December 20, 2014 — His area, like others, has struggled to draw young people into boats and plants. It is a task made more difficult by the sometimes scattered work, income levels, arguments over adjacency — with fishermen closest to the resource fighting for a share in various catches, for improved income — and uncertainty about the future, caused in part by the ongoing self-rationalization of the industry.
That rationalization is expected to improve things, offering more per fisherman and plant worker, but it brings stress and struggle in the meantime.
Caines estimated his community to be 90 per cent fish harvesters. If their enterprises survive the financial burdens of added licences and a rapidly changing world on the side of buyers and processors, they are expecting brighter days ahead.
But too many losses will threaten the community.
“Port Saunders is built on the fishery. Yes, there’s government jobs there, but if the fishing community wasn’t there, the government jobs wouldn’t be there. The hospital is there because the people are there. The forestry is there because the people are there. If the people wasn’t there — it’s no good bringing government jobs where there’s no community, no people.”
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