Wrinkles (III)

John Furlong started off on what turned out to b an appropriately prejudging note in his “trade deals” exposé, starring Brian Peckford, on Tuesday:

Well, as I read the correspondence that you outlined in your article in The Telegram, there’s lots of evidence you were concerned, but was there any sign that the feds acknowledged that this was going on?

Yes, there was lots of evidence as far as Peckford is concerned. Again – remember the wrinkle-cream ads – this is not the same thing as there actually being evidence! The very tenor of the question, “was there any sign that the feds acknowledged that this was going on” implies, very strongly, that “this”, whatever “this” is, “was going on.”

It’s a classic “when did you stop beating your wife?” question.

Peckford replies:

I think they acknowledged it by their silence, because I don’t remember them ever coming really back and saying, “no, we’re not doing this,” if you will. Since that time, I’ve done a bit more research in the documents that I quoted in that article, for example, we did know, back in 1983, that for the year 1982, 66,000 metric tonnes of cod was allocated to foreign places. Of that amount, about 20,000 was in 2J3KL inside the 200-mile limit. So, and on it goes, for redfish, and turbot, and flatfish, and so on.

The Telegram has already deconstructed the logical fallacy in that statement, successfully proving, on the same logical measure, the existence of the extra-terrestrial cheese-people, who should probably make Furlong, and Peckford, either very afraid (or very hungry) as they lie awake thinking about them tonight.

Peckford responded to the question citing a string of fish allocations. He does not state, or even suggest, let alone provide evidence, that these allocations were part of any “trade deals”, let alone inform the audience, or Furlong, what was traded for those allocations. But does that stop the good host? No, of course it does not:

Presumably, this was then to, either used as barter or to sweeten deals that would allow for higher trades of Canadian wheat or Canadian wines, or there would have been something in it for Canada like that.

“Presumably” being the most important word of that utterance, not for the least reason that Peckford himself hadn’t suggested, unprompted, any such thing! And, just like one of John Edward’s cold-reading suckers, Peckford agrees:

Yes, yes. And this is where it gets a bit fuzzy for me right now.

It gets fuzzy: the most honest utterance in the entire exchange. Our Brian the First continues:

But I do remember even a piece of correspondence that I don’t have right now, where I actually highlighted what it was they were involved in at the time, right, in trading fish to get something back.

So, the “proof” of Brian’s assertion is a (conveniently missing) document in which, he says, he… made the same assertion.

That’s convincing.

And he continues:

So there were two things at play, one was to allocate additional quantities of fish for so-called “market access”. But as we argued in all the documents through the 1980s, you were cutting off your nose in spite of our face, because you were giving them fish that they then would have, and therefore we wouldn’t be able to get a market for what was left back in Newfoundland. So, I mean, it’s counterproductive to say “I’m going to get more markets for my fish by giving them more raw fish.” Well, then, that only reduces the market that we’re going to get.

...thereby leading evidence for what’s already been common knowledge: there were fisheries management and allocation deals, which involved “trading” fish for… well, fish:

The closest that government policy ever came to using quota allocations to acquire commercial concessions was during the "markets access for allocations" period when bilateral fisheries agreements with a number of countries included commitments to purchase Canadian fish products in exchange for quota allocations. The commitments to purchase Canadian fish products under these arrangements were so unsuccessful overall that the policy lasted for only a very short period. In any event, they involved "fish purchases for fish allocations".

Peckford continues again:

And all of the fish, obviously, should have been allocated to Canada. So these discretionary allocations, right, there were some to the French that had to be done, because of the history of the French Shore, blah blah blah [sic], the Treaty of Versailles, Utrecht, and all the rest of them, and the Treaty of Paris, until we got that final d—

His history lesson, even minus the rarely-persuasive “blah blah blah”, is a bit odd – skipping, rather importantly, the Entente cordiale of 1904. And, again, Peckford quotes, by way of “proof”, himself, in another letter in which he, strangely, makes no mention of the “trade deals” whose existence he has, supposedly, set out to prove:

But there were some discretionary allocations of fish. And I think the most telling one, John, was where I quoted the letter I sent to Mr. Crosbie, where, that was actually happening at that time, that was in 1987, where I actually say the Government of Canada has offered non-surplus 2J3KL cod, in other words northern cod, to France. And highlighting in that letter, too, by the way, the fact that, you know, northern cod was in trouble. Right back to 1980 we were arguing with the federal government that the northern cod was in trouble, so when in 1983 it actually failed, people like myself, and a lot of fishermen, a lot of inshore fishermen around Newfoundland, knew this was going to happen.

Host and tele-guest then have the following discussion of the allocation which engendered the “sold the shop!” line:

FURLONG: And this was, this particular incident, this was in advance, I believe, of the arrival of the Prime Minister of France, in an effort to, this was your famous “they sold the shop” comment, to try to smooth relations between Canada and France over the St. Pierre boundary issue, is that right?

PECKFORD: Exactly, this was part of the boundary, that’s what’s mentioned in that letter.

FURLONG: And John Crosbie apologized for the way it was done, but not for the fact that it was done?

PECKFORD: Exactly. Yup.

in which, once again, there is not one iota, not a jot, of evidence of “trade deals”. Does that stop the leading questions from behind the mic? Of course not!

