Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 12 - Evidence
OTTAWA, November 4, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 5:57 p.m. to examine and report upon Aboriginal self-government.
Senator Charlie Watt (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we have a quorum
First, I wish to welcome our witnesses. I will ask them to proceed.
Ms Christine Hunt, First Vice-President, Native Brotherhood of British Columbia: Honourable senators, thank you for taking time in your schedule to see us. The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia represents native fishermen. I will ask my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Mr. John Henderson, Chief, Campbell River First Nations: Mr. Chairman, as well as representing the Campbell River First Nations, I represent Kwakiutl Lackwiltach Treaty Organization and the Kwakiutl District Council, which involves 11 tribes.
Mr. Greg Wadhams, Councillor, Namgis First Nations: Mr. Chairman, I also represent the Native Brotherhood of B.C., as well as the Aboriginal Vessel Owners' Association. We represent about 15 bands in total in our territory.
Mr. Victor Kelly, Spokesperson, Allied Tribes Tsimshian Nation: Mr. Chairman, I speak for nine chiefs. I also sit on band council. I am part of the fisheries committee within Lax Kw'alaams, the community from which I come. It is one of the biggest communities in the Tsimshian Nation. We have strong concerns regarding the fishery crisis.
Mr. Henderson: Honourable senators, it has been a long day, in which we have gone from office to office in an attempt to resolve an issue that is of great concern to our First Nations coastal people. As you know, this is an issue that affects not only First Nations people but non-First Nations people as well.
There is a crisis. We hope that by the time we leave Ottawa tomorrow we will have some positive information to bring home. The picture is not a good one at home. Many families are in dire straits and in need of emergency assistance of some form or another. How that will be structured, we do not know. These meetings, and the information that we bring home from these meetings, might enlighten us as to the direction in which we want to go and point us to what we have to set up.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has announced an elusive $400 million for the local communities up and down the coast. Basically, the money is to help us in saving the salmon. This situation is significantly different from the situation on the East Coast. There were no fish on the East Coast. The sockeye runs in Johnstone Strait and the Fraser River had an abundance of fish available for the catch.
The Chairman: What did you say about the $400 million?
Mr. Henderson: It was promised on June 19, 1998 that that sum would be set aside for the fishing industry. To this day, the fishermen have not received any funding.
A few opportunities have been presented to the people. They include habitat restoration and a few enhancement projects. As an example, I will discuss our band. We had a $110,000 project, 45 per cent of which is allocated to biologists and to management. Only four people are employed out of that sum of money. We have met with the minister on many occasions. On those occasions, he seemed satisfied that he had answered our requests for jobs and opportunities for people. That is not the case. There is a larger picture than that.
I have felt from the outset that the $400 million has been earmarked. There is really nothing left for the fishermen who wish to stay in the industry, who have no place else to go.
It is a sad day when the people in your villages come to you because they cannot pay their mortgages. I am the leader of a proud people. It is difficult for them to belittle themselves by going to the welfare system, after they have sustained themselves all these years up until now. The dilemma has hit us hard.
Policies put in place by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as well licensing programs, are divide and conquer tactics hat give one group of people a right over another group of people. Yet, we are the same nation. That is wrong.
Promises are made every time we go to a meeting; nevertheless, we must deliver to the people the message that there is nothing there. That is not nice.
I am here today to find some avenues that will help to save what the people have worked for all their lives. My ancestors were fishermen. Our children will probably be fishermen. Their children will be fishermen, if the fishery is still viable and if they are given the opportunity. It is a part of our life. Our culture says that this is what we do. Since time immemorial we have been fishermen. It hurts to have our livelihoods taken away from us. The effects are far-reaching. They affect our children and our elders -- all aspects of life in a village situation.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has acted in a manner not respectful of our elders. We have invited them to Campbell River, to our village, on numerous occasions to get this point across. We do not want to stop fishing. We want to be fishermen because that is who we are.
