Rough weather
 
There’s blame aplenty in the Maritimes, but no solid solutions for communities -- and an industry -- in crisis. A snapshot in time in the partial collapse of Atlantic Canada’s fishing industry Published: Financial Post,August 28, 1993, Spectrum By Deborah Jones/Lunenburg, Nova Scotia The past and the future of Atlantic Canada's fishery meet on the harborfront of this community on Nova Scotia's south shore. Here, tourists flock to the provincial Fishery Museum of the Atlantic to view the history of what once was a booming industry. With sculptures and paintings, aquariums and rooms full of fishing artifacts, the provincial museum pays homage to cod, the so- called King of Fish which lured Europeans to settle in Atlantic Canada nearly half a millennium ago, and which has supported generations of fishing communities on the region's rocky shores. But a stone's throw away from the museum, lies one of the world's most modern fish-processing plants - the flagship Lunenburg operation of Halifax-based National Sea Products Ltd. - and a symbol of a dying culture. Outside, a fleet of NatSea fishing vessels hulk beside a wharf, idled by the lack of groundfish like cod, haddock and pollock in their own waters. Inside, a skeleton workforce of 450 people packages dinners from imported fish caught half a world away in the Barents Sea. Atlantic Canada's own groundfish, once so numerous that explorers like John Cabot told of catching them by merely dipping a basket into the ocean, have all but disappeared, idling plants, grounding boats and putting the livelihoods of thousands of people in limbo. "There's not much cod anywhere right now," says a museum interpreter, gazing at a model of Atlantic Canada's vast and once- rich coastline. The frustration and anger is everywhere. Up the coast in Shelburne, N.S., residents upset about the region's disappearing fish stocks made worldwide headlines this summer by blockading a Russian ship delivering frozen cod to local processing plants. And radical environmentalist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society raged against foreign fishing vessels plying the high seas off Newfoundland, until he and his vessel the Cleveland Amory were arrested by Canadian authorities. At a United Nations conference in New York, Canada's Fisheries Minister Ross Reid argued strongly for an end to over-fishing on the high seas. In the mid-1980s the region's fishery directly supported about 100,000 workers. Today, a two-year moratorium on fishing northern cod off Newfoundland's coast is half over and likely to be extended, affecting more than 23,000 workers directly. Many thousands more workers throughout Atlantic Canada are idle this summer because fishing boats have used up meagre fish quotas the federal government divides among as many fishermen as possible. Fisheries scientists recently reported that many fish stocks throughout the region have reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Less than half the fish big enough to catch are surviving each year, while fewer newly hatched fish are surviving to become adults. The problem is not unique to Canada; many of the world's fish stocks are similarly threatened. In Canada, federal scientists, who presented their findings to the federal Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, which advises Ottawa on catch quotas, warned that even reduced fishing won't guarantee that depleted fish stocks will recover. In the face of such reports, some experts and the Newfoundland government are calling for a total moratorium in other regions on harvesting groundfish. A few say all fishing of all species in the marine food chain should be halted to let fish populations recover. At the very least, Ottawa is expected to greatly reduce quotas in the management plan for 1994. A report this week from the conservation council supported stronger action. It recommended Ottawa completely halt or further cut back fishing for cod, haddock and other groundfish to stop the drastic decline in key areas. After the release of the council's statement, Vic Young, chairman of Fishery Products International, warned his 1,500 plant and trawler workers to prepare for the worst. Almost everyone is willing to assign blame. The federal government is accused of gross mismanagement of a resource under its jurisdiction. Fishery scientists are accused of insufficient understanding of the fishery. Seals are accused of eating too many fish. Water temperatures colder than ever before recorded and theorized changes in ocean currents are blamed for disrupting fish life cycles. Foreign fishing vessels are accused of raping stocks that straddle Canada's 200-mile limit and of taking too much Canadian fish while in Canadian waters. Sometimes, the Canadian industry accuses itself of overfishing, pointing out that before regulations were changed over the past decade fishermen routinely lied to government managers about how much fish they caught and that until recently highgrading - tossing the smallest fish back overboard even though they'd already died in the process of being caught - was a widely accepted practice. Meanwhile, different types of fishermen constantly accuse one another of using gear and methods destructive to fish stocks. Amid the cacophony, everyone agrees that even when - some say if - the fish come back, there will never be enough to support all the people who have grown dependent on them. The old lament that too many fishermen are chasing too few fish has never been more accurate. It is untrue that the entire fishery in Atlantic Canada is in crisis, or that the entire region is in desperate straits because of the fishery. There is prosperity in fishing areas such as southwestern Nova Scotia and parts of New Brunswick, Quebec and Prince Edward Island where fishermen exploit a wide range of species including plentiful lobster and scallops and the few groundfish that remain. There are areas where fish farming is successful. A new shrimp fishery off the Grand Banks is proving lucrative for a few companies, although conservationists say its exploitation harms the food chain on which the threatened groundfish stocks depend. