Above: David Greening photo
As an ode to the past and a hope for the future, Ryan Cleary and Merv Wiseman have formed the Fisheries Protective Co-operative (FPC) in an attempt to give more power and independence to inshore fish harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The FPC gets its name from the Fisheries Protective Union (FPU), founded in 1908 by William Coaker as a means to attain a redistribution of wealth within the island’s fishing industry. At its height, the FPU represented over 21,000 harvesters from across what was then, the Dominion of Newfoundland. According to Cleary, who has worked as a fisheries journalist, fisheries advocate, politician and the leader of an unsuccessful bid to form a rival union to the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union (FFAW), the use of “protective” in his new co-operative was a conscious decision to harken back to the inequity between fish harvesters and merchants in the days of the FPU.
“Inshore harvesters need as much protection in 2024 as they did in Coaker’s day. That’s what it comes down to,” said Cleary.
The FPC is not the only co-op in existence in N.L. today. They join the ranks of the Fogo Island Co-operative Society, the Petty Harbour Fishermen’s Co-operative Society and the Torngat Fish Producers Co-operative. Their business model, however, more closely mirrors the Labrador Fishermen’s Union Shrimp Company (LFUSC). While not a co-operative, the LFUSC is a social enterprise that has achieved much of what the FPC hopes to achieve in the future.
“It was started up by 130 small boat inshore enterprises on the Labrador coast between the straits and Cartwright,” said Cleary. “Those 130 inshore enterprise owners in Labrador with the Shrimp Company now have five processing plants, they have 500 employees, they’ve got two middle-distance boats and they’ve got a 50 per cent share in an offshore factory freezer trawler.”
Much of what the LFUSC has achieved is in the FPC’s long-term business plan. The long-term goal of the FPC is to become self-sufficient in all aspects of seafood operations, from harvesting to processing to marketing and sales.
In the short term, the FPC is looking to pool the quotas of its members and hire a company to process fish on a per-pound fee or to sell their product directly to a processor.
The co-operative signed a letter of intent with Dan Meade of Dandy Dan’s Food Products in Ship Harbour, N.L. to provide his processing business with two million pounds of snow crab per year. The deal, according to Cleary, fell through due to financing issues.
“The letter of intent basically fell through because he cannot get his financing to get that crab operation up and running,” said Cleary. “If he is able to process crab at all this year, it will be a token amount.”
Cleary claimed that a number of processors have shown interest in working with the newly formed co-operative, but formal agreements have yet to be made. Plans are underway for the FPC to hold a founding convention, where a board of directors will be appointed, and bylaws will be adopted.
While the FPC has not taken members yet, Cleary said there are “dozens” of interested enterprise owners.
When we put the word out that we were looking at forming a co-op back in December right up to January, I’ve been approached by dozens of independent enterprise owners around the province who are interested in a co-op,” said Cleary.
“I have a list of enterprise owners who are interested and the amount of quota that they represent… In terms of taking membership fees, we’re not there yet.”
To Cleary, there is no better time than 2024 to form a fisheries co-operative in Newfoundland and Labrador. He highlighted the 2023 snow crab season, where a breakdown in price negotiations between the Association of Seafood Producers and the FFAW led to a six-week tie-up, multiple protests and a shortened season that left many harvesters with a reduced income, especially in the face of crab prices that fell from a height of $7.60 per pound in 2022 to $2.20 by 2023.
“What was made crystal clear from the 2023 season is that inshore enterprise owners in this province do not control their own fishing destiny. They’re told when to fish, how much to fish, you can’t change buyers… The creation of a co-operative for enterprise owners in Newfoundland will give them the opportunity to control their own fishing destiny,” said Cleary. “The only way for harvesters to crawl out from under the thumb of processors is to do it on their own, and a co-operative gives them the vehicle to do that.”
