Progress, protest and policy,

from early cooperation to recent capitulation.

Dan MacInnes, Professor Emeritus

DFO Meeting at The Coady Institute, June 29, 2017

I am a sociologist; I have been for paid for it since 1970. I have been interested in the fishery since ever since I was five. That was when I saw my father’s boat, the Roseanna. We lived in Halifax with holidays in Mabou Harbour. The Roseanna rotted on the shore. He was one of the many that left the farm and fishery in the 1950s. On my father’s side every ancestor fished, as far back as anyone knew on Rum, Eigg, and Canna. Fishing was a livelihood. It turned out a constant interest. This was realized mostly through research papers completed first in St. John’s, then Mabou, Clare District, New Zealand from Invercargill on the South Island to Ninety Mile Beach at the very tip of the North Island, Hebrides of Scotland, and North Norway. During this time, I have always been aware of the industrial fishery and I always took the side of the small boat fishery. Since the 1960s I have been an inveterate rural romantic.

In this talk, I would like to compare the relative value of progress, protest and policy. I see an ocean affected by good progress and bad progress, by protest that was good and bad, etc. and by policy that both enriched and impoverished people in the fishery.

We make decisions. If people are not corrupt decisions can be corrupt from top to bottom. If decisions are based upon the good of a people, or a place or the decision is made to resource

Policy Issues / Good Development / Bad Consequences / People’s struggle
Harold Innis (described the stables theory) its consequence was support for slavery, key commodities and empire. / Newfoundland’s role in the Empire once controlled by colonial office was followed by emigration, small producers and Cod Lords. / Slavery / Tariffs after 1895 in coal, steel and industrial production in Ontario / American
The end of salt cod fishery and switch to iron boats, steam engines and on-board refrigeration. / The efficiency of the catch and fish expansion of markets replaced small boat fishery. / Control over competition and capital / emigration in the Maritime as high as 250,000 each decade starting 1881
The ground-fish trawler ban circa 1920s …
Colonel Birdseye / 1896 and the fish flier to Montreal The Guysborough Railway / Change
Live and canned lobster for the American market
End of FUNDY South Shore 64 share system / 1930s was the base for stability with a livelihood or subsistence fishery / Royal Commissions 1928 to 1936 Crisis evident in Price Spreads. investigation and end of dominant merchants / Regulated fishery traps, berried lobster, number of traps, seasons.
The self-help, study clubs, Co-operatives
43,000 in the Maritime study clubs in the 30s and 40s
It was not involved in offshore production / One person one vote built all forms of farm, fish small enterprise consumption production. / Aside from credit unions and housing there was little political support for federal and provincial legislation. / Extension. In time, cooperatives did not maintain the education associated with its own growth within capitalism, especially co-op violation of its own principles.
Newfoundland
Re-settlement
Industrial fishery / Iceland and Norway’s split between those catching fish and buying and finishing fish / Those fisheries making this separation had control over better fleets with higher returns / In Canada, the fleet was subsidized by the state and the product transferred to cheaper jurisdictions