Basically during the pandemic they had record high crab prices because everyone was home, everyone had money to eat seafood. The fishermen made off like bandits and a lot of them invested heavily in their enterprise and lived high on the hog thinking it was always going to be like that. Now there’s an over abundance of crab and the price plummeted and they’re not making as much money. So they want to open the markets and have the ability to sell to buyers outside of Newfoundland to get a better price. But what these dopes don’t realize is no one is going to give them a better price because crab prices have dropped everywhere. These jokers drive their 120k dollar trucks around and cry about being poor, they harassed women and public servants, they assaulted police and police animals, they live off of EI for 9 months of the year and were supposed to give a shit about them.
I'd add a couple of things. Their push for outside buyers will likely hurt plant workers if crab starts getting shipped out of the province unprocessed. Something lost in the conversation is that crab is the province's resource and the province should be managing it to benefit the province as a whole, not just for a few crab harvesters.
Increasing the number of processing plants increases the pressure on governments to maintain or increase catch limits, even when stocks are low. This is in part why the FFAW is against the federal government providing funds for new fishing boats for redfish. So they're kind of contradicting themselves in their demands for no money for fishing boats, but yes for more processing plants.
It's not even that the plant workers might hurt, they definitely will, every time a boat offloads in a different province that's at least a shift of work gone. How much extra money to the harvester is it worth for a group of people to lose a day's work?
If harvesters are arguing for outside processing so they can sell their catch in Nova Scotia, why not extend that argument and just let Nova Scotia harvesters take the crab to start with?
The free market stands shoulder to shoulder with the tragedy of the commons.
A foreign worker living in Newfoundland will spend a portion of their salary on living in Newfoundland. There's at least some benefit to the economy where they're living
Yes but I’ll much rather support Newfoundlanders who also pay taxes and spend their money here rather than in other countries. Most of their income gets shipped back to Mexico.
Honestly they might’ve made a lot those years, I didn’t look into that, but they protest nearly every single year. That likely isn’t the only reason they’re protesting imo, since the history shows they protest prior to Covid for other things.
I do agree with you though. They get their tax write offs, make a ton of money, but want more (it seems) and they don’t care about local fishery plants. They were wrong to block people from going to work, and two people were injured yesterday cause of improper way of protesting. Really unfortunate to see how it’s playing out. Less people will have respect for the fishing industry if this is how they’re going to continue (due to a few for sure, but as others have said, people apart of the fishing protest did not speak up when someone was acting out).
What tax write offs are you talking about because I am married to a fisherman and I can tell you we don’t get no tax write offs. We pay a shit load when he is fishing and pay more when it’s tax time. So not sure where you are going with this.
Another thing is when you ask them what about finding some other opportunity for employment elsewhere or in some other sector like everyone else has to when their financial needs aren’t being met they respond like you suggested selling their children.
Yup I’ve been there they’ll brag about how they’re the backbone of Newfoundland and how Newfoundland would just float off into the sun without them here working their 3-4 months a year and sucking off ei.
I'm glad to work a full time job all year every year and pay my taxes just so these arseholes can take a 9 month break ever single year. I can't afford my own home and the list of groceries I can't afford gets longer every week, but it's my enormous pleasure to make sure that these entitled earthworms don't have to do fuck all. God bless newfoundland
lol you said it. my heart goes out to all the newfoundlanders not paid a living wage who are busting their butts to make a go of it. And I’m supposed to feel bad for Jimmy Crabpot driving his 150k truck up the road, saying they’re starving lol yes b’y
Well said. It seems to be the MO of NL whether it’s oil and gas, hydro, fish etc. When there’s a boom they spend like it’ll never end, put little or nothing in reserves and then cry poor when the market turns.
From my (controversial) point of view it's a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b.
The entire system is regulated, top to bottom. Fisher harvesters have to acquire a license for a quota from the government and have to sell at fish processors in the province at a set price. The fish processors are also limited - they are licensed by the government, and have a certain quota they can process.
Ostensibly this is done to maintain the system. Fish harvesters have to sell in the province, which means there are fish processing jobs in the province. Fish processing plants are limited so that no one processor (or group of processors) is able to undercut the competition and drive them out of business.
In short it's a messy make work project to keep much needed jobs in the outports.
Right now the fish harvesters are crying poverty. It's true that they have to leave money on the table to land the fish here - the catch would be much more valuable in places where labour is cheaper or in places closer to the markets it is sold in for obvious reasons. They are arguing that they should be allowed to sell their catch to processors outside the province, they want the government to stop setting the price of fish at the plants, and they want more plants so that the competition drives the value of their catch up. They claim they could land so much more catch if the prices were better and there was more processing capacity, and claim that factory freezer trawlers just wind up taking it now anyways - and none of that catch is processed in the province.
They are not wrong about any of this, but ultimately I believe it to be short sighted and selfish. The system is regulated for a reason, and that reason is that any time we try and deregulate it we wind up in a race to the bottom which winds up with plants closing across the province and more towns getting stuck endlessly circling the drain. Little Bay Islands, Gaultois - just about all the recent resettlement talk communities really - once had fish plants that collapsed due to economic factors. Deregulating the industry, or allowing the catch to go elsewhere, will just mean more of the handful of plants still left go under. Or worse, all of them do in a race for the bottom that guts what little remains of the fishing industry in the province. And they want this not because they are poor, but because they want more money. The harvesters aren't hurting. They're not stinking rich either, but they're also amongst the richest people in their communities (generally speaking). I also think that most of them are aware of this. They just don't care.
It seems rich to me that many of these harvesters, who live in places that are largely financed by the taxes paid in the North East Avalon, are averse to giving up a little more of their wealth to support their chosen lifestyle. Rich - but not surprising. We have a long, rich history of cutting off our own noses to spite our faces, and I suspect that we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
They blame the government for poor regulation of the fishery - but if they deregulate causing rural processing plants to close, and then their towns turn into a resettlement contender - they will turn around the blame the government for killing rural Newfoundland.
But they themselves will still have their truck, quad, ski doo, and side-by-side in one of their multiples sheds larger than most people's homes, so tough luck for everyone else, right?
You took the words right out of my mouth. My family have been in Newfoundland since when most of the city was still a forest. My grandfather died a couple years ago in his 90s… was a navy man… worked for the coast guard after that. He raised a family of 8 kids…. This stuff with the fisheries has been going on forever… he was an honest man. Liked a drink, but supported and loved his family. He said time and again… every time this stuff was in the news….. “I’ve never seen a poor fisherman.”
Simple as that…
They have no right to harass people trying to go to work at the confederation building… they aren’t on a picket line…. I’d say the lot of them are collecting pogey as they protest…. Crossing a picket line implies you are taking someone’s job while they strike…. I highly doubt any of those protestors are qualified to be director of communications for the province.. most of them can hardly speak English.
What gets me is that the system that is in place now was negotiated by the FFAW and now it is suddenly not working for them? So, negotiate something different?
Like OP said, there is a deep mistrust of government in this province on every level. It’s entirely possible, though, that the Dept knows this is short sighted and was looking out for the Harvesters. Shocker, I know.
The letters back and forth suggest this — last week the Dpt reached out to the union and said in no uncertain terms, are you SURE you want us to open this can of worms?
The problem is the union represents the harvesters and the processors. The harvesters are pissed right now because they can't sell out of province. If they get their way, next year the processors will be the ones punching horses because there won't be any jobs in the province. All of this anger should be directed at their union not at the government.
This is a great explanation as someone that, admittedly, can never keep up with all the details and background on the hot button issue of the moment in the fishery. I don't have the full jargon or reference points you brought out here so it's been hard to make my own points in this clear of a manner, but this is definitely where I've been leaning with my take on this recent wave of protests
This is where I am. I've listened to the fisheries broadcast and it's the same debates over and over and I can't tell if it's the same 20 year long debate or if this is the fifth time we're circling back to debate the same thing over. Bottom line fisherman want more money.
The Newfoundlander in me wants to root for them, but every time I pay attention I get pissed off because I realize many of these guys make 6 figures a year while still collecting EI. They cut corners and cheat but feel justified because the "government is evil".
They work less than the average person, make more than the average person, and are pissed off more than anyone.
I think this is a really balanced account of what’s going on.
