“When does fisheries management become mismanagement? Generally I would say that it happens when you become so political in your decisions that you ignore the science and the resource. It happens when you so favour the many clamouring and competing groups that request fishing opportunities that you forget that your primary duty is to protect the resource. You cannot forget that you are a steward of the resource; you are not a person simply allocating resource exploitation opportunities. That is when management would become mismanagement and I think that is clear on both coasts.”
These words do not belong to an angry fisherman or to the fisheries critics of Her Majesty’s loyal opposition. They were spoken by Canada’s fisheries minister, David Anderson, at Senate fisheries committee hearings on November 26, 1998. Whether he intended it or not, David Anderson offered an indictment of the management system he presides over. By his own definition, and despite self-serving claims to the contrary by his senior officials, Canada’s fishery has been tragically mismanaged.
On May 21, 1998, Anderson had called a press conference to announce his department’s conservation plans for the endangered West Coast coho stocks. There would be no fishing on the upper Skeena and Thompson River stocks, and only selective fisheries where the by-catch was minimal. There would be no directed coho fisheries. Anderson was throwing down the conservation gauntlet and hoping the Americans would respond favourably to his example.
A month later, Anderson announced his government’s 1998 Salmon Management and Coho Recovery Plan, a $400-million strategy that would put limits on all B.C. salmon fishing in order to save the endangered coho. There would be a dramatic increase in efforts to protect and rebuild salmon habitat, the commercial fleet would be restructured and reduced, and people and communities would be helped to decrease dependency on salmon and to find employment outside the fishery. Never before had Ottawa spent that kind of money on the West Coast fishery, and Anderson assured nervous taxpayers that it would be a one-time event.
The minister carefully explained that the program did not mean “no fishing,” but rather “fishing in a new way.” The salmon fishery of the future would be conservation based, but it would also be humane in the transition period. An early retirement program for older fishermen would help them make a dignified exit from the industry.
Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club of Canada and Greenpeace backed the minister, calling his conservation measures a historic departure in public policy. But everyone realized the measures were only as good as their enforcement. Without 100 per cent monitoring, a fisherman with enough determination could still get away with catching coho.
Although Ottawa dislikes the comparison, the collapse of the northern cod stocks on the East Coast was behind Anderson’s historic policies in British Columbia. Previous ministers had put the jobs of fishermen before the survival of fish, but Anderson said repeatedly that the fish had to come first. He knew his decision to close the coho fishery was a big political risk, but one he was willing to take. “Real conservation doesn’t come for free,” he said. “There is a price to saving fish and, as a politician, I am willing to pay it.”
On June 26, 1998, a one-year salmon agreement was reached with Washington state. Anderson and Washington’s governor, Gary Locke, announced a deal in which Canada agreed to reduce its catch of chinook bound for U.S. waters by 50 per cent, and Washington agreed to reduce its catch of coho bound for the Thompson River by 22 per cent.
B.C. fishermen responded to Anderson’s measures with anger and protests, but their fury and frustration were muted by a despondency not seen before. Fishermen planned to blockade the Alaska Highway, but cancelled the protest because they couldn’t afford the gas to reach the B.C.–Alaska border. As fishermen began the severely restricted 1998 season on July 1, they felt that they had been sold out by the DFO and Ottawa. One protest organizer told the media, “We’re seeing the same thing here we saw back east, where the DFO encouraged overcapitalization and bigger boats and that led to the destruction of the cod. We’re afraid we’re going to see the same thing here.”
The Fraser River is reputed to be the world’s largest producer of salmon, a distinction once held by the Columbia River before dams destroyed much of the salmon’s habitat. On July 3, 1998, Anderson announced a one-year interim agreement with the U.S. on the lucrative Fraser River sockeye fishery. The Americans would be given 24.9 per cent of the catch, which amounted to about 1.2 million of the estimated 5 million salmon to be caught. To spare both the early Stuart Lakes sockeye runs and later runs of upper Thompson coho, the Americans also agreed to restrict their fishing to between July 27 and August 21. It was, at best, a pragmatic solution. Lacking any leverage with the Americans, other than the high moral ground of conservation, Ottawa claimed that it was the best deal it could get. Like most claims in the fishery, it was a half truth. Without an agreement, American fishermen would have had unrestricted access to Canadian sockeye in American waters. When the early Stuart Lakes sockeye returns fell short of preseason estimates, the DFO cancelled the fishery altogether. Just what Canada ended up getting in this half-baked bargain remains uncertain.
B.C. Premier Glen Clark called the Anderson deal “a sellout of monumental proportions” that would destroy hundreds of coastal communities in rural British Columbia. “This is not just a bad deal for Canada; frankly, it’s an unbelievable sellout of Canadian interests, and it stems from an unwillingness on the part of Canada to stand up to the Americans, to stand up for our sovereignty, for our rights and for conservation principles.” Gordon Smith, the former deputy minister of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and now a professor at the University of Victoria, said in a Globe and Mail interview, “This is not a great deal,” but “the truth is that we are better off because there was nothing more we could do — this is not like squaring off against Spanish fish boats — and the alternative would be worse.”
In the end, Canada and Alaska failed to reach an interim fishing agreement for the 1998 season. Talks had foundered on conflicting interpretations of the scientific data used to evaluate the state of the stocks. Canada called for an independent review of the science, but the Alaskans continued to whistle past the graveyard, acting as if there really wasn’t a resource disaster in the making. Canadian fishermen in northern B.C. watched helplessly from the wharf as Alaskan fishermen caught Canadian-bound coho. Glen Clark announced that British Columbia would resume its lawsuit against the United States for overfishing. He also planned to sue the federal government, saying it had abandoned Canadian fishing interests and caved in to the United States’ demands. In the heat of the political moment, Clark suggested that Anderson was a “traitor” for negotiating the salmon deal with Washington state. Although Clark grabbed most of the headlines, there was quiet support for Anderson. An Angus Reid poll showed that most of his fellow British Columbians agreed with his decision to close down the coho fishery.
In fact, the fishery was quietly undergoing a revolution of sorts. Farmed salmon is gradually but relentlessly displacing wild salmon in the market. At the Granville Island market wild salmon sold for $6.95 a pound, while farm salmon, which was often fresher and better handled, sold for $4.95 a pound. In 1997, for the first time there was more farm salmon than wild salmon on the B.C. market. The 118 communities that depend on the fishery accounted for less than 1 per cent of the provincial economy. But that didn’t lessen the human tragedy unfolding in British Columbia. Just as it was in Newfoundland when the cod collapsed, the burning question was often whether people could make enough to qualify for EI during the winter.
Thrown into this volatile mix was the federal government’s policy of allowing aboriginals exclusive fishing rights. B.C. provincial court judge Howard Thomas had ruled in January 1998 that a native-only commercial fishery was illegal, but that didn’t stop the DFO from prosecuting Vancouver-area fishermen who had protested the “race-based fishery.” Anderson argued that the 1992 Indians-only judicial decision was legal because he, the minister, had the right to allocate fishing rights for broad social and economic purposes. Judge Thomas stayed proceedings against twenty-four protesters on August 7, 1998, the same day that Ottawa unexpectedly announced further major reductions of commercial salmon fishing on the Fraser River. Far fewer fish than expected had made it to the river to spawn. The next day, the DFO also closed sport fishing on the river and “asked” natives to stop fishing for food and ceremonial purposes. Despite the Canadian conservation effort, the Pacific Salmon Commission approved a three-day U.S. fishery of the Fraser River-bound sockeye on August 10, 1998. The pot continued to boil.