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada overall has a sufficiently diversified economy that fishing is no longer its backbone. But there is no doubt that the areas and the people dependent on groundfish are facing a bleak future, one that Canadians throughout the country will be called upon to pay for. "There is a severe crisis, and one can't overstate it, in Newfoundland and Cape Breton and a few other spots," says economist Donald Savoie of the University of Moncton, a member of the federal fisheries conservation council and of another federal panel examining fishermen's income levels and alternatives. The situation in Newfoundland is so dire, Savoie warns, that unless current federal assistance programs are renewed after they run out next summer, "in five years the province will be literally bankrupt. It won't have money for the infrastructure now in place, for hospitals and schools . . . it will become a ward of the federal government, which will dictate which hospitals and schools are going to close." Newfoundland faces daunting challenges. It suffers from relatively low rates of literacy, numeracy and general level of education, Savoie says, and is far from markets. Norway experienced a similar crisis with loss of fish stocks six years ago, but its national economy was able to absorb the shock, Savoie says. "We no longer have any federal bucks to save the day." Savoie and others interested in regional development efforts, which most experts concede have not worked in the past despite three decades of federal government attempts and the influx of billions of federal dollars, say the solutions have to come from within the affected communities. "The programs have fostered greater dependence on government than is healthy, and as a result many companies now look first to government instead of trying to do it themselves or through normal lending institutions," says fisheries expert Stephen Greene, an executive with Clearwater Fine Foods Inc. of Halifax and a Reform party candidate in the next federal election. Greene and the Reform party advocate drastic cutbacks in the amount of federal aid poured into Atlantic Canada. Many critics blame the unemployment insurance system for attracting many thousands more people to the fishery than it would support if left on its own. Most fish plant workers and fishermen rely on the fishery for less than half of their income because they work for just enough weeks (usually at least 10, depending on federal programs in place in different regions) to qualify for unemployment insurance benefits, which they draw for the rest of the year. Fisheries lawyer Clifford Hood of Yarmouth, N.S., says UIC has created a whole generation of people used to what he calls "artificial wealth.""You've created a whole standard of living dependent on federal transfer payments. Most rural fish plants survive only because they entice workers to come to work by working 10-12 weeks. Most people would not want to work all year." Indeed, there are perennial reports of fish plants in Atlantic Canada unable to attract workers, even in areas of high unemployment, after their workers have acquired enough weeks to live off of the dole. But some experts say the federal government must continue to support depressed regions and help them become self-sufficient, even though it will likely be a long, grass-roots process. "It's in the interest of Canada to assist the province of Newfoundland make that transition," Savoie says. "It will cost more five years from now, when the province is literally bankrupt." "We need a Churchillian call to arms," he says dramatically. "I think [Newfoundland Premier] Clyde Wells has got to inspire people in Newfoundland [on economic issues], as he did on the constitutional front. "There are bright people and bright prospects in Newfoundland," Savoie adds. Ideas include making the entire province a tax haven, and offering a guaranteed annual income to Newfoundlanders, which Savoie argues would actually be less expensive than the various federal assistance programs which otherwise would be necessary, from unemployment insurance to emergency aid payments. "We would have to devise a scheme that had built-in incentives to work. The problem with unemployment insurance is it has disincentives to work," he says. For now, northern cod fishermen are subsidized by federal aid payments of more than $400 a week, part of a program scheduled to end next summer and which some say will cost more than $2 billion. Fishermen, union officials and community activists, affected by quota cuts in other types of fish and worried about the threat of a moratorium, are now marshalling for a massive lobbying campaign in Ottawa this fall for money to tide them over. "You can't just take people who've spent their lives in the fishery, and tell them to go find jobs that don't exist elsewhere," says Larry Wark, area director of the Canadian Auto Workers union. "There are ways the federal deficit can be brought under control, but you can't do it by starving people and creating massive unemployment" in Atlantic Canada. One underlying problem is the relatively low education level of many Atlantic Canadians who must compete in a highly technological future. "There are some 325,000 people in Atlantic Canada with less than Grade 9 education. Already, some 250,000 of them are outside existing labor markets because of poor education and skills. Many are no more than 40 or 45 years old, some much younger than this," noted a recent report from the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council. Lack of education not only affects fishermen's abilities to find alternative work, but also creates problems within the fishery, argues Yarmouth fisheries lawyer Hood, who advocates requiring a minimum Grade 11 education for fishing captains. "The fishery needs to be professionalized, in a dramatic way," Hood says. "I'm not talking about going from A to B to catch and kill fish; I'm talking about being able to understand what you've just done, what impact you've had on the environment, and what you may need to do and not do, so there's another fish to catch tomorrow. "There's a whole group of people operating in an industry who do not have a broad enough education to really appreciate what's going on around them. I'm not saying they should all be engineers or oceanographers. But they should be exposed to enough education so they can read and understand some of the dichotomy involved in politics and bureaucracy and the real world," Hood says. Given the problems and the massive restructuring that will take place in coming years, is a bright future possible for the parts of Atlantic Canada stricken by the decline of the fishery? Savoie points out that 40 years ago Florenceville, N.B., was merely another rural community - until it was transformed by McCain Foods Ltd. to become the world headquarters of a multinational food giant. "Anybody who would have predicted that would have been said to have rocks in his head," he said. Still, Savoie and other experts say there are no sure solutions to what ails Atlantic Canada's fishery. Copyright Deborah Jones About this website: Text and photos by Deborah Jones except where otherwise noted. Please contact me for reprint rights. All material copyrighted ../About.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0
No sure cure for Atlantic Canada’s fishing industry
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