The new Hay River fish plant will host a grand opening on Tuesday featuring the NWT’s premier and industry minister alongside the boss of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.
Costing well over $10 million, the plant – in the works for years and subject to some delays – is designed to offer more space and bring some Great Slave Lake fish harvesting operations into the 21st century.
Opening a new facility is also seen as a central pillar of a broader NWT government plan to reinvigorate the local fishing industry, which has seen annual production decline.
The plant hasn’t been without its critics. Last year, the Tu Cho cooperative of Hay River fishers said the new building would be too big and contain the wrong equipment.
It will be managed by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, or FFMC, which also introduces a potential sticking point.
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Some fishers dislike FFMC because of the way the Crown corporation buys fish caught in the NWT to sell them elsewhere. On one hand, FFMC guarantees a minimum price for each fish, which is generally considered a good thing. On the other, FFMC holds a monopoly and some fishers think they could get better prices if that wasn’t the case.
Originally, the fishers’ cooperative was going to manage the new plant. Since then, the plan has shifted to retain FFMC, which ran the old plant, as the manager of the new one.
The GNWT has told the cooperative it has to see “significant progress” on a set of 27 recommendations for the cooperative, provided by an independent consultant, before it’ll consider moving plant management from FFMC to the fishers.
Last year, then-industry minister Caroline Wawzonek said she had set a three-year timeline from the plant’s opening in which she hoped management would be transferred to the fishers.
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In the meantime, Wawzonek said, FFMC does at least know how to run fish plants, is aware of the NWT’s fishers, and possesses the ability to train the cooperative to take over.
Tuesday’s opening ceremony for the new plant, which sits within view of the old one on Studney Drive, begins at 10am and lasts until the early afternoon.
“This milestone will be celebrated with a news conference, community fish fry and tours of the facility,” the territorial government said in a news release, adding that all are welcome.
Premier RJ Simpson and industry minister Caitlin Cleveland will speak at the event on “the potential of the facility and its impact on the future of the Great Slave fishery.”
The GNWT said Stan Lazar, president and chief executive of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, will join them.
