Taking stock: What do you remember about the moratorium?

Lisa

- June 29, 2012 at 01:00:13

I was a young teenager when the moratorium was announced. My father was a fisherman, my mother worked in the fishplant and us kids worked in the fish plant during the summers. We watched it on the news and I remember the cursing and swearing that went on in the living room and the deep talks from the adults late into the evening. It was a hard sense of doom at the time for our families, all depended on the fishery. Luckily, most of my family out home owned their houses and whatever they had. This pride and ownership is what got them through the first couple of years. Some can joke about TAGS and what it was; I saw the reality of it in an outport and it was far from a joke.We were the few that stayed and etched a living off TAGS and make work projects. I was glad back then to not have to move away, away from my friends, but looking back it would have been easier on my parents to just move to Saskatchewan or Alberta. They stayed for us despite the plight that the collapse of the fishery caused. They say time heals all but time has passed and I can still see the damage that the Cod moratorium caused on the souls of many a fishing family.

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holy smokes

- June 28, 2012 at 17:55:47

No...John....You are right!! YOU didn't take the God Damned fish from the water......But by God, YOU had a God Damned hand in destroying what was left!!! Just as sure as you had a hand in hobbling Come by Chance.....From the sheer hate of Shaheen!! For THAT you should be barred from this province!!

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  Realist

  - June 29, 2012 at 00:42:50

  Holy Smokes - the vitriol!!! John Crosbie no more had a hand in destroying the Northern Cod than I did. Please! And as for hobbling the refinery in Come-By-Chance, you'd do better to look at the oil production, as well as regional and national economics of the time...Come-By-Chance was hobbled by factors bigger than John Crosbie - hard to believe I know... The oil embargo and questionable financing saw that refinery go bankrupt in 3 years. And, btw, I think history has shown that John Shaheen was no angel...that however is not to do with the moratorium. Memory or the moratorium...some of my high-school drop out peers going to trade school for free while I worked three PT jogs to pay for university...

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  McCadden

  - June 29, 2012 at 07:13:03

  When Ottawa started up TAGS and all the training programs, I was sent to some of the adult education classrooms to give a presentation on "How to Start a Business". Even 2 years after the Moratorium, cod fishermen who were working on their GED told me that they were just biding their time until the Moratorium was lifted. The majority of them were in total denial, and could not adjust to the change. Fishermen could not see themselves trying any other occupation....while many female plant workers were trying to learn everything from hairdressing to home carpentry. I always felt sad after visiting these rural classrooms. I could forsee the death or rural NL, but could do nothing to prevent it.

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  holy smokes

  - June 29, 2012 at 08:48:11

  John Crosbie no more had a hand in destroying the Northern Cod than I did. ...LOL!! No...that's because YOU weren't the federal Minister of Fisheries...Crosbie had sole control of Come by Chance as the Minister of Finance in the province HE alone put the nail in that refinery..YOU know it!

David Wilson

- June 28, 2012 at 16:27:12

The fishers misreperesented their catches that the DFO scientists based the science on. Or was it the foreign trawlers overfishing the biomass. Maybe it was John Crosby who tokk the goddamm fish out of the water. Nope it was Steven Harper with the candle in the observatory.

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Bobaloonie

- June 28, 2012 at 16:15:30

Greed wiped out the biggest fish resource in our world. I worked on east coast trawlers, '95 until '81, from George's to Hamilton bank, and witnessed steady infractions from us (CDN. trawlers) and foreign trawlers alike. We overfished, fished in closed breeding areas after dark til sunrise, under reported, killed too many small fish we didn't want, killed too many species(bycatch) we couldn't sell. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, winter of '75, we towed for 2 hrs., hauled back over 120,000 lbs, 2 years later we were towing 12 hours for 20,000 lbs. Something big must have happened for such a big decline in fish stocks in two years. Something like the 50+ big motherfactory trawlers, mostly Russian. I saw this on Hamilton Bank , '75 or '76, not long after the feds made a deal with Russia. The deal was, "buy our wheat, we'll give you the capelin". imho, this was the beginning of the end.

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economically exciled

- June 28, 2012 at 15:17:06

What I remember most is that following the announcement there were interviews for reaction to the moratorium. One older fisherman was interviewed and his statement was the clearest message of the day...."It took 500 years to destroy it, it's not comin' back in 2"...and here we still are with no sign of the return to yesteryear...maybe in 480 years. Sad times for a proud Province.

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Bottom Fisher

- June 28, 2012 at 14:17:19

I wouldn't be placing all the blame on the politicians. As usual they were out of touch and only doing what was politically expedient. They weren't doing the fishing and seeing on a yearly basis how the quality of the catch was declining. Fishermen and scientists had seen for over two decades that the fish were getting smaller and smaller. Fishermen weren't telling anyone about the sheer number of squishers or dead juvenile fish they were throwing back overboard from their cod-ends. What we all learned was we really didn't know as much about cod as we thought we did. I think everyone needs to take a little responsibility here. Crosby and cronies were just trying to find a way to keep us off the Pogey so we would still vote for them, pay taxes and have towns to call home.

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Casey

- June 28, 2012 at 10:58:54

I believe that Crosby and others like him were complacent in not looking out for NL's interests and allowing Ottawa to destroy the resource by mismanagement. The same is going on today with foreign boats fishing offshore while NL fishermen have no cod fishery.....Sickening! There is something terribly with the system when such a huge and valuable resource is destroyed and no one is held accountable. Along comes Ryan Cleary trying to get to the bottom of this fiasco and he gets shut-down. Hell our own people won't even back him up, and want to carry on as if nothing happened. Unreal!

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roy

- June 28, 2012 at 09:36:00

The problem with the fishery wasn't caused by John Crosbie, it was caused by previous govts. both Federal and Prov. and in a great extent by foreign and local fishermen who overfished and are still overfishing. Cleary is an opportunist looking for publicity he has no more answers than anyone. Its a good time for a photo op and where can you get as much free publicity. Look at your computer and see how many fishermen have been charged with over fishing making false statements of catches and this is only a fraction of what fishermen are doing every day

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Christopher Chafe

- June 28, 2012 at 09:01:01

My memory of the moratorium, is knowing that only in Newfoundland and Labrador, could you go from being a grade school drop-out to a computer programmer in approximately 2 years all with out paying a cent, only to end up back working in the fishery again.

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Robert tucker

- June 28, 2012 at 08:36:18

Not saing that Ryan Cleary is correct, but Cosbie should have been held more accountable for his government's actions. Instead,he was given a high paying job as lieutant governor. The govt of Williams/Harper rewarded him for the closure of the cod fishery.

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james

- June 28, 2012 at 08:19:40

I remember my neighbour in Bay Bulls trying to get his german sheppard qualified for tags cause he used to harness a cart to the dog to pull fish from the warf to his cleaning shed. As well when tags came out the Chev Cavalair was called the tags car. Best seller in outport Newfoundland.

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