Newfoundland and Labrador fishers say commercial cod fishery should not reopen

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Exactly 32 years after the federal government imposed a moratorium on Newfoundland and Labrador’s commercial cod fishery, harvesters in the province demanded on Tuesday that Ottawa reinstate it.

Greg Pretty, president of the 14,000-member union representing inshore fishers, says the northern cod stocks have not recovered enough to be fished again by what he calls “offshore draggers.”

“That’s a disaster, that’s an absolute disaster,” Pretty said during a news conference in St. John’s, N.L., adding: “There will be petitions and there will be demonstrations until we get this thing right.”

The federal Fisheries Department announced last week that it would end the moratorium and reinstate a commercial cod fishery, calling the decision “a historic milestone for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.”

The 2024 season would have a total allowable Canadian catch of 18,000 tonnes, with roughly 84 per cent allotted for inshore fishers.

Pretty said about 1,000 tonnes will go to Canadian and foreign offshore fishing fleets.

Inshore fishers operate smaller boats — typically shorter than 20 metres — and they fish closer to shore than the offshore vessels, which are longer than 30 metres, according to the Fisheries Department. Pretty said the offshore ships are “environmentally destructive” and do not contribute to the long-term sustainability of the province’s coastal communities.

The moratorium on fishing northern cod off Newfoundland and Labrador began on July 2, 1992. Northern cod were once the backbone of the province’s 400-year-old fishing industry, but the stocks collapsed in the early 1990s because of overfishing, mismanagement and changing environmental conditions. The moratorium gutted the province’s economy and ended a way of life for scores of its coastal communities.

In 2006, a small “stewardship” fishery began, which allowed inshore harvesters to fish small amounts of cod; last year’s allowed catch was 13,000 tonnes. Scientists monitored the catches and used the information in stock assessments and management decisions about the species’ recovery.

Pretty called on Ottawa to reinstate the stewardship fishery, rather than reopen a commercial fishery that allows in offshore vessels. After Tuesday’s press conference, the union shared a 2015 letter it received from the federal Liberals promising to allocate the first 115,000 tonnes of a commercial cod fishery to inshore fishers. Pretty called on the Liberals to reaffirm that commitment.

The federal Fisheries Department did not respond directly when asked why it allowed offshore vessels into this year’s cod fishery.

“It’s important to get it right, and that’s why we will cautiously, but optimistically, build back this fishery,” spokesperson Gabriel Bourget said in an emailed statement.

The statement said Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier has met “on several occasions” with the union to discuss northern cod. The department is working with industry, governments and Indigenous communities to develop the province’s fisheries “in a sustainable and economically prosperous manner,” Bourget said.

Fisherman Glen Newbury, with the FFAW’s executive committee, marvelled that he was sitting at a press conference 32 years after the devastating announcement of the moratorium, asking Ottawa to bring it back.

“We, as harvesters, we have done the best that we could over all those years to sustain, to rebuild our cod stocks, to get back into the cod fishery, which was what Newfoundland was made of,” Newbury told reporters.

He said he worries the stocks will be depleted again “within a few short years,” if the offshore fleet was allowed to fish them.

“We’re going to be back further than where we started,” Newbury said.

The federal New Democrats say they support the union’s position. “I’m pushing the federal government to reinstate the stewardship fishery after the Liberals broke their own promises by allowing offshore draggers back onto the water,” said Lisa Marie Barron, the NDP’s fisheries and oceans critic, in a news release Tuesday. “Going back to a stewardship fishery is the only way forward.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2024.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press