Abstract
Reviewed by: Raymond B. Blake, University of Regina
A former professor and colleague at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick regularly asked students in his diplomatic history course to trace the smell of fish through the history of Canada's foreign relations. His was a historical approach to Canada's diplomatic history, and I suspect that in many Canadian universities where the history of Canada's foreign relations is still taught, fish get very little attention. However, as the authors of Fishing for a Solution ably demonstrate, fisheries still matter in Canada's foreign relations. The authors, all well versed in fisheries policy from their academic and government roles, bring both a historical understanding and first-hand experience to the subject. From 1977, when Canada extended its jurisdiction over much of the continental shelf, to 2013, when there were few fish left to catch off Canada's east coast, two of the authors were engaged in making fisheries policy in Canada's relations with the European Union (EU). The third is a leading academic who has written widely on Canada's fishery policy.
This is a remarkably detailed and insightful account of Canada's relations with the EU over the catching of fish in the North Atlantic. The authors convincingly argue that international relations stand at the intersection of domestic and external policies. In this case study, they contend that factors at several different levels impact the Canada–EU relationship. Canada and the EU interact with each other as members of the international community, of course, but their fisheries policies are influenced by subnational units—provinces in Canada and member states in the EU. Canada's east coast provinces, particularly Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, have usually demanded (without much success) a voice in the articulation of fisheries policy. In the EU, Spain and Portugal have exerted considerable pressure on fisheries policy within the EU councils. Although the book recognizes that, in Canada's case, domestic matters have frequently influenced fisheries policy, the focus here is more on the internal dynamics and politics within the EU.
The book begins with Canada's decision in 1977 to extend its jurisdiction over fisheries and mineral wealth 200 miles offshore. It was a buoyant period for Canada's fishery, when many thought that the new policy would usher in a period of expansion and prosperity for Canada's fishers. So confident was Canada that it was willing to share it bounty within the 200-mile exclusive zone and subsequently negotiated agreements with European nations that had historically fished off the east coast. Canada believed that the new agreements realized effective conservation measures while achieving access to European markets for Canadian fish exports. It gave the Europeans access to species Canada did not value and fish that were surplus to domestic needs. However, Canadian exporters soon discovered that EU countries were reluctant to open their markets to Canadian fish imports and within a short period, the rush to harvest fish both within and outside the 200-mile zone resulted in dwindling catches from overfishing.
The focus in this book, however, is not so much the events leading to the destruction of the fish stocks off Canada's east coast but Canada's attempts to establish long-term agreements on fishing on the continental shelf with the EU. The situation became much more complicated in 1985 when Spain and Portugal joined the EU. Both nations have large fishing industries and their powerful fishing regions exerted a strong influence on state policies. Spain and Portugal forced the EU to challenge what they considered Canada's restrictive management approach to conservation even though that approach was gaining momentum in Canada and indeed throughout the EU. Spain and Portugal quickly took advantage of the dreadful procedure within the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), an international organization to monitor and control fishing in the North Atlantic that allowed member states that disagreed with the quotas set for each member simply to dismiss them and set their own autonomous quotas. The catch limits set by the EU to satisfy member states such as Spain and Portugal were always well above the quotas allocated by the NAFO and Canada. As the authors conclude, the EU “lacked the authority, means and inclination to control their [Spanish and Portuguese] fishing behaviour” (118). Yet, both the EU and Canada yielded to domestic pressures to keep their catches high even as the fishing resources were threatened and faced devastation. Still, Canada attempted to control fishing within its 200-mile exclusive zone, but as the fish stock declined, Spain and Portugal, particularly, turned to the stock straddling the 200-mile limit. As the authors note, there was no easy solution to the problem of overfishing.
The authors provide considerable detail of the painstaking process of negotiations within the NAFO and between Canada and the EU to curb overfishing and to generally protect the fish resource. One of the most interesting chapters focuses on turbot, one of the last remaining commercial stocks in the NAFO regulatory area by the early 1990s. With other stocks closed or greatly reduced (Canada shut down most of its ground fish operations in 1993), the EU—essentially Spain and Portugal—opted out of the NAFO-imposed quotas for turbot and set their own catch levels which were much higher than NAFO scientists had recommended. After 1993, with Jean Chrétien as prime minister, Brian Tobin, a Newfoundland member of parliament, as his minister of fisheries, and much of Canada's east coast demanding action on foreign overfishing, Canada embarked on a series of aggressive measures to protect the threatened turbot stocks. The Canadian government became uncharacteristically aggressive toward the EU (and American fishers as well, but this is not the subject of the book). This policy led, in 1995, to the despatch of armed fisheries patrol vessels and Canadian submarines to the Grand Banks and the arrest by Canadian officials of a Spanish fishing trawler in international waters. The Canadian action against a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally sparked an international incident and much rage in Spain and Portugal. Only when the fishing stock had declined almost to extinction, however, were Canada and the EU able to arrive at some reasonably accepted level of protection of the North Atlantic fisheries and even then only after drastic action by Canada to seize a Spanish fishing trawler and tow it back to St. John's. By 2007, NAFO had agreed on new regulations on enforcement of the fishing regulations to preserve fish stocks, but many in the Canadian fishing industry opposed the changes because the EU had succeeded in weakening Canada's influence in the organization and had privileged the role of the European distant water fishing states such as Spain and Portugal.
The proposed new NAFO Convention agreed on in 2007 has not been ratified and the authors sound an ominous warning that they are not convinced, given the difficulties since the late 1970s in international cooperation on distant water fishing, that the international community can work together to allow the fish stocks to recover and provide some stability in the North Atlantic fishery. The story here is essentially the failure of international cooperation.
This book shows clearly the failure of international cooperation in the North Atlantic fishery between Canada and the EU in recent times, and the continued importance of fish in Canadian foreign relations. It is essential reading for any student of Canada's foreign policy.