Crab season is open, but N.L.'s fishermen are staying on land — and demanding a better price
$2.20 a pound just a fraction of last year's price
On Tuesday morning, crab fishermen in St. John's were checking their equipment, touching up paint, loading in supplies — everything except getting out on the water and fishing.
And unless the price of crab is raised substantially higher than $2.20 a pound, they say, that won't change.
"It's not feasible for us to be able to fish. There's no way to do it for $2.20 a pound with the cost of everything else now," said Chad Waterman, skipper of the Jacob & Josie, on Tuesday morning.
"So we had a meeting on Saturday and we agreed for everybody to tie on and wait it out a week or two weeks or three weeks, whatever it takes to see if we can get a better price. I mean, 50 or 60 cents or an extra dollar a pound, now, is big money for rural Newfoundland, really.… We're just getting ready now and playing the waiting game, I guess, and see what's gonna happen going forward."
The $2.20 price — submitted by the provincial Association of Seafood Producers and accepted by the government's price-setting panel — represents a steep drop from the near $8 per pound at the beginning of last season. Even last season's lowest price — $6.15 per pound — was nearly triple this year's mark. A collapse in international demand is being blamed for the lower price, following two years of lucrative fishing.
Greg Pretty, president of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union, which represents the province's inshore fishermen, says the union has met with provincial Fisheries Minister Derrick Bragg and is looking to meet with Labour Minister Bernard Davis and Premier Andrew Furey.
"This is an economic bombshell," he said. "There's thousands, tens of thousands of people without income because of this. We could have people in this province out of work and going on bankruptcies and welfare rolls because of that price."
The union's membership can't afford to fish at that price, he said.
"People are not fishing for $2.20," he said. "That's a very clear signal from our harvesters, and our members."
If the union doesn't get a meeting with the premier, it will take "other political action," said Pretty — but he wouldn't say just what. "Wait and see," he said.
The Association of Seafood Producers declined an interview request from CBC News. CBC News also asked the premier's office for comment early Monday morning but by late afternoon had only received a reply that acknowledged the request.
Ryan Cleary, president of the Seaward Enterprises Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, a non-profit organization advocating for fish harvesters, said $2.20 a pound means "absolute devastation" for the snow crab fishery. With this year's snow crab quota set at 54,727 tonnes, he noted, the $3.95 difference between this year's price and last year's lowest price represents a half-billion-dollar drop in the value of the fishery.
"It will be felt in every port, by every small boat owner, crab fisherman, in this province, make no mistake," he said. "The difference in price between this year and last year is night and day, and it is painful."
Fishermen can sell their own catch, suggests SEA-NL
SEA-NL has a suggestion, said Cleary: fishermen should sell their catch themselves off the wharf for $5 a pound.
"Most owner-operators, small boat owner-operators, in this province don't know that, with the exception of mussels or scallops in the shell, you can sell every species from crab to lobster to cod off your boat," he said. "When you land at the wharf, you can sell your catch."
Cleary said he doesn't expect fishermen to be able to sell their entire catch to the public for personal consumption, he said, but selling whatever they could would help.
"It's not about selling all your crab this year, or all your catches this year, at the wharf, but you will sell some, and that will help, considering, again, the devastation of the price that's been set by the panel."
Waterman says he hasn't thought about what he'll do if the price isn't raised and he doesn't go out on the water this season.
"I haven't really let my mind go there yet, you know. I got all the faith that hopefully ... we will get fishing," he said. "I'm not gone that far yet, you know. We still got lots of time, it's still only early. As much as everybody'd like to be on the water, we can't rush into it. If we got to give it a month, so be it."
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With files from Darrell Roberts