2004-10-31

Happy Valley-Goose BayBy Bert PomeroyThe Independent

When Uncle Jim Andersenboarded a plane last summerand travelled along the coast

to attend the Charlottetown Shrimp Fes-tival, his mind wandered back to theyear Newfoundland and Labradorjoined Canada.

“I went to St. John’s in 1949 aboardthe (steamship) Kyle, and there werethousands of people fishing all along thecoast — every cove and harbour wasfull,” he recalls for The Independent.“When I went down last year I felt lone-ly and sad, because I didn’t see anyboats or people.”

The 86-year-old native of Makkovikon the remote Labrador coast says 1949was a good year for the fishery,

“There was lots of fish that year, andfor many years after that,” he says. “Ican remember when you would be onthe deck up to your knees in cod. Therewas always lots of fish.”

The cod was so plentiful, says UncleJim (as he’s affectionately known), theycould be seen chasing the caplin thatwould come to spawn on the beach. Andthe masts from the fishing schoonersthat came faithfully year after yearlooked like a forest of “dry wood.”

Today, caplin no longer come ashoreand cod have all but vanished.

“I believe it was the draggers that didit,” Uncle Jim says. “I think we’d stillhave lots of fish if the draggers weren’tallowed to come and take it in the ’70sand the ’80s.”

On Labrador’s south coast, the tinyisland community of Black Tickle wasonce recognized as the province’s fish-ing capital.

“I can remember when people wouldgo in the fall and put down great sumsof money to buy the biggest snowmo-biles,” says Brenda Roberts, who movedto the community in the early 1980s topursue a teaching career. “There wasample employment then, and peoplepaid cash for just about everything —they didn’t need to put things on credit.”

The community’s population at thetime, recalls Roberts, was about 350.That would swell to well over 3,000during the summer and fall, when fam-ilies from Newfoundland migrated northto fish the lucrative cod.

“There were that many boats hereyou could walk across the harbour with-out touching water,” she says. “It was-n’t uncommon to see a man and his wifeand three or four children living insheds, or what was called Aspenite Vil-lage, for three or four months at a time.”

The children would attend school forthe first couple of months of the year,Roberts says, and would then moveback to the island. The cycle wouldbegin again the following summer.

“There was always plenty of fish,”she says, particularly in 1988 and 1989.“That was when we had a massive glut.There was that much fish they would roton the boats before they could be sold.The fish plant couldn’t keep up with allthe work, and the Portuguese collector

‘Cultural genocide’Efforts ongoing for 30 years to halt overfishing; little headway: Etchegary

By Jeff DucharmeThe Independent

Gus Etchegary points at an over-sized graph that charts thedecline of the northern cod fish-

ery — it’s all right there, the loss of alivelihood and a culture’s slow marchtowards obscurity.

One 20-year spike on a coloured graphand 500 years of fishing his-tory hangs in the balance.

Using the federal Depart-ment of Fisheries andOceans’ own numbers,Etchegary, an outspokenfishery advocate and formerexecutive with Fishery Prod-ucts International, plottedcod catches by Canadian andforeign fleets.

Between 1875 and 1960,catches by foreign and Cana-dian fleets stayed within50,000 tonnes of each other— with the Canadian fleet taking no morethan 300,000 tonnes a year, and foreignships peaking at 400,000 tonnes.

The Canadian and foreign catches ofnorthern cod began showing signs ofsteep decline in the late 1960s, whencatch rates dropped by almost half.

Foreign catches peaked in 1971 at900,000 tonnes. By 1975 the world’s mostprolific fishing grounds, the Grand Banks,and the cod that once thrived there, wereteetering on the edge.

“There’s the overfishing. There’s theimpact,” says Etchegary, pointing at agraph resting on a couch in the basementof his home in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s.

Etchegary says former prime ministerPierre Trudeau’s policy of doubling codquotas to foreign fleets was what eventu-ally led to the collapse.

“This is the same evidence that wegave to the Trudeau government,”

Etchegary tells The Independent. “Thiskind of thing is really what brought thedeath knell to that major industry.”

Trudeau’s turning a blind eye to theimpending crisis and federal Fisheriesmismanagement of the stocks insideCanada’s 200-mile limit eventually led tothe largest layoff in Canadian history —40,000, including those in Quebec and theMaritimes — with the 1992 northern codmoratorium.

As the quotas handed to foreign fleets

went up, cod of spawning age — sevenyears and older — began to decline.

The biomass sat at 1.6 million tonnes in1962 and began a steady dive to around150,000 tonnes by 1977. As the fishingeffort went up, the spawning stock wentdown.

“That’s the story, it’s as simple as that,”says Etchegary. “The mismanagement Ikeep talking about, ad nauseam, has been

proven beyond the shadow ofa doubt.”

Etchegary says after theSecond World War a protein-hungry world descended onthe Grand Banks in the formof foreign fleets.

But Etchegary doesn’t trainhis guns solely on the fedsand the usually vilifiedDepartment of Fisheries andOceans.

“You don’t have the leader-ship in the industry and Idon’t mind saying that — and

loud. There isn’t leadership in any part ofthe federal Fisheries into doing the rightthing.”

Fish coming into FPI plants becamesmaller and smaller. While Etchegary wasconcerned for the health of the resource,he also knew the company and its 7,500employees were facing an uncertainfuture as the province crept through the1970s.

VOL. 2 ISSUE 44 ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR SUNDAY THROUGH SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31-NOVEMBER 6, 2004 WWW.THEINDEPENDENT.CA $1.00 (INCLUDING HST)

LIFE & TIMESNoreen Golfman wadesinto festival ‘controversy’

Page 23

INTERNATIONALStephen Reddin recalls his trip Down Under

Page 20

SPORTSCorner Brook native JasonKing a Moose on skates

Page 25

QuoteOF THEWeek

$76B LOSSBy Stephanie PorterThe Independent

Between 1992 and 2010, the collapse of the Newfound-land and Labrador groundfish fishery will have anoverall $76 billion negative economic

impact on the global fishing industry.The estimate is based on research conducted by

The Independent as part of its six-part seriesinvestigating the costs and benefits of Confedera-tion.

Had the groundfish stocks off the East Coast ofCanada been properly managed, the waters off this provincecould be providing a healthy, sustainable annual catch — andrevenue — today.

But, as the people of this province are all too aware, that did-n’t happen, and the industry will be worth an estimated $62.5billion less (cumulative, between 1992 and 2010). The bene-fits of additional employment would havebeen worth another $13.5 billion over thatsame time frame.

In 2003, the East Coast fishery — crab andshrimp mainly — was worth about $1 billion,according to numbers provided by the provin-cial Fisheries Department, a quarter of what itcould have been.

Cod, once considered Newfoundland cur-rency, had a landed value of just $16 millionlast year.

The people of this province won’t see any-where near $76 billion from the resource that was the founda-tion of the culture, history and economy; that was the“lifeblood.” That level of return from the fishery won’t comefor years, if ever.

“There’s a lot of problems in the fishery,” federal Natural

Resources Minister John Efford tells The Independent. “Wehad one of the largest codfish biomasses in the world on theGrand Banks, today we’re worrying if it’s going to be placedon the endangered species list. That should never be. That’snothing, only total mismanagement in the past.”

The managers of the fish? The Government of Canada. When Newfoundland joined Confederation in

1949, the new province turned total control of itsfisheries over to Ottawa, one of the conditions ofthe Terms of Union. Quotas, science budgets,regulations and surveillance have all been deter-

mined by the feds for 55 years.Jim Morgan, provincial Fisheries minister for six years dur-

ing the 1980s, says “fisheries was the most frustrating thing Iever did in my political life. Not that I didn’t enjoy it — I camefrom a fishing community in Bonavista Bay, I fished with myfather — but it was frustrating because you got no say what-

soever. No consultation whatsoever.”Morgan remembers getting reports from

that time of fishermen “using big brooms” tosweep cod roe off the decks before their shipcame into port. No regard was given for howthat might affect the reproduction of thespecies.

Even when he was first elected to theHouse of Assembly, in the early 1970s, healready heard rumblings about the depletionof the cod stocks. It was years before theywere addressed.

In spite of regular calls for provincial-federal joint manage-ment, for Canada to take custodial management of the nose andtail of the Grand Banks as a way to halt foreign overfishing,

Continued on page 2

Continued on page 10

Edward Rowe photo

“We became able to kill too easily. Webecame able to kill

everything”

— Leslie Harris, 1991 report on northern cod stocks

‘There was always plenty of fish’Not so since the 1980s when waters

off the Labrador coast were ‘vacuumed out’

Continued on page 6

FINDING THE

BALANCECost benefit analysis

of ConfederationThird in a six-part series

COST/ BENEFIT SUMMARY

SEGMENT

Oil & Gas $6.1B $1.12B

Transportation ($7.7B) $0

Fisheries $15.2B $3.3B

Running Total $13.6B $4.42B

Please see detailed breakdown, page 2

Next week’s topic: finances.

As of Mar/10 As of Mar/10

The Independent puts a dollar figure on impact of collapsed groundfish stocks such as cod

Harbour haunt

The northern cod fishery, shut down in 1992, was once the lifeblood of the island’s northeast coast and Labrador. Today, itmay be declared endangered. The province’s fishery was worth more than $1 billion last year, mainly from shrimp and crab.Inshore fishermen from St. John’s (circa yesteryear) bring in a load of fish to the Battery, St. John’s harbour.

for more science, more communication, formore heed to be paid to the early signs ofstocks in trouble … nothing has been done.

“Our fishery was literally squandered,”says former federal Fisheries minister JamesMcGrath.

“It was an absolutelyremarkable environmen-tal resource. It was thegreatest fishery in theworld and we destroyed it,” echoes Memo-rial University historian Robert Sweeny.

In the years after Confederation, the focusswitched from the community-based inshorefishery rural Newfoundland was built on, toa larger-scale offshore industry. Salt cod fellout of fashion, fresh and frozen seafooddrove the market.

Technology changed rapidly, allowinglarger boats to fish relentlessly, offshore,cleaning and freezing their catch as theywent. Regulations did not keep pace with therapidly expanding capacity, draggersscraped over spawning grounds year-round.

“It was an enormous resource that weprobably weren’t catching at a sustainablerate … but it wasn’t until the technology tocatch the fish all the time, wherever theywere, came along, that the effects were feltquickly,” Sweeny says.

In other words, the fish didn’t stand achance.

There are currently 10 groundfish stocksunder moratoria in the waters off New-foundland and Labrador, including three codstocks, American plaice, redfish and witchflounder. The crab fishery, which has provenlucrative in recent years, is showing signs oftrouble. As are caplin stocks.

“It’s a terrible thing that we’re doing inthe fishery now because we’re fishingeverything right down to extinction andwe’re not going to stop till it’s done,” saysWilfred Bartlett, a retired fisherman fromTriton, Notre Dame Bay.

While the feds, in their capacity asguardians of the fisheries, may be responsi-ble for great losses to the province, theyhave also invested here.

Ottawa has spent billions in fisheriesresearch, science and surveillance since the1950s. DFO budget numbers for thisprovince, before last year (the 2003 budgetwas $148 million) weren’t available by pressdeadline. The feds have paid billions morein subsidies, compensation and training pro-grams to men and women involved in fishharvesting and processing, particularly post-moratorium.

The Independent calculates the total to beabout $5.5 billion.

Although the Canadian government bearsthe weight of responsibility for the fate ofthe fishery, it doesn’t shoulder all the blame.There is some talk environmental conditions— changes in climate, water temperature orcurrent — or oil exploration efforts mayhave some effect.

Foreign trawlers have long fished, over-

fished, off the Grand Banks, ignoring sug-gested quotas.

“Those people, the people who over-fished, those people at DFO who allowed itto happen, and those of us, including youand I, who stood back and never done any-thing to stop it, we all have to wear it,” saysEfford.

“I’m not blaming the minister of the day.I’m telling you John Efford watched thedraggers out on the Grand Banks. New-foundlanders and Labradorians looked outthe window and … looked at the boats outthere overfishing and we did not stop it. Wedidn’t do anything to stop it.”

Maddox Cove fisherman Sam Lee saysfishermen were part of the destruction. Heopenly talks of tossing away smaller fish infavour of big ones, of the practice of target-ing specific “bycatch” stocks, of pulling inhundreds of pounds of cod while engaged ina blackback fishery — with the blessing ofDFO.

Says Bartlett, “the cod is never comingback and it’s never going to come back inmy day ’cause we won’t let it come back.Every time there’s a few fish out thereeverybody’s crying and want to get it openand go out fishing.”

Though it’s not what it was, or what itcould be, there is still a fishing industry inthis province: there are still boats, fishermenand women, and functional fish plants. Newmarkets for new species, whether they besea cucumber or lumpfish, are still beingfound. The crab fishery provides a goodstandard of life for thousands in the

province.Provincial Fisheries Minister Trevor Tay-

lor says some stocks, including cod in theGulf of St. Lawrence, herring and macker-el, are showing “some evidence of recovery,not to the extent that we want to see it …

“Nobody can really put their finger on itand nobody can say for sure if what we thinkis happening is happening but there is evi-dence of it and … it’s cause for some levelof optimism.”

As provincial Liberal leader RogerGrimes says, the fishery “has to” be thefuture of this province.

“Ore comes and goes, oil comes and goes,but the fishery is the renewable, sustainablebackbone of the province,” the former pre-mier says.

He, and “every premier, certainly back toJoey’s days” maintains joint federal-provin-cial management is key to the future healthof the stocks.

“It’s an issue that makes total sense to us,a common sense issue, but we can’t get itdone until the Government of Canadadecides to do it for us,” he says.

Changes to the Terms of Union to awardjoint management, like custodial manage-ment of the nose and tail of the GrandBanks, been asked for, voted on — andnever received.

Back in Petty Harbour, when asked if hesees a future for the fishery, inshore fisher-man Sam Lee falls silent, shrugs, and holdsup both hands, fingers crossed.

“You don’t know with the fishery. Younever know. You just go day for day.”

Page 2 NEWS The Independent, October 31, 2004

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FINDING THE


of Confederation


While the federal governmentbandies about the idea ofextending custodial manage-

ment over the entire Grand Banks, theUnited Nations has already given themthe tool to halt foreign overfishing.

Senator George Baker maintains thatCanada could take ownership to the edgeof the continental shelf — it currently hasjurisdiction to the 200-mile limit — byapplying to the UN under the Law of theSea. Once approved, Canada would ownthe ocean floor. Ottawa ratified the Law ofthe Sea in 2003, but they’ve been hesitantto apply for ownership of the GrandBanks.

“All foreign fishing off Newfoundland’scoast is done by dragging the ocean floor,every single bit of it,” Baker tells TheIndependent.

“We can’t stop fishing, but we can stopdragging.”

Currently 21 coastal states have appliedunder article 76 to take ownership of theircontinental shelf.

“The position of the Conservative partyand the Liberal party and the NDP party inthe House of Commons is for custodialmanagement, but custodial managementcarries with it the connotation that you arethe custodian for somebody else,” saysBaker. “In other words, somebody else hasthe right to fish.”

Before Ottawa can even make the appli-cation, a hydrologic survey of the GrandBanks must be completed. Baker says the$70 million required to carry out the sur-vey has been allotted, but the governmentship and expertise needed to do the surveyis in Uruguay as part of Ottawa’s interna-tional aid commitments.

Ironically, says Baker, the CanadianHydrographic Survey vessel is doing thesurvey for the Uruguay government so itcan apply to take ownership of its conti-nental shelf.

The province’s only cabinet memberand Natural Resource Minister JohnEfford, who’s department is responsiblefor the survey, says he personally supportsthe move to take ownership and says thesurvey will be done. But he offered noguarantees that the federal governmentwould support the move.

“Fisheries issues need to be addressed,the hydrographic surveys on the GrandBank needs to be done … there’s a lot offiles besides this one.”

Baker, however, doubts that Ottawa willtake the risk.

“What Canada is held up on is thisCanada nice guy thing and all these tradearrangements with all these foreign nationsand the cocktail parties and the embassyparties — that’s how the ship is run.”

Law of the Seacould halt

dragging; BakerFrom page 1

Fishery ‘has to be the future’

The Independent, October 31, 2004 NEWS Page 3

By Stephanie PorterThe Independent

When James McGrath firstbecame Fisheries ministerfor Canada in 1979, one of

his middle managers — who hap-pened to be a Newfoundlander —paid him a visit, with one piece ofadvice to offer.

“He said, ‘When you receive rec-ommendations for total allowablecatches, you should shave them by 25per cent.’” McGrath says. “That’show inexact the science is.”

One of the first decisions McGrathhad to make as minister was whetherto reopen the Gulf fishery to trawlers.Although it was unpopular at thetime, he took the 25-per-cent-lessadvice he was given. Later, he main-tains, it was recognized he did theright thing.

“Who’s right?” he asks. “Is it thefishermen or the scientists? Some-where in between, I figure, you havethe truth.”

McGrath paints an uncomfortablepicture of fisheries management:“inexact” or incomplete science peo-ple don’t trust; fishermen and womenwho aren’t always listened too; polit-ical pressure from many levels; and,at the head of it all, “the draconianpower of the minister.”

“Within the Fisheries Act, one of(Canada’s) oldest acts … lies absolutepower with one person,” McGrathsays. “So that when we became aprovince of Canada, total say over ourfisheries were vested in the hands ofthe Government of Canada. As aresult of that, our fisheries weredestroyed.

“Our fishery was literally squan-dered. We had no say in the manage-ment of it and we don’t to this day.”

McGrath says Newfoundland andLabrador’s greatest, original renew-able resource became the victim ofcompeting interests — treated not asa Newfoundland and Labrador fishery

— but as a common property resourceopen to all Canadians.

McGrath was politically active atan early age, a teenager when he wasa member of the Responsible Gov-ernment League during the Confeder-ation campaign. He and two partnersbegan a newspaper, The Newfound-land Weekly, in the ’50s. It lasted ayear.

McGrath first ran for poli-tics in 1956 and lost. But hetried again, this time success-fully, one year later, and wonthe St. John’s East seat for theProgressive Conservatives in 1957.He held the seat until 1963, thenregained it in 1968 — keeping it, thistime, until the mid-1980s.

Through those years of politics,through his five-year stint as lieu-tenant governor of the province, andin the years since, McGrath hasstayed informed, opinionated, and,from time to time, incensed.

