Our film, released in February 2021, by Canadian Geographic and McIntrye Media, with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts puts a thirty-year-old story back in the spotlight. Watch the film here, and read all of the background on Canadian Geographic as well as here, including details about all of the collaborators. There’s also an educator’s version of the film with teaching resources available at McIntyre Media.
Last Fish, First Boat debuted in 2021
FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, September 16-23: showtime is Sep 20, 6:20pm at Park Lane cinema on Spring Garden Road in Halifax as part of the NextGen Shorts program (preview all of the shorts here) | Also available through FIN Stream | Meet filmmaker Kat Frick Miller pre-show!
Lunenburg Doc Fest, September 23-29: show times coming soon
St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival 2021: also featured on the CBC Shorts program
IN THE NEWS:
Spawned by the Moratorium: A new short film explores the cod moratorium’s ripple effects. (July, 2021). Downhome Magazine.
St. John’s Morning Show. (Feb 22, 2021). CBC NL (radio).
“To anyone starting over”: A review of Last Fish, First Boat. (Feb 23, 2021). The Independent (NL).
THE FILM:
Released February 18, 2021
Jenn Thornhill Verma 
I probably should have read your book but I got tired of the authors who wrote so poorly about what led to the 1992 situation and decision!
The current situation seems like the 1991 situation in which everyone involved has turned into a protagonist. What I learned was that the volume of disagreement and extent of finger pointing is a better measure of fish populations than any VPA!
The reason we got to a moratorium decision was that during winter 91/92, under the guise of a provincial fisheries advisory committee, we finally had all the interests at one table, we worked with DFO science so that everybody understood the facts, we discussed the inputs (and the lack of any policy questions about the longterm or any rebuilding) to management recommendations and political decisions. All of this was done with the key science, management and policy people, the union president, NIFA, Nat Sea VP, FPI CEO, other processor owner etc. Everybody worked to a common understanding which, by accident, I got manipulated into presenting to Minister Crosbie. We thought it would take a year, but, 5 weeks later he closed the fishery that the industry w as trying to shut down!
Is there a lesson? Noise, advocacy and assumptions that someone has a longterm plan they are defending just leads to delay and compromise. There should never have been a recreational fishery or sentinel fisheries created. We micromanaged(?) a stock that was not sustaining itself to oblivion; I cannot believe that people are arguing for a fishery on one that is even less sustainable!
Oh, and the seals! Did I hear that before, or was it the foreigners, or the offshore daggers, or the small mesh cod traps. No, all of the above and nobody wanting to blink…
LikeLike