"A dubious victory in the fish war"

In Easter Week, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of victory in Europe, how appropriate that the end of the so-called fish war between Canada and Spain should bring cries of betrayal on one side and cheers of triumph on the other. It confirms that the most welcome benefit of peace will be the silencing of the rhetorical artillery.

Predictably, both countries have overstated the impact of the agreement. Canada crowed too much, Spain complained too much. The peace of Brussels is neither as good as Canada says nor as bad as Spain says. Indeed, looking at its terms, we wonder about what was gained.

For Canada, the agreement means 10,000 tonnes of turbot this year. That's 4,000 tonnes more than its allocation in 1994, but 6,300 tonnes less than the 16,300 tonnes agreed in February, which represented 60 per cent of the total allowable catch of 27,000 tonnes. On the face of it, Canada has accepted less than its original quota for 1995 while retaining a catch greater than that of last year.

But Canada didn't catch its full quota in 1994 and was unlikely to catch more than 4,000 tonnes this year, so this was an easy concession to the European Community. All of which raises a question. If Canada didn't plan to use its allotment, why did it insist on a quota of 10,000 tonnes in the first place? Moreover, given the sulphurous response from the fishermen of Galacia, why did Canada sign a deal that gave the Spanish only 3,400 tonnes of turbot, 12 per cent of the allowable catch? A quota that miserly was surely unsustainable. It was an invitation to overfishing.

But the real objective for Canada in all this, we are told, was an enforcement mechanism. The weekend agreement does provide for a monitoring regime that would place an independent observer on fishing trawlers. But as Greenpeace has noted, one person can't possibly monitor fishing 24 hours a day. And because ships are at sea for weeks, there may well be pressure from the crew on observers to ignore violations.

More over, if there are violations, they will be reported to the European Community (not an independent body), which will dispatch a representative empowered to send the ship into port. The home country of the vessel will then decide to prosecute violators and punish them. Hardly an ironclad process.

This, though, is the victory that Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin talks about as if it were the greatest for Canada since 1945. This is the reason the government "took risks that perhaps we aren't used to taking", to establish a regime that perhaps Canada "can now offer the world as a model". Would Canada have acted as aggressively against the Americans, the British or the French?

And what of the cost to Canada, the peaceable kingdom whose sailors seize an unarmed ship in international waters, whose politicians strut like puffed-up penguins and whose quiescent citizens suddenly turn belligerent? The damage cannot be measured in tonnes of fish. Most likely, if this action prefigures more acts of coercion on the high seas, the cost will be integrity, reliability and effectiveness in the councils of the world.

Canada, traditionally the world's helpful fixer and honest broker, will be trusted less. The loss of stature will not be apparent overnight. We will realize it the day an outlaw nation - one with less capital than Canada, acting on intentions less honourable than conservation - seizes a ship in international waters. To justify its piracy, it will cite Canada as precedent.

At root, something was gained in all this by means we dislike, in a style that speaks of little boys. On with the ticker-tape parade.