Celebrating our Cod Scars

Twenty-four years ago this coming Saturday, 
a huge tsunami hit the province.

For the first time in 500 years, Cod haulers were shipwrecked upon Codless shores.

The unimaginable, the unthinkable had happened.

Cod, our faithful friend, once our currency, our reason to be, our cultural buddy, our spirit fish  was ripped from our lives, our communities, our heart and our souls. 

An arrow in the heart of outport Newfoundland is how Rex Murphy described the catastrophic event.

Then Premier Clyde Wells lamented that it was the worst thing that could have happened to our province.

Richard Cashin, then FFAW president, called it  a catastrophe on a biblical scale, a great destruction. 

....

The 1992 Cod ban was supposed to be temporary, two years; but the death sentence haunts us to this day - July 2, 2016 - our Cod 24.

14 years ago, on the 10th anniversary of the Cod Moratorium, a plaque was erected on Confederation Hill by then Premier Roger Grimes. It reads:

"For nearly 500 years the fishery sustained, employed and defined the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.  Generations of coastal people built a fishing society along thousands of kilometers of rugged coastlines. On July 2, 1992, five centuries of fishing activity was abruptly halted . The Northern Cod moratorium altered the fabric of our province - economically, socially and culturally.  Yet the people of our province endured. We honour their strength, determination and preserverance."

Our collective soul still smarts from the indignities of it all; and 24 years on, we need more than plaques.   We lost a way of life and a whole generation of people attached to the fisheries.  The stats are disturbing:

40,000 fishers and plant workers from over 400 coastal communities were laid off - the single biggest industrial layoff in Canadian history.  Boats were tied up and small communities left adrift.  Our people received paltry compensation for their 500 year dedication to the fishery ranging from $225 to $382 a week.  It led to outmigration of over 80,00 people, businesses closed and services lost.

Bodies lived, but souls died...

...

Our outports and our people, especially our Cod fishermen,  still struggle with PTCBS - Post-Traumatic Cod Ban Syndrome.

At Cod 24, we are still People of the Cod shackled to Codless waters even after all these years.   Next year, 2017, will be Cod 25.  Perhaps then we will formally mark the milestone of the Cod tsunami upheaval. But how do you face this wretched anniversary?

First, our province needs a public forum  and an acknowledgment on what we sacrificed as a people and a province; and we need to reflect and vent about how the July 1992 experience rattled us to the core.

Then we must move forward with a full Cod recovery plan with the federal government, including  an action plan and a time line -  and then we celebrate.

Celebrate? Yes!  Because while it is easy to have the Codfish blues, the time is ripe to pick up the pieces. After all, it is a quarter of a century.  

Cod 24 should be a countdown to Cod 25 when we celebrate the famous fish that kick-started our province, our country and the entire North America.    We should be planning to ‎make our province Cod fish-proud, just as Portugal does. Cod is their grand friend and they celebrate this special force through an annual festival, a tourism Cod Route around the country, as well as an Aquarium. 

We need to get in the Cod Celebratory game - celebrating Cod 25 with festivals, food, songs, plays, contests, community events - and with our youth, so they can regain a sense of being daughters and sons of the Cod.

It's also an innovative way for government and communities to diversify the fishery, tourism, our outports and to brand ourselves and our world-famous fish to the world.

Cod 25 is our opportunity to  get the Cod back in the ocean and to dance upon wharves once again.  

Our past should be our new starting point.  It's time to rejig the Codfish Blues, while never forgetting the scars.  

Our Cod scars are a testament to what we lost, but they should point the way forward to healing. 

After all, we are survivors. So, let's prepare to celebrate our formidable selves and our Cod force! 

|KP