Newfoundland and Labrador community resettlement programmes

Newfoundland and Labrador has run programmes that pay residents of small coastal communities to leave since the 1950s. The first programme (1954 to 1965) paid families CAD 150 and later CAD 600, and paid only if the whole community agreed. A joint federal-provincial Fisherman's Household Resettlement Program followed in 1965, paying up to CAD 1,000 per household, CAD 200 per household member and up to CAD 3,000 for a serviced lot, with an approval threshold of 90 per cent and later 80 per cent. Raymond Blake, writing in Newfoundland and Labrador Studies in 2015, reports that the programme's written aim was to move people out of small coastal villages and build a working fishing industry suited to the twentieth century. People were directed to 77 designated growth centres. The Globe and Mail put the number of communities resettled at 279.

The record on outcomes is mixed. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes the programme as generally regarded as unsuccessful, notes that many industries in the growth centres failed, and says resettled people lost their fishing livelihoods. Blake reports that, in a 1970 official survey, the share of households on social assistance was 11.7 per cent before moving and 6.9 per cent after, and that in the first year only 25 per cent of households chose a growth centre. His own family received a cheque of CAD 2,428 in 1969; at the destination a lot cost CAD 3,500 to 4,000 and a house about CAD 12,000, and the families made up the difference.

The current policy was set by successive provincial rules. In 2016 the government tied the cost-benefit calculation to 10, 15 or 20 years depending on the age profile of the community and stated that no services would be provided to those who stayed. In October 2021 it lowered the approval threshold to 75 per cent, fixed the calculation at 20 years, and required net savings to the province of around CAD 10 million for an assessment to proceed. The 2021 rules also removed care-home residents from the definition of permanent resident, which governs both the vote and the payment. Under the provincial FAQ, payments are CAD 250,000, 260,000 or 270,000 per household depending on its size; an adult permanent resident without property receives CAD 10,000; a cottage owner receives nothing and may go to the property at their own expense and risk. For William's Harbour in 2017 the government stated a cost of about CAD 4 million and 20-year savings of CAD 7.9 million.

Little Bay Islands, in Notre Dame Bay, is the community the sources follow most closely. The Globe and Mail reported in 2017 that the village once had about 600 people, 11 shops, three churches, a school and a doctor, and that 38 people, mostly elderly, remained. The collapse began with the cod fishing ban of 1992; the fish plant closed in 2011 and the school in 2018. The province offered CAD 250,000 to 270,000 per household if 90 per cent of residents agreed, and had calculated that the move would save about CAD 3.8 million over 20 years. The village formally closed at the end of 2019. An 86-year-old resident told the paper she was not happy to leave and would have chosen to stay for life, but knew that was not possible.

Commercial cod fishing reopened in June 2024 with a quota of 18,000 tonnes, about four and a half years after Little Bay Islands closed. Global Seafood Alliance reported a 62 to 76 per cent risk of the stock shrinking over 2024 to 2027. The 2023 stock was about 12 per cent of its 1960s biomass according to The Narwhal. In June 2025 Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced an increase to 38,000 tonnes and described it as sustainable; a Canadian Press report (via Barchart) carried the headline that scientists questioned the more than doubling of the catch.