The fishery is worth more than ever. Why isn't N.L.'s rural population in better shape?

This column is an opinion by Derek Butler, executive director of the Association of Seafood Producers. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

It's 2022. It's hard to believe, for a number of reasons. Time is flying by, and things inevitably change.

But for the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador, and in too many ways for the fishery generally, "plus a change, plus c'est la mme chose," or, the more things change, they more they stay the same.

We are 30 years out from the initial groundfish moratorium of July 1992. We've added another 10 years to the postponement of our hopes for a fully recovered cod fishery, 10 more years since the 20th anniversary of 2012 for which I and others penned some thoughts for CBC (my column was titled Different times, same fishery lessons).

As we reflect, there are reasons to be grateful.

Mother Nature has given us an abundance of shellfish of (generally) strong market value. Those values have meant the fishery in recent years is worth more than at any single point in our history.

While this year is a terrible struggle for producers given the market collapse in crab and challenges in other species, the inshore landed value will likely reach a new historic high.

• Another perspective:I was a kid when the moratorium started. As a union leader, I'm still fighting for change

There are also reasons for hope. The lobster resource is expanding. Snow crab, our most valuable species, has ticked upwardin recent years, and likely has a two-year-plus window in front of it before things turn down again. Northern cod has shown an increase, albeit short of our best hopes.

Storm clouds are brewing

For the next 10 years, we can only hope that Mother Nature continues to be generous, but there are storm clouds building.

We have a changing ecosystem, which risks impacting fish abundance in ways that could change the basket we fish from, going from higher value species to new lower value ones.And we have the continuing demographic challenges.

Demographics are against us: we don't have a lot of younger harvesters, or young people generally.

Finding workers whether for plants or crew for boats will get harder and harder. We have fewer industry participants, given our demographics.

Quotas are concentrated in fewer vessels, meaning less wealth is shared.

Younger harvesters have a challenge to gain access to the fishery, but again, demographics are against us: we don't have a lot of younger harvesters, or young people generally.

In my reflection on the fishery in 2012, I expressed hopes for a different model of prosperity for the fishery.

In the 10 years that have passed, the value proposition has increased substantially, including the increased values for which harvesters sell licences, for a common property resource that costs "relatively" little to access.

(This, despite the ostensible policy that says harvesters cannot sell licences because it is a common-property resource, owned by all Canadians.)

Worth pondering anew is the following: when the fishery is so vital to rural communities (and of course the province generally), and the main federal fisheries policy goal is to sustain rural communities, why is the fishery not sustaining rural communities? And at a time when the fishery is worth more than ever?

In 2012 I wrote, "The illusion of a fishery that would save rural communities and keep our young people home is revealed as just that: an illusion."

Ten more years, and 10 more years of decline.

Our province had a population of 580,109 in 1992, the first year of the moratorium. That was our peak population. Within fiveyears it fell by 30,000. Within 14 years, it was down by 70,000.

There was some recovery to the most recent high of 529,426 in 2016, after which things have slipped back to our current figure of 522,785 (which is an increase for most recent quarters, thanks to renewed provincial and federal efforts).

Some questions for curious minds

Curious minds should be asking this: why is a higher-value fishery not affecting the population decline in rural communities? That's where the losses are, given the growth on the northern eastern Avalon.

If the goal of Canadian fisheries policy is sustaining rural communities, and the fishery has produced some very strong economic returns in recent years, including in the COVID-19 era, we should be seeing change.

No doubt it's a complicated question. Logically not all the population changes (up or down) stem from fisheries policy. A correlation of population changes and fishery value is worth exploring, but a correlation is not the necessarily the same as causation.

But if the fishery is rural, has its highest value ever, has as its main goal sustaining rural communities, and those communities are in decline, what gives?

With hoped-for cod recovery, other expanding resources and species abundance, and continued (in the main) high values for shellfish, what are we missing in our policy approach in terms of what we expect and ask from Canadian fisheries policy?

The question deserves some further consideration.

What aspects of the policy work, and what aspects do not? Where are the failures and gaps?

Or in another 30 years, we could be looking at fewer people andmore outmigration. We may have afailed policy on a key resource, and left with the most self-evident question we can ask: is anyone left?

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