Working Through the New Brunswick Protests

SHEDIAC, NB—Many truck drivers hauling lobster from Maine to New Brunswick for processing are losing money due to protests outside lobster processing plants earlier this week.

New Brunswick fishermen are upset at the low cost of Maine lobsters and want processing plants to stop accepting cheap lobster from the States. The protesters were surrounding trucks carrying Maine lobster at several plants across the province, effectively blocking both trucks and plants. Many trucks had to leave with a full load, sometimes escorted by RCMP officers, according to many media reports.

The Canadian fishermen are demanding four dollars for their lobsters, but processors are only agreeing to pay $2.50 to $3 per pound. Industry experts say 70 percent of Maine lobster is shipped to Canada and processed in plants in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
As of Aug. 9, a New Brunswick judge granted a 10-day injunction barring lobstermen from blocking the plants across the province.

Anne McInerney, a New Brunswick provincial spokesperson said the protesters are required to stay at least 200 feet away from the entrance of the plants and can only have six pickets on site at a time.

“We are hopeful that this will allow companies to resume processing and ensure operations won’t be interrupted,” McInerney told CNN. 

U.S. rep. Chellie Pingree wrote to the RCMP on Aug. 9 to provide protection and police escorts for the Maine lobster trucks in New Brunswick.

Maine Senator Olympia Snowe said in a press release that mass shipments of lobster have been turned away from Canadian processing plants, still loaded and wrote to Secretary Hilary Clinton to look into the situation. Snowe said some of the product was damaged or destroyed and the situation is “unacceptable.”

On Aug. 2, Leonard Garnett, a truck driver from Maine and owner of L.H. Garnett Trucking was stuck at the Shediac plant in New Brunswick for six hours. The protesters prompted three plants to close that day, including Shediac which was closed on Aug. 6.

According to the Portland Press Herald, Garnett was hauling 37,000 pounds of live lobster, and pulled into a loading dock at the Shediac Bay Processing Co., where plant workers were supposed to unload his lobster.

“I heard some hollering going on and there was a crowd of people standing in the roadway,” Garnett said “They were hollering, ‘Shut the truck off!’ and ‘Shut the plant down!'”

A plant worker warned Garnett that the protesters may try to tamper with the refrigeration unit on his truck to spoil the lobsters, and then a couple of protesters approached his truck. They were speaking in French and pointed at his reefer.

The protesters walked away without messing with Garnett’s reefer, but then the plant owner asked him to leave so the protest would stop.

Garnett tried to leave but was blocked by protester’s pick up trucks. When he tried to maneuver around the cars, protesters surrounded his truck, blocking him. The protesters threatened to spray paint his truck and even opened his trailer, exposing the lobsters to warm air before the RCMP intervened, according to the Press Herald. 

In the end, the protesters tampered with one of Garnett’s front tires, which needed repair to the air valve, costing Garnett $151.

Garnett said most of the protesters were good people, only a few were causing trouble. One protester even came to his window to say the situation would soon be resolved, Garnett told the Press Herald.
RCMP eventually helped Garnett out of the area and he drove off to a place he refused to specify where the load’s owner found a new buyer for the lobster.

Jamie Steves of J&R Lobster in Rockland told News Centre he too had a truck turned away and had to sell the load to another buyer at a much lower cost, which cost him a lot of money. 

Pete Daley, vice president of Garbo Lobster in Hancock also had one of his trucks stopped in New Brunswick last week and since that incident, he hasn’t sent anymore trucks to New Brunswick.

“We’re in daily communication with the processors; but until they tell me I can ship our product, we’re not going to risk it,” he told the Morning Sentinel.

Snowe warned that no acts of intimidation, coercion or violence will be tolerated. She said order must be maintained to ensure the relationship between Canada and the States is not undermined when it comes to “critical fisheries and maritime issues.”

However, she is pleased with Thursday’s junction saying it’s “welcome news for Maine’s hardworking lobstermen and truckers.”

Protestors and processors are scheduled to meet with New Brunswick Fisheries officials on Aug. 9. The lobster season for the Northumberland Strait area, where the protests are centered, begins on Monday.