On August 14, 1998, the federal government announced it would appeal Judge Thompson’s decision that said all federally authorized native-only fisheries were illegal. A Vancouver-area Indian band netted about 18,000 sockeye salmon, weighing five to ten pounds apiece, from the Fraser while it was closed to all other fisheries. The band members had the right to catch fish for their own food and social and ceremonial purposes, but most of the catch was quickly sold to non-natives, including fish-market buyers, who came to the Musqueam reserve to buy the fish for $2.50 a pound. The band’s fisheries coordinator claimed that unidentified federal fisheries officers were present while the fish was being sold, an allegation officially denied by the DFO. In the wake of the scandal, one hundred fishermen, led by Reform MP John Cummins, resumed their protest against the native fishery by taking to the Fraser River fishing grounds in their boats.
Special fishing rights for First Nations communities has generated much anger and controversy in British Columbia. Many non-natives objected to a “race-based” fishery, but Anderson believed that their opposition was unfair. As the early Europeans on the coast had bought fish from the Indians, there was a commercial fishery “at contact,” which gave the natives pre-existing historical rights. The 1990 Sparrow decision of the Supreme Court of Canada also established that an existing aboriginal right to fish was protected by the Constitution and, after conservation, was the first priority of Canadian fishing policy.
Then the world turned upside down, as it often does in an industry where the predictions come from a scientific crystal ball. On August 19, 1998, the DFO reported a larger than expected salmon run on the Fraser — the estimate was boosted from five million to six million fish. Everyone could resume fishing. The federal fisheries department claimed that unusual water temperatures had made the fish even more unpredictable. Several biologists and conservationists felt that reopening the fishery was a reckless decision — a crass political attempt to appease B.C. fishermen. Anderson’s deal with Washington had guaranteed U.S. fishermen one-quarter of the Fraser River sockeye before the cutoff date of August 21, 1998. The one million “extra fish,” worth about $15 million, came just at the flashpoint.
Ottawa had closed the fishery to Canadians on Monday, August 17, while they watched the Americans continuing to fish. A day later, the minister gave the green light to sport fishermen, and then on August 21, to the commercial fleet. Twenty-four hours later the Fraser was closed again when it was “discovered” that the weaker, late-summer-run salmon were mingling with the summer-run sockeye. Many fishermen had elected to stay off the DFO’s management merry-go-round. Forty per cent of the owners of the province’s 3,000 fishing boats had taken a one-year payment of between $6,500 and $10,500, $10 million all told, to stay out of that season’s fishery. It was a wise move. The remaining fleet caught less than half of its preseason quota, providing yet another management black eye to the DFO.
The government of British Columbia was furious. Glen Clark announced a provincial inquiry into what he characterized as Ottawa’s incompetence and mismanagement of the B.C. fishery. It would be led by management consultant and transplanted former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford, a man who during his seventeen-year political career had tried to wangle shared jurisdiction of the fishery from Ottawa. David Anderson issued a statement dismissing the inquiry as “yet another unfortunate effort to play politics with fish.” It was a laughable comment coming from the master of fish politicking.
Arguing that the outcome of the study had already been dictated by Glen Clark, Anderson said, “It is the same as a judge first declaring a defendant guilty, and then conducting a trial to prove it.” The minister would not have this political exercise distract his staff from conserving the resource and restructuring the industry. But there was another and far more basic reason that the DFO would not play ball with Peckford, and David Anderson stated it bluntly: “The provincial government is not responsible for salmon management and conservation — I am.” Anderson promised to set up a body called the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (modelled on the East Coast’s FRCC), to provide arm’s-length and independent scientific advice on the state of the stocks and their habitat by September 15, 1998. The announcement couldn’t come soon enough. Salmon returning to B.C. rivers were facing the worst conditions on record: Mortality rates were up to ten times the usual 4 to 6 per cent.
In July 1998, the federal government commissioned a study to give an in-depth assessment of the impact of salmon stock declines on B.C. fishing communities. Conducted by G. S. Gislason & Associates, the study also provided advice on community adjustment. The most vulnerable communities were located in the most remote regions of the province and had few economic alternatives. Although Anderson was on record as saying, “My scientists may say what they wish in terms of the scientific opinions that they honestly hold. There is no attempt to control them,” the DFO was publicly skewered for releasing a sanitized version of the Gislason Report. The author claimed that the DFO’s summary version contained recommendations that he had not made, and that major criticisms of the DFO had been omitted. Although the original report was delivered on September 21, 1998, it was not widely released until February 1999. It estimated that salmon fishing job losses would double to 15,500 by the year 2000, a fact omitted in the DFO summary posted on its Web site. Prior to 1996, there were 26,000 jobs in the commercial and recreational salmon industry. It was estimated that by 2000 only 10,500 jobs would remain.
Gislason reported yet again what people on the West Coast wanted: co-management, with decisions at the DFO and the HRDC made at the ground level, or what he called “bottom-up, locally driven development.” They wanted development officers who lived in the communities, cuts in red tape, meaningful consultation, and no assistance money spent on yet another level of government bureaucracy. In short, the time for “consultants, studies, and words” was over. Fishermen wanted action.
On October 14, 1998, Anderson released his “new direction” for Canada’s Pacific salmon fisheries. Again, the policy paper made it clear that conservation was the primary objective of his department. It was also clear that he had been listening to his critics. “The federal government is committed to working with communities to enhance their input into the decision-making process,” he said, enhancing his reputation for being a minister who at least said the right things. All sectors of the fishery — First Nations, recreational, and commercial — would use selective harvest measures. After conservation, native requirements for food, social, and ceremonial purposes would have first priority. Supporting and sustaining a vibrant recreational salmon fishery would be a key part of the new salmon management plan, a thrust commercial fishermen claimed pandered to Anderson’s friends in the sport fishery.
The commercial fishery would be encouraged to diversify, so it would be less dependent on salmon. Anderson was reading the reports. He quoted from Parzival Copes’s study, “Coping with the Coho Salmon Crisis”: “The need for reduction in the size of the salmon fishing fleet is beyond dispute.” The DFO’s goal for fleet reduction was 50 per cent.
Anderson promised that clear and objective information on major issues would be provided to the public for review and feedback. New mechanisms would involve stakeholders in the decision-making process, and increased public involvement would lead to increased understanding and support of federal initiatives. Managers and stakeholders would share the responsibility for sustainable fisheries “including management costs, decisions, and accountability.” There would be a structured management and advisory board system to enhance community, regional, and sector-wide input to decision-making. Regional boards could actually “make” decisions in the future, rather than waiting for the next papal bull from Ottawa.
On March 12, 1999, Anderson issued a post-season review of the 1998 West Coast salmon fishery at the Waterfront Centre Hotel in Vancouver. He announced that the coho conservation program he had put in place in 1998 would have to continue for at least two more life cycles since many runs remained endangered. In other words, it would be stone soup for B.C. salmon fishermen for the next six to eight years. More than 250 coho stocks and 60 chinook stocks remained at risk, or on the brink of extinction. His salmon management plan had a single but compelling objective — “put fish first.” Anderson called 1998 a “watershed year — a year of significant and fundamental change in fisheries management.”