As a Yo Yo Ma CD plays in thebackground, McGrath relaxes at thedining room table in his St. John’sapartment. The pink, white and greenNewfoundland flagsits as a centrepiece.Although McGrathfavoured responsiblegovernment over Con-federation back in1949, he’s not certainNewfoundland andLabrador should notbe part of Canada.

“But, if we’d hadour own parliamentrestored to us, as waspromised, it would have negotiatedwith Canada, not a panel appointedby an English governor. We mayhave ended up in Canada … but if wehad ended up part of Canada, wewould have done so under betterterms.”

That could have been the key tostill having a cod fishery. But hind-sight, as they say, is perfect.

“Fish was not the lucrative com-modity then that it is now. But it wasimportant enough I think we couldhave said to Canada, look, we want tonegotiate, we don’t want to hand ourfisheries over willy-nilly without cer-tain conditions attached.

“That we want to be consulted onthe awarding of quotas and using ourprecious fishery resources as barter-

ing tools for the fisheriestrade.”

But nobody questioned atthe time what would happento Newfoundland’s fisheries,

once brought under the Canadian flag.And so decisions relating to offshorefisheries were made in Ottawa, thou-sands of kilometers away from thepeople — and fish — they impacted.

McGrath says the next big chancefor Canada to manage the fish prop-erly was in the late-1970s, when thecountry implemented the 200-milelimit.

What should have been an oppor-tunity for careful thought, McGrathsays, Canada looked at as a “bonanza,as a gold strike.” More fish plants

were built, an aggres-sive Canadian off-shore fleet was devel-oped (in part, to feedthe plants), and theforeign freezertrawlers were out inforce. Cod werefished 12 months ayear.

“You don’t have tobe a marine biologistto know if you don’t

give the animal time to reproduce it’sgoing to disappear.” And disappear itdid. Even now, McGrath says, hedoesn’t think DFO should “even con-template sustaining an offshoretrawler fishery.”

But he does think there’s room —even a necessity — for an inshore,hook-and-line fishery.

In 1979, when McGrath was Fish-

eries minister, he was quoted as say-ing this about rural Newfoundlanders:“for these people, for the peopleworking in processing plants, for theirfamilies and the communities inwhich they live, the right and the abil-ity to reap the (inshore) harvest isindispensable, because they have aspecial, a very special relationship tothese stocks.”

It’s a belief he holds today —strongly.

“I think there’s enough fish in ourbays to sustain a hook and line fishery… however, the mindset in Ottawa isthat the inshore is a ‘social fishery,’people fishing for stamps.

“Not the life’s blood of Newfound-land, which it is, and has been forhundreds of years. They would like tosee this social fishery, the inshore, dis-appear. And this is where we shouldbe digging in our heels. Because theinshore fishery is the only thing thatcan save rural Newfoundland.”

Without federal-provincial jointmanagement, McGrath says there’slittle hope for the fishery of the future.Admittedly pessimistic, he wondersaloud whether the current mediaexcitement surrounding DannyWilliams’ stand on the AtlanticAccord could, in the end, give New-foundland and Labrador a leg up onother negotiations.

“We don’t have much clout in thefederation and that’s a real problem,”he says. “We have to get their atten-tion.

“I think out of this oil thing, per-haps we have their attention. Open-line shows are now talking about sep-aration and it doesn’t surprise me.

“Maybe the offshore oil situationhas shown us the way … we have anoffshore management board whichhas federal appointees, provincialappointees, and industrial appointees.

“The same could work for our fish-ery. But it would mean opening upand amending the draconian FisheriesAct.”

‘Life’s blood of Newfoundland’Former federal Fisheries minister James McGrath

says inshore fishery only thing that can save outports

Paul Daly/The Independent

FINDING THE


of Confederation

“You don’t have to be a marine biologistto know if you don’tgive the animal time

to reproduce it’s going to disappear.”

— James McGrath


Letters to the Editor

Confederation is not work-ing for Newfoundland andLabrador, not when it

comes to the fishery. The marriage is a disaster in that

regard, destined for the courts. Tothe criminal division first, for thefederal government toface a charge of failingto act as the GrandBanks are raped, merci-lessly — decade in,decade out — with theend of the rake that is abottom-trawl.

The end result is out-port genocide, not loudlike a bullet, but quiet,like a screaming cod. There’s bloodon Ottawa’s hands, blood of fisher-men and fish; who we are and whatmade us.

To the West, the prairies; to thefar East, the Grand Banks of New-foundland. Quintals of fish to gowith the breadbasket. In 1968,records show that up to 1.2 milliontonnes of northern cod were hauledfrom the continental shelf. What amassive stock it must have been togive up that much fish in a year. Anew species of surface shark, thedraggers, were said to be equally asimpressive, in factory size andappetite.

From shore, the fleets weredescribed as a city of lights. A citythat never slept — not with fish tobe killed.

Today, 55 years after Newfound-land joined Canada — handing

over, five years later, complete con-trol of the fishery, a priceless gift —and not a single groundfish stockremains standing.

The health of northern cod, thesame fish John Cabot caught in abucket over the side of The

Matthew, is so perilousthat the death of a singleone may jeopardize thesurvival of the species.It’s illegal for an outportboy to jig a cod; thebirthright ended with hisfather.

And the federal govern-ment is to blame.

Newfoundlanders andLabradorians did their share of thekilling. Gus Etchegary, one of thegreatest fish killers of them all, willtell you that. Newfoundland fisher-men caught fish and dumped fishand caught even more fish —knowing full well the sea was run-ning out.

The offshore fleet willinglyfished on the spawning grounds offLabrador during spawning season.They did it because the federal gov-ernment allowed them to (noexcuse, however). Ottawa wasoblivious to the red flags beingwaved from boats and boardrooms.Most every stock managed by thefederal Department of Fisheries andOceans (DFO) is in serious or crit-ical condition.

Even those mistakes are forgiv-able; fish managers are as human asfishermen. (Fish don’t need to be

managed, a scientist once said,they’ll get by on their own. “It’s thepeople who need to be managed.”)

What’s not forgivable is that thecarnage continues. What’s the goodof shutting down a fishery on oneside of an imaginary line, the 200-mile limit, and allowing fishing tocontinue on the other side?

Has Ottawa not heard yet thatfish swim? In the 13 years the com-mercial groundfish fishery has beenclosed in domestic waters, thehealth of the stocks has actuallydeteriorated. Offshore surveillanceand policing has been beefed up,but — without the power of arrestand prosecution — what’s thepoint?

What’s not forgivable is that thefederal government hasn’t movedto end foreign fishing, despite thefact it’s slowly killing rural New-foundland and Labrador. More than30 years of rhetoric is criminal, theloss of more than 60,000 peopleover the past decade, a tragedy ofmonumental proportions.

What’s not forgivable is that atthe same time the stocks collapsed,DFO cut its science budget. Scien-tists know little more today aboutthe offshore ecosystem than theydid in the early 1990s. The latestword is that the federal governmentmay cut science by another 19 percent to pay for increased fundingfor health care.

What’s not forgivable is DFO’sselective release of information.

Data on foreign fishing — from

the number of citations issued, towhether charges were eventuallylaid, to correspondence between thefederal government and countrieslike Spain and Portugal — takesmonths to pull together. Much of itis never released because it maydamage international relations.

The department issues pressreleases for every salmon poachernabbed; not so with foreigntrawlers.

The one piece of information TheIndependent was able to pull fromDFO this week is the size of lastyear’s budget. Not much more thanthat.

The province is in a tooth-and-nail fight with Ottawa over theAtlantic Accord and offshoreresources. That fight should pale incomparison to the storm rising overthe fishery.

If this province can take any con-solation, it’s in the fact that theaverage Canadian doesn’t under-stand how continued foreign fish-ing impacts outport Newfoundlandand Labrador. Canadians generallyaren’t aware how less money forscience, fewer dollars to fuel CoastGuard ships, and an unregulatedforeign fishery are sucking the lifefrom this special place.

If average Canadians did knowthat, and pray they don’t, the mar-riage would be beyond salvation.

Ryan Cleary is managing editorof The Independent.

[email protected]

Marriage crisis

Education cuts: ‘a tragedy for the people’

The Independent welcomes letters to the editor.Letters must be 300 words inlength or less and include full

name, mailing address anddaytime contact numbers.Letters may be edited forlength, content and legal

considerations. Send your letters in care of The Indepen-dent, P.O. Box 5891, StationC, St. John’s, NL, A1C 5X4

or e-mail us [email protected]

LETTERSPOLICY

Dear editor,An interview with the new Min-

ister of Education, Tom Hedder-son, about the ongoing white paperconsultations on public, post-sec-ondary education in this provincewas recently reported in The Inde-pendent (Oct. 17-23 edition).

The minister is quoted as saying“we have to be open” to the possi-ble closure of campuses of theCollege of the North Atlantic. It isnothing short of astounding thatthe new minister could anticipatepossible campus closures as aresult of a white paper processannounced by his predecessor,John Ottenheimer, as intended toensure that the province’ s publicpost-secondary system “is strong,vibrant and well positioned to con-tribute to the economic growth of

our province and the employmentprospects of our graduates, whilepreserving quality, accessibilityand affordability.”

How could the loss of publiceducational and training opportu-nities in any community or regionpossibly contribute to accessibilityor affordability? We know wellenough from the massive fundingcuts to the public college system inthe 1990s — which saw five col-lege campuses close, more thanhalf of the teaching jobs eliminat-ed, and almost 300 programs axed— that the loss of public trainingopportunities is nothing but atragedy for the people of thisprovince.

If a repeat of that is what we canexpect the white paper process toresult in, then we have been seri-

ously misled by Ottenheimer’sannouncement.

Hedderson was also quoted assaying, “There’s no one area thegovernment intends to focus on,but one factor is the collaborationbetween Memorial University andCollege of the North Atlantic, aswell as Marine Institute and pri-vate colleges.” The public has beentold unequivocally that this is awhite paper on public post-sec-ondary education. Both the minis-terial announcement and the termsof reference are very clear on thispoint. Where does the private sec-tor come into a review of the pub-lic post-secondary system? Onething is certain: the private sectoris not being scrutinized in any wayin this white-paper process.

Hedderson says “We’re looking

for quality, we’re looking foraccessibility, and we’re looking foraffordability.” A plan for post-sec-ondary education which includesprivate colleges cannot possiblyachieve such goals.

The question that Hedderson’sstatements raises is, is there a hid-den agenda in the review of ourpublic post-secondary systems? Isthe public college going to be fur-ther marginalized in order to createmore opportunities for private col-leges? This was the clear intentionand the outcome of the 1990s cutsto the public system and, as we allknow, it was a strategy with disas-trous consequences for thisprovince.

Dr. Jim Overton,Professor of Sociology,

Memorial University

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PUBLISHER

Brian Dobbin


Allow me to share with yousomething a little personal.Many, many years ago,

when I was a university student, Ibriefly thought it would be a goodidea to study the bureaucracy thatadministered the fishery in New-foundland and Labrador. The deci-sion required I first get my headaround several intellectual leaps offaith: that the main industry of theprovince was under federal juris-diction, with many decisions madein Ottawa (Leap No. 1), and thatthe province had a Department ofFisheries that was next to power-less to actually do anything (LeapNo. 2).

NO SENSEI resolved to study this. I read a

great deal, and I met and spokewith folks in their really niceoffices. The more I read and themore I met with folks the moreconfused I got. The industry madeno sense.

What did I know about the fish-ery at the time? Like a lot of town-ie kids, I had spent a lot of my boy-hood summers around the bay. Ihad jigged a few cod. I had caughtmackerel, squid, haddock andflounder. I had spent a considerable

amount of time hanging offwharves catching tommy cod andconnors. And I had watched astractor-trailers hauled tonnes ofunprocessed frozen cod blocks tothe States.

Sitting in the library at Memori-al University, I had trouble recon-ciling a lot of what I read with whatI knew. I also had a lot of troubleconcentrating. It’s hard to read end-less memos on quota controls, direpredictions on industry practices,and impenetrable applications forloans for fish plants, trawlers andfishing gear that made no econom-ic sense. It tends to make yourmind wander.

Mine would wander to thoseexciting times of my youth. Thebuzz of the fish plant in Brigus asboat load after boat load of fish waslanded at the government wharf.Fishermen (as they were calledthen) just off their boats grabbing aquick smoke and laughing amongst

themselves, caps tilted at saucyangles — happy to be making abuck. Forklifts racing in and out ofthe loading bay, water running offthe sides and bottom of the greatgrey buckets brimming with fish asthey whizzed past. Women lined upat the conveyers, nattering amongthemselves as they picked throughthe fish, flashes of silver as razorsharp knives filleted and sliced.When there was fish, the work wasnon-stop. Everywhere, the smell offish.

Someone in the library wouldcough and I would be back, theroom silent save for the rustling ofpaper and the overhead buzz of thefluorescent lights. “Pay attention,”I’d say to myself.

Loan Applications for FisheriesLoan Board – A Statistical Review.

Good. Page One: The criteria used for

assessing the statistical implica-tions of provincial government pol-icy …

The skipper of the Margaret R.used to come at the wharf fullsteam. She was a steel trawlermaybe 100-feet long. Just yardsfrom the wharf he’d whack herinto reverse and gun her diesels,causing a huge eruption of foam

from the stern, and the bow wouldrise and swing around, the big boatcozying roughly up against thedock, her holds full of herring. Inever tired of watching the skipperdo that. I don’t think he evennoticed. He was a hard man in ahurry and drove his boat and crewaccordingly. To him, time wasmoney. Get the fish in and then getmore fish. Stop when they’re gone.

… assessing the empirical datanecessitates an appreciation of thejurisdictional conundrum facingthe industry …

Gone again, day dreaming aboutthe time we found a shark in a codtrap leader.

IMPERFECT VISIONThat was the fishery back then,

in my imperfect vision. Lookingback now I realize there were twoindustries. One was bent on mak-ing as much money as possible asfast as possible. They did that byworking themselves and theirpoliticians and the resource as hardas they could. The other seemed tosustain itself by generating paperthat no one could read.

That was 1980. There were fishplants everywhere, and everywherefish was being frozen in blocks

and shipped south to be processed.Did that ever make sense? Whenthere was money, people spent it asfast as they could make it. Has thatchanged? My imperfect reading ofthe subject at the time led me tobelieve that smart politiciansensured that the industry kept theplants open, the product movingand voters employed. And the aca-demic advice — whether profoundor drivel (and I read plenty of both)— appears to have been generatedonly for the benefit of a few poorsouls like myself, trapped in thelibrary on a cold rainy Novemberafternoon.

I wonder if anything haschanged. I wonder this because,truth be told, I don’t really know.On that cold afternoon I had one ofthose moments that later you rec-ognize as an epiphany. I realized Icouldn’t read another word — notone more. I closed what I was read-ing, put all my notes in a briefcaseand walked out of the library. For-ever, as it turned out. The wholething looked like chaos to me, andI did something else with my life.

It’s a decision I’m still happywith.

Ivan Morgan can be reached [email protected]

Everywhere, the smell of fishRant &Reason

MORGANIVAN

Letters to the Editor

Dear editor,I’d like to express the fact that I

agree with the protesters whodemonstrated and expressed theirfrustration recently on Confedera-tion Hill in St. John’s. They wereprotesting not being allowed tocatch fish free of charge during afood fishery. Nova Scotians andother Canadians can catch fishfree of charge in season. New-foundlanders have to buy tags.Why?

I need an awfully good expla-nation to except this. Of course Idon’t. This is discriminationagainst us Newfoundlanders.Canada’s fishery would only beabout one third the size it is todayif Newfoundland hadn’t joined in1949. Yes, that’s right, one third.Canada cannot repay Newfound-land for the resources taken out ofhere and power from the mightyChurchill Falls power is only justone.

So I say to you, fellow readers,let’s join these people in an island-wide protest on Canada Day. Flythe Canadian flag upside down.Sing the Ode to Newfoundland,and fly the pink, white and green.

Ron DurnfordStephenville Crossing

Pink, whiteand green

protest

Now available

at all

locations

Local news. Human interest stories. Bold opinions. Great photos.

Sports and much more

“We can’t go on like this, we’relosing money,” Etchegary recallsthinking, as the average size of acodfish decreased. The mar-ketable size of four pounds fell tojust over two pounds and thehours of labour needed to catchthe smaller fish increased.

“I was living with this day inand day out. I saw our companyheading for bankruptcy. I knew itwas coming because of misman-agement of the resource.”

In 1971, William Templeman, arenowned cod scientist, gave anominous speech to the St. John’sRotary Club.

Templeman warned that codlandings in the Labrador inshorearea had fallen to 4,000 pounds in1970 from 170,000 pounds in1933.

During the same year,Etchegary gave a speech at HotelNewfoundland, warning that thefishery was on the verge of col-lapse. Etchegary called for feder-al officials, who would be attend-ing the 1973 Law of the Sea con-ference, to accept nothing lessthan “full management controlover the entire continental shelf.”

Etchegary also called for thefederal government to make sur-veillance and enforcement of theGrand Banks a priority andincrease the research into cod,flounder, redfish, and haddockstocks.

“This knowledge will bring sta-bility to the fishing industry bydetermining the fishing effortwhich should be applied and thenumber inshore jobs whichshould result,” Etchegary said atthe time.

For Etchegary, it’s a familiarrefrain. Before the bureaucraticmess of the Northwest Atlantic

Fisheries Organization (NAFO),which regulates fishing outsidethe 200-mile limit, there was theInternational Commission for theNorthwest Atlantic Fisheries(ICNAF). Both organizationswere paper tigers that oversaw theallocation of quotas but had noteeth when it came to protectingthe stocks.

PREDETERMINED OUTCOME

Etchegary, who spent his fairshare of time as a commissioner atNAFO meetings, says the out-come was determined before themeetings even began. As a com-missioner, Etchegary could onlywatch and fume at the rhetoric —commissioners were onlyobservers and had no input at themeetings. But Etchegary didwatch as the Canadian NAFO del-egation would often do a pre-meeting tour and make dealsbefore the gavel even dropped onthe first official meeting.

“You know how the vote is

going to turn out and we’re onlygoing to go in there and listen tothe same crap over and over.”

