SPEC Headlines, June 13, 2004

Snow crab of Listuguj now processed in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland
62 jobs lost in Grande Riviere
Gilles Gagné

    LISTUGUJ - Since June 3rd, snow crab catches of the Micmac community of
Listuguj are no longer processed in the Gaspé. A volume of 800,000 pounds of
crab that remained to be caught will be rerouted to a Nova Scotia company,
located in Cheticamp.
    Grand River's Crustacés de Gaspé plant, that was processing the crab,
was consequently closed, since the facility was depended solely on these
catches. Sixty-two employees were sent home within hours. The crab sent to
Nova Scotia could be processed in Newfoundland.
    Listuguj's new chief Scott Martin and his council decided that the price
was better in Nova Scotia. "They pay $3.05 per pound and there is no
category (of products). In Grand River, we received $2.50 with categories. I
am aware that there was an adjustment at the end of the year, but when you
categorize the catches, the price can get as low as $1.50 per pound. We also
had to pay $50,000 per year for ice and bait. There is no charge for that in
Nova Scotia", explained chief Martin..

Lobster fishermen worried about poor catches in their zones
They complain about DFO's poor use of crab allocations
Gilles Gagné

    SHIGAWAKE - The 35 lobster fishermen of the zone included between New
Carlisle and Shigawake are very worried about the state of the biomass over
their fishing ground. Their catches have decreased by 50 percent since 1996,
when the legal measure of the shellfish started to increase.
    That regulation adopted by the federal department of Fisheries and
Oceans throughout the Gaspé was supposed to increase  the volume of catches
by allowing a greater number of mature lobsters to spawn. It worked in most
zones of the Peninsula, but not in zones 20B5, 20B6 and 20B7, the
problematic stretch. The legal measure was gradually raised from 76 to 82
millimeters over the last eight years.

Pierre Laporte granted three more months to sell the Gaspesia mill
Gilles Gagné

    CHANDLER - Ernst & Young controller Pierre Laporte's proposition to be
allowed until September 30th to find a serious buyer for the Chandler mill
was slightly modified, since his attempt to convince Gaspesia Papers' three
partners to kick in $3.3 million for the plant's maintenance fell a little
short.
    The Fonds de solidarité of the Québec Federation of Labor refused to
hand out the $1.55 million Mr. Laporte needed to keep the mill in good shape
over four months, and to get paid for his salesman efforts. Only the Société
générale de financement and Tembec agreed to pay for the mill's maintenance,
$2 million altogether, slightly more than the $1.75 million expected.
There was about $700,000 left in the account of Gaspesia Papers at the
beginning of June, not enough to last a month. Pierre Laporte needs $4
million to continue his selling job until the end of September, including
the maintenance of the plant. With the $2.7 million available as of now, he
can last until September 2nd.
Last week, Gaspesia Papers creditors refused to send the company  into
bankruptcy on June 2nd, following Pierre Laporte's explanations about the
number of companies, between 12 and 15, whose officials have asked him to
forward them some information about the Chandler mill. He then went on to
convince Justice Paul G. Chaput, of the Superior Court, that he would try to
to find genuine investors within the next three months, an operation that
was almost a formality, considering the creditors' decision