Blake, Raymond B. Water Buoys the Nation. Fish and the Re-emergence
of Canadian Nationalism. In: Ahornblätter. Marburger Beiträge
zur Kanada-Forschung. 12. Marburg, 1998 (Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek
Marburg; 90).
ISBN 3-8185-0274-9 ISSN 0931-7163 http://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/sum/90/sum90-6.html
Raymond B. Blake
Water Buoys the Nation:
Fish and the Re-emergence of Canadian Nationalism
The shots fired by the gunner aboard the Canadian patrol vessel, the Cape
Roger, on 9 March 1995 in rough seas and dense fog more than 200 miles
into the Northwest Atlantic were heard across Canada and around the world,
even though there were no television cameras there to capture the event
as there were some 23 years earlier, when Paul Henderson fired a shot in
the first Canada-Russia hockey series that brought the nation to its feet
in a similar loud, uproarious cheer. The events that culminated in the
four machine bursts across the bow of the Spanish trawler Estai on the
Grand Banks on that particularly unpleasant afternoon had begun four hours
earlier in a game of cat-and-mouse that had three Canadian patrol vessels
chasing the Estai for suspected illegal fishing and having undersized fish
stashed in a concealed hold. The Estai had eluded the Canadians several
times that afternoon, had foiled two boarding attempts, and had even cut
its nets and disappeared in the fog. Canada was put on a war footing, as
the Prime Minister had permitted the deployment of submarines and warships
that were authorized to use their weapons if necessary. Finally, and well
into international waters, the Cape Roger closed in on the fleeing Spanish
trawler, warded off five other Spanish trawlers with a water cannon, fired
four volleys from a large ship-mounted machine gun across the bow of the
Estai and gave Captain Enrique Davila Gonzalea five minutes to stop. If
he refused, the next round would be at his ship. At 4:52 p.m. Ottawa time,
Gonzalea surrendered. Armed Canadian fisheries officers, backed by an RCMP
emergency response team, scurried over the side and seized the Spanish
ship.
It was only the second time Canada had fired upon another nation in peacetime;
the first, in 1968, was also at a fishing boat, but in 1995 Canada had
planned its aggressive action. Moreover, it fired upon a fishing trawler
from Spain, a NATO ally. With these shots Canada had changed; a nation
best known internationally for its peacekeeping, quiet diplomacy, and commitment
to internationalism, it had resorted to gunboat diplomacy to protect the
lowly turbot. Prime Minister Jean Chretien told a Liberal gathering in
Winnipeg the day following the incident that "We had to show the Canadian
flag and to show it with some decency and firmness so the people would
understand... What we had to do was absolutely necessary." Even though
most Canadians could not identify a turbot at their local fish market,
they praised Chretien's actions and that of his determined minister of
fisheries and oceans, Brian Tobin. Canadians were proud of their country's
decisiveness in what became known as the Turbot War and admired their cool,
determined admiral, whom they proudly called 'the Tobinator'. The whole
episode reflects the re-emergence of Canadian nationalism in the 1990s.
Canadians were solidly behind their government in its struggle with the
European Union and Spain, and Tobin quarter-backed the offensive with poise
and confidence. He told CTV News that "Sometimes we haven't asserted
our own interest, even when our own interest is being totally disregarded
by our so-called friends and neighbours." Canadians wrapped themselves
in the flag and cheered him for his bold and determined actions. More than
90 percent of Canadians supported their minister of fisheries and oceans;
94 percent of Manitoba and Saskatchewan approved of the arrest of the Estai,
and support for Canada's aggression reached 84 percent even in Quebec.
The Halifax Daily News noted in an editorial that "few events have
brought such a sense of common cause across the sprawling, argumentative
width of Canada as the clash with Spanish trawlers."1
John Wright, senior vice-president of the Angus Reid
polling firm, said Canadians saw this as "Green Ramboism." "Canadians
are feeling feisty enough," he concluded, "that they would want
Brian Tobin to go over there and dump a bag of fish on the desk of the
European Union diplomats." Macleans also reported that Alberta
premier Ralph Klein wrote the prime minister that he had finally done the
right thing: "When you look at the devastation that has been caused
over the years in the complete depletion of the cod stocks, and now having
foreign fishing vessels go for what's left of the groundfish is absolutely
terrible." The Toronto Sun reflected the Canadian jingoism when it
declared, "Most Canadians are happy we fired the first shots. In fact,
we would have aimed lower after the Estai didn't stop at the first two
machine-gun bursts." Later, one of its columnists noted "Canada
is no longer a wimp. We made a show of force and stand proud, unrepentant
and ready to strike again."2
Barbara Yaffe, writing on the west coast which was having its own problems
with fish, wrote: "From one end of this once wimpy country to the
other, there was pride and chest-pounding, a feeling that at last dull
and gentle Canucks from coast to coast had taken a stand, backing up words
with buckshot, standing up strong-and-free-style for the True North. For
that one brief shining moment, we were all beefy Mounties with brass buttons,
sitting tall in our saddles. Quebecois too."3
Callers to the CBC's Cross-Country Checkup echoed similar sentiments to
host Rex Murphy, and letters to the editor appearing in newspapers across
the country had people writing that they "have never been more proud
to be a Canadian."4 Even
visitors to the Internet news groups on Canadian politics denounced the
Spanish and heaped praise upon Tobin. One commented, "It's about time
we stand up and be counted." In a rare movement of solidarity, every
Canadian MP rose and gave him a tumultuous standing ovation when he returned
to the House of Commons following the arrest of the Estai.
