Thank you, sir.
First of all, thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We're here on very short notice, as you know.
We made some notes before we came to the meeting this morning, but I have to tell you that I disposed of them during the previous three panels, because many of the statements made are tremendously important statements, and I'm sure you see, not only from the statements of these gentlemen but from others, that the fishing industry in Newfoundland today is one horrible mess. This comes at a time when the fishery, which is so important to the economy, has no real indication of recovery, despite what they say. Yes, there are some indications here and there, but by and large there is not an awful lot on the horizon, unless some miracles occur.
This discussion and your terms of reference have been on the northern cod stock. The northern cod stock is a very important resource. We've fished it for many years. We know the migration pattern, which begins with spawning on Hamilton Inlet bank off Labrador, to a large degree, and finds it way over its migration path and pattern down the Grand Banks to the nose of the Grand Banks, which is outside 200 miles.
By the way, I have listened over the years to tremendous arguments on that between Canadian scientists and foreign scientists in ICNAF and NAFO. In the case of the Canadian scientist, he says that only 5% of the northern cod go outside 200 miles, while in the case of a foreign scientist, it's up to 25% and 30%. That's important. I'll come to it later.
The fact of the matter is that I have appeared before this committee many times in the past. Obviously, practically all of you are new faces to me. I would imagine that in many cases this industry and what you've heard today are somewhat confusing in many ways, but I'm sure that somewhere along the line you're saying to yourselves, “What in the hell ever brought this once huge industry to the mess it's in today? How did it come about?”
I came into this fishery in 1947, two years before Confederation. At that time, there were three things occurring in the world. One was the end of the world war and the tremendous damage that was done in Europe. The second was the transition that was taking place between the traditional salt fish industy and the new and developing fresh fish industry. Third, we joined Confederation. The day we joined Confederation, Canada was elevated from fourteenth place in the world to sixth place in the world as a fish-exporting nation.
That was the value of the fishery that Newfoundland—not eastern Canada, but Newfoundland and Labrador—brought to the Confederation, from 14th to 6th place in the world. This was one of the largest and most diversified fisheries in the world: groundfish, in the form of cod, flounder, turbot, and other species; pelagic, with mackerel, herring, capelin, and so on; and crustaceans, shellfish. It's huge.
The transition from the salt fish industry began, and I was fortunate enough, at a very young age, to be manager of one of the first four frozen fish plants in Newfoundland, on the ice-free south coast, which was very important, particularly in those days. We eventually built a company that employed 5,500 people over the years, men and women, in plants and on ships. About 4,000 of those jobs were 50-week jobs, and the others were seasonal because they were in areas where ice was a major factor.
For the first 20 years, from 1950, let's say, to 1968-69, we developed a fishery and our own particular company. We built the first marketing organization in the United States, with offices in Trondheim, Norway; Cuxhaven; and London to serve the European markets. We associated ourselves with a very large company in Japan to gain access to Japan. For 20 years, and very.... It was annoying to me today to listen to people saying that the fishery prior to 1992 produced cod blocks. It just goes to show, well, a generation has passed since the moratorium, so many of the people who are contributing to this discussion today.... By the way, much of it was very good. Some very intelligent comments and suggestions were made, and I compliment them all, but the fact is that we brought into this country one of the most diversified and strongest fisheries—you might even term some of it “virgin fisheries”.
What happened? Well, here is what happened. By the way, I might say to you that one of the main factors in what I call the demise, almost, of the fishery was the fact that at the end of the war in Europe, the millions of starving people who were left had to be fed, and the agricultural industry had been just about destroyed. In the meantime, in most of those nations there were enormous naval shipbuilding operations, so they turned to fish protein as a source of keeping the people alive in Europe for the next several years.
