Resource guide - News in review - CBC Learning

News in Review – September 2012 – Teacher Resource Guide
Cod Moratorium 20 Years Later
SETTING THE STAGE
July 2012 marked the 20th anniversary of a
government-imposed moratorium on Newfoundland’s
northern cod fishery. The action, taken by the federal
Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, put
40,000 people out of work in Newfoundland, and
devastated hundreds of communities that depended on
fishing as their primary industry.
VOCABULARY – Moratorium
A suspension of activity. The moratorium on the
cod fishery meant that no man or woman could
fish for cod off the coast of Newfoundland.
The cod fishery was close to 500 years old. It
had been around as long as anyone could
remember. In fact, it was hundreds of years older
than Confederation itself. But at the time of the
moratorium, the cod population had crashed
after decades of overfishing, mismanagement,
and changing environmental conditions.
The fish were simply gone. Wiped out.
That meant people couldn’t fish anymore.
Fishermen who had done nothing else other than
fish all their lives were out of work. People who
built boats, and ropes, and other equipment
necessary for fishing were out of work. People
who worked in fish processing plants were out
of work. Soon after, people who sold real estate
and cars were out of work. No one had any
money to spend.
And the closing of the cod fishery saw the start
of an outmigration that has seen 75,000 people
leave the island in the last twenty years.
People in Newfoundland were devastated, and
angry. They blamed the Canadian government
for not managing the cod fishery properly. They
blamed other nations for fishing in Canadian
waters. They blamed technology: new fishing
vessels that were outfitted with the equivalent of
huge vacuums that sucked up tonnes of fish off
the ocean floor.And the onset of factory large
and powerful factory freezer trawlers that could
remain at sea for months at a time and were
floating fish plants – workers could process and
freeze hundreds of tonnes of fish onboard.
And although the 20th anniversary of the cod
moratorium marks a sad chapter in
Newfoundland’s history, it is also a time to
reflect on a number of positive changes that have
occurred over the past twenty years. In fact, as
the fishing industry in Newfoundland collapsed,
the oil industry in the West exploded. Many
young Newfoundlanders left the island for jobs
on the oil fields. These jobs, that rotated three
works in the oil fields with three weeks vacation,
20