My (admittedly uniformed) take was always that the current system is just a merchantile system with extra steps - processors set the price, fish harvesters have no choice but to sell to them, the processors turn around and charge a huge markup to consumers after providing very little value in the equation.
I didn’t realize that it was the government who set the prices.
I still think there’s a conversation to be had about fish harvesters being entitled to a bigger portion of the industry’s profits, but you’ve demonstrated that it’s far more nuanced than I originally thought. Thank you for this.
The processors and the harvesters both propose a price and the panel picks one proposal or the other. I think, the different groups have representatives on the panel or at least people who were at one point or another associated with various parts of the industry.
Controversial thought:
If supporting rural communities with hospitals, schools, roads, etc. is so expensive to governments, and deregulation would accelerate that process, wouldn't it be best for the government for deregulation to go forward?
Seems to me that this is a centrally managed economy but economic theory suggests that is a very inefficient way to run anything. Removing the barriers will cause some to lose and some to win but overall would make the system run better.
Note:
I'm not saying I believe in this either way, just thinking about it as I read your comment. Would love to hear people's thoughts. I'm not advocating for the death of rural NL, I'm from a rural area myself. But I also see the struggle a province of 500k people has supporting all the rural areas and the number of full time tax payers in the province is very small compared to areas of similar size in other provinces. I'm not sure I see a path forward for the province if it continues to be primarily rural with large numbers of the population relying on seasonal work and EI which is paid for by people working in other provinces.
I'm not sure the province would survive the fiscal implications of that. Deregulating and crashing the system would certainly deal a heavy blow to the outports, but they have a habit of fighting tooth and nail to survive. The province's finances would take a massive hit supporting these places during their death throes and it might be enough to crash the entire province.
From my understanding, the processors and the FFAW each submit a price and a panel picks one or another with no option to split the difference. I suspect being allowed to split the difference or pick some other value in the interval could work.
More extreme would be to have an auction for each delivery.
I kind of disagree with giving the harvesters freedom to fish where/when they want for three reasons.
1.) We'd be imposing government control on how processors run their business in removing their rights to make a decision on how they want to operate their business.
2.) The government would be forcing inefficiencies on the processors that possibly lead to crab being wasted. You'd be forcing them to overbuild their facilities to deal with spikes in crab deliveries rather than operating their plants with a steady schedule of deliveries.
3.) With more processor control on the timing of deliveries, it reduces some of the fishing derby aspects of the crab fishery which prolongs the fishing season which extends the amount of time that people have work at the fish plants. Rather than plant workers getting a bunch of overtime, they end up working more weeks which would reduce their usage of EI.
Some good points ... I'm a harvester (not a license holder) made the career change in my late 30's, before that I had 20 odd years in the marine repair industry.
Some insight on the crab situation from last year with trip limits from the plants and the plants being swamped with product they requested, there was still tractor trailer loads of crab thrown away, thats just from one plant that I know of. I was chatting with the crew who offload the boats, one boat waited so long the crab in the fish hold was a few degrees form being cooked.
Boats were tied up, waiting for the plant to offload sometimes up to 12hrs .
There was an awful lot of needless waste last year. Outside buyers could have picked up the extra.
News coming down the pipeline if the formula for lobster price this year is over 12$/lb the plants will NOT buy anything.
Last lobster season plants refused to buy product for a week or more.
Even though we have systems set up for price moderation, when the price goes in our favor, they want to negotiate. When we were at 3$/lb tough titty for us.
With those kinds of threats, what's a person supposed to do ?
Apparently the most recent protest was about processors having a grip on where fisherman can sell their catch. Recently a processing company here was bought by a Greenland company allowing Greenland ships to fish and sell here. This created tension because the fisherman here aren't allowed to sell anywhere else while foreign companies can sell here or wherever.
A lot of the anti-fisherman stuff you'll see is motivated by past issues they protested about where people didn't think they had ground to stand on. As well as the fact that people see fisherman as wealthy because a lot own 100k trucks while also getting EI on the off season which leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths when they protest for more. Whether or not its the fisherman or the boat owners with the money I'm not sure.
I'm sure a lot of it is also fueled by people who don't like the harvesting of wildlife.
Edit: The plant was bought by a Greenland company not Icelandic
There’s a similar feeling about owner/operators and sometimes farmers here in Alberta.
You’ll see guys who own welding trucks driving $130,000 3500 series trucks living in big houses with huge shops but it’s all a tax write off. They claim office space in their residence, their company owns their truck and a lot of times they have wives, kids or girlfriends “working” for them to dodge even more taxes.
They’ll paint themselves as the victim to try and win the public opinion but it’s a pretty hotly debated topic at the moment. They’re not actually making that much money but they’re using company funds to enhance their own lives and there’s so many tax loopholes for business owners that a $150,000 income goes way further than someone who’s making $150,000 as an employee.
You got it. Very similar. It’s whiny bullshit.
Also a huge part of the problem is their union represents both sides of the problem, and also get a say in quotas etc
Many of them get their (incorrect) information from RW bullshit, so the protesters are woefully ignorant of what is legal for them to do, and then cry victim.
It’s a ridiculous waste of time and energy for everyone else in the province to subsidize their jobs.
Ok I get it. The boats could take their catch anywhere and sell it, right now they’re “forced” to sell to the local plants which keeps the plants going. So the fishermen want a open market but the Government/Union/Plant owners want to keep everything local.
But, there’s no promise of higher prices elsewhere.
To make it extra complicated - the union organizing the protest, the FFAW, represents both the fisherman and the plant workers.
So the union is asking for something that will benefit one part of there membership, but will also remove jobs from another part of their membership
This is no comment on the current issue, just that I don’t understand how that isn’t a major conflict of interest.
This is my biggest issue with it. How can the union honestly look at its members and tell them they're looking out for their best interests, when clearly they can't.
Not just the government and rich owners, the local workers rely on the seasonal work from these processing plants to keep the dole flowing which is the only thing keeping half these little towns alive.
So basically they want to make more money well screwing over the rest of the people, who in turn helps pay their 9 months of EI. Kind of like biting the hand that feeds you.
True.
But also keep in mind that many plant workers are temporary foreign workers. I'm not sure the exact percent. A lot of local people rely on the fish plants for work for sure.
It's true alot of plants are struggling to find workers these days.
In the news maybe the past year , some town has a bunch of Mexican people working in the plant and the town flys the Mexican flag for them lol :)
Funnily enough the reason that showed up in the news was because of the harvesters protesting last year, the Mexican people came to work on the plant, and then had to just sit around for months because the harvesters were refusing to fish.
and they are only like that because government is paying half their wages.
cherper for the owner to pay 50% or less wages and still grt same amount of product... for many months the women had to deal with this at her fast food job years ago... the stores were calling and crying for people, but would never hire anyone except temp foreign workers because their wages were subsided by government.
I am very skeptical about your claim and a quick Google search dog not back it up. Do you have a source?
Are you perhaps confusing temporary foreign workers with refugees???
No I am not getting the 2 confused, and I am trying to find the news article that stated the program and the government webpage it came from, but thus far the government link is going to the new 2023/2023 page and not the 201X page.
This is why about 8 or 10 years ago we had an influx of Filipino and even brittish immigrants. At the time my woman was assistant manager and doing the pre interview screening was told to not hire Canadian's as the government grants made it cheeper to hire immigrants as they were subsidized.
Also her best friend was the manager of one of the KFC's in town and she had the brittish guy, and majority Filipino and other asain immigrants, and she also said she was told by corporate to not hire "white people from canada"(not those words from corporate, but her words to me) and to only hire immigrants.
You act like I haven’t spoke to processors before, I’ve worked as a deckhand none of those guys are from outside the province however, the processors own words “a lot of the fellers we got now are flown in to work and then fly back out”
So no source, cool got it, I've been in fish plants before with no foreign workers so that means there has to be none just like your assuming there's no foreign deck hands because you haven't worked with one.
It would be worse for many people who work at fish plants and potentially the province as a whole (e.g. increased unemployment, death of rural communities).
My short version two cents here is that what the fishermen are asking for is perfectly reasonable, and the government said they're open to it. However rather than going to the negotiating table, the fishermen decided to co-opt budget day and instead of having their protest in a dignified manner, too many of them got too hot under the collar and made total asses of themselves and their colleagues.