Brian Tobin did for fish what no other person has done since John Cabot:
he brought it to the attention of the world, and for Canadians he made
them realize that the fish off their shore was theirs. As Canada's minister
of fisheries and oceans he orchestrated the firing of the shots that awakened
Canadians and made them finally realize that the fish that swim in the
waters on the continental shelf off the east coast are Canadian and that
Canada must protect them. With his actions he gave expression to a renewed
Canadian nationalism. Canadians - newspaper editors, politicians, and ordinary
Canadians - enthusiastically supported Tobin, when he ordered fisheries
officers aboard the Cape Roger to fire over the bow of the Spanish fishing
trawler, the Estai, if it failed to stop when ordered to do so. The outpouring
of support was almost unanimous. Their country, many believed, had finally
come of age; Michael Adams of Environics Research in Toronto told Macleans
that the reaction was reflective of the resurgence of Canadian nationalism.
The Turbot War with the European Union (EU) helped to fuel the new Canadian
nationalism.
Nationalism is not unlike fish in that both are very slippery. Even though
there has been a proliferation of studies on nationalism in recent years,
there is little consensus on what the term really means. Borrowing from
the work of John Breuilly, I use the term nationalism here to signify a
form of politics. As he suggests, nationalism is a political doctrine that
builds upon three basic assertions: i) there is a nation with an explicit
and peculiar character; ii) the interests and values of the nation take
priority over all other interests and values; and iii) nations must be
as independent as possible. Moreover, as Breuilly suggests, nationalism
goes a long way towards creating a sense of identity for the nation-state.5
And in 1995 the federal government was desperately trying to show Canadians
that they were a strong and united country that would go any distance to
defend the national interest. At the time, Canada faced the uncertainty
of a second referendum on separation in Quebec and increasing demands for
native self-government. Many Canadians were desperately seeking to promote
a greater sense of national identity and nationalism, as they feared the
splintering and destruction of their country; they were reception to a
government that aggressively defended the national interest. Throughout
1995 the Chretien Government utilized every opportunity to demonstrate
the strength of the nation, whether at the June 1995 Halifax Summit of
G-7 Nations, Team Canada Trade Missions to Asia and Latin America, the
La Francophonie, and the One in a Million Flag Challenge. The Turbot War
with the EU is one example of the manifestations of this resurgence in
Canadian nationalism in 1995. It was the Plan B of Canadian nationalism.
Canada, of course, is merely one of many nations that have become very
nationalist when fighting over fish. In fact, fish seems to be making nations
all over the world much more nationalistic and has precipitated serious
conflicts in different parts of the world over the last decade or so, as
they seek to defend their national interest. For instance, France and Spain
exchanged gunfire in the Bay of Biscay; American patrol vessels arrested
Canadian fishermen; Canadian fisheries officers arrested American fishermen
on both sides of the country; Italy and Greece quarrelled over the use
of drift nets in the Mediterranean; China and Vietnam traded gunfire in
the South China Seas; the Royal Navy arrested a Spanish trawler; the Burmese
navy sank a Thai fishing vessel; Argentina and Taiwan tangled with each
other in South America; and Britain and Iceland had three cod wars between
1952 and 1976. The Turbot War was merely the latest in a series of fish
wars that included the Tuna Wars, the Squid War, the Salmon Wars, and the
Pollock Wars. As one commentator recently noted, "Historians may record
more fishing conflicts during one year in the nineties than during the
entire nineteenth century."6
Canada, it seems, was only one of many nations to use force to defend their
fishing interests.
The issue was ostensibly turbot, also known as Greenland halibut – a slimy,
spineless flatfish of which the vast majority of Canadians had never heard.
In fact, it had become important only after the collapse of the northern
cod and other groundfish in the early 1990s. With the east coast Canadian
fishery effectively shut down, the west coast salmon fishery in danger
of collapse and groundfish research surveys off the east coast of Labrador
and Newfoundland showing a continued decline in most stocks, Tobin was
determined to protect the turbot stock and prevent it from being fished
out of existence even though the stock straddled Canadas 200-mile exclusive
economic zone. Many in Canada had been demanding for more than three decades
that the government take decisive action against foreign fleets fishing
in or just outside Canadian waters. And in the late winter of 1995, after
a tough federal budget delivered on 27 February and a federal report acknowledging
the rapid depletion of west coast salmon stocks, it was an opportune time
to deal aggressively with the EU fishing fleet. At the same time, the UN's
Organization of Agriculture and Food had released its report warning of
impending disaster for the world's fisheries, if the current fishing practices
are not dramatically altered. If Canada acted to protect the turbot stocks,
few could quarrel with its claim in this particular instance that it was
acting in the best interests of the environment. Finally, in 1995, with
considerable problems at home, with Canada seeking penance for previous
fisheries mismanagement and with everyone coming down on the side of the
environment, the Canadian government acted decisively to save the fish.
When a moratorium was declared on northern cod in 1992, the European Union,
particularly Spain and Portugal, turned to the turbot. Tobin maintained
that the Europeans became interested in turbot only after the ban on cod.