Many years ago, Ken McBride said that we were not given tracts of land but pocket villages because we survive on the resources. The Supreme Court, in Delgamuukw, said to consult with First Nations when you give something away. The department did not consult; they gave 25 per cent to the Americans.
Our neighbouring tribes, our cousin tribes, are experiencing problems within their households. There are suicide attempts, and more of them every day. They are ashamed of having to go on welfare.
We have to take a stand when our rights have been infringed. That is the case today.
I have just about exhausted what I have to say. It goes without saying that I must have something to take back home. I do not know what. All we have had is false hope.
I am looking at a piece of paper here from Human Resources Development Canada. At one time, I sat on one of their boards. The minute amount of money that comes down to create job opportunities and for training is insulting to First Nations people.
To bring things into perspective, we have $781,000 to go amongst 6,000 people. That is the reality. Fifteen tribes must fight over that amount of money. When you divide it all up, it amounts to about two weeks' work for each village.
We have approached every sector of government, including the departments of Indian Affairs, Fisheries, and Economic Development. It must all come together some day -- economics, capital dollars, project dollars. I do not think people want to go on welfare. They would like to go to work and create opportunities for themselves.
Right now, there is a crisis out there, and it is important that I get that point across. People are knocking on the band office door because they are losing their homes. They no longer have their dignity. It has been taken away through no fault of their own. Their lives are being dictated to by others.
What I think will work is a plan that will provide some kind of courtesy and will ensure that the people can pay their debts, debts they have incurred since 1996 when the Mifflin plan was put in place. According to the Mifflin plan, because the fleet was downsized, we were to fish in Johnstone Strait. Well, we never fished that year, and then to have this happen in a year with the seventh largest run in history. We did not fish 15 hours.
We have another two years to go before this there is any indication that we will fish again because of the estimated run sizes in the next two years. Not only must we address these issues today and tomorrow, we must do so for another two years. I would like to be able to walk out of here and say that we have some plans or reassurances that we will have something in place two years from now.
I had some numbers put together. On average, the fishermen would have made $10,000 this year, at which point they would have qualified for some kind of program, to see them through to the next fishery. That will not happen. The governments are fighting about all kinds of EI dollars. Do something constructive with it. Give some money to the fishermen to create opportunities for themselves.
Ms Hunt: Just before Mr. Wadhams speaks, I wish to share with you that in his community in Alert Bay, in the last few weeks, there have been 30 suicide attempts. Over one weekend, six youth between the age of 14 and 16 attempted suicide.
Mr. Wadhams: Honourable senators, I thank you for listening to our concerns. I also hope that the situation on the West Coast will be resolved. Hopefully, we can get some ears in Ottawa so that someone will help on the West Coast. It has been very difficult trying to deal with the officials in Ottawa, who are making our life miserable right now.
There have been many suicide attempts. There have actually been some deaths in my community.
Our community is isolated and depends totally on the resource that surrounds it. Probably about 98 percent of the commercial fishermen are aboriginals. It is also a community that bought fisheries council vessels. They are old, run-down boats. Now they have to sell them back, after getting assistance from DFO to buy them in the first place.
We are in a real crisis, and it is bad. I do not know how to explain it. I am hearing that you people in Ottawa do not understand about fishing on the West Coast and do not understand about the crisis on the West Coast.
It is not a coho crisis, as people like to say it is. It is a crisis with communities. The crisis in the aboriginal coastal communities is as vital as the fish crisis. Maintaining working communities is as important to the future as protecting threatened fish stocks. If our future is to have a vibrant fishery, then we must support local communities. The fish pass right in front of the doors of these communities, and it is these communities that DFO is slapping in the face. Small fishermen, independent fishermen, must be protected from corporations that chew them up and take away their voice.
The biggest problem is government. We have asked numerous times for the fisheries minister and DFO deputies to meet with us. No one has come to meet with us yet. We have sent letters to them. I know they have given you a cheerful ear on what is happening out there and how good things are. The fisheries minister is not listening to the coastal people whose livelihood depends on fishing.
