Atlantic fishers are facing a tough time as Japan opts to import cheap Russian snow crab rather than Canadian. This has led to a significant price drop, with last year’s $7.60 per pound falling to $2.20 this year. Fishers in Newfoundland and Labrador have refused to start harvesting, as they are trying to sell off last year’s surplus. Crab is a highly lucrative species for Atlantic Canada and was the country’s second-largest seafood export in 2021. The United States, which previously imported Russian crab, has now banned it following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leaving the country reliant on Canada. However, American customers have shied away from expensive Canadian crab amid inflated food prices, leaving approximately 10 million pounds of unsold Canadian crab caught last year.
Conservative fisheries critic Clifford Small has raised the issue in Parliament, urging Ottawa to press Japan to ban Russian crab as a measure of solidarity among G7 countries. Newfoundland and Labrador says that snow crab exports accounted for $886 million in sales in 2021, but the price crash has now left fishers trying to sell last year’s catch. Trade Minister Mary Ng confirmed that the issue has been raised with Japan, but the embassy said that it’s been steadfast in sanctioning Russia and banning trade in multiple products.
Small is calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to raise the issue with his Japanese counterpart when he visits Japan later this month for the G7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima. Small noted that «aggressive Russian dumping» left unchecked is causing the biggest Newfoundland fishery shutdown since the calamitous 1992 cod moratorium. The Japanese Embassy in Ottawa said it’s been removing preferential tariffs on Russian fishery products, including crab, which drives up the price for those imports but doesn’t block them. The embassy believes that the cause of shifting trade flows «is thought to be the soaring price of Canadian crab, as a result of the impact of higher fuel costs and other factors.»