Blaming low P.E.I. lobster prices on tariff fears not a good excuse, says marketing board

Some fishermen on the south shore of Prince Edward Island say there's no good explanation for the low prices they've been getting for lobster so far this spring season. 

Charlie McGeoghegan, chair of the Lobster Fishers of P.E.I. Marketing Board, said smaller canner lobsters are selling for between $6 and $6.50 per pound. Larger market-sized crustaceans are fetching around $6.50 to $7. 

McGeoghegan said buyers are blaming the threat of U.S.-imposed tariffs on Atlantic lobster exports for the low prices — but without those actually in place at this point, he insists fishers should be getting more. 

"They're saying, well, 'Trump could do this and Trump could do that.' Well, he could," he said.

"The earth could get hit by an asteroid but you're not going to stop going outside until it happens…. There's so many things that don't add up here, and they don't have a legitimate excuse, other than they want to control the price and buy them cheap and sell them high."

Prices for market lobster last year were around $7 to $7.50 per pound, McGeoghegan said, while pointing out that fishermen in the northeastern United States are getting closer to the $9 to $10 range. 

P.E.I. exports most of its lobster to the U.S., but the Chinese market isn't far behind, in second place. 

China has also placed punishing tariffs on the lobster it imports from America, so McGeoghegan said that market hasn't dried up for Canadian fishers. In theory, he said, that should mean Island harvesters get a better price. 

He said the provincial and federal governments could help create more capacity to hold live lobsters on P.E.I., allowing producers to hang onto more of the catch until later in the season and then sell it once prices improve. 

With the cost of operating a fishing fleet climbing in recent years — affecting everything from bait to fuel — McGeoghegan said he feels for young producers who are getting hit hard by the low lobster prices. 

"The numbers don't work out too well when you're dealing with a price that's 19 years old and these young guys have between $1 million and $2 million loan payments out," he said. 

"It makes it tight for everybody, but especially those guys and those families."