Top-down fisheries management, to some extent discredited in the United States, is alive and well in Canada. So the Canadian federal government’s decision a month ago to close down what was left of Newfoundland’s legendary cod fishery was at least in character, if not welcomed by fishermen and their families. Unfortunately it’s more of the same, a continuation of the apparently failed effort to salvage this four-century-old fishery at the expense of fishermen, communities and indeed an entire Canadian province. Newfoundland, lest we forget, joined the Canadian Federation in relatively recent times, and pondering the province’s future relationship with the rest of Canada seems entirely understandable.