Canada: Cautious approach to commercial Northern cod fishery welcomed by former harvester and processor

ST. LUNAIRE-GRIQUET, N.L. — Gerard Bartlett is not usually short on words, especially when it comes to talking about fishing, but one question gave him pause for thought. The 64-year-old from St. Lunaire-Griquet left the life of being a fish harvester, a life his father and grandfather had pursued before him, not long after the moratorium on the commercial Northern cod fishery was announced on Canada Day in 1992. During an interview with Saltwire on June 26, just hours after the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard (DFO) announced the moratorium was being lifted after 32 years, Bartlett was asked if he missed fishing. There were a few moments of silence before he answered. “B,y, that’s a hard question,” he said. “Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.” The old days After taking over his father’s enterprise when he was in his late teens, Bartlett fished Northern cod for about two decades until the fishery was shut down by federal fisheries minister ...