It isn’t too often you get Earle McCurdy, Derek Butler, Premier Danny Williams and other key fishing industry players in the same room and hear cordial greetings instead of flying insults. On July 2, the scene at the Marine Institute in St. John’s was just that.
The promise of an important announcement hung in the air, Con O’Brien played his guitar and sang songs such as “Cape St. Mary’s” and large scrolling photos of fishing in the province framed the front of the room. For a government often accused of trading in fish for oil these days, it was undoubtedly an impressive setup. Whatever the big announcement was going to be, all signs certainly pointed to something positive; and then came the procession of political and industry heavyweights. In walked Premier Danny Williams, Fisheries Minister Clyde Jackman, President of Memorial University Gary Kachanoski, Executive director of the Fisheries and Marine Institute Glenn Blackwood, Glenn Janes chief executive officer of the Research and Development Corporation, Robert Verge managing director of the CCFI and finally well-known and equally well respected fisheries scientist, Dr. George Rose.
ACOA Report:
Digby-Saint John Ferry Seen as Most Important Link to Markets
By Alain Meuse
The much-awaited South West Nova Scotia Transportation Study , precipitated by the need to infuse $11-million—in 1998— into the Digby-Saint John ferry service by Ottawa, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as a transfusion to keep the 38-year-old vessel operating until March, 2011, has finally been released.
During this time, a ferry link between Yarmouth, N.S. and New England which had existed for over 80 years was severed when Bay Ferries abruptly announced the cancellation of its CAT high speed service between Yarmouth, Portland and Bar Harbour, Maine due to the fact that Nova Scotia refused a subsidy for the 2010 season which ran from June to October.
And the verdict appears to be thus: If federal funds are to be funnelled (and this is a big if) into any ferry service from Nova Scotia, it should be the Digby-Saint John run due to its importance to the area’s $600 million fishery.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Snow Crab – Mixed Results By Jim Wellman The province’s crab fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador is wrapping up at the time of this writing with mixed results. Catch rates in the northern zone called 3K, an area stretching from southern Labrador to near Bonavista, were down and about 15% of the quota was left in the water.
In Division 3L further south, fishermen did better. When the Navigator was going to print, fishermen had taken 90% of their quota and the season was still open in some areas. Leaving crab in the water doesn’t appear to be a concern in 3L.
What is happening in Division 3K is a source of great debate these days. The season was a month late getting underway because of a price dispute between fishermen and processors. DFO added an extension to the season in June/July but some people say the early part of the season is the best fishing time and the extension doesn’t make up for the loss of the early part of the year. There is some support for that argument when one looks at what happened at the Fogo Island Co-op. Unlike all but one other fish plant on the south coast, the Co-op, owned by fishermen, set their price at $1.35 per lb as per the Price Setting Panel’s recommendations and fishermen started fishing on schedule. All the Fogo Island vessels caught their quota and caught it fairly quickly. Some admit that they fished harder than they had to do a few years ago but still, they didn’t have a problem catching their quota.