At 80 years of age, Etchegaryshould be retired and living thelife of Riley, but he spends almostevery waking hour fighting thesame battle he’s been fightingmost of his life — trying to save afishery that some have alreadydeclared dead and gone.

“I think the Government ofCanada would like us to take thatattitude,” says Etchegary.

It takes money, he says, butmore importantly it takes politicalwill at home and on the interna-tional stage. Something he doesn’tthink exists on Parliament Hill.

“Nevertheless, having said that,the alternative to that is the com-pletion of the cultural genocide inthis province.”

But some people in the rest ofCanada are listening. The Canadi-an Cattlemen’s Association hasinvited Etchegary to speak atmeetings in Winnipeg and Cal-gary in mid-February.

The American people willelect a president Tuesday,Nov. 2.

And we should care, but it’shard to give a damn about a coun-try that doesn’t really seem to careabout anything but itself.

Living next door to “the world’sgreatest democracy” has alwaysbeen unsettling, but it’s becomedownright scary since our neigh-bour to the south started believingits own press. The world’s greatestdemocracy — are the parametersused to define that rather auda-cious statement geographic size,population, age or the size of itsnuclear arsenal? A matter, perhaps,of whomever has the most nukesbefore they die, wins.

STRANGE COUNTRYIt’s a strange country. The good

ol’ USA has to be the biggest andbest. The championship for Amer-ican baseball is the World Seriesand football’s Superbowl is regu-larly referred to as the worldchampionship — though no otherteams (except for the hapless BlueJays) from anywhere else in theworld compete for either title.

A good motto for the U.S.would be: burn it, pave it, kill itand bomb it.

The American government putthat motto to the test in Vietnamand after failing miserably there,decided to try it again and again inIraq — second time’s a charm. Ithas been anything but charmingfor the Iraqi people and the U.S.soldiers and their families.

President George W. Bush liedto the American people about Iraqand the capabilities of Iraqi leaderSaddam Hussein. The man theworld’s greatest democracy putinto power in the first place neverhad weapons of mass destruction— certainly not enough evidenceof such weapons to warrant beingbombed back into the stone age byAmerican armed forces.

The Americans, they’re astrange lot.

The American government helda presidential impeachment hear-ing because the commander andchief, Bill Clinton, lied about play-ing hide-the-cigar with a youngfemale intern, but the electorateseem perfectly fine with the factthat the president who replacedhim fabricated a bold-faced lie sohe could bomb the hell out of Iraqand its people.

It’s a strange country, that US ofA.

All Clinton wanted was a littleafter-hours nookie in the OvalOffice (something that every pres-ident must fantasize about), an

executive tryst in the Lincoln bed-room perhaps. Trust me, Hillarymade him pay for it and is likelystill making him pay dearly for it. The basis to impeach Clinton wasthat he lied to government investi-gators, but Bush did more thanjust lie — he fabricated a cause tokill thousands and to gain supportto finish what his papa began.

What Clinton did was wrong,but what Bush did was, and is, farmore morally (and every otherkind of) repugnant. If there everwas a poster boy for impeachment,Bush is it.

Bush’s election motto is “Build-ing a safer world and a more hope-ful America.” He is, because of theRepublican’s foreign policy in theMiddle East, campaigning on thebacks of the very people who paidthe ultimate price for years ofmeddling by his administrationand his father’s.

It truly is a funny place south ofthe border.

Democratic challenger JohnKerry has a very slim hope ofbeating Bush and the Republicans.Kerry just doesn’t seem to be cap-turing voters’ attention. The pollsmay be neck-and-neck, but it’smore a reflection of what Bushisn’t than what Kerry is — intelli-gent. But Kerry doesn’t seem tohave enough personality to combatBush’s good ol’ boy act. Everyonce and a while you can seeKennedy-like moments in Kerry’srather pronounced features andclam-chowder accent, but it likelywon’t be enough to buck the Texasdrawl from the White House sad-dle.

HOT-BUTTON ISSUEAbortion has always been a hot-

button issue. Obviously, Bush hasalways taken the Christian, pro-lifestance. Kerry supports the U.S.Supreme Court decision andwomen’s right to choose. As anAmerican woman pointed out on aTV news show recently, you neverhear female politicians speakingabout abortion. What is a woman’sissue has been the political footballof male presidential candidates fordecades. One has to wonder howBush would feel about femalepoliticians trying to legislate hisprostate.

Bush has always tried to alignhimself with the religious right.Yet the American constitutionguarantees freedom of religion andfreedom from prosecution becauseof one’s beliefs. Yet the Ameri-can’s motto, embossed on everycoin says “In God we Trust.” Thequestion that screams to beanswered is, which god and justwhose god are they placing theirtrust in?

America truly is the land of thefree, the brave and the bizarre.

Jeff Ducharme is The Indepen-dent’s senior [email protected]


Burn it, pave it, kill it,

bomb it

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Federal-provincial relations


From page 1

Declared dead and gone

Federal Natural Resources Minister John Efford listens to Premier Danny Williams during a spring pressconference about a better provincial/federal relationship. The relationship between the two politicians souredthis week after Williams accused the federal Liberals of backing down from their promise to amend theAtlantic Accord.


The dots are hard to connect,but there are shadowy linksthat suggest Canada has

been trading fish quotas forfavourable trade relations withother countries for decades.

In the late 1980s, theKorea auto giant Hyundaiwas looking for a NorthAmerican site to build acar plant. The federalgovernment, as do all govern-ments, courted the Koreans —reportedly with East Coast fish.

St. John’s South Tory MP Loy-ola Hearn says there’s no concreteproof of such backroom deals, buthe says it’s accepted knowledgethat such deals happen on a regularbasis using the country’s vastresources as bargaining chips.

“Maybe what we could do isinstead of giving somebody fish fora car factory, or somebody fish tosell some wheat, maybe we couldsay to the Americans ‘We’ll giveyou some extra fish, you give ussome extra gunboats,” says Hearn,laughing, in response to a sugges-tion the Americans could be givenfish in exchange for policing theGrand Banks.

Fishery advocate and formerFishery Products International

vice-president, Gus Etchegary,says while he has no documenta-tion proving that fish were used asinternational bargaining chips, hewas privy to meetings and discus-sions that have left little doubt inhis mind.AFP PHOTO

“I don’t have the documentation,but I do know that the Koreans

built a plant — a Hyundaiplant in the province ofQuebec — in exchange forCanada’s support for Kore-an quotas on the Grand

Banks and the Koreans are still outhere 15 years later,” saysEtchegary.

The nation’s major airlines arealso said to have benefited fromsuch tradeoffs.

“Canada’s main airlines gainedaccess to landing rights in certainEuropean cities for support in fish-eries quotas,” says Etchegary.“There’s no way you can get doc-umentation.”

The most infamous tradeoff mayhave been fish quotas to Russia forthat country’s purchase ofSaskatchewan wheat — a marketthat was struggling in the 1970sand ’80s.

In 1980, then-provincial Fish-eries minister Jim Morganexpressed concern over a federalgovernment deal with the Euro-pean Economic Community over a

six-year agreement. The deal trad-ed northern cod in return for lowertariffs on specified amounts ofCanadian frozen round cod andredfish, cod fillets and blocks, saltcod and herring.

“The federal government, by rel-egating fish export negotiations tothis limited and misguided form ofbarter is treating fish products as asecond-class export,” Morgan saidat the time.

“In return for modest marketaccess — and I repeat, modestmarket access — Canada is being

asked to allocate to the EEC fleet,a total of 94,500 tonnes of codfrom our northern cod stocks and42,000 tonnes of squid over thenext six years.”

The trade numbers don’t dragany deals out of the shadows either.According to Statistics Canada, sixof the largest foreign fishingnations on the Grand Banks havemaintained a historic trading sur-plus with Canada. In 2002, Canadabought far more products fromJapan ($4.8 billion), Denmark($390 million), Portugal ($60 mil-lion), Russia ($64 million) andSpain ($162 million) than thosecountries bought from Canada.

Only Spain and Portugal haveseen the gap narrow since 2002,yet both countries still exportapproximately $50 million more ingoods than consumers here buy.

The fishery is a high stakesgame in countries such as Spain. Areport by a Spanish university con-cluded that close to 6,000 jobs areat risk in Galician, a fishing regionof Spain, if the Northwest AtlanticFisheries Organization, which reg-

ulates fishing outside the 200-milelimit, follows through with a planto cutAFP PHOTO turbot quotas overthe next three years.

The cut could mean a loss of$750 million Cdn to the Galicianeconomy.

TURBOT VITALThe study concludes the turbot

fishery is a vital part of the econo-my with 22 companies operating44 vessels — 31 of which targetturbot.

Senator George Baker, formerfederal minister of Fisheries andlongtime Newfoundland andLabrador MP, says Canada is fullyaware of the value of this provinceand its fishery, though bureaucratsand politicians may not admit it.

“The bottom line is, as I say, theCanadian Export DevelopmentCorporation has recognized thevalue of our province, simplybecause we contribute more to the(Canadian) economy than anybodyelse,” says Baker. “And only aNewfoundlander knows whatwe’ve had taken away from us.”


Fish for favoursFew details available on possible international trade-offs for East Coast fish

Paul Daly/The IndependentShoshin Maru

FINDING THE


of Confederation

By Alisha MorrisseyThe Independent

More than $17 million innew funding has beendedicated to offshore

fishery surveillance this year, butcritics question the value whenCanada lacks the authority to arreston the high seas.

Retired turbot fisherman WilfredBartlett says regulations put inplace by the Northwest AtlanticFisheries Organization (NAFO),which regulates fishing outside the200-mile limit, aren’t enforced andhold no weight.

“The problem is all we ever do isgo out, board them (foreign fleets),find infractions and send themhome, they go home, they unloadtheir fish and they come back anddo the same thing again.”

Bartlett urges Canada to takecontrol — though custodial man-agement or any other means —over the Grand Banks.

“Canada don’t got the guts, or Idon’t know if it’s the guts or if theyjust don’t care, Newfoundland isnot very high on the priority list ofCanada,” he tells The Independent.“Until Canada gets the guts to sendthe warships out there, ‘Nowyou’re going to stop fishing orwe’re going to blow you out of thewater’ — now that’s the only solu-tion as far as I’m concerned, I meanwhat have we got to lose?”

Since 1992, Canadian enforce-ment officers have issued morethan 280 citations to foreign vesselsfor alleged illegal fishing on theGrand Banks. The federal govern-ment has never released any evi-dence to suggest those citations ledto charges.

It’s up to the home country of aforeign vessel to prosecute cita-tions. Ottawa has also refused torelease correspondence with for-eign countries such as Spain andPortugal — said to be the biggestillegal fishing offenders — regard-

ing citations, saying the informa-tion could damage internationalrelations.

NAFO executive secretary,Johanna Fischer, says Canada does-n’t have any more rights to the fishoutside the 200-mile limit than anyother country.

“We are not talking Canadianwater here, we’re talking interna-tional water … and NAFO is anorganization to ensure that, even ifyou wanted to call it like that, thereare certain rules that are maintainedand NAFO has been very efficientin doing that,” Fischer says fromNova Scotia.

She uses the example of a Cana-dian boat caught overfishing offPortugal.

“How would you feel, if … thePortuguese would then say, ‘Noway, we’ll escort it to Portugal andthis Canadian vessel, with a Cana-dian captain, who was fishing ininternational waters, not in Por-tuguese waters, and now prosecute

it by Portuguese law. Under whichauthority would the Portuguese dothat?”

Earle McCurdy, president of theFish, Food and Allies Workers’union, says he supports Canada tak-ing control of the continental shelf.He adds increased surveillanceseems to be a deterrent to violatorsof NAFO regulations, but it’s too

early to tell how effective it will be.Fisheries Minister Trevor Taylor

says there is evidence to show thatincreased surveillance has changedfishing patterns of boats known foroverfishing.

“There’s been certainly a declineas we understand it. The informa-tion that we’ve been getting(shows) that the level of compli-ance has improved significantlyover the 2003 fishery but you knowthere has to be a regime change soto speak outside the 200-milelimit.”

Supporters of custodial manage-ment argue there are fewer foreignvessels on the Grand Banksbecause there’s less fish to catch.

Canada conducts approximately165 at-sea inspections a year. As ofOctober, the federal governmenthad issued seven citations to for-eign vessels accused of overfishing.Only three of the citations wereheld up by European Union inspec-tors. The others were disputed anddropped.

As of early October, 22 foreigntrawlers were fishing groundfish,redfish mainly, just outside Cana-da’s 200-mile limit. Another 14vessels were fishing shrimp.


By Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

Aretired scientist with thefederal Department ofFisheries and Oceans

(DFO) in St. John’s says basicfunding for fisheriesresearch in this provincedropped by almost 50 percent between 1981 and2000.

In a report exploring DFO’sresource distributions, Ed Sande-man says the federal governmentcontinues to view Newfoundlandand Labrador as “an awkwardappendage to its Atlantic strong-hold, the Maritimes.”

DFO’s Newfoundland andLabrador region is responsible forresearch spanning 70 per cent ofthe total Atlantic shelf area, but itreceives only 36 per cent of theworkforce and 43 per cent of thefunding allocated within theAtlantic provinces and Quebec.

“They have never put adequatefunding into research in our area,”Sandeman tells The Independent.“Since Confederation we’vealways been the low guy on thetotem pole.”

DFO has been criticized forreportedly cutting back on sciencein the years after the commercialgroundfish fisheries were closed.

The Independent has repeatedlyasked DFO for figures on its sci-ence budgets, requests the depart-ment has never fully provided. InSeptember, the federal govern-ment announced a plan to poten-tially cut an extra 19 per cent fromDFO’s budget to help fundincreases to health care.

Susan Keough, spokeswomanfor DFO in St. John’s, says thedepartment is currently undertak-ing a national review of its scienceprograms, “which may result inthe re-allocation of existing fund-ing into project areas that are thehighest priorities in each region.

“This is not an arbitrary, across-the-board reduction in science

funding, rather a re-allocation ofthe existing budget from low pri-ority areas to higher priority areas.There have been no final deci-sions made in relation to thisreview.”

Another former DFO scientist,Ransom Myers, who nowworks as a biologist atDalhousie University inHalifax, calls current fishscience research “barely

adequate.“If you look at the science of the

Department of Fisheries andOceans or any of the oceanogra-phy, it’s not really viewed as first-rate anymore.”

In the mid-1990s while still withDFO, Myers went public with hisopinion that despite DFO blamingenvironmental changes on the col-lapse of the northern cod stocks,the real cause was overfishing. Hesays too often government scien-tists are being corrupted by specialinterests to produce certain results.

Decisions such as the currentproposal by the Committee on theStatus of Endangered Wildlife inCanada (COSEWIC) to declare

cod endangered, are made basedon DFO scientific research, andalthough many scientists agree thespecies fits the at-risk criteria, theystill have no solid conclusions asto why.

“The worst thing is we’ve lostsome of the sub-populations ofcod over time from over exploita-tion, so I think the situation isprobably worse than people imag-ine,” says Myers.

Sandeman says scientists stillhave virtually no understanding ofthe relationships between differentspecies and how they affect recov-ery and the ecosystem. The trendhas always been to focus on onespecies at a time. He says assess-ments are being carried out on codpopulations with very little workbeing done on feeding and repro-ductive potential.

“There’s no work being done oncaplin to speak of,” he says.“There’s a very small caplin groupnow and yet it is probably themost fundamental species, themost important species, in all ourshores because it’s the big foodfishery. It’s what cod relied on foryears and I’m sure one of the rea-sons cod is down is because of thelack of food fishes.”

Another species baffling scien-tists with their low numbers iswild Atlantic salmon. In June, The

Independent ran a story about thehigh mortality rate. Salmon num-bers haven’t increased since 1992when the fishery was closed tosave the species from extinction.At the time, the head of DFO’ssalmonid section, Rex Porter, saidresearchers were at a loss toexplain why the health of thestocks hasn’t improved, a mysteryfueled by a lack of science.

Current acting head of thesalmonid section, Chuck Bour-geois, says the low numbers are aresult of high mortality ratesoccurring after fish travel fromfreshwater rivers to the ocean.

“BLACK BOX”“I have to be honest and tell you

that’s a black box. We all have ourideas on it but we have no abilitytruly to follow salmon at sea.”

He says the logistics of follow-ing a four- or five-inch salmon —a species that travels alone —would be virtually impossible, asmuch as it would be expensive.

“The best chance right now wehave to conduct research to leadus where we’d like to go is thestudy, say, in the near shore envi-ronment because you can controlthat better,” he says, “and withsufficient funds we may be able toanswer the question: is the prob-lem in the inshore or the offshore?

And knowing that the problem isnot inshore is important as well.”

Bourgeois says small-scalestudies have begun and applica-tions for funding larger scale stud-ies have been made, but so farwithout success.

For his part, Sandeman blamesthe frustrations faced by scientistsas much upon the province as thefederal government, saying whenhe read the terms of Confedera-tion four years ago, he was“absolutely flabbergasted” bywhat Newfoundland accepted,when “what they gave was incred-ible.”

Sandeman concluded some ofhis thoughts about the position offish science in Newfoundland andLabrador in his report exploringDFO’s resource distributions.

“It is very difficult to escape theconclusion that, apart from a briefperiod shortly after Confedera-tion, the political process has dis-criminated against Newfoundlandwith respect to building a strongfisheries research capability tosupport its primary industry —the commercial fisheries. In recentyears the drastically reduced fund-ing has exacerbated the situationto a degree that makes one won-der if the government of thisnation of Canada really knowsthat its coastlines exist at all.”

‘Barely adequate’As fish stocks dwindle, so does scientific research that could

potentially save them, experts say

Surveillance funding up, but offshore police still can’t arrest


“There’s no work beingdone on caplin to speakof. There’s a very small

caplin group now and yetit is probably the most

fundamental species, themost important species,in all our shores becauseit’s the big food fishery.It’s what cod relied onfor years and I’m sure

one of the reasons cod isdown is because of the

lack of food fishes.”

— Ed Sandeman

FINDING THE


of Confederation

Ed Sandeman, a retired DFO scientist.

“ ... Newfoundland is not very high on the

priority list of Canada.”

— Wilfred Bartlett,fisherman



Even Tory MP Loyola Hearn himselfwas surprised when his privatemembers’ bill to extend custodial

management to the nose and tail of theGrand Banks passed in the House of Com-mons last March.

