a larger country should have made recovery much easier by lowering overhead costs, providing scale economies with new social and economic services, and making available low cost development capital. (12)

  With the election of Frank Moores as premier in 1972, a more interested and assertive provincial administration regarding the fishery was finally in place. A 1973 planning exercise ensued, which involved a push to ensure that the foreign catch of northern cod be caught by Canadians (and most particularly by those closest to the resource—Newfoundlanders), and importantly that there “be greater Federal-Provincial consultation in the determination of Canada’s position at ICNAF meetings.” (Nordco report, 49)

  Finally, the province was beginning to assert that it had a role in the formulation of fishery policy off our coast. This position expanded throughout the 1970s as the province further developed this aspect of its policy, becoming even more certain with the five-volume “Setting a Course” report, which said among other things: “In view of the major impact which the Fisheries sector will have (as the stocks recovered as a result of the 200-mile limit and better resource management) on the local economy in the years ahead, it is desirable that the province should have a major input into Fisheries policy at every level.”

  The Nordco report noted another important point: “In ‘Setting a Course, ’ the province has re-affirmed its intention to consider the social and economic needs of fishing regions in discussing plans for the fishery. This policy objective was in sharp contrast to the ‘resettlement mentality’ which had informed Fisheries policy some two decades earlier and as late as 1967 in the Royal Commission of that year.”

  The province strengthened its position on this issue in its white paper of 1978: “The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador holds the view that the limited participatory role by the provinces in the decision making process by the federal government relating to marine resources management must be replaced by one in which Newfoundland and the other provinces play a meaningful role in the decisions respecting resource management and all Fisheries-related matters.”

  The coming of the 200-mile limit, with attendant (temporary) larger fish volumes, and the federal government policy, which recognized the Newfoundland inshore effort, focused attention on how best to now manage the resurgent northern cod resource. Of course this is what led the Moores government, and later my administration, to call for greater involvement of the province in fishery policy matters. Unfortunately, the federal government had no intention of involving the province, and hence the province proceeded to try and persuade the federal government otherwise.

  Three major documents stand out:

  The August 18, 1980, “Towards the First Century Together: The Position of the Government of Newfoundland Regarding Constitutional Change.”

  The Nordco report “It Were Well to Live Mainly Off Fish,” commissioned by my administration and published in February, 1981.

  The five-year plan entitled “Managing All Our Resources,” promised in my first Throne Speech and published in October, 1980.

  I have already referenced the Nordco report. The other documents are ones produced internally by my administration and clearly articulate the province’s position on the fishery and the desire to have greater say in it.

  In the five-year plan concerning the rising projections for northern cod we noted:

  Before this catch can be harvested, the future management regime for the northern cod stock must be resolved by bilateral discussions between the Government of Newfoundland and the Government of Canada. The significance of this stock to Newfoundland and Labrador is overwhelming. It is the sole basis of our cod fishery from Cape Chidley to Cape St. Mary’s.

  It went on to say:

  A more structured federal-provincial decision making process based upon written principles and procedures has to be developed, all decisions must relate to written management objectives, and public hearings procedures must be developed so that proposed government actions may be reviewed.

  The application of these measures would be acceptable on an interim basis; the long-term solution must be entrenchment of provincial management rights in the constitution. To achieve this, there must be realignment of present jurisdictional responsibilities.

  This was clearly defined a few months earlier in the already mentioned Constitutional Position document.

  This was all hugely important for me at that time and for those close to this policy in the government. We were only too aware of our history, both distant and recent, of remote control fishery management and its disastrous results.

  Driving our position was also the knowledge that the federal government had changed its position at the Law of the Sea talks from one supporting our position of instituting national control to the end of the continental shelf to just 200 miles, and then insisting that they could, with their bargaining power, ensure that Canadian standards of management and conservation would apply beyond 200 miles to the continental margin, a position that was not sustained after the treaty. A gigantic mistake to so trust the federal government! We had had other earlier promises by Great Britain of having our own government restored after its suspension in the 1930s, only to see this, a broken commitment.

  Everyone seemed to ignore the geographic fact that the continental shelf off Newfoundland extended beyond 200 miles in the areas known as the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and Flemish Cap, where fish spawning was prolific and necessary to manage for the integrity of the fish resource inside the 200-miles area. Pierre Trudeau, in what he thought would be a clever put-down of me and the province rather than a display of fisheries ignorance, expressed his view at a publicly televised conference about the fish having international and national dimensions, that fish swim, only to be reminded by me that fish swim, all right, in our context from offshore Newfoundland to inshore Newfoundland waters. I am unsure whether the national press fully grasped the significance of my statement, given their later infatuation with Brian Tobin’s silly Spanish public relations efforts concerning the minor turbot species flap, long after the cod had disappeared and on which he did precious little when he was an MP.

