COD MORATORIUM: 25 Years On

IN THIS ISSUE

Duration: 15:24

When the Canadian government shut down Newfoundland's northern cod fishing industry in 1992 there was an angry outcry. Up until then, fishermen scooped up to 600,000 tonnes of the fish out of the sea every year. But the seas were about to be fished dry – and cod as a species would disappear. CBC's Reg Sherren returns to Newfoundland 25 years later to find out if the cod have recovered and what it means for those who earn a living on the sea.

Related News in Review Stories CREDITS • Cod Moratorium 20 Years Later (Sep 2012) News in Review is produced by CBC NEWS • Newfoundland: A New Economy (Feb 2001) • The Fish War: Pirates or Patriots? (May 1995) Resource Guide Writer: Jill Morris • Beleaguered Newfoundland (April 1992) Resource Guide Editor: Sean Dolan Host: Michael Serapio Packaging Producer: Marie-Hélène Savard Other related Curio.ca content Associate Producer: Francine Laprotte Supervising Manager: Laraine Bone • Cyanide-laced Fish and Other Tasty Hazards Visit our website at curio.ca/newsinreview, where • One Ocean: Footprints in the Sand you will find an archive of all previous News in • One Ocean: Mysteries of the Deep Review seasons. As a companion resource, we • Peril at Sea recommend that students and teachers access cbc.ca/news for additional articles. • Suzuki Diaries 2: Coastal Canada Closed Captioning News in Review programs are closed captioned for the hearing impaired, for English as a Second Language students, or for situations in which the additional on-screen print component will enhance learning.

CBC Learning authorizes reproduction of material contained in this guide for educational purposes. Please identify source.

News in Review is distributed by: Curio.ca – CBC Media Solutions www.curio.ca

1 VIDEO REVIEW 10. What impact has the cod moratorium had on the crab and shrimp stocks?

Before Viewing 11. Which group is pressuring the government As a class, create a brainstorm note about to increase the cod quotas? what you know about Newfoundland and the 12. What is the recommendation of the fisheries. Can you think of other parts of scientists with regards to lifting the Canada that are mostly dependent on a moratorium on cod fishing? single resource? How do these single-source local economies compare to the community After Viewing that you live in? 1. After the moratorium was declared, what Viewing did fishermen need to do to survive as fishermen? What role, if any, do you think 1. What was once said about the number of small, family-owned fishing boats play in cod in the North Atlantic? the future of the Newfoundland fishing 2. What does Gord James fish instead of industry? Explain your reasoning. cod? 2. Are you surprised that people are pushing 3. What is Gord James’s attitude towards to end the moratorium? Is there any John Crosbie now? indication that we have learned important lessons from the cod stock crisis? 4. Beginning in the 1960s, what change in the fishing industry had a devastating impact 3. How important do you think generational on the cod stocks? differences are to the future of Newfoundland communities? Most of the 5. What other countries besides Canada people interviewed in the video are from were fishing the North Atlantic cod? an older generation. Do you expect the younger generation to have different 6. In addition to more systematic offshore views of what Newfoundland communities fishing practices, what other factors could and will become? What will those contributed to overfishing of the cod? communities look like? 7. When did Glen Winslow take possession of his new million dollar off-shore fishing boat?

8. What amount was initially offered to the fishermen as compensation? What actions made it possible for Crosbie to get more compensation for the fishermen?

9. What role did the oil industry play in the aftermath of the cod moratorium?

2 THE STORY Gord James wasn’t always a lobster fisherman. Twenty-five years ago, he, along Minds On with most of the men of his generation, pulled his cod pots up for the last time. The equipment mouldered in the shed until, Check out the Overfishing Infographic at: by one, the wooden pots were broken up overfishing.org/pages/Overfishing_in_one_minute.php and burned as scrap. Today, James readily admits that then Fisheries Minister John Consider the following questions: Crosbie had no choice but to impose the cod moratorium. • What is the definition of overfishing? • What causes overfishing? Encountering the waters around Newfoundland for • What can individuals do to help species the first time in 1497, explorer John Cabot described that are being overfished? them as “swarming with fish, which can be taken not only with the net, but in baskets let down with a • What are some of the consequences of stone.” overfishing?

