Legislative Reports Digital Archive
Researchers will find the full list of reports done by the Assemblies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia between 1836 and 1867. Both provincial governments commissioned reports on the status, health, and maintenance of the Bay of Fundy, Atlantic, and Gulf of St. Lawrence fisheries as a staple economy in the Atlantic Region until control over the fishery became part of the Dominion of Canada’s federal jurisdiction in 1867. However, not all reports listed below were produced from or for the exclusive study of the fishery. For example, Perley’s 1842 report on Indigenous settlements in New Brunswick examined those communities, but placed particular emphasis on their use of food resources such as fish. Other reports centre on trade and navigation issues, highlighting the significance of fishers and the act of taking fish to support imperial commerce.
Reports are organized chronologically by year of publication, the author of the report, and are labelled according to which province made the commission. For example, Perley_1842_NB. All reports may be viewed on the website, but also have been made available in downloadable PDF format (and each PDF features a header with the original document’s citation in Chicago Manuel Style). Many reports appeared as part of the Assembly Journal for the respective legislatures, while others were affixed as part of the appendix because they were discussed in session and tabled for committee review. In total, there are 37 reports documenting the concerns of fishers, the livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, the growing power of the settler colonial state, and competing views about the finite nature of the ocean’s resources.