April 02, 2009

Fearing a crash of prices, lobster fishermen and processors in eastern Canada are looking for bridge financing from the federal government similar to that being offered other industries around the world.Processors and fishermen made presentations on the troubles in the industry to the federal fisheries standing committee in Charlottetown Tuesday. With lobster season opening in about a month, processors still have large inventories in their warehouses. The industry fears the opening of the spring season will take the bottom out of prices.

"Lobsters are going to be worth nothing," said fisherman Wayne Campbell."Hate to say that. I preached that we're not supposed to say that. But anyway we'll see, won't we?"Processors won't say how much frozen lobster they have in inventory, but it was about $30 million in total in January. It's the most ever going into the opening of a spring fishery, said Mark Bonnell of Mariner Seafoods in Montague, P.E.I.Bankers are hesitant to extend loans to processors to buy more lobster."Government's got to move pretty fast here because in four weeks time we're gonna have lobsters coming ashore," said Bonnell.