Give us back our money, says fisherman

By Tina Comeau

SOU’WESTER

When lobster fisherman Hubert Saulnier, president of the southwest N.S. local of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, was asked last fall what the federal government could do to help out the lobster industry here, his suggestion was to give the region back 50 per cent of the licensing fees that fishermen pay.

Saulnier thinks the money should be used to establish a staffed office to work on behalf of fishermen. “This office could give out a lot of information to every licence holder. It could handle mail outs, surveys, it accumulate the findings,” Saulnier told members of the lobster fishing area 34 advisory committee at a June 16 meeting in Yarmouth, N.S. “The office could do a lot of work that us reps don’t have time to do and is not really DFO’s role to do it,” he added. “One thing we’d like to see looked at is what happens from the price off the boat, to the store and market centres like in the UK? There is a lot of difference in prices.”

Fifty per cent of the licensing fees paid by fishermen would mean a return of around $813,000 a year to the region said Saulnier. He notes this area pays the highest licensing fees. Whereas some lobster fisheries pay $100 or up to $250, licence holders in LFA 34, which includes Yarmouth County and parts of Shelburne and Digby counties, pay $1,890.

That money has never come back to this region. It all goes into the federal government’s general revenue pot.

Meanwhile there has always been a call for fishermen in the region to become more organized. But more organization means the funding to do it. This could solve that issue. “We’re not asking for new money,” said Saulnier. “We’re asking for our money.”

Saulnier said he first raised the idea with Senator Gerald Comeau when the senator contacted him last winter to see what, if anything, the federal government could do to help the industry in light of low lobster prices and depressed markets.

Saulnier said the idea has since been raised with representatives of fishing organizations, politicians of different political stripes, various government departments and Nova Scotia’s former fisheries minister, among others.

While everyone he’s spoken to agrees the idea has merit and would be a good thing for the industry, Saulnier acknowledges that change won’t come easy as this is a decision that has to be made at the federal government cabinet level.