""As for the competitive market arguements, most people don't realize that there are no quotas in Maine.""

""So far Maine lobstermen have managed their fisheries well by limiting the number of licenses available, and the number of traps any individual can set out. There's also an upper limit to the size of a lobster that can be caught and sold so they may continue to thrive as breeders; there are no such limit in Canada or states to the south of Maine that I am aware of.""

A few points:

There are no lobster quotas in Canada's inshore lobster fishery. The only quotas are in the very, very small offshore fishery off southwestern Nova Scotia.

There is a specific (mostly two month) season in each most east coast Canadian fishing areas, limits on the number of lobster licences, the number of traps fished per license. There is also a limit on bost size and on the lobster size fishermen are allowed to land. (The small number of aboriginal fishermen fish under different rules than non native commercial fishermen). There is no trawling for lobsters in Canada, (that results in poorer quality landed product).

Lobsters reproduce at a smaller size in the warmer coastal waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which allows a smaller "canner lobster" to be retained. In the colder Atlantic waters, where they mature at a larger size, the retention size (market size lobster) is larger.

Because coastal waters have been warmer in recent years, the lobster moult is often poorly matched to the seasons. This has resulted in lower quality "soft shelled" lobsters being landed (I suspect more so the farther south one fishes, such as in Maine). These lobsters are not suitable for the traditional "higher priced" markets, and do not ship or hold well. They are most often canned (to keep the market quality high). Prices for soft shelled lobsters are low, and pushes the price for every fisherman down (because of quality issues). - The soft shelled quality problems are worse in some US areas, but have been seen in most lobstering areas- Lobster canneries are mostly in New Brunswick and PEI (where "canner lobsters" are mostly landed. Few, if any, canneries are in the USA. This is why they end up where they do.