Less than 5,000 tonnes of the fish had been taken outside the 200-mile
limit in the late 1980s, but by 1994 EU vessels harvested more than 50,000
tonnes. Not surprisingly given the intensive fishing, Canadian researchers
reported in February 1994 that the spawning stock of turbot had fallen
by two thirds since 1991; later the Scientific Council of the Northwest
Atlantic Fisheries Organization warned that the stocks could not sustain
the current level of fishing. Canada immediately cut its total allowable
catch by 75 percent and discontinued its developmental fishing programs
for turbot. Meanwhile, it pressed NAFO to reduce its quotas. Canada, which
had fished turbot since the 1960s, reduced its quota because of fears that
the stock would go the way of the cod. The EU did not immediately follow
Canada's lead, but when NAFO reduced the total allowable catch to 27,000
tonnes for 1995, Brian Tobin was determined to get what he called a fair
share for Canadian fishermen who were hard hit by the shutdown. "We
held down our catches in recent years for reasons of conservation while
the EU has taken too much," he said, "and now that a catch limit
has been set, Canada wants a fair share of the resource." As he went
to Brussels in early January 1995 for a series of NAFO meetings to decide
how the 1995 TAC would be allocated, Tobin began his public campaign against
the destructive Spanish and Portuguese fisheries. He slashed out at them
for failing to crack down on their fleets which, he charged, routinely
ignored the international bans on stocks such as cod, even as thousands
of Canadians had been thrown out of work with the collapse of the fishery.
He warned Sir Leon Brittan, the EU vice-president responsible for international
trade, and Ioannis Paleokrassas, its retiring fisheries commissioner, that
if the EU could not prevent its fishing fleets from breaking NAFO regulations,
Canada was prepared to do so, even outside the 200-mile limit.
After a bitter three day meeting in January NAFO representatives awarded
Canada 60 percent of the 1995 quota and the EU just 12 percent, slashing
its share from 80 percent in 1993 and 1994. With their traditional areas
such as the Grand Banks effectively closed, the decision was disastrous
for Spain and Portugal who were facing declining stocks in their own waters.
Luis Atienza, Spain's minister of fisheries and agriculture, refused to
accept the allocation as such a reduction threatened massive unemployment
and social unrest, especially in the Galacia region where Spain's deep
sea fleet was based. The Vigo Shipowners Association said the quota would
result in 1,500 fishermen and more than 8,000 fishing-related workers losing
their jobs. Ricardo Aguilar, biodiversity co-ordinator for Greenpeace in
Madrid, told Macleans that "The reality is that no government
wants to risk unpopularity by confronting fishermen ... whose work is so
obviously hard, even though everyone knows that there are too many boats
chasing too few fish." "So," he continued, "Spain tries
to put a few boats here and a few boats there on the high seas. The North
Atlantic turbot is the last hope for this fleet." Subsequently, Spain
argued that the EU should have 75 percent of the quota, but at the NAFO
meeting Tobin had outmanoeuvred them, shutting them out of that fishery
as well. Of course, he had reason to gloat. He saw NAFO's decision as much
more than a simple recognition of Canada's historical claim to the stock.
To him it was payback time for the other member-states, in co-operation
with Canada, who wanted desperately to put an end to the blatant overfishing
by the EU fleets, especially Spanish and Portuguese, just outside Canadian
waters. As Tobin boasted at the time, "We've been for years trying
to get this European Union fleet - particularly Spain and Portugal - under
control," he could not resist a final jab at the EU, when he remarked
after the NAFO meeting, "there is no reward for those who ignore the
needs of conservation."
However, Tobin was still worried that both Spain and Portugal could use
the 'objection procedure' whereby a member-country could refuse to accept
a NAFO decision and then set its own quota after lodging an official objection.
He warned that Canada would not tolerate illegal fishing in its backyard:
"We in Canada could never accept that having won our case before our
peers, before the major fishing nations of the world within NAFO, that
the EU could then say, 'we played, we lost and we're not abiding by the
majority decision of an international body'." Canadian officials realized
that the EU vessels faced a difficult task in adjusting to the lower catch
limits, but Tobin and his officials warned that there would be very serious
consequences, if they ignored the NAFO decision. Tobin made it clear that
Canada would act to prevent illegal fishing, and he told the fiery Italian
Emma Bonino, the EU's new fisheries commissioner, that Canada would not
allow the EU fleets from Spain and Portugal to continue to flout international
bans and quotas, even though he offered to transfer part of Canada's quota
to the EU, if it accepted the NAFO decision. The EU ambassador to Canada
warned that any Canadian action on the high seas would have serious repercussions:
John Beck told the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association that "the
slope beyond 200 miles is particularly slippery and unilateral action is
the wrong kind of action." Trying desperately to establish itself
as a major player in the world, the EU could not permit a small, relatively
insignificant country like Canada to ride roughshod over one of its member-states,
which, according to Spain and Portugal, was precisely what Canada was doing.
Moreover, Spain has been a major player in the EU - perhaps because it
is seen as an important link to the Mediterranean Countries and to Latin
and South America - and even EU-watchers have been surprised by the power
of Spain within the union. Spain and Portugal were determined to have the
EU file an objection to the NAFO decision so that they could set their
own catch limits. Given the circumstances, a showdown was inevitable.
Tobin was very careful to take the moral high ground in the lingering dispute
with the EU. In his public comments intended for national and international
consumption, he carefully cultivated the image of Canada as a nation now
- finally - committed to conservation, and he made it clear - no doubt
playing to a Canadian audience - that Canada would not be pushed around.
He told British fisheries officials – who enthusiastically joined in his
criticism of the Spanish and Portuguese, as did other nations – that the
EU had "to understand that the colonial days are long gone, and that
the consequences of conservation and the cost of conservation must be paid
by all who ascribe to the notion of civilized behaviour by modern nations."
The Spanish Fisheries Minister said Canada was simply asking too much to
expect EU countries to reduce their turbot catches outside Canada's 200-mile
limit. He accused Canada of 'playing' with the EU over fishing rights and
warned that Canada's actions could seriously damage trans-Atlantic relations.