Every day the United States and Canada engage in one billion dollars’ worth of trade, and Canadians have learned the Americans are immune to pressure, but open to self-interest. Since late 1998, there have been technical discussions between Canadian and American fisheries managers, including representatives from Alaska, and there was quiet optimism that there would be a breakthrough in the Pacific Salmon Treaty talks. As with many things in the fishery, acceptance of change comes most swiftly with the recognition of disaster. The fabled Bristol Bay sockeye runs collapsed in 1997 and 1998, and scientists at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said they could not make a prediction for 1999 until the runs came in. In other words, they were fishing in the dark. In 1996, the Bristol Bay salmon fishery was worth $141 million, compared to just $66 million in 1997 and $70 million in 1998. Overall, the value of the Alaskan salmon catch has declined dramatically from $366 million in 1996 to $260 million in 1998. Based on those declining revenue numbers, Governor Knowles declared western Alaska a disaster area in 1998 and offered U.S. $19 million in emergency aid to fishermen and their communities.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the United States spends about $500 million a year to protect and restore salmon habitat in the Pacific Northwest. New ESA listings could push that number to over a billion dollars a year. On March 25, 1999, David Anderson and Lloyd Axworthy released a report by natural resource economist Martin Shaffer which concluded that catch reduction is just as important for the recovery of salmon as inriver programs to restore habitat. Agreements under the Pacific Salmon Treaty are the principal way to achieve those reductions. They are also less costly for governments than habitat restoration. Anderson gave a polite luncheon speech at the Canadian embassy in Washington a month later, saying, “The time has come to step beyond rigid, short-term positions. The situation calls for leadership from everyone involved.” On May 27, 1999, the day that Slobodan Milosevic was indicted for war crimes, Lloyd Axworthy and Madeleine Albright met for talks about the war in Kosovo. Over lunch they also discussed the Pacific Salmon Treaty, and a week later a new ten-year agreement was signed. (The Fraser River agreement would last for twelve years.) Anderson made the announcement flanked by state governors and American native leaders, and received rave reviews for the treaty — in the United States. Vice-President Al Gore said, “Today’s agreement is integral to our long-term strategy to bring the salmon back.” Representatives from B.C. and Canadian aboriginal bands were absent from the press conference, and Vancouver police barred angry fishermen from the room. Fisheries management and science have been cut dramatically within the DFO, but the spin doctors have retained their budget. While the press release hyped “abundance-based management that is more sensitive to conservation requirements,” what it really meant was that Canada had abandoned the equity principle, one of the pillars of the treaty — that each country receive the benefits of fish that originate in its own waters. Canada received no compensation for the millions of dollars’ worth of salmon the Americans pirated after annexes of the treaty expired in 1992. Now, the harder Canada works at conservation, the more fish the Americans will take.
Alaska will continue to catch our endangered coho that mix with their non-endangered stocks. In 1998, the Alaskans caught over 800,000 endangered B.C. coho, and under the terms of the new treaty, they will be allowed to catch the same number in 1999 if Alaskan abundance forecasts hold. At the same time, endangered chinook and coho runs destined for Washington and Oregon are protected from Canadian fishermen.
The United States agreed to limit its catch of Fraser River sockeye to 16.5 per cent, to be phased in over three years. The DFO trumpeted this as a drop from 24.9 per cent in 1998. But the average annual catch by the Americans from 1989 to 1998 was only 15.6 per cent. Despite the DFO’s spin, the United States will be taking a greater percentage of sockeye than they had for the previous decade. They will actually end up taking even more fish, if the stocks improve. Many of the incredibly complex details of the treaty have yet to be worked out, such as how the interest from a proposed $209-million endowment fund will be spent on science and on stock and habitat enhancement in the two countries.
About 240 years ago, a volcano erupted eight hundred kilometres north of Vancouver. According to Nisga’a legend two villages were destroyed, killing an estimated two thousand people. The Nisga’a believed the gods were punishing the tribe for having mistreated spawning salmon. On June 17, 1999, the Chiefs of the Tribal Council representing some of the severely affected communities on the west coast of Vancouver Island appealed to Prime Minister Chrétien to consult with them before he signed the new salmon treaty. Angered that American aboriginal groups had had status at the negotiations while they had been excluded, the chiefs wrote to Chrétien asking for his personal intervention to see that conservation measures were adequate for threatened stocks: “After centuries of sustainable management by our people these fish stocks are threatened by management regimes and international treaties outside our control.” The consensus in Ottawa was that even an imperfect deal was an improvement over the chaos of the previous seven years. Chief Larry Baird of the coastal village of Uclulet said, “Canada appears to have collapsed and accepted a weak deal based on considerations other than the health of salmon stocks my people depend on.” Luckily for the DFO, Ottawa rests on the Precambrian Shield.
On the East Coast the ultimate fish story ended on August 29, 1998, or at least it should have. That was the cutoff date for final payments under the jammy but disastrous TAGS program. Until that fateful day, about 25,000 people in Atlantic Canada were still receiving cheques from Ottawa. As usual, politics intervened to extend the bailout, and the underlying problems that made it necessary in the first place.
After many protests and much arm-twisting from former federal fisheries minister, and now Newfoundland premier Brian Tobin, on June 1998, the federal government announced its bailout of the bailout, quickly dubbed TAGS II. In all, a whopping $730 million was allocated “to assist individuals and coastal communities to adjust to opportunities outside the fishery, and to lay the foundation for an economically and environmentally viable, self-reliant fishery.” In other words, the latest handout was supposed to do exactly what the original $2-billion TAGS program failed to do.
As of March 1999, the HRDC in Newfoundland and Labrador had received 1,361 applications for early retirement; about 2,000 fishery workers were eligible under the new plan. One-third were fishermen, the rest were plant workers. About $65 million had been set aside for workers still eligible for TAGS between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-five as of December 31, 1998.
Roughly $250 million was earmarked for licence retirement — fishermen who opt for a buy-out have to leave the industry permanently. Core fishermen received an average of $101,500 under the plan, but many people were not happy with this amount. After taxes and repayments to the Fisheries Loan Board, some fishermen reasoned they would be better off keeping their licences. If they made $20,000 on crab, $10,000 fishing another species, and $10,000 from EI, they could gross $40,000 for the year, a comfortable life in a Newfoundland fishing community. About $180 million was set aside for one-time, lump-sum payments ranging from $7,000 to $14,000 for workers who had expected to receive payments until May 1999 under the original TAGS program. There was also $135 million for job training and up to $100 million for that standard phrase of every bailout package, “regional economic development.”
TAGS II brought the total spent on “special” East Coast fisheries aid in the last decade to over $4.2 billion. When the stocks collapsed, 2.5 people were working in the fishery for every person in the industry in 1961.
But the fish have fared much worse than the fishermen. Most groundfish stocks are not recovering and several species have declined further despite the sweeping moratorium. Yet dumping and illegal fishing continue, and huge seal herds make the recovery of the northern cod even more unlikely.
Today’s limited seal hunt provides important income to about 11,000 Newfoundlanders — in precisely those communities and outports hardest hit by the collapse of the cod fishery. Most of the seals are shot, but the industry is still attacked for bludgeoning cuddly white “baby seals,” which have been legally protected since 1987. When Brian Davies, founder of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, was given a $2.5 million payout after he left the organization, sealers saw it as proof that the IFAW was really just a successful business with excellent marketing skills. Donations to the IFAW are reputed to be about $80 million a year, and most of their advertising and revenue is based on the seal hunt. Those are daunting numbers. Newfoundland fisheries minister John Efford says that the IFAW raised six times his entire departmental budget in 1998, and used the money to try to kill a way of life in his province.
