This crisis affecting Canada’s Maritime Provinces came to national attention May 3 when four fishing boats and two fish processing plants in Shippagan, New Brunswick, were set on fire by a racist mob of some 200 crab fishers and others. Also a federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) office was ransacked.

Most of the crab fishers are medium-sized capitalists. They aimed their fire at small fishermen, in this case, Mi’kmaq Natives. One of the burned boats belonged to the Big Cove Mi’kmaq. The other boats belonged to the DFO but had been promised by the government to the Mi’kmaq. One of the two burned plants had a contract with the Mi’kmaq.

The arson attack was organized in response to the federal government’s decision to cut snow crab quotas by 5,000 tons, a more than 20 percent reduction from the previous year, and to allocate 15 percent of the quota to Native and other fishers who are out of work due to the depletion of cod.

There are 130 “traditional” crab fishers in the southern region of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They go by that designation because they were awarded the original percentages of the annual quota. They decided not to fish this year to protest Ottawa’s 2003 quotas.

Their boycott left several thousand crab processing workers out of work. “Nontraditional” producers such as cod and lobster fishers, and those from the Mi’kmaq, who were to benefit from part of the crab quota, were prevented by the crab fishermen from doing their job. The federal government offered to increase the quota by 3,000 tons in exchange for the crab fishers assuming part of the costs of research, conservation, and monitoring of the industry, and agreeing that a part of their quota be allotted to “nontraditional” fishers on a permanent basis. The six crab fishers’ associations in the Maritimes rejected this proposal and are contesting it in the courts. They decided to put an end to their boycott on May 23, without reaching agreement with the federal government.  
 
Overfishing depletes cod
The backdrop to this crisis is the depletion of cod and other groundfish stocks, primarily due to overfishing. Since the 1500s, European and then North American producers have fished the abundant cod, which feed along the ocean floor off Canada’s eastern coast. Whole towns and villages in the Maritime Provinces were based on cod fishing.

A huge expansion took place in the Canadian fishing industry and internationally after 1977, when control over offshore resources by maritime countries was extended from 12 to 200 miles off the coast by international agreement. The biggest capitalist families and financial institutions in Canada’s eastern provinces poured tens of millions of dollars into the industry. The number of fish processing plants in Atlantic Canada rose from 559 in 1977 to 1,063 in 1991. Deep sea draggers, or factory trawlers, already in use by European fishing companies, were put in use by big Canadian companies. These boats are capable of catching and processing huge amounts of fish. They drag nets along the sea floor, scooping everything out of the water and damaging the ocean floor. Immature fish, unwanted species, or fish for which the boat has no quota are tossed back dead into the sea.

This practice resulted in a dangerous depletion of the cod stocks. After an outcry by small fishers, the Canadian government declared a moratorium on cod fishing in the early 1990s. At that time, more than 40,000 people in five provinces were thrown out of work or lost a large part of their earnings. They were also affected by cuts in unemployment insurance, which hit seasonal workers particularly hard. Cod fishing was resumed in 1998 with reduced quotas, even though cod stocks had not yet recovered.

On April 24 the government again declared a cod fishing moratorium. Some cod fishers were given rights to fish for other species such as lobster, shrimp, and crab, increasing the pressure on these stocks, which is the context for the current crisis.

There is a wide stratification of social classes in the fishing industry in Canada, with different and often conflicting interests. On top are the large corporations, like Fish Products International and Clearwater, that own multiple processing plants and fleets of factory trawlers, which trawl in “off coastal” waters. Then there are the capitalist fishers in the crab industry, who employ four or five workers on their boats and are part owners of the crab processing factories as well. The smaller fishers, either former cod fishers or lobster fishers, often employ one other person to work with them on their small boats or have a family member help out. Finally there are the fish processing workers on the docks and in the factories.  
 
Small fishers and the boycott
The boycott of the fishing season affected these classes differently. In a May 16 press conference, Chief Robert Levi of the Big Cove reserve in New Brunswick told reporters that the Mi’kmaq would challenge the embargo. “We have had enough of being held hostage to this fight between the federal government and crab fishers,” he said. “We’re going to fish even if we have to call out the RCMP, the coast guard, the ministry of fishing and oceans, and even, if necessary, the army and the navy.”

On May 12, in Caraquet, New Brunswick, 100 crab fishers stopped former cod fishermen from leaving the shore to catch their quota of crab. Other incidents of intimidation were reported. The Union of Maritime Fishers, who joined the Mi’kmaq at the press conference, also planned to defy the boycott. As Réginald Comeau of the Union explained to the Montréal daily La Presse, “we have smaller boats and we can only fish for crab in shallow, warmer water and if we wait too long, they will begin to molt and will be of no value.”