He rejected Tobin's suggestion that Spain was flouting international fishing
regulations and argued that the Spanish fleet "is as respectful of
international regulations as other fleets." Bonino retorted, "We
are not the pirates of the Atlantic" and asked the EU executive and
the fishery ministers of the member-countries to approve an objection procedure
against NAFO's decision. She said that the EU respected the quota allocation,
but not the voted allotments and vowed to continue fishing turbot. The
European Union, she said, could not tolerate the Canadian action.
Even as Tobin went to Newfoundland on 15 February, where the NAFO decision
and his rhetoric enjoyed tremendous support, and once again warned that
Canada "will not allow the EU to devastate turbot the way it devastated
American plaice, yellowtail flounder, witch flounder, red-fish and cod
species in the 1980s," the 626-seat European Parliament voted unanimously
to ask the European Commission, the EU's executive body, and EU member
states to fight Canada through the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
Ron Macdonald, the chairman of the House of Commons Fisheries Committee
and a Nova Scotia MP, wrote a strongly worded letter to Ambassador Beck
telling him it was "unbelievable" that the EU would "serve
as a broker for Spanish pirates who have already decimated other flatfish
stocks around the world." The European Commission accepted Bonino's
request and allowed the EU to set its own catch limit in the waters outside
Canada's 200-nautical mile fishing zone. While Bonino waited for the 15
EU member states to support her request, she said she saw no reason for
European fleets to stop fishing for turbot. By early March fisheries sources
were suggesting that EU vessels had already taken more than 6,000 tonnes
of turbot, well in excess of the EU quota of 3,400 tonnes. The EU said
it would take 69 percent of the turbot quota.
It was clear that Tobin and the Canadian government were serious about
the turbot issue as the war of words escalated throughout February. Both
sides appeared intransigent. Echoing a phrase made famous by former Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau during his fight with Quebec terrorists in 1970,
Tobin told reporters "Just watch me," when he was asked how far
he would go to protect fragile fish stocks from European 'bullies'. He
said Canada had taken an aggressive stand against foreign overfishing,
when it arrested three foreign vessels fishing just outside the 200-mile
limit in 1994 and warned the EU "to take a look at the record of [the
Chretien] government over the last year and any comfort [they] may have
that we'll do nothing should quickly disappear." Tobin was so brash
to say that EU fisheries commissioner Emma Bonino would face arrest "if
she's on the back of one of those trawlers." At home in Canada, Earl
McCurdy, president of the Fishermen, Food and Allied Workers Union, with
support from fishing interests in the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and British
Columbia urged Tobin to continue his tough stand against foreign overfishing.
The Reform Party's fisheries critic, John Cummins of Delta, British Columbia,
urged Tobin to act immediately to stop overfishing. Newfoundland Premier
Clyde Wells and his Atlantic counterparts called on Prime Minister Chretien
'to do whatever is necessary' to enforce the NAFO decision. Rarely does
the minister of fisheries and oceans get such support, but Tobin was no
ordinary minister. He had drawn a line in the North Atlantic and dared
the EU fleet to cross it. The EU did. On 1 March the EU Council of Ministers
unanimously accepted Bonino's request to file an official objection to
the NAFO quota; it then proceeded to set its own turbot quota of 18,630
tonnes. It seems that the EU believed Canada would back away from a confrontation,
but they could not have been more mistaken. In fact, if it had examined
the policy of the new Liberal government, elected in 1993, towards overfishing
on the Grand Banks and the problems it faced at home, the EU might have
immediately sought a compromise with Canada. Canada was in a fiesty mood.
Successive Canadian governments had been upset that NAFO had not been able
to enforce its own rules and regulations and held little hope that NAFO
would be able to enforce a moratorium imposed within its regulatory areas
in 1992. While in Opposition the Liberal Party, led by Jean Chretien, had
argued for a more aggressive fishery conservation policy, and when Tobin
became the minister of fisheries and oceans in the new Liberal government,
he told the House of Commons, "I speak for those who have no voice
– the fish." Perhaps, without even realizing it, Tobin had with that
single phrase and his subsequent actions changed the nature of Canadian
fishery policy from one preoccupied with fishermen to one whose chief concern
would be fish. In its first Throne Speech in January 1994 the government
promised "to take the action required to ensure that foreign overfishing
of East Coast stocks comes to an end." In May 1994 Parliament unanimously
passed Bill C-29, the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, and an accompanying
series of regulations giving Canada the authority to make policy for and
to take enforcement action to protect straddling stocks threatened by commercial
extinction. Later Parliament amended the regulations that permitted Canadian
officials to arrest stateless and flag of convenience vessels that ignored
the conservation measures imposed by NAFO to protect the straddling stocks
on the high seas. Of course, the EU voiced its opposition to the Canadian
legislation, and the US sent a mild protest, but throughout Canada the
measure won wide acceptance. Under international law Canada's legislation
was illegal, as the enforcement of conservation measures beyond the 200-mile
limit is the responsibility of the home country of the fleets involved.
In cases where the fish stocks move across international marine boundaries,
disputes are to be settled through negotiations between the countries involved
and through regional organizations such as NAFO. As Canada pointed out,
the conventions say nothing about what happens when these options fail.
The Canadian government believed it was on the right side of the issue,
even if legally it was not. Allan Gotlieb, former Canadian Ambassador to
Washington, told the Canadian Press, "It's a mysterious dimension
of the Canadian psyche. We've always been very conciliatory and emphasized
arbitration on other matters, but when it comes to coastal waters and territorial
issues, we've always felt we needed to take unilateral action."
