The Sask. Party government is defending its decision to cut about $50,000 in funding per year to the province’s commercial fisheries cooperative.
Environment Minister Dustin Duncan says commercial fishing cooperatives in the province wanted access to a free market so the province withdrew from the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation in 2012.
He says the change removed royalties associated with sales that had been used by the province to fund the Saskatchewan Cooperative Fisheries Limited.
However, NDP Opposition MLA Buckley Belanger says the environment minister isn’t telling the whole story.
“When they exited FFMC monopoly and market, they arbitrarily did so on their own and they turned around and said, ‘Okay, there won’t be any royalty on your fish,’” he says. “So, they give up a big pay back at the end of the season for pennies on the royalty scheme. So, when the minister says things like that, he should absolutely make sure who caused that action and exactly how much the fishermen lost.”
Belanger says the royalties worked out to a few cents per fish and the commercial fishing industry must now forgo hundreds of thousands of dollars per year it used to receive back from FFMC.
Duncan says the government did provide some transitional funding to the commercial fisheries cooperative of about $2,500 per year but the plan was always to completely withdraw funding after the exit from FFMC and this is now what has happened.
The cooperative says it is struggling to make ends meet as a result of losing $50,000 in provincial funding per year.
The organization held its annual general meeting in Prince Albert on Nov. 19.
With files from Dan Jones.
(PHOTO: Top, Saskatchewan Environment Minister Buckley Belanger, bottom, NDP MLA Buckley Belanger.)