 When Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, it relinquished jurisdiction over its fisheries to Ottawa; the Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that the federal government also has jurisdiction over offshore oil drilling.After 1945, the fishing economy was transformed from a predominantly labor-intensive inshore, household-based, saltfish-producing enterprise into an industrialized economy dominated by vertically integrated frozen fish companies.These efficient companies needed fewer workers, so about 300 fishing villages, or outports, were abandoned by their residents between 1954 and 1975 as part of a Canadian government-sponsored program known as the Resettlement.