A Metis fisherman from Manitoba has some novel ideas on how to improve the state of the industry.
Kim Sigurdson says the first thing that needs to happen is for the monopoly of the Fresh Water Fish Marketing Corporation to be broken up.
Sigurdson feels the monopoly helps out fishers in Southern Manitoba, but few others.
Kim Sigurdson says in the old days fishers used to thrive when they were packing and selling the fish themselves.
But that ground to a halt when the Fresh Water Fish Marketing Corporation entered the picture, and mandated fish be sold from one central location.
Sigurdson says he’s heard fishers in Saskatchewan are thinking of building one big plant in Prince Albert, but he thinks they’d be better off with some smaller ones instead:
“Where people like Schaefer (Industries) and another group that I know, Export Packers out of Toronto, they’re the largest fish and seafood inport, export company in North America and they want to buy fish from this area of the world but it has to be processed for their liking or they can’t buy it.”
He also thinks the FFMC spends too much time marketing fish to China, and not enough finding existing markets for under-utilized species:
“There’s a lot of Asian people in the United States right now who are used to eating carp, and things like sucker-fish and under-utilized species like Burbot, fantastic meat, if it’s cooked properly and you got the people willing to eat it.”