Nothing compares to Lake of the Woods walleye

Dear Editor,
After reading about the big fishing weekend in the Record and feeling a bit nostalgic, I decided to break down and go and buy some fresh fish for dinner from our local fish market.
At the market, I found ‘pickerel’ fillets for $9.99 lb. I began to purchase some when quite by accident I found out that the fish wasn’t Canadian, it was from Europe! The fish seller informed me that in southern Ontario it would cost over $20 lb for Canadian pickerel and that they don’t carry it because it would be the most expensive fish in the store. He said that the vast majority of prime Canadian pickerel is exported and we import the smaller, cheaper European pickerel to sell in Canada commercially.
Obviously I was dumfounded. It makes no sense at all that it is more expensive to enjoy the superior natural resources of our own country, even our own province. It is crazy that most of the rest of Canada can’t even buy Canadian pickerel. Why are we importing second class pickerel and how can it possibly be cheaper to ship in pickerel from overseas? I know the price of transportation - I went home for the 100th this summer! This is like Canada importing cheaper wood, maple syrup, fresh water or mosquitoes!
For the record, I bought both European pickerel and Canadian cod (7.99 lb), just to compare. The Canadian cod was fresh and tasty. But even though it was obviously ‘older’, I did also enjoyed the European pickerel. But nothing compares to Lake of the Woods Walleye, especially the way my Papa (Irwin Johnston) makes it. Sniff.
–Rebecca Johnston-Scherer,
Nepean, Ont.