I remind you of the young people and the suicides that have taken place. Our people have been in the fishing industry for generations. I began to fish when I was five years old. I run a boat. I own a vessel. My father had numerous boats in the industry and was a vessel owner. I consider the guys where I come from as bona fide fishermen, and they are getting squeezed out of the industry. Even though the minister likes to say that it is a voluntary process, it is not. It is not a voluntary process. He is making us quit the industry.
Our people have so much knowledge about the resources that are around them, and about the tides, the currents, and the fish flow. This knowledge cannot be duplicated by science. Our people 100 per cent dependent on the salmon to get them through the winter months.
It is important for Canada, who is negotiating now with First Nations in B.C. for our future, to negotiate properly, as was indicated in the Delgamuukw decision, and to use the consultation process properly. It has not been used properly as yet, and I do not know where we are going with it, but we would like to see that happen. DFO is not listening. Our minister is not listening.
In order to begin to rebuild our pride and our honour, which we have always had in the industry and with the resources that we have around us, we must start working together. That is not happening. We need your help with this problem. This is a huge problem. It is not a small problem. Please listen to us. The biggest problem we have on the West Coast is the fact that we do not have any ears in Ottawa.
Mr. Victor Kelly, Spokesperson, Allied Tribes Tsimshian Nation: Honourable senators, the situation on the West Coast is quite straightforward. The communities of the Tsimshian Nation are also suffering. There is 95 per cent unemployment in most communities, even more in larger communities.
As was said here earlier, the loss of fishing is hurting each community. There are suicides; unemployment is over 95 per cent; and family break-ups starting to occur. Some of our people may turn to drug and alcohol abuse because of the problems in the fishing industry.
I have attended a number of meetings regarding fisheries in British Columbia, and we never get any straight answers from anyone. The only thing that seems to be mentioned whenever we meet is the crisis in coho. There is no crisis in coho. On the road going to Prince Rupert, there are coho spawning in the creek beds beside us as we travel in our cars, and yet they are telling us there is a crisis in coho. There is not. Every stream north of Prince Rupert has coho.
To get the minister to understand, he must come and see for himself. I say that because a number of letters have been sent to Minister Anderson with personal invitations to come to the Tsimshian Nation for meetings. We have also sent invitations to Jane Stewart, the Minister of Indian Affairs. We have still not received any response. What do we have to do to get these people to wake up and start looking after their fiduciary responsibility?
It is sad. I attended a meeting last week regarding the $400 million that was talked about earlier. There are three envelopes, and DFO has its fingers in every one of them. The First Nations in the Skeena area have to fight over $364,000, and Mike Scott knows how many communities are within the Skeena. It is an insult to get figures so low when the crises are so bad.
As everyone else in our group has said, we want to take something home with us. We do not want to hear any more promises. We have been promised so many meetings, which have never come about, let alone any dollar figures. My community, Lax Kw'alaams, has been trying to meet with different sectors of government regarding our road link. We have not got anywhere. What that road will bring to our community is sustainability, outside people, tourism, and so on. How do we get the federal government to understand that we can move forward if they will only open their ears and listen and honour our requests for meetings?
It is very frustrating when you attend all these meetings and you get nothing. Today we have attended a number of meetings. I hope that, by tomorrow, when we get back, we will have some kind of an answer.
The reason for saying that is that there is a $20 billion surplus in EI. They are wondering what they will do with that. I heard it on the news. We have a crisis on the West Coast. Let us resolve that by using some of that surplus money instead of giving it to foreign countries. It has been like this for too long. It is time to look after the grassroots people.
Mr. Richard Morgan, Gitxsan Wet'suwet'en: I represent nine villages in the Skeena River area and I also represent the commercial fishermen.
There is one thing I should like to add to what has already been said here. Many of you know about what happened in 1997, when the Alaskans intercepted the salmon that we were supposed to get. As a result, our fishermen averaged between $8,000 and $10,000 gross for 1997, when we usually average between $40,000 and $50,000 for the season.
