Why a Great Lakes Fishery Commission? The seven-decade pursuit of a Canada-U.S. fishery treaty

Canada and the United States share the Great Lakes and, for most of the region’s history, cross-border collaboration over the fishery was nonexistent, resulting in serious economic and ecological harm. This paper, which covers the time span of the late 1800s to 1955, traces the efforts during that period to establish a binational treaty to govern the Great Lakes fishery. We explore the circumstances Great Lakes fishers found themselves in at the dawn of the last century, the chaos caused when multiple jurisdictions would not cooperate (called the “divided governance” problem), the political pressures stakeholders exerted to kill unacceptable agreements and promote agreements they liked, and the scientists who made biological cases to act. The road to establish a body to ensure collaboration was long and tortuous and included two failed attempts at a treaty, one in 1908 and one in 1946. The third attempt, the 1954 Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries, succeeded, and it created the Great Lakes Fishery Commission as a permanent mechanism for bilateral cooperation. As part of the Sea Lamprey International Symposium III (SLIS) volume, here we ask, “Why a Great Lakes Fishery Commission?” We argue that, by 1954, influential persons could no longer tolerate the governments’ unwillingness to address severe declines in fish stocks and concomitant economic losses, inconsistent science, and the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) invasion. The paper draws from hearings and debates in Parliament and Congress, boards of inquiry, previously classified documents containing the strategies of those engaged in bilateral negotiations, and the published literature.