The year: 1983.
The issue: restructuring three bankrupt private fish companies into what would eventually become Fishery Products International.
The solution: the federal government decided in late June 1983 to bypass the provincial government and invest $75 million in federal cash. The resulting company was supposed to be entirely in the private sector with the federal government owning shares along with other investors.
The source: A Globe and Mail story - left - by Michael Harris. [Note: To read the article, click on the picture and you can open it in a larger version.]
The previous May, the federal and provincial governments had a memorandum of understanding - according to the story signed by then fish minister Jim Morgan - but after a series of changes and further disagreements, federal fisheries minister Pierre de Bane turned up in St. John's to announce the "go-it-alone" option.
This is offered only as a curiosity since there are plenty of more clippings and many more details to the fishery restructuring in the mid-1980s and the eventual creation of FPI.
Still, it is interesting to see the federal and provincial governments in a disagreement.
It's even more interesting to see the willingness of the feds to go it alone on a fisheries issue.
Doesn't sound like the story you get from the usual sources, does it?
-srbp-
Update: The story appeared on the front page of the Globe and Mail. There's another little thing the local myth-mongers won't like. The paper they love to hate as the read it every day actually put a major story about this province on the front page.