Far from being endangered, the population of harp seals has exploded, from under 2 million in the early 1970s to an estimated 5.4 to 6 million since the hunt was curtailed in the early 1980s. A major harp seal population survey was done by the DFO in the spring of 1999, and the results will be known by the end of the year. But John Efford, for one, doesn’t have to wait for the DFO’s number to conclude that seals are hindering recovery of the cod stocks. Efford makes no bones about what the exploding numbers mean for the Newfoundland fishery: “Now what kind of a fool could believe that six million seals are not impacting on the recovery of the stocks?” A Newfoundlander is not allowed to take a cod for his table, but seals consume millions of juvenile northern cod each year.
In the end, the problem may not be fact, but well-marketed fancy. Efford claims to have been told by a DFO deputy minister, “John, you’ve got to realize these protest groups are very powerful and they will protest in the EU, and that will impact on trade relations not only with your province, but with all the other provinces of Canada.”
In the spring of 1999 the Newfoundland government turned the tables on the animal rights activists. It released a video shot underwater at Big Chance Harbour showing thousands of cod lying on the bottom with their stomachs torn out. Caplin is the main food of the adult cod, and fishermen believe the seals are actually after the caplin in the cod stomachs, and as an additional treat, their livers. The executive director of a marine conservation group funded by the IFAW countered with the bizarre accusation that it was birds, not seals, that had gutted the cod — a statement deemed ridiculous by credible biologists. The DFO’s stock status report for 1999 concluded that “predation by seals has been an important source of mortality of cod since the start of the moratorium.” The FRCC recommended a cull of half the seal population, and the Commons standing committee on fisheries produced a report in June 1999 calling for a “major reduction” in the harp seal population to protect the cod stocks.
Efford worries that with the fish stocks so fragile and the seal population so high, the whole food chain is in danger if nature sets in a disease. According to veteran sealers, for the last ten years seals have been behaving in strange ways, remaining in bays and coves year-round rather than heading north after mating. They have even been found with kelp in their stomachs when no other food is available. For his efforts to persuade Ottawa that a cull is necessary, Efford has found himself the target of the international animal rights movement. “I get hate mail threatening my person if we go ahead with the seal cull,” he says. “Do these threats and hate mail make a difference to me? Not a damn bit of difference in the world. I care more about the communities and about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador than I do about some fanatic sitting down in New York or over in London.”
The founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who was in California, compared Efford to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels: “John Efford has told the lie about seals destroying codfish so often he has begun to believe it himself.” Paul Watson offered a $25,000 reward to anyone who could prove that seals were eating the stomachs of cod. Perhaps he should have made another visit to Newfoundland, instead. On Good Friday 1999, hundreds of residents near Summerville, Bonavista Bay, watched in amazement as seals herded thousands of cod towards the shore, ripped into their stomachs, and ate the livers. The stunning event was captured on videotape.
On March 30, 1999, Watson challenged Efford to a debate on the seal hunt, which the minister eagerly accepted. But it may be too late for him to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the world. A big-budget movie based on Watson’s book Ocean Warrior, with Woody Harrelson cast to play Watson, is planned. Martin Sheen has the role of a photographer onboard the Sea Shepherd.
The killing of any animal is a gruesome act. In the slaughterhouse, when cattle are hoisted on hooks, still conscious after their throats are cut, no one sees their agony on the evening news. The hypocrisies don’t stop there. A German writer was observed trying to head out to the 1999 hunt dressed in “tight-fitting leather pants.” A judge recently rejected an injunction against the slaughter of six million snow geese by the Canadian government because the geese were overbreeding and damaging their Arctic habitat, but the story got relatively little play. With the willing cooperation of the world media, animal rights groups have continued to campaign for a species that is far from endangered, while completely ignoring one of the worst ecological catastrophes in the history of the planet — the destruction of the great northern cod.
In September 1998 there was an index fishery (a commercial test fishery) of 4,000 tonnes in the formerly rich zone 2J3KL, the first commercial fishery on the northern cod stock since the moratorium in 1992. Research survey trawls working offshore in 1998 found abundant shrimp but few cod. An offshore index fishery in zone 3L in November 1998 came up with the same depressing results: no big concentrations of cod in a place where they had once been plentiful. While northern cod have been found in Newfoundland’s big bays, there are virtually none on the spawning grounds where the offshore trawlers once fished day and night.
The cod appear to be declining even in the absence of a fishery. Nor have they recovered in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Even so, fifty frustrated Quebec fishermen seized a Canadian Coast Guard vessel moored off the Gaspé peninsula to pressure for more quota, and two hundred small-boat fishermen in Newfoundland stormed a crab management-plan meeting in February 1999, demanding that their crab quotas be doubled, and that there be a 15,000-tonne commercial cod fishery along the northeast coast in 1999. Now that federal funds have finally dried up, people here must fish, move, or go on welfare.
According to biologist George Winters, who presented a report to the DFO cod stock assessment meeting in March 1999 (just before he retired from the DFO), DNA tests show that offshore and inshore cod stocks are genetically distinct. Winters suggests that rebuilt local inshore populations of cod could be fished, because they aren’t going to recolonize the offshore. Winters, who completed an independent cod report for the Fish, Food, and Allied Workers Union, and who is also doing some research for the provincial government on seals, estimates that there may be 100,000 to 200,000 tonnes of northern cod along the east coast, south of White Bay. If true, that would indicate a substantial increase from the previous DFO estimate of about 20,000 tonnes. But when it comes to experts pulling numbers out of hats, no one is taking great comfort from Winters’s numbers.
There are still 2,000 inshore fishermen licensed to fish along the northeast coast, and the FFAW feels that the DFO’s science branch is too conservative in its quotas, largely because it is overreacting to criticism of its role in the cod collapse. Winters presented his findings during a regional consultation meeting of the FRCC in Clarenville on April 3, 1999. He told the audience that a northern cod fishery of between 35,000 and 40,000 tonnes would not harm the recovery. The five hundred fishermen in the audience gave him a standing ovation.
The DFO’s Newfoundland division could be forgiven for holding their applause. Many scientists worry that there is a real risk that recovering stocks can’t survive a commercial fishery. The DFO’s trawl survey index of biomass in 1997 was the lowest observed since the survey began in 1983, a trend repeated in the most recent surveys. There were few fish older than five, and no indication of any strong year-classes coming along. But that is news few fishermen want to hear. DFO scientist George Lilly was heckled during his presentation at the FRCC meeting. He said some catch-rates from test fisheries were “good to excellent” but there was not enough information to assess the risks of a reopened fishery.
Areas north of White Bay remain desolate. Bruce Atkinson, divisional manager of groundfish for the DFO, estimated inshore cod abundance in the northern cod range to be between 36,000 and 135,000 tonnes — extinction numbers. Tagging showed that some cod were migrating from Placentia Bay on the south coast into zone 3L. Since a cod can swim thirty miles a day, we may even be counting the same fish twice. Genetic studies indicate that this coastal population is not genetically distinct from the cod in 3Ps. Even though offshore stocks are negligible, some fish might follow the traditional migration path from offshore to inshore in the spring and summer. If these fish were taken in a reopened inshore fishery, any hope that the offshore stocks will rebound would disappear. The DFO’s 1999 stock status report for northern cod concluded that the prospect for recovery of the offshore cod “appears to be dismal in both the short and medium term,” and that “the status of cod in the inshore remains uncertain.”
