The history of the world has been one in which the life , welfare and provision of people is nearly totally dependent on regional natural resources available to the people of that area. A necessity for people in any part of the globe to have a decent level of subsistence, and adequate standard of living, is that these people have access to these resources and the right to a fair share of the economic benefit of there development.
Since the beginning of civilization, rulers, whether they be ancient kings, dictators, emperors, or modern democratic parties have, to a one, usurped power and prosperity from resources for their own ends. This process put the mass of people to work on the resources for profit to the haves, making have not's and destitution for themselves!
For example the present English democratic system involving privileges of the countries land Lords and Barons, signed into law in 1215 by King John in the magna carta, is a classic example of the success, (or failure depending on your view), of elevating and ingraining the elite on the backs of the commoner! The ownership of the resources of the land is past, generation after generation, from father Lord to son, as is his title, keeping it's value forever out of reach of the people.
This rule of English democracy has at it's pinnacle the Queen, who is the richest women in England , perhaps the world, and made her the single largest land owner in all of the British Commonwealth! All this while millions of Britons are subsisting on unemployment, welfare and living at poverty level.
Using the English as example was not to find fault with their way of governance but to show that whom ever controls the land, the natural resources and it's development will control the wealth, and prosperity of the world. Indeed, for the most part, the world itself.
The Canadian government's autocratic parliamentary treatment of the NL fishing resource, which came under her control in the confederation of 1949, has been no different in principle from that of dictatorship control and personal use of a natural resources. The Canadian Government's treatment and disrespect of a 500 year old Martine culture and sea faring people is a disgraceful display of global, 21st century, hypocrisy, ignorance and violation of the human rights of a people. A violation of the human rights of her own Citizens, the coastal peoples of Newfoundland and Labrador.
No doubt Canadian 21st century democracy is kinder to its people then governments of ancient times but the division between the government elite and coastal poor is as wide as it ever was between Barron and peasant of feudal times! For 60 years Ottawa has taken for its self, and used in any way possible for it's central strength, all the power and economic benefit it can from the fishery. In the process she has abandoned the resource to it's destruction by NAFO foreigners and ignored the plight of dissemination and despair of a once great Martine people of the sea.
The Canadian Government has pursued a nefarious path in it’s mismanagement of our Fishery , one which allowed the destruction of the way of life of half the peoples who survived off it for 500 years, leaving near destitution for those that remain. They shattered a marine culture, replacing a once proud and skilled work force with demeaning unemployment. Fact. If this criminal act on its own people were not enough they also have presided over 90% of the resources destruction with out as much as asking, to this day, why has this happened? Or how can this destruction of the worlds most prolific fishing grounds to halted!
Recent comments in the media from fishers, mayors, union heads, local ministers, MP's, and the silence of our elected MHA's & MP's are a painful distance from what is needed to save the Fishery. MOU's, restructuring and rationalization, as it stands at present, are but the acceptance and submission to the age old process of higher authorities taking the wealth and power out of our fishing heritage (as described above). They have milked it down to 10% of its former greatness and they continue to suck the last drops of benefit out of it for their own greed and position.
None of their actions, all of their actions, at this time will mean anything in time to save our resource. If the province does not stand up now and demand Ottawa protect the resource , for us and not foreigners, it is over for us. We all can see what Ottawa is doing now as they pass a new NAFO convention against the peoples vote, invite fishing pirates to PEI to do science in our waters and pat the port bared Faroese and Danes on the back and permit Canadians, even Newfoundlander’s, to sell shares of Canadian quotas inside the 200 mile limit to foreigners. Ottawa has no respect for our Fishery, they never have. They have decided to give away our continental shelf and fish resource to EU and the world.
If we in this province can’t get the Williams government to demand Ottawa make policy changes which would protect the resource for ourselves , not foreigners, the fishery will be no more.
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