The Marshall plan by the U.S. took care of the industrial regrowth and redevelopment, but they were hungry. What happened? Well, over the next 20 years, 1,400 freezer vessels and factory freezer vessels descended on the resources adjacent to Newfoundland and Labrador, with 60,000 fishermen, and for the next 30 years, until 1978, they carried on a totally uncontrolled and unrestricted fishery, right in front of a country, Canada, to which we had transferred one of the greatest fisheries in the world to do one thing, sustainably manage it. Remember, it is a common property resource—not owned by a union, not owned by the Fisheries Council of Canada, not owned by any government in Canada or in Newfoundland. It is a common property resource owned by the people.
What has happened has been a catastrophe. I was a commissioner in ICNAF and NAFO and was sent for a month every June to listen to 20 nations sit down and decide what they were going to take, when they were going to take it, and how they were going to take it. Let me say to you this. A science council made up of scientists from all these nations, including Canada—by the way, we had some of the best scientists in the world as part of that group—sat down during the year, carried out their assessments on the various cod stocks, and made their presentation to the plenary session of ICNAF, in the first week of those meetings. I am talking about 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, and so on. I was in it for 20 years. In each case, they made recommendations.
Incidentally, I was one of 50 commissioners who accepted the scientific council's recommendations for quotas and so on. The fishery, which was supposed to be conducted on the basis of, what they called FO.1 level, which was roughly 18% of the biomass. In other words, you could take 18% of the biomass and have a sustainable fishery.
Every year, contrary to what most people say, the scientists warned the participating countries that you're not fishing at 18% to 20%, but closer to 30% to 35%. At the rate you're going with your fishing; it's going to go. This is in 1965, 1966 and 1967. I can guarantee, I have the official proceedings as a result of my presence in that organization.
Our own Dr. Templeman, from Newfoundland, one of the best fishery scientists that I know, supported a presentation that we made as a result of our experience in ICNAF, and with the uncontrolled and unrestricted fishery. He spent a lot of time on research vessels, on the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, so we made the presentation with his backing. We went and sat down with Mitchell Sharp, Don Jamieson, and Jack Davis, who was minister of fisheries, for two and a half days. Twenty-five of us from here, in October of 1971, made a presentation that showed them documented evidence, scientific evidence, that a continuation of the fishery, at the level that it was taking place, would mean the end. It would virtually become a cottage fish industry.
I'll give them full credit, these three ministers were shocked. During the presentation we made, since I was chairman of the group, they asked, could you have this presentation abbreviated for the Prime Minister? The following morning, we found ourselves sitting down with Pierre Trudeau and eight of his senior cabinet members. During the presentation, some of these people were agog, particularly those from the east coast. They had no idea in the world that the situation had reached this far. This is 1971. This is not 2002.
At the end of our presentation to the Prime Minister, they were shaken by it all. It was at a time, of course, that everybody was talking about extension of jurisdictions to get some protection. This is what we were after, some kind of protection for the resource. Within 24 hours of our presentation, Premier J.R. Smallwood received a telex, a copy of which I have, telling him that Canada was shocked, the Canadian government was shocked, and they were going to take action to extend jurisdiction to cover the total Canadian shelf; in other words, give the fishery on the continental shelf on our east coast full attention and full protection from the pirates from across the water.
Seven years later, they extended jurisdiction to 200 miles, leaving two of the most productive areas of fisheries on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap at the mercy of the foreigners. I was shocked today to hear the representative of DFO answer your question, “Did the foreigners have any impact during the moratorium?” He said, no, they didn't.
I'll speak about Spain. I don't know if you people are familiar with an organization called the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. I don't know if you're familiar with it or not, but they have carried out studies on these fisheries and on the subsidies received by participating nations in NAFO. Spain alone received $8 billion U.S. in subsidies to conduct foreign offshore fisheries.
For him to sit and make a statement like that is typical of what has happened to DFO's attitude toward the Newfoundland fishery since 1970.
I realize I'm coming to the end of my time, but this is off the cuff, and it's not entirely what I had in mind. Nevertheless, I felt it necessary to make you people aware that the collapse of this fishery is due to one thing and one thing only, and that is the fact that the Government of Canada has failed to do its job in terms of what the fishery was transferred to Canada for, and that was to sustainably manage the resource.