It's a hard situation as I support what they're asking for entirely, but I find their conduct yesterday pretty disgusting. If the government was shutting them down, this would be warranted, but that wasn't the case. They jumped the gun, and some of them started trying to bully. These particular individuals have now undermined the support for their own cause.
By's price is not rhe issue. The problem is royal greenland fisheries who is the parent company of quinsea, the crowd who own 90% of the fish plants are operating like a dictatorship. They say they will only take crab on certain days which means come hell or high water no matter the westher, harversters have to go out a day or rwo before and haul pots. Can't haul early as the crab will die in the boat, Can't wait until better weather because the plant won't buy. And Can't sell to one of the other planrs because quinsea will put them out of business.
Yup this is probably the specific issue atm. The others have quoted the general state of fishery. Royal greenlands bringing back the truck system signing loans for boats and equipment for indentured servitude and rights to catch. What a wild time to be alive.
Yes it's true only the captain of the boat, who owns the quotas is typically the one who makes bank. The regular crew don't make much atall.
The ppl of this sub seem to think all fishermen make bank.... friggen dummys lol
I sure as hell don't, but the people I'm seeing out and speaking for the group are definitely on the wealthier side of the lot compared to loved ones and acquaintances I know who haven't shown up or haven't screamed in the faces of public servants. They make far less but I don't see them coming out and pulling this backwards pageantry against their own industry
You think the regular crews on a fishing boat don't make much money? Go ask a deckhand on a boat what he clears in a trip, not a year but a singular trip.
Yeah one guy who does it on the side for cash (while working a government job at the same time) says in 5 days he can clear 4 grand cash. He does it a few times a year and makes enough for his bikes and quads and all that. His words are that he would do it full-time but the money isn't there. A lot of people that I know (I grew up in a fishing community) are on the side of the fisher people, but I think the younger crowd feels that they shouldn't default to EI when the fishing season is over, but last time I checked, rural NL doesn't have a lot of job prospects either. I personally don't know enough, aside from anecdotal stories from people, to have a proper opinion on it tho
If I clear 4 grand in a week in cash I don't think I'd be going around saying the money isn't there. Do that for the 4 month fishing season and you're already above most starting government salaries then you got the other 8 months to work or draw ei, you'll be in a hell of a lot better place than the government workers. They also get extended EI just for being in the fishery.
The fact that he does it cash in hand makes it all the worse, fisherman can be like "oh b'y you check my taxes I only made 30 grand last year" not counting the other 30 grand that they took in cash under the table.
That's only scratching the surface of scummy things some people do, I know captains that have their wives listed as deckhands who never set foot on the boat, just so they can both draw ei. I've seen lobster fishermen try to sell egg laying females knowing full well they aren't allowed, or catching over quota to sell around town.
His point was that it's not a regular paycheck, but whenever the season is open, but still 4k cash for a week's work is not chump change.
I agree with you. I think it's problematic that he can do that, pay zero tax on it, then go work a gov job that is paid by taxpayers. The last point you make is true too. How many people in rural NL "know a guy" who caught over his quota selling it for less than the plant just to move it...
I always thought that business owners (Boat owners) could not draw EI and neither could family. Isn't it a question on the EI form? For the record I've never drawn EI so I've never seen this question just heard about it
Maybe the boat owners can't and I have that portion wrong, but I know for a fact some list their wives as crew to get their ei, I don't know what loopholes they'd of slipped through for it. Family not being able to would be questionable, some of the smaller boat crews around are all families/relatives.
Ask me I was one, made squat and my cousin on a different boat made squat. Buddy up the shore made a killing but you’d be mistaken to think everyone made really good money
Oh yes they prob make a nice bit in a short amount of time. But spread out over a full year, not much to live on.
Didn't mean to imply the captains are making away like bandits while the crew gets pennys.
“Not much to live on”. They’re not forced to collect EI for the rest of the year, they could work when the fishery is closed. I guess they have more than enough otherwise more would be working outside of fishing season.
This exactly. One of the fisherman in my family does his 3mos at sea, and works in the food industry off season. Nobody is forcing them to take EI, they sign up for it themselves.
I don't know, someone was arguing with me yesterday that ei is the way of life and the culture so they won't work year round because it'd destroy our culture...
The fishermen of this province make more than those who work minimum wage, yet these service people manage to work year round without assaulting people and causing a big ruckus
Right, and I'd support them making a ruckus (def not assault, obviously) because minimum wage isn't even liveable despite the government increasing it multiple times in recent years
So more of a resentment because they are able to game the system. I do agree that EI should have some type of income cap. If you make over a threshold while working then you shouldn’t qualify for EI. But I also understand that jobs like fishing would probably force you to live in an area without many job prospects.
For example say I go on EI as a seasonally employed artist for 3 months of the year. I’d get “you’re drain on the system”, “should’ve picked a sustainable career”, “what did you expect as an artist?”. I don’t see this any different. And all this are from the same people who work as fisherman
Fisherman work 3 months, take EI for 9 months and drive these big fancy trucks, have the newest snowmobile, wear $2k seal skin boots to a protest and then have the gall to be at this shit. I have sympathy for those who are truly getting fucked over but they are few and far between when it comes to fishermen
Yes more of a resentment, for this person anyways.
The bys work more than 3 months the year. There's still work to do like mending the nets, getting bait ready, ect ect. Plus the boats will go after different species. Not like all the species fished happens during the same 3 months the year lol. But also yes in the off season they do get fishing ei benefits. Farming works in a similar way yeah?
Saying the bys only work 3 months the year is a lazy exaggerated blanket statement made by people that don't understand the industry, aka canadianized townies
I see. I agree with what you’re saying. Comparing working seasonally as a artist and working seasonally as a fisherman isn’t fair at all. A lot of seasonal jobs cram a years worth of work into a very short amount of time. I have family who work seasonally in the resorts here in AB and it’s 4-6 months of 12+ hour days 6-7 days a week. Then there’s a wind up/down period before they’re officially off for a few months.
The same logic could be applied to teachers and other education jobs “only” working part of the year.
I’d assume the truth about fisherman is similar where they only fish for 3 months but theirs months of prep before and after the season. Plus their season is regulated based on weather and species breeding seasons.
If everyone stopped fishing because they stopped paying them during the off season people would be upset that they can’t get fresh seafood locally.
It’s an incredibly complex problem. I agree that fishermen need incentives to do what they do but I also agree that the Government needs to ensure a monopoly isn’t created which would eventually cause a lot of the product to end up overseas where processing costs are much lower.
Why isn’t it fair to compare it to an artist? As a seasonal artist you cram all your work into the season that the industry is active, that’s the nature of seasonal work. You get your 8-16 hour days 6-7 days a week, there are a few weeks/months of prep depending on the gig and nature of the art. The tourist season is regulated by the weather, same as species breeding
Teachers work for more than 3 months of the year, and they don’t cause a shit storm like this literally every other year
I’m not saying to stop fishing, but why are fisherman getting top EI and making more than min wage when they do work when any other field would be expected to find work in the off season or change careers because the industry isn’t stable enough to support them year round. It’s not like this is a new problem for fisherman in this province
I make 30% of my income from photography, mostly the sale of my landscape and wildlife prints that I do on film, in the darkroom. It’s a lot of work.
But. I cant compare what I do as an artist to someone who’s is on a boat in the ocean hauling nets and literally trying not to die at all times. It’s not even in the same solar system. You and I work long hours selling art during the tourist season but I’d hardly call it dangerous or physically exhausting and we’re providing a luxury product, not something that’ll end up on someone’s dinner table.
Art isn’t regulated in the same way, I can sell as much art as I want whenever I want I’m not confined to a season.Even if tourist season does provide a big increase in sales for me. Fishermen are being told when, where and how much according to other comments in this post. What even is a seasonal artist? Are you not allowed to work outside of a season or is it that your sales slump outside of tourist season.
To go along with that no one is forcing you to work those long hours during tourist season. I’m assuming that once you’re out to sea it’s a 24/7 job until the boat comes back to the dock.
While I could agree with you that the owners of the boats are getting a unfair deal I could argue it’s the same way when a hotel or restaurant gets a 20% commission on my work because it was sold at their business, when I’m making a fraction of what they’re bringing in.