In 1998, our fishermen have had a bad year. The fisheries department came out with their timetable, the fishing schedule, which did not look very good. There was hardly any time given for the commercial fishermen to fish. The department then offered a $6,500 grant to fishermen who decided not to go fishing for the summer, for the season. Because our fishermen were in pretty bad shape, about 90 to 95 per cent of our fishermen accepted the $6,500, including myself. Because we accepted $6,500 and we did not go fishing, none of us will qualify for EI this year, as we have previously. We are pretty well faced with having to go to welfare. I have seen a couple of my children's cheques. They are single young men and they get $175 a month to live on. That is what our commercial fishermen will be faced with this year, simply because we will not qualify for EI.
As a result of having such a bad year in 1997, we did not go fishing this year. At the last count, we had about 20 gill nets chained to the docks, and our people cannot touch their boats. The Department of Fisheries chains them to the docks. The Department of Fisheries handles the moorage in the Prince Rupert area.
Fishermen were not able to go out this summer because last winter their nets were auctioned off to pay the storage for their nets. They were all auctioned off. They ended up with no nets. Some of them had five and six nets, worth $2,000 to $3,000 a piece. They were auctioned off to pay for the moorage rental. Many of them were forced to accept $6,500. They did not have any gear or nets to work with.
These people are now faced with having to go to welfare. I started fishing when I was 15, in 1943. I am 70 years old now and I still have my boat. I still like to go fishing. I have never had to go to welfare. I know many other fishermen who never had to depend on welfare. It now looks as if we may have to go in that direction. I hate the thought of that.
Our people are in pretty bad shape, especially the native people in our village. One of the previous speakers said they were at about 95 per cent unemployment. Our village has about 90, 95 per cent unemployment. There is just no work.
Up until last year, many of our people went down to the canneries to work. The women would go to the canneries to work. Young people would work in the canneries while the men were out fishing. This year there was nothing like that.
We are looking for help. We are looking for support. We hope to bring some good news back to our people, after we are through here tomorrow. We hope to have good news that brings hope for our people.
Ms Hunt: Mr. Haldane is a commissioner with the Pacific Salmon Commission.
The Chairman: I would like a clarification from the previous speaker. In regard to the $6,500, is that an annual amount?
Mr. Morgan: The $6,500 was offered to any fisherman who would not go fishing for the summer, for the sake of saving the cohoe.
The Chairman: That is a one-shot deal.
Mr. Morgan: That is a one-shot deal -- just for this summer.
Perhaps someone said this before, but the $6,500 barely covered the insurance on our boats. We had several things to pay for, and the $6,500 barely covered them.
Mr. Hubert Haldane, Chief, Laxgal'Sap Nisga'a Fishermen's Commission: As Ms Hunt says, I am a commissioner for the Pacific Salmon Commission. I am also a chairman of the Northern Native Fishing Corporation. I also represent my community -- which in our language is Laxgal'Sap Nisga'a, or Greenville to you -- as a council member.
I will give you an idea of what we are talking about in the supposed crisis of cohoe. Last year there was significant talk about the cohoe not coming back to certain streams along the coast. DFO came up with a plan that no one would fish this year. No one was to catch what little cohoe they thought would be coming by. As a result, DFO made all these plans to keep all areas closed that were rich in salmon runs up in the North. They claimed we had a cohoe crisis in the south. They do have a cohoe crisis, but not this year. As one of our colleagues just mentioned, there was so much cohoe this year it was not funny.
We are saying that DFO must really look at where the crisis is, where the problems are in the fishing industry.
As for the Northern Native Fishing Corporation, many of our fishermen did not go out this year. As Mr. Morgan had mentioned, many fishermen took the money rather than go out. There was $6,500 paid to gill net and troll licensees. There was $10,000 paid to the skipper and the boatowner to tie up for the 1998 season.
