Letter to the Editor

Enough of being Beggars in our own Land

The problems that have been developing in outport Newfoundland since 1949,
and which have now reached crisis proportions, are directly related to
problems in the fisheries, which in turn are directly related to federal
government gross mismanagement and abuse of this resource. However, laying
blame is not going to help matters improve.

Staring reality in the face, the fact is that we gave up the right to
control our own destiny, and, with respect to the fisheries, it seems
equally clear that the Canadian government, our ruling masters, do not see it in
their best interest, economically, socially or politically , to intervene in
any alteration of the status quo. Being almost entirely without political
influence, there is little we can do about this except to grin and bear it.
When we sent Loyola Hearn to Ottawa, it looked as if we might finally have
a strong voice there to represent our interests. We know now what happened to
that hope. Instead of gaining an ally, it turns out that all we did was to
place another antagonist in the enemy camp.

The point I want to make is that I believe we have to change our tactics,
since what we've been doing over the past fifty years is not working , in fact it has
been largely - like in the case of Hearn's assignment to the Fisheries
portfolio - counterproductive.

A major problem in the fisheries fiasco can be pinpointed as that presented
by the migratory patterns of the Banks groundfish stocks that are thus exposed to uncontrolled predation by foreign fishing fleets. This is a complex issue and way beyond my
ability to suggest any simple solution. However, it is my understanding that
this "migratory" problem does not apply to all the stocks, and that there are significant bay stocks of various species that are confined inside our territorial waters. If left alone, the foreigners will inevitably fish the Nose and Tail stocks to commercial extinction. Such a
circumstance would create a hiatus during which time it might be possible to
change the rules governing the management of this area. In the meantime, by
devoting attention to the region over which we do have some control, it may
be possible not only to preserve this resource from total extinction, but to
develop it to where it becomes again a viable means of protecting and
sustaining our rural communities.

Again, with reference to the problem of migrating stocks, besides the
choice of allowing the foreigners to go at it and eliminate themselves by default,
there is another option which perhaps could be pursued, and for which there
is a recent precedent.

After I left my home town in 1949, I became, and remained for the rest of
my life, an avid salmon fisherman. Everything on the subject that I could get my hands
on I read. The great mystery at that time was where did the salmon go when
they left the rivers. Then, in 1958, with the under-ice voyage of the USS
Nautilus through the NW Passage , the mystery was uncovered. Great masses of
Atlantic salmon were found feeding on krill beneath the ice off the NW coast
of Greenland. Immediately the vultures moved in for the kill, and in the
matter of only a couple of years our rivers, once teeming with salmon,
were now virtually emptied. This was a shocking and heart-breaking event
to experience.

In 1982 the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization (NASCO) came
into being as a result of concerned individuals, particularly in the US. Its mission is the
"protection of salmon stocks that migrate beyond areas of fisheries
jurisdiction of coastal states of the Atlantic ........throughout their
migratory range. " This organization, headquartered in Scotland, has had
remarkable success in returning this beautiful creature from the brink of extinction.
Even the Greenlanders and the Faeroe Islanders cooperated with the various
conservation measures so that from 1998-2000 there was actually no
commercial fishing for Atlantic salmon anywhere in the world. Since 2001,
Greenland and the Faeroe Islands have been allocated small quotas for
domestic use. Ironically, the greatest danger now to the survival of wild
Atlantic salmon is the proliferation of aquaculture and the inevitable
escape from salmon farms of transgenics (genetically altered species) into
the wild.

Is it not possible that something along the lines of NASCO could be
organized to remedy the danger presented by the migratory habits of Grand
Banks cod, as well as the several other species. Plainly, DFO, NAFO and
the UN might as well be written off as useless organizations, so where else
do we turn? In any case, whatever course is followed, its success will
depend entirely on the extent to which Newfoundland takes the initiative.
This is our problem, and no one else is going to solve it for us if we don't
solve it for ourselves. I don't believe for a minute that there's nothing
we can do.

Incidentally, whatever happened to the 1995 United Nations Fisheries
Agreement (UNFA), ratified by Canada in 1997. Its mandate was to find a
solution to the problem of protecting and managing the migrating, straddling
and highly migratory fish stocks on the Grand Banks. Brian Tobin touted
this as the ultimate fisheries panacea, but like the other of his fisheries
initiatives, just so much more verbal spume. The truth is that the UN, in
matters of this kind, is , like NAFO, a toothless tiger.

So, where does that leave us! The fisheries is us, it is what defines us,
it is who we are , it is why we are here , it is our only hope for a viable
future. If we are going to continue to survive in this place, we have to
take the control of our destiny back into our own hands . The
alternative - the only alternative - is to continue to submit to the rule
and patronage of our overlords and , like other effete cultures, disappear
inevitably into shadows of oblivion. To give up in the belief that we are
so few in numbers as to be helpless and with no alternative but to throw
ourselves on the charity of others is nothing but a lame excuse: the
propaganda of our gainsayers and, worst of all, the refuge of the gutless.
We are not helpless , far from it . If we lack anything it is faith in
ourselves , faith in a future that could be ours if only we would take hold
of it. Surely, after more than half a century, we have had enough of the
John Crosbies, the Brian Tobins, the Loyola Hearns and the false hopes held
out by that unfriendly regime into the designing arms of which those
emissaries were all seduced.

Every day I live convinces me more that if we are to survive as a people in
this land, we must cast off the bonds of confederation, at least insofar as
it denies us equal membership and participation in the Canadian federation..
Enough of being the "xxxxx xxxxx" in this Dominion; enough of being
beggars in our own land.

Lloyd C.