Of course, this has been on the agenda for quite a long time, and many people have felt that should happen.
You have to remember that this fishery that we delivered to Canada is unique with respect to other fisheries on the east coast. For example, when the moratorium occurred we lost 20,000 jobs and 80,000 people moved out of the province to Alberta, where they were fortunately able to get employment.
In the case of the Maritimes, Nova Scotia, if you looked at the value of their exports prior to and after the moratorium, it would be exactly the same. The reason was it was 85% to 95% crustacean, shellfishers. In our case it was basically a groundfishery. Admittedly, one of the valuable fisheries, but unique in the sense that not only were we impacted by this but we were the only province in the fisheries on the east coast that had international implications in our fisheries. They were at our doorstep. They are at our doorstep today. They're fishing on the migrating stocks that are going over that imaginary 200-mile line on the tail of the Grand Banks and on the nose of the Grand Banks and on the Flemish Cap. Let me say to you that in the southern cod fishery, there are five main cod stocks. They're all very valuable, but the one on the southern Grand Banks has been exposed to foreign fishing ever since 1978 and the extension of jurisdiction.
By the way, one of the statements by the DFO man was correct when he said that the Barents Sea is greatly affected by the Gulf Stream current. He didn't say it, but the same applies to that resource on the southern Grand Banks. That yielded 100,000 to 110,000 tonnes of cod every year prior to the overfishing. Today it is as barren as that table because of continuous overfishing by foreign fleets, especially the Spanish and Portuguese, and the Russians to some degree.
You might ask, how in the hell can Spain and Portugal today, in the financial strain that they're under, send a $20-million vessel over 5,500 miles to fish on the Grand Banks with 60 men on each vessel? It's done because the European Union subsidized it to the hilt.
Another point I want to make reference to before I forget it is that the DFO man said, and rightly so, that the scientific capability of the White Hills organization today, is down here. He said we have fewer ships and fewer people. He also said that when you ask about capelin, which by the way hasn't been assessed, not for two years or three years but for nine years, and it's the most valuable fishery out here because it is the main food of a lot of the groundfish, he said problems with boats was one of the reasons it hasn't been carried out.
I can tell you that in the last 20 years the DFO capability has gone down to such a level. Beginning in 1995, Paul Martin reduced the budget to the White Hills science capability by 50%. We have documented evidence that shows that incrementally since then it has been lowered to a point where the WWF now is almost taking over from DFO. We're beginning to wonder who is running the show. DFO has lost control.
How did they lose control? Let me say to you that it all began, not necessarily the loss of control but the dictatorial attitude of DFO, in 1974, when the then minister of the day dissolved the federal Fisheries Research Board. Remember that name, the federal Fisheries Research Board. It was an organization made up of membership from every sector of the fishing industry.
Its job was to develop, along with scientists who were members of the organization, science programs, projects, for the continental shelf, which is almost one million square kilometres, and to develop a budget and deliver it to the minister. Not once during the time that I was involved did the minister ever change it, because of the calibre of the people who were involved in the federal Fisheries Research Board.
Then he dissolved it in 1974, transferred that responsibility on his desk, and thus became the dictator of fisheries for eastern Canada. From that day onward, you can trace, without much difficulty, the demise, the lack of control, and a reduced capability of DFO, and it went down and down.