Above: John Efford accepting a street sign bearing his name from the President of the Port de Grave Harbour Authority, Ross Petten.
To many people, the name John Efford and the fishing industry are synonymous.
But yet, the Port de Grave native who is best known for his 20 years in politics, spent less than five years as Minister of Fisheries. And despite being surrounded by fishermen while he was growing up, including several men in his own family, Efford never fished commercially.
But, Efford who turns 76 in January, represented one of the most prosperous fishing regions in the province and he made the fishing industry a personal special interest — some would argue it was his primary “cause.” In fact, on a couple of occasions when he was not Fisheries Minister, Efford found himself in hot water with the sitting Minister and also with the Premier of the day, when he got directly involved in fisheries events that were, politically, hot potatoes.
Getting his knuckles rapped didn’t silence Efford for long though. Declaring that it was his duty to stand up for his constituents who had a stake in the fishing industry, Efford was never one to shy away from jumping headfirst into a contentious matter. That passion made Efford extremely popular in his region and is probably the main reason why he was elected to office seven times — five times provincially and twice federally.
On November 6, the Port de Grave Peninsula Heritage Society launched its inaugural gala event it called its Fisher Feast.
The galas will be fundraising events for the Society and one of the components of its strategy to attract a good crowd is to pay tribute to a high-profile person who has contributed substantially to the peninsula.
Efford was a businessman before running for elected public office. He owned wholesale and retail companies, including Efford’s Wholesale, Snow’s Plumbing, as well as a clothing store.
But it’s John Efford the politician that people will remember best.
He was first elected to provincial office in his home district of Port de Grave in 1985. He was Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries Minister from 1996 to 2000. He was known as one of the hardest working politicians of his time.
Someone once said he was the guy who opened the doors in the morning at the government building and the one who turned the lights off at night.
In 2001, Efford sensed that his popularity and political experience was sufficient to take a crack at the provincial Liberal Party’s top job.
In a hotly contested race against Roger Grimes and Paul Dicks, Efford lost by just 14 votes. Efford thinks something shady happened to a ballot box on the night of the election.
When The Navigator asked him what was the one thing that he remembers most about his 20 years of political life, he didn’t take a single second to reply. “Every day I think about losing that leadership — if the truth were known, I didn’t lose; I won,” he said with a defiant air of confidence.
Efford claimed that party workers in the back rooms who were involved with counting the ballots told him that ballot box number five went missing for about 45 minutes before returning with ballots to be counted.
“I’ll go to my grave believing that ballots were tampered with in that 45 minutes because some of the higher ups in the party didn’t want me to be premier,” he says.
Whether there was tampering or not, that event marked the end of John Efford’s career in provincial politics and forced him to regroup and take a new direction.
The following year, Efford was elected in a federal by-election to represent his home riding and was re-elected in 2004 in a general election.
Federally, he was appointed Minister of Natural Resources and served on several committees, including the Commons Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
Efford decided not to run in the 2006 federal election, citing health concerns. He had been diagnosed with diabetes some years prior and the demanding lifestyle of long workdays combined with extensive travel and other physical demands in politics were starting to take a toll.
There were no enemies, political or otherwise, in St. Luke’s Hall in Port de Grave on November 6. Premier Dwight Ball, along with the region’s MHA, Pam Parsons and MP Ken McDonald, were there. There were former politicians and government bureaucrats in attendance as well. Former Premier Clyde Wells sent greetings and former Prime Minister Paul Martin addressed the audience via video recording.
There was also a senator at the Fisher Feast Gala. He was introduced by the emcee for the event, Amy House, as “the only Tory in the building.”
Taking it all in stride, Senator Fabian Manning, surrounded by Liberals, had the crowd laughing out loud as he addressed them from the platform with stories reminiscing about the days when he was an MP and on the opposite side of the aisle from Efford in the House of Commons.
Manning presented Efford with a newly released CD called The Thing About Fish by the band Rum Ragged, in which Manning’s son Mark is a member.
As speaker after speaker praised John Efford for all he did for the Port de Grave Peninsula, taking a few good-humoured jabs at him along the way, it was obvious he is held in incredibly high regard in the region.
In Port de Grave itself, Efford is credited for leveraging huge amounts of funding to build a safe and excellent harbour for what is arguably the most expensive fishing fleet in any Newfoundland and Labrador port.
To express gratitude for his contributions to the town, it was announced that a street in Port de Grave will be named John Efford Drive.
Efford seems to have managed his diabetes fairly well over the years through healthy diet, exercise and weight control but two years ago he had what he describes as the biggest setback of his life — he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
He said the reason it hit him so hard is because he knows how debilitating the illness can be because he has seen the disease ravage a couple of his family members. He also knows there is no cure.
“The best they can do is try and slow down the progress of the illness a little bit with a pill — other than that, it’s matter of dealing with it one day at a time,” he said.
Typically, Efford is dealing with his Alzheimer’s disease with the same transparency and vigor as he did in his public life.
He admits that sometimes he will lose his train of thought during conversations or forget the appropriate words, usually when he is tired, but in our recent conversations with him, it seems he’s figured out the best way to deal with that. In fact, if you didn’t know him well, you would not know there was anything wrong. He’s hoping that his high profile and willingness to talk about the disease will help others face their issues with strength and dignity, pointing out that there is no shame in having an illness that affects the brain.
The gala was a big success for the Port de Grave Peninsula Heritage Society.
Iris Petten, chair of the event, said she was delighted to see how many local residents came out to support the cause. She said every dollar raised will go to the Heritage Society who already have projects underway that need funding.
One of the Society’s priorities is the development of a Marine Interpretation Centre to be housed in St. Mark’s Heritage Church, built in 1926, which has been turned over to the Society by the Anglican Diocese.
The Heritage Society has also partnered with the Canadian Coast Guard Alumni for one part of that plan. The idea is to collect artifacts from lighthouses along with photos and paintings to exhibit so that local residents, as well as tourists, can see first-hand how lighthouses operated.
The Society was instrumental in having its own Green Point Lighthouse near Port de Grave declared an historic site. It also constructed a road to the lighthouse and upgraded the grounds, complete with benches.
Petten says the Society’s goal is to make the Port de Grave Peninsula a must-visit tourist attraction, as well as giving locals a means to know more their own history.
As for John Effford; it’s the type of project that, if he were a little bit healthier, he’d be in for whatever he could do to make it work.