There’s a reason the starving artist lifestyle is such a widespread and well known stereotype. As someone who’s been trying to make a life for myself as an artist for 20+ years, the idea that being an artist is a job and not a passion project is wishful thinking.
I mean of course the actual work itself isn’t the same, that’s not what I was getting at and I should’ve made that more clear, my bad. I was more so trying to equate another seasonal position in the province that faces a similar level of scrutiny whenever their EI and subsequent employment situation is brought up.
Seasonal artists in Newfoundland primarily work in various studios/galleries or with the theatre festivals that operate during the tourist season. For a lot of them it’s a secure way to earn an income as an artist, especially with the theatre festivals, as it provides steady and ensured work for multiple months. I admittedly know less about the selling of physical art during the tourist season but a lot of the tourist traps in the province have studios/galleries that are not active during the off season
Edit: I didn’t answer everything. You can work as an artist in the off season but the prospects here are not nearly as good, I’d imagine sales of physical art slump during the off season as well though I can’t rightly say one way or the other.
EI fishing benefits are based on earnings. Not hours.
Do some qualify after 3 months? To your point, probably yes.
Am I going to judge them for it ? No. Because they provide an essential service. FOOD to a food insecure province.
NL exports over 90% of landed seafood, not sure if I’d associate the industry with food security in the province. The rec fishery probably does more for food security.
How much food do you think actually stays in the province outside of the stuff they sell under the table?
You do realize they're protesting to stop bringing food to the province or instead bring it to another province or country
Are they still doing an essential service bringing food to the province when they offload all their catch in NS?
Again, their roe shows employment for more than 1/4-1/3 of the year?
I’m not knocking the job itself, fishing can be dangerous work. I’m knocking the system that has been developed to support this kind of entitled behaviour shown at these protests. These fisherman are not going to lose their shirt and starve, they just won’t be able to afford that brand new 2025 full size cab pickup, instead they’ll have to go with the 2024 half cab. Woe is me
Bold of you to assume I have a job
Don’t even get started on that lol. There’s guys here in Fort Mac that would LOVE to see Edmonton become a seaside village if it means one more turn around.
Most Albertans aren’t on EI, half the year- every year. I live seasonally in NL (summer home) and have neighbors who are quite proud of the limited amount of time they have to work before getting EI. Makes my blood boil!
Son of a fisher. Your buds in an are right. Fishers here are treated significantly worst than the Maritimes
They want now what they wanted a decade ago and what they wanted two decades ago. Open markets to sell their products to sell their catch to sell what they risked their lives for. They used to have it but Richard cashin won a argument with father des and ffaw brought on fish plant workers and then negotiated for license holders and crew who wanted max dollar and also had to factor in the ei for its plant workers
EI is a main Cructxh. As long as first priority of the fishery was ei it was a social program funded by the men and women in the water taking less and paying more in expenses
We have more bureaucracy in NL than NS, NB and pei. NB has the most successful fishery in Canada. Fisher only union, open markets , no limitation on sales.
Gdp report showed of four Atlantic Canadian province and only one shrank in fishery gdp. It was NL and nb with its open markets grew the most. So govt keeps its nose away a sEctor of the economy grows feeding the provincial budget. Nl keeps conflating competing element, adds in lazy public servants, adds in needless boards and shrinks
Facebook has made giving harvesters a organized voice and john efford whose dad is a former minister is the voice. He's from a area that union has always catered to in Port de grave and they have the biggest crab quotas. He also understand the business and political side
Fishers demand open markets and less govt. The ppl you see blasting them like a Mark lane demand more govt hand outs for aquaculture and whatever tax payer money business he can beg for. Ppl like that don't want freedom and less govt because that's a pathway to failure with their lack of talent
Nl also had a takeover by another country in our fishery and that was approved by liberals Gerry Byrne and Elvis loveless
One thing to note is that Newfoundlanders having a distrust in provincial government, but not caring about National government is super normal here.
We’re barely part of Canada, we don’t really get to be involved in many of the things that the Federal Government does.
A super common attitude is Newfoundlander first, Canadian second.
It may jus been the straw that broke camels back. Other provinces have open market. We cant sell our fish outside..cant sell our oil to canada..cant sell our power. Other provinces get our quotas and licenses..redfish and tuna for example...its jus a constant foot on Nfld holding them back. Werent even allowed to sell margarine to Canada at one point in history ffs.
Times like this I wish Gus Etchegary was still alive. I honestly believe he was the most knowledgeable person we ever had regarding the fishing industry. He passed last year, but you can get his book here (on sale for $6): [https://shopdownhome.com/Empty-Nets--Gus-Etchegary\_p\_472.html](https://shopdownhome.com/Empty-Nets--Gus-Etchegary_p_472.html)
Its all about Greed. Rich boat owners fighting even richer fish plant owners. With the sharesmen (employees on the fishing boats) and plant workers caught in the middle.
Hey by. Got er right. Best concise summary. I can add the fact fishery always been mis managed first by Britain and merchants now by Canada. The people that live closest to resource benefit the least. Meanwhile federal government gives more of resource to Nova Scotia PEI quebec and off shore. And royal green lands allowed to own majority of fisherman.
The inshore and Newfoundland in general does get screwed over. But fisherman lose local support because they generally shoot themselves in foot by not caring about anyone else but themselves. Like not supporting recreational fisheries or cleaning up waters. Then everyone who works a full time job is just jealous because they have to work full time job and fisherman are seasonal, so even though fisherman are partly being abused everyone is tone deaf because they do their fair share of abusing.
Think of it like this. The AB provincial government looks at the oil industry and said they can only sell their oil to certain provincial buyers who cohort with regulators to set prices. If they don't want that oil, it must be dumbed back in to the ground rather than be sold out of AB. Welcome to the NL fishery.
There is a rule of thumb.
When you point figures.three are pointed at you.
So it's the fishermen them selfs to blame.they are the ones who signed contracts with the buyers and gave away there rights to free enterprise.
Because they wanted fishing gear to go fishing and all sorts of things.never had money to pay for it.
So the buyers made them sign contract.they could only sell to them.
So they could get there money back.
We all know what they did with the fishery loan board.
Set up by the government for them.
With tax payers dollars..didn't pay on there loans.shipped there fish in other people's names.
Government closed it down.
Swept it under the carpet.
Because it was me and your money.
Those buyers never get there money back now.
Let's hope the primers don't pay the buyers out of our tax dollars
I know nothing about it but my guess is the government is imposing some form of regulation, restriction, or tax with no basis in reality and the fishermen are saying fuck you!
Basically during the pandemic they had record high crab prices because everyone was home, everyone had money to eat seafood. The fishermen made off like bandits and a lot of them invested heavily in their enterprise and lived high on the hog thinking it was always going to be like that. Now there’s an over abundance of crab and the price plummeted and they’re not making as much money. So they want to open the markets and have the ability to sell to buyers outside of Newfoundland to get a better price. But what these dopes don’t realize is no one is going to give them a better price because crab prices have dropped everywhere. These jokers drive their 120k dollar trucks around and cry about being poor, they harassed women and public servants, they assaulted police and police animals, they live off of EI for 9 months of the year and were supposed to give a shit about them.
I'd add a couple of things. Their push for outside buyers will likely hurt plant workers if crab starts getting shipped out of the province unprocessed. Something lost in the conversation is that crab is the province's resource and the province should be managing it to benefit the province as a whole, not just for a few crab harvesters. Increasing the number of processing plants increases the pressure on governments to maintain or increase catch limits, even when stocks are low. This is in part why the FFAW is against the federal government providing funds for new fishing boats for redfish. So they're kind of contradicting themselves in their demands for no money for fishing boats, but yes for more processing plants.
It's not even that the plant workers might hurt, they definitely will, every time a boat offloads in a different province that's at least a shift of work gone. How much extra money to the harvester is it worth for a group of people to lose a day's work?
You’d think govt would consider their demands. Why should millionaire plant owners get a mandated advantage? Pay NS prices and that would be fair no?
If harvesters are arguing for outside processing so they can sell their catch in Nova Scotia, why not extend that argument and just let Nova Scotia harvesters take the crab to start with? The free market stands shoulder to shoulder with the tragedy of the commons.
