CHAPTER TEN: 
     
    
   
   
    
     Cfléffldm 
     
    
   
   
    
     ill quickly settled in to his new job with the fisheries 
     
     department in Charlottetown. The department was located 
     
     above Sterns Laundry on Kent Street, and it soon moved to 
     
     the newly—opened Dominion Building in downtown Charlottetown. 
     
     The Dominion Building was emblematic of the expanding presence 
     
     of the federal government in Prince Edward Island. Bill eventually 
     
     rose to become area manager for the department. It was a demanding 
     
     and sometimes controversial position. The federal government has 
     
     constitutional jurisdiction over the fisheries, and the department was on 
     
     the front line of exercising that responsibility. 
     
    
   
   
    
     After the war, the provincial government was also looking for ways to 
     
     strengthen and diversify the fishery, then almost solely reliant on lobster. 
     
     In 1950, it established a fisheries development program to help finance 
     
     the establishment of an offshore dragger fleet. Although government 
     
     efforts had focused on the offshore fishery, lobster continued to dominate. 
     
     By 1956, the landed value was more than $5 million, a new all—time 
     
    

    
     high. The emerging importance of the fishery brought the activities of 
     
     the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and its employees under greater 
     
     attention and closer scrutiny. 
     
    
   
   
    
     There have been a number of long—standing issues between the federal 
     
     and provincial governments over the way in which that jurisdiction was 
     
     exercised, and as the point man for the department in Prince Edward 
     
     Island, the responsibility for resolving these disputes fell to the area 
     
     manager. Bill was frequently embroiled in a number of controversial 
     
     fisheries management decisions, including the establishment of minimum 
     
    
   
   
    
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