opinion
Prairie farmers, like other Canadians, should cheer Ottawa’s victory in the so-called Turbot War. It’s refreshing to see the national government doing something right, especially when it involves defending hard-pressed primary producers against foreign predators.
Like grain farmers, Atlantic fishermen have had to contend with the stressful cycles of nature, politics, and economics.
In recent years they have also been confronted by irresponsible foreign fishing fleets that threatened to destroy resources through overfishing.
In the case of turbot, also known as Greenland halibut, Ottawa moved decisively to stop the overfishing before the turbot resource was destroyed. Armed ships seized one Spanish trawler and cut the nets of others that were breaking international rules in their greed for maximum tonnage. Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin flamboyantly posed at a United Nations conference with seized nets that had illegally small mesh.
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All this seemed quite unCanadian, not like our traditional quiet, polite diplomacy. But it worked.
Hours before armed Canadian and Spanish navy ships were to encounter each other, Canada and Europe agreed to new rules to protect fish stocks, both inside and outside Canada’s 200-mile nautical jurisdiction.
Part of the credit should also go to Britain, which shattered European Community solidarity by supporting Canada. British fishing boats spontaneously flew Canadian flags, and the Royal Navy, with helpful timing, seized a Spanish trawler that had been fishing illegally near the Isles of Scilly.
This international effort to halt overfishing, of course, was not aimed only at helping Canadian fishermen. A major strategic goal was to ensure a sustainable, long-term North Atlantic fishery for everyone’s benefit. But the financial hardships already being endured by the families who depend on Canada’s fishing boats added a powerful urgency and moral legitimacy to Canada’s arguments.
Perhaps unfortunately, gunboats wouldn’t be an appropriate tool in Canada’s arguments with the United States over wheat sales. (Besides, our side already burned the White House once during a naval raid and it didn’t seem to do any long-term good.)
But wheat farmers can hope Ottawa will show the same determination and toughness against predatory U.S. agricultural policy that it showed against the European fishing trawlers.
As Brian Tobin demonstrated, when your cause is just and you defend it vigorously, even the bigger powers tend to back off. There’s a lesson here that ministers of agriculture, trade and foreign affairs should consider.