Hearn claimed it as a “symbolicvictory” at the time, drawing atten-tion to an issue that’s long been onthe minds of politicians from New-foundland and Labrador.

But in the seven months since the vote,there’s been no further action.

The only movement since, Hearn says, isthat Prime Minister Paul Martin has raisedthe issue during recent international trips.

“Now that in itself meansnothing,” he tells The Inde-pendent. “That’s just playingto the audience. However, hehas suggested the establish-ment of an international meet-ing or forum to deal withoverfishing.”

The idea of Canada takingjurisdiction over the entireGrand Banks — nose and tailincluded — has been dis-cussed at top political levelsat least since 1971, whenthen-premier Joey Smallwoodcirculated a memo to his fel-low premiers. It was thenpassed on to Ottawa.

The memo mentioned the “seriousdecline” of some species, stating: “The gov-ernment of Newfoundland and Labradorurge the Government of Canada to giveevery possible consideration to extension of

fisheries jurisdiction to the edge of the con-tinental shelf from our shoreline. We strong-ly believe this policy is necessary if the eastcoast Canadian fishing industry is to reachits full potential.”

In 1977, Canada created the 200-milelimit, extending Canada’s control over itsoffshore considerable, but leaving threeareas of the continental shelf outside of the

country’s control — nose, tail andFlemish Cap. There have beenrepeated calls for an extension ofthe limit, to no avail.

Advocates maintain it’s the bestway to stop foreign overfishing of thestocks that straddle the 200-mile limit;detractors — including many member statesof the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organi-zation, which oversees fishing outside the

200-mile limit — say themove is without precedent,and interferes with the histor-ical rights of other fishingnations.

Natural Resources MinisterJohn Efford, Newfoundlandand Labrador’s representativein the federal cabinet, madeheadlines last March by beingconspicuously absent duringHearn’s motion in Parliament.

“I’ve said many, many,many times over my politicallife that unless a prime minis-ter of (this) country gotinvolved in this file nothing isever going to change,” he tells

The Independent. “I don’t care who goes into the minister’s

office, I don’t care who changes jobs. Oneof my obligations was to work on this filewith the minister of Fisheries to get the

prime minister involved. The prime minis-ter is personally involved in this one…every single time that he went overseas, hetalked about foreign overfishing and hevowed to get it stopped.”

Efford also brings up the upcoming inter-national conference on foreign overfishing,hosted by Martin — proof, he says, the“prime minister is getting involved.”

Jim Morgan has heard it all before. Hewas an MP when Smallwood made his res-olution regarding jurisdiction of the conti-nental shelf, a provincial Fisheries ministerfor six years in the 1980s, and is currentlyinvolved with the Newfoundland andLabrador Rural Rights and Boat Owners’Association.”

“During the election the prime ministertalked about taking custodial management

… now since the election, no way, not everbrought forward, wasn’t even mentioned.No action is going to be taken … down theroad, another 15 years maybe of peopletalking about it, maybe …

“To add insult to injury, the prime minis-ter is talking about convening another so-called international conference of overfish-ing. To me, that’s an insult to us New-foundlanders. There’s been two ore three ofthese over the past number of years andthey’ve achieved nothing. Let’s do some-thing.”

Current provincial Fisheries MinisterTrevor Taylor doesn’t sound very optimisticeither. When asked when we might see cus-todial management become a reality, hereplies, “you know, that’s more than my lifeis worth to try and predict that.“

‘Let’s do something’Thirty years after lobbying first began, province has made little

headway on extending custodial management over entire Grand Banks


“I’ve said many,many, many timesover my political life that unless aprime minister of

a country gotinvolved in this

file nothing is evergoing to change.”

— John Efford

FINDING THE


of Confederation

John Efford

Keeping an eye on the comingsand goings of the ships in St.John’s harbour. Information pro-vided by the coast guard trafficcentre.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 25Vessels arrived: Maersk Chancel-lor, Canada, from Marystown;ASL Sanderling, Canada, fromHalifax.Vessels departed: Cabot, Canada,to Montreal; Atlantic Kingfisher,Canada, to Hibernia; Cape For-

tune, Canada, to Arnold’s Cove.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26Vessels arrived: Maersk Chal-lenger, Canada, from White RoseField; Maersk Placentia, Canada,from Hibernia.Vessels departed: Sonar, Estonia,to Bay Roberts; ASL Sanderling,Canada, to Corner Brook; MariaGalanta, Canada, to St. Pierre

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27No report

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28Vessels arrived: Planeta, Russia,from SEA; Sir Wilfred Grenfell,Canada, from SEA; Cicero, Cana-da, from Montreal; MaerskChignecto, Canada.Vessels departed: Planeta, Russia,to Flemish Cap; Burin Sea, Cana-da, to Terra Nova Oil Field; Maer-sk Placentia, Canada, to Hibernia.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29Vessels arrived: no reportVessels departed: no report


By Sue DyerFor The Independent

Newfoundland and Labra-dor may have a lot incommon with Iceland in

terms of natural resources, geog-raphy and population — but theeconomies are far different.

Iceland is one of the richestnations in the world. It’s also inde-pendent.

An island nation of 290,000people with one of the higheststandards of living in the world,Iceland spends the same amount ofmoney a year as this province —$3.5 billion — with half the debt.

With an unemployment rate ofthree per cent, many Icelandersbelieve that proper managementof the fishery and sovereignty fromDenmark are the main reasons fortheir economic success.

Iceland was a jurisdiction ofDenmark until 1918 when itgained sovereignty. In 1944, Ice-land became a republic, cutting allties with the Danish Crown.

Gudmundur Jonsson, associateprofessor of history at the Univer-sity of Iceland, tells The Indepen-dent that independence has madethe difference.

“I strongly believe that indepen-dence, where we have a govern-ment that looks especially to theinterests of our nation, had a verybeneficial effect on the economy.Iceland has fared better under inde-pendent rule than Danish rule.”

As a province of Canada, New-foundland handed over responsi-bility of its fishery to the federalgovernment under the Terms ofUnion in 1949. Since then, thegroundfish fishery has collapsed,with much of the blame directed atthe Government of Canada formismanagement.

POST-SOVEREIGNTYPOLICIES

In the early 1920s just afterattaining sovereignty, Icelandadopted significant policy changesrespecting their fishery.

“When we had sovereignty in1918 and full independence in1944 the interests of the fisheriesbecame the national interests, andthe concerns and the problems ofthe industry, which is paramount inthe Icelandic economy, became thepriority engagement of the gov-ernment,” says Jonsson.

“There is a law passed in 1922,for example, which bans foreigninvestment in the Icelandic fish-eries and from that date onwardsforeigners are virtually unable toparticipate in the Icelandic fish-eries.”

Jonsson says legislation wasalso passed in the 1920s thatstrengthens the economy by statingonly Icelanders can operate fishprocessing companies in the coun-try.

And what of the health of ruralareas of Iceland?

In the past few decades the fish-

ery in Iceland has moved awayfrom the capital of Reykjavik tocoastal areas. Although Jonssonsays some rural communities havefaired better than others, from amanagement perspective it hasbeen a positive move.

“It has certainly improved themacro-management of fishing andhas stopped the overfishing atleast.”

Since the collapse of cod stocksin the early 1990s, there have beenquestions about the commitmentof the federal government to sci-ence in this province.

Science budgets here have beensteadily reduced. In Iceland theopposite has taken place.

“Science, it rates very highly …scientific knowledge of the seasand of the fish stocks has gradual-ly improved and as a percentage ofGDP (gross domestic product) ithas been growing fast in the lastyears.”

If it were part of Denmark today,Iceland would represent 4.5 percent of the Danish population.Newfoundland and Labrador rep-resents two per cent of Canada.

Says Jonnson, “The Danish lookat the overall economy and Icelandas just a small part of it, a smallfish in a big pond. So we get a …difference (of) importance of pri-orities in national economy policywith the Danish state than with anindependent Icelandic state.

“Iceland is now a big fish in asmall pond.”

Iceland better off as independent nation: professor

The Shipping News

boats and other collector boatsfrom the island were constantlyon the move — there was justtoo much fish.”

The glut, she adds, pittedlocal residents against “out-siders” from the LabradorStraits, Newfoundland and Que-bec.

“The local people were get-ting very angry because theyfelt they were being pushedaside.”

The fishery remained vibrantuntil 1991, Roberts says. That’swhen the unimaginable hap-pened.

“It was as if though the oceanwas vacuumed out — the fishjust disappeared.”

MORE TOUGH TIMES AHEAD

Today, the people of BlackTickle struggle to make endsmeet. After years of being leftidle, the fish plant now process-es crab. If this summer is anyindication, Roberts says, thecommunity is in for more toughtimes ahead.

“It was a very dismal sum-mer,” she says. “There wasn’tmuch crab, with the averagenumber of hours for the peopleworking in the plant beingaround 120 — they’d work oneday and have six off.”

In a community where run-ning water and proper seweragedisposal is a luxury, and the costof gasoline is nearing the $1.30per litre mark, Roberts says sheoften wonders why people con-tinue to stay.

“Less than 10 per cent ofhomes have running water —the bulk of it is lugged fromnearby ponds and from brooks,”she says. “And then there’s per-haps the most primitive dispos-al system — the so-calledhoney bucket.

“I guess, people don’t want toleave because it’s their home.”

While the Labrador coast washit hard as a result of the col-lapse of the groundfishery inthe early 1990s, it has, for themost part, managed to find away to survive. And unlikeother areas of the province, itdidn’t rely too heavily on hand-outs from the federal govern-ment. In fact, communities onthe north coast of Labrador did-n’t receive any compensation atall from fish aid programs likethe Northern Cod Adjustmentand Recovery Program(NCARP) or its successor, TheAtlantic Groundfish Strategy(TAGS).

Former provincial Fisheriesminister Yvonne Jones, whorepresents the district ofCartwright-L’Anse au Clair,says fishermen in Labradorlearned to adapt quickly afterOttawa imposed a moratoriumon northern cod in 1992.

“We had no choice but todiversify or move on,” she says.“The fishery is still the largestemployer in the entire district,still the greatest economic con-tributor for the region, and stillholds the most promisingprospects for the future.”

There are 12 fish plants cur-rently operating along theLabrador coast, from L’Anse auLoup to Nain, employing about950 people, according to fig-ures obtained from the provin-cial Department of Fisheriesand Aquaculture. The plantseach process separate species— including crab, scallops,shrimp and whelk and a varietyof groundfish.

While the region’s fishery hasbeen able to diversify, all is notwell, as was evidenced by theBlack Tickle plant this year. Thecrab fishery appears to be introuble, although Jones saysshe’s confident stocks willrebound.

“We’ve seen about a 70 percent decline in the crab resourcesince 1997, and only about 30per cent of this year’s quota wascaught,” she says. “And weprobably got 40 per cent lessplant workers now than we didin 1997.

CRAB “WILL RECOVER”“However, I think the Depart-

ment of Fisheries and Oceans ismoving in the right direction bynot allowing shrimp draggers inthe same areas where the crabstocks are,” Jones says. “Withgood management and patienceby DFO, I think the crab stockswill recover.”

The federal government hasbeen accused of mismanagingfish stocks off Newfoundlandand Labrador since it took con-trol of the resource in 1949.Others say it was brought aboutby greed, with fishing enter-prises exploiting the industry tomake a fast buck. Whatever thereason, Uncle Jim Andersensays Newfoundlanders andLabradorians are much betteroff today than they were beforeConfederation.

“Newfoundlanders hate thewords ‘Joey Smallwood,’ andthey think we’d be better off ifwe never joined Canada,” hesays. “If we never joined, Ithink we’d all be starved today.”

Locals felt “pushed aside”

From page 1

Chris Helgren/REUTERS

A lifeguard watches over bathers at the Blue Lagoon hot springs, as a thermal electricity plant looms in the back-ground. Iceland has taken advantage of its natural hot mineral-rich water caused by volcanic activity to provideelectricity to most homes around the capital, Reykjavik, and power its aluminum smelter.

October 31, 2004 Page 11IN CAMERA

Fish factsA mish-mash of figures and quotes about the Newfoundland and Labrador fishery

The math is fascinating. CabotMartin, a learned and respectedbayman from Channel-Port aux

Basques, once wrote that a rebuiltnorthern cod fishery could produceannual harvests of at least 400,000tonnes.

At a yield of 27 per cent, that means237 million pounds of skin-off, bone-out fillets.

Given an average export price of $4per pound (keep in mind that much fishon the world market would impactprice), the loss works out to roughly$948 million a year — multiplied bythe 13 years since the moratorium washanded down — equals $12.3 billion.

That’s the value of the product alone;not including the jolt to the outporteconomy — the thousands of fisher-men and plant workers it would take tocarry out the harvesting and processing;the spin off effects or taxes.

That’s simply the market value of thefillet from a sustainable fishery.

And that’s just one stock. Tengroundfish stocks — including cod,witch flounder and American plaice —are currently under moratoria insideCanadian waters.

Wrote Martin, “So if proper fisheriesmanagement does not represent a vital

development opportunity, what does?•••

In his 1992 book, No fish and ourlives: Some survival notes for New-foundland, Martin described the impactof a trawl on the floor of the GrandBanks:

“Along the bottom of the ocean,home to so much sea life whichcannot move or can move onlyslowly, comes the trawl net,some 90 feet in width and 150feet in length.

The head ropes move like a ghost,suspended some 15 feet off the bottomby a necklace of large floats; the foot-rope of cable, chain and heavy rubberrollers grinds along the sea floor likesome giant reaping machine.

Off to each side come the trawl doorssome six feet in width and 10 feet inlength, gouging the seabed like twoD9 tractor blades. Between them andthe trawl mouth are two heavy steel bri-dles, each 300 feet long, which sweepacross the seabed setting up a hell-rais-ing cloud of mud, forcing all that canmove to flee back into the path of theoncoming trawl net.

Back and forth; back and forth; backand forth the fleets of trawlers go, untilit is time to move on, leaving a watery

desert in their wake.Seaweed, starfish, shellfish, sea

worms, sea cucumbers, small fish, bigfish, good fish, trash fish, anything thatcreeps or crawls, all of them, areuprooted or driven back into the giantvacuum cleaner of the “cod end” as thismonstrous device tears its way along,

tilling the fields of the sea.This is a method akin to that

‘cause celebre’ of the environ-mentalist; the clear-cutting offorests.”

•••In 1991, the year before the northern

cod moratorium was handed down, thenorthern cod catch was 123,000 tonnes.

The northern cod fishery that yearwas worth an estimated $700 million,representing six per cent of theprovince’s GDP or gross domesticproduct, the value of all goods andservices produced. It supported 31,000jobs both directly and indirectly, 90 percent of them in Newfoundland.

In 2003, Canadian fisheries officialsestimate 15,000 tonnes of species undermoratoria were harvested by foreignfleets on the Grand Banks outside the200-mile limit.

•••Insults shouted at former federal

Fisheries Minister John Crosbie on theevening of July 2, 1992, at the RadissonPlaza Hotel (now called the Delta) indowntown St. John’s when he shutdown the 500-year-old northern codfishery included: “Hitler wouldn’t dothis,” and “there’s no home for you inNewfoundland.”

Fishermen were initially paid $225 aweek and the moratorium was sup-posed to last two years. “Newfound-land will never be the same again,” saidthe late Walter Carter, the province’sthen-minister of Fisheries. “Labradorwill become a barren wilderness.”

University of Toronto economistJohn Crispo said it would be fair tocompare the two-year moratorium onfishing northern cod to the Dust Bowlthat swept thousands of prairie farmersfrom the land in the 1930s.

“It would be like destroying the autoindustry in Ontario, or the agricultureindustry out west or the forestry indus-try in B.C.”

Between 1991 and 2001, Newfound-land and Labrador has lost more than70,000 people (12 per cent of its pop-ulation), and has recorded double-digitunemployment for the last 30 years.

PHOTOS BY EDWARD ROWE AND GORD KING / STORY BY RYAN CLEARY

FINDING THE


of Confederation


Page 12 IN CAMERA The Independent, October 31, 2004

•••A nation totally dependent on fish-

ing, Iceland prohibits the fishing ofcod on spawning grounds. Canada hasnever implemented such a rule on ahealthy fishery.

•••Spain and Portugal — countries

widely seen as the biggest offenders offishing violations on the Grand Banks— are member states of the EuropeanUnion.

The EU is Canada’s second mostimportant trade and investment partnerafter the United States.

In 2002, two-way merchandise tradebetween Canada and the EU totallednearly $56 billion. Canadian export ofgoods to the EU amounted to $17 bil-lion, and imports were $39 billion.For the same year, Canada exported$9.9 billion worth of services to theEU, and imported $10.6 billion.

Both Spain and Portugal wereexcluded from fishing in Europeanwaters for 10 years as a condition ofjoining the EU in 1996.

•••In the lead up to the June 28 elec-

tion, Prime Minister Paul Martin saidhis party might extend custodial man-agement over the entire continentalshelf, a pledge he has since backedaway from in favour of continueddiplomacy.

In an address earlier this fall to theannual meeting of the NorthwestAtlantic Fisheries Organization, whichmonitors fishing outside the 200-milelimit, the opening statement by theEU expressed confusion over the cus-todial management, “a concept whichremains mysteriously ill-defined andunexplained to us.

“We believe if such action is under-taken, it would run counter to interna-tional law and seriously undermineNAFO … we therefore wish toexpress our strongest political andlegal reservations about such a line ofaction, and wish to sensitize all NAFOmembers in this respect.”

The EU delegate said NAFO isn’t a“toothless tiger” because membercountries have agreed to cut their tur-bot quota over the next few years aspart of a stock-rebuilding plan. Such amove “eloquently demonstrates thatNAFO can and does take decisiveaction and is not a toothless tiger.”

• In his 1991 report into the state ofthe northern cod stock, Leslie Harrisrecommended Ottawa stop givingquotas to foreign vessels inside the200-mile zone for “foreign affairs”reasons.

• Commenting on the collapse ofthe cod, Harris once said, “If I were tolook for a single villain, I would lookto our known inability to match social

policy with technological capacity. Wehave never in the history of the worldbeen able to amend our social policiesquickly enough to keep pace with thespeed at which technology grows.And I think that is what happenedhere. We just became too technologycompetent. We became able to kill tooeasily. We became able to kill every-thing.”

