With their season on hold, fishermen protest low price of crab on the steps of the N.L. legislature
Crab season is open, but harvesters are on land because they say they can't afford to fish at $2.20 a pound
With the price of snow crab less than one-third of what it was a year ago, Newfoundland and Labrador's fishermen are rallying on the steps of the provincial legislature Monday morning to demand government action on the province's most lucrative fishery.
Members of the Fish, Food & Allied Workers union say they can't afford to fish crab at the $2.20 per pound set earlier this month. Fishing season is open, but harvesters are keeping their boats docked in the hopes of getting a higher price.
About 500 union members and their supporters, hoisting signs that read "People Over Profit" and "End Processor Control" gathered under light snow while Serena Ryder's Stompa and Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground blasted from loudspeakers.
Harvester Loretta Ward, speaking at a lectern outside Confederation Building's front doors, said it seems like fishermen have to fight the same battle every year.
"We're not being treated fairly, and it happens every single year," she said.
"But why? Like, the fishery, there's so many people depend on it, it's not just the harvesters. You go to your Home Hardware, you go to your furniture department, you go anywhere — if there's no money coming into our communities, those people aren't going to survive. We can't survive, how they can survive if we're not bringing in the money?"
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.
In 2022, fishermen landed more than 50,000 tonnes of crab, with an average price of $6.87 per pound, for a total of more than $759 million, according to figures from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Jason Spingle, the union's secretary treasurer, told the crowd of a similar fight over lobster prices more than a decade ago, resulting in a pricing formula based on market value that worked for harvesters — and said the same thing needs to happen for snow crab.
"We do need fairness in this fishery," he said.
"Harvesting fish is tough, dangerous work, and no matter how well prepared they are, harvesters put their lives at risk every single day.… It's what brings in new income. Not only to our coastal communities but to our towns and this very city as well. A dollar from fish is equal to a dollar from oil, is equal to a dollar from nickel. It's the same new dollar."
He criticized the province's fish processors, accusing them of acting like they own harvesters.
"Coming in with lowball offers and trying to defy people is utter disrespect, plain and simple, and it's gonna stop," he said, to scattered cheers and applause. "Now, our government can help us stop it the easy way, or we can stop it, I'll say, more abruptly."
He urged Premier Andrew Furey to tell buyers that their position in the fishing industry is not a right but a privilege given by fishermen.
"Look at the people here today," he said. "They're here because they want this future to work for themselves but equally for our province."
NDP Leader Jim Dinn told the crowd the fishing industry is the "backbone" of Newfoundland and Labrador and said the $2.20 price is "an insult."
"It's an insult to you, the fish harvester, it's an insult to the communities which depend on fish harvesters, it's an insult to the families, period," he said, adding the NDP will demand a review of the price and will work to see if anything can be done to raise it.
Supporters at the rally included the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees, and the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, both of which declared their support for the FFAW.
"While we may be in different work forces, we all work together," said Jerry Earle, president of NAPE. "We work in the same communities, we go to the same schools, we do similar work, and we support each other in our work we do."
David Brazil, leader of the Opposition party, said with the province facing health-care staffing shortages and financial instability, the fishing industry is too important to rural Newfoundland and Labrador to fall into crisis.
"But don't forget, the people of urban Newfoundland and Labrador rely on the fishing industry and benefit from that also," he said.
He urged Furey and provincial Fisheries Minister Derrick Bragg to get involved in getting a new price for snow crab.
"If they come up with a solution that works, we'll support 'em. If they don't, we'll hold 'em to account," he told the crowd.
Bragg himself — taking the lectern to a few boos from the crowd — didn't commit to a review or to finding a way to raise the price but did say $2.20 "sucks."
"There's nothing else to say," he said, but added the market price for processors has also plummeted from last year — and noted the price-setting panel was developed through consultation that included the FFAW. "It's a bottom-of-the-barrel price, but also five dollars also sucks, but that's where we're to on the market price."
He said he supported the fishermen's decision to keep their boats tied up to allow supply to dwindle and boost the price.
"You guys must stick together, because we're all in this together, and you have our 100 per cent support in this process."
FFAW president Greg Pretty said the panel system is "broken."
"Nobody expected to play Russian roulette with that panel. Nobody expected to play Texas hold 'em, where it was all in, on that panel," he said.
"And what we wound up with, on that panel decision, and this is why it's broken … they shifted, they downloaded everything that was wrong in the crab industry, in the markets, onto the backs of harvesters, and that's totally unfair."
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With files from Danny Arsenault and Terry Roberts