  There is a fourth document: my letter of December 16, 1980, to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, which, perhaps more than anything else demonstrates the gigantic hill we were trying to climb given the blatant lack of concern of Newfoundland interests by the federal government. The letter highlights three issues concerning federal action dealing with the fishery:

  The announced decision to establish an additional fishery region for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, headquartered in Moncton, New Brunswick, without any consultation with the province.

  The intent of the federal government to introduce a new licensing policy that would see for the first time a specific quota for the inshore fishery, contrary to advice the province had provided.

  And, if anything else could be more galling to a Newfoundlander, the trading of some of our northern cod stock to foreign nations for trade concessions of dubious value.

  My letter ends with this:

  From the foregoing, you will see that from our perspective there has not been sufficient or proper consultation with the Government of Newfoundland on these matters. It is my belief that the kind of consultation which is necessary for coordinated action will only be possible when responsibility for these decisions is jointly held. This belief was at the centre of our proposals for concurrent jurisdiction during the constitutional discu
ssions and I am convinced that present evidence demonstrates the necessity of achieving constitutional change.

  In conclusion, I would re-emphasize my grave concern over the three specific initiatives to which I have referred and urge that the process of implementation of these initiatives be suspended until such time as more extensive consultations can take place, and we have the benefit of the findings of the Royal Commission presently examining the Newfoundland fishery. Moreover, I would urge you that any proposals for such fundamental change in the fishery be subjected to a process of public hearings before decisions are finally taken and that any such decision, when taken, be reasoned in light of the evidence presented.

  Seven years later little had changed, even though we had our Conservative brethren as the government in Ottawa. On October 8, 1987, I was forced to write the following to John Crosbie, our Newfoundland representative in the Cabinet, concerning Canada’s actions with France and the fishery:

  The Government of Canada has offered non-surplus 2J3KL [northern cod] to France. The Government of Canada offers this non-surplus fish without any commitment from France to stop overfishing in 3PS [another fishing zone off Newfoundland]. How can you argue that you are safeguarding Newfoundland and Labrador’s interests when you agree to give France non-surplus cod, when our inshore fishery has failed four years in a row, when most of our fish plants are only open for three or four months of the year, when we have the highest unemployment in Canada? Giving away more of our fish only ensures that UIC [EI] dependence will persist and our chances of longer-term employment for our people will diminish.

  Parenthetically, we were also sent a bill by the Canadian embassy in Paris when our delegation had eaten there when we were “allowed” to be observers at some of the meetings with the Europeans. Lucien Bouchard was then the Canadian ambassador. Needless to say, we didn’t pay it but informed Ottawa of the insult. Our own Joe Clark was the minister of External Affairs at the time.

  Yet, notwithstanding all of this, we almost succeeded in our constitutional quest on the fishery. Most of the provinces were on board and it looked like we could see a breakthrough. However, the federal government remained stubborn on the issue, and with the prime minster’s unilateral efforts at patriation, such issues as the fishery became secondary as the provinces fought to ensure that the prime minister’s folly at unilateralism would fail, which thankfully the Supreme Court confirmed.

  Through all of this, three of the major fish companies operating in the province ran into financial difficulty, and after delicate talks with the federal government it was agreed that a new entity would be formed, Fishery Products International, taking the assets from the three failing companies and merging them into this new entity, plus around $110 million. This company became a success and traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The management of the company, headlined by the highly competent Victor Young, ran an efficient operation, and had established a productive relationship with the communities where it operated. A special piece of legislation was passed in the legislature giving effect to all this and with provisions protecting Newfoundland’s interests. Sadly, success in the fishery seems to infect us with some sort of suicidal virus, as interests from outside and inside the province vied for control of the company, and with a passive, if not willing provincial government, the provisions to protect the province’s interests were dissolved and these interests succeeded in taking over the company. And while it is true now that many of the assets are now owned by Newfoundland interests, the grand entente between the government and local business interests, given the unique nature of the inshore fishery, has been lost and that is to the detriment of rural Newfoundland.

  To add insult to injury, it was not long before the fears we expressed in 1980 and the warnings of many fishermen became a reality with the collapse of the ground fishery and its closure, heralding an end to rural Newfoundland as we knew it.

  Our fight to gain some say or control was not universal in Newfoundland, which, of course, did not help our case with Ottawa, with the provincial Liberals being ambiguous at best. The Fishermen’s Union, in its conflicted position of representing offshore trawlermen, inshore fishermen, and fish plant workers, and having their own contacts in the federal bureaucracy, were not co-operative.