• John Crosbie once blamed domes-tic fishermen as much as foreign fleetsfor the state of the commercial stocks.“We’re no angels here. The fishermenthat you hear complaining all overEastern Canada — many, many ofthem are guilty of overfishing, discard-ing, throwing away smaller fish. Thefishery in the Gulf (is) almost ruined.The foreigners didn’t ruin the fisheryin the Gulf. We ruined the fishery inthe Gulf.”

• Wilfred Bartlett, a retired fisher-man from Triton, Notre Dame Bay,questioned recently who exactly thecod are being saved for.

“The foreigners? As long as it’sthere … and it seems like it swims andyou can sell it then I’m going to catchit.”

• Chapter 20 (Who hears the fisheswhen they cry?) of John Crosbie’sbook, No Holds Barred, included thisstatistic: “By 1986, the average fishingfamily’s income in Newfoundland was$19,850, of which 41 per cent camefrom unemployment insurance, 24 percent from fishing, 30 per cent fromother employment, and five per centfrom other sources. In Nova Scotia,the average fishing family’s incomewas $35,100 — 53 per cent from fish-ing, 25 per cent from other employ-ment, 16 per cent from UI and six percent from other sources. By compari-son, in Saskatchewan, the averagefarm family had an income of $32,000— 34 per cent from farming, 40 percent from other employment earnings,26 per cent from other sources andnothing from UI.”

• In the May 1997 issue of theCanadian Journal of Fisheries andAquatic Sciences, three university sci-entists — Jeffrey Hutchings, Carl Wal-ters and Richard Haedrich — pub-lished a paper called “Is scientificinquiry incompatible with governmentinformation control?” The thesis ofthe paper was that bureaucratic andpolitical considerations interfered withthe ability of scientists to contributeeffectively to fisheries management.

Included in the paper was the quote,“Scientists were also explicitly orderedthen, as they are today, not to discuss‘politically sensitive’ matters (e.g., thestatus of fish stocks currently undermoratoria) with the public, irrespectiveof the scientific basis, and populationstatus, of the scientists’ concerns.”

The late Edward (Ned) Rowe was a photographer for the Fish-eries Research Board (FRB) and later the federal Departmentof Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) from the 1940s to 1970s. GordKing replaced Rowe as DFO’s photographer in the 1970s. Themen were the only two staff photographers ever employed atDFO, Newfoundland region. The department’s photographic

lab and X-ray department shut down in the 1990s.

From page 11

Iceland bans fishing on spawning grounds;

Canada doesn’t

The Independent, October 31, 2004 IN CAMERA Page 13

Page 14 IN CAMERA The Independent, October 31, 2004

The Gallery is a regular feature in The Independent. For further information, or to submit proposals, please call (709) 726-4639, or e-mail [email protected]

Phonse King

Phonse King gets to play “radio guy”with Steele Communication’s HITSFM six days a week, but on his pre-

cious day off he’s a photographer.Equipped with an old film camera, King

takes snaps of his friends, their weddings,his three dogs and anything that catches hiseye.

“I’d been taking poor pictures my wholelife,” he tells The Independent. That wasuntil his wife bought him photographylessons with St. John’s photographerShane Kelly for Christmas one year.

“Every time I go out, I end up down-town or at Cape Spear — somewhere nearthe water,” says King of his landscapework.

His portraits are a study of light, butalmost always end up revolving around afriend.

King says he enjoys photographingweddings and taking portraits of couples.

He recently took a group of his friends,including a newly married couple, toBowring Park and took some photos. Thenewlyweds, who hated their wedding pic-tures, loved King’s photos so much, theyblew them up and hung them on the wallsof their home.

He also did portfolio pictures of a dancerfriend, who needed a little help.

“A lot of the stuff I do is for other peo-ple,” he says. “People always say, ‘e-mailthat to me’ and it usually ends up on their(computer) desktop.”

King says his hobby is an expensive oneand though he sometimes charges a fee for

shooting a wedding or portraits, the extracash goes to buying more camera equip-ment.

“I buy all my gear on eBay,” he says,adding he’s always looking for lightingand drop cloths, equipment he can’t affordto buy in a store.

Another aspect of photography Kinglikes is covering the walls of his home.

“I used to paint — I’d spend four or fivemonths on a painting and then I didn’thang them.”

But with photography King can changethe pictures in his home on a daily basis,which he says “drives my wife nuts.

“Every time my friends come over theyrun around the house to see what picturesI have up.”

He says he rarely gets negative feed-back, but he’s still learning. He hopes tolearn how to process his own film and saysone day his basement will become a dark-room. For now, his photos are printedcommercially.

How does he get people to feel comfort-able when pointing a camera at their face?

“I talk a lot and eventually I catch themoff guard.” But don’t go looking for pho-tos of King himself. “The only pictures Ihave of myself are of us on vacation.”

— Alisha Morrissey

Photographer

Gallery

‘Nobody owns the fish’Province’s decision to buy quota for Arnold’s Cove plant highly controversial

By Jeff Ducharme The Independent

The provincial government’s deci-sion in June to pay $3.5 millionto buy back groundfish quotas

from a Nova Scotia company is stillsinking in: how can a common-proper-ty resource, owned by everyone, bepriced and sold?

High Liner Foods Inc. sold the quotas— 3,676 tonnes of codfish, haddock,perch, plaice, yellowtail founder, witchflounder, turbot and Atlantic halibut —to the province for continued processingat the Arnold’s Cove plant. The deal alsoincluded seven vessel licences.

The plant — which employs 400workers — was taken over by IcewaterSeafoods, a local company headed byBruce Wareham, who had managed theplant for 35 years.

Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish,Food and Allied Workers’ union, saysgovernment made the right move.

“If that can get fish, secure fish forNewfoundlanders to benefit from, toprovide meaningful jobs in the outports,then I don’t think that’s dangerous atall.”

OWNED BY ALL CANADIANSBut a fish quota is considered a com-

mon property resource — owned by allCanadians.

“Paying a Nova Scotian company fora common property resource, whoseboard just decided to abandon harvest-ing as a corporate decision, is simplyunacceptable,” says Gus Etchegary, theprovince’s most outspoken fisheriesadvocate.

Etchegary, who retired as executivevice-president of Fishery Products Inter-national in 1990 after a 30-year career,

has expressed the same concerns in aletter to provincial Fisheries MinisterTrevor Taylor.

“The licence should have revertedback to the Crown and then reassignedto Arnold’s Cove by DFO at no cost.”

Wareham was unavailable for com-ment.

The plant workers accepteda 35 cent per hour wage cut toensure the future viability ofthe plant. The Arnold’s Coveplant is a state-of-the art facility. HighLiner said it received “nominal cashconsideration” for the plant, but Icewa-ter will continue supplying High Linerwith fish products.

Taylor dismisses charges that theprovince has set a dangerous precedentin buying the quota from High Linerand leasing it back to Wareham and Ice-water.

“Fish quotas have been bought andsold for at least 20years in this countryand in this province,”says Taylor.

He contends that ifthe province hadn’tstepped in the plantwould have closedand the quotas wouldhave been lost to acompany outside theprovince. He says the lease is good for20 years, as long as Icewater “lives upto the terms.” He says if the Icewateroperation falters, the quotas remain theproperty of the provincial government.

“This deal gives us complete controlover a huge amount of groundfish(that’s) associated with it in the watersaround our province,” says Taylor.

“The only precedent we have set isthat government, for the first time, has

bought quota.” St. John’s lawyer John Joy, who holds

a master’s degree in marine law and pol-icy from the University of Wales, sayswild animals can’t be anything otherthan a common property resource untilcaught. Once caught, they become the

property of whoever holds thatparticular licence.

“In law, nobody owns fish —fish are free,” says Joy, whodeclined comment on the spe-

cific Arnold’s Cove situation.Governments, federal or provincial,

don’t even own the fish, says Joy. Hesays government’s responsibility isjurisdiction over the stock — regula-tions, and the issuing of licences andquotas.

McCurdy says if the management ofquotas was starting off with a “cleanslate” before the current system becamethe accepted practice, the union might

take a different stancetowards a common-property resource.

“We could get onour high horse andsay we don’t agreewith that, thereforewe’re not going toparticipate, leave the(quota) up in NovaScotia or we could

say it’s really valuable for us to havethat work here,” says McCurdy.

“It (transferable quotas) wouldn’t beour first choice, but that’s the worldwe’re now operating in.”

Joy says the danger becomes evidentwhen harvesting of the resourcebecomes too closely tied to the process-ing operation, something the feds havealways maintained was not in the bestinterest of the fishery.

“I’m not sure that DFO is to blame,”says Joy. “It’s the shenanigans of theindustry.”

Processors often control fishermen’squotas through the backdoor by financ-ing boats and equipment for fishermen.

“There are a significant number offishermen that are beholden to fish plantowners. The division between harvest-ing and processing is eroding.”

BLIND EYEJoy says the federal government has

turned a blind eye to the “black market”trading of licences and quotas. It’ssomething that Joy says the feds shouldre-examine.

“All it does is throw the fishermeninto the arms of the processors,” saysJoy.

“You’ve got to keep the cooking potsaway from the chamber pots.”

Fishermen, says Joy, also do wellwhen they sell licences that can beworth $500,000 or more. He says fish-ermen who own licences and sell themreceive an “utter windfall” and it’sviewed as a “retirement fund.”

McCurdy says each case must bejudged on its own merits.

“It’s an opportunity to provide greaterstability to what really has been ourflagship plant (Arnold’s Cove) in thelast 10 years in the province.”

Taylor says government is damned ifit does and damned if it doesn’t.

“Now we can have a philosophicaldebate about whether it is right or wrongand that’s fine, but it is happening,”says Taylor. “It has happened for 20years and all of a sudden because theprovince bought something that we hadlost — the people would have con-demned us for allowing it to be gone —now they are criticizing us for doing it.”

October 31, 2004 Page 15BUSINESS & COMMERCE

“You’ve got to keep the cooking pots away

from the chamber pots.”

— Lawyer John Joy

Paul Daly/The IndependentIcewater Seafoods, a fish plant in Arnold’s Cove, employs 400 people.

FINDING THE


of Confederation


When the cod fisheriesclosed in the early1990s, industry offi-

cials warned the resulting transferof effort to other species wouldknock them down one at a time.First cod, then flounder, then tur-bot, then crab …

Earle McCurdy, president of theFish, Food and Allied Workers’union, the province’s largest fish-ermen’s union, says no one knowsthe ecological repercussions of asingle-species fishery.

What’s a fisherman to do, heasks?

“Any species that we go toshould clearly be managed on asustainable basis. I don’t thinkthere’s any argument with that,”McCurdy tells The Independent,adding he sees nothing wrongwith catching one species at atime.

“We exploited … the crab andsome of these species back in the’80s in conjunction with the codfishery — some of them are newand some of that new effort wasdriven by the loss of the cod andpeople looked for other alterna-tives.”

Fisheries Minister Trevor Tay-lor says one of the biggest prob-

lems with the province’s fishingindustry has been too much focuson a particular species for toolong.

“Prior to the moratorium, codwas the fishing industry and sincecod has collapsed, crab has essen-tially been the fishing industryand, you know, that heavyreliance on one species is alwaysa challenge.”

He says that’s why the provincehas created the Fishery Diversifi-cation Program — to increase via-bility and stability.

“To take some of the pressureoff the crab, for example, allowsus to be able to have an industry

that is a little more economicallysound and diverse in that’s it’s notsolely dependent on one species.”

Wilfred Bartlett, a retiredinshore fishermen from Triton,Notre Dame Bay, says diversifi-cation doesn’t always work.

“We’ve tried everything rightnow, this last summer they weregiving out grants to do a study onjellyfish, you know, which isbloody crazy. A jellyfish might beuseful to, you know, one or two ina community, but our biggestemployer to the people was thecod fishery and the turbot indus-try,” Bartlett says.

Under the Fishery Diversifica-

tion Program, fishermen huntspecies such as sea cucumbers,sea urchins and eels.

McCurdy and Taylor say differ-ent species are viable at differenttimes, depending on environmen-tal and consumer factors.

Jeffery Hutchings, a biologyprofessor with Dalhousie Univer-sity, says studies relating to under-water ecosystems have neverfocused on the relationshipsbetween predator and prey, norenvironmental factors that balancepopulations.

“We have always managedalmost exclusively, not entirely,but almost exclusively, focusedresearch at single-species level,”Hutchings says. “There have beena number of efforts to look at

things in a multi-species context,but it’s either not seen as a priori-ty or it’s very directed, in otherwords, seals — cod. That’s ourmulti-species, or we might throwin caplin as well. But is that suffi-cient from a multi-species per-spective? No it’s not.”

Whether or not the fishingindustry depends solely on the seacucumber in years to come is yetto be seen, but McCurdy saysthere will always be some kind offish to catch and process.

“The fish that will supply ourcrab boats and crab plants isalready determined, there’s noth-ing to do to enhance it — it’salready there, it’s at the bottom ofthe ocean — we just don’t knowwhat it is.”

‘Dead as a nit’Fisherman says rural towns will die if cod declared endangered; scientist contends an inshore fishery may only be few years away

Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

Jack Marsh, an inshore fisher-man from Random Island,Trinity Bay, says

judging by the amount ofcod he sees from his boatin Smith Sound, “outportNewfoundland should bebooming.

“I’ve been fishing now 50-oddyears and I’m telling you there’sabsolutely nothing close to the fishthat’s in this area now and all overother bays — lots.”

He tells The Independent thatolder fish are feeding on their ownyoung to sustain themselves, andwould be better off caught. As fordeclaring the species endangered, amove the federal government iscurrently considering, Marsh saysit would be the end of communi-ties.

“The day that happens, then thefishery and the whole outport ofNewfoundland is as dead as a nit.”

While offshore stocks of north-ern cod are still virtually non-exis-tent, fishermen say populations inthe bays, so-called bay stocks, areflourishing. Fishermen want to har-vest the cod, but scientists say thehigh levels may be misleading.

PUBLIC CONSULTEDThe Committee on the Status of

Endangered Wildlife in Canada(COSEWIC) is holding public con-sultations province-wide to discussa proposed “endangered” listingand the impact on rural communi-ties.

Federal Fisheries and Oceans(DFO) Minister Geoff Regan isscheduled to give his recommen-dation on how the species should

be listed by Jan. 20, although afinal decision won’t be made untilthe following October.

Jeffrey Hutchings, a biologist atDalhousie University in Halifax,

as well as a former DFOresearcher, says as a resultof poor communication,the general public — andpossibly some DFO offi-

cials — are unaware of the poten-tial flexibility available under theSpecies At Risk Act (SARA).

“The recovery plan couldinclude a directed harvest of cod …the minister would have to takethe perspective that a directed takewould not seriously jeopardize thesurvival or recovery of the species,but it certainly is permissible underthe act.”

Hutchings says the listing of codwould be a form of planning ahead,encouraging timelines, recoverytargets and openness without thebias of politics, but still allowingfor controlled fishing and inciden-tal catches or bycatches.

“We hear a lot about overfishingon the nose and tail of the GrandBanks,” says Hutchings.

“If we don’t list cod, what mes-sage does that send to foreignfleets? Whereas, if we do list cod itstrengthens our hand immeasur-ably in dealing with the foreignoverfishing.”

He says an allowed inshore fish-ery for northern cod is probablyinevitable over the next few yearsanyway, and that it would be bettercarried out as part of a carefullyplanned recovery strategy.

George Lilly, a scientist withDFO, says although fishermen arereporting more signs of cod than inprevious years, it doesn’t mean it’ssafe to start fishing.

RESEARCH SHOWS DECLINE

Independent research into thelargest congregation of cod inSmith Sound has reported a declinein the population since 2001, buttest-fishing surveys are showing aslight increase, particularly amongyoung fish, creating hopes of acontinued rise in levels.

“The fishermen, if you go backto 1998 and 1999 before the fisheryopened, they were adamant thatthere were huge quantities of fishin the inshore,” says Lilly. “… andimmediately the stock came downvery rapidly.

“I’m not saying that would hap-

pen again but the caution is therethat yes, the fishermen may see alot of fish but it doesn’t meanthere’s a lot relative to what therewas in the past.”

As for why the cod are flourish-ing in the bays as opposed to off-shore, he says DFO doesn’t knowthe answer. The stocks were prob-ably always there, impossible toseparate from the previous, hugewaves of offshore fish that wouldcome in the spring to feed oncaplin.

Lilly says there are currentlysome fish in the bay populationthat are 12 to 14 years old andupwards of 100 centimetres long.

Northern cod, particularly off-shore, has depleted 99 per centsince the early 1960s and Hutch-ings says the benefits of listing thespecies as endangered now wouldfar outweigh any costs, somethinga lot of people including fishermenmight not realize.

“I think we have to remind our-selves of what happened 12 yearsago. That was bad. That was hor-rendous … what I find interestingis that people are somehow draw-ing parallels today with what hap-pened 12 years ago; there is nocomparison to what that did tocommunities, to people, to theirlivelihoods.”

Page 16 BUSINESS The Independent, October 31, 2004

FINDING THE


of Confederation


David Boyd, a fisherman from Twillingate, explains the decline of the inshore fishery to tourists. These three codwere all he had to show for a morning of fishing in 2002.

Transfer of effortFishery leapfrogs from one species to the next, but is that healthy?



Twelve years after the first of the com-mercial cod fisheries were closed,and billions of dollars spent on fish

aid and retraining, there are more fishermennow than ever before.

In 1991, the year before a moratorium wasslapped on northern cod, the number of fish-ermen registering for Employment Insur-ance (EI) in Newfound-land and Labrador, stoodat 12,200, according tofigures provided byHuman ResourcesDevelopment Canada in St. John’s.

In 2003, that number was pegged at16,900 — an increase of 4,600 or 38 percent.

As of Oct. 7 this year, the number of fish-ermen filing for EI stood at roughly 6,900,although more claims are expected to be reg-istered by year’s end.

Since so-called fisherman’s EI is based onthe landed value of a fisherman’s catch — asopposed to the hours they work — fish plantworkers are not included in those figures. Afisherman must catch between $2,500 and$4,500 worth of fish to qualify for EI —depending on the economic zone in whichthey live.