There is a crisis in the Northern Native Fishing Corporation; our corporation is basically bankrupt.
The fishermen cannot afford to buy their licences because they have no money this year. If we do not get relief, then I think that we will be in more trouble.
The people I represent in the Northern Native Fishing Corporation have been blacklisted simply because the Department of Indian Affairs has said that they have given us money, that there is no more money and that they will not give us any more money. As a result, we have not been able to help our fishermen.
The Chairman: What level of government are you referring to, provincial or federal?
Mr. Haldane: The federal government.
We do not want handouts. We want structured help to ensure that this does not happen again. The governments give us things piecemeal. It does not do anyone any good. It is really a Band-Aid solution.
Someone earlier said that there was some DFO work being done on some of these streams. It all sounds great, but it does not do us any good. We have to live. Some of those jobs have a price tag of $200,000, maybe $150,000, depending on how many people are actually working.
My point is that we must create jobs that are sustainable, that are worth doing, so that our people can come away satisfied and happy that they are doing something constructive in their lives. You cannot do that piecemeal, with jobs here and there. It will not work.
One of the things I wish to ask right now, which someone mentioned earlier, is for our people to be given relief.We need it urgently. If we are given that relief, then we should also be given the opportunity to utilize the EI funds that are there.
Mr. Alfred Hunt, Chief, Kwaitul First Nation: I am one of the councillors for our village, Fort Rupert, and I also belong to the Aboriginal Vessel Owners.
Honourable senators have heard the bad news from our group here. This is the worst I have seen it in our village of Fort Rupert. We have never had any financial problems until now. Had the Department of Fisheries given us the chance of two more days of fishing, it would have made a big difference to our communities. As a boat owner, I believe it would have really helped me, just the two days. You cannot make it on 15 hours -- the 1998 season on the sockeye. Fifteen hours was all we had.
Many of the older fishermen, like myself, knew there was a large amount of fish in the straits, but we watched them go by because we were not allowed to take them. The Department of Fisheries shut us down. It really bothers me and hurts me to see what will happen. I may be wrong, but they will have an over-escapement. They will be electrocuting up in the Fraser River.
I will tell you what is happening in our community. None of the fishermen who were out this summer made any money. Some of them took the $6,500. The purpose of that money was to pay you for not going fishing. At $10,000 for the bigger boats, the $10,000 does not cover anything. Insurance on my boat alone is $8,600, to ready my nets costs $10,000, and the fuel for a season costs another $8,000. If you get 15 hours of fishing, what will you get? Even if you have a big day, it is really not enough.
Therefore, all of us in the fishing industry, the companies, the boat owners, must look to the Department of Fisheries. Where are they going? What are they doing? What is the plan?
Should I go back to the buy-back because I do not trust them any more? I have been a boat owner since 1969 and, all of a sudden, my $2 million inventory of equipment is worth nothing. If I get $400,000 from the buy-back, it is not enough for all the years that I have worked. It does not represent a very good pension, for all the years you have worked hard for your family and for the people in your village.
At the moment, there are twelve people in our village who have been served with eviction notices because they cannot make their payments. The band guarantees the loan from CMHC. We would like to get into economic development but we cannot.We will be bad risks now because we cannot make payments on those loans. It is a sad situation for the people in our village. This has never happened to us before. That is why I am saying that if we had two more days of fishing, even one more day, it would have made a difference to me, my crew members, and our communities.
You have heard from some of our people here about the problems we are experiencing in our communities. Marriages are breaking up. I can understand that, because they have nothing for their kids. The kids have nothing. They cannot go to their dads and tell them what they want. Their dads have nothing to give them.
For us to have a future in the industry, there must be a plan. What happens after the $400 million? Does the Department of Fisheries have a plan for us, as commercial fishermen? I am a native commercial fisherman. I do not know how many of us are left after the Mifflin plan, but I believe there are about 30 seine boats on the native side. Previously we had approximately 70. After this $400 million, whatever we get for buy-back, there will be just a handful of boats in our communities.