Diane Huard Francoeur, whose husband is a small lobster fisher, told Militant reporters on the dock at St. Godefroi. “Small fishers don’t have the financial means to cross their arms and refuse to fish,” she said,

She also described some of the ways small fishers are exploited. In addition to lobster, her husband catches herring, caplan, and mackerel, primarily for crab and lobster bait. The lobster fishers give their catch over to the lobster processing plants before knowing what price they will get, she said. “Just to show you how nasty the plant owners are, they’ll buy herring at 15 cents a pound from one small fisher and then turn around, and without even leaving the dock, they’ll sell it to another small fisher to use as bait for 40 cents a pound. They’re profiteers.”

Albert Diotte, who has been allotted a quota for crab to make up for the moratorium on cod, said, “I only have the right to land 20,000 pounds. I would need to take 40,000 in order to make payments on my boat, keep up insurance, and pay my crew.”  
 
Indigenous fishing rights
Daryl Patnode is a Mi’kmaq fisher Militant reporters interviewed at the Grande Rivière quay. He is one of the “traditional” crab fishers because the Gesgapegiag reserve in the Gaspésie bought some permits four years ago from “traditional” fishers. But he explained that the profits on their boats don’t go exclusively to the captain. “We have community permits and the benefits go to the community,” he stated.

Other indigenous fishers are allocated a part of the 15 percent crab quota put aside for them and other independent producers. This was the result of a ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that recognized the right of Native peoples to sell fish caught outside the legal fishing season. This ruling is based on a 1760 treaty between the British government and three Native peoples. Some crab fishers see this decision as a threat to their profits. But Chief John Martin of the Gesgapegiag reserve explained, “with the Marshall decision we finally had the capacity to earn a living. Before we had to beg the government for money.”

Guy Methot works as a fisher’s helper on a lobster boat. “It’s the factory workers who suffered the most from the crab boycott,” he said. Fish processing is seasonal and workers survive on unemployment benefits the rest of the year. But by May, their benefits had expired and they were not being called into work.

The Gaspésie’s economy is based on fishing, wood, agriculture, and tourism. The region has already seen substantial job losses in other sectors. The Canadian mining giant Noranda closed its copper mine in Murdochville in 1999, and then its smelter in the same town last year. Noranda was the town’s main employer. Also in 1999 Abitibi-Consolidated closed its Gaspésia paper mill in Chandler. The mill is to be reopened by new owners in 2004, but with half of the former workforce. Workers at this mill were part of a hard-fought strike in 1998 involving 10 different plants in Ontario, Québec, and Newfoundland. Unionists in Chandler played a key role in winning the strike by standing firm in the face of company threats to close that mill.  
 
Fish processing workers fight back
Johanne Huot, a workers’ association representative at the Unipêche crab processing plant at Paspébiac, said that workers need 14 weeks in order to qualify for federal benefits. With the collapse of the cod fishery, the Québec government has set up a program that allows some workers to qualify by employing them in public works projects to complete the required 14 weeks of labor if they work a minimum number of hours.

Linda Delarosbil, another workers’ association representative at Unipêche, said that the crab season was starting late because of the boycott by crab fishers and only 80 of the 200 workers had been called back to work. “Johanne and I are OK,” she said, “we’ve got more seniority, but we’re fighting for those who are sitting at home.”

Huot and Delarosbil explained that workers at the plants in Anse aux Gascons, Paspébiac, and Pabos had shut down Québec Employment offices for several days and had even blocked a highway for several hours to win access to work on the projects for everyone. They are also demanding that they be paid Can$8.55 per hour (US$6.33) hour for this work instead of the $7.30 minimum wage (US$5.40), to help make up for the short season.

At Unipêche, where Delarosbil and Huot work, five crab fishers own the factory of 200 workers. They said these fishers own several other factories in the region.

The fish processing workers have to buy their own clothing and safety equipment. For the men’s jobs, it costs Can$200 (US$148). “But if you get a hole in your glove, you’re billed right away for new ones and they take the money off your pay check,” said Delarosbil.

Diane Huard-Francoeur described the working conditions in a lobster processing plant where she worked for 20 years. She never earned more than minimum wage. “You get called when the fish arrive and you stay as long as it takes to process. You can work up to 15 hours straight, on your feet in the cold and in the wet. Today, I hurt all over.”

When asked if they had tried to organize a union, Huot said she thought the crab fishers would just shut down the plant.

In the past, the workers’ associations would get five cents for every pound of crab harvested. This has been cut in many plants. But Monique Lambert, the workers’ association representative at the E. Gagnon and Son plant in Ste. Thérèse, where she has worked for 20 years, said workers there refused to process the crab if the owners didn’t pay into the fund. “We won because they couldn’t just replace 500 workers overnight and also because our plant is only 49 percent owned by the crab fishers,” she said. “The other plants are 100 percent owned by the crab fishers.”  
 
 
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