By Plain Rhetoric

When judging BC’s job prospects, consider the Atlantic cod

Apr 10, 2018 | 5:00 AM

LET’S START with an almost irresistible opening paragraph, a paragraph about cod, Atlantic cod for that matter. And if that hasn’t got you all excited about this week’s column, nothing will. But just in case it hasn’t created the expected desire to read more, let me suggest those big and ugly Atlantic cod could be trying to tell us something about life in Kamloops.

As a brief refresher, the Atlantic cod was the economic mainstay of the Maritimes. For hundreds of years, the fish sustained much of the old world and was located off what was to become our shores. A finite source of needed nutrition in a world that believed in neverending growth.

Then, in 1992 and too late to do anything effective response to the collapse of that cod fishery, the Canadian government declared a fishing moratorium. Through a combination of over-fishing, mismanagement and wilful ignorance, the industry had basically committed suicide. The population of this once vital fish had, by the early 90s, been reduced to one per cent of its historical levels.

Ignoring all evidence, forecasts and even common sense, industry and government, in the name of jobs, had gone to the brink and then beyond. In the process they destroyed an ecosystem, drove a species to the edge of extinction and killed the economy of Atlantic Canada.

I mention the Atlantic cod as it represents a mindset that still exists today and confirms that despite the lessons and evidence of the past, we continue to trade our lives and our long term well being for short term political and economic benefit.

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We knew for years the fishery wasn’t sustainable at the levels being fished, yet we did nothing about it. “How will I get elected if we impose quotas?” worried politicians. “How will I pay the mortgage or buy the groceries if access to the fishery is limited?” worried fishers.

They are not unreasonable worries, yet by pretending there was no problem and doing nothing, politicians ended up not getting re-elected and many a cod fisher lost their house, their boat and more. The battle cry of, “jobs, jobs, jobs” was ironically what killed all the jobs.

We saw much the same thing here during the Ajax application. We’re seeing it happen with the Trans Mountain pipeline. Our salmon fishery is showing the same signs of decline the cod fishery went through. Prime, old growth timber is becoming harder to find. Yet everyday we are bombarded by industry and government messaging that declares our economy will die if we don’t fish, mine and log more or pump and ship more oil and gas.

What we don’t hear or maybe don’t want to listen to is the story of that ugly fish, the Atlantic cod. It was a resource that would take tens of thousands of people over the edge when it collapsed. It was economic suicide and thirty years later there are still no jobs and the Maritimes has still not recovered.

Is that our employment future or can we learn something from the cod? Do we need to pump all the oil at once or cut all the trees or fish all the fish as quickly as possible? There are jobs at stake and that mirrors the cod fishery.

In Atlantic Canada, they waited too long while believing in the false economy and false prophets who promoted jobs over common sense. It was a lethal mixture of denial and inaction and instead of having a vibrant, sustainable and managed fishery today; they have no industry and little in the way of an economy. Thirty years of unemployment in their prime resource sector suggests a “jobs at any cost” mentality is a failed political ideology and economic theory.

So, is our destiny that of the cod fishery? It is certainly heading that way. But I think we still have a chance to reconsider. What has me concerned, though, is the total lack of political will and leadership. Just like the once bountiful cod fishery, everyone knows what we’re doing and the methods we’re using have no long-term prospects. But it is politically expedient to ignore that future in return for being elected today.

Jobs are important, in fact they are vital but Atlantic Canada learned that without a balanced, integrated and well-managed resource economy, the jobs everyone longs for couldn’t be sustained. It was a hard and painful lesson and I wonder if we are willing to learn from it.