The apparent increase in the number offishermen is surprising, given that the com-mercial fisheries for groundfish species suchas cod have been closed (with the exceptionof several limited reopenings) since the early1990s.

FAILING INDUSTRYIn an attempt to move fishermen out of the

failing industry, the federal government spent$4 billion on early retirement packages,retraining programs and licence buyouts.

But while the groundfish fishery crashed,the shellfish industry took off.

In 2003, the fishing industry in theprovince was worth approximately $1 billion— 75 per cent of which was derived from theshrimp and crab fisheries — seven per centmore than the top three species (cod, craband caplin) did before the 1990s.

Fisheries Minister Trevor Taylor has beenquoted as saying the fishing industry can’tsupport the number of people currentlyemployed.

“We have about the same number of fish-erman that we had before the moratorium but

we have less plant workers than we hadbefore the moratorium,” he tells The Inde-pendent. “It’s really important to have anindustry that has its investment levels and itspeople levels, its capacity in line with theamount of resource that’s out there and whenyou don’t, you inevitably knock resourcesdown.”

Taylor says a reduction in employmentlevels could help the industry survive.

“Fisheries management is very much tiedto the amount of capacity that’s in the indus-try … whenever you have an industry that isover capitalized, or has excessive amounts ofcapacity, it makes it very difficult to keep, tohave good fisheries management.”

The federal government is responsible forfish harvesting; the province is responsiblefor processing. According to the provincialgovernment, there are 113 plants currentlyoperating in Newfoundland and Labrador —118 less than in 1990.

The number of plant workers has declinedto 6,500 from an estimated 27,500.

The number of fish plant jobs has declinedbecause crab and shrimp aren’t as labourintensive as groundfish, says Earle McCur-dy, president of the Fish, Food and AlliedWorkers’ union.

“Groundfish is much more labour inten-

sive than shell fish and, of course, there’s theimpact of modernization and the technologyin the plants is more high-tech, which meansless labour content,” McCurdy says. “Theplant workers have been very hard hit by thatcombination of factors.”

Taylor says it’s difficult to “adjust” to dif-ferent jobs outside the fishing industry inrural areas because there aren’t any otherjobs available.

McCurdy agrees.

“There’s no real quick fix for that otherthan to tell people to walk off the end of thewharf or to go to the mainland,” saysMcCurdy. “It’s unfortunate there isn’t suffi-cient resource to provide the level ofemployment that we once had.”

According to an official with the federalDepartment of Fisheries and Oceans in St.John’s, the number of licenced fishing boatsin the province as of 2003 stood at 8,677 —compared to 13,915 in 1993.

The Independent, October 31, 2004 BUSINESS Page 17

Dublin - October 2004San Diego - January 2005

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Walk or Run aMarathon orhalf marathon onbehalf of someoneyou know livingwith arthritis

Year Number of EIfishing claims

1992 6,916

1993 7,459

1994 6,595

1995 8,216

1996 8,044

1997 9,950

1998 11,279

1999 11,562

2000 13,611

2001 13,772

2002 14,982

2003 16,935

2004 – Oct. 7 6,869

Fishery by the numbersMore fishermen today than before cod fisheries closed; far fewer plant workers

FINDING THE


of Confederation

Jeff Ducharme/The IndependentAn abandoned stage on the west coast of Newfoundland.

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Page 18 BUSINESS The Independent, October 31, 2004

‘An incredible resource’

Unlike rest of Canada, province’s aquaculture industry has room to grow

By Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

The aquaculture industry in Newfoundlandand Labrador might be a delicate one froma business perspective, but facts and figures

suggest a promising future — if only the provincerises to the challenge.

Despite financial trouble faced by fish farms inBay d’Espoir — and North Atlantic SeaFarms of St. Alban’s, which recently wentinto receivership — production numbersand profits are up.

Michael Rose, executive director of theNewfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association,calls the problems faced by the St. Alban’s salmonproducers “a twisted story,” considering the com-pany had been growing steadily over the last fewyears, producing healthy, well-priced fish within acompetitive market.

“When you begin to think about the fact thatyou’re paying over 25 per cent interest on creditowed (for feed) and you’re still making money,well that’s fairly impressive,” he tells The Inde-pendent.

Rose says many Canadian and internationalsalmon companies have been losing moneybecause of a range of market issues, particularlyfinancing and competition.

“In an odd way (North Atlantic Sea Farms) havereally proven the value of doing aquaculture on thatcoast and that’s going to pay off very well for thisprovince because in the long run (we’re) the onlyviable alternative in fish aquaculture left in Cana-da right now.”

Rose says there’s no longer room for furtheraquaculture expansion in places such as British

Columbia, New Brunswick and Prince EdwardIsland. The ecosystem of the province’s southcoast, however, is spacious and environmentallyideal.

Cabot Martin, a St. John’s lawyer and former codfarmer, agrees there’s enormous potential.

“I was involved with the cod farming start-upand very intimately involved in surveying variousparts of our coast for good sites and it’s an incred-

ible resource,” he says. “Our sites aresheltered, deep, and have good tidal flows.In the medium and longer term there is abig future.”

Martin expresses concern over the busi-ness problems within the industry, however, sayingif researchers and government lose faith and issuesare not resolved, the province could see a 10- or 15-year setback in aquaculture development.

Rose says strong support and endorsements fromthe provincial government are already apparent andare adding to the industry’s growth.

Despite now resolved marketing setbacks with-in the mussel sector last year, numbers are risingsteadily. Rose expects production to increase to2,500 tonnes over the next two or three years from1,000 tonnes in 2000.

“ … we are perhaps the last great place inAtlantic Canada for sure where mussel farming cantruly expand significantly,” he says. “For example,P.E.I. is maxed, they may be able to bump up theirproduction somewhat, but realistically they’reprobably going sideways in the long-term.”

As for salmon, Rose says the province produced7,000 tonnes in 2003, up from 5,000 tonnes in2000, and a large, established company calledCooke Aquaculture from New Brunswick current-ly plans to begin farming in Fortune Bay.

FINDING THE


of Confederation

‘Danger zone’Time will tell whether south coast salmon farm

makes it through receivership in one pieceBy Clare-Marie GosseThe Independent

Almost a month after theprovince’s largest salmonfarming company went

into receivership, the owner isstill hoping North Atlantic SeaFarms can be saved.

The receiver has said it willkeep the salmon operation up andrunning until Nov. 26. Brian Dob-bin, the major shareholder, hasuntil then to submit a proposal tobuy back the company. At thesame time, another firm couldsubmit a bid and walk away withthe business.

“We’re in a danger zone rightnow,” Dobbin tells The Indepen-dent.

North Atlantic Sea Farms wasforced to issue 140 layoff noticesto its workforce in early Octoberafter its feed supplier, Shur-Gain,a division of Maple Leaf Foods,cancelled its line of credit.

Since 2001, Shur-Gain has for-warded feed from its Truro, N.S.,plant to the south coast aquacul-ture operation using that credit.Payments were consistently madeonce the fish were sold to market,

a relationship that reportedlyworked well until last Decemberwhen Shur-Gain unexpectedlycancelled its $6-million line ofcredit to North Atlantic SeaFarms.

Shur-Gain officials said theirdecision was a corporate one; theyno longer wanted to bankroll theindustry.

The move was a devastatingblow to North Atlantic Sea Farms,considering traditional financierssuch as banks won’t lend moneyto the province’s aquacultureindustry.

Dobbin calls the feed prices hiscompany was paying “enor-mous,” and dubs Shur-Gain “anextortion racquet” for charging 28per cent above the going marketprice for the use of the credit line.

“What they (the receiver) aredoing right now is they’re contin-uing to feed the fish to keep them

alive, to keep the growth up,” hesays. “They put out packages topretty much the whole world say-ing come down and pick up thepieces if you want to.”

Dobbin says the best-case sce-nario for his company at this pointin time would be if the provincialgovernment steps up with a loanprogram for the purchase of feed,the industry’s biggest expense,and the Taiwanese investors retirefrom the project, making way fornew investment.

“We’re struggling to try andbring the players back togetheragain, receivers aren’t giving us alot of time — the company will besold piece meal, and the fish willbe harvested to pay the debt.

“I’m not optimistic, but we’retrying hard.”

North Atlantic Sea Farmsemployed 60 workers at its plantin St. Alban’s, and another 80 atits hatchery and two marinefarms.

Last year the company pro-duced four million pounds ofsalmon, worth an estimated $7.2million. This year’s product levelof 5.8 million pounds was expect-ed to fetch more than $11 million.

“I’m not optimistic, but we’re trying hard.”

— Brian Dobbin

North Atlantic Sea Farms (left), thelargest salmon farmer on theprovince’s south coast, went intoreceivership recently after the feedsupplier, Shur-Gain, withdrew itsline of credit. Banks and other tra-ditional lending institutions won’ttouch the aquaculture industry.

Victor Drachev/AFP Photos

Belarusan riot police arrest an opposition protester in the center of Minsk during an opposition rally. Some 3,000 demonstrators gathered todemand democratic changes during festivities marking Belarusan independence.

‘There is no dictatorship here’Maybe not, but Belarus is a police state, with political

killings, disappearances and arrests a regular part of life

The man they call the last dic-tator in Europe wants his crit-ics to get a life.

“Try to calm down,” PresidentAlexander Lukashenko of Belarustold the world the other day. “Lookat your own problems.”

Belarus today is a most-ly ignored, pleasant nationof 10 million people wholive in the fertile plainbetween Poland and Rus-sia. When it was part ofthe Soviet Union, Belaruswas an island of industri-ous tranquility.

It still is, for the mostpart. Belarus’ GDP isincreasing by about fiveper cent a year, and thereare few of the social problemscaused by the disparities in wealthand poverty that riddle its neigh-bours’ economies.

But nearly every day for the pasttwo weeks, hundreds of Belarusanshave gathered in the capital city ofMinsk, at October Square, a graywindy expanse of concrete sur-rounded by block-long public build-ings that is one of the ugliest squaresin Europe, to demonstrate for free-dom.

It’s a sad, lonely crusade. No onemuch notices Belarus, and few care.

The violence that twists the Cau-casus into bloody knots is absenthere, and the abject poverty and reli-gious tensions contorting other for-mer Soviet colonies like Tajikistan or

Turkmenistan don’t exist.Belarus, with a Soviet-style econ-

omy and political system, exists in atime warp — which makes thedemonstrators in Minsk among themost courageous people in Europe.

Freedom House, a Washington-based think tank that mon-itors the 27 post-commu-nist states in CentralEurope and Eurasia, saysBelarus has experienced a“systematic violation ofbasic political rights andcivil liberties” for the past10 years.

The story got worse thismonth. On Oct. 17, Belaru-sans were asked to vote ina referendum that would

change the country’s constitution toallow President Lukashenko to seeka third six-year term.

According to Belarus officials, thereferendum passed by 77 per cent. Inparliamentary elections held at thesame time, not a single oppositiondeputy was elected to the 110-seatassembly.

It was, said Belarus election com-mission czar Lidia Yermoshina withno apparent trace of irony, “an ele-gant victory.”

According to European and U.S.election observers, however, bothvotes were charades. Monitors, forexample, reported seeing referendumballots marked “Yes” handed to vot-ers before they stepped into the polls.

But in Belarus, black masquerades

as white. “There is no dictatorshiphere,” says Lukashenko.

Maybe not yet, anyway. It is certainly a police state. Since

Lukashenko was elected in 1994 ona populist platform against corrup-tion and disorder, political killings,arrests and “disappearances” are aregular part of Belarus life.

IRON CONTROLThe state’s iron control of the

economy and the political processhas given Belarus the kind of orderthat would be envied in other post-Soviet nations coping with the chaosof democratic capitalism.

Belarus has the outward calm andpredictability of a prison. UnderLukashenko, who is barred from vis-iting Europe and the U.S., it hasbecome as isolated and almost asimpenetrable as North Korea.

Yet the president still seems both-ered by Belarusans who disagreewith him. Opposition leader AnatolyLebedko was arrested after one ofthis month’s demonstrations. Policefollowed him to a local pizza parlourand beat him within an inch of hislife.

A leading journalist for an opposi-tion paper was stabbed to death inher home a few days later.

This week Lukashenko ominouslysuggested his domestic opponentswere tied to “international terror-ism,” and might have to be dealtwith accordingly.

Lukashenko would probably not

last a day longer in power withoutthe support of Russian PresidentVladimir Putin. Belarus depends onthe Russian economy for two-thirdsof its exports and imports.

Russia doesn’t like Lukashenko,who negotiated an “economic union”with Moscow several years ago, andonce offered to run for office inMoscow. But he serves a purpose.

The Kremlin, perhaps thinking ofRussia’s own slow descent intoauthoritarianism, warns the Westagainst interfering in Belarus’ “inter-nal affairs.” Russian observers saidthere was nothing wrong with theBelarus vote.

That’s a worrying sign of Putin’sown priorities. But what about therest of the world’s? There may bemore “exotic” causes elsewhere, butlittle Belarus is an ugly reminder ofhow tempting it can be to let democ-racy slide in the name of order.

This month, Prime Minister PaulMartin stopped off in Moscow fordinner with Putin. Neither man pub-licly mentioned Belarus.

But if the prime minister is look-ing for a project where he can deployhis foreign-policy vision of spread-ing democracy and good gover-nance, Belarus isn’t a bad place tobegin.

Stephen Handelman is a columnistfor TIME Canada based in NewYork. He can be reached at [email protected]. His next col-umn for The Independent willappear Nov. 14.

October 31, 2004 Page 19INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

HANDELMANSTEPHEN


For Stephen Reddin, a yearaway was exactly what heneeded.

Straight after graduating fromhigh school in St. John’s, Reddinbegan classes at Memorial Uni-versity. Unsure of a career path,his course list was varied: math,physics, political science, Eng-lish.

“About halfway through mysecond semester at MUN, I real-ized I wasn’t doing anything thatI really enjoyed … mostly I thinkit was math; I was doing reallypoorly in math, it was causing alot of stress for me, I wasn’t ableto sleep at night,” he says.

“I wasn’t at university because Iwanted to be, I was just therebecause that’s what was expect-ed.”

Having always wanted to visitAustralia, he figured this was agood time. He applied for the Stu-dent Work Abroad Program(SWAP), which arranged hiswork visa and orientation onarriving in Sydney.

Reddin says his family andfriends were generally supportive— though a few worried hewouldn’t return to Newfoundlandafter the year, let alone get backinto university.

“Nervous? I wasn’t too wor-ried,” Reddin says. “I didn’t knowwhat to expect so I didn’t knowwhat to be afraid of … Thebiggest worry was getting downthere and not liking it. I didn’twant to come home in like twoweeks.”

Once in Sydney, he didn’twaste time. Within a week he hadsigned on with a hospitality com-pany as a casual bartender, andhad found a place to stay: a houseshared with five other travellers.It was an “international experi-ence,” he says. Three of hishousemates were from Germany,one from the Netherlands, andone was from Japan.

Although living with that manypeople took time getting used to,the situation had more than itsshare of advantages. Not only wasthere always someone to talk to,one of the roommates worked fora used-car dealership and gener-ally had access to a car, some-times a camper. In between workshifts, the new friends made morethan a few trips to the nearbybeaches.

While bartending was fun —Reddin worked during all of theWorld Cup rugby games at theOlympic stadium (“there was lotsof drunk Englishmen around”) —the work was sporadic, so Reddinapplied to work with a construc-tion company. He took a one-daysafety course, bought a pair ofsteel-toed boots, and in shortorder was working weekdaysdoing office demolition.

“It was a lot of breaking downwalls, taking down windows,carting stuff down elevators andtossing it in bins,” he says. “Therewasn’t much strain on your mind— but it did pay $17.50 an hour.”

Sydney was easy to get used to.“The personalities are a lot likeCanadians,” he says. “You can be

in Sydney and strike up a conver-sation with people on the streetcorner. People are great. Therewas no culture shock, just someinteresting sayings and moreMcDonald’s than I’d ever seen.”

In January, after three monthsof considerable work, Reddindecided to see some more of thecountry. He flew to Tazmaniafirst, which he says has “beautifulbeaches, sand dunes, plains, rain-forests all on one island — it’s sodiverse for a small place.”

Then he went to Melbourne,into the mountains, to Canberra(Australia’s capital), back to Syd-ney, and into the outback (wherehe took a weeklong “how to be acowboy” course on a ranch — hespent a lot of time riding horses,shearing sheep, cracking whipsand swinging lassos).

Reddin went on to Brisbane,another city, where he decided tolook for another job. After oneday mowing lawns, and a two-hour experience working demoli-tion with a cranky Australianboss, he accepted a job sellingchildren’s educational materialdoor to door.

“Although it’s a job I’d nevergo back to, I enjoyed it at thetime,” Reddin says. “If you’retravelling around Australia youget caught up in travellers circles,you can go months and neverreally meet an Australian.”

So for the duration of his three-month contract he met nativeAustralians in Melbourne and ahost of small towns.

Then it was back to Sydney tomeet his brother, who flew infrom Newfoundland for twomonths of travelling and adven-tures. The pair travelled by bus,camped most nights, did somesailing, hiking, and a lot of walk-ing around. During this time,Reddin accomplished two of thethings he most wanted to in Aus-tralia: give surfing an honest try(they spent a week at the beachtrying their best) and dive at theGreat Barrier Reef (“absolutelyamazing”).

After his brother left, Reddinset out to find another job, thistime in the southern part of thecountry, where he heard manytravellers spend time pickingfruit. He found a position in adried fruit factory.

The time to return home wasdrawing closer, so Reddin

returned to Sydney, said somegoodbyes, and made the long trekhome. It was a year of hard workand vacation; adventure andsightseeing — and he accom-plished exactly what he’d hoped.

“I didn’t know what I was get-ting myself into, I picked Aus-tralia because I liked the idea ofAustralia, and always wanted togo,” he says. “Everyone has anidea they’ll go away and come

back with a better idea of whatthey want to do. I really didn’thave a better idea of that, justknew that I didn’t want to workany of the jobs I did while I wasin Australia for the rest of mylife.”

“People said once you leaveuniversity you’ll never come back— but I’m back, back in MUNand I’m enjoying it a lot more.”

Reddin is in his first year ofengineering now, and even themath doesn’t seem so bad any-more. He recommends time awayto anyone who can be flexibleand independent.

