Canada's Fishery

Author: Raymond Blake, Director of the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy.

Editor: Joanne Goodrich. Produced by the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University in cooperation with Canadian Heritage Canadian Studies Programme.

This article conveys an excellent overview of the historical as well as the more recent fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic area. The NAFO Secretariat recommends it as background information. We must, however, point out that we are not responsible for the correctness of its content.

Europeans had been coming to fish off North America for centuries. After the Second World War the famed Grand Banks truly became an international fishing ground as fishers from more than two dozen nations came regularly to join with Canadians and Americans in search of a variety of fish species. However, in the rush to harvest the natural resource, the fishing nations didn't realize that the ocean's bounty was limited. Several attempts were made to develop a fishery which would have allowed harvesting the resource without destroying it for future generations. However, the current state of the fishery tells a sad tale. With a moratorium on fishing most of the species in Canadian waters and huge cuts in the quotas for the stocks outside Canada's 200-mile exclusive economic zone, it is clear that many fishing nations failed to protect the fish stocks. The Canadian confrontation with Spain early in 1995 to protect the turbot stocks demonstrates the continued serious challenges to sustainable development.