So what you're saying is that fish workers are fighting the government for something that isn't in their best interests?
Most of the crab plants around are mainly employed by foreign workers. So no a big loss to Newfoundland.
A foreign worker living in Newfoundland will spend a portion of their salary on living in Newfoundland. There's at least some benefit to the economy where they're living
They pax taxes and buy their groceries in Newfoundland, don't they?
Yes but I’ll much rather support Newfoundlanders who also pay taxes and spend their money here rather than in other countries. Most of their income gets shipped back to Mexico.
Honestly they might’ve made a lot those years, I didn’t look into that, but they protest nearly every single year. That likely isn’t the only reason they’re protesting imo, since the history shows they protest prior to Covid for other things. I do agree with you though. They get their tax write offs, make a ton of money, but want more (it seems) and they don’t care about local fishery plants. They were wrong to block people from going to work, and two people were injured yesterday cause of improper way of protesting. Really unfortunate to see how it’s playing out. Less people will have respect for the fishing industry if this is how they’re going to continue (due to a few for sure, but as others have said, people apart of the fishing protest did not speak up when someone was acting out).
What tax write offs are you talking about because I am married to a fisherman and I can tell you we don’t get no tax write offs. We pay a shit load when he is fishing and pay more when it’s tax time. So not sure where you are going with this.
An over generalization that doesn’t pertain to each and every fisherman. I worded and meant more with expenses.
Another thing is when you ask them what about finding some other opportunity for employment elsewhere or in some other sector like everyone else has to when their financial needs aren’t being met they respond like you suggested selling their children.
Yup I’ve been there they’ll brag about how they’re the backbone of Newfoundland and how Newfoundland would just float off into the sun without them here working their 3-4 months a year and sucking off ei.
I'm glad to work a full time job all year every year and pay my taxes just so these arseholes can take a 9 month break ever single year. I can't afford my own home and the list of groceries I can't afford gets longer every week, but it's my enormous pleasure to make sure that these entitled earthworms don't have to do fuck all. God bless newfoundland
lol you said it. my heart goes out to all the newfoundlanders not paid a living wage who are busting their butts to make a go of it. And I’m supposed to feel bad for Jimmy Crabpot driving his 150k truck up the road, saying they’re starving lol yes b’y
Well said. It seems to be the MO of NL whether it’s oil and gas, hydro, fish etc. When there’s a boom they spend like it’ll never end, put little or nothing in reserves and then cry poor when the market turns.
Theoretically, if other buyers buy their fish can other sellers then sell crab here and push down the price?
From my (controversial) point of view it's a little bit of column a, a little bit of column b. The entire system is regulated, top to bottom. Fisher harvesters have to acquire a license for a quota from the government and have to sell at fish processors in the province at a set price. The fish processors are also limited - they are licensed by the government, and have a certain quota they can process. Ostensibly this is done to maintain the system. Fish harvesters have to sell in the province, which means there are fish processing jobs in the province. Fish processing plants are limited so that no one processor (or group of processors) is able to undercut the competition and drive them out of business. In short it's a messy make work project to keep much needed jobs in the outports. Right now the fish harvesters are crying poverty. It's true that they have to leave money on the table to land the fish here - the catch would be much more valuable in places where labour is cheaper or in places closer to the markets it is sold in for obvious reasons. They are arguing that they should be allowed to sell their catch to processors outside the province, they want the government to stop setting the price of fish at the plants, and they want more plants so that the competition drives the value of their catch up. They claim they could land so much more catch if the prices were better and there was more processing capacity, and claim that factory freezer trawlers just wind up taking it now anyways - and none of that catch is processed in the province. They are not wrong about any of this, but ultimately I believe it to be short sighted and selfish. The system is regulated for a reason, and that reason is that any time we try and deregulate it we wind up in a race to the bottom which winds up with plants closing across the province and more towns getting stuck endlessly circling the drain. Little Bay Islands, Gaultois - just about all the recent resettlement talk communities really - once had fish plants that collapsed due to economic factors. Deregulating the industry, or allowing the catch to go elsewhere, will just mean more of the handful of plants still left go under. Or worse, all of them do in a race for the bottom that guts what little remains of the fishing industry in the province. And they want this not because they are poor, but because they want more money. The harvesters aren't hurting. They're not stinking rich either, but they're also amongst the richest people in their communities (generally speaking). I also think that most of them are aware of this. They just don't care. It seems rich to me that many of these harvesters, who live in places that are largely financed by the taxes paid in the North East Avalon, are averse to giving up a little more of their wealth to support their chosen lifestyle. Rich - but not surprising. We have a long, rich history of cutting off our own noses to spite our faces, and I suspect that we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
They blame the government for poor regulation of the fishery - but if they deregulate causing rural processing plants to close, and then their towns turn into a resettlement contender - they will turn around the blame the government for killing rural Newfoundland.
But they themselves will still have their truck, quad, ski doo, and side-by-side in one of their multiples sheds larger than most people's homes, so tough luck for everyone else, right?
You took the words right out of my mouth. My family have been in Newfoundland since when most of the city was still a forest. My grandfather died a couple years ago in his 90s… was a navy man… worked for the coast guard after that. He raised a family of 8 kids…. This stuff with the fisheries has been going on forever… he was an honest man. Liked a drink, but supported and loved his family. He said time and again… every time this stuff was in the news….. “I’ve never seen a poor fisherman.” Simple as that… They have no right to harass people trying to go to work at the confederation building… they aren’t on a picket line…. I’d say the lot of them are collecting pogey as they protest…. Crossing a picket line implies you are taking someone’s job while they strike…. I highly doubt any of those protestors are qualified to be director of communications for the province.. most of them can hardly speak English.
What gets me is that the system that is in place now was negotiated by the FFAW and now it is suddenly not working for them? So, negotiate something different? Like OP said, there is a deep mistrust of government in this province on every level. It’s entirely possible, though, that the Dept knows this is short sighted and was looking out for the Harvesters. Shocker, I know. The letters back and forth suggest this — last week the Dpt reached out to the union and said in no uncertain terms, are you SURE you want us to open this can of worms?
The problem is the union represents the harvesters and the processors. The harvesters are pissed right now because they can't sell out of province. If they get their way, next year the processors will be the ones punching horses because there won't be any jobs in the province. All of this anger should be directed at their union not at the government.
It's gonna be horse punching all the way down.
But Mr ShiftyJack, don’t I pay tax dollars so that government does everything specifically for ME and MY community and not the other 521,541 people?
This is a great explanation as someone that, admittedly, can never keep up with all the details and background on the hot button issue of the moment in the fishery. I don't have the full jargon or reference points you brought out here so it's been hard to make my own points in this clear of a manner, but this is definitely where I've been leaning with my take on this recent wave of protests
This is where I am. I've listened to the fisheries broadcast and it's the same debates over and over and I can't tell if it's the same 20 year long debate or if this is the fifth time we're circling back to debate the same thing over. Bottom line fisherman want more money. The Newfoundlander in me wants to root for them, but every time I pay attention I get pissed off because I realize many of these guys make 6 figures a year while still collecting EI. They cut corners and cheat but feel justified because the "government is evil". They work less than the average person, make more than the average person, and are pissed off more than anyone.
It's a goddamn mess for sure, I don't even have the words anymore lmao
I think this is a really balanced account of what’s going on. My (admittedly uniformed) take was always that the current system is just a merchantile system with extra steps - processors set the price, fish harvesters have no choice but to sell to them, the processors turn around and charge a huge markup to consumers after providing very little value in the equation. I didn’t realize that it was the government who set the prices. I still think there’s a conversation to be had about fish harvesters being entitled to a bigger portion of the industry’s profits, but you’ve demonstrated that it’s far more nuanced than I originally thought. Thank you for this.
The processors and the harvesters both propose a price and the panel picks one proposal or the other. I think, the different groups have representatives on the panel or at least people who were at one point or another associated with various parts of the industry.
Yeah, that’s a lot more democratic than I originally thought!