In my community alone, there are 12 gillnetters, and they will all take the buy-back because they cannot make payments on their boats. It is all supposedly voluntary.
I do not know where the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is coming from, and I do not know where they are going. It is hard for us to imagine our future in the industry if they do not have a plan. The Minister of Fisheries made a statement in the newspaper that there will be more fish for native people and more fish for the sports industry. We tried to ask him what he was talking about. Why would we choose to stay in the industry if that is what he is saying? Why would I stay in the industry, why would I invest more in the industry, if the minister is talking about giving away allocation to the commercial fishery?
As native fishermen, that has a big effect on our communities. We live right next door to the Town of Port Hardy and the people in our village are trying to make our village look like the Port Hardy town. They spend money on their lawns and they spend money on their houses in an effort to be part of the area.
I do not like asking for a handout, but we are really in a bad way at this time. As John Henderson says, we are working people.
Ms Hunt: I wish to wrap up now with three points. What we are looking for with our trip to Ottawa is emergency funding. These men have expressed how bad things are, but I will tell you about a woman in Prince Rupert. I was there for a meeting a few weeks ago and was told of a woman who had worked in the canneries all her life. She had no work this summer and was on welfare. She had already receiver her bag of groceries from the food bank and she had nothing to feed her baby but coffee whitener and water. That is how bad it is.
There are all kinds of stories like that. We really need some emergency funding during this time of transition for our villages.
British Columbia and Canada signed an MOU regarding the management of fisheries. Canada has not lived up to their part of the bargain. For instance, one of the articles in the MOU states that Canada will work with B.C. in setting up a Pacific fisheries conservation council. Minister Anderson, on his own, appointed the members of the conservation council without consultation with the province. That is acting in bad faith as far as I am concerned.
A meeting between Premier Clark and Prime Minister Chrétien is in order, sooner rather than later, to get things back on track regarding the salmon treaty with the Americans, vis-à-vis the transitional funds that should be coming. We have been hearing about the $400 million, and yet nothing tangible has occurred. No one has felt any ease from it yet.
We need help from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to deal with the social problems that are escalating on our reserves. There is family violence. There are suicides. In my community last spring, three young men killed themselves. They had grown up thinking they would be fishermen like their fathers and grandfathers in our communities. Our sons grow up wanting to be fishermen. That is all they want to do. My 19-year old son grew up wanting to be a fisherman; he did not want to do anything else. Now I am telling him that he must go back to school, that that is the reality.
We need help from Indian Affairs for the social problems we are witnessing today. We need emergency funding to help our communities, before things get even worse. There were three suicides in my community last winter. This summer season was much worse than last year's season. I am afraid to answer the phone after ten o'clock in the evening or before seven o'clock in the morning because I worry who will be next in our communities.
The problems are not isolated to our area. They are found on the west coast of Vancouver Island, on the north coast of Vancouver Island, on the Queen Charlotte Islands, everywhere.
I ask honourable senators to support us in these three requests so that we can go home and tell our people that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Right now, for our people, there is no light. It is gone.
Thank you very much for your time. Are there any questions?
Senator Chalifoux: First, I would like to thank you all very much for your attendance before our committee.
I am from northern Alberta. We have heard a lot about this because many of our people have moved to the West Coast for commercial fishing throughout the years. We seem to travel back and forth.
I have one question for Victor Kelly. What about the community and the road link? I was not writing fast enough to get that down.
Mr. Kelly: That is from the Lax Kw'alaams band. That is Port Simpson on your maps. It is the link to Prince Rupert.
Senator Chalifoux: That is from Port Simpson to Prince Rupert.
Mr. Kelly: Yes. We began to build the road ourselves with the money made from logging, but we went bankrupt. Indian Affairs seized our timber and bankrupted our logging corporation, so we no longer have the resources to finish the road. We are asking for assistance from the federal government. We have some commitments from the provincial government, but we do not have anything from the federal government.
