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Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 09:40:04 -0300
From: Parker Barss Donham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PARKER:1096] Column 8-12-98 Ghoti Lawsuit
12 August 1998
A coalition of small-boat fishermen and fishing communities asked the
Federal Court this week to stop Ottawa from imposing radical _ and
they believe illegal _ changes in the way fish are managed in Canada.
Some will be quick to dismiss the litigants as yet another ``special
interest group'' attempting an end-run around democracy through the
courts. Herald columnist Jim Meek has already taken a swipe at them.
But it's hard to argue that the sweeping changes now underway in
fisheries management have been accompanied by much if any democracy _
unless you define democracy as the right of the government to do
pretty much whatever it pleases.
Privatization of fish stocks constitutes a seismic change that _ some
argue _ will devastate coastal communities. Yet it has inspired
little public debate outside the industry sectors immediately
affected. Few Nova Scotians have any idea what ITQs and enterprise
allocations are, let alone how they will change this province.
Instead, radical change has been imposed by bureaucratic fiat, while
right wing think tanks with no stake in the human impact of the
changes, but keen interest in them as ideological test cases, cheer
>from the sidelines.
The ideology stems from an influential 1968 article in the journal
Science, ``The Tragedy of the Commons,'' which argued that common
property resources are doomed to over-exploitation.
Author Garret Hardin, an ecologist at the University of California at
Santa Barbara, used the example of a community sheep pasture. It is
in the community's interest to limit the total number of sheep in the
pasture, lest forage suffer. But each individual farmer will want to
put as many of his own sheep in the pasture as possible. As long as
each individual makes his own decisions, the resource is inevitably
overwhelmed.
A solution that finds much favor with neo-conservatives is to
privatize the pasture. Give each farmer a small section of pasture.
He can either use it for his own sheep, or rent or sell it to another
farmer. Now his own best interest coincides with the community goal
of conserving the pasture.
In a common fishery, the theory goes, everyone rushes to the fishing
grounds on opening day, because it is in each fisherman's interest to
catch as much fish as possible before the overall quota is exhausted.
The result is a periodic glut of crudely handled, poor quality fish.
So Ottawa has begun issuing ``individual transferable quotas'' or
ITQs. A fisherman with an ITQ can catch his own quota on his own
timetable _ perhaps waiting until market conditions fetch the best
price, or taking extra care to insure good quality (and a better
price). Or he can rent or sell his quota to a fisherman with a
larger, more efficient boat.
It sounds wonderful _ in theory. The trouble comes in practice.
Wherever ITQs (and their corporate equivalents, known as enterprise
allocations) have been tried, the result has been a rapid
concentration of the fishery in the hands of a few, wealthy owners.
To an economist concerned only with the overall efficiency of
economic output, that looks great. What's lost is the industry's
ability to sustain tens of thousands of families and hundreds of small
coastal communities.
The conflict boils down to one of the essential issues of our time:
do people exist to serve the economy, or does the economy exist to
serve people?
This issue warrants the fullest possible discussion, but has received
little. DFO has been able to impose privatization without widespread
debate because most of the public finds the industry incomprehensibly
complex. Incomprehensibility works to the policy-makers' advantage,
since Canadians who object to the change lack confidence in their own
understanding of the issue. At the same time, the groundfish collapse
has persuaded everyone that radical change is needed.
The irony is that the same bureaucrats whose stewardship of the cod
fishery was such a spectacular failure are imposing policies to reward
the very companies whose rapacious fleets caused the problem in the
first place, while punishing the small boat fishermen who have been
its chief victims.
The small-boat fishermen who went to court this week say Ottawa lacks
constitutional jurisdiction to create property rights in the fishery,
and existing fisheries legislation specifically prohibits it from
doing so.
But are the courts the right place to fight the issue?
``It is a process where you can be sure that you will be heard, where
you will be taken seriously,'' said Bruce Wildsmith, the soft-spoken
lawyer for the small-boat fishermen. ``It's slow and it's complicated
and it's expensive, but you can't brushed aside too lightly if you
have a point to be made.''
Gee. Sounds a lot like democracy.
<I> Copyright (c) 1998 by Parker Barss Donham. All rights reserved.
<I>
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Parker Barss Donham | 902-674-2953 (vox)
8190 Kempt Head Road | 902-674-2994 (fax)
Bras d'Or, NS B0C-1B0 | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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