David Anderson was scheduled to announce the 1999 TACs for cod in Newfoundland on May 6. The minister asked the FRCC to delay its recommendation on the northern cod stocks until after a scientific peer review of the analyses presented at the Clarenville FRCC meeting by George Winters. On May 27, 1999, the FRCC recommended a TAC of between six and nine thousand tonnes for the coastal portions of 3L and 3K. In a letter to Anderson, Fred Woodman wrote: “The method we have chosen for setting the TAC for 1999 is regarded by the Council as a default method put forth only due to the unacceptable lack of quantitative data on the coastal biomass. The Council believes it will be impossible to provide future specific TAC recommendations for this stock unless quantitative data are provided on coastal abundance.” The FRCC also recommended that the spawning biomass of cod that overwintered in Smith Sound, Trinity Bay, be closed to all commercial fishing: “This aggregation may be the key to the re-population of this area and perhaps beyond. It is very important that this aggregation be protected by a closure of directed fishing in the Sound.” In response, the FFAW announced plans to lobby the minister for a larger quota.
David Anderson reopened the northern cod fishery on June 23, 1999. He announced an inshore quota of nine thousand tonnes to be fished under IQ licences. “The management measures announced today focus on conservation and underline our commitment to a precautionary approach,” he said. Contrary to the advice of the FRCC, Smith Sound was opened to resident fishermen. Anderson also decided to allow fishing in zone 2J. Hawke Channel in 2J contains the only known spawning cod on the continental shelf. If the DFO’s low abundance estimate of 36,000 tonnes turns out to be correct, 25 per cent of the entire northern cod stock will be taken this year. Even if George Winters’s optimistic calculation of a 200,000-tonne biomass is accurate, the “conservation” minister has reopened a stock that contains less fish than we used to catch every year.
Pressure from fishermen is hard to resist. On the south coast of Newfoundland, the commercial cod fishery was doubled to 20,000 tonnes in 1998. At the cod stock assessment meetings held in St. John’s in late January 1998, several DFO scientists were very concerned about uncertainties in the data and strenuously cautioned against increasing the quota in zone 3Ps. One scientist vividly expressed his mistrust of the data used to recommend the quota: “You could drive a truck through that work.” It was agreed that more analysis was necessary, and a second meeting was held in late February.
The Newfoundland region of the DFO concluded the stock was “rebuilding strongly” and issued a stock status report on February 27 suggesting a 20,000-tonne TAC. That morning the FRCC held the last of its stakeholder meetings in Clarenville, and fishermen in the audience already had copies of the DFO’s 1998 3Ps stock status report. Normally, reports for groundfish do not contain a suggested TAC.
It was fisheries mismanagement at its most political. The FRCC is the organization that is supposed to advise the minister on TACs. According to one observer, there was no way the FRCC could recommend a lower quota because fishermen and their union were pushing hard for a 30,000-tonne TAC. It was noted that neither Fred Woodman, nor his vice-chair Jean-Claude Brêthes, appeared very happy at the Clarenville meeting, but the FRCC rubberstamped the 20,000-tonne quota on March 25. Some scientists felt the 3Ps stock report was overly optimistic, and after e-mails, informal discussions, and a conference call, Mike Sinclair, acting director of science for the Maritime region, sent a memo to ADM Scott Parsons, expressing the concerns of seven Maritime region scientists: “Our concerns remain that the estimates of abundance are unrealistically high. The document does not, in our view, fully express the extreme uncertainty that is integral to this assessment. It presents a view of the resource which is at odds with the status of all the surrounding stocks, and deviates from past assessments of this resource.”
Faced with such uncertainty, the scientists suggested the TAC remain at 10,000 tonnes. The 1997 offshore survey in 3Ps was the lowest since 1983, and had been low for four of the last five years. Stock structure and migrations patterns were also poorly understood, since the cod in 3Ps migrate into other sectors, making it one of the most difficult assessments to make. The fish were also maturing at an earlier age, which could be interpreted as a sign of stress, since this was observed in adjacent cod stocks before they crashed. A zonal assessment meeting was held from May 19 to May 21 to review the assessment. The DFO’s Newfoundland region concluded that it wasn’t necessary to revise the report. On May 27, 1998, the minister announced a 20,000-tonne quota for 3Ps. Incredibly, it was politics over prudence once again.
The current population biomass in 3Ps is estimated to be 250,000 tonnes, with a spawning biomass of 145,000 tonnes. Fishermen demanded a 40,000-tonne quota for 1999. A risk analysis was carried out for a range of catch options; it showed a 9 per cent risk that the spawning biomass would fall below 100,000 tonnes if there was a catch of 20,000 tonnes in 1999. The 1999 DFO stock status report did not recommend a quota, but Jake Rice, the coordinator of the DFO’s Canadian Stock Assessment Secretariat, claims that the 1998 evaluation has proved to be right. He maintains that two surveys and observations from the reopened fishery indicate the spawning biomass is in the historic range of a “healthy stock.” The FRCC recommended an increase in the quota to 30,000 tonnes for 1999. Anderson accepted the recommendation.
Cod aren’t the only species fishermen are clamouring for; shrimp fishermen are also demanding increases in their quotas. The northern shrimp, which can live for more than eight years, are fished from Davis Strait down to the Gulf of Maine. The 1997 DFO stock status report indicated a high level of shrimp abundance and concluded that the present environment is favourable for shrimp survival. As if by way of afterthought, the writers noted that “beyond the next few years it is not possible to predict how long abundance will last.”
At today’s fishing levels, not long. Historically northern shrimp were never this abundant, so there have been very few studies done on the species. Biologist Jeff Hutchings has observed that taking 5 or 10 per cent of the estimated biomass may be a safe exploitation level for groundfish, but the safe level of exploitation for shrimp is completely unknown. They are well down the food chain and may affect many more species than a top predator like the cod, which also eat shrimp. Brian Giroux, head of the Scotia Fundy Mobile Gear Fisheries Association, holds a shrimp licence, and he has observed that fishing will be good for four or five years, then go down for seven or eight years, before coming back up again. The decline is beginning in Nova Scotia, and he predicts the same downturn in Newfoundland in three to five years. In fact, one offshore trawlerman who has just returned from fishing for shrimp observed, “We can already see the difference in size in the northern shrimp we’re taking. They’re already smaller. But when you make $20 million, like our vessel did last year, nobody worries about conservation.”
There is not much history to rely on. The first inshore northern shrimp fishery took place in 1997, with landings of about 7,000 tonnes and a value of $12 million. The total landed value of shrimp in Newfoundland that year was over $108 million, surpassing crab, which was worth almost $92 million. In 1998, 250 inshore vessels were given access to 33,000 tonnes of shrimp, and FPI now has the capacity to process 15,000 tonnes of coldwater shrimp annually at its state-of-the art plants in Port Union and Port au Choix. Twelve large trawlers process shrimp at sea. There is 100 per cent observer coverage on the offshore boats, but there are concerns that large quantities of small, less valuable shrimp are being dumped at sea by inshore fishermen because observer coverage inshore is almost nonexistent.
Demand for Canadian shrimp has risen steadily in Europe because suppliers such as Iceland have had to reduce their quotas because of declining stocks. On April 23, 1999, David Anderson increased the TAC for northern shrimp from 84,108 tonnes to 96,540 tonnes. The increase went to shrimp fishing area 6 (SFA6) where the TAC jumped by 27 per cent, with inshore fishermen getting 90 per cent of the increase. From 1989 to 1993 the shrimp TAC in SFA6 ranged from 5,500 to 8,000 tonnes. In 1999 the TAC was set at 58,632 tonnes, a ten-fold increase. Although the stock appears abundant, so did the cod until overfishing wiped out a 400-year-old fishery.