Canada followed through on its commitment to enforce conservation measures,
when it arrested the Kristina Logos, a Canadian-owned trawler registered
in Panama, for fishing outside Canada's 200-mile limit in violation of
the NAFO moratorium. By June 1995, when faced with imminent arrest by Canada,
flag-of-convenience vessels withdrew from the Nose and Tail of the Grand
Banks. Tobin also adopted a tough stance with the Americans. In June he
imposed a $1,500 fee on American salmon vessels navigating the waters off
British Columbia to force the US to negotiate a new salmon treaty. Two
months later Canadian patrol vessels seized two American ships fishing
for scallops in Canadian waters and forced the US government to concede
Canadian jurisdiction over Icelandic scallops off Nova Scotia. Fish, it
seems, was making Canada much more aggressive than usual. In fact, as noted
above, fish seems to be making nations all over the world much more nationalistic,
and this has created serious problems in different parts of the world over
the last decade or so.
After the EU Council of Ministers announced that it would object to the
NAFO quota for turbot and continue fishing the stock, a confrontation was
inevitable. Two days after the EU decision, the Canadian government once
again amended the regulations accompanying the Coastal Fisheries Protection
Act, making it an offence for vessels from the EU to fish endangered stocks,
including turbot that straddled the Canadian 200-mile limit. The legislation
allowed Canadian officials to interrupt the fishing operation of a vessel
and if necessary to board and seize vessels on the high seas in the name
of conservation. When Tobin announced the amendment on 3 March, he said
"We were prepared to take action against stateless and flags-of convenience
vessels last year, and we are equally prepared to take action against Spanish
and Portuguese vessels now." At the time there were 12 Portuguese
vessels in the area, and the Association of Industrial Fishing Ships in
Lisbon vowed that the fleet would remain, even with the threat of arrest
from Canada. Spain was equally defiant. Yet, Canada was ready for a showdown
and despatched senior fisheries officials to Europe in order to explain
its position.
Immediately after Canada amended the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act,
Prime Minister Chretien telephoned EU president Jacques Santer to explain
Canada's position and proposed a 60-day moratorium to allow the two sides
to negotiate. He gave the president three days to respond. It was a waste
of time. The Spanish held firm and even warned that they would send a naval
vessel to protect their fishing fleet. At the end of the third day Santer
agreed to negotiate, but he rejected Chretien's offer of a moratorium and
denounced the Canadian amendments. As the country watched and waited, Brian
Tobin said that his officials would begin seizing Spanish trawlers within
24-hours, if they did not pull their nets from waters. Canada's aggressive
strategy seemed to work; the Spanish vessels ceased fishing and moved from
the area, even as the EU vowed that it was its right to fish those waters.
The EU vessels were back in a few days, however, and the Canadian cabinet
met in an emergency session to plan its strategy. After a long and bitter
cabinet meeting on 8 March, it decided that there would be one final attempt
at negotiation. The prime minister was to telephone President Santer one
more time. If diplomacy failed, the prime minster agreed with his fisheries
minister that Canada had no option but to seize a Spanish vessel. One Canadian
newspaper reported that Tobin privately confided, however, "that he
hoped diplomacy would break down because only action could lead to meaningful
talks." Tobin got his wish. When Chretien reached Santer at 4:30 AM
on the morning of 9 March, he agreed, once again, to further negotiations
but refused a 60-day moratorium that Chretien had insisted upon. The die
was cast. A few minutes later, the Prime Minister personally gave Canadian
fisheries officers and the RCMP in the fisheries patrol vessels the order
to discharge their weapons if necessary and to seize the Spanish vessels
for violating conservation practices. Later that day, Canada arrested the
Estai.
Even as the bellicose Tobin declared that Canada was imposing a complete
moratorium on the fishing in the Northwest Atlantic, high-level Canadian
officials, including Gordon Smith, the deputy minister of foreign affairs,
and William Rowat, the deputy minister of fisheries, left for Brussels.
They hoped that negotiations would soon begin, but Canada's 'unilateral
aggression' was condemned by the EU and throughout Spain and Portugal.
The EU was apparently united in its condemnation of Canada and immediately
initiated retaliatory action. EU research ministers cancelled plans to
sign a previously negotiated scientific co-operation pact with Canada and
threatened further action, including retaliation against Canada's $1.6
billion fish and farm exports to Europe; Canada had reason to worry as
its exports to the EU were worth nearly $11.3 billion. The EU demanded
that Canada immediately release the vessel, repair any damage caused, and
cease and desist from its harassment of vessels flying the flag of community
member states. Moreover, it demanded that Canada immediately repeal the
legislation under which it acted to seize the Estai. The Canadians argued
that the matter was not one of international law, but an issue of conservation;
Jacques Roy, Canada's ambassador to the EU, put it succinctly when he remarked,
"We are engaged in a race against time to protect the last groundfish
stock in the Northwest Atlantic." Spain saw it differently and despatched
a second naval patrol vessel, the Vigia, armed with a 76 mm gun and two
machine guns, to the Grand Banks. Ironically, Canadian officials were worried
that the Vigia, not designed for the ice-filled waters of the Northwest
Atlantic, would sink as it became top-heavy from the ice that formed on
its weapons. A Canadian patrol plane constantly monitored the two Spanish
vessels for fear they might sink, even though the Prime Minister had authorized
in the Rules of Engagement for the navy to sink any Spanish vessel that
uncovered its guns.
