Eating St. Lawrence products: a path strewn with pitfalls

Because the St. Lawrence is not just lobster or snow crab. Sea urchins, whelks, rock crab: these are other products that the river abounds in, but which are difficult for consumers to access.

Cacouna, green sea urchin paradise

In this region, the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation harvests sea urchins in abundance. Year in, year out, around a million pounds are fished, or even a little more. Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk First Nation harvests about a quarterexplains commercial fisheries manager Guy-Pascal Weiner.

The problem is that these sea urchins are sold entirely… in the United States. These sea urchins are found in Las Vegas, in Manhattan, in the most beautiful casinos, the biggest cruise ships, notes Mr. Weiner. He promises that, within one or two years, Quebecers will be able to taste sea urchins from the St. Lawrence more easily. However, this is not an easy challenge.

Maritime Quebec is a vast territory, explains Mr. Weiner. It is a volume fishery that must then be broken down into small orders throughout the territory. It’s still very complicated, whereas a massive export with a single customer, a single invoice, a single truck, a single batch, is very easy. But it increases dependence on a single buyer.

The nation does have a plan to process the sea urchin locally and sell it in Quebec, but it’s a long-term job. These are slow and cumbersome administrative processesnotes Mr. Weiner.

Rimouski and its bourgots

Guillaume Werstink is an oceanographer and now co-owner of the Chasse-Marée cannery with fisherman Emmanuel Sandt-Duguay.

He overcame many pitfalls to launch his regional cannery.

The two partners simply wanted to fish the bourgot in front of Rimouski and can it in order to sell it everywhere in Quebec.

This small project has become an administrative nightmare. Their request for a permit to process the whelks they catch themselves was refused nine times by MAPAQ.

I don’t know how many projects have been abandoned along the way precisely because they didn’t get to all of these stages. If we had considered the first refusal letter, we would have stopped there a year and a half agoexplains Guillaume Werstink.

We are a small processing unit. We want to do something a little different. Then it looks like all of the current legislation is based on a high-volume mining model. Whether you want to start a factory that makes millions of pounds for crab or lobster or you want to start a small cannery, you are in the same administrative straitjacketnotes the oceanographer.

However, these are very small volumes. The researcher at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics (IREC) Gabriel Bourgault-Faucher followed this file. What Chasse-Marée was asking was to process 0.1% of the volumes landed in Quebec. It’s a drop in the ocean. Why has there been so much resistance in this file?

The researcher puts forward a hypothesis: We don’t want to open the door to another model, another way of doing things. We don’t want to create a precedent and then open the floodgates and, in fact, disrupt the status quo.

Same story from the side of the director of Exploramer, Sandra Gauthier. Today, when a new player arrives, when new ideas arrive, you have to mix things up a bit so that everyone can make their place.

An export fishery

It is difficult for Quebecers to consume local fish and seafood.

Quebec exports nearly 80% of local resources, mainly the three flagship products: snow crab, lobster and shrimp. An industry dominated by a handful of big players.

This export model is defended by the Association québécoise de l’industrie de la pêche (AQIP), whose director, Jean-Paul Gagné, emphasizes the profitability. You can’t be against exporting, he explains. This is new money entering Quebec. I don’t think anyone opposes that. However, he specifies that the volumes sold in Quebec have been steadily increasing for the past few years. AQIP claims that 28% of what is caught is sold locally.

Lobsters and shrimps: Quebecers are fond of them. The demand is constantly increasing, but it has its limits. Diversifying the offer, discovering little-known products, is what many small fishermen and processors want, who met last February at the first Fourchette Bleue show organized by Exploramer in Rivière-du-Loup.

We have a model that focuses on extraction, packaging, export, explains Gabriel Bourgault-Faucher, of IREC. This offer must be structured by developing transport and logistics infrastructures.

Rock crab from Sainte-Anne-des-Monts

Ghislain Collin is a lobster fisherman in Newport, in Chaleur Bay, but he has another project in mind: fishing and processing rock crab, a neglected yet delicious cousin of snow crab.

There is a big demand for the flesh, notes Mr. Collin. But to sell it to industrialists and restaurateurs, it takes a factory and a processing permit.

The process is underway, but for the fisherman it is extremely complex.

It is necessary to present a rather voluminous package of paperwork, relates Mr. Collin, to pass before an advisory committee made up of industrialists and representatives of various organizations, including the MAPAQ. This committee studies the request to see if it will not harm another plant.

” I have a bachelor’s degree in college and I’m not able to go through the paperwork on my own. It’s too complicated. »

Mr. Collin said he was surprised that competitors could have a say in his license application. In my view, these are protectionist laws from the old days. It was to protect industries and jobs in the region. We try to take charge of our product and offer it first in Quebec!

Jean-Paul Gagné, from AQIP, wants to set the record straight: It’s not the big players who decide. The big players are consulted, but it is MAPAQ that decides whether or not to issue a permit. However, the representative of the fishing industry admits having a certain influence on the MAPAQ. Of course, we work with MAPAQ. We have to work together.

At Exploramer, Sandra Gauthier campaigns for more flexibility. Departments will have to help make room for new players, because they can change the sustainability of fisheries. It’s going to go through these new players, absolutely!

There are a handful of industrialists who clearly have an interest in maintaining this modus operandi and may possibly stand in the way of a different, alternative model, more rooted in territories where several species are fished, where of the smallest inshore fisheryobserves Gabriel Bourgault-Faucher, of the IREC.

In Quebec, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, André Lamontagne, recognizes that there are efforts to be made. The discussions that I have had with the fishing industry and the requests that I have been able to make to them take them a little, for some, out of their comfort zone. But I never heard that they didn’t want other people looking to exploit [les produits du Saint-Laurent].

” The ministry wants to support new projects as openly as possible. »

Ghislain Collin does not give up and promises that one day Quebecers will be able to taste his rock crab.

Only a minority can make it through the process. Among the manufacturers, everyone is happy, there are not too many players appearing on the market. You really have to be tough, have a pig’s head and not let it go.