Peter Fenwick

Peter Fenwick, former AIMS Director of Communications, has revised this commentary piece, originally published in August 2001. In it he argues that Newfoundland needs to replace its “stamp up” fishery - a fishery designed to provide enough work to secure EI for the workers - with a fishery that is sustainable and productive. In order to achieve that one hundred fish plants will have to close. More to the point, these plants must close at the earliest possible moment in order to give rural Newfoundlanders a chance to rebuild. To allow the closures to happen gradually as plant workers retire (apparently the current strategy of the Newfoundland government) will simply mean that new endeavours will not have the workforce necessary for development - denying rural Newfoundland the more promising future such new endeavours could provide.

AIMS’ voice on the Newfoundland scene, takes aim in this piece at the anti-business stance of the Newfoundland and Labrador government in its dealings with Fisheries Products International. The company has developed plans to invest millions in new technology to create a high quality, highly professional fishery with plants that operate year-round. All agree that a modernized fishery is in the best interests of Newfoundland; the problem arises because a modern fishery requires a smaller workforce and work is already scarce in Newfoundland. Moving to protect current constituents from harm, the government is acting in a manner that, Fenwick argues, amounts to “nationalization without compensation” and will threaten, not protect, the very jobs the government is trying to preserve.

After FPI announced it was putting tens of millions of dollars into modernizing three south coast plants and would have to lay off almost half the work force, politicians responded with hearings on the FPI Act. The public anger at the hearings was real, and the language abusive. In this commentary, Peter Fenwick, AIMS’ voice on Newfoundland and Labrador issues, says that now that FPI has been hobbled by the Newfoundland legislature, the future of the south coast is even more problematic. If the haemorrhaging of population from the south coast reported in the latest Census is to be staunched, it will only be by companies like FPI. Modernization has to go forward if any fish processing jobs are to be saved, but how FPI will finance it under the new rules remains to be seen.