Fishers Prepared To Bypass FFMC To Get Licence

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 at 13:59

 

 

The head of Saskatchewan’s commercial fishers is not impressed the fishers’ application for an export licence has been turned down.

 

Jonas Bird is reacting to a letter the fishers’ co-op received last month from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.

 

The FFMC currently has a marketing monopoly on all fish caught commercially in this province, and has turned down the fishers’ proposal to market their own fish out of province.

 

The fishers want a 15-year licence to market their own fish throughout western Canada and in the western United States.

 

The FFMC also doesn’t believe the fishers’ proposal for a long-awaited fish processing plant in Prince Albert is feasible.

 

Bird says the corporation is leaving the fishers with little choice but to apply to be removed from the FFMC’s monopoly.

 

The provincial government has hinted in the past it would be prepared to back the fishers if they took the matter to the federal fisheries minister.