Cod_ A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World - Mark Kurlansky [58]
The other issue for Canada was the U.S. border. While Georges Bank, the richest prize on the shelf, is off the coast of New England, much of it is also within the 200-mile range of Nova Scotia. The fight over Georges Bank may not have become a true cod war in the European tradition, but a few gunshots were exchanged between New England and Canadian fishermen—probably the only shooting between Canadians and Americans since the French and Indian War. Under international arbitration, Canada was granted the northeast corner of the Bank, and the rest became U.S. territorial water. For the first time in history, Canada and the United States now exclusively owned the cod banks off their coasts.
The 200-mile limit was not seen in Canada, the United States, or anywhere else as a conservation measure, but rather as a protectionist measure for the national fisheries. While the U.S. government was providing low-interest loans and other incentives to modernize a New England fleet on Georges Bank, Canada was investing in a Grand Banks fleet. To build up this modern industry, the seafood companies, near bankruptcy from mismanagement, an overvalued Canadian dollar, and competition from Iceland, had to be rescued. Under a government bailout plan, the Newfoundland seafood companies were merged into a conglomerate called Fishery Products International, and government funds were used to resuscitate the Nova Scotian company called National Sea Products. By the late 1980s, both companies were huge and prospering. FPI had even managed to buy back the government shares. By then, the Canadian dollar was weak against the U.S. dollar, and Newfoundland and Nova Scotia cod were commanding excellent prices in the Boston market.
Ten years after the 200-mile limit had been declared, the year after the ports were dosed to foreign vessels, the Canadian government could, and did, claim that it had taken possession of its banks and turned the Atlantic fishery around into a profitable sector of the economy. There was a significant increase in the number of fishermen and the number of fish-processing-plant workers. The seafood companies crewed huge trawlers with new fishermen, many of whom were fish-plant workers, since much of the work on board a modern trawler is fish processing. Sam Lee of Petty Harbour recalled with a slight sneer, “One fellow I grew up with—his father had a store. He worked in plants. Before long he was an experienced deep-sea fisherman.”
But while the new, offshore all-Canadian fishery was prospering, the inshore fishermen found their catches dropping off. They suspected the reason was that the offshore draggers were taking so many cod that the fish did not have a chance to migrate inshore to spawn. The inshore fishermen complained to the regulatory agency, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but the government had invested in offshore fishing, not inshore, and its political priority was to make its investment a success story. As the inshore stocks dwindled, the debate became increasingly acrimonious. On the one side were the inshore fishermen; on the other side were the fishermen’s union, the trawler workers, the seafood companies, and the government. Cabot Martin, a Newfoundland lawyer who took up pro bono the cause of the inshore fishermen, said, “The whole unfair thing about Sam Lee fighting National Sea is that Sam didn’t have any money.”
“We founded the Newfoundland Inshore Fisheries Association because nobody was listening to the fishermen. We were complaining to the wind,” said Sam Lee. “It was not just for inshore fishermen. Anyone who cared about what was happening could join.”
The small local fish plant had chronic bankruptcies, and catch would spoil before the Petty Harbour fishermen could find another way to get it to Boston. Finally, the fishermen took over the plant as a cooperative, and since the government was interested in seafood companies, they were able to borrow money