Senator Chalifoux: Why did they seize your timber?
Mr. Kelly: We asked them in their office in Vancouver what the problem was and why they did not have anyone in place.
Senator Chalifoux: I am appalled at the situation. Even though I have heard about it, hearing it from you directly brings it home to me.
I am Vice-Chair of the Northern and Western Caucus for the government. B.C. is included in that caucus. I cannot promise you anything, but I will guarantee that your voices will be heard at that caucus.
Ms Hunt: That is what we want. Thank you. Unfortunately, we have another engagement now, but we would be happy to come back at another time, if you so wish, and when you have more of your own people here, too.
The Chairman: Senator Adams has some questions for you, and I have some pretty stiff questions, too. You have brought forward some very important matters, which need some attention. I am not sure how much this committee can do to help you. We hear what you are saying, but you may need something much bigger than that in order to make your case and to bring it forward to all parliamentarians.
Senator Adams: Thank you for coming to Ottawa. I will meet you tomorrow morning when you appear at the Senate fisheries committee.
Meanwhile, does the $400 million that you mentioned include only your community, or is it for all fishermen in the B.C. salmon fishers' union? You can think about that tonight. Senator Chalifoux is in the same caucus. Sometimes Minister Anderson shows up at our committee as well, and we may have an opportunity to tell him about your communities' concerns for the fisheries.
Ms Hunt: The $400 million is not just for the commercial fishing community or the aboriginal fishing community. Part of the money will go to the sport fishing community; part of the money will go to businesses that suffered in small towns. It is spread very thin. It has already been designated. Minister Anderson has stated that he will not be giving transitional dollars to the displaced fishermen on the B.C. coast.
Mr. Gerald Keddy, Member of Parliament, South Shore, Nova Scotia: I would like to thank the witnesses. You must have had a very long and tiresome day. I met with you originally at eight o'clock this morning and you are still at it. You have a lot of stamina.
Your points have not fallen on deaf ears. We have spoken about the situations on the East and West coasts. My words this evening are not really for you folks as much as they are for our Senate colleagues and the members of our government who are here. I can relate very well to what the folks from the West Coast are saying.
As the member of Parliament for the largest single fishery riding in Canada as far as landed value of fish is concerned -- the south shore of Nova Scotia, where we still have a fishery -- we have seen this happen. We have seen it all. It is irresponsible and patently unfair to expect not to have some type of plan to allow these villages, communities, and people to survive -- aboriginal and non-aboriginal fishermen on the West Coast of Canada -- when the government looked after the people who were absolutely devastated by the loss of the cod fishery on the East Coast. Four thousand people in my riding are on TAGS. In Newfoundland, there are another 30,000 people on TAGS.
Bill Matthews, who represents a riding in Newfoundland, spoke to you this morning. There are 140 fishing communities in that riding, 40 of which are isolated. The circumstances are very similar.
The government must move. It is imperative for our colleagues in the Senate and our colleagues on the other side to pursue your issue. We certainly will, and we give you that assurance. However, it is very important to pursue this with the people on the government side.
The other thing you should be looking at is the HRDC funds. We went through that. I came into politics at the tail end of this, but I am very familiar with the issue.
We had other species we could go to. We were not dependent on a single-issue fishery on the south shore. Newfoundland had the exact same thing happen with the cod fishery as you are going through with the salmon fishery, but the cod were gone. They are slowly coming back.
Funding is available for other species. The word on the East Coast is that there are huge markets for underutilized species of any kind. We are selling fish in Japan, China and Korea.
We just opened a plant on the south shore to utilize sea urchin roe. There is a huge herring fishery that we operate mostly for roe. They will not even sell the leftover fish. Perhaps you could look at other species to develop.
There is a desperate inability to grasp this issue. We faced the same thing, only the conditions were worse. We had too many people chasing the resource. In a page from the book you are reading, the government put up steamboat inspection fees. They refused to pay insurance. I talked to a constituent with a 65-foot longliner trawler worth $1.2 million. He sold it for $350,000. He had no choice. There is no one there to buy the boats. You can look at other quota systems, such as Individual Transferable Quotas, but that is a slippery slope once you start down it.
