Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault announced Thursday the closure of what's left of the cod fishery in Newfoundland, the Maritime provinces and Quebec.

Thibault delivered the news in St. John's, Nfld., ending months of speculation on the future of the troubled stocks off Labrador and eastern Newfoundland, and in the northern and southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.




Fishermen on the west coast of Newfoundland also face a total shutdown.

The president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union says the shutdown is a mistake.

Earle McCurdy says the union and fish companies have lobbied for a continued fishery with strict conservation measures. A shutdown, he said, would mean "they would have turned their backs on us."

People in the fisheries industry say the research done by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is flawed.

The department's own officials have admitted there wasn't enough money to complete the research.

The decision will affect about 900 licensed fishermen, who earn between $3,000 and $200,000 a year from catching cod. Hundreds more work in cod-processing plants.

According to a federal source, the laid-off workers are expected to be offered a "modest" compensation package.

The shutdown could cost the region as much as $30 million in lost annual revenues.

In 1992, a fishing moratorium threw 40,000 Atlantic Canadians out of work and cost about $4 billion in aid programs.

Most fishermen didn't return to cod fishing when some areas reopened, instead switching to the lucrative crab and shrimp fisheries.