Devastation and elation

By Aaron Beswick

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

Last week’s announcement of who got processing licenses had two faces.

One belonged to Daphne Hunt. “It should be enough to stick around for,” said the Conche, N.L. plant worker of the extra work to be created by the transfer of a crab processing licence to Northern Seafoods. “Hopefully it will create enough employment for the women so we don’t have to work on projects.”

Only two of Northern Seafoods plant workers qualified for Employment Insurance (EI) this fall due to slow capelin and mackerel fisheries. The addition of a crab licence had been called, by owner Derek Green, “critical to the plant’s survival.” “If the plant had of closed it would have been a nail in Conche’s coffin,” said Hunt.

The other face belonged to Joyce Fillier, who learned Englee, N.L. won’t get either licence after finishing supper last Monday evening. “I just shook and said, ‘Well, very good then’.”

Fillier and her husband, Garfield, booked their plane tickets to Burnaby, British Columbia, the next day. They had survived for the month leading to the decision on her husband’s $500 Employment Insurance cheque, which had left $13 for food after their bills were paid. Their son bought their plane tickets. “We’ve had a hard, hard struggle,” said Fillier, who moved from Roddickton in 1966 to work in Englee’s fish plant, married Garfield Fillier and raised six children. “It gave us a good life, but the announcement put the lid on the bottle – we’re throwing in the towel.”

Acting fisheries minister Trevor Taylor received praise from the Association of Seafood Producers (ASP) and condemnation in Englee for the decision which will see a crab licence transferred from Trouty to Northern Seafoods in Conche and a shrimp licence transferred to La Scie from St. Joseph’s, while not creating any new licences.

The decision is part of a revised seafood processing framework, also announced last Monday, stating that new processing licences won’t be issued unless existing resource thresholds are met province-wide. It would take massive shrimp and crab quota increases to meet the province’s current processing capacity.

Taylor explained that the decision not to grant any new licences is based on numerous reports and recommendations from industry that overcapacity is making processing plants unviable and unattractive places to work. “It was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make since I’ve been in government,” said Taylor of declining Englee a licence. “Green has stayed there and toughed it out when just about every other operation on the peninsula has closed or gone through multiple ownership. If you compare Conche to Roddickton, Bide Arm and Englee, which closed repeatedly, Green has shown commitment to the community and the area.”

The Conche plant has operated for 34 years straight, in spite of the cod moratorium. “Over the course of the past four years, a licence was sitting there in Englee without anybody doing anything with it,” he added. “People in that area need to look at the Conche operation and see how they can build it into as successful and significant operation as possible. You can have as many licences as you like, but if people in the area decide not to support it, nothing will come out of it.”

Englee Mayor Edgar Fillier isn’t convinced.

After watching a protest of 100 Englee residents “that seemed more a funeral than anything else,” he set his sights on the minister’s reasoning. “If there’s overcapacity, then why are boats forced to tie up to the wharf while they await approval from the plant to go catch shrimp?”

Mayor Fillier doesn’t expect an expanded plant in Conche to offer the large scale employment generation his community needs. “An operation in Conche is fine and I hope Conche does well with it, but I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘co-operate and make it work’,” said Mayor Fillier. “It’s not going to be as simple as minister Taylor says it’s going to be – I wish he’s right and that all the communities in the area will benefit, but I have my fears.”

He pointed out that most fishermen are tied to processing companies which have lent them money for gear, boats and licences on the condition that they land product at their plants. As well, plants often demand that fishermen sell them their crab if the plant is to buy less profitable species such as cod, capelin and mackerel. “Fishermen don’t have the final say as to where they sell raw materials anymore. If you don’t buy all that a fisherman catches, you’re not going to get the thing everyone wants most – crab.”

While the Conche plant has pelagic and groundfish licences, it doesn’t process shrimp.

Michael Symmonds was tallying up the amount of crab caught by Conche boats as he looked down upon the harbour and the 50-foot Silver Cove Endeavour on which he and three of his sons fish. “Anyone who can will sell to the plant, because they need to be supported,” said Symmonds, who arrived at about 350,000 lb. of total quota for Conche boats, not including those around Canada Bay. “But different fishermen are tied to different companies.”

Green, meanwhile, says it’s too early to discuss the operation’s size. “You don’t want to put the cart before the horse – we haven’t worked out the details of this stuff yet.”

Engineers will be visiting the Conche plant to plan renovations which Green hopes to have completed by next season. “There is a lot of crab harvested in this area by fishermen and they have been talking to us,” said Green. “Our request had nothing to do with the one in Englee – this was a private deal we did with the Barry Group. My heart goes out to them – I saw them on the news last night and it was gut wrenching.”