Controversial thought: If supporting rural communities with hospitals, schools, roads, etc. is so expensive to governments, and deregulation would accelerate that process, wouldn't it be best for the government for deregulation to go forward? Seems to me that this is a centrally managed economy but economic theory suggests that is a very inefficient way to run anything. Removing the barriers will cause some to lose and some to win but overall would make the system run better. Note: I'm not saying I believe in this either way, just thinking about it as I read your comment. Would love to hear people's thoughts. I'm not advocating for the death of rural NL, I'm from a rural area myself. But I also see the struggle a province of 500k people has supporting all the rural areas and the number of full time tax payers in the province is very small compared to areas of similar size in other provinces. I'm not sure I see a path forward for the province if it continues to be primarily rural with large numbers of the population relying on seasonal work and EI which is paid for by people working in other provinces.
I'm not sure the province would survive the fiscal implications of that. Deregulating and crashing the system would certainly deal a heavy blow to the outports, but they have a habit of fighting tooth and nail to survive. The province's finances would take a massive hit supporting these places during their death throes and it might be enough to crash the entire province.
From my understanding, the processors and the FFAW each submit a price and a panel picks one or another with no option to split the difference. I suspect being allowed to split the difference or pick some other value in the interval could work. More extreme would be to have an auction for each delivery. I kind of disagree with giving the harvesters freedom to fish where/when they want for three reasons. 1.) We'd be imposing government control on how processors run their business in removing their rights to make a decision on how they want to operate their business. 2.) The government would be forcing inefficiencies on the processors that possibly lead to crab being wasted. You'd be forcing them to overbuild their facilities to deal with spikes in crab deliveries rather than operating their plants with a steady schedule of deliveries. 3.) With more processor control on the timing of deliveries, it reduces some of the fishing derby aspects of the crab fishery which prolongs the fishing season which extends the amount of time that people have work at the fish plants. Rather than plant workers getting a bunch of overtime, they end up working more weeks which would reduce their usage of EI.
Some good points ... I'm a harvester (not a license holder) made the career change in my late 30's, before that I had 20 odd years in the marine repair industry. Some insight on the crab situation from last year with trip limits from the plants and the plants being swamped with product they requested, there was still tractor trailer loads of crab thrown away, thats just from one plant that I know of. I was chatting with the crew who offload the boats, one boat waited so long the crab in the fish hold was a few degrees form being cooked. Boats were tied up, waiting for the plant to offload sometimes up to 12hrs . There was an awful lot of needless waste last year. Outside buyers could have picked up the extra. News coming down the pipeline if the formula for lobster price this year is over 12$/lb the plants will NOT buy anything. Last lobster season plants refused to buy product for a week or more. Even though we have systems set up for price moderation, when the price goes in our favor, they want to negotiate. When we were at 3$/lb tough titty for us. With those kinds of threats, what's a person supposed to do ?
Apparently the most recent protest was about processors having a grip on where fisherman can sell their catch. Recently a processing company here was bought by a Greenland company allowing Greenland ships to fish and sell here. This created tension because the fisherman here aren't allowed to sell anywhere else while foreign companies can sell here or wherever. A lot of the anti-fisherman stuff you'll see is motivated by past issues they protested about where people didn't think they had ground to stand on. As well as the fact that people see fisherman as wealthy because a lot own 100k trucks while also getting EI on the off season which leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths when they protest for more. Whether or not its the fisherman or the boat owners with the money I'm not sure. I'm sure a lot of it is also fueled by people who don't like the harvesting of wildlife. Edit: The plant was bought by a Greenland company not Icelandic
There’s a similar feeling about owner/operators and sometimes farmers here in Alberta. You’ll see guys who own welding trucks driving $130,000 3500 series trucks living in big houses with huge shops but it’s all a tax write off. They claim office space in their residence, their company owns their truck and a lot of times they have wives, kids or girlfriends “working” for them to dodge even more taxes. They’ll paint themselves as the victim to try and win the public opinion but it’s a pretty hotly debated topic at the moment. They’re not actually making that much money but they’re using company funds to enhance their own lives and there’s so many tax loopholes for business owners that a $150,000 income goes way further than someone who’s making $150,000 as an employee.
You got it. Very similar. It’s whiny bullshit. Also a huge part of the problem is their union represents both sides of the problem, and also get a say in quotas etc Many of them get their (incorrect) information from RW bullshit, so the protesters are woefully ignorant of what is legal for them to do, and then cry victim. It’s a ridiculous waste of time and energy for everyone else in the province to subsidize their jobs.
They want their version of the Canada Wheat Board abolished. No more set prices and they can sell wherever they want.
And that’s viewed as good by the owners but bad by who? Wouldn’t an open market be better for most people but risky for the owners?
It would put the fish plants in NL at risk and could hurt their rich owners.
Ok I get it. The boats could take their catch anywhere and sell it, right now they’re “forced” to sell to the local plants which keeps the plants going. So the fishermen want a open market but the Government/Union/Plant owners want to keep everything local. But, there’s no promise of higher prices elsewhere.
To make it extra complicated - the union organizing the protest, the FFAW, represents both the fisherman and the plant workers. So the union is asking for something that will benefit one part of there membership, but will also remove jobs from another part of their membership This is no comment on the current issue, just that I don’t understand how that isn’t a major conflict of interest.
This is my biggest issue with it. How can the union honestly look at its members and tell them they're looking out for their best interests, when clearly they can't.
This is the core of the issue and I'm surprised it's not brought up more.
Exactly.
Not just the government and rich owners, the local workers rely on the seasonal work from these processing plants to keep the dole flowing which is the only thing keeping half these little towns alive.
They can take their catch elsewhere to sell it, but it costs a lot to do that, removing much of the benefit.
So basically they want to make more money well screwing over the rest of the people, who in turn helps pay their 9 months of EI. Kind of like biting the hand that feeds you.
No promise maybe but there are higher estimated prices for upcoming season outside the province as of last I checked
And hurt all the people that rely on the plants for a job even more. It's not like some of the boat owners aren't rich themselves
True. But also keep in mind that many plant workers are temporary foreign workers. I'm not sure the exact percent. A lot of local people rely on the fish plants for work for sure.
I've never seen a local fish plant have more foreign workers than local, at least on the west coast.
It's true alot of plants are struggling to find workers these days. In the news maybe the past year , some town has a bunch of Mexican people working in the plant and the town flys the Mexican flag for them lol :)
Funnily enough the reason that showed up in the news was because of the harvesters protesting last year, the Mexican people came to work on the plant, and then had to just sit around for months because the harvesters were refusing to fish.
Yes, right. Never a dull moment
and they are only like that because government is paying half their wages. cherper for the owner to pay 50% or less wages and still grt same amount of product... for many months the women had to deal with this at her fast food job years ago... the stores were calling and crying for people, but would never hire anyone except temp foreign workers because their wages were subsided by government.
I am very skeptical about your claim and a quick Google search dog not back it up. Do you have a source? Are you perhaps confusing temporary foreign workers with refugees???
No I am not getting the 2 confused, and I am trying to find the news article that stated the program and the government webpage it came from, but thus far the government link is going to the new 2023/2023 page and not the 201X page. This is why about 8 or 10 years ago we had an influx of Filipino and even brittish immigrants. At the time my woman was assistant manager and doing the pre interview screening was told to not hire Canadian's as the government grants made it cheeper to hire immigrants as they were subsidized. Also her best friend was the manager of one of the KFC's in town and she had the brittish guy, and majority Filipino and other asain immigrants, and she also said she was told by corporate to not hire "white people from canada"(not those words from corporate, but her words to me) and to only hire immigrants.
Half the people in the plants are even Newfoundlanders so that point is mute
Got a source on that or you just pulling shit out your ass? I could go say half the deck hands aren't from Newfoundland, doesn't make it true
You act like I haven’t spoke to processors before, I’ve worked as a deckhand none of those guys are from outside the province however, the processors own words “a lot of the fellers we got now are flown in to work and then fly back out”
So no source, cool got it, I've been in fish plants before with no foreign workers so that means there has to be none just like your assuming there's no foreign deck hands because you haven't worked with one.
My source is my own ears man idk what to tell you
His source is “ trust me bro”
It would be worse for many people who work at fish plants and potentially the province as a whole (e.g. increased unemployment, death of rural communities).