Taking stock Watch the Canadian Heritage minute that Gord James steers his small fishing boat dramatizes the moment that Cabot and his crew through the ice forming on the surface of the first saw the North Atlantic cod: North Atlantic. He won’t be able to access historicacanada.ca/content/heritage- his lobster pots until the ice clears. Until then, minutes/john-cabot he can only guess at what his efforts have produced. Like most people who depend on the sea for their living, James is used to Land and sea accepting what the ocean provides. “When ice backs off now we’re going to take an In 1497, the cod may have been among the inventory and see if there’s anything left. first important discoveries made by English Whatever is left, we will try to figure out how explorer John Cabot in this new found land. to make a living with.” Initially, the cod were fished, salted and transported directly back to England and other coastal European countries. The English were the first to come to land in order to salt and dry the cod. Drying the fish resulted in lighter loads and increased the number of fish that could be carried back across the Atlantic. Settlements in Newfoundland reflect this functional history. Wharfs and buildings were positioned to serve the needs of the

Gord James fishery and all human effort turned to the sea.

3 Former scientist with Fisheries and Oceans season. In the late 1960s, foreign fishing boats Canada George Rose describes the Grand scooped up a significant portion of the stock Banks as “monstrous” in size and significance. using a dragging method that could capture When, over 200 million years ago, the North almost entire schools of cod. A decade later, American land mass pulled away from Europe Canada extended its maritime claims from 12 and Africa, a shallow plateau was created off nautical miles to 200 miles offshore, protecting its northeastern edge. The plateau runs for all but the outward tips of the Grand Banks almost 500 kilometres along the coast of from foreign draggers. While the extension Newfoundland and Labrador. The Labrador offered a slight reprieve, allowing for some re- Current pulls the cold arctic water toward the building of the cod stocks, it would not be warm upward flow of the Gulf Stream and, enough. Temperatures on the Grand Banks where the two flows meet, they combine to cooled causing capelin stocks to shrink and churn up plankton from the deep Atlantic. The shift to the south; the cod followed, moving plankton then comes into contact with the southward and travelling in tighter schools transformative power of energy from the sun. searching for diminishing food sources. This sets in motion a conversion of nutrients up Here the winds blow, the food chain, ultimately resulting in plentiful And here they die, stocks of either shrimp or a bait fish called Not with that wild, exotic rage capelin, the food of choice for cod. It’s a That vainly sweeps untrodden shores, complex and fragile interplay of geology, But with familiar breath oceanography, and biology. It was this Holding a partnership with life, interplay that created the bountiful cod stock Resonant with the hopes of spring, that Cabot encountered in 1497. Pungent with the airs of harvest.

PLANKTON – From “Newfoundland,” by E.J Pratt Very small plants and animals that float in the sea and on which other sea Environment and technology animals feed In a devastating pattern of call and response, as the fish stock faltered and cod became Pushing limits more difficult to catch, fishing technologies improved. Sounders allowed trawlers to locate For much of the 500 years of fishing on the schools of cod hundreds of metres below the Grand Banks, the industry was sustainable. surface and the fishermen used bag-shaped Small family-based fishing boats used nets to scoop the tightly packed fish. In 1990, weighted hooks and traps for their catches. two years before the moratorium, George The work was gruelling and often dangerous Rose was aboard the research ship Gadus and, as the years went on, it became harder Atlantica tracking a formation of roughly and harder for fishermen to earn enough to 450 000 tonnes of cod as it travelled south support their families with their efforts. Bigger towards waiting trawlers. That season, boats and newer methods allowed them to Canadian and foreign-owned offshore catch more cod and extend the fishing

4 trawlers reported record catches totalling protests made it easier for him to argue for 300 000 tonnes of fish. By Rose’s estimation, in larger compensation packages from the a single season over 50 per cent of the total federal government. The compensation remaining cod stocks were removed. money would not go far and many families scattered as members moved to find work in Little guys and big business other parts of the country. A significant On June 2,1992, when John Crosbie imposed number moved to Fort McMurray, Alberta, to the cod moratorium, approximately 95 per work in the oil industry. Those who stayed and cent of the industry was owned by individual tried to make a living with fishing, focused on fishermen who operated smaller boats. the snow crab and shrimp stocks. Today, the According to Senate Committee reports , the shrimp and snow crab populations are inshore fisherman spent long hours fishing with shrinking, and quotas for both species have the modest financial goal of maintaining his been reduced. boat and equipment, and providing basics such as food and shelter for his family. This sector of the industry accounted for 50% of the total cod intake. Meanwhile, large, offshore company-owned fishing trawlers accounted for roughly five per cent of the fishing industry. These profit-driven, fishing giants collected the other half of the cod catch. The company trawlers also made use of the most advanced and destructive fishing technologies. John Crosbie A Sustainable Future The moratorium resulted in the largest layoff in Canadian history; in a single Unemployment in Newfoundland currently sits day, 38,000 people lost their jobs. at 14.2 per cent, the highest rate in Canada and more than twice the national average. In addition to the long-term impact of the cod Life goes on moratorium of 25 years ago, the province has When the moratorium was declared, the also had hard luck with faltering hydro-electric response of the local fishermen was direct and projects and dropping oil prices. Lower oil swift. In a single moment, the activity that had prices mean off-shore rigs like the North defined their lives and their communities for Atlantic Hibernia field are struggling to stay in generations was gone. John Crosbie expected business. It also means that the thousands of and understood their anger. Their public protests Newfoundlanders who sought employment in the Alberta oil patch are now fighting to keep their jobs (some Newfoundlanders jokingly 1993 Senate Committee Report on the Atlantic Commercial refer to Fort McMurray, Alberta, as the second Inshore Fishery largest city in Newfoundland). sencanada.ca/content/sen/committee/352/fish/rep/93rep3-e.htm

