HAY RIVER - After years of discontent, commercial fishers on Great Slave Lake and Kakisa Lake have voted to leave the federal Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation (FFMC).

Alex Richardson, the president of the NWT Fishermen's Federation, casts his ballot on the question of leaving or staying with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

In a Feb. 17 vote in Hay River, 11 fishers voted to end the NWT's participation in the marketing corporation, while seven voted to remain in the current system.

The vote by certificate-holders - the owners and operators of fishing vessels - was held at a special meeting of the NWT Fishermen's Federation.

Despite the vote by fishers, the current system involving the FFMC will not change overnight. In fact, the vote itself only starts a process towards change.

"They'll be there for a few years," said Alex Richardson, the president of the fishermen's federation.

"We'll see where it goes from here," said Richardson, adding he doesn't know what will happen and that uncertainty is sort of scary.

"Right now, Freshwater markets the fish," he said. "If they're not there, who am I going to sell my fish to?"

Richardson, who declined to say how he voted, said he hopes everything works out.

Fisherman Bert Buckley said he was not really surprised by the results of the vote, adding the majority of fishers want to leave the FFMC.

"Now we move forward," Buckley said.

Prior to the vote, John Colford, manager of traditional economy, agriculture and fisheries with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment (ITI), said a vote to leave the FFMC would begin a process of consultation by the department, which could lead to the repeal of the NWT's Freshwater Fish Marketing Act.

"We would no longer be a participating jurisdiction (in the FFMC)," he said.

Colford said the vote by the fishers was requested by ITI Minister Bob McLeod after he received a recommendation to withdraw from the FFMC from the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure.

Dave Ramsay, chair of the committee said the recommendation would benefit fishers in the long run.

"For too long, the commercial fishing industry on Great Slave Lake has been neglected by our government," Ramsay said. "I think if the government gave fishermen incentives to get out on the lake in the pursuit of commercial fishing, I think there would be more people out there fishing than there currently are. The freshwater fish corporation has been more of a hindrance to the development of the industry here in the territory."

The GNWT advised the fishers the territorial government won't replace the FFMC.

"The GNWT has no capacity to market fish," Colford said. "We have no capacity to replace the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation."

Instead, he said, once the FFMC is gone from the NWT, individual fishers would become small businesspeople.

Under the current system, any fish exported out of the NWT to other provinces or elsewhere has to go through the FFMC. The corporation, which was created in 1969, purchases the fish, markets it and makes payments to fishers.

However, over the years, NWT fishers have often expressed dissatisfaction with the prices that FFMC has been able to get for their fish and with being unable to sell their own fish to outside markets, although they are permitted to sell privately within the NWT.

Ramsay said allowing fishers to control their destiny will help diversify the NWT economy and could lead to other spinoff business opportunities such as canning.

"For too long the government has spent its time looking at diamonds, oil and gas, the traditional economy to a certain extent," he said,

Ramsay said the commercial fishing industry is a way to grow the economy and create jobs.

The major concern expressed at the meeting by many fishers was how the NWT would sell fish to the south without FFMC.

"They would definitely ask for federal certification," said Colbert. A new system for obtaining that certification would have to be created in the absence of the FFMC, which operates the Hay River fish plant in the summer.

Various people at the meeting gave widely varying opinions of how long it would take to withdraw from the FFMC, ranging from one to five years.

"For us to be totally free of the marketing board, I believe it's going to take five years," said Buckley, adding it's a complicated process.

- with files from Elizabeth McMillan