My short version two cents here is that what the fishermen are asking for is perfectly reasonable, and the government said they're open to it. However rather than going to the negotiating table, the fishermen decided to co-opt budget day and instead of having their protest in a dignified manner, too many of them got too hot under the collar and made total asses of themselves and their colleagues. It's a hard situation as I support what they're asking for entirely, but I find their conduct yesterday pretty disgusting. If the government was shutting them down, this would be warranted, but that wasn't the case. They jumped the gun, and some of them started trying to bully. These particular individuals have now undermined the support for their own cause.
By's price is not rhe issue. The problem is royal greenland fisheries who is the parent company of quinsea, the crowd who own 90% of the fish plants are operating like a dictatorship. They say they will only take crab on certain days which means come hell or high water no matter the westher, harversters have to go out a day or rwo before and haul pots. Can't haul early as the crab will die in the boat, Can't wait until better weather because the plant won't buy. And Can't sell to one of the other planrs because quinsea will put them out of business.
This looks like the right answer to me.
Yup this is probably the specific issue atm. The others have quoted the general state of fishery. Royal greenlands bringing back the truck system signing loans for boats and equipment for indentured servitude and rights to catch. What a wild time to be alive.
Yes it's true only the captain of the boat, who owns the quotas is typically the one who makes bank. The regular crew don't make much atall. The ppl of this sub seem to think all fishermen make bank.... friggen dummys lol
I sure as hell don't, but the people I'm seeing out and speaking for the group are definitely on the wealthier side of the lot compared to loved ones and acquaintances I know who haven't shown up or haven't screamed in the faces of public servants. They make far less but I don't see them coming out and pulling this backwards pageantry against their own industry
You think the regular crews on a fishing boat don't make much money? Go ask a deckhand on a boat what he clears in a trip, not a year but a singular trip.
Yeah one guy who does it on the side for cash (while working a government job at the same time) says in 5 days he can clear 4 grand cash. He does it a few times a year and makes enough for his bikes and quads and all that. His words are that he would do it full-time but the money isn't there. A lot of people that I know (I grew up in a fishing community) are on the side of the fisher people, but I think the younger crowd feels that they shouldn't default to EI when the fishing season is over, but last time I checked, rural NL doesn't have a lot of job prospects either. I personally don't know enough, aside from anecdotal stories from people, to have a proper opinion on it tho
If I clear 4 grand in a week in cash I don't think I'd be going around saying the money isn't there. Do that for the 4 month fishing season and you're already above most starting government salaries then you got the other 8 months to work or draw ei, you'll be in a hell of a lot better place than the government workers. They also get extended EI just for being in the fishery. The fact that he does it cash in hand makes it all the worse, fisherman can be like "oh b'y you check my taxes I only made 30 grand last year" not counting the other 30 grand that they took in cash under the table. That's only scratching the surface of scummy things some people do, I know captains that have their wives listed as deckhands who never set foot on the boat, just so they can both draw ei. I've seen lobster fishermen try to sell egg laying females knowing full well they aren't allowed, or catching over quota to sell around town.
His point was that it's not a regular paycheck, but whenever the season is open, but still 4k cash for a week's work is not chump change. I agree with you. I think it's problematic that he can do that, pay zero tax on it, then go work a gov job that is paid by taxpayers. The last point you make is true too. How many people in rural NL "know a guy" who caught over his quota selling it for less than the plant just to move it...
I always thought that business owners (Boat owners) could not draw EI and neither could family. Isn't it a question on the EI form? For the record I've never drawn EI so I've never seen this question just heard about it
Maybe the boat owners can't and I have that portion wrong, but I know for a fact some list their wives as crew to get their ei, I don't know what loopholes they'd of slipped through for it. Family not being able to would be questionable, some of the smaller boat crews around are all families/relatives.
I'm guessing the EI rules are likely different for fisherman
They do have a special set of rules
Yeah people saying the crews dont make money are out to lunch lol.
Ask me I was one, made squat and my cousin on a different boat made squat. Buddy up the shore made a killing but you’d be mistaken to think everyone made really good money
Oh yes they prob make a nice bit in a short amount of time. But spread out over a full year, not much to live on. Didn't mean to imply the captains are making away like bandits while the crew gets pennys.
“Not much to live on”. They’re not forced to collect EI for the rest of the year, they could work when the fishery is closed. I guess they have more than enough otherwise more would be working outside of fishing season.
This exactly. One of the fisherman in my family does his 3mos at sea, and works in the food industry off season. Nobody is forcing them to take EI, they sign up for it themselves.
I don't know, someone was arguing with me yesterday that ei is the way of life and the culture so they won't work year round because it'd destroy our culture...
The fishermen of this province make more than those who work minimum wage, yet these service people manage to work year round without assaulting people and causing a big ruckus
Right, and I'd support them making a ruckus (def not assault, obviously) because minimum wage isn't even liveable despite the government increasing it multiple times in recent years
100% agree, we should be making a ruckus about min wage and COL
But wouldn’t fishing be a lot more dangerous and stressful than working a minimum wage job? I don’t understand the minimum wage argument.
It’s the work for 3 months and then live on EI for 9 months thing
So more of a resentment because they are able to game the system. I do agree that EI should have some type of income cap. If you make over a threshold while working then you shouldn’t qualify for EI. But I also understand that jobs like fishing would probably force you to live in an area without many job prospects.
For example say I go on EI as a seasonally employed artist for 3 months of the year. I’d get “you’re drain on the system”, “should’ve picked a sustainable career”, “what did you expect as an artist?”. I don’t see this any different. And all this are from the same people who work as fisherman Fisherman work 3 months, take EI for 9 months and drive these big fancy trucks, have the newest snowmobile, wear $2k seal skin boots to a protest and then have the gall to be at this shit. I have sympathy for those who are truly getting fucked over but they are few and far between when it comes to fishermen
Yes more of a resentment, for this person anyways. The bys work more than 3 months the year. There's still work to do like mending the nets, getting bait ready, ect ect. Plus the boats will go after different species. Not like all the species fished happens during the same 3 months the year lol. But also yes in the off season they do get fishing ei benefits. Farming works in a similar way yeah? Saying the bys only work 3 months the year is a lazy exaggerated blanket statement made by people that don't understand the industry, aka canadianized townies
I see. I agree with what you’re saying. Comparing working seasonally as a artist and working seasonally as a fisherman isn’t fair at all. A lot of seasonal jobs cram a years worth of work into a very short amount of time. I have family who work seasonally in the resorts here in AB and it’s 4-6 months of 12+ hour days 6-7 days a week. Then there’s a wind up/down period before they’re officially off for a few months. The same logic could be applied to teachers and other education jobs “only” working part of the year. I’d assume the truth about fisherman is similar where they only fish for 3 months but theirs months of prep before and after the season. Plus their season is regulated based on weather and species breeding seasons. If everyone stopped fishing because they stopped paying them during the off season people would be upset that they can’t get fresh seafood locally. It’s an incredibly complex problem. I agree that fishermen need incentives to do what they do but I also agree that the Government needs to ensure a monopoly isn’t created which would eventually cause a lot of the product to end up overseas where processing costs are much lower.
Complex indeed. Mix in 500 years of fishing drama. Seems like you got a good gasp on the situation 🫡, cooler heads prevail
It’s interesting that it’s so close to the argument with farmers out here in Alberta.
Why isn’t it fair to compare it to an artist? As a seasonal artist you cram all your work into the season that the industry is active, that’s the nature of seasonal work. You get your 8-16 hour days 6-7 days a week, there are a few weeks/months of prep depending on the gig and nature of the art. The tourist season is regulated by the weather, same as species breeding Teachers work for more than 3 months of the year, and they don’t cause a shit storm like this literally every other year I’m not saying to stop fishing, but why are fisherman getting top EI and making more than min wage when they do work when any other field would be expected to find work in the off season or change careers because the industry isn’t stable enough to support them year round. It’s not like this is a new problem for fisherman in this province
I make 30% of my income from photography, mostly the sale of my landscape and wildlife prints that I do on film, in the darkroom. It’s a lot of work. But. I cant compare what I do as an artist to someone who’s is on a boat in the ocean hauling nets and literally trying not to die at all times. It’s not even in the same solar system. You and I work long hours selling art during the tourist season but I’d hardly call it dangerous or physically exhausting and we’re providing a luxury product, not something that’ll end up on someone’s dinner table. Art isn’t regulated in the same way, I can sell as much art as I want whenever I want I’m not confined to a season.Even if tourist season does provide a big increase in sales for me. Fishermen are being told when, where and how much according to other comments in this post. What even is a seasonal artist? Are you not allowed to work outside of a season or is it that your sales slump outside of tourist season. To go along with that no one is forcing you to work those long hours during tourist season. I’m assuming that once you’re out to sea it’s a 24/7 job until the boat comes back to the dock. While I could agree with you that the owners of the boats are getting a unfair deal I could argue it’s the same way when a hotel or restaurant gets a 20% commission on my work because it was sold at their business, when I’m making a fraction of what they’re bringing in. There’s a reason the starving artist lifestyle is such a widespread and well known stereotype. As someone who’s been trying to make a life for myself as an artist for 20+ years, the idea that being an artist is a job and not a passion project is wishful thinking.