“You have to be willing tomake friends along the way.You’re constantly surrounded byso many interesting people to talkto that I didn’t really get home-sick.

“You come back, you noticeyou have a better idea of yourself.I was a bit of a mope before I left,I get along better with people,now I don’t get caught up in thelittle things in the same way. Itdoes change you.”

Do you know a Newfoundlan-der or Labradorian living away?E-mail [email protected]

Page 20 INTERNATIONAL The Independent, October 31, 2004

‘It does change you’Tired of university, stressed out, not sure what to study, Stephen Reddin of St. John’s took a trip Down Under

Voice from AwayStephen ReddinA year in Australia

Torsten Blackwood/AFP PHOTO

Sydney Harbour


Sam Lee remembers the day —July 2, 1992 — the northern codmoratorium was announced.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorianswho watched the television news thatevening might remember Lee just aswell.

Lee was one of a number of fishermenand women who went to the RadissonPlaza Hotel to hear, for themselves, theannouncement then-federal FisheriesMinister John Crosbie was expected tomake. The press conference wasn’tentirely smooth.

“Was that me kicking in the door?Yes, it was — and I’d do it again,” Leetells The Independent. It had nothing todo with the moratorium itself— whichLee had lobbied for. And it wasn’t a reac-tion to the compensation numbersbandied about. It was all about the wayit was done.

“Crosbie was in one room at the hotel,talking to a bunch of reporters, it didn’tmean nothing to them what he was say-ing,” he says.

“And I was in the next room, and mylivelihood was being stopped, and herehe was in the next damn room and I

couldn’t ask a question to him. Heshould have had the guts and the courageto stand in front of me to tell me, just tosay ‘Boys, we’ve got to close her down.’

“We went out to go into that room.Myself and my brother each took onedoor handle … and the handles cameright off in our hands. We couldn’t getthe doors to come out so westarted pushing it in.”

Lee tells the story with a rue-ful smile. As far as he’s con-cerned, the event was just onemore slap in the face from the govern-ment. “Government don’t want usinshore fishermen,” he says.

Later, after Crosbie said his piece,after the media hoopla, Lee went homeand hauled in his cod traps for the lasttime.

LEARNED ‘ON THE JOB’Lee has been fishing since he was a

10-year-old out on the sea, watching hisfather, learning on the job. When hisfather had a stroke about 30 years ago,Lee bought his gear.

He pauses when asked about the fish-ery back during his first years at it. Hegazes out the large front window of hishome, taking in the wind, rain and waveswhipping the Maddox Cove shore.

“What was it like? There was just fish.Nothing, only fish,” he says, slowly.“The boats were smaller then … butyou’d go get 10 or 20 boatloads out ofthe cod trap. Everybody was out doingthe same thing.

“You couldn’t see for fish.”At first, the market was for salt cod.

But then the demand for freshfish grew, and buyers wereunwilling to purchase fish under18 inches long. Cod smallerthan that, says Lee, were tossed

over, left to float around.“We added to the destruction of it,” he

says with a shrug. The discards from theinshore were nothing like those from theoffshore fishery, he maintains, but theywere still significant.

“Human nature being what it is, youtake the biggest ones. You’re not goingto stand around all day and take the onesyou’re going to get two cents a poundfor, not if there’s a fish you can get 20cents for. So you get rid of them …That’s the way it is today. Nothing’schanged.”

Lee says he and his colleagues noticeda change in the fish stocks a full decadebefore the moratorium was called — thecod were noticeably smaller. “But peoplewere still getting their fish. So nobody

was really paying attention.”As the years rolled on, though, Lee

decided to take action. He took part inthe Newfoundland Inshore FisheriesAssociation’s attempt to take the gov-ernment to court to stop offshore fishingon the spawning grounds. “We weren’tlistened to,” he says. “Again.”

There hasn’t been a legitimate codfishery off Petty Harbour-Maddox Covesince the moratorium. (Lee says 2003’sblack back fishery was a barely-veiledattempt to allow inshore fishermen tocatch some cod, so called “by-catch.”)

In the first years after 1992, Lee, likeso many other fishermen, availed of thegovernment’s compensation and trainingprogram, and completed high schoolequivalency courses.

Eventually, the crab fishery camealong. Although Lee says he’ll “alwaysbe a cod trap fisherman at heart,” he’sdone well by crab.

This year, Lee says it took him twiceas many traps as usual to catch the sameamount of crab. He isn’t asking for thequota to be cut — “it would be likegoing to your boss and saying you wantto make less money” — but he advocatesagainst any increases until science can

October 31, 2004 Page 21LIFE &TIMES

‘We added to the destruction’Long-time fisherman Sam Lee tried to kick in the door when John Crosbie closed

the cod fishery; now, 12 years later, he hopes the crab stocks hold out until he retires



FINDING THE


of Confederation

Sam Lee

Page 22 LIFE & TIMES The Independent, October 31, 2004

‘Figure of speech’Corner Brook’s small black community subject to racial slurs

By Connie BolandFor The Independent

For a moment, Heather Wisedidn’t understand what herson was trying to tell her.

“He said some older kids atschool had called him a niger(pronounced like tiger).”

“Niger,” I asked. “What’s a niger?”And then it hit her. Five-year-

old Tyler had been targeted forthe colour of his skin.

Wise was shocked.“Before I got pregnant I knew I

might have to deal with issuesaround that,” says the CornerBrook resident, a caucasian oncemarried to a black man.

“I explained to Tyler exactlywhat the other kids had been call-ing him, and I told him that if any-one ever said that to him again hewas to tell me. He asked if it wasa bad word. I said it is when white

people say it to you.”Racial slurs weren’t something

Wise thought she would have todeal with. Not here at home any-way. When she and former hus-band Allan Wise lived in Houston,Texas, it was almost expected.

“There’s a lot of racial tensionin Houston,” Heather says.“Blacks are prejudice towardsblacks. Whites are prejudicetowards blacks. Blacks are preju-dice against whites. It’s a viciouscircle. We lived in a primarilyblack neighborhood and therewere all kinds of comments madeabout me being white and himbeing black.”

TEXAS TO CORNER BROOKWise moved to the States in

1995 to work as a nurse. Raisingchildren in Texas, near areaswhere the Klu Klux Klan ran wildwasn’t an option. Tyler was threemonths old when the family

moved to Newfoundland’s westcoast. Daughter Kira was bornhere one year later.

In Corner Brook, with its tinyblack community, Tyler wasnoticed. “When we first movedback I would go to the mall andpeople would want to touch him,”Heather says. “People were fasci-nated. One day, a woman grabbedhim out of my arms and said ‘Ialways wanted a black baby.’”

More than five years later, thechildren are still looked upon withinterest. “I can almost see thewheels turning in people’s heads,”Heather chuckles. “They look atthe kids and then they look at meand they try to figure out if we gotogether.

“People ask strange questionsbut they make stranger state-ments,” she says. “A lady oncesaid ‘My God, your little boy hassome nice tan.’”

Reactions to Freudian slips like

“saucy as the black” or “Listen tothe pot calling the kettle black”also make Heather grin.

“I don’t take offense becauseit’s just a figure of speech,” shesays. “It’s something we said askids and it didn’t mean anything.Still, people catch themselves andapologize. I tell them to relax.”

Schoolyard incidents like theone Tyler experienced, though farfrom the norm, aren’t as easy toignore. Neither was the dayHeather and Kira were insulted bytwo young children.

“We were on our way intomom’s house. Kira was just a babyand two children who were play-ing outside started yelling ‘nig-gers, niggers, niggers.’ For kids toget on like that … I couldn’tbelieve it,” says Heather. “When Iwas young my aunt gave me awall hanging that said ‘Childrenlive what they learn.’ I neverunderstood that until then.

“You can’t get mad because ithas to be stuff these children hearat home,” she says. “I don’t thinkkids always realize that what theysay hurts another person.”

OK TO BE DIFFERENTWhen asked, the Wise siblings

explain patiently that they areblack because their father is black.They say not all people are thesame and it’s more than OK to bedifferent. “My kids will grow upknowing how to deal with thosesituations but I can’t believe that inthis day and age people still makeracial comments. You would hopethat even if people do think thatway they have the common senseto keep their mouths shut,” saysHeather.

“I teach my children that theyare special because they don’t looklike everybody else. They alsoknow to accept people as theyare.”

figure out the status of the stocks.He has other ideas on manage-

ment, many espoused by the PettyHarbour Fisheries Co-op as awhole: any by-catch should begiven to the Crown; any proceedsfrom it should go towards fisheriesscience. There should be stricterpunishments for those who violateregulations — you break the law,you’re out of the fishery. And for-eign ships caught over fishingshould be sunk (“get all the peopleoff, bail out the fuel, and sink ‘emto the bottom”).

Although Lee says he’s “givenup caring,” his frustrations, tingedwith sadness, come through inevery sentence.

“My son wants to go fishing,”Lee says, pointing out there may beonly two fishermen under age 40 inPetty Harbour now.

“He can’t do what I did, get inthe boat, get the first-hand knowl-edge, so it can continue on. Whenmy generation starts to go … it’lldie. There’ll be no fishing commu-

nity in Petty Harbour because my27-year-old son has to go throughtoo much rigmarole to use mygear.”

The industry’s changed, the fish-ery has changed, governmentschange — and communities do too.

“People are not close knit any-more. When there was a fishery,everyone was out there supportingone another. Now it’s divided likeyou wouldn’t believe.”

Saying again that he’s getting“too old to be frustrated,” Lee justhopes the crab population holds onfor another 10 years. Then it’ll betime to retire.

“After that, I don’t give a Goddamn what happens to it, becauseI’m out of it. I’ve worked at this toolong and too hard trying to get peo-ple, fighting and growling and vol-unteering for this and that …

“I wish I could put my cod trapback out. I’ve got them up there inmy shed, I know they’re no good,I know they’re worth nothing …But I can’t throw it away, I justcan’t. I worked my whole life to getthat.”

‘Too old to be frustrated’From page 21


Artists Scott Goudie, Grant Boland and Boyd Chubbs chat during the opening of their joint exhibit 3 Visions3 Cities, showing at Christina Parker Gallery in St. John’s until Nov. 19. Chubbs is telling a tale about a peb-ble he’s brought from his native Labrador.

3 Artists, 3 Visions

THE BACK STORY

Here’s how it started.Sometime last spring the15th annual St John’s

International Film and VideoFestival organizers hired localartist Andrea Cooper to do itspromotional material. (Disclo-sure: the writer of this article isChair of the festival board.) Any-one who pays attention to thevisual arts in this town knowsCooper’s work. The artist favoursthe representation of larger thanlife women, gorgeously seduc-tive creatures who stride like acolossus over the familiar land-marks of St. John’s. Her womenare not only supersized but theyare amusing clichés, femmefatales in garters and leopard skinslips, aided by the femme fataleprops of cigarette holders, stilet-tos, and arched eyebrows.

Cooper makes her images icon-ic and fun, women who take con-trol over their environment, butmust do so by being overtly sexy.That’s how you get attention. Youdo what it takes. Mae West knewit, Lauren Bacall knew it, anyself-respecting lover of ’40s filmsknew it. The cheeky festival tagline, ‘films with broad appeal,’openly appropriated that earlydetective story lingo and refash-ioned it for contemporary femi-nism.

The festival crew knew what itwas doing. If you hiredModigliani to do your posteryou’d get nude female figureswith vacant eyes and elongatedbodies; if you hired GeorgiaO’Keefe you’d get oversizedflowers with bursting stamens; ifyou hired Picasso, you’d get one-eyed women with bulbous lowerbodies; if you hired Cooper you’dget a femme fatale daring thecamera to come on over and seeher sometime.

And so it was that Cooperemployed local filmmaker MaryLewis to be her model. Lewis is aworking artist whose work hasbeen showcased several times inthe festival. Several years ago herdebut short, When Ponds FreezeOver, swept the Canadian awardscircuit. Lewis’s gorgeous shortfilm, part live action, part anima-tion, took home just about every

major award at every festival thiscountry has to offer. Featuring anacclaimed female filmmaker asthe poster subject seemed notonly appropriate but necessary.The added virtue of the choice isthat the camera loves Lewis.There’s something about Mary’sface that no lens can resist. Puther in a vibrant red spaghetti strapdress when she is four monthspregnant and juxtapose heragainst the welcoming openmouth of the harbour of St. John’sand, well, you have an imagemade in heaven.

Typical of Cooper’s work, theWomen’s Film Festival posterscreamed Women’s Power. Lewisposed in a number of invitingways which made the several ver-sions of the poster all the moreplayful. Whatever the gesture,you can’t help but notice it. It’sbold, beautiful, and arresting.Sexy? Yes and no. Lewis is sexy,sure, but the intelligence of theimage is that it is so obviouslymore about the whole cinematicsexualizing of women than it ismerely sexy. This is the art of athoughtful young feminist likeAndrea Cooper, not a porn pro-ducer.

THE INVENTED STORYQ: How many feminists does it

take to change a light bulb?A: That’s not funny.Apparently art really is in the

eyes of the beholder because as

soon as the poster material start-ed going up around town it camedown. Someone was ripping thestuff right off the poles. The fes-tival organizers soon learned thatsomeone was tearing up the post-cards distributed throughout var-ious venues where the festivalfilms would be screened.

This was curious and not a lit-tle disturbing. The first thoughtwas that the poster was so juicy itjust begged to be taken home.But ripped postcards suggestedsomething more sinister – a nungone off her head? One ofLewis’s scorned lovers?

In a village like St. John’s itdoesn’t take long to figure outhow the wind blows. The festival

crowd quickly learned that therereally wasn’t a mass movementgathering ammunition and deter-mined to destroy the entire filmcommunity, after all. Moreover,the few culprits tearing up thepublicity material possessed twox chromosomes and identifiedtheir gender clearly as F on Cana-da Census forms. But for everyripped postcard there were scoresof compliments about this year’simage — from men and womenand some body types one justcan’t be sure about. Everyone —well, almost everyone — loved it.

Enter the Media — CBC, thatis, our public broadcaster, withtoo much time on its hands lastweek and nothing to do but makea little mischief. This is how itworks. You get a call and are

asked to report on the “controver-sy” about your poster. You knowthere is no controversy but thatthere will be one, once the mediagets its bored little imagination allover it.

You can’t call a couple ofwomen tearing up some postcardsa guerrilla act, but that word isnow out there, hovering like athreat, right up there with theAtlantic Accord and school clos-ings: controversy. You agree to goon air and counter both the so-called protest and the media’sclaim that it is even worth theattention in the first place. It’s notas if you have a choice; you haveto enter the fray of the inventedstory.

Why should anyone really careabout such a tiny little issue?Because it’s far more titillating toshow women fighting withwomen than it is to do a story ortwo on the films women are actu-ally creating and struggling toshow to the world. It is far moretempting to undermine feministwork altogether by inventing astory that pits women againsteach other than it is to investigatehow women managed to makefilms about Africa, Kosovo,George W’s USA, rural New-foundland, or the Middle East.Consider the dozens of storiesthat might have been followed atthis year’s festival about thewomen who took their camerassomeplace new. Radio alwaysdoes a better job of this; televisionalmost always favours the cheapshot and the snappy, saucy poten-tially degrading story. And if thestory involves a good cat fight, allthe better.

Sure, even unwarranted atten-tion is better than none and there’sno business without show busi-ness. The CBC web site link tothis small-town “controversy”generated a flood of attention andsolidarity, as emails have pouredin to the festival office from allover the world, praising the posterwhile chastising the detractors.The festival is now consideringthe possibilities for next year’sposter: a woman in a red burka?

Noreen Golfman is a professorof literature and women’s studiesat Memorial University. Her nextcolumn appears Nov. 14.

The Independent, October 31, 2004 LIFE & TIMES Page 23

Find it allin

This newspaper has something for everyone

Local news. Human interest stories. Bold opinions. Great photos. Sports and much more.

Available at the following fine locations:

Merrymeeting RoadOld Placentia RoadRopewalk LaneLong Pond, Manuels

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Or get your copy at anylocation on the Northeast Avalon

Manufacturing controversyStanding

Room Only

GOLFMANNOREEN

Because it’s far more titillating to show

women fighting withwomen than it is to do a story or two on the

films women are actuallycreating and strugglingto show to the world.

Page 24 LIFE & TIMES The Independent, October 31, 2004

A Bible from the Andes

Not having previouslyheard of Sandy Chilcoteor encountered his work, I

was curious to read his first col-lection of poems (Inkseeds, hismost recent, was published in2000), when I came across itrecently in a local bookshop.

Earththings is an odd sort ofbeast. At 137 pages, it’s ratherlarge for a poetry collection. Nopoem exceeds a page in length(most are under half a page) andnot a single poem is named — theone flows into the next without thecontextualisation imposed by atitle. Pages are unnumbered.

It is Chilcote’s style, however,that is of the greatest interest.Poems such as Dusk make use ofcompacted, imagistic lines com-bined with the sudden metaphori-cal leap that is common in thehaiku form:

Under cutting edge of nightYoung frogs singingLike sharpening knives

There are other, equally shortpoems in Chilcote’s collection, allusing that same spare, telegraphiclanguage (haikuistic, to make arotten attempt at coining a term) tointroduce an image and then jumpto a higher aesthetic understandingof the images’ constituent parts:

Snowy darknessLittle plots of white Like the eyes of the forest

A second undercurrent, theapparent influence of Taoist writ-ings, runs throughout the book. Inthe cherry tree (in the absence of

title I have employed the conven-tion of using the poem’s first lineas reference) asserts that “Alwaysthe clay bells / Are the clay bells”.Similarly, in Sounds to images,“The meaning of things is /Things” — both are a sort ofinverted echo of the Tao TeChing’s “Names can name no last-ing name” (translated by StephenAddiss and Stanley Lombardo).According to Lao Tzu’s first les-son in the Tao, the essence ofthings is impenetrable; languagedoes not even scratch its surface.

But for Chilcote, the opposite istrue: language can arrest the veryspirit of the thing and render it ona page in the fullness of its life —a sensibility more in keeping with

haiku than with Taoist philosophy.Still, features of the latter are pre-sent.

