has never recovered. The immediate impact was felt most in Newfoundland, followed by the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. The nascent Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, which was organised after the 1977 EEZ declarations to co-ordinate conservation efforts in Canada, the United States, and member nations in both Western and Eastern Europe also declared a ban, but it was implemented too late to be effective. Cod had five to ten years before been caught in record numbers, but it had vanished almost overnight to the point that it was considered for endangered species protection. The economic impact in coastal Newfoundland was unprecedented. To lessen the impact that its policies of permitting overfishing had exacted upon rural Newfoundlanders, the federal government swiftly created a relief program called the "Atlantic Groundfish Strategy" (TAGS) to provide short- to medium-term financial support and employment retraining for the longer term. Despite TAGS, Newfoundland and coastal Nova Scotian communities began to experience an out-migration on a scale not seen in Canada since prairie Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The anger at federal politicians was palpable. With the wholesale rejection of the new Prime Minister Kim Campbell, the incoming Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's Liberals were going to face the ongoing wrath of voters since their entire livelihoods had been decimated as a result of decades of federal neglect and mismanagement, and their communities, property values, net worth, and way of life were declining rapidly. In the years since the cod moratorium, federal fisheries policy makers and scientists attempted to find a replacement species that could at least reinject economic stimulus into the affected regions. The ground fishery was a fraction of what it had been during the cod years but had some bright spots, one of which was the Greenland halibut, commonly known in Canada as turbot. Demand for the turbot had decreased because of a common dislike for its taste in the European Union. Canada was not alone in recognising the growing value of the turbot, and foreign fishing fleets operating off the 200 nautical mile EEZ were also beginning to pursue the species in increasing numbers as a response to the Northern cod moratorium. However, the turbot was not a fish under quota regulation in NAFO until the autumn of 1994, when it established a catch limit. Until then, Spanish vessels had explored turbot fishery on the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks. The Canadians