Thousands of fishermen and flag-waving Newfoundlanders turned out to cheer
as the Canadian patrol vessels escorted the Estai into St. John's harbour
and placed its captain under arrest for violating the Coastal Fisheries
Protection Act. One plant worker commented, "Imagine watching foreigners
given free reign when we're told we have to keep our nets in. It's a hard
thing to see." The crowd jostled with security, jeered the Europeans,
and threw eggs as Captain Gonzalez was led down the ship's gangplank. One
hit a German diplomat. "This is a very disgraceful situation,"
the Spanish Ambassador Jose-Luis Pardos said, as he and his counterparts
from the EU, who were in St. John's to show European unity, stormed on
to the Cape Roger, which had escorted the Estai into harbour. Jose Luis
Ferreira, a veteran Spanish fishermen, said he had no hard feeling against
the Canadians. "It's all politics," he told the Canadian Press.
Even Captain Gonzalez remarked that the Canadian patrol officers "treated
us very well after the ice broke." Gonzalez' wife, Maria Abal Berreiro,
told the Globe and Mail from her home in Spain that "the real
piracy was by Canada because our ships were not in Canadian waters... They
were not stealing fish from anyone." Gonzalez was charged with unlawful
fishing, failing to stop when required, obstructing a fisheries officer,
and throwing fishing equipment overboard. Each charge carried a maximum
fine of $750,000. He was freed on $8,000 bail. No charges were laid against
the crew, but they chose to stay in St. John's as support for their captain,
even though the Canadian government offered to fly them to Spain.
Tobin was relentless in his pursuit of evidence to demonstrate that the
Spanish trawlers flagrantly ignored all conservation measures, even as
everyone knew that the stocks were perilously close to commercial extinction.
In a series of carefully orchestrated news conferences, Tobin presented
the evidence which vindicated and justified Canadian action. Canadian inspectors
discovered that 79 percent of the Estai's catch was undersized – baby turbot
as Tobin repeatedly said. Such small fish suggested that the trawler was
using a liner inside its nets. Moreover, the catch was more than double
what had been reported, and Captain Gonzalez allegedly kept two log books
– one for the EU inspectors and another for the ship's owners that recorded
the actual catch. Tobin despatched a Canadian trawler to the Grand Banks
to recover the nets that the Estai had cut, when it attempted to flee from
the Canadians. And, as suspected, the mesh was below the minimum size allowed
by NAFO, and Gonzalez had inserted a liner with an even smaller mesh-size
inside the net. It was an "ecological monstrosity" and a "weapon
of destruction," Tobin declared. Inspectors also found a secret hold
containing 25 tonnes of American plaice, a species under a moratorium since
1992. "This kind of information," Tobin said, "is very powerful
in making our case that Canada has taken, in effect, a custodial action
to prevent the disappearance of the species." And he told the BBC,
"Some 340,000 tonnes of fish, seven or eight species have disappeared
from the planet because this [the Spanish] fleet, unrestrained and uncontrolled
by the European Union, has fished away one species after another."
At the same time, the Globe and Mail reported that records from Canadian
and European patrol vessels in 1992 and 1993 show that they had issued
'dozens of citations' for overfishing and misreporting catches against
Spanish and Portuguese boats on the Grand Banks. In fact, the Estai was
charged in May 1994 for having unreported quantities of American plaice,
an endangered species.
Even though the evidence was overwhelming, the EU remained on the offensive
and demanded the immediate release of the 'captured' trawler. Bonino shouted
across the sea that "Canada has only taken a EU boat to satisfy its
internal needs and to hide its inefficiency in fisheries management."
Spanish officials claimed that Canada's actions were designed to divert
attention from its domestic problems. Xoan Caamano, head of the fisheries
for the Galicia region in Spain, called the seizure of the Estai "an
act of war against a sovereign country," while a Spanish editorial
writer wrote "For centuries before Canada existed, ships sailed by
people of the [Spanish] coast have fished for cod. History supports our
right to continue fishing." But British and French fishermen, who
despised the Spanish fishermen as much as the Canadians did, flew Canadian
flags in support of Tobin's actions. Even in the face of such widespread
opposition, the Spanish remained defiant and resumed fishing even after
the arrest of the Estai. Negotiations began on 16 March between Canadian
and EU officials but 10 days later hit rough waters, when officers from
a fisheries patrol vessel cut the nets of the Pescamar Uno, one of the
Spanish vessels that had resumed fishing on the Grand Banks, when it refused
to allow Canadian officials to board. Canadian marine researchers had produced
a new device, called a warp-cutter, that the patrol vessels could tow behind
a vessel to cut the warps or steel cables joining a fishing net to its
trawler. Tobin told the United Nations Conference on Straddling and Highly
Migratory Fish Stocks meeting in New York that the Spanish trawlers had
again withdrawn from the area. Moreover, he said that Canada and other
coastal states need strong conservation and enforcement measures to protect
the stocks outside the 200-mile zone. He said that the existing international
law was ineffective and that Canada was acting according to a "new
ethic of conservation which isn't founded upon loopholes and international
trickery." The same nations were fishing the straddling stocks around
the world: Spain, China, South Korea, Poland and Japan. Those nations,
together with Panama, fished as much as seven million tonnes of pollock
annually from the 'doughnut hole' in international waters in the Behring
Sea just outside the 200-mile limits of Russia and the US. There was no
agreement on managing that straddling stock until catches had dropped to
such a level that fishing for pollock was no longer worth the effort. Then
the fleets moved to the 'peanut hole' in the international waters in the
nearby Sea of Okhotsk off Russia's Pacific Coast and fished that resource
to the point of collapse in 1995. Tobin told the UN that Canada's actions
on the Grand Banks outside the 200-mile limit is part of the evolution
of a "new international law and Canada is on the leading edge."
