The Hand that Feeds

If I am to tell this so you will understand, i would have to back track a few years.  This area, and indeed most of Newfoundland and the Atlantic provinces relied almost entirely on the cod fishery for the bulk of its income.  For generations, entire families went out in the boat and fished the sea.  The fish were plentiful and families prospered, children were born in abundance, and grew up in fishing boats, or helping out in the processing.  When they grew up, it was a natural progression for them to become fishers as well.  This continued, pretty much unchanged for centuries, until 1992. 

In 1992, because of the dramatic decrease in the cod stocks, caused by a combination of factors such as foreign overfishing, improved harvesting methods and a billion other supposed reasons, the government here issued a moratorium, a ban on fishing cod.  No longer could families earn their living from the ocean that had served them so long.  It was intended that this would be temporary, that in a couple of years the fish would have returned in abundance and all would proceed again.  So in the interim, the government in their wisdom decided they would offer some compensation to the affected fishermen and fish processing plant workers who's livlihood had now been forbidden.  they devised a program of ongoing payments...fishers got paid a paycheque from the government every two weeks as a replacement for the earnings they would have gotten should the fishery have still been open.  This continued for a couple of years, thousands of people with a guaranteed income for doing nothing, and so the dependance began. 

Two years passed, and scientists milled about busily taking samples and readings of the stocks....the news was grim.  Atlantic cod on the verge of extinction...no recovery of stocks.  The people panicked...the governemnt scrambled...and decided to continue the program, known as TAGS *the atlantic groundfish strategy* for a longer period of time...the people stopped panicking, and complacency grew....the first generation of Newfoundlanders were growing up never having known a fishing boat...but knowing all too well that every second week the government would send daddy a cheque.... 

In June of 1998...the scientists again milled about...presiding over media coverage like demi-gods.  There are no fish they preached...there can be no fishing....burn your boats and move away.  The people looked on with jaded eyes, smug in their certainty that the government would still provide... 

The news came as an atomic bomb might...there will be no more TAGS, the money has gone...we will no longer support the fishermen in their waiting game.  The government had spoken...and complacency was shattered, revealing the terror beneath.  People who had once struggled for every dollar..who had once worked 14 hours a day of back breaking labour to find the fish that would give them survival, people who once had dignity....now  discovered a whole new reality....the reality of what a government can do to it's people.  Newfoundlanders have always been known as strong people...it was their strength and their courage which enabled them to survive the unforgiving Atlantic every day, but in the span of six years, those people had now been reduced to the greedy, self centred, children the system had allowed them to become... believing that they were deserving of all they had received, and infuriated because the government had the nerve to take what was theirs...how dare they take my cheque!  What do they expect us to do now....????  they will have to give us something.... 

And so the government has again thrown them a final bone...in the shape of short term work projects of about 14 weeks in duration, long enough to allow people to qualify for unemployment insurance, long enough to hopefully shut them up.  And it is these projects that we have to administer, and get people hired for.  Over 700 positions in all...spanning about 50 small communities. 

And it is because of these projects that I have seen just how ugly the people here have let themselves become.  I see neighbour fighting against neighbour...I see people threatening others because they were fortunate enough to be hired already, I see people, desperate people, going to great lengths to be one of the chosen, I see the anger every moment of every day, clients hurtling insults, threats, ugliness at everyone in our office as if we are the enemy, but though it all...more than anything else.I see the fear.  I can see it in the face of everyone who walks into the office, of everyone I talk with, or try to calm down.  They are lost, and so they lash out with fists and vulgarities and tears and any other means that helps them cope, that might help them accept that the person they used to be has vanished with the fishery, and all that remains are disillusioned memories of the dignity that once was... 

I understand it all, see this from both sides, as a daughter that learned about life in a fishing boat, and as the slave of a government who would have me be their sacrificial messenger.  I know the whats, and I know the whys...have even worked on the development of some of these programs on a regional level...I am a part of it, no better than any of them... 

But how many bureaucrats on high have to see the eyes of the people every day, how many see the emptiness behind those eyes....or hear the hopelessness in their angry pleas....

I don't think I can do this any more...I don't want to be a part of this anymore....but I fear I am as lost as they are.