Earththings’ greatest enemy isits sheer length. To sustain onetone throughout a collection, onevoice holding a single note, isnearly impossible without eitherbecoming tedious by virtue of uni-formity or wavering in what mustnecessarily be an unbroken deliv-ery. Everywhere there are piecesthat, for various reasons, do dis-service to the more accomplishedof Chilcote’s poems. The two-line“Wet simple snows tuck undersupple pines/And wrap up in atight ball warm summer sense”seems more a juvenile exercise inalliteration and assonance than aserious attempt to capture naturein image. Here, the sounds of lan-guage become unintentionallycomical, and in so doing, thwartthe underlying sense of the poem.

A further obstruction to theenjoyment of Chilcote’s verse isthe unpleasant gate-crashing ofenvironmentalist editorializingthroughout. Birds “… build/In theface of human jealousy/Anddestruction”. The poet asks, in ref-erence to a moose, “did sheknow/She had wandered towardsguns,” and in the midst of reflec-tion on a winter’s scene, “Why dothey cut down/My forest/Whilethe snow/Is gentle”. The moralimposition of these sorts of state-ments devours the very energythat feeds Chilcote’s poetry —which is not to say that a socialconscience has no place in poetry.There is a difference, subtle as itmay sometimes be, between a poetraging against injustice and apoem that — more desirably — isor embodies rage against theunjust.

All questions of semanticsaside, there are some very nice

poems in Chilcote’s collection;certainly more than enough tomake wading through the lessdesirable pieces a necessary trial.There is a great beauty to the sim-ple but profound philosophicalinquiry: “Where can the eagle gobeyond its wings/and eyrie”. ForChilcote, the world is united inspirit. “A bible from the Andes” isno different from “a seed cata-logue of/vegetables.”

Everything pours into every-

thing else. It is perhaps fitting,then, that these poems shouldescape title and move as onebeing, undivided by the some-times-feeble efforts of categoriza-tion. The meaning of things maybe things, but all things remainpart of a whole greater than them-selves.

Mark Callanan is a poet andwriter living in Rocky Harbour.His next column appears Nov. 14.

EarththingsBy Sandy ChilcoteThe Ashuanipi Press, 1996

On TheShelf

CALLANANMARK

Earththings is an oddsort of beast. At 137

pages, it’s rather largefor a poetry collection.

No poem exceeds a page in length (most areunder half a page) and

not a single poem isnamed — the one flows

into the next without the contextualisation

imposed by a title. Pages are unnumbered.

ACROSS1 Mongol6 Cross

10 Greek mountain14 N. Zealand parrot17 Die down18 Possess19 Pricey20 Swiss mountain21 Flirt with (3 wds.)23 Stew24 French wheat25 The Song Beneath

the ___ (Joe Fiorito,2003)26 Hawaiian garlands27 Prepares slaw29 Latin law30 Serengeti sprinter32 Grand ___ (bridge)34 German article35 Green indicator, for

short37 Dry ___39 Undergoes mental

anguish42 Throws45 Transmits (from a

ship)48 Escape from49 The Avro Arrow and

others51 Church figures53 Pod prefix54 Kielbasa or chorizo55 Last winter mo.56 Workshop machines58 Subject of Ottawa/Hull

spring festival59 Attention getter61 Décolleté (2 wds.)63 Stable parent67 Leaden

69 She wrote about lifein early Ontario71 Hip hop music72 Intimidate75 Road surfacing76 Make bigger78 Sucking fish79 Get into the ___ of

things81 Type of sale82 Rider’s strap83 Be creative (2 wds.)86 Rent in Reading87 Solidify89 ___ de mer90 Member of the choir92 Verdi opera95 Round Table address97 Greek god

100 The In-BetweenWorld of Vikram ___(M.G. Vassanji)102 Sphere103 Brief alias104 Mark a ballot105 Popular white wine108 Small carpet109 Pub rounds110 Fork prong111 Chews112 Mineral: suffix113 For fear that114 Makes a pick115 Shouts

DOWN1 Sri Lankan language2 Early adders3 What waiters do (2

wds.)4 Got something down5 Go for a spin?6 Author Watson (The

Double Hook)7 The Northwest ___8 Gardner of The Bare-

foot Contessa9 Trawlers’ equipment

10 Aromatize11 Greek moon goddess12 Stated13 Left bed14 Inuit word for “white

man”15 French glamour mag-

azine16 Peak22 Positive answer28 Swiss girl of children’s

book31 Black in Bourgogne33 Liquefied by heat36 Holds tight38 Labour40 Domestic who cares

for children41 Author of A Dark

Place in the Jungle(1999)43 Ask for alms44 Compass reading45 National force46 Bummer!, in days of

yore47 Rascal50 Him in Hauterive52 Kitchen appliance54 Napped leather57 Rte.58 Boxing defeat, for

short60 Sovereign’s seat62 Eye’s outer layer64 Not making sense65 Sturdy wool fibre66 Piece of fencing

68 Van Gogh lost one70 Israeli airline72 Hockey star from

Parry Sound73 Notch74 Move to another

country75 Weave with diagonal

ridges77 Neighbourhood

79 Least fresh80 Canadian, Paris-

based writer84 Acts badly85 Gazes fixedly88 Quebec City universi-

ty91 ___ Man Winter93 Speak with drawn-out

vowel sounds

94 Bottomless chasm95 Finland’s Lapps, col-

lectively96 Asian textile style98 Gondolier’s need99 Eight: comb. form

101 Lethargic106 Start of a cheer107 Wind dir.

INDEPENDENT CROSSWORD Solutions on page 26

King, of the MooseCorner Brook native Jason King drops by St. John’s to visit family and friends … and score some goals

By Darcy MacRaeThe Independent

Afunny thing happened at MileOne Stadium on Oct. 26.During the first period of the

St. John’s Maple Leafs/ManitobaMoose American Hockey League con-test, the sparse crowd on hand actual-ly stood and cheered when the visitingteam opened the scoring. One had towonder if the fans had turned on thehome team, perhaps upset about theclub’s upcoming move to Toronto.

But one look at the Moose goal scor-er explained the situation: CornerBrook’s Jason King was the marks-man, much to the delight of the pro-Newfoundland hockey lovers in thestands.

FAN APPRECIATION“Any time I come home, it’s always

fun to play in front of the Newfound-land fans,” King tells The Indepen-dent. “I take a lot of pride in what I doon the ice when I come here and it’snice to see the fans appreciate that.”

The respect and admiration for oneof their own did not stop once thegame came to a close (The Leafs won4-2), as a crowd of more than 25 peo-ple waited for King in Mile One’s frontlobby well after the final buzzer sound-ed.

When the 23-year-old made his wayout front, he was greeted with hugs,handshakes and words of encourage-ment from family, friends and fans,many of whom made the trip from the

west coast to take in the game. Giventhe hectic schedule AHL teams endureover the fall and winter months, Kingsays it was a breath of fresh air, literal-ly and figuratively, to return to hishome province.

“To be able to see my family andfriends is always a great little breakfrom the season,” King says. “To beable to chat and relax with them for alittle bit is a lot nicerthan most road trips.”

King came into St.John’s as the leadingscorer in the AHL,and certainly didn’tdisappoint fans wish-ing to see what hasmade him perhaps thetop prospect in theVancouver Canucks’organization. His first-period goal on Oct. 26was vintage King. Hetook a pass fromteammate Jeff Heere-ma in the slot andwithout hesitationrifled a wrist shot pastSt. John’s goalie Mikael Tellqvist.King’s remarkably quick releaseallowed him to get his shot off beforeTellqvist had time to adjust to the play,a quality that has made King a goalscorer at every level he’s played.

“He does have the ability to get ridof the puck in a hurry,” says RandyCarlyle, head coach of the ManitobaMoose. “It doesn’t take him very long,and he’s got a very accurate wrist shot.

He also has a great ability to get intothe shooting area. It’s as if the puck fol-lows him around.”

Carlyle loves King’s nose for the net,as well as his strong, smooth skatingability. While the pride of CornerBrook has always been known as anoffensive talent, Carlyle hasn’t hesitat-ed to include King on the team’s firstpenalty killing unit.

“When players dowhat he’s done and leadby example like Jasondoes, you have to givethem the prime min-utes,” he says. “Penaltykill and power play arespecialty teams, and hegets those. He plays allkinds of roles for us.”

Carlyle also marvelsat King’s willingness togo hard to the net andget in the corners to digfor the puck. This typeof intensity was evidentseveral times during thematch-up in St. John’s,as King drilled rugged

Maple Leafs defenceman Marc Morointo the boards before skating out ofthe corner and getting a shot on goalearly in the second period. He also gotinto a spirited shoving match withLeafs’ agitator Ben Ondrus in the third,as King refused to back down from anopponent known for his fondness forfisticuffs.

The well-rounded game King playedis a testament to his desire to be a com-

plete player, and according to hiscoach, it’s possible because of howhard the 6’1”, 200-pound forwardworks on and off the ice.

“His conditioning level has goneway up,” Carlyle says. “He’s reallymade an effort there. He’s at an elitelevel in regards to conditioning, and itshows in his game.”

PLANS DISRUPTEDPerformances like the one on the

26th have become the norm for King,and are a big reason why he spentmuch of last season in Vancouver withthe Canucks. After picking up 21points in 47 NHL games, King seemedpoised to earn a permanent spot onVancouver’s roster this year, but theon-going lockout disrupted any suchplans.

Although he is earning less moneyin the AHL than he would in the bigleague, and is once again forced totravel the continent on a bus instead ofby private plane, you won’t hear somuch as one complaint from Kingabout his lot in life. He sees this seasonas another year of learning and devel-oping in what he hopes is just thebeginning of a very successful hockeycareer.

“I’m still learning all the little detailsof the game,” King says. “You have todo a lot of work mentally to excel as aprofessional. You have to learn what ittakes to get to the next level, and theAHL is a great place to do that.”

[email protected]

October 31, 2004 Page 25SPORTS

“Any time I come home, it’s always fun to play in front of theNewfoundland fans.I take a lot of pride in what I do on the

ice when I come here and it’s nice to see thefans appreciate that.”

— Jason King


Jason King, No. 32, was back in his home province when the Manitoba Moose took on the St. John’s Leafs Oct. 26

Page 26 SPORTS The Independent, October 31, 2004

What it takes to hang a Herder Afew years back, when I

was last living out here inConception Bay North,

the place to be on Saturday nightswas S.W. Moores Memorial Sta-dium in Harbour Grace.

The Cee Bees were a hot ticketand rightly so. They had a talent-ed group of players who were con-tenders for the Herder champi-onship as provincial senior hock-ey’s top team.

That was the goal then, but theynever got to that stage. For variousreasons, the team went downhilland eventually dropped the CeeBees moniker.

This year, the Cee Bees Starshave their sights set squarely onthe Herder, but there are steps totake before they hang another ban-ner. In the past, it seemed the CeeBees wanted to get as much talenton the roster as possible, figuringit would automatically translateinto a title. When each year achampionship didn’t materialize,new players were added.

The result was, in my mind, alack of chemistry. Perhaps they allgot along well off the ice, but onthe ice they were not yet a team. Inaddition, they were not givenenough time to come together.

And in games against the South-ern Shore Breakers or FlatrockFlyers, the “team” concept waseven more pronounced as theBreakers and the Flyers — whilewell-stocked with talent — knewhow to play together as a team.Little wonder they have been sodominant.

This year, the Cee Bees haveseveral ex-Flyers on their roster, aswell as some young, home-growntalent. If given enough time,another Herder banner could beraised to the rafters in HarbourGrace.

I wonder how long the currentCee Bees management is preparedto wait for that to happen?

NO TIME FOR TRIANOCan’t quite figure out why

Canada Basketball decided to giveJay Triano the pink slip as nation-al coach.

Here’s a guy who’s beeninvolved with the national pro-gram for the past 25 years and hasdone more for hoops in this coun-try than any other Canadian-borncoach, including that guy Nai-smith when he invented the gameback in 1891.

Triano played college ball inCanada, played more than adecade for the national team andcoached one of the most success-ful college programs in the coun-try at Simon Fraser University inBritish Columbia.

In 1995, he was hired by thenow-defunct Vancouver Grizzliesin community and media relations.In 1999 he took over the seniormen’s national team, and rightaway led them to a 5-2 record andseventh-place finish at the 2000Olympic summer games in Syd-ney. For Canada, in today’s bas-ketball world, that amounts to ajob welldone. The national teamfailed to qualify for the 2004Games in Athens, but that wasmore a matter of not having thecountry’s top players on the team.

In 2002, he became the firstCanadian-born head coach in theNBA when he was hired as anassistant for the Toronto Raptors.He still holds this position, whichis remarkable considering he hasendured the firing of coaches andgeneral managers.

Some might think his job withCanada’s only NBA team is morefor community relations, but con-sidering some of the past movesthe Raptors have made, worryingabout public perception does not

seem to be a huge priority for theteam.

But now, Triano is gone andBasketball Canada is seeking areplacement. As far as profilegoes, I can’t think of a qualifiedcoach who matches Triano’s visi-bility level — domestically orinternationally. That’s not to inferthere are no worthy coaches work-ing at the moment in Canada.

Triano had to split his timebetween the Raptors and thenational team, which seems to beone of the reasons BasketballCanada let him go. The head hoopminds want someone who willinvest more time into the program.

But will that translate into morewins? Only time will tell.

THE BEANTOWN DOUBLE Boston has finally won the

World Series. The Red Sox nationis at peace, and many may still bedrunk.

What could possibly top this forsports fans in the Boston states? Ifthe New England Patriots keep upthis win streak (at 21 games head-ing into action today, Oct. 31), thePats might end up eclipsing what ittook the Sox 86 years to complete.

Well, that may be stretching it. The Patriots seem to be en route

to a second straight Super Bowltitle and they have a chance to goundefeated while doing so.

I’ve always been, and alwayswill be, a Denver Broncos fan, butJohn Elway might have to un-

retire to get them past the Pats thisyear. Other AFC teams that couldprovide a challenge to Tom Bradyand company include Pittsburghand Jacksonville, as well asPhiladelphia, Minnesota andAtlanta in the NFC. But no teamhas the offensive and defensiveprowess of New England. Theycan win by outscoring you andstopping you. In the big games,those abilities are invaluable.

Just imagine if the Celtics againbecame a contender for the NBAtitle? What if the Bruins couldactually play and build on a solidregular season from last season?

Boston fans would be evenharder to stomach.

[email protected]

A LITTLE OF YOUR TIME ISALL WE ASK. CONQUERING THE

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Think again. It simply means sharing a few moments with a child. Play catch.Build a doghouse. Or help take on mutant invaders from the planet Krang.

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Chris Lee/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Boston catcher Jason Varitek, left, hugs pitcher Keith Foulke as they celebrate the Red Sox 3-0 victory over theSt. Louis Cardinals in game four of the World Series last Wednesday in St. Louis, Missouri.

Bob theBayman

WHITEBOB

The Independent, October 31, 2004 SPORTS Page 27

OCTOBER 31Harbour Haunt 7 p.m., WaterStreet, St. John’s, $6, 754-1399.St. John’s Haunted Hike, 7p.m., Anglican Cathedral, St.John’s, $5.Roxxy’ s George Street, Dog MeatBBQ perform, 10:30 p.m. $5.

NOVEMBER 1Meetings in Kaija Saariaho’sMusic a lecture by Dr. PrikkoMoisala (distinguished ethno-musicologist) 4:30 p.m., room2025, school of music, Memor-ial University, St. John’s.

NOVEMBER 3The Irish Newfoundland Asso-ciation presented speaker DonTarrant on The Conquest of theAtlantic by Cable and Wirelessat Hampton Hall, Marine Insti-

tute, St. John’s, 8 p.m. The Comedy of Errors byWilliam Shakespeare, withguest actors Paddy Monaghanand David Freeman. Runs untilNov. 6, 8 p.m. Sir Wilfred Gren-fell College, Corner Brook.

NOVEMBER 4The Independent LivingResource Centre Dinner Club,Emerald Palace Restaurant, St.John’s, 6:30-8:30 p.m., 722-4031.Canadian Music Mini-Festi-val/MUN School of Music D. F.Cook Recital Hall, St. John’s.Showtime 8 p.m. Tickets$10/$5. Continues nightly untilNov. 6. Dzolali Drum & Dance Ensem-ble, a night of traditional Africanmusic and dance, 8 p.m., $10

advance, $12 at the door, 753-4531/579-1527.Storytelling Festival: anevening of stories from Placen-tia Bay featuring Anita Best,Alice Lannon and Agnes Walsh,with host Ford Elms, 8 p.m.,$5, Masonic Temple, CathedralStreet, St. John’s.Public lecture on health andsafety management in theworkplace by Dr. Scott MacK-innon room A-1043, Arts andAdministration building, MUN,St. John’s.

NOVEMBER 5 Paddy Mcguinty’s Wake... din-ner and show, $25/$45. Doorsopen 6:30 p.m., 390 DuckworthStreet (Majestic Theatre), St.John’s, 579-3023.For the Love of Song Rick

Lamb, Colin Harris, TrevorDavis and Matthew Carpenter,tickets $10 available at Music-stop, $14 at the door, 753-4531.Storytelling Festival: A TellingMix featuring Elinor Benjamin,(Corner Brook) Mary Fearon,Karen Gummo (of Alberta) andAndy Jones, with host DaleJarvis. Anna Templeton Centre,8 p.m. $5.

NOVEMBER 6Beatles Review – Back InNFLD dinner and show$25/$45. Doors open 6:30 p.m.390 Duckworth Street (MajesticTheatre), St. John’s, 579-3023. Cooking Classes and Fine Din-ing $50 deposit required to holda seat in all courses. Chef To Go,2 Barnes Road, St. John’s, 754-2491.

Monte Carlo Charity Gala livelocal entertainment 8 TrackFavourites, Holiday Inn Ball-room, 7 p.m., 777-6690. Hostedby Memorial University med-ical school students.Storytelling Festival at GrannyBates Children’s Books, featur-ing Rita Cox and Elinor Ben-jamin. Free admission. 2 p.m. Storytelling Festival: The Spir-it of Story, featuring Rita Cox(of Toronto), Dale Jarvis andLouise Moyes, with host JeanHewson. Anna Templeton Cen-tre 8 p.m. $5.

IN THE GALLERIESSegments, a solo exhibition byAnita Singh. Nov. 6 – Nov. 27,2004, Leyton Gallery of FineArt, St. John’s. Opening recep-tion Nov. 6, 3-5 p.m. 722-7177.

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2004-10-31