In her speech to the UN conference, Bonino denounced Canada, charged Tobin
with fabricating the evidence against the EU vessel and added "I would
be surprised if they don't find heroin, cocaine – I don't know what."
The next day Tobin scored a public relations coup, when he invited the
international press to a barge in New York harbour where he unveiled the
evidence that his officials had collected against the Estai, including
the net the length of a football field with an undersized mesh and an even
smaller-mesh lining inside, the illegal sized turbot that he held in the
palm of his hand and the illegal American plaice. "I think the net
is quite, quite compelling," he had earlier told the House of Commons,
"and I think we made our case ... with some persuasion." For
the occasion Tobin must have stayed up all night with his officials coming
up with one of his best quips for the press: "We're down to the last,
lonely, unloved, unattractive little turbot, clinging by its fingernails
to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, saying 'someone reach out and save
me this eleventh hour as I’m about to go down to extinction'." With
sufficient evidence Tobin remarked, "There comes a time when you've
made your case in such a compelling fashion that you have to pause and
give the other side a chance to catch its breath." After its owners
posted a $ 500,000 bond, the Estai was released, but the EU Ambassador
John Beck, attempting to save face, said such a move does not recognize
Canadian jurisdiction; "it is an act of good will," he lamely
stated.
Although the EU continued to condemn the Canadian action, it struggled
to maintain a united front. The Spanish fleets had angered fishermen from
all over the world, including those in South America, along the coast of
Africa, and throughout Europe as well as those in Canada. The British officials
were under strong internal pressure to support Canada, and other member-states
in the EU did not want to do anything to escalate the crisis. Tory MP Teddy
Taylor told the British House of Commons "Canada has never let Britain
down once when we've been in trouble." The Daily Mail, a British
tabloid, ran a front page editorial calling on British Prime Minister John
Major to support Canada: "What monstrous ingratitude it would be to
mount a trade embargo against the Canadians who fought with us and shared
the sacrifice in two world wars," the editorial said. "Now they
are fighting again for what is a just cause. It should be our cause too."
The Telegraph said the EU should thank Canada for "finally
doing something to bring the Spanish trawler men to heel," and The
Sunday Times ran a front page editorial "Oh Canada, Oh Canada,
You slept long, but you are now awake, never to sleep again." The
Canadian High Commission in London was inundated with between 1,500 and
1,600 calls, letters and faxes from Britons supporting Canada. Canadian
High Commissioner Royce Frith said, "I've never known anything like
it, in all the time I've been involved in politics." Major later told
the House of Commons, "I believe Canada is quite right to take a tough
line on enforcement." Yet, the EU had to contend with Spain's demand.
The Spanish Prime Minister Gonzales warned the EU that "What is at
risk here is the very credibility of the EU and its member states."
"A split within the Union," he wrote the French prime minister,
"would be seen as a sign of weakness and jeopardize the image and
efficiency we want for the external relations of the European Union."
The EU went on the offensive and, in a carefully prepared document, attacked
Canadian fisheries policy and its failed management scheme. Meanwhile the
Spanish government criticized the British soft stand against Canada, after
Britain vetoed a letter of protest promising retaliatory economic action
against Canada: "At some point Britain will need to call on the solidarity
of the others," Prime Minister Gonzales warned, "and we would
urge them that solidarity is required all the time and not just when it
is convenient."
The negotiations continued between the EU and the Canadian officials in
the first weeks of April, even as Spain suddenly required Canadian visitors
to acquire a visa before entering the country. On several occasions the
two sides thought they had reached a deal, but Spain scuttled two agreements,
even when Canada agreed to give the EU 43 percent of the quota for 1995
and 55 percent of the 1996 quota. The two sides had agreed to put independent
inspectors on board of all vessels fishing in the zone, including Spanish
ones, to closely monitor and enforce catch quotas as well as inspections
at ports and satellite surveillance of the fleets, timely and significant
penalties to deter violations, and new minimum fish size limits. The Canadian
government was clearly exasperated and realized that stronger action was
necessary to resolve the crisis. On the evening of 14 April, after Spain
refused to accept a deal negotiated over the previous two days, Prime Minister
Chretien met with his ministers of fisheries, defence, foreign policy,
and justice and decided to take further military action against Spanish
trawlers that continued to fish in the disputed waters. With six armed
fisheries patrol vessels already in the area, Chretien ordered the deployment
of a Canadian frigate and a destroyer for additional support. Submarines
were already in the area. The prime minister informed the EU that Canada
would be moving against Spanish vessels the next day. The following day
Canada's national newspaper ran a story comparing the strength of the navies
of Spain and Canada.
Only the EU acceptance of the deal worked out earlier would settle the
crisis. In the face of the determined Canadians the Europeans blinked,
and Santer faxed Chretien a letter confirming the EU's acceptance of the
agreement, which became known as the Canada-EU Control and Enforcement
Agreement. Tobin called a news conference and announced that the crisis
was over and that a new mandatory enforcement regime for Canadian and EU
vessels fishing in NAFO-regulated areas was finally achieved. Andre Ouellet,
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said "This agreement reflects a bilateral
commitment to introduce a better set of rules and, for the first time,
an effective system to enforce the rules and provide for more severe penalties
for those who break them." Canada agreed to return the $ 500,000 bond
that the Estai's owners posted, and the charges against the Spanish captain
were stayed. Prime Minister Chretien said that the agreement was "a
major break through for conservation and enforcement – our primary objective."