5 Now that the cod population seems to be To Consider showing signs of a recovery, there is a great deal of pressure on politicians to lift the 1. Consider the difference between the sole moratorium and revive the fisheries in proprietor fishing boat and the company- Newfoundland. Scientists urge caution; there is owned trawler. Does one group bear more agreement that while the stocks seem to be or less responsibility for the over fishing of moving in the right direction, the recovery is in the cod? Do you think both types of its earliest stages. The Department of Fisheries fishermen struggled equally after the and Oceans (DFO) has begun a process of moratorium? easing the moratorium, slowly and slightly. In 2. What reasons, beyond economic 2017, the agency increased the weekly catch concerns, do we have for protecting the limits in many regions where a “stewardship cod stocks? fishery” program is in place. The Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW) that represents 3. According to Mahatma Gandhi, “Earth workers in the fisheries industry, finds the provides enough to satisfy every man’s current quota levels to be very conservative needs, but not every man’s greed.” To and wants the government to increase cod what extent do you think this is true in terms quotas for fishermen who are struggling of what happened to the cod stocks? because of cuts to shrimp and crab quotas. Kevin Sullivan, president of the FFAW, notes Sources that, “People understand it’s got to be done sustainably, but they can also see that this is Mason, G. (March 31, 2017). Newfoundland must play the long game on cod. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved something that’s going to bring value back to from theglobeandmail.com communities, hopefully for years to come.” While it is clear that Newfoundland could use Murphy, J. (June 22, 2017). Can cod comeback keep a Canadian fishery afloat? BBC News. Retrieved from some good economic news, Ryan Cleary, bbc.com former journalist and ex-federal politician, draws attention to the current crisis in the in- The cod are coming back to Newfoundland — and shore fishing of shrimp and crab. He warns, “It they're eating the shrimp that had taken over. (March 23, 2017). National Post. Retrieved from hasn’t gotten better, it’s gotten worse. We nationalpost.com didn’t learn anything from the moratorium.”

You could have hundreds of communities in this province prospering from the cod fishery if people just used their brains and their heads. People are geared up to do things that were destructive before the moratorium, and they’re going to go right back to it again. – Tom Best, President of the Petty Harbour Fishermen's Cooperative

6 ❶ ACTIVITY: To Whom It May Concern

Consider the words of Roosevelt and craft a To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to letter to the Minister(s) of Fisheries, Oceans skin and exhaust the land instead of using it and the Canadian Coast Guard. As a young so as to increase its usefulness, will result in person who will inherit responsibility for the undermining in the days of our children the land and its resources, what advice do you very prosperity which we ought by right to want to offer the minister(s)? Provide three hand down to them amplified and developed. solid reasons for your advice. Draw on the – Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1915, American information you gathered from the video and politician, author, naturalist, and reformer; from research you complete on your own. The served as the 26th President of the United letter should be organized, formal in tone, and States from 1901 to 1909 fully edited.

Length of the letter: 250-500 words

❷ ACTIVITY: Moving Pictures Working with a partner, research and select at least six images of cod and cod fishing in Newfoundland. Locate images across time and covering different aspects of the role cod plays in Newfoundland culture. Establish a timeline and tell a story with the images that you find. Use Power Point or another slide application to present your images. Write a short caption for each image and be sure to properly cite your images. Write an organized explanation of your photo essay in which you explain the story you are trying to tell or the point your images are supporting. Share your photo essay with the class.