Alarm bells have gone off everywhere but in the DFO and on the busy wharfs of Newfoundland. In his 1999 report, Denis Desautel, the auditor general, raised serious concerns about the way the DFO was managing the lobster, scallop, crab, and shrimp fisheries in Atlantic Canada: “At present, shellfish fishers are enjoying a high level of income compared with fishers who were dependent on groundfish for a living. However, we found problems with the management of the shellfish fisheries that are similar to those of groundfish management and that should be taken seriously.”
Desautel noted dramatic increases in harvesting capacity, weak information, and gaps in monitoring the resource, all inconsistent with the precautionary approach to fisheries management and long-term sustainability that David Anderson never fails to mention in his speeches. The TACs were increased for Newfoundland snow crab and northern shrimp in 1998 and 1999 even though there were no stock status reports. Faced with funding cutbacks, the DFO decided to spend its resources doing biological research on the shrimp. Desautel concluded that most shellfish resource decisions were “heavily influenced by social and economic factors.” As former fisheries minister John Crosbie has observed, the DFO appears to have learned nothing from the stunning collapse of the cod.
It is clear now that Ottawa’s much-vaunted TAGS program has been one of the most costly boondoggles in Canadian history. Although the DFO has spent $85 million to retire 1,300 groundfish licences in order to reduce harvesting capacity, capacity in Newfoundland region has actually increased dramatically since 1997. There are 208 new shrimp trawlers, and 150 enlarged or replaced vessels for fishing snow crab. Many of these vessels were purchased after their owners sold their licences under the TAGS buyout program in the Maritimes and Quebec.
These vessels can easily be redirected to harvest groundfish, and government will be under intense pressure to allocate stocks to satisfy this new capacity. Since the collapse of the cod stocks, there has been a five-fold increase in vessels of this size in Newfoundland. While the other East Coast provinces have bitten the bullet and downsized to run the fishery economically, under Brian Tobin this is not the case in Newfoundland. It has also been noted that “the biggest growth sector in Newfoundland is in recreational vehicles,” a reference to the huge amount of public money that has poured into the province.
In his report, Desautels zeroed in on the contradictory goals within the fisheries department. David Anderson has said publicly that his primary mandate is conservation, and that his department does not have the resources or responsibility to manage socioeconomic outcomes. Yet at a strategic planning workshop in October 1998, senior DFO management officials determined that “social and economic considerations do have a role in fishery decisions.” This is precisely what this powerful and paternalistic ministry has done — managed a complicated socioeconomic system, but none too well. In that respect, nothing has changed.
Anderson told the Senate fisheries committee, “Canada intends to play a leading role on the international stage to address global marine conservation issues. But we must recognize that we must practise what we preach. As we encourage other nations to promote conservation and the precautionary approach, we must ensure that we address the problems in our own backyard.” Yet the DFO still lacks measurable goals and targets for conservation, and management decisions frequently ignore the minister’s conservation rhetoric. The DFO wants a fishery that is economically stable and self-reliant and makes ad hoc decisions trying to effect those aims. But Canada still does not have a coherent fisheries policy framework. Over the long term, what do Canadians want, a viable offshore industry, an inshore social fishery, or enough of both to guarantee that Canada will have neither?
The Newfoundland region of the DFO recently started using the Campelen 1800 shrimp trawl for offshore research surveys looking for northern cod because it is better at catching small fish than previous gear. No one mentions that the shrimp fishery, now year-round, will make recovery of the northern cod much more difficult despite the use of sorting grates to avoid by-catch of larger fish. The FRCC has also become concerned about the by-catch of juvenile turbot in shrimp nets since very little is known about the status of the turbot stock. It is ironic that the NAFO moratorium on Grand Banks shrimp continues in order to protect straddling fish stocks while Canada fishes away.
In September 1998, there was formal adoption of 100 per cent observer coverage in the NAFO regulatory area outside our 200-mile zone, an important, and hard-won, outcome of the turbot dispute. On April 20, 1999, the House of Commons gave third reading to Bill C-27, bringing us close to ratifying the U.N. agreement on straddling and highly migratory fish stocks commonly known as the U.N. Fisheries Agreement (UNFA). Thirty nations must ratify the agreement before it comes into force. If the Senate passes the bill, Canada will be number twenty-two.
In December 1998, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the court had no authority to hear Spain’s complaint that Canada’s actions during the turbot war violated international law. Premier Tobin called the ruling “a victory for Canada.” It was really a victory for the turbot. If Tobin had left the decision to the courts, as many of his hand-wringing colleagues would have preferred, the turbot would be long gone. (Under UNFA, the boarding and inspection of the Estai would have been legal.) The turbot has become increasingly important to the Newfoundland fishery. Nunavut wants a greater share of the $45 million worth of turbot caught between Baffin Island and Greenland. Canada’s newest territory now gets only 27 per cent of its own turbot, but under the adjacency principle half the Canadian TAC of any fishery is to go to the nearest users. The fishery was explored and developed by offshore companies from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and northern Quebec.
The turbot war is still an emotional issue for many Spaniards. The Estai has been renamed the Argos Galicia and continues to operate out of Vigo. Interestingly, it now flies the Union Jack as it trawls for squid around the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. Vigo remains one of the world’s largest ports in terms of the landed value of fish, but the size of Spain’s own fishing fleet has dropped dramatically since it joined the EU in 1986. This maritime nation once had two hundred vessels searching for cod on the high seas; today it has eighteen. Where Spain’s fishing fleet once ranked third in the world, it now comes in seventeenth. Like Canada, Spain lands and processes fish from other nations, rather than relying solely on its own fleet.
The fishery’s endless contradictions continue. While groundfish stocks have crashed and taxpayers have spent billions to support laid-off workers for nearly ten years, most people aren’t aware that the fishing industry in Canada has enjoyed record sales since the middle of the decade. Canada’s export of fish and seafood products was worth over $3 billion in 1997, and $3.2 billion in 1998 — the highest value on record. Canada is the number-one supplier of seafood to the United States. Our neighbours consume 67 per cent of Canada’s seafood exports, mostly lobster, shrimp, and crab. Japan is our second-largest market and the EU, with whom Canada nearly went to war over turbot, the third-largest.
Even the offshore industry, decimated by a loss of groundfish for most of the 1990s, has done very well. Profits for Fishery Products International rose to $8.4 million in 1998, up from $8.2 million in 1997, and the company issued its first dividend to shareholders since 1988. The outlook for 1999 looks even better. Today the company is a global seafood enterprise, selling in fifteen countries and buying raw material from over thirty others.
National Sea Products has had a five-year run of increasing profits. The Lunenburg-based company changed its name to High Liner Foods Inc. in 1998 and reported a profit of $10.4 million, up from $8.6 million the year before. But the cost of buying raw fish on the international market has jumped 50 to 65 per cent over the past year. Second- and third-quarter losses are predicted for 1999, with a return to profitability in the fourth quarter. Henry Demone recently stunned the fishing industry when he announced that his company may build two to five new draggers if cod stocks recover off Newfoundland. The large companies have retained a right to their historical quotas if a stock returns to a healthy state.
In the province “hardest hit” by the cod collapse, the wharf has been a busy and prosperous place. In 1998, about 250,000 tonnes of seafood were landed in Newfoundland and Labrador, an increase of 22 per cent over 1997. The landed value was a record $380 million, and the export value was over $700 million, up from almost $600 million the year before. In 1998 there were, according to John Efford, over 30,000 active commercial fishermen and plant workers in Newfoundland, up 6,000 people from 1997 — about the same number of people as when TAGS began.
The industry has become economically stable by diversifying into crab, shrimp, sea urchins, and value-added processing. The largest single contribution to the health of the fishery was made by northern shrimp and crab. Most of the high-quality shrimp is sold in the U.K. and the U.S.A. through FPI. The total landed value of shellfish was about $295 million in 1998.
