Re: Chinese conglomerate explores possible fishery investment, The News, March 19.
I spent time in Indonesia on various projects in the 1980s and I met a man from China with a sole purpose to travel around to different countries, look at the fishing industries in small towns, and make offers to purchase the existing plant or plants. His employer was a large steel manufacturer. Through time they would buy up the land around the plants, etc., and eventually have a steel mill built.
My only advice to your local MLA Karla MacFarlane would be to tread lightly and do a lot of investigating before getting too excited and remember there are millions of mouths to be fed in China and they all like seafood of any kind.
The Northumberland Strait is not large enough to feed them, but owning a fishery in Nova Scotia would allow their fishing fleet to fish inside the 200-mile limit, which they cannot do now.
I no longer live in Pictou County but my roots are there and I don't want to see that local fishing industry go to China for a ‘few dollars more.’
Howard Chabassol
Hermitage, Pennsylvania
