P.E.I. government forming industry committee to study challenges in lobster fishery

By Andy Walker

SOU’WESTER

Fisheries Minister Allan Campbell is developing an industry-wide committee to discuss the challenges facing the P.E.I. lobster industry.

Campbell has asked Lewie Creed, a retired department employee who now works as a consultant, to lay the groundwork for the permanent group. The executive director of the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association is hoping his group will be asked to take a seat at the table.

Ed Frenette said the committee will have representatives form all sectors including fisheries, buyers, and processors. He said if there an issue that pertains to one sector only, like new boating regulations for fisheries or a shortage of workers in the processing industry, those will fall outside the group’s mandate.

However, issues like the impact of the higher dollar and declining stocks impact on every player and Frenette said "it is important that we have a forum in which to address them." He is expecting the committee to be operational either late this year or early in 2009.

The move comes in the wake of a market assessment report conducted for the province by John Sackton, editor and publisher of the Seafoodnews.com. The assessment blames the stronger dollar and a sluggish United States economy as the two main causes of lower lobster prices this spring.

The report notes that the U.S. market accounts for 80 percent of the sales of Prince Edward Island lobsters. This is the reason why the U.S. currency and market pricing are the single most important factors in determining lobster prices. It says that the weakening of the U.S. economy has made lobster products more difficult to sell, and that attempts to raise prices would lead to dramatically lower sales.

Increases in the Canadian dollar over the past year have meant that exporters are receiving 15 percent less than they did in the spring of 2007.

Sackton said that heavy landings during some times of the season have led processors to producing lower value products which are faster to process but which lead to lower returns. His assessment also said that the structure of the lobster market is fragmented, which means that traders and brokers are forced to sell products for what the market can bear.