I was a kid when the moratorium started. As a union leader, I’m still fighting for change
Three decades have come and gone since the cod moratorium in Newfoundland and Labrador was announced on that fateful day in 1992. I was just 12 years old growing up in Calvert at the time, and the cod fishery was the heart and soul of the Southern Shore from Trepassey to Bay Bulls, just like the communities so many of you called home. My family remained in the fishery after the moratorium, but many others did not. More than 30,000 people lost their livelihoods that day and the landscape of our province was forever changed. By Keith Sullivan >click to read< 13:57
I can’t see where anything has improved since the moratorium, it has just gotten worse. When the moratorium began we had almost 500 people in the fishery, a year round operation, now there is no one here fishing for cod, the only thing thats really fished for is lobster, thousands of pound of lobster is landed and shipped out over the road each day during the season not creating one job except half a dozen unloading. The cod in 3pn / 3ps I doubt if any processor would buy it, it’s loaded with parasites, never hears anyone complaining because there is no fish plant operating. This year they couldn’t find any place to process crab, the plant here in Burgeo processed, crab, caplin and everything else from the sea. As a union leader can you honestly tell me why Burgeo is left out of the fishery and no one cares or complains
“It was the fishermen who first raised the alarm on the stock’s depletion, and the government who dismissed them.” These same words sum up my father’s life as he rightly warned that Kodiak’s shrimp and king crab stock would one day disappear. #suckstoberight