  Of course, just about everyone agrees now that the province should be more involved in fisheries management. Only one problem—there isn’t any northern cod.

  Dr. Leslie Harris, in his report (Northern Cod Review Panel, March, 1990) on the northern cod disappearance, highlighted a number of issues that the province had been advocating for years and decades regarding foreign fishing, extending national jurisdiction, joint management, and the principal of adjacency.

  That Canada should seek international agreement to permit its management of all fish stocks indigenous to the Canadian continental shelf and that extend beyond the 200-mile economic zone; and, that failing achievement of this objective, Canada should take unilateral action to acquire management rights in accordance with provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention.

  That the Government of Canada should re-examine its policies regarding the authorization of foreign fisheries within the Canadian economic management zone with the clear intention of eliminating any catch or bycatch of cod.

  That Canada officially adopt a policy analogous to the Hague Preferences that would take into account in respect of stock allocations both the principle of contiguity and the “vital needs” of particular communities particularly depending upon fishing and industries allied thereto.

  And he further elaborated that “the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador should jointly establish a Board or Commission in the context of which information can be shared, management objectives clarified and coordinated, policy directions set, and strategies developed.”

  Mr. Leslie Dean, former deputy minister and assistant deputy minister of Fisheries for the province, in a well-argued presentation ( “Transition and Change: The Fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador Society”) before the Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada, in March, 2003, said, “A solid collaborative policy approach is critical to the rebuilding of the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery on a viable and sustainable foundation” (10).

  The Commission itself in its final report (June, 2003) highlighted its concern for the fishery by using the title “The Last Chance for the Fishery,” and in most of its recommendations echoed what I (and the government I had led) had been saying twenty-five years earlier: joint management and unilateral action by the Government of Canada concerning the crucial fishing areas outside the 200-mile limit.

  In 2005, I wrote a letter on the subject.

  My thesis has not changed: the fishery of Newfoundland and Labrador could have sustained much of rural Newfoundland. It was mismanaged; we should never have transferred the powers over the fishery to the federal government in 1949, and Smallwood’s push to industrialize and ignore the fishery further exacerbated the eroding influence over the fishery. This transfer of power, the decades-long mismanagement, including the inaction of the federal government on foreign fishing and also our own inaction led by Smallwood, sealed our fate. We thought we couldn’t fight the hand that supposedly fed us. The later formation of the union—at first a good thing but later mired in internal conflicts between the south coast dragger fleet, fish plant workers, and inshore fishers—diluted its effectiveness for the all-important inshore fishery, which was critical for a viable rural Newfoundland.

  So in the last fifty years of the 20th century it was first the transfer of powers (and that is the most important factor), then our being led to downplay it in the 1950s and 1960s, the conflicted structure of the fishery both from a corporate and union point of view, and then EI and all the rest that came later.

  During the Patriation process of the early 1980s, I had all the provinces on-side to consider changes to fishery powers, but the Feds said no.

  Looking back now,
it is sad to think that Newfoundland as a society could not come together on such a vital issue as this. What, I wonder, does it say about us?

  And so the first of our three major actions failed—perhaps the one that of the three had the best chance over time to maintain a viable rural way of life in coastal Newfoundland and Labrador.

  We were dejected, yet there were many people who continued to support our agenda, and my visits to rural Newfoundland invigorated my spirit, like a visit to my new friend in Pilley’s Island.

  I was told that Wesley Pittman of Pilley’s Island was a hardcase. When, in 1972, I was into my first campaign in Green Bay District, the boys from Pilley’s who were introducing me around told me I would have to make a courtesy call on Skipper Wes. I called him a hardcase because he had a bit of a name. That’s what the boys said, and the boys knew, and given that I needed them (much more than they realized), I wasn’t going to argue. It seems he owned a few schooners years back and fished them off Labrador like many fishermen from Newfoundland did in those times. Apparently he lost a couple of them—storms, he said—but the boys, well, they said there was this dirty rumour making the rounds for years that they were insurance jobs. To my knowledge, they never, ever confronted Skipper Wes with this. Perhaps it was just good juicy gossip over a beer or shots of moonshine or just plain jealousy. Gossip in small communities was a wonderful thing; it kept people busy during the long winter nights, and the last thing you wanted was asking someone who would know some contrary information concerning it. Doing that might explode all that yarning—it was like a disease, and worse than most. I figured the boys wanted a subject for gossip and perhaps had some genuine envy because, notwithstanding Wes’s sparse surroundings, he had, everyone said, “a bit of money.” But Wes insisted to me, “I worked bloody hard for what I got and it ain’t very much.”