Government Powers Bring May Showers?

Surprise, surprise, John Risley, the biggest shareholder of Newfoundland and Labrador based Fishery Products International (FPI), says he doesn’t believe the province’s moves to limit control of the company by individuals from outside the province is a good one. Well, who would have thought he’d feel that way? Jeeze, I had no idea.

Last week the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature unanimously voted to amend the FPI Act in order to ensure that the majority of the company’s directors are residents of the province. The move was made after months of tension between government and the company that has seen plants close, towns destroyed and criminal charges laid against FPI for allegedly exporting unprocessed fish without the required permits.

As things currently stand FPI’s major shareholder, John Risley is often recognized as the man in charge and many feel he is not running the business in the best interest of provincial or company stakeholders. Why is this so? Probably because the value of FPI shares have plummeted since he arrived on the scene. Probably as well because Mr. Risley is not only the major shareholder of FPI, he also sits on the board that oversees the company’s operations and is the principal shareholder of Nova Scotia based Clearwater Fine Foods, a direct competitor of FPI. Mr. Risley has held this position since spearheading a shareholder revolt and essentially seizing control of the company in 2001. Since then things have gotten progressively worse at the company, in the local fishing industry and for shareholders.

The Province has not tried to hide their plans to modify the FPI act over the past few weeks, nor has it hidden its discomfort with Mr. Risley control of FPI. Yet for some strange reason Risley seems almost taken aback by the changes to the ACT. It’s almost as if he didn’t see them coming. Maybe he was too busy sneaking truck loads of fish across the gulf every evening to see the news reports, who knows. Whatever the reason, after the legislature unanimously voted to modify the Act, he had the audacity to say that he “believes he is one of the targets of the legislative changes.” Gee John, do you really thinks so? Sorry to disappoint you pal but wrong again. You were not “one of the targets”, you were “THE TARGET”, plain and simple.

I agree with John on one thing, the changes to the Act won’t make all of the problems in the fishing industry go away, but I’m sure Mr. Risley knows as well as I do that at the very least it will help limit his actions and that can’t be a bad thing for anyone, except Mr. Risley himself.

When FPI was setup as a corporation it was given a mandate to benefit the Newfoundland and Labrador fishing industry, not to act as a chop shop for Mr. Risley and his cronies so they could rape and pillage the company in pursuit of their own agenda. As a direct competitor, having Mr. Risley in control FPI is like putting Bill Gates in charge of Apple Computers (Whoops, bad analogy), but you get the point. With FPI under his control Mr. Risley has the power to ensure that his stake in Clearwater Fine Foods grows and prospers. He has access to rich quotas of species off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador that I suspect he would love to quietly ship elsewhere for processing and he has the ability to essentially cripple one of his biggest competitors. Not bad for a days work.

For John Risley to complain about the value of amendments to the FPI act, amendments that are intended to keep him in line is laughable at best and gut wrenching at worst. In reality the only way to truly ensure that John Risley does no further harm to FPI or the province is to get rid of him completely and that can’t happen unless enough shareholders align against him (or he slips on the soap in the shower). That unfortunately is very difficult to arrange, the shareholder thing I mean, not the shower. Especially since Mr. Risley and his friends control so much stock, difficult yes, but not impossible. Come to think of it, neither is the slip in the tub, so let’s all keep our chins up and our fingers crossed. Maybe there IS hope! How’s your personal hygiene these days John, feeling a little sweaty good buddy?