The province also produced aquaculture products worth $13 million in 1998. Juvenile cod have been captured in 3Ps for cod grow-out projects, a form of sea-ranching in which live cod are held in huge pens and fed to increase their weight. They are then sold when markets are at their peak. In 1998, there were about fifty cod-farming licences in Newfoundland.
In December 1998, Canada got a brand new bureaucrat. David Anderson appointed a commissioner for aquaculture development in recognition of the industry’s growing importance in Canada. Wholesale value has increased dramatically from just $7 million in 1984 to $463 million in 1997, over 20 per cent of our total fisheries’ landings. These numbers reflect worldwide trends. It is expected that the world population will be 8 billion by the year 2025, and leading experts on the global food supply worry about future shortages.
The FAO estimates that total world fish production reached 121 million tonnes in 1996, over six times what it was in 1950. The landed value of the “capture” fisheries (94.6 million tonnes) was U.S. $85 billion, compared to U.S. $47 billion for aquaculture. Distant-water fishing has declined dramatically since 1990, and markets are beginning to accept cheaper substitutes for highly priced fish such as cod. Capture fisheries continue to level off worldwide as aquaculture production increases.
It is now widely accepted that the world’s total fish catch can’t increase much more. Twenty-nine per cent of the world’s food fish now comes from aquaculture, but it is estimated that global aquaculture production will surpass fish catches within fifty years. Canada must manage this irreversible trend better than it has the wild fishery.
The watchword of the changed fishery will be adjustment. Historically, to maintain employment, Newfoundland produced low-quality, low-priced frozen cod that did nothing to enhance the reputation of Canadian fish. While Iceland became a world leader in the production and marketing of quality cod, quantity, rather than quality, governed most operations in Newfoundland. Since the collapse of the cod stocks there has been a sea-change in the official attitude toward handling and processing. David Anderson believes the key to future success will be high-value niche markets and marketing strategies that exploit the cache of northern fish. Newfoundland Fisheries Minister John Efford now preaches quality with all the fervour of a fundamentalist minister: “Simply put, we want to be number one.” In November 1998, David Anderson appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on Fisheries, which was examining the question of privatization and quota licensing in Canadian fisheries. Would more fishing operators be given IQs, IVQS, ITQs or EAs — the right to harvest a certain quantity of fish annually — as opposed to continuing the old common property free-for-all that had lead to management disasters on both coasts? Privatization of the fisheries has been an issue since the early 1980s and continues to divide fishing communities. In Canada, over 50 per cent of combined landed value on both coasts is now fished under some type of IQ arrangement. After conservation, it is our most important management issue.
Charming and sincere, Anderson stressed that conservation was his first priority, and that giving in to “the inevitable political pressure to subordinate the long-term interests of the fish to short-term opportunity has not worked in the past.” He repeated the maxim, “Without fish you do not have fishermen.” Anderson’s vision for the fishery was one that was “viable, sustainable, and efficiently managed.” He said, “We need a fishery that provides a good living for independent professional owner-operators and employees, and one that supports economically healthy coastal communities. It must be a fishery composed of healthy inshore, midshore, and offshore sectors. It must be a fishery that supports a flexible, versatile, and self-reliant industry, largely self-regulating and operating without government subsidies.” In short, everything the fishery in Canada is not.
The minister denied that IQs are necessarily a step towards privatization of the fishery. But they are a step in the direction of self-regulation, and although not a prerequisite, a step in the direction of co-management with government. Many small-boat fishermen believe that the DFO has a hidden agenda that favours ITQs. Bureaucrats favour them because they will reduce the number of fishermen at no cost to the government and simplify management for a department that has undergone severe budget cuts.
Anderson claimed that his department was quite willing to have community quotas if the licence-holders supported the concept, although he cautioned that transferring the political pressure to divide the quota from the federal to a local level would not necessarily mean success. The minister had reached the unhappy conclusion that there would always be a level of discontent because of the allocation issue: “The industry has had too many people in it for too long, and it has therefore become very partisan and very political. It is very much an issue of doing-in the other person to satisfy a given community or group. This is my view after eighteen months as minister. I think I have to accept the fact that it is not possible to get that type of industry consensus among fishing groups and fishing communities, or even between provinces. The feeling is that what my neighbour gets is something that is taken away from me. It is a problem that will continue to exist as long as we are in the position of having to restrict fishing efforts, either because of too many fishermen or because of improvements in technology which lead to more intense fish-killing power in the hands of fishermen.” He added, “We want to see coastal communities flourish. Coastal communities do not flourish simply because you maintain populations of near-indigent fishermen.”
When the Senate committee filed its report on “Privatization and Quota Licensing in Canada’s Fisheries” in December 1998, it made some important recommendations after hearing from a wide variety of nationally and internationally recognized authorities. It was the first Senate committee to use video-conferencing, which reduced costs and widened their expertise base to include New Zealand and Iceland, where IQs have been in place for some time. The committee also made transcripts of testimony and background material available on the Internet.
In its list of recommendations, the Senate committee suggested that the issue of privatization and individual quotas should be debated in Parliament, and that no new IQs be given out until the debate had taken place. The DFO also had to issue a “clear, unequivocal, and written” public statement on exactly what the terms meant. To date, the discussion about ITQs has been confined mostly to academics, bureaucrats, and conservative newspaper columnists, but a public resource granted by the Magna Carta in 1215 should not be privatized without a public debate.
The Senate committee urged the DFO to consider the long-term social and economic effects of IQs on coastal communities and to distribute the resource more equitably “to allow small-scale fishers a better opportunity of participating in the fisheries.” It also suggested that the DFO stop using New Zealand and Iceland as examples of successful individual quota management systems until the department had listened to the criticisms from those involved. Glowing reports of how well ITQs worked in those countries were, after all, based on information selected and interpreted by the very people who had implemented the systems.
The concept of ITQs was invented by economists. The ITQs work in terms of economic efficiency for governments and ITQ holders, but not for those who don’t have them. In countries where ITQs have been in place for some time, there are fewer fishermen and fewer boats. But those who had access to capital bought up a larger share of the stock access. Sometimes that access can bring tremendous returns. A group of eighty-one midshore snow crab licence-holders in New Brunswick, who fish in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, is estimated to be worth about $500 million. Not a bad return from a resource that belongs to all Canadians. Some people worry that once privatized, Canada’s common-property fishery resources could be controlled or even owned by foreign companies. Theoretically, people fish more responsibly when they “own” the resource; but in practice, ownership is not a panacea: high-grading and discarding of small and low-value fish continues. Fishermen claim the system forces them to dump part of their catch in order to bring the biggest, most valuable fish inshore. Fish don’t conform to a business plan, and no one counts the dead fish in the water. Nor will reducing the number of fishermen reduce harvesting capacity, since technological advances will always allow those who stay to catch more fish.
Community quotas are emerging as a major worldwide trend in fisheries management, advocated as a better way to manage stocks and protect employment in a community. A set amount of fish is allocated by government and the quota stays within a geographic area. The system could work equally well for aboriginal communities on the West Coast or small fishing-dependent communities on the East Coast.
