Salmon canning jobs dwindling as consumer tastes change, says Canfisco

B.C. cannery workers are urging Ottawa to save their dwindling jobs and restore the traditional West Coast industry by protecting fish processing jobs.

While salmon season is well underway and demand — and prices — high for the fresh, pink-fleshed fish, canned salmon has taken a hit.

The fish business has changed drastically... [it] cannot support as many people.- Rob Morley, president Canfisco

B.C.'s last commercial cannery closed in November of 2015. Hundreds of workers lost their jobs. Now, they are urging the federal government to step in and make rules to force fish processing to stay near the location the fish is pulled in from the ocean.

"I'm not a man that begs. But I'm asking you. Keep this community alive." said Arnie Nagy, cannery union president of the Local 31 Shoreworkers.

Nagy joined a conference call with a Fisheries and Oceans Canada standing committee in Ottawa Tuesday to call for fish processing to be protected and kept in local B.C. communities like Prince Rupert where 500 Canfisco jobs were recently lost.

"We see a Canadian resource that's going to be benefiting Jim Pattison Group Incorporated and China. We don't see a resource that's going to be benefiting the people who live in the area that the fish is caught," said Joy Thorkelson of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers.

Workers say they are asking for nothing different than loggers or oil workers who call for trees to be milled in B.C. or oil to be refined in Alberta, instead of shipping raw product to Asia. 

Rob Morley, Canfisco president, says they are fighting a losing battle.

"Consumers don't want fish in a can. They want it fresh. That is why the Prince Rupert plant closed."

"We're doing this because the demand for canning is declining. That's the least efficient operation we have. We sell [fish] fresh because that's what the consumers want," said Morley.

Morely also said the industry has dwindled to a third of what it used to be, with less fish being caught and processed.

He said the industry tried to protect local processing years ago, but lost that battle because of international trade rules.

The Prince Rupert cannery that closed last year is also facing a shortage of fish, with dwindling salmon stocks, he added.

• In the 1980s B.C. processed 150 million pounds of fish.
• In the past decade that's dropped to 50 million pounds.
• Revenues from the industry have dropped from $200-to-300 million a year, to $50-million.
• B.C. produces about 6 per cent of the product, compared to Alaska.

"The reality here is that the fish business has changed drastically," he said. "The industry cannot support as many people."