Buyback could cost fishermen millions

By Wayne Thibodeau

FOR THE SOU’WESTER

Transcontinental Media/The Guardian

A plan to reduce the number of lobster fishermen in the Northumberland Strait could force fishermen to incur millions of dollars in debt and that isn’t sitting well with fishermen who say they’re already struggling to pay the bills.

During an interview Monday, May 25, P.E.I. provincial treasurer Wes Sheridan revealed details of a lobster rationalization plan being developed by the provincial and federal governments. Sheridan pitched his plan to federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty while he was in Meech Lake, Quebec, on Monday.

The plan would see the federal government loan the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association millions of dollars to buy back lobster licences.

Under the “self-rationalization plan,” fishermen would then pay that loan back by having a fee per pound attached to their catches for years to come.

Mike McGeoghegan, a fisherman from Pinette, one of the harbours that has seen a dramatic decline in lobster catches, says the next generation of fishermen are being asked to pay for problems they didn’t create. He said there is also no guarantee that reducing the number of fishermen in the Northumberland Strait will actually increase the catch.

There has already been a dramatic decline in the number of fishermen in and around his eastern P.E.I. port but lobster catches continue to decline. “They keep talking about this ‘self-rationalization’ plan, we’re the only industry they’d do that to,” he said from his eastern P.E.I. home. “ They didn’t do that to the banks. They didn’t do that to the car industry.”

Transcontinental Media’s Guardian newspaper has learned the “self-rationalization” buyback plan could carry a multi-million-dollar price tag and the federal and provincial governments would expect fishermen to pick up most, if not all of the bill.

The rationalization plan was part of a five-point plan announced by the P.E.I. government earlier this month. Three of those five points, including the rationalization plan, would require federal government funding — most of which has not yet been secured.

Sheridan said the federal government is interested in the P.E.I. government’s “self-rationalization” plan. He pitched it at a private supper Sunday night and again Monday during a round table of Canada’s finance ministers. “Mr. Flaherty is very intrigued by the idea,” said Sheridan.

Fisheries Minister Gail Shea has said that she’s prepared to lobby for a plan to reduce the number of fishermen in the Northumberland Strait but she has added the federal government will not be writing a blank cheque to the lobster industry.

McGeoghegan said no fisherman would sell his licences, boat, gear and other equipment for less than $250,000 to $280,000. He said there are about 400 lobster fishermen who ply the waters of the Northumberland Strait both in the spring in the eastern end of the province and in the fall in the western part of the Island.

That number, he said, should be cut in half and he supports a plan to do that but he said those costs should be picked up by the federal government — not the fishermen.

But if the provincial and federal governments are to go ahead with the plan, the price tag for “self-rationalization” could be between $50 million and $56 million.

McGeoghegan said that’s a long-term bill no fishermen will want to agree to. “You’re asking the fleet to ‘self-rationalize’ during some of the toughest economic times to ever happen,” said McGeoghegan, who is on the board of the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association. “The feds need to step up to the plate in the East Coast and they’re definitely not doing it. We’re not asking for a bailout, we’re just asking for help.”