And is it too, does it make any kind of economic sense, though, for Canada, I mean, maybe there are, maybe it is more economical for Canada to be more concerned about trading wheat, or trading Canadian wines, or lumber, than it is to be trading fish?

(Yes, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, were just salivating at the thought of buying all that good Canadian… wine.)

Peckford replies:

Then they should make that case. And that’s the problem we’ve had in Newfoundland, is that the feds, especially in the fishery area, they have never made that case.

You know who else has never made a case?

You know, all of these documents that I quoted, you go back and read up the total documents, all the pages, the whole documents, all of them, up through from 1980 right through to 1987, 88, we were making a case.

But oddly, not “making a case” against the malevolent “trade deals”. Why not?

And then Peckford launches into another ahistorical rant, in which, yet again, he fails to provide any proof of the “trade deals” that are supposedly the subject of the interview. (“Ahistorical”, because Peckford’s attempt to deal with fisheries jursdiction as part of the 1980s-era constitutional megaprojects did not occur until 1987 – five years after patriation, six and seven years after the patriation conferences.)

And that case was never, what shall I say, destroyed, or destructed, by anything coming back from the feds. That’s the sad part about it, the silence was golden, right, because being so small, and at that time, not as powerful as we are now, they could easily ignore what we were saying. They even ignored us, John, during the patriation of the Constitution, we had all the provinces on side to do a new deal on fisheries jurisdiction, whereby the powers would be balanced more fairly, and we would have more say, and it was the federal government who, unilaterally if you will, just said no.

Furlong and Peckford buy into not only the myth, but the X-files-style conspiracy, too:

FURLONG: Now I presume you won’t get a lot of support in Ottawa for this analysis, because, you know, no one will confirm it to you, and I presume there’s nothing written down that anyone will point to, and is that because Ottawa, what, is too sensitive to allow this kind of thing to squirt out there?

PECKFORD: Yeah. I don’t know, I mean, like historically, the present government in Ottawa could easily acknowledge, you know, that these things did happen, and we weren’t there, we weren’t at the wheel, right? So, they could easily do that now, if they wanted to, but as I said in my piece, you know, historically, you know, there’s an awful lot of ammunition available to say that this trading kind of circumstance was going on which was detrimental to the best interests of Newfoundland.

A former Prime Minister can't keep a paper bag full of cash secret, but Ottawa has successfully suppressed all evidence of the fish-for-trade deals? Really?

And, yet again, in the utter absence of any evidence, the host makes a conclusion that has not been suggested, unprompted, by the guest, let alone proven:

But, you know, when you mention that it against Newfoundland’s interests, even though it would be against Newfoundland’s interest, it would be in the interests of Ontario or the Prairies and I guess the reality is that there’s more votes in Ontario, in Canadian wine country, or out west in the wheat industry, than there are the seven votes in Newfoundland in the fishery.

A great time for Peckford to chime in with proof of the fish-for-wheat or – oh, this is so funny – fish-for-wine deals. But nope – another rant:

Absolutely. Absolutely, and that’s why we weren’t successful at the time. Notwithstanding all these documents. However, there was a fairly, I did a cross-country tour a couple of times on the fishery and stuff, there was an acknowledgement that we weren’t a fair deal on the whole fishery thing, and that’s why even some of the more reluctant provinces agreed to this new constitutional change, and had all the provinces on side.

And just to drive it home, Furlong once again draws the unsubstantiated conclusion:

So you’re saying that it’s reasonable to believe that based on the documentation in your possession, about the federal government and fish quotas, Ottawa was trading fish off the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, for, we’ll say, “questionable return, either in the form of so-called ‘market access’ or other products”?

And Peckford responds, not by finally providing some evidence, but by conveniently reversing the onus!

Or for other levers that would enhance other places in Canada, yes, that’s what I’m saying. The information that I have leads me to believe that there’s validity in that statement. Now, it’s up to somebody else to prove me wrong, you know.

And, joy of joys, there’s a postscript. Peckford goes rummaging in his files (there’s a tax credit if you donate wicked stuff like that to an archive, you know?) and reports back:

FURLONG: That’s former Premier Brian Peckford. Now later this afternoon I received this note from him, and he says that he found the information he was looking for, and he says, the total allocation of cod to foreign countries so allocated in 1982, 66,000 metric tonnes, of cod, redfish 52,000 tonnes, flatfish 10,000, and turbot 11,000. He says of the cod, 20,000 tonnes was northern cod. That’s from Brian Peckford.

So as a final note on the subject, Peckford once again “proves” that so many tonnes of so many species were allocated to un-named foreign countries… but, even having had the time to consult his files again for the smoking gun, he does not come up with anything to answer those all-important questions:

WHO traded fish quotas to foreign countries?

To WHICH foreign countries?

In exchange for WHAT trade or foreign policy considerations or concessions?

WHEN did these deals occur?

WHAT was their duration?

WHERE were they signed or otherwise approved, and by WHOM?

WHY did this happen?

HOW, that is, under authority of what domestic or international legal regime, was this fish-for-X practice carried on?

John? Gus? Anyone?