By Laura Hines
March 7, 2014
The idea of creating a Maritime council to market lobster in the region was proposed by Paula Biggar, a member of a Legislative Assembly committee that met in Charlottetown today.
She believes the three provinces would work well together.
However, the majority of the other committee members quickly shot down the idea.
Charles McGeoghegan said anything involved in marketing should proceed carefully, bringing up the mink farm industry that P.E.I. had back in the 1970s.
He said the industry dropped in half in just a few years after its peak in the early 1970s, and in a few years it went back up again, then later doubling and then going up again six times. There were 26 million pelts marketing worldwide when the price went down.
“That’s what P.E.I. would like to see.”
The Maritimes have 45 per cent of the lobster fishery business on the east coast and the state of Maine has the other 55 per cent. The goal is to bring up the percentage. It’s not something that is going to be easy.
Eight per cent of the lobster industry on P.E.I is live lobsters. The rest goes to be processed.
Nova Scotia has an 80 per cent live lobster industry, shipping most to Europe.
In 2013 lobster fisherman reached a 22 per cent increase on the amount of lobsters caught, a significant growth and supply.
However one committee member said the supply was more than the buyers could handle, and active buyers dropped down 39 from 41.
There has been major change in exchange rates since 2004 the average price per pound dropped from $4 to $3.91.
“The price was realistic, wasn’t reasonable, but realistic.”
The Surveyor 