Although individual scientists are doing excellent work within the DFO, the science department is still demoralized, according to several marine biologists. The sense of denial of any real role in the cod collapse is regrettably reappearing, as DFO personnel try their hand at revisionist history. The DFO Research Report 98/64, “Considerations on the Demise or Otherwise of Northern Cod,” rejects mismanagement as a cause of the collapse: “The hypothesis that the collapse of northern cod was due to undetected increases in fishing mortality beginning in the mid-1980s can be rejected as being inconsistent with nearly all indices of abundance and exploitation, both inshore and offshore. The only plausible hypotheses remaining are catastrophic mortality of idiopathic origin and migration change.”
Never has blame in a national disaster been shifted with so pathetic, or demonstrably false, a whimper.
The report goes on to conclude that if the catastrophic mortality did occur, “it was likely most severe in the short period following the abbreviated inshore fishery in 1992.” In other words, it wasn’t the fault of DFO science managers, but due to sudden and unknown causes, just as the DFO’s science ADM Scott Parsons wrote in his government-published book in 1993. George Winters was the co-author of Report 98/64, but he has no problem reconciling it with his “Non Gratum Anus Rodentum?” report of 1986, arguing that the assessment errors had been corrected by the fall of 1988, and that the offshore survey results were accurate after 1989. The cod disappeared “for reasons unknown.”
But a report from the Commons fisheries committee in March 1998 directly blamed the DFO for the collapse of the cod and recommended that unnamed “senior DFO personnel who are viewed by the fishing community as being responsible for the crisis” be removed. (Four Liberal members dissented against what they called “witch-hunt justice.”) Instead, the Chrétien government removed Newfoundland Liberal MP George Baker, the committee’s outspoken chairman.
Computers at the House of Commons printers are programmed to use the gender-neutral term fisher, and rejected the word fisherman three times before finally accepting it for the committees’ fifty-eight-page report, as good a measure as there is of just how far the Ottawa mandarins are from the Grand Banks. When the FFAW held a vote on terminology, its female members opted overwhelmingly for “fisherman,” rejecting a word already assigned to a forest animal. One woman from La Scie, Newfoundland, drew a standing ovation when she asked the fisheries committee panel to stop using the term. “I won’t be referred to as a ‘fisher’ by no damned bureaucrats or politicians from Ottawa. I’m a fisherman and proud of it.” Anderson has begun to use the term fishermen again in very recent speeches.
Scott Parsons, who occupied the key scientific post in the DFO while the cod were disappearing, made a lateral move to become ADM of the oceans sector under the new Oceans Act. He is now in charge of creating programs in the regions. In the cosy world where the same faces keep showing up at councils and conventions, Parsons is also head of ICES, which provides marine scientific advice on the North Atlantic. John Davis, director of science for the Pacific Region since 1986, became acting ADM, science, in October 1998. On April 22, 1999, he was appointed to the position.
William Doubleday remains director general of fisheries and ocean science and continues to be a member of the FRCC, the so-called “arm’s-length” body that advises the minister of fisheries and oceans on how to manage our Atlantic fisheries. The minister still appoints the members of the FRCC. Not surprisingly, the body is filled with people who support DFO policies. After Doubleday dismissed Dr. Kim Bell’s final report to COSEWIC, in which he had concluded that cod were endangered, Bell said that the process of writing the report had been “like draining a swamp while up to your ass in alligators.” Before Bell’s report was mailed to members of COSEWIC, “politically sensitive comments” were edited out, and several statements were altered or weakened without the writer’s knowledge. There are unconfirmed reports that COSEWIC’s nongovernment scientists may have their voting rights nullified by the environment minister.
Fred Woodman Jr., of Woodman Sea Products in New Harbour, Trinity Bay, got one of the six new crab-processing licences issued by the Newfoundland government in 1998. The company was founded by his father, the chairman of the FRCC. In April 1999, the DFO announced a three-year crab management plan for the Newfoundland region. The quotas for 1999 and 2000 would be over 61,000 tonnes, an 18 per cent increase from the 49,000-tonne quota in 1998. The quota would be reviewed after two years, “because of uncertainty in mid- to long-term snow crab recruitment.” Exploratory crab fisheries (with no quotas) would be permitted in new areas. The starting price for large crab jumped from 86 cents per pound in 1998 to $1.38 in 1999.
But not everyone is blinded by the new prosperity the shell fishery has brought to Newfoundland. Biologist Jeff Hutchings is using a grant from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to fund a groundbreaking study of the effects of trawling on cod. In a recent article in CJFAS, Hutchings and his co-researchers presented evidence of elaborate cod mating rituals that last for days. The males congregate and defend a small territory, while displaying for the females who visit to select a mate. He circles her up to seventeen times, while she decides if he is a worthy match. It seems obvious that trawlers moving through the spawning cod would disrupt this delicate mating process. Population biologist Ransom Myers has a grant from the same organization to study hundreds of different fish stocks in an effort to help scientists predict when stocks will collapse from overfishing. Both scientists remain at Dalhousie University.
In March 1999, at the FAO meeting of fisheries ministers in Rome, Canada’s representative gave a keynote address on the issue of overcapacity and called for “concrete actions to bring into force international agreements essential for the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s fisheries resources.” Canada was the first country to develop its own Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing Operations, an industry-led initiative that will meet conservation objectives, if implemented. Canada also supports an international plan to limit capacity in the global fleet.
Rather than attend the high-profile FAO meeting in Rome, Anderson chose to address the same issues at a level where he could actually implement them — in his policy statement at the Waterfront Centre Hotel in Vancouver. The changes Anderson has made in the Canadian fishery since becoming minister in June 1997 have put us in the forefront of the international trend towards sustainable fisheries management — at least on paper.
Overfishing, waste, and destructive fishing practices remain rampant worldwide; eleven of the fifteen major fishing areas are in serious decline. Forty-nine of the top fifty countries where fish is the main source of protein are in the developing world. While the FAO was meeting to discuss the international Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries in Rome, three children in Kampala, Uganda, died from eating toxic fish. Local fishermen had been pouring poison into Lake Victoria to catch large numbers of fish, which they later marketed.
The International Ocean Institute (IOI), an independent, nongovernment organization dedicated to studying and preserving the world’s oceans, met in Halifax in late 1998 to celebrate the conclusion of the International Year of the Ocean and to discuss the many related problems of ocean and coastal management. The theme of the conference was “The Crisis of Knowledge.” One of the IOI’s seventeen recommendations was that scientific information should be provided by independent research institutions. Decisions had to be objective, not driven by politics or self-interest. Jeff Hutchings presented a paper at the conference that proposed the creation of a Science Research Council of Canada, similar to the National Research Council in the United States, which has provided independent scientific advice to government and civilians since 1916.
In his chapter in Risky Business: Canada’s Changing Science-Based Policy and Regulatory Regime, William Leiss of the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University says that in Canada “there is some serious misalignment in the interplay between science and public policy.” He argues that the old pattern of governments doing the scientific work and then applying it to policy choices is obsolete. Scientific advice given and acted upon in secret cannot be challenged by the public. The results of this closed shop, as evidenced in the cod collapse, can be catastrophic.
Leiss believes that fisheries science “was abused over a long period of time as a result of short-sighted economic and political decisions.” In his new model, science would be left to independent institutions, and government would be accountable for risk management — honest brokers in controversies played out in public. Humanity no longer has the substantial margin of error it once had in its relationship with natural ecosystems.
The real crisis of knowledge according to the IOI is the cultural and ethical perception of human beings’ relationship to nature: “The Western concept of humanity being outside and above nature and of nature being our servant, there to be exploited, has dominated the scientific and industrial revolution and the colonization of the rest of the world.” That age is now over, replaced with an ecological world-view that may have arisen too late in the day. It is now accepted that “humans are a part of nature and that, by harming nature, we harm ourselves.”