Fish harvester says possible tariffs leave N.L.'s fishery with a lot of uncertainty
Lumsden's Lee Melindy concerned for his community, and entire province
A pause in the tariff dispute with the United States is not bringing any comfort to Lee Melindy.
"We've got to have fishing, we've got to have processors, and we got a companies to send it into the States," he said. "Those are all a circle. And if one of those pieces of the circle falls apart, it is detrimental on the rest of it."
Melindy is a fish harvester based in Lumsden, N.L. He's a full-time crew member, deck boss and helps his father — the enterprise owner — in the wheelhouse. It's been almost 30 years since he first entered the fishery, and he's seen a lot of changes.
"Over the years, I mean, we've had uphill battles and we've been good and whatnot, but when you're looking at a possible four years, it could be very serious into the operating of an enterprise," he said.
This week, U.S. president Donald Trump said he would put a hold on his proposed 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods for 30 days. With that, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paused Canada's counter-tariffs.
But the 25 per cent proposal could be a breaking point for local harvesters, says Melindy.
He's hoping, if tariffs are enacted, something can be arranged so that harvesters are not shouldering the brunt of the cost.
"A tariff [of] 25 per cent to harvesters is going to be detrimental," he said. "If we've got to absorb all the tariff, I mean, it's going to come down to a situation like if we're going to go fishing or if we're not going to go fishing type thing. There's only so long you can go borderline or break even on something and continue on."
The snow crab season usually begins in April, but the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union and Association of Seafood Producers want to get a head start and begin the season in mid-March.
This leaves little time to settle on a price, says Melindy.
"We've got 95 per cent of our snow crab that's going into the U.S.," he said. "There's 195 countries in this world, so there's lots more countries that can absorb a bit of crab and get our markets back so that we don't just rely on one country.
The province announced this week it was forming a roundtable and about $6 million in funding to work on diversifying the market.
WATCH | The crab season kicks off in April and there's still plenty of unknowns:
Melindy says it's not just about snow crab, but also lobster, ground fish and cod.
"We start in April and fish to, hopefully, November or middle of October," he said.
And it's not only the people employed in the fishery that will be affected by the proposed tariffs, Melindy said. He says communities, especially the smaller ones, will feel the brunt.
"It's going to trickle down to not only the community, I guess, but all the surrounding shorelines, coasts, interiors of Newfoundland," he said. "If the harvesters [don't] got the money to put back into the communities, I mean, it's going to trickle down to the grocery stores, to the car dealerships."
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