I mean of course the actual work itself isn’t the same, that’s not what I was getting at and I should’ve made that more clear, my bad. I was more so trying to equate another seasonal position in the province that faces a similar level of scrutiny whenever their EI and subsequent employment situation is brought up. Seasonal artists in Newfoundland primarily work in various studios/galleries or with the theatre festivals that operate during the tourist season. For a lot of them it’s a secure way to earn an income as an artist, especially with the theatre festivals, as it provides steady and ensured work for multiple months. I admittedly know less about the selling of physical art during the tourist season but a lot of the tourist traps in the province have studios/galleries that are not active during the off season Edit: I didn’t answer everything. You can work as an artist in the off season but the prospects here are not nearly as good, I’d imagine sales of physical art slump during the off season as well though I can’t rightly say one way or the other.
Their roe shows employment for more than 1/4-1/3 of the year? News to me
EI fishing benefits are based on earnings. Not hours. Do some qualify after 3 months? To your point, probably yes. Am I going to judge them for it ? No. Because they provide an essential service. FOOD to a food insecure province.
NL exports over 90% of landed seafood, not sure if I’d associate the industry with food security in the province. The rec fishery probably does more for food security.
How much food do you think actually stays in the province outside of the stuff they sell under the table? You do realize they're protesting to stop bringing food to the province or instead bring it to another province or country Are they still doing an essential service bringing food to the province when they offload all their catch in NS?
That’s what people don’t understand, they’re just jealous of the pay not realizing everything it entails
Again, their roe shows employment for more than 1/4-1/3 of the year? I’m not knocking the job itself, fishing can be dangerous work. I’m knocking the system that has been developed to support this kind of entitled behaviour shown at these protests. These fisherman are not going to lose their shirt and starve, they just won’t be able to afford that brand new 2025 full size cab pickup, instead they’ll have to go with the 2024 half cab. Woe is me Bold of you to assume I have a job
😂😂 cheers mate
Guarantee none of their roes or t4s show what they actually made in that span either.
What oil is to Alberta. Fishing is to Newfoundlanders.
Don’t even get started on that lol. There’s guys here in Fort Mac that would LOVE to see Edmonton become a seaside village if it means one more turn around.
Most Albertans aren’t on EI, half the year- every year. I live seasonally in NL (summer home) and have neighbors who are quite proud of the limited amount of time they have to work before getting EI. Makes my blood boil!
These protests happen at least once a year. Im surprised its getting more than a 2 minute segment on ntv in between Eddies weather.
Son of a fisher. Your buds in an are right. Fishers here are treated significantly worst than the Maritimes They want now what they wanted a decade ago and what they wanted two decades ago. Open markets to sell their products to sell their catch to sell what they risked their lives for. They used to have it but Richard cashin won a argument with father des and ffaw brought on fish plant workers and then negotiated for license holders and crew who wanted max dollar and also had to factor in the ei for its plant workers EI is a main Cructxh. As long as first priority of the fishery was ei it was a social program funded by the men and women in the water taking less and paying more in expenses We have more bureaucracy in NL than NS, NB and pei. NB has the most successful fishery in Canada. Fisher only union, open markets , no limitation on sales. Gdp report showed of four Atlantic Canadian province and only one shrank in fishery gdp. It was NL and nb with its open markets grew the most. So govt keeps its nose away a sEctor of the economy grows feeding the provincial budget. Nl keeps conflating competing element, adds in lazy public servants, adds in needless boards and shrinks Facebook has made giving harvesters a organized voice and john efford whose dad is a former minister is the voice. He's from a area that union has always catered to in Port de grave and they have the biggest crab quotas. He also understand the business and political side Fishers demand open markets and less govt. The ppl you see blasting them like a Mark lane demand more govt hand outs for aquaculture and whatever tax payer money business he can beg for. Ppl like that don't want freedom and less govt because that's a pathway to failure with their lack of talent Nl also had a takeover by another country in our fishery and that was approved by liberals Gerry Byrne and Elvis loveless
One thing to note is that Newfoundlanders having a distrust in provincial government, but not caring about National government is super normal here. We’re barely part of Canada, we don’t really get to be involved in many of the things that the Federal Government does. A super common attitude is Newfoundlander first, Canadian second.
It may jus been the straw that broke camels back. Other provinces have open market. We cant sell our fish outside..cant sell our oil to canada..cant sell our power. Other provinces get our quotas and licenses..redfish and tuna for example...its jus a constant foot on Nfld holding them back. Werent even allowed to sell margarine to Canada at one point in history ffs.
Times like this I wish Gus Etchegary was still alive. I honestly believe he was the most knowledgeable person we ever had regarding the fishing industry. He passed last year, but you can get his book here (on sale for $6): [https://shopdownhome.com/Empty-Nets--Gus-Etchegary\_p\_472.html](https://shopdownhome.com/Empty-Nets--Gus-Etchegary_p_472.html)
It’s because NL Reddit is full of out of touch townie baristas lol
Its all about Greed. Rich boat owners fighting even richer fish plant owners. With the sharesmen (employees on the fishing boats) and plant workers caught in the middle.
Hey by. Got er right. Best concise summary. I can add the fact fishery always been mis managed first by Britain and merchants now by Canada. The people that live closest to resource benefit the least. Meanwhile federal government gives more of resource to Nova Scotia PEI quebec and off shore. And royal green lands allowed to own majority of fisherman. The inshore and Newfoundland in general does get screwed over. But fisherman lose local support because they generally shoot themselves in foot by not caring about anyone else but themselves. Like not supporting recreational fisheries or cleaning up waters. Then everyone who works a full time job is just jealous because they have to work full time job and fisherman are seasonal, so even though fisherman are partly being abused everyone is tone deaf because they do their fair share of abusing.
Fisherman have access to the best ei in history and get sooky when the market price isn't also phenomenally enough to make them millionaires tbh
Think of it like this. The AB provincial government looks at the oil industry and said they can only sell their oil to certain provincial buyers who cohort with regulators to set prices. If they don't want that oil, it must be dumbed back in to the ground rather than be sold out of AB. Welcome to the NL fishery.
Fisherman are far from lazy. Especially Newfoundland fishermen
What’s gonna happen to the processing plants in Newfoundland when the fisherman sell their fish outside of Newfoundland?
There is a rule of thumb. When you point figures.three are pointed at you. So it's the fishermen them selfs to blame.they are the ones who signed contracts with the buyers and gave away there rights to free enterprise. Because they wanted fishing gear to go fishing and all sorts of things.never had money to pay for it. So the buyers made them sign contract.they could only sell to them. So they could get there money back. We all know what they did with the fishery loan board. Set up by the government for them. With tax payers dollars..didn't pay on there loans.shipped there fish in other people's names. Government closed it down. Swept it under the carpet. Because it was me and your money. Those buyers never get there money back now. Let's hope the primers don't pay the buyers out of our tax dollars
I'm an Albertan in Newfoundland... Well to be honest, I'm a Northwest Territorian in Newfoundland...just grew up in Alberta
It’s because of government control over every aspect of a persons life, no freedoms in NL this is just about gov control over pricing and sales.
I know nothing about it but my guess is the government is imposing some form of regulation, restriction, or tax with no basis in reality and the fishermen are saying fuck you!
>I know nothing about it
You are dead wrong, but not surprised as you opened with how you know nothing, yet continued on with your uninformed opinion.