Doing right the Acadian way: Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies Ltd. cancels its ads in strike-bound Chronicle Herald

Strike stories can be pretty bleak in general. Newspaper strike stories perhaps even more so in particular, at least from my perspective. So this story was like a ray of sunshine unexpectedly appearing through the Maritime fog of a real pea souper when I came across it earlier today.

Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies Ltd., which got its start in 1975 as Vernon d’Eon Lobster Plugs Ltd., announced it is cancelling its ads in the strike-bound Chronicle Herald in Halifax, where 59 journalists from the Halifax Typographical Union Local 30130 have been walking a picket line for 71 days, as the strike enters its 11^th week today with absolutely no end in sight.

This is an employer, after all, who refused a request by the union last month to return to the bargaining table (there have been no talks at all between the two sides since the strike began Jan. 23) and who yesterday held a bit of a party at the paper, as a thank-you to remaining newsroom management, along with the numerous contract freelance journalists and recent journalist graduates, working without bylines, often from home, on everything from an occasional to full-time basis.

Replacement workers. Scabs. Same thing. The terminology depends on your perspective. Hiring temporary or permanent replacement workers during a work stoppage is legal in Nova Scotia. The union has called on Liberal provincial Premier Stephen McNeil and Labour Minister and Bedford MLA Kelly Regan to introduce an “anti-scab law now.”

But back to Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies, located in West Pubnico in the Yarmouth and Acadian Shores Region of Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. After being contacted by Halifax Typographical Union Local 30130 about their advertising in the Chronicle Herald, the retailer and wholesaler of commercial fishing gear replied to the union by saying “Hello: Thank you for letting us know about this,” and went onto to say that they had decided as a company “to cancel our Ads until your strike is over. Good Luck with getting them back to the table and hopefully the writers back to work.”

On its own, not a lot turns on Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies’ advertising decision, as welcome as it no doubt is by the union. But there were also about 50 other advertisers, big and small in today’s Chronicle Herald. If even a fifth of them followed the lead of Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies in cancelling their heavily discounted or free ads, the commercial fishing gear wholesaler and retailer’s principled decision would be seen as casting a much larger net. Fishing is like that. Bites can surprise you after long and patient waiting with nothing, and then all of a sudden the fish are “on the bite,” as we like to say here in God’s-own-fishing-country for pickerel, at Paint Lake, and hundreds of other small freshwater lakes like it, in Northern Manitoba.

Vernon d’Eon started the business he called Vernon d’Eon Lobster Plugs Ltd. as a family-owned concern 41 years ago. Originally a manufacturer of lobster plugs, the company diversified and expanded over the years until it operated seven stores in Nova Scotia and one on Prince Edward Island.  The Nova Scotia stores are located in West Pubnico, Barrington, Cape Island, North Sydney, Pictou, Shelburne and Yarmouth. The Prince Edward Island store is located in Souris.

Lobster plugs were small pointed pieces of pinewood that were used to keep the lobster’s large claws shut. West Pubnico, in the heart of Acadie, would eventually become known as the “lobster plug capital of the world,” but not before the originally French colonists were expelled by the British in 1755 during the Grand Dérangement, returning a dozen years later as still proud Acadians and retaining a traditional way of life, Millions of lobster plugs were made in West Pubnico during the 20^th century. In 1984 the industry made a change to elastic bands.  With lobster markets beginning to develop all over the world, lobsters were being shipped over long distances via planes, and rubber bands proved to be more suitable toward this changing market for live lobsters.

When Mr. d’Eon decided it was time to slow down several years ago, he looked for a potential buyer with the same business philosophy as him who would continue to operate his stores and keep his 40 employees on after the sale, as well as making sure his customers would be looked after and continue to receive the service they had come to expect.

In October 2013, Vernon d’Eon Lobster Plugs Ltd. was sold to Entreprises Shippagan Ltée, a father and son partnership made up of Gilles and Marc André Robichaud, and re-named Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies. The two families had known each other for years and shared mutual values, the Robichauds said at the time of the sale, adding they were “honored to have been entrusted with Mr. d’Eon’s legacy and the opportunity to extend his company’s longevity.”

Based in Shippagan in northeastern New Brunswick on the Péninsule acadienne, the Robichauds also own International Seafood and Bait Ltd., one of the largest exporters of snow crab and herring roe in Canada, Sea-Alex Inc., a manufacturer of plastic buoys and other fishing and aquaculture related products, and an ACE retail hardware store.

Vernon d’Eon Fishing Supplies continues to be headquartered in West Pubnico and Entreprises Shippagan Ltée in Shippagan.

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