Anger over changes in the crab industry, Newfoundland’s most lucrative fishery, escalated in recent weeks and resulted in occupation of a government building in St. John’s, a port blockade and a “fishermen’s arrest” of a Portuguese trawler cited by Canadian inspectors in the past for illegal fishing.
The “arrest” came when the AVEIRENSE headed into St. John’s to refuel on April 27, passing a flotilla of crab fishing vessels that were protesting crab quotas by blockading the harbor. Protesting fishermen took out their anger on the AVEIRENSE, a trawler with 35 crewmembers, all Portuguese nationals, onboard.
Union president Earle McCurdy said the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the North Atlantic Fishing Organization have been unsuccessful in dealing with the trawler “so our members decided to put it under fishermen’s arrest.”
The vessel has a history for Newfoundland fishermen. Canadian authorities had boarded the vessel three times in 2004 and found “moratorium species” aboard and small mesh nets, but investigations in the European Union never resulted in charges.
The “arrest” came on the eve of an international conference in St. John’s on high seas overfishing. A few days later, during the conference, a massive onshore protest by 3,000 fishermen and their families took place at the federal Confederation Building in St. John’s.
Fishermen hauled down the three flags that fly over the building – the Canadian flag, the Newfoundland flag and the Union Jack, and replaced them with two crab pots and the flag of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union.
Union protestors caused a roadblock at one building entrance by tying their vehicles together and placing crab pots at the entrance. They also draped two statues on the property with crab pots. Later, protestors occupied the Petten Building, headquarters for the provincial Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Federal and provincial police in riot gear stood by with dogs and horses.
“[Premier] Danny Williams kept us out of the Confederation Building [by closing the public gallery]. It’s our turn to keep him out today,” said Jim Chidley, a fisherman from the Renews, a small town on the southeast coast.
Fishermen and their supporters came from all over the island to begin the roadblock and protest at 6 a.m. Provincial officials canceled a session of the legislature and told government workers to stay home for the day.
The occupation ended at 7:30 p.m. when the Newfoundland Supreme Court issued an injunction against the union, the fourth in a few days. Despite the rising tide of anger and protests, the provincial fisheries minister, Trevor Taylor, said he will stick with the plan to implement a ‘raw materials sharing pilot project.’ One protestor was arrested for yelling a threat at Taylor from the legislature’s public gallery on May 10.
“If we leave it for now, which we are not going to do, but if we were to leave it for now, the industry still has to deal with all those issues,” said Taylor.
Declining markets, a shrinking resource and an overcapacity in both the harvesting and processing sectors are the reasons cited for the controversial restructuring. Many fishermen, already limited in the weeks they can fish, say the new plan will put them out of business. The new system would cap the amount of snow crab each plant is allowed to process and would hire auditors to fix prices for fishermen. Union members say the plan removes the competition from the fishery and takes away their bargaining power.
Angry fishermen kept the AVEIRENSE blockaded for four hours, prompting a columnist at the St. John’s Telegram, Joe Walsh, who covered fisheries news for 15 years, to write: “The crab fishermen’s symbolic citizen’s arrest of the Portuguese trawler lasted four hours – that’s four hours longer than the Canadian government can detain the ship.”
The AVEIRENSE was one of two Portuguese fishing vessels boarded and issued citations last year during a highly publicized Canadian crackdown on illegal fishing just outside of Canada’s 200-mile limit. Two May boardings were followed by one in November for fishing with illegal small mesh. Any charges against the offending vessels must be brought by the country of origin, since the Canadian government lacks authority to institute charges or penalties. Many in Newfoundland believe foreign captains, rather than suffering penalties at home, actually receive bonuses for catching fish that are under moratorium in Canada.
During the same period, the federal fisheries minister, Geoff Regan, announced the government will spend $20 million (Canadian) over the next three years to fight illegal foreign fishing.
On May 10, Newfoundland’s largest fish company, Fisheries Products International, rescheduled its annual meeting to avoid protests by workers from the town of Harbour Breton who headed for the St. John’s meeting on buses. FPI, which has a division called Ocean Cuisine in Danvers, Mass., closed a plant in the town last year, throwing 350 people out of work and taking the groundfish quota with them to another site. The day before, seven crab boats left St. John’s for the fishing grounds, planning to land their catch in Nova Scotia as a further protest against changes to the Newfoundland system. Others planned to follow during the next days, even though the cost of fuel would ensure they made no money on their catch.
Women who are harvesters, plant workers or spouses of harvesters, planned to meet with the province’s premier, Danny Williams, on May 11 to challenge his comment that “if the summer has to be lost, it has to be lost.” Most crabbers and their families live in small communities that depend on the fishery for their existence.
Helen Evans, chair of the FFAW/CAW Committee at P. Janes and Sons in Hant’s Harbour and member of the FFAW/CAW Women’s Committee, said people are upset, frustrated and hurting.
“The pain and stress that families are going through is unacceptable. It’s like the [cod] moratorium all over again and I remember what that did to our communities and families. I am calling on Fisheries Minister Trevor Taylor to sit down with our Union and get this matter resolved. We need to be talking to each other, not responding to each other through the media and letters,” said Helen Evans, chair of the FFAW/CAW Committee at P. Janes and Sons in Hant’s Harbour. All these protests followed a series of earlier union-led demonstrations that included blockades of Placentia Bay and disruptions during legislative sessions at the House of Assembly.