A disheartened president of SEA-NL says sheer economics are forcing harvesters to cave and go out fishing despite the current dispute between the FFAW and Association of Seafood Producers on price.
Pamela Patten, who owns a fishing enterprise out of Fortune Bay, says the unfortunate thing is that harvesters are giving into what she calls “major corporate control.”
An increasing number of harvesters are taking to the water six weeks after the fishery was originally set to get underway.
Patten told VOCM Open Line with Paddy Daly this morning that essentially the ASP has won.
“I bought a licence, ” she told Open Line, “but I don’t feel like I own it.” She says the creation of the ASP was “the complete ruination of (the) Newfoundland fishery.”
One such longliner owner is Terry Ryan of LaScie whose boat went out yesterday. He says it’s important to maintain our markets because if we don’t, the negative effects will be with us for a long time.
Ryan says the impasse has gone on long enough. He says they have bills to pay and families to feed, and the tie up is not going to achieve the initial goal of increasing this year’s crab price.
Meanwhile, Patten understands why people are choosing to fish.
The value of most enterprises, she says is based on crab, and there are a lot of boat owners “owing big money.”
