Documented History of the 115,000mt Commitment of Northern Cod to NL Inshore
July 3, 2024
The Government of Canada’s longstanding commitment to prioritizing the first 115,000mt of Northern cod to the Newfoundland and Labrador inshore and their coastal communities is well documented. It dates back to the 1970’s, before the Northern Cod Moratorium of the 1990’s.
DFO and NL Members of Parliament seem to have forgotten the history of this commitment and it’s significance to Newfoundland and Labrador, but we have not. Included below are several archived documents that explicitly cite this dedication to prioritizing allocation of the 2J3KL stock for the benefits of adjacent coastal communities.
Further, as part of this commitment, documentation also indicates that a share to the Offshore would be assigned only after the Northern cod stock has met a threshold that allows for a 115,000mt priority allocation to the Inshore:
Policy for Canada’s Commercial Fisheries Department of the Environment May 1976
Hon. Roméo LeBlanc Speech to the St. John’s Rotary Club May19,1977
The Managed Commercial Annihilation of Northern Cod, D.H. Steele, R. Andersen, J.M. Green 1992
NEWSWATCH, Telegraph Journal St. John, NB April 29, 1996
Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans; Number 20, 2nd Session, 39th Parliament March 13, 2008
Liberal Party of Canada Letter to FFAW-Unifor September 19, 2015