August 2, 2012 — The fishermen say plant owners are paying rock-bottom prices because of a glut of lobster in Maine and that means there will be no market for their catches when the season opens on the Northumberland Strait next week.
About 200 lobster fishermen blocked a load of U.S. lobster at a processing plant in Shediac.
Six RCMP officers and 10 members of the emergency tactical team have been called in to help at Shediac Bay Processors.
The fishermen have given the plant owner Gilles Maillet an ultimatum — quit processing American lobster or they'll shut down the plant, according to the CBC's Marc Genuist.
The fishermen say plant owners are paying rock-bottom prices because of a glut of lobster in Maine and that means there will be no market for their catches when the season opens on the Northumberland Strait next week.
U.S. lobster is currently selling for about $2 per pound — due in part to an earlier than usual harvest this year.
In Maine, there have been significant catches of shedder lobsters, which have a soft shell and generally don't command the prices that the hard-shell lobsters do.
"I'm bending the shell, there's nothing to it, it's garbage is what it is. It's garbage," said Scott Johnson, who fishes in St. Louis Cape.
It puts a lot of lobster on the market and means inexpensive Maine lobster can be shipped to the Maritimes for processing.
It's a price New Brunswick fishermen say they cannot match.
"My livelihood is on the line; everybody's livelihood is on the line," said Johnson. "Look at everybody here, look at them all. They're not happy."
"It's the American lobsters that are coming here, it's no good. It's wrong. They should be processing ours first," Johnson said.
Johnson says he starts fishing next week, but nobody is lining up to buy his catch.
"It's a betrayal, for the Acadian fisherman and the province of New Brunswick," said fisherman Maurice Martin.
Leonard Garnett, who drives a truck, says he sympathises.
"The economy is so bad that there's no market for them," Garnett said. "The market is full of people who don't have (any)money, the ones that do have money are not spending any money."
Two plants in Cap-Pelé were closed this morning — Cape Bald Packers and Shediac Lobster Shop, and RCMP have followed the fishermen from plant to plant, helping negotiate from closures.
Read the full story on CBC News