Shannacappo is grand chief of the Southern Chief’s Organization that represents 36 First Nations in southern Manitoba.
Farmers angry about the control wielded by the Canadian Wheat Board have less to cry about than fishers who are frustrated with the choke-hold that the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp. has on the inland commercial fishing industry.
Compared to FFMC, the wheat board is a model of democratic involvement and marketing flexibility. Farmers get to elect their directors and the board has made changes in recent years relating to pricing options available to farmers.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
In theory, anyway, FFMC is run by a board made up of appointees of the provincial, territorial and federal governments. In reality, the real power is wielded by a few bureaucrats who benefit from excellent pay and benefit packages.
Commercial fishing is physically demanding and often dangerous. In Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg in particular can be dangerous. Many fishermen have stories of being caught on a lake in a vicious storm and of tragedy or near tragedy. Almost every year in Manitoba two or three fishers die in storms or by falling through thin ice.ÂÂ
Why should the people who fish for a living, the people who risk their lives, not be given a say in the selection of directors for the monopoly that markets their products?
Calls to have six of the corporation’s 11 directors elected have been rejected. In looking through the wheat board’s website, I see that farmers have an elected board and, going back to 1975, there was an elected advisory board that I presume had some say into how the board operated.
I don’t want to inject myself into the debate about the wheat board. However, I would say the fish corporation is abusing its monopoly in a way that hurts Indian fishers and the industry they want to expand.
The corporation sets fishing seasons in a way that benefits some fishers at the expense of others. Its quota structure results in fishers dumping parts of catches to fill their quotas with only the highest value fish. Fishers have to spend too much time thinking about how to manoeuver through rules, restrictions and arbitrary decisions of the corporation.
The corporation should step aside and let Indian fishermen and First Nations enterprises market these fish.
One reason I began writing a column in The Western Producer was to establish a dialogue with farmers.
They can e-mail my office at dlittlejohn@scoinc.mb.ca.