DFO has a responsibility not just to the conservation of the stocks, but also to the communities that depend upon them.
The Chairman: I understand this issue because I am also a commercial fisherman. I fish salmon in northern Quebec.
Have you looked at the compensation package that was offered to the fishermen on the East Coast of Canada? Would that type of compensation fill the two-year gap, if in fact there is going to be an ability to fish again after two years?
Mr. Henderson: We met with the minister in his riding. We asked him for that specific information. All he said was that this was an entirely different issue. He said that there were still fish there and that there was no comparison. That is what he said when we asked for that information. Billions and billions of dollars have been spent over here. Why do we only get $400 million? That point has been addressed.
The Chairman: Would you still like to obtain that information?
Mr. Henderson: Yes, I would.
The Chairman: As a committee, we will do what we can to get that information for you.
As an aboriginal person, you have rights. If I understand correctly, the government is not listening to you or does not want to hear what you have to say. If that is the case, there are avenues you can take. If the political avenue does not work, is there any legal way that you can challenge the government? You may not want to carry it all the way through, but at least you may get the government to acknowledge that you are serious and that you have problems. Unless you make that strong move, the government may not move.
Ms Hunt: Richard Morgan's band is starting litigation against the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, not only with respect to the past couple of years, but for the whole history of their fishery. They commenced that process about two weeks ago, so you should be hearing about it shortly.
The Chairman: Are they trying to fast track that proceeding?
Ms Hunt: Yes, they are.
Mr. Henderson: One of the concerns I have in relation to that is that programs that are set right now create divisions. One of the reasons for that is that we are native commercial fishermen with an investment. The new rules and regulations with respect to the Sparrow decision affected our coastal communities. That is not understood by a lot of people. It should be understood by fishers on the East Coast as well as the West Coast.
We would love the opportunity to go out and fish on an equal basis, the same as everyone else. However, what schemes and policies will work?
Mr. Mike Scott, Member of Parliament, Skeena, British Columbia: Several of these people are my constituents, and I wish to let senators know that I strongly support the position these people have taken. I am distressed to see the circumstances they find themselves in, through no-fault of their own. I would strongly urge you to do whatever you can -- and I will be here to help in whatever way I can -- to see that the problems and the potential solutions proposed here tonight can be brought to fruition.
The Chairman: Is there any way we can be kept informed of the litigation that has been launched?
Ms Hunt: Yes. I will ask Mr. Morgan to get his chief to send it to you.
Mr. Keddy: You will starve to death waiting for lawyers.
The Chairman: That is one of the reasons I am looking at the fast track, rather than the slow track.
Mr. Henderson: I worked with one of my staff in the band office the other day, to try to come up with a solution to compensation. We asked ourselves what our fishermen would have made this year on average. We felt it would have been around $10,000 for the crews of those boats.
The Chairman: How many people are you talking about?
Mr. Henderson: Eighty-one. That is just in our village.
The Chairman: I am talking about revenues of $10,000 for a boat.
Mr. Henderson: That would be for the crews. The gross income from the fish would have been about $120,000.
The Chairman: Okay. I understand.
Mr. Henderson: The net that everyone is talking about would have been about $15,000. The boat owner would have made about $50,000. The number I came up with, to see just our village through to the next opportunity to fish, which is the herring fishery, is $1.4 million. That package would include the availability of EI funds for training.
The Chairman: Do you have all of that information?
Mr. Henderson: Yes, I have the original.
The Chairman: Perhaps you can send us a copy.
Thank you for attending here this evening. We will do what we can and we will try to ensure that you are heard.
Ms Hunt: Thank you. Some people have spoken about the conservation of coho. It is important to point out that the only endangered species on the West Coast this year is the commercial fishermen.
The committee adjourned.