Bonino said that "the rule of law has been restored to the high seas."
Victor Young, president of Fishery Products International, Canada's largest
fish processor, said that "What the government has done is send a
clear message that they will not tolerate people with small mesh nets overfishing
international quotas." Later the Spanish minister of agriculture and
fisheries conceded "The Canadians have got the message across that
this is a conservation issue." Even as the EU and Canada reached a
settlement, Ireland and South Africa both arrested and detained Spanish
fishing trawlers for illegal fishing and exceeding the quotas in their
fishing zones. As Tobin told Macleans, the Canadian government was
determined to do whatever necessary to preserve the dwindling fish stocks:
"I came into this thinking I'm going to be tough as nails, I'm going
to be uncompromising. I found that my own attitude has even gotten harder
and more uncompromising and more unforgiving." By 25 April Tobin had
reopened the Canadian turbot fishery off the coast of Labrador and the
east coast of Newfoundland.
The 15-member Northwest Fisheries Organization adopted at its September
1995 meeting in Halifax the agreement reached in April between Canada and
the European Union to settle the dispute over turbot fishing. With NAFO
approval for the agreement, which came into effect on 1 January 1996, all
trawlers fishing outside the 200-mile limit must have independent observers
on board to monitor catch levels and fish size. Moreover, all vessels are
subject to satellite tracking to prevent cheating. NAFO also agreed to
continue the moratorium on fishing cod and flounder in international waters.
Tobin was obviously pleased with the outcome as the foreign fishing boats
had been driven, temporarily at least, from just outside Canadian waters.
"This is probably the first time in many, many years," he said,
"that there is not an EU factory freezer-trawler at work on the nose
and tail of the Grand Banks. This was practically a year-round fishery."
The Turbot War, which cost the Canadian government $ 3.2 million, had brought
a greater measure of conservation to the Grand Banks. And it might have
prompted the US to act, as on 3 November 1995 President Bill Clinton signed
into law legislation that authorized it to join NAFO, which it subsequently
did on 29 November.
On 3 December, after a year of sabre-rattling, Brian Tobin went to New
York to sign a UN convention to strengthen controls on high seas fishing
by giving coastal nations such as Canada a large role in managing migratory
and straddling stocks. The convention needed 30 nations to ratify it, before
it became accepted into international law. At the December session 23 nations
signed and within several weeks 13 countries, including the US, had ratified
the Convention. However, the EU, Spain and Japan, for instance, continue
to oppose the convention, but once ratified by the international community
nations, Canada will have the right to take direct enforcement measures
outside their 200-mile zones. It can then seize ships that are fishing
illegally, as the Estai was earlier in March 1995, where a flag state fails
to take enforcement action against its vessels as required by the Agreement.
(The flag state is the vessel that licenses the vessel.) The convention
also made it illegal under international law to do any unauthorized fishing
of straddling stocks, such as turbot. It was hoped that this article would
prevent countries such as Spain from registering their trawlers in countries
which were not members of the regional fisheries organizations to circumvent
the rules imposed by such bodies. The UN Agreement effectively overturns
500 years of international law on the high seas in favour of effective
management to conserve migratory stocks; states will cease to have unlimited
freedom to fish on the high seas as they traditionally had. Instead governments
will be obliged to co-operate and regulate fishing to prevent the depletion
of the stocks and work to preserve the resource. The Agreement also provides
for compulsory binding settlement of fishing disputes between states. Tobin
said that the signing of the convention was a great day for Canada and
for threatened species like the turbot: "That last lonely, unloved,
unwanted turbot clinging by its fingernails to the edge of the Grand Banks
will suddenly and shortly be surrounded by a huge new family of turbots
that will together live on and feed the next generation."
With the Turbot War over and an international agreement in place to protect
the stocks straddling Canada's 2000-mile economic exclusive zone, Prime
Minister Chretien and Brian Tobin could take the high moral ground that
they had acted as conservationists in protecting the last remaining and
viable stock on the Grand Banks. Yet, they clearly recognized that Canadians,
who had held firmly to the principle of peacekeeping and liberal internationalism,
were proud that their leaders had enthusiastically and aggressively defended
the national interest. Moreover, with the Turbot War Canadians convinced
themselves that they were conservationists and that they were somehow superior
in that they had taken the high moral ground against the rapacious Europeans.
But more than that Canadians demonstrated to themselves that they are flagwaving
patriots who will defend the national interests. Later in 1995, when the
Quebec referendum on separation looked too close to call, it was Tobin,
now the self-styled 'Captain Canada', who orchestrated the Unity Rally
in Montreal, pleading with Quebec to stay with Canada and keep that nation
united. While the Turbot War might not have convinced more Quebecois to
vote yes in the referendum, it convinced many Canadians that they lived
in a country which had a strong sense of nationalism.
Prof. Dr. Raymond B. Blake, Director, Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount
Allison University, Sackville, NB EOA 3C0, Canada
e-mail: rblake@mta.ca
[1] Daily News. Halifax. 3 April 1995.
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[2] Toronto Sun. (March 19, 1995).
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[3] Vancouver Sun. (March 14, 1995).
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[4] Calgary Herald. (April 9, 1995).
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[5] Breuilly, J.: Nationalism and the State.
2nd ed. Manchester 1993.
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[6] Brown, L.: State of the World. New York
1996: 5.
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