well Peter this isn't exactly the picture that comes to mind for most people when they think of newfinland but 25 years ago these doors and what was going on on either side represented the end of almost 500 years of New Finland history fishing the northern [Music] C it was quite a scene playing out on National Television outside barred from the room angry New Finland fisherman trying to get in this is an amount that the that we think should look after any emergency while inside federal fisheries Minister John Crosby was presiding over the largest mass layoff in Canadian history did you expect this kind of reaction when you brought this announcement down they don't need to go berserk trying to batter on doors to frighten me but this day July 2nd 1992 was more like the end of the [Music] story the beginning of the story is out here on the North Atlantic the breeding grounds of the northern Cod a species once so plentiful it was said you could almost walk on their backs across the [Music] water no sign of cod this morning or much of anything else besides ice as far as the eye can see out there somewhere are gour Jane's crab and lobster there's times you got to take a chance right well you thought you were clear of it enough to put the pots in the water yeah we did and and seemed like window came in it came in so fast that we never had time to get the gear up anyway my pots are out there probably couple of Miles window he backs off now we'll go and take inventory and see if there's anything left whatever is left we'll try to figure out how to make a living with call it insult to injury lobster season will be soon over you got some lobsters pounded there yeah that's what we got the caught so far the year that's it that's it great price no lobsters just another reminder of 25 years of struggle he used to keep his Cod traps in here where are your Cod traps these days well actually I I cut out two and burned them yeah burned for scrap when they shut it all down not that he was surprised you know eventually it had to happen right and uh I think uh it took someone like John Crosby I think to really uh put it into perspective and say that you know this is enough it got to be shut down and and uh I hate to admit it but you know the man was right uh you know it definitely had to be shut down there was nowhere for them to hide in the 60s 7s and ' 80s modern technology found its way to the high seas the spawning grounds of the northern Cod and a systematic process of elimination begin 12 months of the year 24 hours a day they fished a large Canadian Fleet but foreigners too the Spanish Portuguese and the Russians from 1962 to 1977 alone the harvestable biomass of the northern Cod dropped 82% the scientists kept overestimating the stock size and Canadian politicians kept setting higher quotas but inshore the thousands of fishermen who also relied on that fish could see what was happening Glenn Winslow certainly could because we see the catch rates going down you know around the land I mean and I'll tell you another thing we see we see the fish getting smaller he had just invested a million dollars into a bigger operation to chase the fish offshore we took possession of a new boat rigged for catfish and ground fishing and when was that that was uh that was two weeks before the moratorium and two weeks later closed her down couldn't believe us these days the man who had to deliver the news lives here this is my chair in the House of Commons 25 years later John Crosby Still calls it the worst moment of his political career as the senior New Finland member of the [ __ ] government it fell to him to shut down 500 years of fishing he got an inkling of what he was facing the day before in the fishing community of Bay Bulls and when I saw angry mou there I knew that if I showed any timidity or or that I look frightened or or they could scare me or whatever that I had to take I had to take the first step you decided the best defense was a good offense at the beginning I knew that I had to I had to do something unusual and he did he attacked AB I didn't take the fish from the godamn water godamn you people you could have wound up in the harbor I might been over the War I probably would have been in the harbor myself that day emergency situation that been on now for years this is not the first year that I've had a disaster the next day the day he had to lay off almost 40,000 people it got worse there are too many people trying to make a living from that resource at the present time when the fisherman heard the initial compensation package would amount to about $225 a week he got answer of us bu they decided to confront Crosby who had been barricaded inside Glenn Winslow was in the crowd that's one of his crew members trying to beat down the door one of the the fellas that you'll see it on on on the news every now and then trying to get into the door actually fish with me that day what they didn't know at the time was that they were actually doing John Crosby a favor nice actually nice to see you have a good holiday Brian morone and his cabinet had been elected preaching fiscal restraint the package was the best Crosby could do until the cabinet saw the racket on National Television probably helped to get a better compensation oh definitely definitely did the cost of the Compensation Program which originally we had thought might be several several hundred million turned out to be 4 billion dollars as far as I know Glenn Winslow has an admission too John Crosby was right but now when you look back at it 25 years later what do you think of the decision oh was definitely the right decision it should have been made earlier for a while the oil and gas industry helped people find work or the province's labrador Mega Power project but the real cost was paid in the people lost tens of thousands left it's like someone died in the family like someone took away their rights is it lot of people's homes are going to be gone cars gone but this is going back to the soup kitchen days deep down in my gut today there's a knob and a tear in the eye to look out like I said where I once where I once belong and don't belong there anymore take care take [Music] care [Music] it's always really being about the fish Glenn Winslow and his crew Survive by going even bigger so this has all the technology has two GPS's there's two Sounders aboard there's actually three Radars aboard yeah two computers what's a boat like this worth this one today I'd say should be well over 2 million when you get into a vessel L this rge and the debt that's involved in it yeah and you have only so much time in the year to uh make the the capital that's required to keep this vessel going that's your pressure that's right and that pressure landed right on other species like crab and shrimp both lucrative Fisheries that everyone wanted to fish it helped the value of the seafood industry in the province top $1.4 billion last year a record but there's a problem there's every indication they too are now in trouble quotas have been severely cut gour Janes went at the crab too his wife Pat worked in the boat with him doubling the household income helped them survive now his quota has been cut almost in half he's heard people arguing The Crab stock has declined because of environmental conditions he just doesn't believe it they blame the environmental issue for The Disappearance of the Cod too you know there's nothing environmental about over fishing you know you take you're taking too much and you know it's a simp simple as that yeah species can't take the pressure it can't you know you just can't how much Cod do you suppose has been landed here over the centuries I can imagine a fair bit was landed here and now the pressure is back on the federal fishery scientists to allow them to once again increase Northern cod fishing but 25 years later the spawning biomass is still barely a third the size it needs to be to sustain a commercial fishery where did your grandfather fish he fished off Western Bay I think Karen DWI is the government's lead biologist on Northern Cod she's heard the Fisheries Union calling to increase quotas she's resisting do you feel that pressure that pressure is definitely there especially for Fisheries managers um I think because the stock is still where it is in that lower half of the critical Zone I think that it's not the answer right now but it does indicate we need to be more careful yeah with what we're doing on this stock yeah we we can't get this wrong twice no yeah we don't want to get it wrong twice so for now the most widespread Cod fishery will remain recreational any new finlander is allowed to fish for COD to eat during certain times in the summer so this is the working deck out here yeah yes it is yeah Glenn Winslow is gearing up for the possibility of increased commercial quotas anyway but he says the days of the old way of doing things have to be gone you know I think everyone is starting to realize now that uh for this Fisheries to survive in the future you know after 25 years of a moratorium that we better get the technology right we better get the way we're harvesting fishery cuz if we don't I'll tell you it'll be 25 years wasted still when you ask the question so do you think anything has really changed um well I tell you what you taken a long time to answer that one uh I hope they have I don't know if they really have gour James has very little faith that much has changed so history is repeating itself history is repeating itself sir exactly the way I predicted and you can mark that down somewhere cuz that's the way it's going to go or that the northern Cod will really be back anytime soon I'm going to guarant you I want to live lying off the Sea of cod fishery back in full if people thinks you know that we're going to get the to ro the fish cod like we did one time forget it it's not going to [Music] happen his wife has turned to painting for a hobby and to make a few dollars but her fishing days are done not a real good outlook is it Gore Jane says he won't be far behind her if he can find his pots he'll finish out the year but he may then join the ranks of thousands of others who have turned their backs on the fishery for the last time red Sharon CBC News in Salvage New Finland